OF

WHAT were "the precious things put forth by the moon"? Surely not the thousand-and-one absurd theories about its inhabitants which we find are entertained in some shape or other by nearly every nation on earth. The oldest and at the same time the most familiar to our race is the story of the two children who were robbed just as they were bringing water home from a spring; hence they may still be seen as dark spots on the face of the full moon on bright winter nights, carrying a bucket between them on a long pole. When this pagan view was duly exorcised by the zealous missionaries who converted the old Saxons, our ancestors, it gave way to a more refined but hardly more credible account. Now it is a man who had stolen a bundle of fagots on a Sunday, and was transferred, as a punishment, to the moon, where he has to carry his burden for evermore, and suffer at the same time of unceasing cold. This is the original Man in the Moon.

It is curious to see how popular superstition has clung to this theory in spite of all the light that science has endeavored from time immemorial to

BUTLER

shed upon the subject. The mystery is much aided by the remarkable fact that we only know one half of the moon, which is constantly seen by us, while the other half has never yet been beheld by human eye. The face of the moon, which our first father Adam watched, no doubt, with fear and admiration strangely mixed, as it rose on the horizon, is the same which the last man will take leave of when the earth shall perish in fire. But this very fact of a whole world, so near to us and yet lying so utterly beyond our reach, has from of old existed and stimulated the imagination of men to its utmost; and the question of who is the Man in the Moon has occupied the ablest minds of antiquity as well as the most gifted writers of our own day. The result has been necessarily very unsatisfactory first, for thousands of years, because the moon was inaccessible to the eye in the absence of proper instruments, and in recent times, because, even with the aid of such magnificent glasses as those of the Earl of Rosse, which shows objects of the size of a moderate mountain on our satellite, no sign of life has

VOL. VI.-30

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If we

yet been discovered. But failure seems only to have increased the desire to enter into communication with the lunar world, and efforts have been made in every age, from the proposed Tower of Babel, the summit of which was to reach unto heaven, to the colossal mirrors which, a few months ago, a clever Frenchman suggested might reflect such a dazzling mass of light as would attract the attention of the Man in the Moon, and induce him to reply by similar signals. Quite recently the question, whether life-the highest manifes tation of Nature's forces-exists in other planets also, has apparently acquired new interest in the eyes of our savaus, and the great controversy between men like Whewell and Brewster has called public attention to this interesting subject. Nor have the authors of the Continent remained inactive; and from several recent authors in France and Germany we cull a brief account of the Man in the Moon as he has appeared at different times to the most learned of

our race.

How fully the ancients were imbued with the idea that, while the earth was, as they supposed, the centre of the universe, still other worlds also existed, and might be peopled with beings created like ourselves, appears most strikingly in Lucian's famous Voyage to the Moon. Starting from the smiling coasts of Italy, his gay bark was driven beyond the happy seas on which it was accustomed to sail, and, having passed the Pillars of Hercules, became the sport of fierce winds, which forced it to wander helplessly for seventy days on a dark and stormy ocean. Then the exhausted travellers landed on a blissful island, with rivers flowing with wine, and vineyards in which each vine was an affectionate maiden. But Lucian could not be tempted; and, leaving a few of his bewitched companions behind, he sailed on with those that remained faithful. One fine day, however, when the sun shone brightly and the waters were blue and calm, a sudden whirlwind arose and bodily lifted up their little vessel, till it reached a height

of a hundred miles; there, in vague, vacant space, they wandered about, they knew not how, for seven days and seven nights, landing at last on a large island, which hung suspended in the ether, round, and brilliantly illuminated. They had no sooner left their ship, casting a longing look at the earth far below them, with its mountains and valleys and its forests and populous cities, than hippogriffs came and summoned them to appear before the monarch.

The king of the Moon at once recognized them by their costume as Greeks, for he was a countryman of theirsEndymion. It so happened that he was at that moment engaged in fierce warfare with His Majesty Phæton, king of the Sun, and on the very next day a great battle was to be fought. Lucian was, of course, delighted with the opportunity to become thus fully acquainted with the Man in the Moon, and appeared, early on the next morning, on the battle-field. The lunar army, drawn up in battle array, consisted of nothing less than sixty millions of men, with eighty thousand hippogriffs-men mounted on winged asses with three heads-and an equal number of other indescribable creatures, among whom he was especially pleased with thirty thousand men riding fleas of the size of twelve elephants. The list is as long as that of Homer's heroes before Troy, and has furnished many a name, if not more, to later authors, from Rabelais to Swift. The battle took place on an enormous cobweb stretched out between the sun and the moon, and ended, after true Greek fashion, to the honor of both the contending parties; they made peace, formed an alliance, and engaged not to trouble their neighbors!

The Man in the Moon, Lucian tells us, is not born, but buds forth like the plants of the fields; nor does he die, but slowly and pleasantly passes off in a puff of smoke. His wants are supplied without labor by an over-abundant Nature, which teems on all sides with food and drink; and he never suffers of indigestion, for his stomach