Paul Summers Young

  Decked out as I was, I walked towards a cottage, from whose chimney smoke rose. However, I hardly got within pistol shot of the place before I found myself surrounded by a mob of completely naked men, who seemed surprised to see me.  I don't think they'd ever seen someone dressed in bottles, whose feet barely touched the ground; with my every movement, the dew in my remaining bottles caught the Sun's rays and made me bob up and down. Had I more of them, I am sure I'd have risen up into the air before them.  I would have spoken with them, but in a twinkling they were gone, like birds scattering among the trees. However, I caught one whose legs had doubtless failed his heart, and with a deal of difficulty - the forest was suffocating - I asked him how far we were from Paris, and since when the people of France went about in the total nude, and why he'd fled in such obvious terror?  He was an old, olive-skinned man, who sank before me and joined his hands behind his ...

  A powder against the biting of mad dogs. Take of the leaves of Vervain, Rue, Sage, Plantain, Polypodium, Common Wormwood, Mint, Mugwort, Bawm, Bettony, St John's Wort, Centaury, of equal parts.  Let all be gathered at what time they are in their greatest strength, which is usually about the Full Moon in June*. Then, let them be dried severally in brown papers in such a place where neither Sun** nor rain comes; and when you have dried them, then keep them for the use above said, but upon this condition, that you renew them every year.  * Who dares affirm that our Collegiates are no Astrologers.  ** Learnedly written.  When you have need to use them, beat an equal weight of them into powder. A drachm of this powder is sufficient to take every morning.  Pleres Arconticon - Nich. Take of Cinnamon, Cloves, Galaga, wood of Aloes, Indian Spikenard, Nutmeg, Ginger, Spodium, Schoenanthus, Cyperus, Roses*, Violets, of each one drachm; Indian Leaf or Mace, Liquoris,...

  Latificans - ascribed to Galen. Take of the flowers of Clove Basil*or else the seeds thereof, Saffron, Zedoary, wood of Aloes, Cloves, Citron peel, Galanga, Mace, Nutmegs, Styrax, Calamitis, of each two drachms and a half; shavings of Ivory, Annis seeds, Thyme, Epithimum, of each one drachm; Bone of a Stag's Heart, Pearls, Camphire, Ambergris, Musk, of each a drachm; leaves of Gold and Silver, of each half a scruple. * I take that to be the greatest sort of Basil, called once before Ocinum Citratum, and here Caryophilatum, Citron, or Clove Basil. Beat them into powder according to art, and so keep them diligently for your use.  It causes a merry heart, a good colour; helps digestion, and keeps back old age.  You may mix half a drachm of it to take at one time, or less if you please, in any cordial syrup or cordial electuary appropriated to the same use. See Directions. Species Confectionis Liberantis.  Take of the roots of Tormentil and seeds of Sorrel, Endive, Cor...

  This whimsy, which might seem a raging fever, gave way to the conviction that yes, I might actually make this trip. So, I shut myself away in a reasonably remote country house, and indulged my imagination.  This, then, is how I would travel through the heavens.  I attached a number of vials to myself, full of dew; these reacted to the Sun's rays, so violently that that heat drew them like a laden cloud high into the air. I found myself beyond our atmosphere, the middle region of the air. The power of this attraction made me rise rapidly, however, the higher I rose the further the Moon appeared, further even than it had appeared from my rooms; I broke some of my vials of dew, and floated back down to earth.  My inference was not mistaken, and I fell gently through the air and must make land, I reckoned, around midnight; however, when I touched the ground, the Sun was far above the horizon, and it must have been midday. You can imagine my shock; I knew not what to at...

  Dipenidion - Nich. Take of Penidies, two ounces; Pinenuts, Sweet Almonds blanched, White Poppy seeds, of each three drams and one scruple; Cinnamon, Cloves, Ginger, juice of Liquoris, Gum Tragacanth and Arabic, White Starch, the Four Greater Cold Seeds husked, of each one dram and a half; Camphire, seven grains; White Sugar, so much as is sufficient. Make it into a powder, and with Syrup of Violets you may make it up in form of an electuary. I could tell Mr. Printer - if I dare be so bold - that he had more tongue than wit, when he made that Apology at the latter end of the College's masterpiece; for at the last sentence of this receipt, here are certain words left out, and amongst them the principal verb, which how gross an error it is, I leave to the consideration of every scholar who is able to translate a piece of Latin into English. It helps the vices of the breast, coughs, colds, hoarseness, and consumptions of the lungs, as also such as spit matter. You may mix it with any...

  Cyrano de Bergerac talks about a book by Gerolamo Cardano, in which he is visited by a pair of gentlemen from the Moon. Cardano is easily of the stature of Leibnitz and Newton; the list of his contributions is formidable, and Cyrano's citing him is like me today saying 'As Wolfgang Pauli himself noted'. Cardano wrote *a lot*, but likeliest place to look is De Subtilitate Rerum (1550). There is a liber on demonology, in which he describes something his father related: Verum omnibus historiis magis admirabilem hic subiiciam, quam non semel nec paucis vicibus audiui a patre meo, Facio Cardano, qui deaemonem se familiarem per xxx ferme annos habuisse confitebatur. But of all the stories I relate here, this which I heard not once not several times from my father, Facio Cardano, is more wonderful still. He confided he'd had a demonic familiar for almost thirty years . . . He goes on to describe his father being visited by seven spirits. Cum interrogarentur, quinam essent, ...

  Species Electuarii Diamagariton Calidi - Avicenna. Take of Pearls and Pellitory of the Wall, of each one drachm; Ginger, Mastic, of each half an ounce; Doronicum, Zedoary, Smallage seeds, both sorts of Cardomoms, Nutmegs, Mace, of each two drams; Been of both sorts - if they cannot be procured take the roots of Avens and Tormentil - and Black and Long Pepper, of each three drams; Cinnamon five drachms. Beat them into powder and keep them for your use. Avicenna prescribes this as an electuary, and so are all the College's powders prescribed by those whom they borrowed them as I told you before, and they will keep longer and better in electuaries than in powders, but people must be fantastical. This - quoth Avicenna - is appropriated to women, and in them to diseases incident to their matrix, but his reasons I know not. It is cordial, and heats the stomach. Species Electuarii Diamargariton Frigidi - Nich. Take of the four greater cold seeds cleansed the seeds of Purslain, White Pop...

  When I got home, I found a book by Cardano in my study, open on the table, a book I had not put there. I hadn't intended to read it at all, but on approaching it my eyes fell, as if compelled to see, upon the passage in his memoir when he is up one evening, reading by candlelight, when two tall old men passed through the closed doors of his chamber. He asked them many things, but when he asked who they were, they told him they were from the Moon, and vanished.  Naturally, I was surprised a book had put itself on the table and opened itself on that page of all pages. I took it to be a sign I must prove to all the Moon is a world like ours. I mean, here I am, this evening having spoken about this very subject, looking at the one book in the world treating of that topic in this way; it has flown down from its shelf and, now possessed of reason I assume, opened itself to draw my eye to that most marvellous adventure on the page, casting its reflection upon my imagination and set...

  The heavens lay open and the Moon was full, and the clock had just struck nine. With friends I'd spent the evening at Clamard, near Paris, where Monsieur de Guigy, seigneur of that place, generously regaled us, and now together we passed our journey in quiet contemplation of that saffron ball in the sky.  We drowned our eyes in the great star before us, which looked to us our attic window opening into heaven, to another perhaps the shining dish in which Diana dressed Apollo's curls, to yet another as if the Sun, having taken off and put away its rays for the day, peered down at us through a window, to see what we are up to when it is not around.  But I - say I - I who want to stir my fantasies into your own, I believe, and not frivolously as you believe, to tickle time along, I believe the Moon is a world like ours, and our world is a moon to theirs.  Some of my company loosed great gales of laughter. Quite so, but perhaps they look at us and make fun of the one wh...

  Species Electuarii de Gemmis Calidi - Mesue. Take of Troches, Diarhodon, Wood of Aloes, of each five drachms; White Pearl, Zedoary, Doronicum, Citron Peel, Mace, the seeds of Basil, Ambergris, of each two drachms; Red Coral, White Amber, Ivory, of each five scruples; Sapphire, Jacinth, Sardyne, Garnet, Emerald, Cinnamon, Galanga, Zurumbet*, of each one dram and a half; Bean of both sorts, or instead of them, the roots of Avens and Tormentil, Cloves, Ginger, Long Pepper, Indian Spikenard, Saffron, Cardamoms the Greater, of each one dram; leaves of Gold and Silver, of each two scruples; Musk, half a dram. * Round Zedoary. Make them all into a powder, and keep them close-stopped from the air. The truth is, both these powders are of two heavy a price for a vulgar man's purse. They help afflictions of the heart, stomach, brain and liver, vain fears, melancholy, tremblings of the heart and faintings; they help digestion, and take away sadness, and because the latter seems to be somethi...

  Species Cordiales Temperate. Take of wood of Aloes and Spodium, of each one drachm; Cinnamon, Cloves, Bone of Stag’s Heart, Angelica roots, both sorts of Bean - or in their stead, the roots of Avens and Tormentil - of each a drachm and a half; Pearls prepared, six drachms; Raw Silk torrefied, both sorts of Coral, of each two drachms; Jacinth, Emerald, Sapphire, of each half a dram; Saffron, a scruple; Ambergris, Musk, of each half a drachm; leaves of Gold and Silver, of each ten*. * But how big must they be? Make a powder of these according to art. This receipt is borrowed from Alex. Bened., only the name is absconded and some of the quantities - not inconsiderable - are changed. The receipt is questionless a great cordial, a great strengthener both of the heart and brain. Diacalaminthes Simplex - Galen. Take of Calaminth of the mountains, Pennyroyal, Origanum, the seeds of Macedonian Parsley, Common Parsley, Seseli, of each two drachms; the seeds of Smallage, the tops of Thyme, ...

Species or Powders. Give me leave to premise three or four things before I come to the matter. Powders are called by the Arabians Suffuc and Alkool. ‘Tis strange the College inserted not these two strange names to puzzle the brains of the unlearned, and make them believe wonders. I know not well what English name to give the word species, only thus the Ancients used the word for such powders as were ready prepared for an electuary, but yet not mixed with any liquid substance, but they called those powders which were always kept dry for use. I would desire such as intend to take the pains themselves to make these powders, that they would make great haste in heating them lest the strength fly away in vapour through long keeping them in the air. That they would sift them through a very fine tiffany lest the powder be too gross, and so part of its operation be lost. That they would - in keeping them - stop them very close in a glass with a narrow mouth, lest the strength fly out in vapour...