“The Comet”

Date

2-4-1812

Newspaper

Lexington American Statesman

Page and Column

Page 4, Column 1

Newspaper Location

Lexington, Kentucky

Serial Number

211

Abstract

Article from the New York herald relating the Comet of 1811-1812 to the disasters of the past.

Transcript

FROM THE NEW YORK HERALD. THE COMET. All the world is busily talking, about the comet; all the newspapers are engaged with it, and all the astronomers are employed in gazing at it and committing their wonderful speculations to print, just to show they know very little about it. Some authors inform us it betokens great heat, others great cold, but almost all of them agree that it forebodes evil; excepting indeed one gentleman, (an author whose talents are highly extolled in one of our quarterly Reviews, who intimates, that after the appearance of a certain Comet, it was observed that "ladies loved their lords" in a greater degree than usual; or to use the author's own words, "mankind were more prolific." That our readers may have some idea what extraordinary events have been connected with comets heretofore; sometimes the comet betokening the mischief and sometimes the mischief betokening the comet, I have taken the trouble to copy the following historical account from the works of that ingenious and indefatiable complier, Mr. Noah Webster, Junr. who gravely informs us he is not at all credulous. "In 418 appeared a Comet, in 419 several cities of Asia were overturned by an earthquake, and in 420 there was an eruption of Mount Etna. There was also an inundation of the sea in Hampshire, in England in 419 Famine and pestilence prevailed also in this period.-A great storm of hail is mentioned under the year 418, and deep snow. The great period of general pestilence commenced in the reign of Theodusius the younger, about the year 445 or a year of two earlier. A Comet, in 442 ushered in a severe winter, in 443 the snow fell such a depth and continued so long in Illyricum that multitudes of women and children perished. The year preceding, the Huns had ravaged the country and destroyed the provision which added to the public calamities. An irruption of the sea in North and South Wales 441, preceded the first Comet, and second Comet appeared in 444. In 445 severe famine and pestilence distressed Constantinople and pestilence appeared in all parts of the world. In 446, Sept. 17, occurred a tremendous earthquake which demolished the greatest part of the walls of Constantinople with fifty seven towers. The shocks continued unremittingly for six months and extended to a great part of the globe, &c. In the 311 Olympiad which comprehends the years 465 to 468 inclusive, appeared a Comet. Whether the destruction of Antioch was in 458 or 464 the extent of the shock through Tharce Hellespoint and the Grecian Isles, together with the deluges of rain which are said to have swept away whole towns in Bithynia, leave no room to question the approximation of a Comet. In 430, or the following year, another Comet was visible: or probably two years later. In 434 a drought was more terrible and distressing-not a vine nor an olive-branch retained its verdure-the earth was pale and desolate, and the sun assumed a melancholy face. A Comet was noted in 502, and a severe winter in 507, but I have no account of any public calamity attending these phenomena, except a pestilence; among men and cattle in Scotland in 502. In 413 a Comet, in Dardania-a series of earthquakes demolished twenty four castles, divided mountains, and in one place opened a tissue of thirty paces in length and twelve in breadth. In 539 appeared another Comet, and the famine now raged with double horror. It is recorded that many persons fed on human flesh. The bodies of the famished people became thin and pale; the skin was hardened and dry like leather and clave to the bones; the flesh assumed a dark appearance, like charcoal, the countenance was senseless and stern, the bile redundant. Among these frightful effects of hunger, no pestilence appears-a circumstance that the philosopher should not pass unnoticed. The account which Baronius gives of this famine, is, perhaps, more philosophical and deserves notice. He says the crops failed, corn ripened prematurely and was thin; in some places it was not harvested, and that which was gathered, was deficient in nourishment. Those who subsisted upon it, became pale, and were afflicted with bile. The body lost its heat on vigour, the skin was dried, the countenance stupid, distorted and ghastly, the liver turned black. Many perished by hunger; many betook themselves to the fields to feed on vegetables, and being too feeble to pull them, layed down and gnawed them off with their teeth. In 538 a Comet appeared, a severe winter followed and universal plague, especially in Constantinople, where the living could not bury the dead. In 590 appeared a Comet; an inundation from deluges of rain, overspread Rome, covering the walls of the city, and lodging innumerable serpents on the plains. In 872 a comet and a most excessive heat and drought which cut short the grain. In 874 appeared in France, myriads of grass-hoppers, or locusts, of a remarkable size with six feet and two teeth harder than stone. In 1240 a Comet appeared in February and was visible for a month. Mortal diseases prevailed and authors relate that the fish on the English coast had a battle, in which eleven whales and a multitude of other fish were slain and cast ashore. In September 1686 was seen a comet, At Lille in France fell a storm of hail, the stones of which weighed a pound."-The above are cases where the Comet first appeared and afterwards came the terrible effects, which then were easily traced by our learned author to their source; just as certain medical gentlemen among us, trace the yellow fever to certain other diseases as signs and precursors, taking good care always to wait to the appearance of the latter before they venture to foretellthe certain consequences of the former. And as long as they confine themselves to this method of predicting what is about to happen after it has already happened, it is safe enough, although it is not easy to see what benefit can ever result from it, notwithstanding their assurances; even prejudice itself must allow that it certainly betokens far less skill than to predict the event before it happens. But the following narrative presents us with a case, where one of these planet struck gentlemen actually made the attempt, which I publish that the world may see and judge from the result how much credit is due to those conceited philosophers, who, to shew their superior skill and learning care not what uneasiness and groundless alarms they create. Judging from the experience of nearly 2000 years, we have just as good cause to afflict ourselves with forebodings of every evil from the appearance of the sun, moon or seven stars as from a Comet. It is recorded that in the year 1712, Mr. Whiston having calculated the return of a Comet, which was to make its appearance on Wednesday the 14th of October, at 5 minutes after 5 in the morning, gave notice to the public accordingly, with this terrifying addition, that a total dissolution of the world by fire was to take place on the Friday following. The reputation Mr. Whiston had long maintained in England, both as a divine and a philosopher, left little or no doubt with the populace of the truth of this prediction. Several ludicrous events now took place. A number of persons in and about London, seized all the barges and boats they could lay their hands on in the Thames, very rationally concluding that when the configuration took place, there would be most safety on the water. A gentleman who had neglected family prayer for better than five years, informed his wife that it was his determination to resume that laudable practice the same evening: but his wife having engaged a ball at her house put it off till they saw whether the Comet appeared or not. The South Sea stock soon fell to five per cent and the India 11; and the captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river that the ship might not be endangered. The next morning, however, the Comet appeared according to the prediction, and at noon the belief was universal that the day of judgment was at hand. About this time 123 clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, it was said to petition that a prayer might be penned and ordered, there being none in the church service on that occasion. Three maids of honor burnt their collections of novels and plays, and sent to buy each of them a Bible, and Bishop Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. The run upon the Bank was so prodigious, that all hands were employed from morning till night in discounting notes, and handing out specie. On Thursday, considerably more than 7,000 kept mistresses were legally married, in the face of several congregations. And to crown the whole farce, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at the time head director of the Bank issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them "to keep a good look-out, and have a particular eye upon the Bank, of England." Thus indeed the philosopher's predictions; but, from the chronicles of the times, we learn that poor Whiston was treated with open ridicule not only by the popelace, but by all classes of people during his life afterwards; a fate he richly merited. The visits of those celestial travellers in most cases, are very unexpected. There are not more than three or four comets whose periods are ascertained, with any degree of certainty. The Comet that appeared in 1758 may be expected in the year1853, for its period is 75 years-And the Comet that terrified the greater part of Europe in the year 1680, may be expected in the year 2255 for its period is 573 years. It is not because there are not more than three or four Comets nor is it because those bodies do not revolve about the sun, as a common centre, like Jupiter and Saturn, at fixed periods, that we know so little about them, or when to expect them. It is because the history of Astronomical Observations is short, and very imperfect. The Egyptians, as we are told, have taken an account of more than 50 Comets, but that account is lost. Little attention has been paid to the progress of Comets, in Europe; because those bodies, for many ages, were not deemed to be a species of planets, that properly belonged to our solar system.-Comets, in most cases, were supposed to be extraordinary phenomena, that presaged some great calamity; war, pestilence, or the death of some illustrious personage. According to this opinion, the death of Julius Caesar was presaged, but not prevented, by a great Comet. Those planets have usually been called blazing stars. The very name excited terror; because it was apprehended that one of them might scorch us to death. A writer, in one of the daily papers, has observed that the comet, now in sight, has not yet made its nearest approach to the sun; that when it shall attain its perihelion, it will probably be much more luminous than it is at present; a circumstance that may occasion painful apprehension to some of our fellow-citizens. The great and general terror, that was caused in the year 1743, by the splendid tell of a comet, arose from the common opinion that comets are blazing stars, and that the tail or flame of the comet, then in sight, a flame that was some millions of miles long, might strike the globe and consume its inhabitants. The comet that appeared in the year 1743, had acquired a tail some thousands of miles long, two months before he had attained his perihelion, and while he was yet three hundred millions of miles from the sun, which is three times the distance of this earth from the sun.--N. Y. Com. Adv.

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