have commerce with them." It is thus that the right reverend philosopher
reasons:--

"If it be here inquired what means there may be conjectured for our
ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's mathematical vigour, I
answer.--1. 'Tis not possible that a man may be able to fly by the
application of wings to his own body, as angels are pictured, as
Mercury and Daedalus are feigned, and as hath been attempted by divers,
particularly by a Turk in Constantinople, a Busbequius relates. 2. If
there be such a great duck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian,
mentions, the feathers of whose wings are twelve feet long, which can
scoop up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites do a mouse;
why, then, 'Tis but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may
ride up thither, as Ganymede does upon an eagle. 3. Or if neither of
these ways will serve yet I do seriously, and upon good grounds, affirm
it is possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit and
give such a motion to it as shall convey him through the air. And this,
perhaps, might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same
time, together with food for their viaticum, and commodities for
traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder
its motion if the motive faculty be answerable "hereunto. We see that;
great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air
as well as a little gnat. This engine may be contrived from the same
principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regiomontanus
a wooden eagle. I conceive it were no difficult matter (if a man had
leisure) to show more particularly the means of composing it. The
perfecting of such an invention would be of such excellent use that it
were enough, not only to make a man famous but the age wherein he lives.
For, besides the strange discoveries that it might occasion in this
other world, it would be also of inconceivable advantage for travelling,
above any other conveyance that is now in use. So that, notwithstanding
all these seeming impossibilities, it is likely enough that there may be
a means invented of journeying to the moon; and how happy shall they be
that are first successful in this attempt!"

Afterwards comes Cyrano of Bergerac, who promulgates five different
means of flying in the air. First, by means of phials filled with dew,
which would attract and cause to mount up. Secondly, by a great bird
made of wood, the wings of wh