oted," as they called it--that is to say meddled with public
affairs--until at length, it was discovered that what is everybody's
business is nobody's, and that the "Republic" (so the absurd thing was
called) was without a government at all. It is related, however,
that the first circumstance which disturbed, very particularly, the
self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed this "Republic,"
was the startling discovery that universal suffrage gave opportunity for
fraudulent schemes, by means of which any desired number of votes might
at any time be polled, without the possibility of prevention or even
detection, by any party which should be merely villainous enough not
to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection upon this discovery
sufficed to render evident the consequences, which were that rascality
must predominate--in a word, that a republican government could never
be any thing but a rascally one. While the philosophers, however, were
busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having foreseen these
inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new theories, the
matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of the name of Mob,
who took every thing into his own hands and set up a despotism, in
comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and Hellofagabaluses
were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a foreigner, by-the-by), is
said to have been the most odious of all men that ever encumbered the
earth. He was a giant in stature--insolent, rapacious, filthy, had the
gall of a bullock with the heart of a hyena and the brains of a peacock.
He died, at length, by dint of his own energies, which exhausted him.
Nevertheless, he had his uses, as every thing has, however vile,
and taught mankind a lesson which to this day it is in no danger of
forgetting--never to run directly contrary to the natural analogies. As
for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of
the earth--unless we except the case of the "prairie dogs," an exception
which seems to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very
admirable form of government--for dogs.

April 6.--Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk, through
our captain's spy-glass, subtends an angle of half a degree, looking
very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a misty day. Alpha Lyrae,
although so very much larger than our sun, by the by, resembles
him closely as regards its spots, its atmosphere, and in many other
p