And now day begins to decline; and your globe, which never sets to us, will soon shed her pale earthshine over the landscape. O how serene, how lovely these regions! Here are no hurricanes, or clouds, or vapours. Here heroines cannot sigh; for here there is no air to sigh withal. Here, in our great pits, poetically called vallies, we retire from all moonly cares; or range through the meads of Cysatus or Gruemberget, and luxuriate in the coolness of the Conical Penumbra. I trust you will feel, dear reader, that you now owe more to my discoveries than to those of Endymion, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileus, and Newton. I pray you, therefore, to reward my services with a long and happy life; though much I fear I shall not obtain it. For, I am told, that two little shining specks, called England and Ireland (which we can just see with our glasses on your globe), are the places that I must depend upon for my health and prosperity. Now, if they fall, I must fall with them; and I fancy they have seen the best of their days already. A parrot informs me, that they are at daggers drawn with a prodigious blotch just beside them; and that their most approved patriots daily indite pamphlets to shew how they cannot hold out ten years longer. The Sternian Starling assured me just now that these patriots write the triumphs of their country in the most commiserating language; and portray her distresses with exultation. Of course, therefore, they conceive that her glories would undo her, and that nothing can save her but her calamities. So, since she is conquering away at a great rate, I may fairly infer that she is on her last legs. Before I conclude, I must inform you of how I shall have this letter conveyed to your world. Laplace, and other philosophers, have already proved, that a stone projected by a volcano, from the moon, and with the velocity of a mile and a half per second, would be thrown beyond the sphere of the moon's attraction, and enter into the confines of the earth's. Now, hundreds have attested on oath, that they have seen luminous meteors moving through the sky; and that these have fallen on the earth, in stony or semi-metallic masses. Therefore, say the philosophers, these masses came all the way from the moon. And they say perfectly right. Believe it piously, dear reader, and quote me as your authority. It is by means of one of these stones that I shall contrive to send you this letter. I have written it on asbestus, in liquid gold (as both these substances are inconsumable by fire); and I will fasten it to the top of a volcanic mountain, which is expected to explode in another hour.