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of fome Divinity ; but the Occafionof Machines, in the one and the other, being fomewhat different, the Rules and Laws of managing them are different likewife. The antient Dramatic Poets never brought any Machine on the Stage, but where there was an abfolute Neceftity for thePrefence of a God ; and were generally laughed, at for fufiering themfelves to be reduced to fuch a Ne^ ceffity. Accordingly Ariftotle lays it down as an exprefs Law, that the unravelling of the Piece fliould arife from the Fable itfelf 5 and not from any foreign Machine, as in the Medea. Horace is fome thing lefs fevere ; and contents himfelf with faying, that the Gods ihould ne- ver appear, unlefs the Nodus, or Knot, were worthy of their Prefence j Nee Veus interfit, wfi dignus Vin dice No- dus, — incident. But 'tis quite other wife in the Epopea ; there muft be Machines every where, and in every Parr. Homer and Virgil do nothing without them. Petronius, with his ufual Fire, maintains, that the Poets mould deal more with the Gods than with Men j that he fhould every where leave Marks of his prophetic Raptures, and of the Divine Fury that poffeffes him ■■> that his Thoughts be all full of Fables, that is, of Allegories and Figures: In fine, he will have a Poem diftingui/hed from an Hi- ilory in all its Parts ; not fo much by the "Verfes, as by that Poetical Fury which expreffes itfelf wholly by Al- legories ; and does nothing but by Machines, or the Mi- niftry of the Gods. A Poet therefore mud leave it to the Hiftorians to fay, that a Fleet was difperfed by a Storm, and driven to foreign Shores ; and muft himfelf fay with Virgil, that Juno went to feek Eolus, and that this God, at her Requeft, turned the Winds Ioofe a- gainft the Trojans. He muft leave the Hiftorian to write, that a young Prince behaved himfelf with a great deal of Prudence and Difcretion on all Occafiohsj and muft fay with Homer, that Minerva led him as it were by the hand in all his Enterprizes. Let an Hifto- rian fay, that Agamemnon, quarrelling with Achilles, has a mind to fticw him, tho' miflakingly, that he can take Troy without his Affiilance. The Poet muft fay that Tic- tis, piqued at the Affront her Son had received, flics up to Heaven to demand Vengeance of jifiter 5 and that this God, to fatisfy her, fends the God Sbtiims, or Sleep, to Agamemnon, to deceive him, and make him believe that'he /hall take Troy that day. 'Tis thus that the Epic Poets ufed Machines in all Paris of their Works ; In the Iliad, Odyffee, and JEneid, the Proportion men- tions them?; the Invocation is addreffed to them 5 and the Narration is full of them : they are the Caufes of Actions j they make the Knots, and at laft they unravel them. This laft Circumftance is what Arijiotle forbids in the Drama ; but 'tis what Homer and Virgil have both praclifcd in the Epofea. Thus Mmerva fights for Vlvffes againft Penelope's Lovers, helps him to deftroy them ; and the next Day herfelf, makes the Peace between Ulvffes and the Jthacans, which clofesthe Odyffee.
further, the Ufe of Machines, in the Epic Poem, is, on fome Accounts, entirely oppofite to what Horace pre- fcribes for the Theatre. In Tragedy that Critic will ne- ver have them us'd without an abfolute Necefnty j whereas in the Efofea they mould never be ufed but where they may he well let alone ; and where the Ac- tion appears as if it did not neceffarily require them. How many Gods and Machines docs Virgil implore to raife the Storm that drives JEneas into Carthage ? which yet might eafily have happened in the ordinary Courfe of Mature. Machines, in the Epic Poem, therefore are not Contrivances of the Poet, to recover himfelf after he has made a falfe Step ; nor to folve any Difficulty pro- per to fome Parts of the Poem : but 'tis the Prefence of a Divinity, and fome fupernatural and extraordinary Ac tion which the Poet inferts in 1110ft of the Incidents of his Work, to render it more majeftick and admirable j and to train his Readers to Piety and Virtue. This Mixture ihould be fo managed, as that the Machines may be retrenched, without retrenching any thing from the Aclion.
As to the Manner in which the Machine* are to act J it may be obferved, that in the old Mythology there are Gods both good, bad, and indifferent ; and that our Paf- fions may be converted into fo many allegorical Divini- ties : fothat every thing, both good and bad in a Poem, may be attributed to thefe Machines, and may be tranf- actedby them. They don't however always act. in the fame manner ; fometimes they aft without appearing, and by fimple Infpirations, which have nothing in them extraordinary or miraculous ; as when we fay the Devil fuggefted fuch a Thought, &c. The fecond Manner of their acting is entirely miraculous; as when a Divinity prefents itfelf vifibly before Men, fo as to be known by them 5 or when they difguife themfelves under fome hu- man Form without difcovermg themfelves. The third Manner partakes of each of the two, and confifts in
Oracles, Dreams, and extraordinary Infpirations ; which hojju calls Demi- Machines. All thefe Manners ought to be fo managed, as to carry a Verifimilitude ; and tho' Verifimilitude be of a vaft Extent in Machines, as being founded on the Divine Power ; yet has it Bounds. Ho- race propofes three kinds of Machines for the Stage ; the firft is a God vifibly pre fent among the Actors, which, he fays, ihould never be introdue'd but on a great Oc- cafion. The fecond contains more incredible and ex- traor dinar y Machines 5 as the Metamorphofisof Progne in- to a Swallow, of Cadmus into a Serpent : and even thefe Machines he does not abfolutely condemn or exclude wholly out of the Poem, but only out ot the Scene and the Sight of the Spectators : they are not to be repre- fented, but may be recited. The third kind of Machines is abfolutely abfurd ; and he rejects it entirely: the In* ftance he gives, is that of a Child taken alive out of the Belly of a Monfter that had devoured it. The other two Manners are allow'd indifferently in the Epopea ; and without that Diftinclion of Horace, which only fuits the Stage ; it being in the Drama alone, that a Difference may be made between what pafies in the Scene, or the Sight of the Spectators, and what behind the Curtain. ■See Bofft.
MACROCEPHALUS, from^x*} magma, great, and xAtpahYi, Captt, the Head, is fometimes ufed to fignify an Head larger than of a natural Si ze.
MACROCOSM, a Term feldom ufed but in oppoli- tion to Microcofm. By Macrocofm we mean the World 5 and by Microcofm, which iignifies little World, we mean Man. The Wor.d Macrocofm is form'd from the Greek ;Ak^, Great, and xor//©-, World.
MACULE, in Aftronomy, dark Spots, of an irregular changeable Figure } obferved in the face of the Sun : firft taken notice of by Scheiner in 1611, and afterwards accurately obferved by Gallilens, He-veluts, Mr. Flamjiead, Caffmi, Kirch, &.c Many of thefe Macule appear tocon- fiit of heterogeneous Parts ; whereof the darker and more denfe are call'd by Heielius, Nuclei, and are incom- paffed, as it were, with Atmofpheres fomewhat rarer and lefs obfeure j but the Figure both of the Nuclei and entire MacuU are variable. In 1644, Hevelius obferv'd a fmall thin Macula, which in two Days time grew to ten times its Bulk j appearing withal much darker, and with a larger Nucleus j and fuch fudden Mutations are fre- quent. The Nucleus, he obferv'd, began to fail fenfibly e'er the Spot disappeared, and that, e'er it quite va- nifhed, broke into four, which in two Days reunited. Some MacnUc have lafted 2, 3, 10, 15, 2c, 30, feldom 49 Days, tho' Kirchius obferv'd one in 1 6 8 j , from Afril 26 to the 17 th of July. The Spots move over the Sun's Disk, with a Motion fomewhat fmaUer near the Limb than near the Centre j that obferv'd by Kirch was twelve Days vifible in the Sun's Disk ; for fifteen Days more it lay hid behind it ; it being their Rule to return to the Limb whence they departed in 27, fometimes in 28 Days. Laftly, it muft be obferved, that the MacuU contracl themfelves near the Limb, and in the middle of the Disk appear much larger ; thofe often running into one in the Disk, which in the Limb were feparate 5 that many of them arife in the middle of the Disk, and ma- ny difappear in the iame ; and that none of them are obferved to deviate from their Path near the Horizon : Whereas Hcoel'ms obferving Mercury in the Sun, near the Horizon, found him too low ; being thruft 27 Seconds beneath his former Path. From thefe Phenomena we collect,
(1.) That fince Mercury\ DeprefiGon below his Path arifes from his Parallax, the MacuU having no Parallax from the Sun, are nearer him than the Planet; but fince they are hid behind the Sun three Days longer than they are in the Hemifphere vilible to us, it fol- lows alfo, that they don't adhere to the Surface of the Sun, but arc at fome diitance from it.
(2.) That fince they arife and difappear in the middle of the Sun's Disk, and undergo various Alterations with regard both to Bulk, Figure, and Denfity, they muft be formed de now, and again diffolvcd about the Sun 5 and are therefore, in all probability, a kind of Solar Clouds formed out of its Exhalations.
(5.) Since then the Solar Exhalations rife over his Body ; and are fufpended at a certain Height from it ; it appears, from the Laws of Hydroitatics, that the Sun muft be incompaffed with fome Fluid to drive thofe Ex- halations upwards ; which Fluid muft be denfer, as it is lower ; and rarer, as higher, like our Atmofphere : And fince the Macule diffolve and difappear in the ve- ry middle of the Sun's Disk, the Matrer thereof, i.e. the Solar Exhalations muft fallback again to the Sun ; .whence there muft arife Changes in the Sun's Atmo- fphere, and confequently in the Sun itfelf.
(4.) Since
