T might appear to us an , though agreeable duty, most high and Madame, to towards you, occasionally, a of our doings on this planet, were we not sure, in the matter of friendly understanding, that we opened correspondence long ago. You were one of our earliest familiars. You stood in that same office to our fathers and mothers, back to your sometime contemporary, Adam of the Garden; and while we are worried into with years, cares, wrinkles, and such designs of age, we are more pleased than to discover that you grow never old to the outward eye, and that you appear the same "lovesome ladie bright," as when we first stared at you from a child's pillow. You are acquainted, not by , but by actual evidence, with our family history, having seen what sort of figure our ancestors cut, and being better aware of the of the genealogical than we can ever be. Therefore we make no reference to a matter so of novelty. But we do mean to free our mind on the subject of your Ladyship's own behavior. We take this resolve to be no of that courtesy which befits us, no less than you, in your skyward station.  
We have, in part, lost our ancient respect for you,—a sorry fact to chronicle. There were once various statements floating about our cradle, to your supposed . You were Phœbe, twin to Phœbus, "goddess excellently bright;" a queen, having a separate establishment, coming into a court by night, and it into more than daytime revelry. You were an enchantress, the divinity of water-sprites and greensward fairies. Your presence was indispensable for dreams. To be moon-struck, then, meant to be charmed inexpressibly,—to be lifted off our feet.
 
Now, we allow that you may have suffered by misrepresentation, or else are we right in detecting your arts; for, by all your handmaidens, you are not what we took you to be. We are informed (our quondam faith in you almost beshrews the day we learned to read!) that you are a timid dependent only of the sun, afraid to show yourself while he is on his peregrinations; that you slyly steal the of his as he lays it aside, and blaze forthwith in your borrowed finery.
 
You are no friend to innocent goblins, but abettor to house-breakers. You are in many direful deeds, attending base nocturnal councils, and tacitly yourself against the law. "Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, ... governed, as the sea is, by our noble and mistress, the moon,-31- under whose we—steal." Was it not well said, not frankly?
 
Your gossip is the , and not Titania.
 
Your inconstancy, to come on delicate ground, shineth above your other characteristics. Since we have seen your color come and go, we there is no of and up there; and being, moreover, well acquainted with the of your red and your gray veil, we infer that you masquerade periodically at very unseasonable hours. Of painting your we are disposed to you; yet it is a severe blow to us to learn from the most trustworthy sources, that you wax.
 
Selene, Artemis! you are worldly beyond worldlings. We hear that you have quarters, and that you them in the ears of Orion, who is nobody but a poor hunter. Beware of the of the lower classes! whose is what we call below, a French Revolution.
 
Who, indeed, that hath a in his eye, cannot still discern a huge beam in yours? You are in grievous need of a resident , considering that you persist in , and that exploded Orientalism, the Crescent, in the face and eyes of Christendom.
 
You are much more distant and reserved, O ! than you pretend. Your temper is said to be .
 
You that were Diana! who is this Falstaffian, Toby Belchian, Kriss Kringlish person we see about your ? He hangeth his great, ruddy, comfortable phiz out of your , and holdeth it sidewise with a or a leer. We look on him as an officious . He peereth where you only, by privilege, have permission to enter. He hath the evil eye. He thinketh himself a proper substitute for you, and King of the Illuminari; he reproduceth your smile, and scattereth your largesses; he maketh faces—we say it shudderingly—at your worshippers below. Frequently hath he appropriated kisses that were blown to you personally, or to you for delivery from one sweetheart to another.
 
 
O Lady, O Light-dispenser! think, we hereby you, of the danger of his being taken for you! Picture the of your minstrel, who, intoning a rapturous of your charms, and casting about for a sight of your loveliness, is confronted instead with that broad, vagabond! In some such despairing rage as the minstrel's must have been the inventor of the German tongue, who discarded all other chances of observation after once this thing ycleped your Man, and angrily insisted on "Der Mond"—the Moon, he—as the proper mode of speech.
 
Get you straightway a more acceptable , one of more habit, of more spare and . Your credit and our comfort demand it. "Pray you, remember."
 
Less know we of your interminable starry neighbors. Is Mars civil, or heavy capable of laughter? Hath a comet you,—that tireless incendiary? Doth Leo roar too loudly on your sensitive ear? We fancy that the Dipper is frequently in your Ladyship's court; that the Way is pleasantest of your pastures; that the guardeth your palace ; and that Aquarius, be he not , tendeth your flower-beds.
 
What scenes, Cosmopolite, Circumnavigator, Universalist, have you ! What joy, what plenty; what riot and desolation! You are the arch-spectator. Death sees not half so widely. He lurketh like an anxious thief in the crowd, seeking what he may take away. But your eye looketh down on all.
 
rested a thousand years ago beneath you in the desert; Assyrian shepherds chanted to you with their long-hushed voices; the Euphrates, while the infant world fell into its first , leaped up and played with you in Paradise. You have known the before man, and yet we saw you laugh upon last April's rain. Are there none for whom you are lonely through the ages? Are there not centuries of old delight in your memory, unequalled now? faces fairer than the lilies, on whose you-35- still to shine? Do you miss the smoke of altars? Have you forgotten the beginners of the "star-ypointing pyramid"? Can you not tell us a tale of the Visigoth? How sang Blondel against the prison-door? How was Bajazet? How fair was Helen; Semiramis how cruel? Moon! where be the treasures of the Kidd?
 
Where, too, is the slow, mysterious evening of our childhood, or its dawn, anticipating change, as you turned away? Or, rather, where is the child that enjoyed them by your ray,—retaining now, of all which was its identity, only the sleep, the illimitable dreams, of those intervening nights? Do you call to mind, you that saw them often, its after-supper frolics; its Hallow-e'en captures, despite tub and candle; its inopportune studies, stolen out of greediness to know,—a fever long ? You were kind to that something of yesterday, dead as Amenophis now. Gleam, in some of the south, to-night, on bright-eyed F., who answered its young jests, and journeyed with it over the icy river, arm-in-arm; and on B.G., yet gentle, who played Brutus once to its Cassius; and rise not, rise not too soon upon our Philippi!
 
You have been fed, O Cynthia! upon the of mortal lips: you have had praises from the poets as calamus and myrrh. Many a time have we rehearsed before you such as we recall, from the sigh of Enobarbus,—
 
"O sovereign mistress of true !"
to the hymnal
 
"Orbèd ! with white fire laden,"
or the noble salutation of a mirthful-mournful spirit over seas:—
 
"Oh! thou art beautiful, howe'er it be,
Huntress or Dian, or whatever named;
And he the veriest pagan, that first framed
His silver , and ne'er worshipped thee!"
 
Drummond, Sidney, Milton, your wanderings. And your truest , one John Keats, spake out boldly that,
 
——"the oldest shade midst oldest trees
Feels palpitations when thou lookest in!"
 
 
You are an charmer; but as you are likewise
 
——"a relief
To the poor, patient , where he sleeps
Within his pearly house,"
 
we infer, with pleasurable surprise, that you are something better: a .
 
Now, we venture to assert that you remember compliments, meant to be of this same Orphic strain, and to you, of which we are not wholly guiltless. We have all but knelt to you. The primeval heathen has stirred within us. We have been under the witchery of Isis. We to be a Moonshee, rather than any of this universe.
 
We wound you not with the eye, nor startle you with telescopes. The scepticisms of astronomy enter not into our rubric. Are you not ? Do you not spiritualize the darkness with one touch of your pale garment? Then what are they to us,—your dimensions and your distances? Gross vanity of knowledge! Abuse of earthly privileges!
 
 
If we affect the abusive, shy of more ceremonious forms of address, forgive us, Luna! We make recantation, and disown our . We extend the hand of cordiality even to your Man. How and beauteous he is! He is Gentility. We bow to him as your anointed Viceroy, your illustrious Nuncio. You know our immemorial , nor shall our rogueries teach you so late to doubt it. Forgive us, benignant, peaceful, affable, Moon! Poet are we not, nor lunatic, nor lover; "but that we love thee best, O most best! believe it."