somewhat more difficulty in disposing,—­“and here it is considerable, that, since our bodies will then be devoid of gravity and other impediments of motion, we shall not at all spend ourselves in any labour, and so, consequently, not much need the reparation of diet, but may perhaps live altogether without it, as those creatures have done, who, by reason of their sleeping for many days together, have not spent any spirits, and so not wanted any food; which is commonly related of serpents, crocodiles, bears, cuckoos, swallows, and such like.  To this purpose, Mendoca reckons up divers strange relations, as that of Epimenides, who is storied to have slept seventy-five years; and another of a rustic in Germany, who, being accidentally covered with a hay-rick, slept there for all the autumn and the winter following, without any nourishment Or, if we must needs feed upon something else, why may not smells nourish us?  Plutarch, and Pliny, and divers other ancients, tell us of a nation in India, that lived only upon pleasing odours; and it is the common opinion of physicians, that these do strangely both strengthen and repair the spirits.  Hence was it that Democritus was able, for divers days together, to feed himself with the mere smell of hot bread.[5] Or, if it be necessary that our stomachs must receive the food, why then it is not impossible that the purity of the etherial air, being not mixed with any improper vapours, may be so agreeable to our bodies, as to yield us sufficient nourishment,” with many other arguments of the like nature.  The Bishop ultimately, however, severs the knot, by the suggestion of his flying chariot, which he makes large enough (for, ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute!) to carry not only food for the viaticum of the passengers, but also commodities for their traffic!

Infinitely more ingenuity did the great comic poet of antiquity display, when he selected the Scarabaeus; as the food which had already served the purposes of digestion with the Rider, was still capable of affording nutrition to the animal:—­

    [Greek: 
    nun d’att’an autos kataphagoo ta sitia.
    toutoisi tois autoisi touton chortasoo[6]]

Now all these schemes, ingenious as they may be, are objectionable for the same reasons as the flying Island of Laputa—­their glaring violation of verisimilitude, and many of them of possibility.  In these respects, that of the author of the work before us is liable to less objection:  he only resorts to an extension of avowed physical principles; and if we could suppose a substance, which, instead of gravitating towards the earth, is repelled from it and attracted towards the moon, (certainly a difficult “premier pas,”) the remainder of the machinery, for reaching that luminary, would not be inconsistent with probability or the known laws of physics.