the Fancy that during Sleep is not guided by Reason presents to us without Order out of which nevertheless we think to squeeze the true Meaning and draw from Dreams as from Oracles the Knowledge of things future but I vow I could never find any other Conformity betwixt them but that Dreams like Oracles cannot be understood However judge of the worth of all the rest by mine which is not at all extraordinary I dreamt that I was very sad and that I met with Dyrcona in all places who called for our Assistance But without beating my Brains any more about the Explication of these dark Riddles I 'll tell ye their Mystical Sense in two Words and that 's in troth that our Dreams at Colignac are very bad and that if you 'll take my Advice we 'll go and have better at Cussan Let 's go then said the Count to me since this Man is so uneasie here We resolved to be gone the same day and I prayed them to set out before because I was willing seeing as they had agreed upon it we were to be there a Month to have some Books carried along with me They condescended and immediately after Break-fast got on Horse-back In the mean time I packed up some Volumes which I imagined not to be in the Library of Cussan put them upon a Mule and about three in the Afternoon set out upon a very good Pad However I went but a Foot-pace that I might attend my little Library and at more leisure enrich my mind with the Liberalities of my sight But listen to an Adventure that will certainly surprise you I was got forwards on my Journey above four Leagues when I found my self in a Country which I was certain I had seen somewhere else before The truth is I sollicited my Memory so much to tell me how I came to know that Landskip that the presence of the Objects reviving past Images I remembred that that was exactly the place which the Night before I had seen in a Dream That odd rencounter would have busied my thoughts longer than it did had I not been diverted by a strange Apparition A Spirit at least I took it for one meeting me in the middle of the way took hold of my Horse by the Bridle This Phantome was of a prodigious Shape and what I could guess by the little I saw of his Eyes had a surly and stern Look I cannot tell though whether he was handsome or ugly for a long Gown made of the Leaves of a Church plain song-Song-Book covered him to the Fingers-ends and his Face was hid under a thing like a Horn-Book wherein was written the in Principio The first Words that the Phantome uttered were with great amazement Satanus Diabolus I conjure thee by the Great and Living God at these Words he stuck but still repeating the Great and Living God and with a wild and skared Look casting about for his Pastor to blow into him the rest when he found that to what side soever he looked his Pastor was not to be seen he fell into such a dreadful shaking Fit that by his extraordinary chattering and diddering one half of his Teeth dropt out and two Thirds of the Musick-notes under which he lurkt flew about like Thistle Down He came back however towards me and with a Look that seemed neither soft nor surly by which I perceived he was in doubt what course was best for him to take whether to be rough or mild O! well then said he Satanus Diabolus by the Blood I conjure thee in the Name of God and of Mass-John let me do my Business For if thou stirrest either Hand or Foot Devil take thy Guts are out I had a lash at him with the Bridle Reins but being almost choaked with laughter I had little strength to do any thing Besides that about half a hundred Country People came out from behind a Hedge walking upon their Knees and tearing their Throats with Kyrie Eleisons When they were got near enough four of the strongest of the Rout having first plunged their Hands into a Holy Water-pot which was purposely carried by the Priest's Man caught hold of me by the Neck No sooner was I arrested but in comes Mass John who devoutly pulling out his Stole bound me fast with it and presently after a flock of Women and Children who in spight of all the Resistance I could make sowed me up in a great Sheet wherein I was so dexterously swadled that nothing was to be seen of me but the Head. In this Equipage they carried me to Thoulouse as if they had been carrying me to my Grave By and by cried one Had not this been done we should have had a Famine because when they met me I was certainly going to lay a Spell upon the Corn and then I heard another complaining that the Scab did not begin amongst his Sheep till of a Sunday when the People were coming from Vespers I clapt him on the Shoulder But in spight of all my Disasters I could hardly forbear to laugh when I heard a young Country Girl with a dreadful Tone cry after her Sweet-heart alias the Phantome who had seiz'd my Horse For you must know that the Youngster had got on the Back of him and spurr'd him briskly as if he had been his own already Wretch bauled out his Duckling What art blind then Does n't see that the Magician's Horse is blacker than Coal and that it is the Devil in Person carrying thee away to a meeting of Witches Our Amorous Clown terrified at that tumbled backwards over the Beasts Tail so that my Horse was set at Liberty They consulted whether or not they should seize my Mule and agreed in the Affirmative but having unript the Pack and at the opening of the first Book hitting Descarteses Physicks when they saw the Circles whereby that Philosopher distinguishes the Motions of the several Planets all of them with one voice roared out that they were the Conjuring Lines I used to draw for raising of Beelzebub He that held it in his Hands seized with a panick fear let it fall and by mischance it opened at a Page where the Virtues of the Load-stone are explained I say by mischance because in the place I speak of there is a Cut of that Metallick Stone where the little Bodies that are let loose from the whole to fasten to the Iron are represented like Arms. No sooner had one of the Rascals perceived it but I heard him scream out that that was the Toad which was found in the Manger of his Cousin Dick's Stable when his Horses died At that Word they who seemed to be in the greatest heat clapt their Hands into their Bosoms or Pockets Mass John cried with open Mouth that they should take special care not to touch any thing that all these were Books of down-right Conjuring and the Mule a Satan The Rabble thus frightened let the Mule depart in Peace Nevertheless I saw Joan
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
yet in the Cradle being but newly Born and its Young and smooth Face shews not the least Wrinkle The large Compasses it fetches in circling within it self demonstrate its unwillingness to leave its native Soyl And as if it had been ashamed to be caressed in presence of its Mother with a Murmuring it thrust back my hand that would have touched it The Beasts that came to drink there more rational than those of our World seemed surprised to see it day upon the Horizon whilst the Sun was with the Antipodes and durst not bend downwards upon the Brink for fear of falling into the Firmament I must confess to you That at the sight of so many Fine things I found my self tickled with these agreeable Twitches which they say the Embryo feels upon the infusion of its Soul My old Hair fell off and gave place for thicker and softer Locks I perceived my Youth revived my Face grow ruddy my natural Heat mingle gently again with my radical Moisture And in a word I grew younger again by at least Fourteen Years I had advanced half a League through a a Forest of Jessamines and Myrtles when I perceived something that stirred lying in the Shade It was a Youth whose Majestick Beauty forced me almost to Adoration He started up to hinder me crying It is not to me but to God that you owe these Humilities You see one answered I stunned with so many Wonders that I knew not what to admire most for coming from a World which without doubt you take for a Moon here I thought I had arrived in another which our Worldlings call a Moon also and behold I am in Paradice at the Feet of a God who will not be Adored Except the quality of a God replied he whose Creature I only am the rest you say is true This Land is the Moon which you see from your Globe and this place where you are is Now at that time Man's Imagination was so strong as not being as yet corrupted neither by Debauches the Crudity of Aliments nor the alterations of Diseases that being excited by a violent desire of coming to this Sanctuary and his Body becoming light through the heat of this Inspiration he was carried thither in the same manner as some Philosophers who having fixed their Imagination upon the contemplation of a certain Object have sprung up in the Air by Ravishments which you call Extasies The Woman who through the infirmity of her Sex was weaker and less hot could not without doubt have the Imagination strong enough to make the Intension of her Will prevail over the Ponderousness of her Matter but because there were very few The Sympathy which still united that half to its whole drew her towards him as he mounted up as the Amber attracts the Straw the Load-stone turns towards the North from whence it hath been taken and drew to him that part of himself as the Sea draws the Rivers which proceed from it When they arrived in your Earth they dwelt betwixt Mesopotamia and Arabia Some People knew them by the name of and others under that of Prometheus whom the Poets feigned to have stolen Fire from Heaven by reason of his Off-spring who were endowed with a Soul as perfect as his own So that to inhabit your World that Man left this destitute but the All-wise would not have so blessed an Habitation to remain without Inhabitants He suffered a few ages after that cloyed with the company of Men whose Innocence was corrupted had a desire to forsake them This person however thought no retreat secure enough from the Ambition of Men who already Murdered one another about the distribution of your World except that blessed Land which his Grand-Father had so often mentioned unto him and to which no Body had as yet found out the way But his Imagination supplied that for seeing he had observed that he filled Two large Vessels which he sealed Hermetically and fastened them under his Arm-pits So soon as the Smoak began to rise upwards and could not pierce through the Mettal it forced up the Vessels on high and with them also that Great Man. When he was got as high as the Moon and had cast his Eyes upon that lovely Garden a fit of almost supernatural Joy convinced him that that was the place where his Grandfather had heretofore lived He quickly untied the Vessels which he had girt like Wings about his Shoulders and did it so luckily that he was scarcely Four Fathom in the Air above the Moon when he set his Fins a going yet het was high enough still to have been hurt by the fall had it not been for the large skirts of his Gown which being swelled by the Wind gently upheld him till he set Foot on ground As for the two Vessels they mounted up to a certain place where they have continued And those are they which now adays you call the Balance I must now tell you the manner how I came hither I believe you have not forgot my name seeing it is not long since I told it you You shall know then that I lived on the agreeable Banks of one of the most renowned Rivers of your World where amongst my Books I lead a Life pleasant enough not to be lamented though it slipt away fast enough In the mean while the more I encreased in Knowledge the more I knew my Ignorance Our Learned Men never put me in mind of the famous Mada but the thoughts of his perfect Philosophy made me to Sigh I was despairing of being able to attain to it when one day after a long and profound Studying I took a piece of Load-stone about two Foot square which I put into a Furnace and then after it was well purged precipitated and dissolved I drew the calcined Attractive of it and reduced it into the size of about an ordinary Bowl After these Preparations I got a very light Machine of Iron made into which I went and when I was well seated in my place I threw this Magnetick Bowl as high as I could up into the Air. Now the Iron Machine which I had purposely made more massive in the middle than at the ends was presently elevated and in a just Poise because the middle received the greatest force of Attraction So then as I arrived at the place whither my Loadstone had attracted me I presently threw up my Bowl in the Air over me But said I interrupting him How came you to heave up your Bowl so streight over your Chariot that it never happened to be on one side of it That seems to me to be no wonder at all said he for the Loadstone being once thrown up in the Air drew the Iron streight towards it and so it was impossible that ever I should mount side-ways Nay more I can tell you that when I held the Bowl in my hand I was still mounting upwards because the Chariot flew always to the Load-stone which I held over it But the
World no more but the shadow of their Virtues he with his Companions had retreated to Temples and Solitudes In a word added he the People of your World became so dull and stupid that my Companions and I lost all the Pleasure that formerly we had had in instructing them Not but that you have heard Men talk of us for they called us Oracles Nymphs Geniuses Fairies Houshold-Gods Lemmes Larves Lamiers Hobgoblins Nayades Incubusses Shades Manes Visions and Apparitions We abandoned your World in the Reign of Augustus not long after I had appeared to Drusus the Son of Livia who waged War in Germany whom I forbid to proceed any farther It is not long since I came from thence a second time within these Hundred Years I had a Commission to Travel thither I roamed a great deal in Europe and conversed with some whom possibly you may have known One Day amongst others I appeared to Cardan as he was at his Study I taught him a great many things and he in acknowledgment promised me to inform Posterity of whom he had those Wonders which he intended to leave in writing There I saw Agrippa the Abbot Trithemius Doctor Faustus La Brosse Caesar and a certain Cabal of Young Men who are commonly called Rosacrucians or Knights of the Red-Cross whom I taught a great many Knacks and Secrets of Nature which without doubt have made them pass for great Magicians I knew Campanella also it was I that advised him whilst he was in the Inquisition at Rome to put his Face and Body into the usual Postures of those whose inside he needed to know that by the same frame of Body he might excite in himself the thoughts which the same scituation had raised in his Adversaries because by so doing he might better manage their Soul when he came to know it and at my desire he began a Book which we Entituled De Sensu Rerum I likewise haunted in France La Mothe le Vayer and Gassendus this last hath written as much like a Philosopher as the other lived I have known a great many more there whom your Age call Divines but all that I could find in them was a great deal of Babble and a great deal of Pride In fine since I past over from your Country into England to acquaint my self with the manners of its Inhabitants I met with a Man the shame of his Country for certainly it is a great shame for the Grandees of your States to know the virtue which in him has its Throne and not to adore him That I may give you an Abridgement of his Panegyrick he is all Wit all Heart and possesses all the Qualities of which one alone was heretofore sufficient to make an Heroe It was Tristan the Hermite The Truth is I must tell you when I perceived so exalted a Virtue I mistrusted it would not be taken notice of and therefore I endeavoured to make him accept Three Vials the first filled with the Oyl of Talk the other with the Powder of Projection and the third with Aurum Potabile but he refused them with a more generous Disdain than Diogenes did the Complements of Alexander In fine I can add nothing to the Elogy of that Great Man but that he is the only Poet the only Philosopher and the only Free-man amongst you These are the considerable Persons that I conversed with all the rest at least that I know are so far below Men that I have seen Beasts somewhat above them After all I am not a Native neither of this Country nor yours I was born in the Sun but because sometimes our World is over-stock'd with people by reason of the long Lives of the Inhabitants and that there is hardly any Wars or Diseases amongst them Our Magistrates from time to time send Colonies into the neigbouring Worlds For my own part I was commanded to go to yours being declared Chief of the Colony that accompanyed me I came since into this World for the Reasons I told you and that which makes me continue here is because the Men are great lovers of Truth have no Pedants among them that the Philosophers are never perswaded but by Reason and that the Authority of a Doctor or of a great number is not preferred before the Opinion of a Thresher in a Barn when he has right on his side In short none are reckoned Mad-men in this Country but Sophisters and Orators I asked him how they lived he made answer three or four thousand Years and thus went on Though the Inhabitants of the Sun be not so numerous as those of this World yet the Sun is many times over stocked because the People being of a hot constitution are stirring and ambitious and digest much You ought not to be surprised at what I tell you for though our Globe be very vast and yours little though we die not before the end of Four thousand Years and you at the end of Fifty yet know that as there are not so many Stones as clods of Earth nor so many Animals as Plants nor so many Men as Beasts just so there ought not to be so many Spirits as Men by reason of the difficulties that occur in the Generation of a perfect Creature I asked him if they were Bodies as we are He made answer That they were Bodies but not like us nor any thing else which we judged such because we call nothing a Body commonly but what we can touch That in short there was nothing in Nature but what was material and that though they themselves were so yet they were forced when they had a mind to appear to us to take Bodies proportionated to what our Senses are able to know and that without doubt that was the reason why many have taken the Stories that are told of them for the Delusions of a weak Fancy because they only appeared in the night time He told me withal That seeing they were necessitated to piece together the Bodies they were to make use of in great haste many times they had not leisure enough to render them the Objects of more Senses than one at a time sometimes of the Hearing as the Voices of Oracles sometimes of the Sight as the Fires and Visions sometimes of the Feeling as the Incubusses and that these Bodies being but Air condensed in such or such a manner the Light dispersed them by its heat in the same manner as it scatters a Mist So many fine things as he told me gave me the curiosity to question him about his Birth and Death if in the Country of the Sun the individual was procreated by the ways of Generation and if it died by the dissolution of its Constitution or the discomposure of its Organs Your senses replied he bear but too little proportion to the Explication of these Mysteries Ye Gentlemen imagine that whatsoever you cannot comprehend is spiritual or that it is not at all but that Consequence is absurd and it is an argument that
Monsieur de Cyrano my Cousin who advanced me Money for my Return I went to Civita vecchia and embarked in a Galley that carried me to Marseilles During all this Voyage my mind run upon nothing but the Wonders of the last I made At that time I began the Memoires of it and after my return put them into as good order as Sickness which confines me to Bed would permit But foreseeing that it will put an end to all my Studies and Travels that I may be as good as my word to the Council of that World I have begg'd of Monsieur le Bret my dearest and most constant Friend that he would publish them with the History of the Republick of the Sun that of the Spark and some other Pieces of my Composing if those who have Stolen them from us restore them to him as I earnestly adjure them to do FINIS ERRATA PAge 17. line ult read Telescope p. 39. l. 18. add long p. 58. l. 5. r. were p. 65. l. 2. r. ends p. 99. l. 14. r. who p. 100. l. 21. r. an THE Comical History OF THE STATES and EMPIRES OF THE WORLD OF THE SUN Written in French by Cyrano Bergerac And now Englished by A. Lovell A. M. LONDON Printed for Henry Rhodes next door to Swan-Tavern near Bride-Lane in Fleet-Street 1687. THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD OF THE SUN OUR Ship at length arrived in the Harbour of Toulon where the Passengers being immediately put ashore and having thanked the Winds and Stars for the Prosperity of our Voyage we mutually embrac'd and took our leave one of another For my part seeing in the World of the Moon whence I came a Song goes for Money no that I had quite forgot the use of it the hunest Master thought himself sufficiently paid for my passage by the Honour he had of carrying on Board a Man who had dropt from Heaven So that nothing hindred our Progress to a Friends House of mine near Thoulouse I was impatient of seeing him in hopes that I might fill him with Joy by the Relation of my Adventures I shall not trouble you with an account of all that happened to me upon the Road I tired my self and took rest I felt hunger and thirst and drank and eat amidst a Pack of twenty or thirty Hounds that belonged to him Though I was much disfigured lean and Sun-burnt he knew me for all that being transported with Joy he flew about my Neck and having in an Extasie of Content kissed me above an hundred times he pulled me into his House where so soon as Tears had given way to Words We live now at length cried he and shall live in spight of all the Accidents wherewith Fortune hath tossed our Life But Good God! It was a false report then that you were burnt in Canada in that great Fire-work whereof you were the Inventor And nevertheless two or three Persons of Credit amongst those who brought me the sad Tidings swore to me that they had seen and touched that Bird of Wood wherein you were hurried away They told me that it was your Misfortune to go into it at the very instant they put Fire to it and that the rapid Force of the Squibs that burnt all round it carried you so high that the Spectators lost sight of you So that as they protested you were to that degree consumed that the Machine falling down again very little of your Ashes were to befound These Ashes Sir then answered I were the Ashes of 〈◊〉 Machine it self for the Fire did not 〈…〉 hurt The Fire-works were fastened on the outside and by consequence their Heat would not incommode me Now you must know that so soon as the Salt-peter was spent the impetuous force of the Fire-works being no longer able to bear up the Machine it fell to the Ground I saw it fall and when I thought to have tumbled down head-long with it I was very much surprized to find that I mounted up towards the Moon But I must explain to you the Cause of an effect which you may look upon as a Miracle The Day when that Accident happened I had because of some bruises rubbed my Body all over with Marrow Now the Moon being then in the Wain at which time she attracts Marrow she suckt up so greedily that wherewith I had anointed my Flesh especially when my box was got above the middle Region where no Clouds interposed to weaken her Influence that my Body followed the Attraction and I protest she continued to suck me up so long that at length I arrived at that World which here they call the Moon Then I told him in full all the particulars of my Voyage and Monsieur de Colignac ravished to hear things so extraordinary adjured me to put them in Writing I who love Repose declined it as long as I could by reason of the visits that such a Publication in all probability world procure me but being out of Countenance at the Reproach wherewith he constantly baited me that I made slight of his Entreaties I resolved at length to give him that satisfaction I put Pen to Paper then and he being more impatiently tickled with my glory than his own no sooner had I made an end of a Sheet but he hastened with it to Thoulouse there to give it vent in the most ingenious Assemblies Seeing he had the Reputation of one of the wittiest Men of the Age my Praises of which he was the indefatigable Herald made me known of all Men. The Engravers without ever having seen me had already engraven my Picture and the Hawkers stunned the whole City crying about the Streets till they were hoarse again who 'll buy the Picture of the Author of the States and Empires of the Moon Amongst those who read my Book there were a great many Ignorants that were likewise medling These that they might act the Wits of the highest flight applauded as others did clapt at every Word for fear of being mistaken and ravished with delight cry'd It 's good even where they understood not a tittle But Superstition disguized into Remorse which hath very sharp Teeth under a Fool 's Coat so knaw'd the Heart of them that they chose rather to renounce the Reputation of a Philosopher which indeed was a Habit that did not at all become them than to answer for it at the day of Judgment Here then is the Reverse of the Medal he 's the best Man now that can retract first The work they had so much esteemed is no more now but a Hodge-podge of ridiculous Tales a heap of incoherent Shreds a Fardel of idle stories to wheadle young Children to Bed with and some who hardly understood the Grammar of it condemned the Author to Bedlam This clashing of Opinions betwixt the Wise-men and Fools encreased its Reputation Shortly afterwards Manuscript-copies of it were sold privately all the World and what is out of the World also that 's to say all from the Gentleman to
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
cause the Servants to cut meat for me he had sometimes the goodness to prepare it for me himself If I catcht cold in the Winter he carried me to the Fire lined my Cage or ordered the Gardiner to warm me in his Bosom The Servants durst not vex me in his presence and one day I remember he saved me from the Jaws of the Cat who held me in her Paws to which my Lady 's little Page had exposed me but it will not be impertinent to tell you the Cause of that Barbarity To comply with Verdelet for that was the Page's name I was chattering one day some idle words that he had taught me Now it happened as ill Luck would have it though I always repeated my Lessons in course that I came to say in order just as he came in to deliver a Message Be quiet you Son of a Whore you lye The Man there that stands Indicted who knowing the Rogue to be naturally given to Lying imagined that I might very well have spoken by Prophecy and sent to the place to know if Verdelet had been there Verdelet was convinced of his Knavery Verdelet was whipt and Verdelet in revenge would have had me devoured by Maulkin The King by a Nod of the head shew'd that he was satisfied with the Pity that she had conceived for my disaster However he discharged her to speak any more to me in private Then he asked my Adversary's Council if his Plea was ready He made a sign with his Foot that he was going to speak and if I mistake it not these are the Points whereon he insisted against me The Plea brought in the Parliament of Birds Assembled against an Animal accused of being a Man. Gentlemen The Plaintiff is Guillemot the Fleshy a Partridge by extraction lately arrived from the World of the Earth his Breast still gaping by a shot that he hath received from Men Demandant against all Mankind and by consequence against an Animal whom I pretend to be a member of that great Body It would be no hard matter for us to hinder by his death the Violences that he can commit Nevertheless seeing the Preservation or Loss of every thing that has breath concerns the Common-Wealth of the Living I think we should deserve to have been made Men that 's to say Degraded from Reason and Immortality which we enjoy above them had we resembled them in any unjust Action like theirs Let us examine then Gentlemen the Difficulties of this Cause with all the Application that our divine minds are capable of The stress of the matter lies here to wit Whether or not this Animal be a Man and then in case we make it out that he is whether or not he deserves Death for that For my part I make no doubt but that he is in the first place Because he is so impudent as to tell a Lye in maintaining that he is not in the second place Because he laughs like a Fool thirdly In that he weeps like a Sot fourthly In that he blows his Nose like a nasty Villain fifthly In that he is Feathered but in part sixthly In that he carries his Tail before seventhly In that he hath always a great many little square Bones in his Mouth which he has neither the wit to spit out nor swallow down eighthly and lastly Because every Morning he lifts up his Eyes his Nose and large Snout claps his open Hands close together which he points up to Heaven joins them into one piece as if it troubled him to have two at liberty breaks his Legs short off by the middle so that he falls upon his Geegots and then by Magical words that he mutters I have observed That his broken Legs are knit again and that he rises up as gay as he was before Now you know Gentlemen that amongst all Animals none but Man has so black a Soul as to be given to Magick and by consequence I conclude That this is a Man We are now to enquire whether or not as Man he deserves to be put to death I think Gentlemen it never was yet doubted but that all Creatures are produced by our common Mother to live together in Society Now if I prove that Man seems to be Born only to break it shall I not make it out that he going contrary to the end of his Creation deserves that Nature should repent her self of her work The first and fundamental Law for the maintenance of a Republick is Equality But Man cannot endure it to Eternity he falls upon us that he may eat us he perswades himself that we were only made for his use he makes the Barbarity wherewith he massacres us and the small Resistance he finds on our side an Argument of his pretended Superiority And nevertheless wo'nt own Eagles Condores and Griffins who are too hard for the strongest Man to be his Masters But why should that great Size and conformation of Members make the diversity of Kind seeing there are Dwarffs and Giants to be found amongst Men themselves Nay more that Empire wherewith they flatter themselves is but an imaginary Right On the contrary they are so inclinable to Servitude that least they should not serve they fell one another for Slaves In this manner the Young are Slaves to the Old the Poor to the Rich the Clowns to the Gentlemen the Princes to the Monarchs and the Monarchs themselves to the Laws which they have Established And besides all that the poor Drudges are so afraid to be without Masters that as if they apprehended that Liberty might come to them from some unexpected place they frame to themselves Gods in all parts in the Water in the Air in the Fire and under the Earth they 'll make them of Wood rather than want nay I fancy also that they tickle themselves with the vain hopes of Immortality not so much out of a Horrour that they have of being annihilated as for fear that they may have none to command them after their death Here 's the fine effect of that fantastical Monarchy and of that natural Empire of Man as they would have it over the Animals nay and over us too for he has been so insolent as even to pretend to that In the mean while in consequence of that ridiculous Principality he fairly takes to himself the power of Life and Death over us he lays snares for us chains us claps us up in Prison kills us eats us and makes the power of killing those which remain free a mark of Nobility He thinks that the Sun is lighted on purpose to let him see how to make War against us that Nature hath only suffered us to take our turns in the Air that from our flight he may draw lucky or unlucky Auspices and that when God put Entrails into our Bodies his intention only was to make a great Book wherein Man might learn the Science of future Contingencies Good then is not this unsupportable Pride Could any that 's