the Old Landlord coming in made our Philosopher think of withdrawing He brought in Christals full of Glow-worms to light the Parlour but seeing those little fiery Insects lose much of their Light when they are not fresh gathered these which were ten days old had hardly any at all My Spirit stayed not till the Company should complain of it but went up to his Chamber and came immediately back again with two Bowls of Fire so Sparkling that all wondred he burnt not his Fingers These incombustible Tapers said he will serve us better than your Week of Worms They are Rays of the Sun which I have purged from their Heat otherwise the corrosive qualities of their Fire would have dazled and offended your Eyes I have fixed their Light and inclosed it within these transparent Bowls That ought not to afford you any great Cause of Admiration for it is not harder for me who am a Native of the Sun to condense his Beams which are the Dust of that World than it is for you to gather the Atomes of the pulveriz'd Earth of this World. Thereupon our Landlord sent a Servant to wait upon the Philosophers home it being then Night with a dozen Globes of Glow-worms hanging at his four Legs As for my Preceptor and my self we went to rest by order of the Phisiognomist He laid me that Night in a Chamber of Violets and Lillies ordered me to be tickled after the usual manner and next Morning about Nine a Clock my Spirit came in and told me that he was come from Court where One of the Queens Maids of Honour had sent for him and that she had enquired after me protesting that she still persisted in her Design to be as good as her Word that is that with all her Heart she would follow me if I would take her along with me to the other World which exceedingly pleased me said he when I understood that the chief Motive which inclined her to the Voyage was to become Christian And therefore I have promised to forward her Design what lies in me and for that end to invent a Machine that may hold three or four wherein you may mount to day both together if you think fit I 'll go seriously set about the performance of my Undertaking and in the mean time to entertain you during my Absence I leave you here a Book which heretofore I brought with me from my Native Countrey the Title of it is The States and Empires of the Sun with an Addition of the History of the Spark I also give you this which I esteem much more it is the great Work of the Philosophers composed by one of the greatest Wits of the Sun. He proves in it that all things are true and shews the way of uniting Physically the Truths of every Contradiction as for Example That White is Black and Black White that one may be and not be at the same time that there may be a Mountain without a Valley that nothing is something and that all things that are are not but observe that he proves all these unheard-of Paradoxes without any Captious or Sophistical Argument When you are weary of Reading you may Walk or Converse with our Landlord's Son he has a very Charming Wit but that which I dislike in him is that he is a little Atheistical If he chance to Scandalize you or by any Argument shake your Faith fail not immediately to come and propose it to me and I 'll clear the Difficulties of it any other but I would enjoin you to break Company with him but since he is extreamly proud and conceited I am certain he would take your flight for a Defeat and would believe your Faith to be grounded on no Reason if you refused to hear his Having said so he left me and no sooner was his back turned but I fell to consider attentively my Books and their Boxes that 's to say their Covers which seemed to me to be wonderfully Rich the one was cut of a single Diamond incomparably more resplendent than ours the second looked like a prodigious great Pearl cloven in two My Spirit had translated those Books into the Language of that World but because I have none of their Print I 'll now explain to you the Fashion of these two Volumes As I opened the Box I found within somewhat of Metal almost like to our Clocks full of I know not what little Springs and imperceptible Engines It was a Book indeed but a Strange and Wonderful Book that had neither Leaves nor Letters In fine it was a Book made wholly for the Ears and not the Eyes So that when any Body has a mind to read in it he winds up that Machine with a great many little Strings then he turns the Hand to the Chapter which he desires to hear and straight as from the Mouth of a Man or a Musical Instrument proceed all the distinct and different Sounds which the Lunar Grandees make use of for expressing their Thoughts instead of Language When I since reflected on this Miraculous Invention I no longer wondred that the Young-Men of that Country were more knowing at Sixteen or Eighteen years Old than the Gray-Beards of our Climate for knowing how to Read as soon as Speak they are never without Lectures in their Chambers their Walks the Town or Travelling they may have in their Pockets or at their Girdles Thirty of these Books where they need but wind up a Spring to hear a whole Chapter and so more if they have a mind to hear the Book quite through so that you never want the Company of all the great Men Living and Dead who entertain you with Living Voices This Present employed me about an hour and then hanging them to my Ears like a pair of Pendants I went a Walking but I was hardly at End of the Street when I met a Multitude of People very Melancholy Four of them carried upon their Shoulders a kind of a Herse covered with Black I asked a Spectator what that Procession like to a Funeral in my Country meant He made me answer that that naughty called so by the People because of a knock he had received upon the Right Knee who being convicted of Envy and Ingratitude died the day before and that Twenty Years ago the Parliament had Condemned him to die in his Bed and then to be interred after his Death I fell a Laughing at that Answer And he asking me why You amaze me said I that that which is counted a Blessing in our World as a long Life a peaceable Death and an Honourable Burial should pass here for an exemplary Punishment What do you take a Burial for a precious thing then replyed that Man And in good earnest can you conceive any thing more Horrid than a Corps crawling with Worms at the discretion of Toads which feed on his Cheeks the Plague it self Clothed with the Body of a Man Good God! The very thought of having even when I
Printed for Henry Rhodes next the Swan Tavern in Fleet street 〈…〉 Hove sculp THE Comical HISTORY OF THE STATES AND EMPIRES OF THE WORLDS OF THE Moon and Sun. Written in French by Cyrano Bergerac And newly Englished by A. Lovell A.M. LONDON Printed for Henry Rhodes next door to the Swan-Tavern near Bride-Lane in Fleet-Street 1687. LICENSED May 30. 1686. RO. L'ESTRANGE THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER IT is now Seven and Twenty Years since the Moon appeared first Historically on the English Horizon And let it not seem strange that she should have retained Light and Brightness so long here without Revovation when we find by Experience that in the Heavens she never fails once a Month to change and shift her Splendor For it is the Excellency of Art to represent Nature even in her absence and this being a Piece done to the Life by one that had the advantage of the true Light as well as the Skill of Drawing in this kind to Perfection he left so good an Original which was so well Copied by another Hand that the Picture might have served for many Years more to have given the Lovers of the Moon a sight of their Mistress even in the darkest Nights and when she was retired to put on a clean Smock in Phoebus his Apartment if they had been so curious as to have encouraged the Exposers However Reader you have now a second View of her and that under the same Cover with the Sun too which is very rare since these two were never seen before in Conjunction Yet I would have none be afraid that their Eyes being dazled with the glorious Light of the Sun they should not see her for Fancy will supply the Weakness of the Organ and Imagination by the help of this Mirrour will not fail to discover them both though Cynthia lye hid under Apollo's shining Mantle And so much for the Luminaries Now as to the Worlds which with Analogy to ours below I may call the Old and New that of the Moon having been discovered tho imperfectly by others but the Sun owing its Discovery wholly to our Author I make no doubt but the Ingenious Reader will find in both so extraordinary and surprizing Rarities as well Natural Moral as Civil that if he be not as yet sufficiently disgusted with this lower World which I am sure some are to think of making a Voyage thither as our Author has done he will at least be pleased with his Relations Nevertheless since this Age produces a great many bold Wits that shoot even beyond the Moon and cannot endure no more than our Author to be stinted by Magisterial Authority and to believe nothing but what Gray-headed Antiquity gives them leave It 's pity some soaring Virtuoso instead of Travelling into France does not take a flight up to the Sun and by new Observations supply the defects of its History occasioned not by the Negligence of our Witty French Author but by the accursed Plagiary of some rude Hand that in his Sickness rifled his Trunks and stole his Papers as he himself complains Let some venturous Vndertaker auspiciously attempt it then and if neither of the two Vniversities Gresham-Colledge nor Greenwich-Observatory can furnish him with an Instrument of Conveyance let him try his own Invention or make use of our Author's Machine For our Loss is indeed so great that one would think none but the declared Enemy of Mankind would have had the Malice to purloyn and stiffle those rare Discoveries which our Author made in the Province of the Solar Philosophers and which undoubtedly would have gone far as to the settleing our Sublunary Philosophy which as well as Religion is lamentably rent by Sects and Whimseys and have convinced us perhaps that in our present Doubts and Perplexities a little more or a little less of either would better serve our Turns and more content our Minds THE Comical History OF THE STATES and EMPIRES OF THE WORLD OF THE MOON Written in French by Cyrano Bergerac And now Englished by A. Lovell A. M. LONDON Printed for Henry Rhodes next door to the Swan-Tavern near Bride-Lane in Fleet-Street 1687. THE Comical HISTORY OF THE STATE AND EMPIRE OF THE WORLD OF THE MOON I Had been with some Friends at Clamard a House near Paris and magnificently Entertain'd there by Monsieur de Guigy the Lord of it when upon our return home about Nine of the Clock at Night the Air serene and the Moon in the Full the Contemplation of that bright Luminary furnished us with such variety of Thoughts as made the way seem shorter than indeed it was Our Eyes being fixed upon that stately Planet every one spoke what he thought of it One would needs have it be a Garret Window of Heaven another presently affirmed That it was the Pan whereupon Diana smoothed Apollo's Bands whilst another was of Opinion That it might very well be the Sun himself who putting his Locks up under his Cap at Night peeped through a hole to observe what was doing in the World during his absence And for my part Gentlemen said I that I may put in for a share and guess with the rest not to amuse my self with those curious Notions wherewith you tickle and spur on slow-paced Time I believe that the Moon is a World like ours to which this of ours serves likewise for a Moon This was received with the general Laughter of the Company And perhaps said I Gentlemen just so they laugh now in the Moon at some who maintain That this Globe where we are is a World. But I 'd as good have said nothing as have alledged to them That a great many Learned Men had been of the same Opinion for that only made them laugh the faster However this thought which because of its boldness suted my Humor being confirmed by Contradiction sunk so deep into my mind that during the rest of the way I was big with Definitions of the Moon which I could not be delivered of Insomuch that by striving to verifie this Comical Fancy by Reasons of appearing weight I had almost perswaded my self already of the truth on 't when a Miracle Accident Providence Fortune or what perhaps some may call Vision others Fiction Whimsey or if you will Folly furnished me with an occasion that engaged me into this Discourse Being come home I went up into my Closet where I found a Book open upon the Table which I had not put there It was a piece of Cardanus and though I had no design to read in it yet I fell at first sight as by force exactly upon a Passage of that Philosopher where he tells us That Studying one evening by Candle-light he perceived Two tall old Men enter in through the door that was shut who after many questions that he put to them made him answer That they were Inhabitants of the Moon and thereupon immediately disappeared I was so surprised not only to see a Book get thither of it self but also
we came to know that after you had been taken lost and retaken I know not how many times you were carried to Prison in the great Tower. We way-laid your Officers and by good-Fortune through more apparent than real met attacked beat and put them to Flight but we could not learn even of the Wounded whom we took what was become of you until this Morning word was brought us that you your self had blindly secured your self in Prison Colignac is wounded in several places but very slightly After all we have just now taken order that you be lodged in the fairest Chamber that 's here Seeing you love an open Air we have caused to be furnished a little Appartment for you alone in the top of the great Tower the Terrass whereof will serve you for a Balcony your eyes at least will be at Liberty in spight of the Body they are fastened to Ha! my Dear Dyrcona cryed the Count speaking next we were unfortunate we did not take you along with us when we parted from Colignac My Heart by an unaccountable Sadness that I could give no reason for presaged some terrible Disaster but it matters not I have Friends thou art Innocent and let the worst come to the worst I know what it is to dye Gloriously One thing only puts me in despair The Villain on whom I resolved to try the first stroke of my Revenge you well conceive I speak of my Curate is now out of condition of feeling it the wretch is dead and I 'll tell you the particulars of his death He was running with his Man to drive your Horse into his Stable when the Nagg with a fidelity heightened perhaps by the secret notices of his Instinct falling into a sudden Fury began to winse and kick but with so much rage and success that with three kicks of his heels he made Vacant the Benefice of that Buffle-head Without doubt you cannot conceive the Reasons of that Fools hatred but I 'll discover them to you Know then that I may trace the matter a little backward that that Godly man a Norman by Nation and a litigious Knave by Trade who for the Money of Pilgrims officiated in a forsaken Chappel commenced an Action of Devolution against the Curate of Colignac and maugre all my endeavours to maintain the Possessor in his right so wheadled the Judges that at length in spight of us he was made our Pastor At the end of the first year he went to Law with me also pretending that I should pay him Tythes It was to no purpose to tell him that time out of mind my Lands were free he went on still with his Suit which he lost But during the Process he started so many Cases that Twenty other Suits have sprung from them which now are at a stand thanks to the good Horse whose Foot was harder than Mass-Johns Head. This is all that I can conjecture of the Vertigo of our Pastor But it 's wonderful with how much fore-sight he managed his Rage I am lately assured that having got into his Head the accursed design of your Imprisonment he had secretly exchanged his Living of Colignac for another Living in his own Country whither he intended to retreat so soon as you should be taken Nay his own Man hath said that seeing your Horse near his Stable he had heard him mutter That the Beast would carry him into a place where they could not reach him After this Discourse Colignac admonished me to mistrust the Offers and Visit that perhaps might be rendred me by a very powerful Person whom he named that it was by his Credit that Mass-John had gained the Cause of Devolution and that that Person of Quality had sollicited the Affair for him in recompence of the Services which that good Priest had rendred his Son when he bore a small Office in the Colledge Now continued Colignac seeing it is very hard to be at Law without Rancor and without a tincture of Enmity that remains indelible in the mind though we have been made Friends he hath ever since sought occasions secretly to cross me But it matters not I have more Relations of the long Robe than he has and a great many Friends or if it come to the worst we can procure the King to interpose his Authority in the Affair When Colignac had made an end they both endeavoured to Comfort me but it was by such tender Testimonies of Sorrow that my own Grief was thereby encreased In the mean while my Goaler came back and told us that the Chamber was ready Come let 's go see it answered Cussan and with that he went first and we followed him I found it in very good Order I want nothing said I to them unless it be a few Books Colignac promised to fend me next day as many as I should give him a Catalogue of When we had well considered and found by the height of my Tower the largeness of the Ditches that environed it and by all the Circumstances of my Apartment that to escape was an enterprise above humane reach my Friends looking on one another and then casting their Eyes on me fell a weeping But as if all of a sudden our Grief had softened the Anger of Heaven an unexpected Joy took possession of my Soul Joy brought Hope and Hope secret Illuminations wherewith my Reason was so dazled that with an unvoluntary Transport which seemed ridiculous to my self Go said I to them go expect me at Colignac I shall be there within these three days and send me all the Mathematical Instruments wherewith I usually work In short you 'l find in a large Box a great many peices of Christal cut into several Figures be sure not to forget them however it will be sooner done if I set down what things I need in a Memorandum They took the Note I gave them being unable to dive into my design and then departed From the time they were gone I did nothing but ruminate upon the Execution of the things I had premeditated and I was thinking on them next day when all that I had set down in my Catalogue was brought me from them One of Colignac's Valets de Chamber told me that his Master had not been seen since the day before and that they could not tell what was become of him I was not at all troubled at that Accident because it presently came into my mind that possibly he might be gone to Court to sollicite my Liberty And therefore without being surprised at it I put hand to work for the space of eight days I hewed plained and glewed at length I framed the Machine that I am about to describe to you It was a large very light Box that shut tight and close of about six Foot high and three Foot Square This Box had a hole in it below and over the Cover which had likewise a hole in it I placed a Vessel of Christal bored through in the same manner made in a