The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert
From doing town or country hurt.
And if an owl have so much pow'r, 715
Why should not planets have much more,
That in a region far above
Inferior fowls of the air move,
And should see further, and foreknow
More than their augury below? 720
Tho' that once serv'd the polity
Of mighty states to govern by;[1]
And this is what we take in hand,
By pow'rful art, to understand;
Which, how we have perform'd, all ages 725
Can speak th' events of our presages.
Have we not lately in the moon
Found a new world, to th' old unknown?[2]
Discover'd sea and land, Columbus
And Magellan could never compass? 730
Made mountains with our tubes appear,
And cattle grazing on them, there?
Quoth Hudibras, You lie so ope,
That I, without a telescope,
Can find your tricks out, and descry 735
Where you tell truth and where you lie:
For Anaxagoras, long agone,
Saw hills, as well as you, i' th' moon,[3]
- ↑ It appears from many passages of Cicero, and other authors, that the determinations of the augurs, aruspices, and the sibylline books, were commonly contrived to promote the ends of government, or to serve the purposes of the chief managers in the commonwealth.
- ↑ "The fame of Galileo's observations excited many others to repeat them, and to make maps of the moon's spots." The reference here, except in respect of the "cattle," is to the map of Hevelius in his Selenographia sive Lunæ Descriptio. See also the Cure of Melancholy, by Democritus, junior, p. 254.
- ↑ See Burnet's Archæolog. cap. x. p. 144. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was the first of the Ionic philosophers who maintained that the several parts of the universe were the works of a supreme intelligent being, and consequently did not allow the sun and moon to be gods. On this account he was accused of impiety, and thrown into prison; but released by the intercession of Pericles, who had been one of his pupils. The poet might probably have Bishop Wilkins in view, whose book, maintaining that the moon was a habitable world, and proposing schemes for flying there, went through several editions between 1638 and 1684.
