Who has not been delighted with the view of this glorious object? It is not to be seen at all times. For months together the star of evening is hidden from mortal gaze. Its beauties are even enhanced by the caprice and the uncertainty which attend its appearance. We do not say that there is any caprice in the movements of Venus, as known to those who diligently consult their almanacs. The movements of the lovely planet are there prescribed with a prosaic detail hardly in harmony with the character usually ascribed to the Goddess of Love. But to those who do not devote particular attention to the stars, the very unexpectedness of its appearance is one of its greatest charms. Venus has not been noticed, not been thought of, for many months. It is a beautifully clear evening; the sun has just set. The lover of nature turns to admire the sunset, as every lover of nature will. In the golden glory of the west a beauteous gem is seen to glitter; it is the evening star--the planet Venus. A few weeks later another beautiful sunset is seen, and now the planet is no longer a point low down in the western glow; it has risen high above the horizon, and continues a brilliant object long after the shades of night have descended. Again, a little later, and Venus has gained its full brilliancy and splendour. All the heavenly host--even Sirius and even Jupiter--must pale before the splendid lustre of Venus, the unrivalled queen of the firmament. After weeks of splendour, the height of Venus at sunset diminishes, and its lustre begins gradually to decline. It sinks to invisibility, and is forgotten by the great majority of mankind; but the capricious goddess has only moved from one side of the sky to the other. Ere the sun rises, the morning star will be seen in the east. Its splendour gradually augments until it rivals the beauty of the evening star. Then again the planet draws near to the sun, and remains lost to view for many months, until the same cycle of changes recommences, after an interval of a year and seven months. When Venus is at its brightest it can be easily seen in broad daylight with the unaided eye. This striking spectacle proclaims in an unmistakable manner the unrivalled supremacy of this planet as compared with its fellow-planets and with the fixed stars. Indeed, at this time Venus is from forty to sixty times more brilliant than any stellar object in the northern heavens. The beautiful evening star is often such a very conspicuous object that it may seem difficult at first to realise that the body is not self-luminous. Yet it is impossible to doubt that the planet is really only a dark globe, and to that extent resembles our own earth. The brilliance of the planet is not so very much greater than that of the earth on a sunshiny day. The splendour of Venus entirely arises from the reflected light of the sun, in the manner already explained with respect to the moon.