How chang'd our fate! O fource of flowing tears! Where's now that world, whofe joys alarm'd our fears?

'Tis loft to us and these dire realms below, At ev'ry step give pangs of poignant woe.

AT other periods, when difcourfing on time, and reflecting on that which they have still to pass in hell, they will, with all the grief their hearts are capable of, cry out,

How vain thofe pleasures, now for ever past; How dread those pains, which muft for ever last !

THESE prudent and fincere, though too late reflections, which they have often occafion to make, are productive of very good effects; for as the most part of them in their life-times would not admit fire into the elementary region, and maintained, on that fubject, many very violent difputes with those philofophers who were of a contrary opinion, being now immerfed up to the neck in that of hell, they are ob. liged to acknowledge, by the torments which it occafions to them, the reality of that fire, whofe exiftence they had hitherto disowned.

THE fame thing may also be faid of the Moralifts, who having difputed all their lives on the virtues, vices, and chief happiness of mankind, without ever being able to come to an agreement amongst them. felves

16

felves (having now loft that fovereign good, which they are for ever bereft of) they confefs, but too late, that it confifts but in the ineffable prefence and eternal enjoyment of God. So true it is, that we fcarcely ever know the reality, the merit, or real value of things, but by the lofs of them.

CHA P. IV.

Aftronomers and aftrologers in hell. The latter in difcredit there, and why.

T is certain, that aftronomers could find no place

It

better for their defigns than hell, and that for many reafons, drawn from their own principles. The first of them is, that, according to them, the beft and exactest aftronomical obfervations are thofe which are made in dark places, nearest to the centre of the earth. It is for this reafon, that in the large obfervatories there is always fome place very deep under ground, defigned to make obfervations in the daytime. Now that hell is at the very centre of the earth, and that it is an obfcure habitation, are two undoubted truths which I have already proved. From whence it follows, that thefe gentlemen ought to think themselves very happy in finding a place where

they

they may, at their conveniency, make the exacteft obfervations.

THERE they may remark, and determine with the greatest accuracy, the magnitude, the motions, the number, and the figures of the stars; all which they have hitherto been ignorant of: there they may learn exactly how many diameters and femi-diameters the Heavens are diftant from the earth and from hell there they are properly ftationed, and are poffeffed of the true means for difcovering the truth or falfity of the Copernican fyftem §; for if the earth

turns

§ Nicolaus Copernicus, the founder of this fyftem, was a very celebrated mathematician, philofopher, aftronomer,and physician of the 16th century. He was born at Thorn, in Pruffia, where he began his ftudies with phyfic and philofophy, which he purfued with great fuccefs, as he did alfo afterwards thofe of aftronomy and the other branches of the mathematics. In order to inftruct himself thoroughly in thefe fciences, and to have an opportunity of confulting the ableft mafters of thofe times, he took to travel; ftaid a confiderable time at Bologna, and from thence went to` Rome, where he profeffed the mathematics. He then returned to his own country, where his uncle, by the mother's fide, who was bishop of Varruia, gave him a prebendary. Then it was that he publifhed his fyftem of the world, which was from the very firft adopted and followed with great eagerness

by

turns round, as this philofopher affures us it does, they, by being in the centre, cannot but perceive very fenfibly the rapidity of that motion with which they must perceive the circumference of the terrestrial globe revolving: where they may better difcover,. than in any other place, whether the moon is in reality

by all the learned of that age, as it has hitherto been by all the greatest philofophers who have lived since. According to that fyftem, which is certainly the moft rational one of all thofe which have ever appeared in regard to the economy and order of this fpacious univerfe, the fun, immoveable in his own place, and revolving only round his own axis (which he does in 27 days) is fixed in the centre, and the feven planets turn round him, describing larger or Jeffer orbits in proportion to their distances from him; of which the earth completes its revolution in 365 days and 6 hours. Befides this motion, Copernicus has given it another round its own axis, which it performs in 24 hours, and which occafions the change of day and night. Laftly, he difcovered a third motion in the earth, by which its axis always continues in the fame pofition. To this motion is owing the happy alteration of feasons, and the inequality of the days in different climates. This truly great man died a natural death, in fpite of the decrees of the inquifition, whereby he was condemned, on the twenty-fourth of May, 1543, aged feventy years.

lity a world like this we live in; whether it indeed has mountains, valleys, feas, lakes, and rivers; woods, plains, and forefts, as in ours and if it is inhabited by men, beafts, and other animals, like thofe upon the furface of our globe, as some famous astronomers have pretended to discover by the affiftance of telescopes: there may they be able very plainly to fee and difcern, whether the ftars move about in the heavens, like fishes in the seas, the lakes, and rivers or whether, fixed like the spokes in a chariotwheel, they are whirled round by their rapid motion there may they fee and know what fhould be really thought of thofe double and retrograde motions of the planets from eaft to weft, and from west to caft; of all thofe fpheres and circles which we imagine in the heavens; that Zodiack, that Equator and Ecliptic, thofe Tropics, and thofe Poles, both Arctic and Antarctic, thofe Circles, both Extentric and Concentric, Horizons and Meridians; together with a number of other things moft truly engaging and curious. Unfortunately, however, news has been brought from that country, at leaft as we are informed, that thefe very gentlemen themselves, who, whilft on earth, invented these fine doctrines of philofophy, now fcoff at them below stairs; where they are folely occupied in reflections on eternity, by which they are far differently interested than by all these systems.

NEXT