The Consolidator | Page 8

this might be one of the Summits of Ararat, with some Confutations of
the gross and palpable Errors, which place this extraordinary Skill
among the Mountains of the Moon in Africa.
Also you have here a Muse calcin'd, a little of the Powder of which
given to a Woman big with Child, if it be a Boy it will be a Poet, if a
Girl she'll be a Whore, if an Hermaphrodite it will be Lunatick.
Strange things, they tell us, have been done with this calcin'd Womb of
Imagination; if the Body it came from was a Lyrick Poet, the Child will
be a Beau, or a Beauty; if an Heroick Poet, he will be a Bulley; if his
Talent was Satyr, he'll be a Philosopher.
Another Muse they tell us, they have dissolv'd into a Liquid, and kept
with wondrous Art, the Vertues of which are Soveraign against
Ideotism, Dullness, and all sorts of Lethargick Diseases; but if given in
too great a quantity, creates Poesy, Poverty, Lunacy, and the Devil in
the Head ever after.
I confess, I always thought these Muses strange intoxicating things, and
have heard much talk of their Original, but never was acquainted with
their Vertue a la Simple before; however, I would always advise People
against too large a Dose of Wit, and think the Physician must be a
Mad-man that will venture to prescribe it.
As all these noble Acquirements came down with this wonderful Man
from the World in the Moon, it furnisht me with these useful
Observations.
1. That Country must needs be a Place of strange Perfection, in all parts
of extraordinary Knowledge.

2. How useful a thing it would be for most sorts of our People,
especially Statesmen, P----t-men, Convocation-men, Phylosophers,
Physicians, Quacks, Mountebanks, Stock-jobbers, and all the Mob of
the Nation's Civil or Ecclesiastical Bone-setters, together with some
Men of the Law, some of the Sword, and all of the Pen: I say, how
useful and improving a thing it must be to them, to take a Journey up to
the World in the Moon; but above all, how much more beneficial it
would be to them that stay'd behind.
3. That it is not to be wonder'd at, why the Chinese excell so much all
these Parts of the World, since but for that Knowledge which comes
down to them from the World in the Moon, they would be like other
People.
4. No Man need to Wonder at my exceeding desire to go up to the
World in the Moon, having heard of such extraordinary Knowledge to
be obtained there, since in the search of Knowledge and Truth, wiser
Men than I have taken as unwarrantable Flights, and gone a great deal
higher than the Moon, into a strange Abbyss of dark Phanomena, which
they neither could make other People understand, nor ever rightly
understood themselves, witness Malbranch, Mr. Lock, Hobbs, the
Honourable Boyle and a great many others, besides Messieurs Norris,
Asgil, Coward, and the Tale of a Tub.
This great Searcher into Nature has, besides all this, left wonderful
Discoveries and Experiments behind him; but I was with nothing more
exceedingly diverted, than with his various Engines, and curious
Contrivances, to go to and from his own Native Country the Moon. All
our Mechanick Motions of Bishop Wilkins, or the artificial Wings of
the Learned Spaniard, who could have taught God Almighty how to
have mended the Creation, are Fools to this Gentleman; and because no
Man in China has made more Voyages up into the Moon than my self, I
cannot but give you some Account of the easyness of the Passage, as
well as of the Country.
Nor are his wonderful Tellescopes of a mean Quality, by which such
plain Discoveries are made, of the Lands and Seas in the Moon, and in
all the habitable Planets, that one may as plainly fee what a Clock it is

by one of the Dials in the Moon, as if it were no farther off than
Windsor-Castle; and had he liv'd to finish the Speaking-trumpet which
he had contriv'd to convey Sound thither, Harlequin's Mock-Trumpet
had been a Fool to it; and it had no doubt been an admirable
Experiment, to have given us a general Advantage from all their
acquir'd Knowledge in those Regions, where no doubt several useful
Discoveries are daily made by the Men of Thought for the
Improvement of all sorts of humane Understanding, and to have
discoursed with them on those things, must have been very pleasant,
besides, its being very much to our particular Advantage.
I confess, I have thought it might have been very useful to this Nation,
to have brought so wonderful an Invention hither, and I was once very
desirous to have set up my