But whether the moon be a desert or an ocean, what care we? When she shines the dew falls on us. Let that suffice. And what if there be no air around the moon? The Lunars breathe pure ether, then—and so do we, “of a shiny night!” Inasmuch as our affection is for, and our subject is the moon itself, we shall have little to say of the inhabitants thereof. For all that we know they are a dirty set, as the philosophers would fain make us believe. Perhaps there may be none to speak of. In the ancient legends of Mother Goose, it is recorded, that the Man in the Moon (as if there were but one) made a descent upon the earth, about meridian one day. The hour would seem to indicate that his residence in the planet is for somewhat the same purpose as that which induces the presence of a light-house keeper at his lonely post. He comes down at noon, undoubtedly, as being the most convenient season, for at night he could not well be spared. Having spent the morning in preparing for his nightly illumination, and entertaining a laudable desire for earthly geographical information, he seizes this opportunity to visit this world, and forthwith inquires his most direct route to Norwich. We wonder which route was recommended to him—whether by the way of Hartford and the Willimantic Railroad, by steamboat direct, or by Jersey Island Railroad and Greenport Ferry. Why it should have been a coincidence so remarkable as to be worthy of record on the pages of history, that a gentleman in Australia, on this day, scalded his mouth with a “hasty plate” of brose of moderate temperature, we have never been able to divine. But the sun has thrown more light upon the moon, and the theory of its being inhabited, than any other luminary. The sun, we say—but not the real sun, nor the True Sun, but the sun which “shines for all”—The New York Sun—the Sun of Moses Y. Beach—and Son. In certain numbers of that useful newspaper, of the volume of 1834, if we recollect aright, we shall find that Mr. Locke has given us the key to many things which before were mysteries. The good people of that time, when they read the narrative of the extraordinary discoveries of Sir John Herschel and his learned companions, at the Cape of Good Hope, became firmly convinced that the Man in the Moon was no fabulous personage; but that he really existed, and a good many more of the same sort with him, to say nothing of women, children, and quadrupeds—all intelligent creatures, knowing more than the Man in the Moon was generally and proverbially supposed to know; students, probably—for each creature had a shade over his or her eyes, but one of Nature’s providing, showing that the moon is not, probably, a good market for green silk and pasteboard.