In bygone times, before the invention of telescopes, it was only of course the larger comets which were or could be recorded; and as these frequently appeared with great suddenness in the nocturnal sky, usually in the first instance not far from the Sun, either after sunset or before sunrise, and often had attached to them tails of great size which were sometimes very bright, comets were well calculated in the earlier ages of the world to attract the attention of all and to excite the fear of many. It is the general testimony of History during many hundreds of years, one might even say during fully 2000 years, that comets were always considered to be peculiarly "ominous of the wrath of Heaven and as harbingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of Monarchs and the dissolution of Empires". It is quite within the limits of truth to say that ideas such as these have not yet died out. One quotation of 17th-century origin will sufficiently summarize the opinions of many writers and thinkers. A poet of the epoch just named wrote thus:—
"A Blazing Star,
Threatens the World with Famin, Plague and War;
To Princes, death; to Kingdoms many crosses;
To all Estates, ineuitable Losses;
To Herd-men, Rot; To Ploughmen, haplesse Seasons;
To Saylors, storms; to Cities, ciuil Treasons."[1]
Some further quotations of an analogous character are reserved for a subsequent chapter which deals with comets in history and poetry.[2]
However little attention might have been paid by the Ancients to the ordinary displays of natural phenomena, certain it is that Comets and Total Eclipses of the Sun were not easily forgotten or lightly ignored; hence it is that the aspects of many remarkable comets seen in olden times have been handed down to us, often in language of circumstantial minuteness, and still more often in language of grotesque extravagance. The Chinese hold the palm under this head of literary style.
