Of these attendant bodies which the sun maintains in their elliptical
orbit by the great law of gravitation, some possess satellites of their
own. Uranus has eight, Saturn eight, Jupiter four, Neptune three
perhaps, and the Earth one; this latter, one of the least important of
the solar world, is called the Moon, and it is that one that the
enterprising genius of the Americans means to conquer.

The Queen of Night, from her relative proximity and the spectacle
rapidly renewed of her different phases, at first divided the attention
of the inhabitants of the earth with the sun; but the sun tires the
eyesight, and the splendour of its light forces its admirers to lower
their eyes.

The blonde Phoebe, more humane, graciously allows herself to be seen in
her modest grace; she is gentle to the eye, not ambitious, and yet she
sometimes eclipses her brother the radiant Apollo, without ever being
eclipsed by him. The Mahommedans understood what gratitude they owed to
this faithful friend of the earth, and they ruled their months at 29-1/2
days on her revolution.

The first people of the world dedicated particular worship to this
chaste goddess. The Egyptians called her Isis, the Phoenicians Astarte,
the Greeks Phoebe, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and they explained
her eclipses by the mysterious visits of Diana and the handsome
Endymion. The mythological legend relates that the Nemean lion traversed
the country of the moon before its apparition upon earth, and the poet
Agesianax, quoted by Plutarch, celebrated in his sweet lines its soft
eyes, charming nose, and admirable mouth, formed by the luminous parts
of the adorable Selene.