TO THE Honble Miss ROSS.

Upon your hearing the other day Giphantia much praised by some friends, and those no ill judges, you expressed a desire to see it in English, as you had not, you said, French enough to read the original. I immediately resolved to gratify your desire, and that very day sat about the translation.

It is now finished: and, as my hand is not very legible, I take the liberty to address it to you in print with this Epistle Dedicatory; which, as neither you, nor the Author, want any encomiums, nor the Translator any excuses, I shall cut short, and beg leave to subscribe myself with great respect and sincerity,

TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS.

Introduction.

No man ever had a stronger inclination for travelling than myself. I consider’d the whole earth as my country, and all mankind as my brethren, and therefore thought it incumbent upon me to travel thro’ the earth and visit my brethren. I have walk’d over the ruins of the antient world, have view’d the monuments of modern pride, and, at the sight of all-devouring time, have wept 2over both. I have often found great folly among the nations that pass for the most civiliz’d, and sometimes as great wisdom among those that are counted the most savage. I have seen small states supported by virtue, and mighty empires shaken by vice, whilst a mistaken policy has been employ’d to inrich the subjects, without any endeavours to render them virtuous.

After having gone over the whole world and visited all the inhabitants, I find it does not answer the pains I have taken. I have just been reviewing my memoirs concerning the several nations, their prejudices, their customs and manners, their politicks, their laws, their religion, their history; and I have thrown them all into the fire. It grieves me to record such a monstrous mixture of humanity 3and barbarousness, of grandeur and meanness, of reason and folly.

The small part, I have preserv’d, is what I am now publishing. If it has no other merit, certainly it has novelty to recommend it.

CHAP. I. The Hurricane.

I was on the borders of Guinea towards the desarts that bound it on the North. I contemplated the immense wilds, the very idea of which shocks the firmest mind. On a sudden I was seized with an ardent desire to penetrate into those desarts and see how far nature denies herself to mankind. Perhaps (said I) among these scorching plains there is some fertile spot unknown to the rest of the world. Perhaps I shall find men who have neither been polished nor corrupted by commerce with others.

5In vain did I represent to myself the dangers and even the almost certain death to which such an enterprize would expose me; I could not drive the thought out of my head. One winter’s day (for it was in the dog-days) the wind being southwest, the sky clear, and the air temperate, furnished with something to asswage hunger and thirst, with a glass-mask to save my eyes from the clouds of sands, and with a compass to guide my steps, I sate out from the borders of Guinea and advanced into the desart.

I went on two whole days without seeing any thing extraordinary: in the beginning of the third I perceived all around me nothing but a few almost sapless shrubs and some tufts of rushes, most of which were dried up by the heat 6of the sun. These are nature’s last productions in those barren regions; here her teeming virtue stops, nor can life be farther extended in those frightful solitudes.

I had scarce continued my course two hours over a sandy soil, where the eye meets no object but scattered rocks, when the wind growing higher, began to put in motion the surface of the sands. At first, the sand only played about the foot of the rocks and formed small waves which lightly skimmed over the plain. Such are the little billows which are seen to rise and gently roll on the surface of the water when the sea begins to grow rough at the approach of a storm. The sandy waves soon became larger, dashed and broke one another; and I was exposed to the most dreadful of hurricanes.

7Frequent whirlwinds arose, which collecting the sands carried them in rapid gyrations to a vast height with horrible whistlings. Instantly after, the sands, left to themselves, fell down in strait lines and formed mountains. Clouds of dust were mixed with the clouds of the atmosphere, and heaven and earth seemed jumbled together. Sometimes the thickness of the whirlwinds deprived me entirely of the light of the sun: and sometimes red transparent sands shone from afar: the air appeared in a blaze, and the sky seemed dissolved into sparks of fire.

Mean time, now tossed into the air by a sudden gust of wind, and now hurled down by my own weight, I found myself one while in clouds of sand, and another while in a gulf. Every moment 8I should have been either buried or dashed in pieces, had not a benevolent Being (who will appear presently) protected me from all harm.

The terrible hurricane ceased with the day: the night was calm, and weariness overcoming my fears, I fell asleep.

CHAP. II. The fine Prospect.

The sun was not yet risen, when I wak’d: but the first rays enlighten’d the east and objects began to be visible. Sleep had recover’d my strength and calm’d my spirits: when I was awake, my fears return’d, and the image of death presented itself again to my anxious thoughts.

I was standing on a high rock, from whence I could view every thing round me. I cast, with horror, my eyes on that sandy region, where I thought I should have found my grave. What was my surprise when towards the north I spied an even, vast and fertile plain! 10From a state of the profoundest sorrow in an instant I pass’d (which usually requires time) to a state of the highest joy; nature put on a new face; and the frightful view of so many rocks confusedly dispers’d among the sands serv’d only to render more affecting and more agreeable the prospect of that delightful plain, I was going to enter. O nature! how admirable are thy distributions! how wisely manag’d the various scenes thou presentest to our sight!

The plants, which grow on the edge of the plain are very small; the soil does not yet supply sufficient moisture: but as you advance, vegetation flourishes, and gives them a larger size and more height. The trees are seen to rise by degrees and soon afford a shelter under their boughs. At last, trees co-eval 11with the world appear with their tops in the clouds and form an immense amphitheatre which majestically displays itself to the eyes of the traveller and proclaims that such a habitation is not made for mortals.

Every thing seem’d new to me in this unknown land; every thing threw me into astonishment. Not any of Nature’s productions which my eyes eagerly ran over resembles those that are seen any where else. Trees, plants, insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, all were form’d in a manner extraordinary, and at the same time elegant and infinitely varied. But what struck me with the greatest wonder, was that an universal sensibility, cloath’d with all imaginable forms animated the bodies that seem’d the least susceptible of it: even to the 12very plants all gave signs of sensation.

I walk’d on slowly in this enchanted abode. A delicious coolness kept my senses open to the pleasure; a sweet scent glided into my blood with the air I breath’d; my heart beat with an unusual force: and joy enlighten’d my soul in its most gloomy recesses.

CHAP. III. The Voice.

One thing surprised me: I did not see any inhabitants in these gardens of delight. I know not how many ideas disturbed my mind on that occasion, when a voice struck my ears, uttering these words: “Stop and look stedfastly before thee; behold him who has inspired thee to undertake so dangerous a voyage.” Amazed, I looked a good while and saw nothing: at last I perceived a sort of spot, a kind of shade fixed in the air a few paces from me. I continued to look at it more attentively, and fancied, I saw a human form with a countenance so mild and ingaging 14that instead of being terrified, the sight was to me a fresh motive of joy.

I am (said the benevolent Shade) the Prefect of this Island. Thy inclination to Philosophy has prepossessed me in thy favour: I have followed thee in thy late journey and defended thee from the hurricane. I will now show thee the rarities of the place; and then I will take care to restore thee safe to thy country.

This Solitude with which thou art so charmed, stands in the midst of a tempestuous ocean of moving sands; it is an island surrounded with inaccessible desarts, which no mortal can pass without a supernatural aid. Its name is Giphantia. It was given to the elementary spirits, the day before the Garden 15of Eden was allotted to the parent of mankind. Not that the spirits spend their time here in ease and sloth. What would you do, O ye feeble mortals! If dispersed in the air, in the sea, in the bowels of the earth, in the sphere of fire, they did not incessantly watch for your welfare? Without our care, the unbridled elements would long since have effaced all remains of the human kind. Why cannot we preserve you entirely from their disorderly sallies? Alass! our power extends not so far: we cannot totally screen you from all the evils that surround you: we only prevent your utter destruction.

It is here the elementary spirits come to refresh themselves after their labours; it is here they hold their assemblies, and concert the best measures for the administration of the elements.

CHAP. IV. The Reverse.

Of all the Countries in the world (added the Prefect) Giphantia is the only one where nature still preserves her primitive vigor. She is incessantly labouring to increase the numerous tribes of Vegetables and Animals, and to produce new kinds. She organizes all with admirable skill; but she does not always succeed, in rendering them perpetual. The Mechanism of propagation is the master-piece of her wisdom: sometimes she fails and her productions return for ever into nothing. We cherish, with our utmost care, such as are sufficiently organized to produce their 17kind; and then plant them out in the Earth.

A Naturalist wonders sometimes to find plants that had never been noticed before: it is because we had just then supplied the earth with them, of which he had not the least suspicion.

Sometimes also these Exotics not meeting with a proper Climate, decay by degrees and the species is lost. Such are those productions which are mention’d by the Antients and which the Moderns complain are no where to be found.

Such a plant still subsists but has long droop’d, and lost its qualities, and deceives the Physician who is daily disappointed. The Art is blam’d; it is 18not known that the fault is in Nature.

I have now a collection of new simples of the greatest virtue; and I should have imparted them to mankind before now, had there not been strong reasons to induce me to delay it.

For instance, I have a sovereign plant to fix the human mind, and which would give steadiness even to a Babylonian: but for these fifty years I have been diligently observing Babylon, and have not found one single moment, wherein the Inclinations, Customs, and Manners have been worth fixing.

I have another plant, most excellent for checking the too lively sallies of the spirit of invention: but thou knowest 19how rare these sallies are now-a-days: never was invention at a lower ebb. One would think that every thing has been said, and that nothing more remained but to adapt things to the taste and mode of the age.

I have a root which would never fail to allay that sourness of the Learned who censure one another: but I observe that without their abusing and railing at each other, no man would concern himself about their disputes. It is a sort of pleasure to see them bring themselves as well as Learning into contempt. I leave the malignity of the readers to divert themselves with the malignity of the Authors.

Moreover, do not imagine that nature sleeps in any part of the earth; she 20strenuously labours even in those infinitely minute spaces where the eye cannot reach. At Giphantia, she disposes matter on extraordinary plans, and perpetually tends to produce something new: she every where incessantly repeats her labours, still endeavouring to carry her works to a degree of perfection which she never attains. These flowers which so agreeably strike the eye, she strives to render still more beautiful. These animals, which to you seem so dextrous, she endeavours to render still more so. In short, Man that to you appears so superior to the rest, she tries to render still more perfect; but in this her endeavours prove the most unsuccessful.

Indeed, one would think that mankind do all in their power to remain 21in a much lower rank than nature designs them! and they seldom fail to turn to their hurt the best dispositions she gives them for their Good. On the Babylonians, for instance, nature has bestowed an inexhaustible fund of agreeableness. Her aim was manifestly to form a people the most aimable. They were made to enliven reason, to root out the thorns that spring from the approaches of the sciences, to soften the austerity of wisdom, and, if possible, to adorn virtue. Thou knowest it: her favours which should have been diffused on these objects have been diverted from their destination; and frivolousness and debauchery have been cloathed with them. In the hands of the Babylonians, vice loses all her deformity. Behold in their manners, their discourses, their writings, with what discretion vice unveils herself, with 22what art she ingages, with what address she insinuates: you have not yet thought of her, and she is seated in your heart. Even he who, by his function, lifts up

his voice against her, dares not paint her in her true colours. In a word, no where does vice appear less vice than at Babylon. Even to the very names, all things are changed, all things are softened. The sincere and honest are now-a-days your modish men who are outwardly all complaisance but inwardly full of corruption: Good company are not the Virtuous but those who excel in palliating vice. The man of fortitude is not he that bears the shocks of fortune unmoved, but he that braves Providence. Bare-faced Irreligion is now styled free-thinking, blasphemy is called boldness of speech, and the most shameful excesses, Gallantry. Thus it is that with what 23they might become a pattern to all nations, the Babylonians (to say no worse) are grown libertines of the most seducing and most dangerous kind.

CHAP. V. The Apparitions.

I return (continues the Prefect of Giphantia) to the elementary spirits. Their constant abode in the air, always full of vapours and exhalations; in the sea, ever mixed with salts and earths; in the fire, perpetually used about a thousand heterogeneous bodies; in the earth, where all the other elements are blended together: this abode, I say, by degrees spoils the pure essence of the spirits, whose original nature is to be (as to their material substance) all fire, all air, or other unmixt element. This degradation has sometimes gone so far, as that by the mixture of the different elements, the spirits have acquired a 25sufficient consistence to render them visible. People have seen them in the fire and called them Salamanders, and Cyclops: they have seen them in the air and called them Sylphs, Zephyrs, Aquilons: they have seen them in the water and called them Sea-nymphs, Naiads, Nereids, Tritons: they have seen them in caverns, desarts, woods, and have called them Gnomes, Sylvans, Fauns, Satyrs, &c.

From the astonishment caused by these Apparitions, men sunk into fear, and fear begot superstition. To these, Creatures like themselves, they erected altars which belong only to the Creator. Their imagination magnifying what they had seen, they soon formed a Hierarchy of Chimerical Deities. The Sun appeared to them a luminous chariot guided by 26Apollo through the celestial plains; Thunder, a fiery bolt darted by Jupiter at the heads of the guilty: the Ocean, a vast empire, where Neptune ruled the waves: the bowels of the earth, the gloomy residence of Pluto, where he gave laws to the pale and timorous Ghosts: in a word, they filled the world with Gods and Goddesses. The Earth itself became a Deity.

When the elementary Spirits perceived how apt their Apparitions were to lead men into error, they took measures to be no longer visible: they devised a sort of refiner by which from time to time they get rid of all extraneous matter. From thence forward, no mortal eye has ever seen the least glimpse of these spirits.

CHAP. VI. The Surfaces.

Mean while the Prefect moved on and I followed, quite astonished and pensive. At our coming out of the wood we found ourselves before a hill, at the foot of which stood a hollow column above a hundred feet high and thick in proportion. I saw issuing out of the top of the column vapours (much like the exhalations raised by the sun) in such abundance that they were very visible. From the same column I saw coming out and dispersing themselves in the air certain human forms, certain images still lighter than the vapours by which they were supported.

28Behold (says the Prefect) the Refiner of the Elementary Spirits. The column is filled with four Essences, each of which has been extracted from each element. The Spirits plunge into them, and by a mechanism, too long to be described, get rid of all extraneous matter. The images which thou seest coming out of the column, are nothing more than very thin surfaces which surrounded them and served to make them visible. These surfaces partake of the different qualities of the spirits who excel more or less in certain respects, as visages are expressive of the characters of men, who differ infinitely. Thus, there are images or surfaces of science, of learning, of prudence, of wisdom, &c.

29Men often cloath themselves with them, and like masks these surfaces make them appear very different from what they really are. Hence it is that you constantly meet with the appearance of every good, of every virtue and every quality, though the things themselves are scarce to be found any where.

At Babylon especially, these surfaces are in singular esteem: all is seen there in appearance. A Babylonian had rather be nothing and appear every thing than to be every thing and appear nothing. So, you see only surfaces every where and of every kind.

Surface of modesty, the only thing needful for a Babylonian lady: it is called decency.

30Surface of friendship, by the means of which all Babylon seems to be but one family. Friendship is like a strong band made of very weak threads twisted together. A Babylonian is tied to no one by the band, but he is tied to each of his fellow-citizens by a single thread.

Surface of piety, formerly much in use and of great influence, now-a-days totally in disrepute. It gives people a certain Gothic air quite ridiculous in the eyes of the moderns. It is now found only among a few adherents to the old bigots, and in an order of men, who, on account of their function, cannot lay it aside, how desirous soever they may be.

31Surface of opulence, one of the most striking things in Babylon. Behold in the Temples, in the Assemblies, in the publick Walks, those citizens so richly dressed, those women so adorned, those children so neat, so lively, and who promise so fair to be one day as frivolous as their fathers: follow them to their homes; furniture of the best taste, commodious apartments, houses like little palaces, all continues to proclaim opulence. But stop there: if you go any farther, you will see families in distress and hearts overflowing with cares.

Surface of probity, for the use of Politicians and those who concern themselves with the management of others. These great men cannot be as honest as the lower people; they have certain 32maxims from which they think it essential never to depart, and from which it is no less essential that they appear extremely remote.