The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon. Defoe Daniel
these Gentlemen, That if they please to Travel to these distant Parts, and examine this great Master of Nature's Secrets, they may every Man see what cross Strokes Nature has struck, to finish and form every extravagant Species of that Heterogenious Kind we call Wit.
There C- S- may be inform'd how he comes to be very Witty, and a Mad-man all at once; and P-r may see, That with less Brains and more P-x he is more a Wit and more a Mad-man than the Coll. Ad-son may tell his Master my Lord – the reason from Nature, why he would not take the Court's Word, nor write the Poem call'd, The Campaign, till he had 200 l. per Annum secur'd to him; since 'tis known they have but one Author in the Nation that writes for 'em for nothing, and he is labouring very hard to obtain the Title of Blockhead, and not be paid for it: Here D. might understand, how he came to be able to banter all Mankind, and yet all Mankind be able to banter him; at the fame time our numerous throng of Parnassians may see Reasons for the variety of the Negative and Positive Blessings they enjoy; some for having Wit and no Verse, some Verse and no Wit, some Mirth without Jest, some Jest without Fore-cast, some Rhyme and no Jingle, some all Jingle and no Rhyme, some Language without measure; some all Quantity and no Cudence, some all Wit and no Sence, some all Sence and no Flame, some Preach in Rhyme, some sing when they Preach, some all Song and no Tune, some all Tune and no Song; all these Unaccountables have their Originals, and can be answer'd for in unerring Nature, tho' in our out-side Guesses we can say little to it. Here is to be seen, why some are all Nature, some all Art; some beat Verse out of the Twenty-four rough Letters, with Ten Hammers and Anvils to every Line, and maul the Language as a Swede beats Stock-Fish; Others buff Nature, and bully her out of whole Stanza's of ready-made Lines at a time, carry all before them, and rumble like distant Thunder in a black Cloud: Thus Degrees and Capacities are fitted by Nature, according to Organick Efficacy; and the Reason and Nature of Things are found in themselves: Had D-y seen his own Draft by this Light of Chinese Knowledge, he might have known he should be a Coxcomb without writing Twenty-two Plays, to stand as so many Records against him. Dryden might have told his Fate, that having his extraordinary Genius flung and pitcht upon a Swivle, it would certainly turn round as fast as the Times, and instruct him how to write Elegies to O. C. and King C. the Second, with all the Coherence imaginable; how to write Religio Laicy, and the Hind and Panther, and yet be the same Man, every Day to change his Principle, change his Religion, change his Coat, change his Master, and yet never change his Nature.
There are abundance of other Secrets in Nature discover'd in relation to these things, too many to repeat, and yet too useful to omit, as the reason why Phisicians are generally Atheists; and why Atheists are universally Fools, and generally live to know it themselves, the real Obstructions, which prevent fools being mad, all the Natural Causes of Love, abundance of Demonstrations of the Synonimous Nature of Love and Leachery, especially consider'd a la Modern, with an absolute Specifick for the Frenzy of Love, found out in the Constitution, Anglice, a Halter.
It would be endless to reckon up the numerous Improvements, and wonderful Discoveries this extraordinary Person has brought down, and which are to be seen in his curious Chamber of Rarities.
Particularly, a Map of Parnassus, with an exact Delineation of all the Cells, Apartments, Palaces and Dungeons, of that most famous Mountain; with a Description of its Heighth, and a learned Dissertation, proving it to be the properest Place next to the P-e House to take a Rise at, for a flight to the World in the Moon.
Also some Enquiries, whether Noah's Ark did not first rest upon it; and 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 Phænomena, 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 rest here, and for the Benefit of my Native Country, have made my self Master of these Engines, that I might in due time have convey'd them to our Royal Society, that once in 40 Years they might have been said to do something for Publick Good; and that the Reputation and Usefulness of the so so's might be recover'd in England; but being told that in the Moon there were many of these Glasses to be had very cheap, and I having declar'd my Resolution of undertaking a Voyage thither, I