Although the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy, but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science. When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science. Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida; but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,' thither-- ... when all the deep unsounded skies Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb, And as with optic glasses her keen eyes Pierced through the mystic dome, Regions of lucid matter taking forms, Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms Of suns, and starry streams: She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars Whereof the one more bright Is circled by the other. But the poet's soul so wearied of these astronomical researches that the beautiful lines I have quoted disappeared (more's the pity) from the second and all later editions. Such exceptions, indeed, prove the rule. Poets have been chary in referring to astronomical researches and results, full though these have been of unspeakable poetry; while from the days of Homer to those of Tennyson, the constellations which 'garland the heavens' have always been favourite subjects of poetic imagery.