Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A39865
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A discovery of new worlds from the French, made English by A. Behn.
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Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757.; Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing F1412; ESTC R27986
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79,769
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206
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A DISCOVERY OF New Worlds From the FRENCH Made ENGLISH By Mrs. A. BEHN To which is prefixed a PREFACE by way of ESSAY on Translated PROSE wherein the Arguments of Father Tacquet and others against the System of Copernicus as to the Motion of the Earth are likewise considered and answered Wholly new LONDON Printed for William Canning at his Shop in the Temple-Cloysters 1688. To the Right Honourable William Earl of Drumlangrig Eldest Son to his Grace William Duke of Queensberry and one of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council in the Kingdom of Scotland My Lord THe Esteem I have for your Nation in general and the great Veneration I am obliged to have for some particular Persons of Quality of it has made me ambitious of being known to all those of Wit and fine Parts Amongst that Number none has a greater Character than your Lordship whose early Knowledge of all that is excellent in Learning and of all the Graces of the Mind promised the World that accomplished Great Man it now with so much Pride and Satisfaction beholds and which even without the addition of your illustrious Birth were sufficient to gain you the Esteem of all Mankind and you are never mentioned but with such vast Accumulations of Praise as are given only to uncommon Men and such as something extraordinary alone can merit To all your advantages of Nature elevated Birth Virtue Knowledge Wit Youth and Honours to compleat your Happiness Fortune has added her part too and has ally'd your Lordship by Marriage to the Great and Noble Family of Burlington which has at once been honour'd with more Earls than any great Family cou'd ever boast and whose Vertues and Loyalty deserve particular and lasting Trophies to celebrate them to Posterity My Lord I presume to dedicate this little Book to your Lordship which I ventured to translate because it pleased me in the French and tho but a trifle has something in it out of the way of ordinary Wit which renders it more worthy to be laid at your Lordships Feet If it is not done with that exactness it merits I hope your Lordship will pardon it in a Woman who is not supposed to be well versed in the Terms of Philosophy being but a new beginner in that Science but where I have failed your Lordship's Judgment can supply and if it finds acceptance with your Lordship I am already so much a Philosopher as to despise what the World says of it and will pride my self only in being My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and most obedient Servant A. Behn The Translator's PREFACE THE General Applause this little Book of the Plurality of Worlds has met with both in France and England in the Original made me attempt to translate it into English. The Reputation of the Author who is the same who writ the Dialogues of the Dead the Novelty of the Subject in vulgar Languages and the Authors introducing a Woman as one of the speakers in these five Discourses were further Motives for me to undertake this little work for I thought an English Woman might adventure to translate any thing a French Woman may be supposed to have spoken But when I had made a Tryal I found the Task not so easie as I believed at first Therefore before I say any thing either of the Design of the Author or of the Book it self give me leave to say someting of Translation of Prose in general As for Translation of Verse nothing can be added to that Incomparable Essay of the late Earl of Roscommon the nearer the Idioms or turn of the Phrase of two Languages agree 't is the easier to translate one into the other The Italian Spanish and French are all three at best Corruptions of the Latin with the mixture of Gothick Arabick and Gaulish Words The Italian as it is nearest the Latin is also nearest the English For its mixture being composed of Latin and the Language of the Goths Vandals and other Northern Nations who over-ran the Roman Empire and conquer'd its Language with its Provinces most of these Northern Nations spoke the Teutonick or Dialects of it of which the English is one also and that 's the Reason that the English and Italian learn the Language of one another sooner than any other because not only the Phrase but the Accent of both do very much agree the Spanish is next of kin to the English for almost the same Reason Because the Goths and Vandals having over-run Africk and kept Possession of it for some hundred of Years where mixing with the Moors no doubt gave them a great Tincture of their Tongue These Moors afterwards invaded and conquered Spain besides Spain was before that also invaded and conquered by the Goths who possessed it long after the time of the two Sons of Theodosius the Great Arcadus and Honorius The French as it is most remote from the Latin so the Phrase and Accent differ most from the English It may be it is more agreeable with the Welsh which is near a-kin to the Basbritton and Biscagne Languages which is derived from the old Celtick Tongue the first that was spoken amongst the Ancient Gauls who descended from the Celts The French therefore is of all the hardest to translate into English. For Proof of this there are other Reasons also And first the nearer the Genious and Humour of two Nations agree the Idioms of their Speech are the nearer and every Body knows there is more Affinity between the English and Italian People than the English and the French as to their Humours and for that Reason and for what I have said before it is very difficult to translate Spanish into French and I believe hardly possible to translate French into Dutch. The second Reason is the Italian Language is the same now it was some hundred of Years ago so is the Spanish not only as to the Phrase but even as to the Words and Orthography whereas the French Language has suffered more Changes this hundred Years past since Francis the first than the Fashions of their Cloths and Ribbons in Phrase Words and Orthography So that I am confident a French Man a hundred Years hence will no more understand an old Edition of Froisard's History than he will understand Arabick I confess the French Arms Money and Intrigues have made their Language very universal of late for this they are to be commended It is an Accident which they owe to the greatness of their King and their own Industry and it may fall out hereafter to be otherwise A third Reason is as I said before that the French being a Corruption of the Latin French Authors take a liberty to borrow whatever Word they want from the Latin without farther Ceremony especially when they treat of Sciences This the English do not do but at second hand from the French. It is Modish to Ape the French in every thing Therefore we not only naturalize their words but words
great Tourbillions remain where they did before and 't is a strange Misfortune that there shou'd be certain fixed Stars which appear to us and after a great deal of time of appearing and dis-appearing entirely vanish and are lost In that time the Half-Suns I spoke of wou'd appear again and Suns that were sunk into the Heavens wou'd dis-appear once and not to appear again for a long time Resolve well what to think Madam and take Courage there is a necessity that these Stars must be Suns which grown obscure enough to be invisible to our sight are afterwards enlightned and in the end must lie extinguished How said the Marquiese Can a Sun be obscur'd or entirely extinguish'd who is himself the Fountain of Light The most easily in the World said I Madam According to the Opinion of Des Cartes our Sun has Spots let 'em be Scum or Vapours or what else you will these Spots may condense and many of 'em may come together and form a kind of Crust which may afterwards augment and then farewel the Sun and all its Light. 'T is said we escap'd once very hardly for the Sun was grown extreamly pale for several Years together and particularly the Year after the Death of Iulius Caesar it was that Crust that began to gather and the Face of the Sun brake and dissipated it but had it continu'd we had been all undone You make me tremble said the Marquiese and now that I understand the Consequences of the paleness of the Sun I shall henceforth every Morning instead of going to my Looking-Glass to consult my own Face go and look up to the Heavens to consider that of the Sun. Madam said I be assur'd there goes a great deal of time to ruin a World. Then said she there is nothing requisite but Time. I acknowledge it Madam said I all this vast Mass of Matter which composes the Universe is in perpetual Motion from which no part of it is entirely exempt and therefore Changes must come sooner or later but always in Time proportionable to the Effect The Ancients were foolish to imagine that the Celestial Bodies were of an unchangeable Nature because they never saw any Change in 'em but they had neither Leisure nor Life long enough to undeceive themselves by Experience but the Ancients were young in respect of us Suppose now Madam that the Roses which last but for a Day shou'd write Histories and leave Memorials from one to another the first wou'd have describ'd the Picture of their Gardener of a certain manner and after fifteen thousand Ages of Roses the others that had follow'd 'em wou'd have alter'd nothing in that Description of the Gardener but wou'd have said We have always seen the same Gardener since the Memory of Roses we have seen but him he has always been as he is he dies not as we do nay he changes not and certainly will never be other than what he is Wou'd this way of arguing of the Roses be good Yet it wou'd be better grounded than that of the Ancients concerning Celestial Bodies and tho' there had never happen'd any Change in the Heavens to this Day and tho' they shou'd seem to last for ever yet I wou'd not believe it but wou'd wait for a longer Experience nor ought we to measure the Duration of any thing by that of our own scanty Life Suppose a thing had a Being a hundred thousand times longer than ours shou'd we therefore conclude it shou'd last for ever Eternity is not so easie a matter and some things must have pass'd many Ages of Men one after another before any sign of Decay had appear'd in ' em I am not so unreasonable said the Marquiese as to consider the Worlds as things eternal nor will I do them the honour to compare 'em to your Gardener who liv'd so many Ages longer than the Roses They are themselves but as a Rose which are produc'd but in a Garden that bud one Day and fall the next and as those Roses die new ones succeed so for some ancient Stars that dis-appear other new ones are born in their places and that Defect in Nature must be so repair'd and no Species can totally perish Some will tell you they are Suns which draw near to us after having been long lost in the depth of Heavens Others will say they are Suns that have cast off the Crust which began to cover them If I cou'd easily believe all this yet I shou'd believe also that the Universe was made in such a manner that new Suns have been and may be form'd in it from time to time and what shou'd hinder the Substance proper to make Suns from gathering together and producing new Worlds And I am the more inclin'd to believe these new Productions since they are more correspondent to the great Idea I have of the glorious Works of Nature And why shou'd not she who knows the Secret to bring forth and destroy Herbs Plants and Flowers in a continu'd Succession practise also the same Secret on the Worlds since one costs her no more Pains and Expence than the other Indeed says the Marquiese I find the Worlds the Heavens and the Celestial Bodies so subject to change that I am altogether returned to my self Let us return yet more said I and if you please make this subject no longer that of our Discourse besides you are arriv'd at the utmost bounds of Heaven and to tell you that there are any Stars beyond that were to make my self a wiser Man than I am place Worlds there or place none there it depends upon your Will. These vast invisible Regions are properly the Empires of Philosophers which it may be are or are not as they themselves shall fansie 'T is sufficient for me to have carried your Understanding as far as your sight can penetrate What cry'd out the Marquiese have I the Systemes of all the Universe in my Head am I become so learned Yes Madam you know enough and with this Advantage that you may believe all or nothing of what I have said as you please I only beg this as a Recompence for my pains that you will never look on the Heavens Sun Moon or Stars without thinking of me FINIS Books lately Printed for W. Canning LA Montre or The Lover's Watch by Mrs. Behn The Lucky Chance or An Alderman's Bargain A Comedy By Mrs. Behn The Island-Princess or Generous Portuguese A Comedy Altered by Mr. Tate An Historical and Geographical Account of the Morea Negropont and the Maritime Places as far as Thessalonica Illustrated with forty two Maps of the Countries Plains and Draughts of the Cities Towns and Fortifications Written in Italian by P. M. Coronelli Geographer to the Republick of Venice Englished by R. W. Gent. Gesta Grayorum or The History of the high and mighty Prince Henry Prince of Purpoole Arch-Duke of Stapulia and Bernardia Duke of High and Nether Holborn Marquis of St. Giles and Tottenham Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington Kentish-Town Paddington and Knights-bridge Knight of the most Heroical Order of the Helmet and Sovereign of the same Who reigned and died A. D. 1594. Together with a Masque as it was presented by His Highness's Command for the Entertainment of Q. Elizabeth who with the Nobles of both Courts was present thereat Hearing a Translation of the Plurality of Worlds was doing by another Hand the Translator had not the opportunity to supervise and correct the Sheets before they were wrought off so that several Errata have escaped The most material ones are under-written PAge 17. line 26. read Piraeum p. 20. l. 21. for Beams r. Bodies p. 21. l. 6. f. least r. last p. 28. l. 1. f. Circle r. Earth p. 29. l. ult f. Circle r. Earth p. 30. l. 13. f. every r. any p. 32. l. 1. f. as r. it s p. 34. l. 6. f. hands r. heads p. 36. l. 28. for twenty r. two or three p. 37. l. 11. for twenty r. two or three p. 38. l. 17. del to remove p. 44. l. 20. r. Diaphanous p. 48. l. 13. r. hath day p. 50. l. 21. f. certain r. say it is p. 65. l. 17. f. Waves r. Sea. l. 18. f. vessel is r. waves were p. 72. l. ult r. irregularly p. 76. l. 25. f. as a rounded r. around her p. 77. l. 2. f. Air r. one p. 85. l. 13. for Refections r. Refractions ibid. l. 25. after I do add not p. 92. l. 16. f. varieties r. vacuities p. 100. l. 20. f. easts r. lasts p. 106. l. 23. f. effects r. defects p. 109. l. 8. r. or Whirlings p. 125. l. 19. f. flying r. shining p. 147. l. 26. f. braz'd r. embarass'd p. 154. l. 8. f. face r. force or heat