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172 which occupied one side of the room. The walls of the other three sides were lined with books, and many of these looked the very personification of age. I took my seat in the "old arm-chair;" and here, thought I, is the place and the seat in which this distinguished man sat while weaving the radiant wreath of renown which now, in his old age, surrounds him, and whose labors will be more appreciated by future ages than the present.

I took a farewell of the author of the "Solar System," but not until I had taken a look through the great telescope in the observatory. This instrument, through which I tried to see the heavens, was not the one invented by Galileo, but an improvement upon the original. On leaving this learned man, he shook hands with us, and bade us God speed" in our mission; and I left the philosopher, feeling I had not passed an hour more agreeably with a literary character since the hour which I spent with the poet Montgomery a few months since. And, by-the-by, there is a resemblance between the poet and the philosopher. In becoming acquainted with great men I have become a convert to the opinion that a big nose is an almost necessary appendage to the form of a man with a giant intellect. If those whom I have seen be a criterion, such is certainly the case. But I have spun out this too long, and must close.