Page:The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the Moon.djvu/12

6 Now this small Tract having so worthy a Person to vouch for it, and many of our English Historians having published for Truth, what is almost as improbable as this, as Sir John Mandavil in his Travels and others, and this having what they are utterly destitute of, that is, Invention mixed with Judgment; and was judged worthy to be Licensed fifty years ago, and not since reprinted, whereby it would be utterly lost. I have thought fit to republish the Substance thereof, wherein the Author says he does not design to discourse his Readers into a Belief of each particular Circumstance, but expects that his new Discovery of a new World, may find little better Entertainment than Columbus had in his first Discovery of America, though yet that poor Espial betrayed so much Knowledge as hath since increased to vast Improvements, and the then Unknown is now found to be of as large Extent as all the other known World; that there should be Antipodes was once thought as great a Paradox, as now that the Moon should be habitable. But the Knowledge of it may be reserved for this our discovering Age, wherein our Virtuosi can by their Telescopes gaze the Sun into Spots, and descry Mountains in the Moon. But this and much more must be left to the Critics, as well as the following Relation of our little Eye-witness and great Discoverer, which you shall have in his own Spanish Stile, and delivered with that Grandeur and Thirst of Glory, which is generally imputed to that Nation. It is known to all the Countries of Andaluzia, that I Domingo Gonsales was born of a noble Family in the renowned City of Seville. My Father's Name being Therando Gonsales, near Kinsman on the Mother's Side to Don Pedro Sanches the worthy Count of Almanera, my Mother was the Rh