Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/737

 Rh eye could see, would confirm all the deductions of the great German and Danish astronomers.

Often at night, as the boy Horrox stood before moonrise, gazing at the stars, and saw Venus—the Lucifer and Hesperus of the old classic poets—burning with a clear, steady flame, and casting a dim shadow over the vernal and midsummer fields, the thought would come to him that perhaps he, first among all the dwellers on the face of the earth, might see the planet, like a celestial messenger, darkening the solar centre.

The thought grew upon him, and haunted his waking dreams. In the hours that others spent in relaxation from toil, he studied and ciphered to see if the problems by which Kepler had fixed the date of the event had been accurately solved. The marvellous [sic] boy found an inaccuracy in the tables. Again and again he recast the figures of the great astronomer, with the same result. He calculated and recalculated the problems, until he himself wrought out a table by which it appeared that the next transit would take place on December 4, 1639.

We read of student-heroes, but what a proposition was this for a boy to demonstrate! Would the calculation indeed be verified by the event itself? Would the vision withheld from philosophers and sages, from the gray dawn of time, be first revealed to the eye of a boy—an humble boy?

Gassendi had noted the transit of Mercury a few years previously, the first that had ever been seen, and men of learning were discussing the discovery. Horrox aspired to follow up the triumph of Gassendi. He had proved the deductions of Kepler to be inaccurate, and he knew that he alone possessed the true knowledge of the phenomenon.

The imaginative years of youth flew by; his college-days passed, bringing him to the verge of manhood, and the looked-for time drew near.

Horrox met his young companions in science at times, and compared his astronomical observations with theirs, but to only one of them, his chosen friend Crabtree, did he confide the discovery that he had made of the near approach of the transit.

The memorable year arrived at length, and the memorable day came round. It was the Sabbath, a bright, shining day, clear and cool. In a room nearly dark sat the young astronomer, now twenty years of age. Engaged in devout thoughts, he awaited the fulfilment [sic] of his sublime dream. On a table before him lay a white sheet of paper on which to receive the sun's reflected image, over which the shadow of the planet would move like a dark spot, if indeed the boy's calculation were correct.

The sun mounted the deep-blue sky. The paper lay spotless before the expectant youth; no shadow broke the rim of its circle, and the hour for religious worship came.

The youth hears the call of the church-bells. Shall he heed it?