The MOON rose to propose a resolution. No one, he said, would be surprised at his bringing this matter forward in the way he did, when it was considered in how complete and satisfactory a manner his motions were now represented. He must own he had trembled when the Lords of the Admiralty dissolved the Board of Longitude, but his tranquillity was more than reestablished by the adoption of the new system. He did not know but that any little assistance he could give in Nautical Astronomy was becoming of less and less value every day, owing to the improvement of chronometers. But there was one thing, of which nothing could deprive him--he meant the regulation of the tides. And, perhaps, when his attention was not occupied by more than the latter, he should be able to introduce a little more regularity into the phenomena. (Here the honourable luminary gave a sort of modest libration, which convulsed the meeting with laughter.) They might laugh at his natural infirmity if they pleased, but he could assure them it arose only from the necessity he was under, when young, of watching the motions of his worthy primary. He then moved a resolution highly laudatory of the alterations which appeared in the New Nautical Almanac. The EARTH rose, to second the motion. His honourable satellite had fully expressed his opinions on the subject. He joined his honourable friend in the focus in wishing to pay every attention to the Nautical Almanac, but, {303} really, when so important an alteration had taken place in his magnetic pole[658] (hear) and there might, for aught he knew, be a successful attempt to reach his pole of rotation, he thought he could not answer for the preservation of the precession in its present state. (Here the hon. luminary, scratching his side, exclaimed, as he sat down, "More steamboats--confound 'em!") An honourable satellite (whose name we could not learn) proposed that the resolution should be immediately despatched, corrected for refraction, when he was called to order by the Focal Body, who reminded him that it was contrary to the moving orders of the system to take cognizance of what passed inside the atmosphere of any planet. SATURN and PALLAS rose together. (Cries of "New member!" and the former gave way.) The latter, in a long and eloquent speech, praised the liberality with which he and his colleagues had at length been relieved from astronomical disqualifications. He thought that it was contrary to the spirit of the laws of gravitation to exclude any planet from office on account of the eccentricity or inclination of his orbit. Honourable luminaries need not talk of the want of convergency of his series. What had they to do with any private arrangements between him and the general equations of the system? (Murmurs from the opposition.) So long as he obeyed the laws of motion, to which he had that day taken a solemn oath, he would ask, were old planets, which were now so well known that nobody trusted them, to....