The rainbow is an object which has engaged universal attention, and its beautiful colours and form have excited universal admiration. The poets have embellished their writings with many beautiful allusions to this splendid meteor; and the playful school-boy, while viewing the ‘bright enchantment,’ has frequently run ‘to catch the falling glory.’ When its arch rests on the opposite sides of a narrow valley, or on the summits of two adjacent mountains, its appearance is both beautiful and grand. In all probability, its figure first suggested the idea of _arches_, which are now found of so much utility in forming aqueducts and bridges, and for adorning the architecture of palaces and temples. It is scarcely possible seriously to contemplate this splendid phenomenon, without feeling admiration and gratitude towards that wise and beneficent Being, whose hands have bent it into so graceful and majestic a form, and decked it with all the pride of colours. “Look upon the rainbow,” says the son of Sirach,[15] and praise Him that made it: very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it." To this grand etherial bow, the inspired writers frequently allude as one of the emblems of the majesty and splendour of the Almighty. In the prophecies of Ezekiel, the throne of Deity is represented as adorned with a brightness “like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain--the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah.” And, in the visions recorded in the Book of the Revelations, where the Most High is represented as sitting upon a throne; “there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald,” as an emblem of his propitious character and of his faithfulness and mercy. After the deluge, this bow was appointed as a sign and memorial of the covenant which God made with Noah and his sons, that a flood of waters should never again be permitted to deluge the earth and its inhabitants;--and as a pledge of inviolable fidelity and Divine benignity. When, therefore, we at any time behold “the bow in the cloud,” we have not only a beautiful and sublime phenomenon presented to the eye of sense, but also a memorial exhibited to the mental eye, assuring us, that, “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, _shall not cease_.”[16] ----On the broad sky is seen “A dewy cloud, and in the cloud a bow Conspicuous, with seven listed colours gay Betokening peace with God and covenant new.-- He gives a promise never to destroy The earth again by flood, nor let the sea Surpass his bounds, nor rain to drown the world.” _Milton. Par. Lost, Book XI._ SECT. 4.--REFLECTIONS ON THE BEAUTY AND UTILITY OF COLOURS.