one, probably, that has survived in its purity, not only the confusion of Babel, but the revolutions of all ages. Her crooked form and her shyness were ridiculed and censured from pole to pole. For what purpose such a monster could have been created, not the wisest could conjecture; yet, to tell the truth, every one, though glad to be countenanced in the affectation of scorn by the rest, had secret misgivings concerning the stranger, and envied the delicate brilliancy of her light.

All the gay company, however, quickly returned to the admiration of themselves, and the inspection of each other. Thus the first night passed away. But when the east began to dawn, consternation seized the whole army of celestials, each feeling himself fainting into invisibility, and, as he feared, into nothingness, while his neighbours were, one after another, totally disappearing. At length the sun arose, and filled the heavens, and clothed the earth with his glory. How he spent that day, belongs not to this history; but it is elsewhere recorded, that for the first time from eternity, the lark, on the wings of the morning, sprang up to salute him; the eagle, at noon, looked undazzled on his splendour; and when he went down beyond the deep, the leviathan was sporting amid the multitude of waves.

5

3

1 exuberance, great abundance; richness. 2zenith, the point in the sky exactly overhead. ineffable self-complacency, unspeakable satisfaction with oneself. symmetry, regularity of form. evanescent, vanishing; not lasting.

4

In the evening the vanished constellations again gradually awoke ; and, on opening their eyes, were so rejoiced at meeting together-not one being wanting of last night's' levée-that they were in the highest good humour with themselves and one another. Decked in all their beams, and darting their benignest influence, they exchanged smiles and endearments, and made vows of affection, eternal and unchangeable; while, from this nether orb, the song of the nightingale arose out of darkness, and charmed even the stars in their courses, being the first sound, except the roar of the ocean, that they had ever heard. "The music of the spheres" may be traced to the rapture of that hour.

The little gleaming horn was again discerned, leaning backward over the western hills. This companionless luminary, they thought-but they must be mistaken-it could not be—and yet they were afraid that it was so— appeared somewhat larger than on the former occasion. But the moon, still only venturing to glance at this scene of magnificence, escaped beneath the horizon, leaving the comet in proud possession of the sky.

On the third evening, the moon was so obviously increased in size and splendour, and stood so much higher in the firmament than at first, though she still hastened out of sight, that she was the sole subject of conversation on both sides of the 2 galaxy, till the breeze that awakened newly created man from his first slumber in Paradise warned the stars to retire; and the sun, with a pomp

3

never witnessed in our 3 degenerate days, ushered in the great Sabbath of creation, when "the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”

The following night the moon took her station still higher, and looked brighter than before. Still, however, she preserved her humility and shamefacedness, till her crescent had exceeded the first quarter. Hitherto she had only grown lovelier, but now she grew prouder at every step of her preferment. Her rays, too, became so intolerably dazzling, that fewer and fewer of the stars could endure her presence, but shrouded themselves in her light, as behind a veil. When she verged to maturity, the heavens seemed too small for her ambition. She rose in clouded majesty," but the clouds melted at her approach, or spread their rich and rainbow-tinted garments in her path.

66

She had crossed the comet in her course, and left him as wan as a vapour behind her. On the night of her fulness, she triumphed gloriously in mid-heaven, smiled on the earth, and arrayed it in a softer day; for she had repeatedly seen the sun, and though she could not rival him when he was above the horizon, she fondly hoped to make his absence forgotten. Over the ocean she hung, enamoured of her own beauty reflected in the abyss. The few stars that still could stand amid her overpowering effulgence converged their rays, and shrank into bluer depths of ether, to gaze at a safe distance upon her. "What more can she be?" thought these scattered survivors of myriads of extinguished sparklers: "as hitherto she has increased every evening, to-morrow she will do the same; and we must be lost, like our brethren, in her all-conquering resplendence."

The moon herself was not a little puzzled to imagine what might become of her; but vanity readily suggested

that, although she had reached her full form, she had not reached her full size; consequently, by a regular nightly expansion of circumference, she would finally cover the whole convexity of the sky, not only to the exclusion of stars, but of the sun himself, since he occupied a superior region of space, and certainly could not shine through her: till man and his beautiful companion woman, looking upward from the bowers of Eden, would see all moon above them, and walk in the light of her countenance for

ever.

In the midst of this pleasing self-illusion, a film crept upon her, which spread from her utmost verge, athwart her centre, till it had completely eclipsed her visage, and made her a blot on the tablet of the heavens. In the progress of this disaster, the stars, which were hid in her pomp, stole forth to witness her humiliation. But their transport, and her shame, lasted not long; the shadow retired as gradually as it had advanced, leaving her fairer by contrast than before. Soon afterward, the day broke, and she withdrew, marvelling what would next befall her.

Never had the stars been more impatient to resume their places, nor the moon more impatient to rise, than on the following evening. With trembling hope and fear, the planets that came out first after sunset espied her disk, broad and dark red, emerging from a gulf of clouds in the east. At the first glance, their keen celestial sight discovered that her western limb was a little contracted, and her orb no longer perfect. She herself was too much elated to suspect any failing, and fondly imagined that she had continued to increase all round, till she had got above the Pacific; but even then she was only chagrined to perceive that her image was no larger than it had been last night. There was not a star in the 5 horoscope-no, not the comet himself-durst tell her she was less.

She rose

Another day went, and another night came. as usual, a little later. Even while she travelled above the land she was haunted with the idea that her lustre was rather feebler than it had been; but when she beheld her face in the sea, she could no longer overlook the unwelcome defect. The season was boisterous; the wind rose suddenly, and the waves burst into foam; perhaps the tide, for the first time, was then affected by sympathy with the moon; and what had never happened before, a universal tempest mingled heaven and earth in rain and lightning and darkness. She plunged among the thickest of the thunder clouds, and in the confusion that hid her disgrace, her exulting rivals were all likewise put out of countenance.

On the next evening, and every evening afterward, the moon came forth later, and less, and dimmer; while, on each occasion, more and more of the minor stars, which had formerly vanished from her eye, reappeared to witness her fading honours and disfigured form. Prosperity had made her vain; adversity brought her to her mind again, and humility soon compensated the loss of glaring dis-tinction, with softer charms, which won the regard which haughtiness had repelled; for when she had worn off her uncouth gibbous aspect, and through the last quarter her7 profile waned into a hollow shell, she appeared more graceful than ever in the eyes of all heaven.

When she was originally seen among them, the stars contemned her; afterward, as she grew in beauty, they envied, feared, hated, and finally fled from her. As she relapsed into insignificance, they first rejoiced in her decay, and then endured her superiority, because it could not last long; but when they marked how she had wasted away every time they met, compassion succeeded, and on the last three nights (like a human fair one, in the latest