honour of being present at a star's last moments,
and of registering its decease. It was the fiftieth
of Hercules. For some time past he had
observed it growing paler; it then turned red; and
after flickering some dozen years, it yielded up
its flame, and disappeared for ever in the shades
of night. The 24th of March, 1791, was the
date on which the great astronomer entered this
remarkable phenomenon in his journal.

The earth and the moon, we are told, offer
examples of this successive evolution.
Evidently, the earth was once a veritable sun for
the moon. The moon, whose mass is very much
smaller, was naturally the first to cool. Then
the earth, in her turn, after passing through the
very same phases as our actual sun, at last
acquired a crust and became entirely solid at the
surface. After a fresh considerable lapse of
time, organic life became manifested. The same
transitions have been passed through by the
moon, only much more rapidly.

It is probable that life was developed in the
moon when it had scarcely yet appeared on
earth. We are informed that the moon represents
the earth's future, the sun her past. We
are behindhand with our satellite, and very much
in advance of our sun. And thus, worlds have
their distinct ages and their corresponding
conditions of life. Each star passes through its
successive transformations in the eternal
harmony of the universe.

TIMKINS'S TESTIMONIALS.

WITHOUT being exactly a fatalist, I am inclined
to believe that certain men are born to a
certain fate, the tendency to which they cannot
help, because it is inherent in their nature, just
as the inclination of the mariner's needle is
towards the pole. I don't think that the destinies
of all mankind are ruled in this way, but that
there are certain special people of a particular
kind of whom fortune takes the sole direction,
giving them no voice whatever in their own
affairs. These people are launched upon the
sea of life with their sails set and their rudder
lashed up for a fixed course; and off they go
before the gale, without the will or the power
to alter their path. If the rudder be fixed to
steer them through calm waters into peaceful
havens, thither they will go: if set to run them
upon rocks and shoals, they are as inevitably
driven to their destruction.

The kind of people who are thus handed over,
bound hand and foot, to their destiny, are those
persons—with whom we are all acquainted—
who make themselves conspicuous in society by
uniform prosperity or adversity, both apparently
unmerited. There is Jones. How that feeble-
minded individual, with a brain no larger than a
walnut, contrives to make five thousand a year,
is a perpetual marvel to all who know him—to
be an idiot! There is Smith. He is equally a
phenomenon; because, with a large share of
natural ability, he is unable, even under the
most favourable circumstances, to earn a pound
a week. Everything which he puts his hand to
fails; every bud of promise withers at his touch.
Whereas the stupid Jones makes trees grow out
of the arid sand, and turns mud and rubbish into
gold!

In many cases, no doubt, the success of the
one and the failure of the other are easily to
be accounted for. Jones, though stupid, is a
steady going plodder; Smith, though clever, has
a too vaulting ambition, which constantly lands
him on the other side. But there are instances
where their success or failure cannot be traced
to any known cause whatever. There is a kind
of man who succeeds spite of every disqualification
for his work, and there is another kind
of man who fails in the face of the most brilliant
talents and the most splendid opportunities.

I believe that fortune has magnetised these
people, and that the one turns to the good pole
and the other to the bad pole, by the force of
an attraction which they cannot resist, and
which lies outside the scope of their control.

We are all acquainted with fatuously fortunate
persons who are always "coming into
money." They toil not, neither do they spin;
yet they are constantly renewing their splendour
with the means of deceased relatives. The
brother who goes to the Indies, makes a fortune
and dies intestate, leaving his rupees to be
fortuitously inherited by the next of kin,
patiently waiting on Providence in England, does
not so much fulfil his own destiny as the destiny
of his next of kin. He is but a worm who
spins the silken robe for another, and, when he
has fulfilled his mission, dies. There is the old
maiden aunt, who lives a life of toil and self-
sacrifice, only to complete her destiny, when
she leaves her little savings to her nephew,
Fortunatus. There are relatives and distant
connexions who would see Fortunatus hanged
before they would leave him a penny. Yet
Fortunatus comes in for their real and personal
estate, spite of all attempts to cut him off
without a shilling. He has no need to plot and
conspire and forge documents. Happy
circumstances save him the trouble. He lies lazily
on his back under the tree of fortune, and the
fruit when fully ripe drops into his open
mouth.

Let me also instance the lucky individual
who always manages, without any design or a
forethought, to take the long lease of a house,
whose site is destined to be required for a railway.
Compensation pursues him everywhere.
If he were to settle on the top of a hill, it
would come up to him by means of a viaduct;
if he were to pitch his tent in a deep valley, it
would burrow through the bowels of the earth,
to lay its golden treasures at his feet. Let
another person be never so cunning in selecting a
location, and, when he has calculated the
chances to a certainty, compensation will pass
him by by a yard's breadth. This latter class
is as fatuously unlucky as the other is lucky.
I am reminded of my old friend Muddleton,
who always contrives to be in the train which