LET. XXII. : SUN AND MOOTJ.' ‘ 391

Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moonIn dim eclipse disastrous twilight shedsOn half the nations, and with fear of changePerplexes monaixhs: darkened so, yet shoneAbove them all th’ Arch-Angel.”

In China, where astronomy is made subser-vient to the interest of the state, they have par-ticular ceremonies appropriated to those dayson which eclipses are to take place, and accord-ing to the accounts of the missionaries, both theprince and the people are scrupulously exact inthe observance of them. The chief of the Tri-bunal of the Mathematics is here a grand, butdangerous appointment; for, under the reign ofthe emperor Chou-kang, the two principal astro-nomers, Ho and Hi, were condemned to death,on account of their omitting, through negli-gence and intoxication, to announce the precisetime of an eclipse of the sun. This eclipse, whichhappened 2169 years before Christ, and a re-markable conjunction of four of the planets,which their annals affirm to have taken place ata still earlier period, are thought, by many astro-nomers who have examined the subject, to bestrong proofs of the authenticity of the Chinesechronology.

But to return to our subject.—Besides thedark shadow of' the moon already mentioned,there is another fainter one, called the Penum-bra, which always accompanies a solar eclipse,C c 4 and