Imprimus.  That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.

Don’t understand at all.

Secondly.  That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of whose ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his head, has been missing for several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.

Well —­ what of that?

Thirdly.  That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have been made in the moon.  They were dirty papers —­ very dirty —­ and Gluck, the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having been printed in Rotterdam.

He was mistaken —­ undoubtedly —­ mistaken.

Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the druken villain, and the three very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs, having just returned, with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond the sea.

Don’t believe it —­ don’t believe a word of it.

Lastly.  That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers in the city of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other parts of the world, —­ not to mention colleges and astronomers in general, —­ are, to say the least of the matter, not a whit better, nor greater, nor wiser than they ought to be.

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Notes to Hans Pfaal

{*1} NOTE—­Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity between the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated “Moon-Story” of Mr. Locke; but as both have the character of hoaxes (although the one is in a tone of banter, the other of downright earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the same subject, the moon—­moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility by scientific detail—­the author of “Hans Pfaall” thinks it necessary to say, in self-defence, that his own jeu d’esprit was published in the “Southern Literary Messenger” about three weeks before the commencement of Mr. L’s in the “New York Sun.”  Fancying a likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the New York papers copied “Hans Pfaall,” and collated it with the “Moon-Hoax,” by way of detecting the writer of the one in the writer of the other.

As many more persons were actually gulled by the “Moon-Hoax” than would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to point out those particulars of the story which should have been sufficient to establish its real character.  Indeed, however rich the imagination displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted much of the force which might have been given it by a more scrupulous attention to facts and to general analogy.  That the public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an astronomical nature.