stances, not generally known, to which he alludes; and he cannot but observe that many more might have been added, had I given way to a fondness for scribbling, too common upon such occasions.

Although my Author stands in need of no apology for the appearance he is going to make in the following sheets, the world may probably think that the Publisher does, for not permitting him to do it sooner. All that I have to say, and to persons of candour I need to say no more, is, that the delay has been owing to a bad state of health, and a consequent indisposition for a work of this nature, and not to indolence, or any selfish narrow views of my own.

[ROBERT THYER.]

123

A

THE ELEPHANT IN THE MOON.*

LEARN'D Society of late,

The glory of a foreign state,

Agreed, upon a summer's night,

To search the Moon by her own light;
To take an invent❜ry of all

Her real estate and personal;
And make an accurate survey

Of all her lands, and how they lay,
As true as that of Ireland, where
The sly surveyors stole a shire:

T'observe her country, how 'twas planted,
With what sh' abounded most, or wanted;
And make the proper'st observations
For settling of new plantations,
If the Society should incline
T'attempt so glorious a design.

This was the purpose of their meeting,
For which they chose a time as fitting,
When, at the full, her radiant light
And influence too were at their height.
And now the lofty tube, the scale
With which they heav'n itself assail,
Was mounted full against the Moon,
And all stood ready to fall on:

*This Poem was intended by the Author for a satire upon the Royal Society, which, according to his opinion at least, ran too much, at that time, into the virtuoso taste, and a whimsical fondness for surprising and wonderful stories in natural history.

Impatient who should have the honour
To plant an ensign first upon her.

When one, who for his deep belief
Was virtuoso then in chief,

Approv'd the most profound, and wise,
To solve impossibilities,

Advancing gravely, to apply

To th' optic glass his judging eye,

Cry'd, Strange!—then reinforc'd his sight
Against the Moon with all his might,

And bent his penetrating brow,
As if he meant to gaze her through;
When all the rest began t' admire,
And, like a train, from him took fire,
Surpris'd with wonder, beforehand,
At what they did not understand,
Cry'd out, impatient to know what
The matter was they wonder'd at.

Quoth he, Th' inhabitants o' th' Moon,
Who, when the Sun shines hot at noon,
Do live in cellars under ground,

Of eight miles deep and eighty round, (In which at once they fortify

Against the sun and th' enemy),

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Which they count towns and cities there,
Because their people's civiler

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Than those rude peasants that are found
To live upon the upper ground,
Call'd Privolvans, with whom they are
Perpetually in open war;

And now both armies, highly' enrag'd,
Are in a bloody fight engag'd,
And many fall on both sides slain,

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As by the glass 'tis clear and plain.
Look quickly then, that every one
May see the fight before 'tis done.

With that a great philosopher,
Admir'd and famous far and near,
As one of singular invention.
But universal comprehension,
Apply'd one eye, and half a nose,
Unto the optic engine close:
For he had lately undertook
To prove, and publish in a book,
That men, whose nat❜ral eyes are out,
May, by more pow'rful art, be brought
To see with th' empty holes, as plain
As if their eyes were in again;
And if they chanc'd to fail of those,
To make an optic of a nose,

As clearly' it may, by those that wear
But spectacles, be made

appear,

By which both senses being united,
Does render them much better sighted.
This great man, having fixt both sights
To view the formidable fights,

Observ'd his best, and then cry'd out,
The battle's desperately fought;
The gallant Subvolvani rally,

And from their trenches make a sally
Upon the stubborn enemy,
Who now begin to rout and fly.
These silly ranting Privolvans
Have every summer their campaigns,
And muster, like the warlike sons
Of Raw-head and of Bloody-bones.

As numerous as Soland geese

I' th' islands of the Orcades,
Courageously to make a stand,

And face their neighbours hand to hand,
Until the long'd-for winter 's come,
And then return in triumph home,
And spend the rest o' th' year in lies,
And vapouring of their victories.
From th' old Arcadians they 're believ'd
To be, before the Moon, deriv'd,
And, when her orb was new created,
To people her were thence translated:
For as th' Arcadians were reputed
Of all the Grecians the most stupid,

Whom nothing in the world could bring
To civil life but fiddling,

They still retain the antique course
And custom of their ancestors,

And always sing and fiddle to

Things of the greatest weight they do.
While thus the learn'd man entertains
Th' assembly with the Privolvans,
Another, of as great renown,

And solid judgment, in the Moon,
That understood her various soils,

And which produc'd best [gennet-moyles],
And in the register of fame

Had enter'd his long-living name,

After he had por❜d long and hard

I' th' engine, gave a start, and star'd—
Quoth he, A stranger sight appears
Than e'er was seen in all the spheres!
A wonder more unparallel'd,