The New England Weekly Review

SEVENTH LETTER FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON.

To the Editor of the N. E. W. Review.

Pray have you discovered my dear George, who it was, that sent you that tasselled pen?—If you have not, I advise you to desist from the search. You might possibly succeed in discovering the mischievous girl—but then, 'tis equally possible, that the discovery might be dangerous to you. I know her well. She has got so many hearts in her possession, that she might string them together and wear them around her neck for beads. And no wonder. She is one of those beings, that are rarely found save in the bright world of visions—she has "lips like sunset rivers"—a form, that seems an embodied dream of music—a foot, that might "witch an angel from his hymn"—and a cluster of beautifully flowing ringlets, as bright as if half the evening sunbeams had got entangled in them.

I admire your Hartford girls as I have told you already—but they want a little of my teaching to make them perfect. Their evening parties are not to my mind. You were brought up in the Country, where such things are better managed. Oh! it does me good to look down upon your Country parties, where the girls are always as happy as the birds of summer—loved and loving, happy and giving happiness, kissed and giving kisses. Do you remember, George, when you were at a Country wedding three years ago, how you was required, in a game of "Forfeits," to kiss a great long girl fifteen minutes, and how you went through the ceremony without wincing, while a little Universalist Minister stood by looking first at you and then at his watch to see that the sentence was fulfilled to the letter? Ah! your life was in blossom then, my boy, but things have sadly altered with you since. No matter—if you will only change places with me, as I proposed in my last, I may perchance mend matters a little. I will teach your city girls the Country customs. I look a little old-fashioned to be sure—but I will get some of your shoe-makers, Comstock for instance, to make me a pair of square-toed boots, Goodwin to fit me out with tights of the newest cut, Shultas to scrape my chin and cover my bald pate with a wig, and Dr. Crane to insert a fore-tooth in my jaw in place of one, that was knocked out a few years ago by the whisking of a Comet's tail, and I shall be able to make my bow to a bevy of Hartford maidens with abundant eclat. I am naturally handsome and have enacted several wonders in my day—flirted with Diana, squeezed Juno's hand, kissed Mercury's wife and sister, and come near being sued for breach of promise because I wouldn't marry Venus. I knew the flirt though—and, hang me, if I wouldn't sooner have "wedded the Devil's daughter and kept house with my father-in-law." That Venus is a queer one. I merely jumped over a broomstick with her once and she claimed, that it amounted to an engagement. I believe, however, that your terrestrial girls have often based their claims to an engagement upon the same or some similar circumstance.

I am delighted, my darling Editor, to witness your growing popularity. Do you know, that your paper has been adopted as a Reading Book in the High School at Wethersfield? 'Tis true—and every other school of character, the Hartford Female Seminary among the rest, is about to follow suit. Your paper is translated every week into French, Spanish, German, and other modern languages, and has a free circulation almost every where save at Botany Bay, where I perceive, that it has been superseded by "The Times." Well—continue to use your influence properly—make war, as you have done, upon whiskers, auctions, caucuses, poor rhymes, and Jacksonism, and you will be the Pleiad of your generation. Your neighbor Gideon is expecting to be one of the constellations also. I know not how he will succeed, but, if he gets to be either of them, it will be the one called "The Dipper," and, if he gets to be that, Old Scratch designs to make use of him in eating his brimstone puddings.

Stop a moment, George—a cloud is just now passing between me and your city, and I cannot look down upon you as I am wont. Speed on, speed on, thou beautiful but lazy courser of the winds. There—'tis past—and Hartford, with all its visions of shadow and starlight, is again spread out beneath me. George, you live in a lovely realm—the sweet Connecticut is glowing in the holy rays of midnight, and the calm mists are rising from its bosom, like the spirit of a dying Christian going up to mingle with the airs of Paradise. And the Charter Oak—it stands beneath me in its silent but eloquent majesty, and the light of the midnight Heavens, as it rests upon those motionless boughs, seems glowing with deeper glory, as if hallowed by the spell of liberty. Indulge me, for a single moment, in an earthly weakness.

Tree of the olden time!—A thousand storms
Have hurried through thy branches—centuries
Have set their signets on thy trunk—and gone
In silence o'er thee, like the moonlight mists,
That move at evening o'er the battlements
Of the eternal mountain—and yet thou
Shakest thy naked banner in the Heavens
As proudly still as when great Freedom first
Stamped thee with deathless glory.

Monument
Of nations perished!—Since thy form first sprang
From its green throne of forest, many a deep
And burning tide of human tears has flowed
Down to the Ocean of the past, until
Its every wave is bitterness—but thou
Art reckless still. No heart has ever throbbed
Beneath thy silent breast—and, though thy sighs
Have mingled with the night-storm, they were not
The requiem of the nations, that have gone
Down to the dust, like thy own withered leaves
Swept by the Autumn tempests.

Aye, "bloom on,"
Tree of the cloud and sun—gird on thy strength—
Yet there will come a time, when thou shalt sleep
Upon thy own hill-tomb. The marshalled storms
Shall seek but find thee not—and the proud clime,
That long has been the consecrated home
Of liberty and thee, shall lie as erst
In silent desolation. Not a sound
Shall rise from all its confines, save the moan
Of passing winds, the cloud's low tone of fear,
The roar of stormy waters, and the deep
And fearful murmuring of the Earthquake's voice.

I have only to add, dear George, that I remain as ever,

Yours in thought, word, and action,
THE MAN IN THE MOON.