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 until the extinction of the splendour of the constellations themselves.

But this invention of human shrewdness, so particularly noble and admirable, has gone out of date ages ago, inasmuch as primeval heroes are in possession of those bright abodes, and keep them by a sort of right; into whose company the affection of Augustus in vain attempted to introduce Julius Cæsar; for when he wished that the name of the Julian constellation should be given to a star, which appeared in his time, one of those which the Greeks and the Latins alike name, from their hair-like tails, comets, it vanished in a short time and mocked his too eager hope. But we are able to read the heavens for your highness, most Serene Prince, far more truly and more happily, for scarcely have the immortal graces of your mind begun to shine on earth, when bright stars present themselves in the heavens, like tongues to tell and celebrate your most surpassing virtues to all time. Behold therefore, four stars reserved for your famous name, and those not belonging to the common and less conspicuous multitude of fixed stars, but in the bright ranks of the planets—four stars which, moving differently from each other, round the planet Jupiter, the most glorious of all the planets, as if they were his own children,