a wizard, and he is consequently lodged in
the prison of Toulon. Through the intervention
of powerful friends he is, nevertheless,
allowed to amuse himself in his own way, and
he employs his time in the construction of a
new machine. This consists of a large box
with an aperture at the top and bottom, and
a hollow crystal globe, likewise with an
aperture, which is fitted closely to the opening at
the top of the box. The globe is moreover
cut into facets, which, like so many lenses, are
capable of concentrating the rays of the sun
in the interior of the machine. Placing this
machine on the terrace of his prison, and
seating himself within, he soon finds the city
of Toulon disappear beneath his feet. The
rays of the sun have, as he had purposed,
created a vacuum within the globe, and the
external air rushing in through the nether
aperture to supply the void, has lifted him up
with its violence, so that he is once more an
aërial traveller. After floating for four
months in the higher regions without taking
food or feeling hunger (for his proximity to
the sun, increasing the supply of radical heat,
has rendered other nutrition unnecessary),
he alights on a solar spot, which is a world in
itself, and meets a little man, who discourses
with him in a language which he has never
heard before, but of which, nevertheless, he
can understand every word. This language
is an ideal tongue, in which words exactly
correspond to the things signified, and
therefore every rational being can comprehend it
by a sort of instinct. After hearing from the
little man a grave discourse on the origin of
the world, Cyrano proceeds on his voyage,
and, approaching still nearer to the sun, is
astonished to find that the machine has
suddenly disappeared, and that he is floating
along surrounded by nothing but sky.
However, when he stretches out his arms, he
comes into contact with an unseen obstacle,
and when he looks at his own body, his
heart, liver, and lungs are visible. The
mystery is now solved:—he is still in the
machine as before, but the sun, with its
natural tendency to purify matter from its
opacity, has rendered it so completely
transparent that it is no longer an object of
vision. On living things the action of the
sun is less powerful; and hence his own
frame is only rendered sufficiently transparent
to allow of the internal revelations
before mentioned. Through the increased
rarefaction of the air, there now seems
considerable danger that the sun will never be
reached; for, only a slight breeze, scarcely
sufficient to sustain the traveller, enters the
lower aperture of the box. However, such is
the influence of the will on the body in these
sublime regions, that the mere desire to
touch the parent of light draws Cyrano
towards his goal; and, pressing against the
interior of the box, he forces it along with
him. Weary of the machine which has now
become an incumbrance. he feels for the
door, opens it, and gets out; but, in so doing,
accidentally breaks the crystal globe. A
noise like thunder ensues; the machine falls
by its own weight, and Cyrano sees it in its
descent; for, it naturally passes through
those lower regions, in which matter becomes
opaque.

Two and twenty months have elapsed since
Cyrano's departure from Toulon, when he
sets his foot on the luminous plains of the
sun, where flakes of burning snow seem to
compose the soil. It is a peculiarity of this
new world that he is equally at his ease
in any attitude. Whether he walks on his
feet, or on his head; whether he stands on
his ear or his elbow, he always feels upright.
This phenomenon may easily be explained:
The sun is a world without a centre, and as
weight is nothing but the attraction of a body
to the centre, a body on the surface of the
sun is naturally without weight. How
marvellously are truth and fallacy mixed up
together in this argument!

After much wandering, Cyrano finds himself
at the foot of a tree with a golden trunk,
silver branches, and flowers, and leaves
composed of precious stones. While his eyes are
fixed upon a pomegranate, that is a mass of
rubies, and his ears are regaled by the song
of a nightingale seated in the tree, a little
head issues from the fruit, and presently a
diminutive form begins gradually to manifest
itself, until its full development being
attained, it drops at his feet, a perfect human
being, no taller than his thumb. The
astonishment awakened by this marvel is increased
by the solution of the entire tree into a
multitude of tiny men of whom the humanised
pomegranate is king. These execute a furious
dance, their movements being so rapid that
it soon becomes impossible to discern their
individual forms, till at last they are all
massed together so as to form a young man
of middle size. Some English readers may
possibly be reminded of the curious figure in
the frontispiece to Hobbe's Leviathan.

The middle-sized young man remains
destitute of animation until the little king jumps
down his throat, when he explains the
extraordinary proceedings that have taken place
before the eyes of the wondering traveller.
The people, whom he has just seen, are
inhabitants of the brighter parts of the sun,
who, to amuse themselves by travelling, have,
in the first instance, taken the form of eagles:
the king becoming a nightingale, to recreate
them with his song. On their route they
have met with a nightingale of the darker
regions, who has contracted such an affection
for the metamorphosed king, that it is
impossible to get rid of her without going
through a series of transformations, to prove
that the beloved object is of a species
superior to her own. The tree, which first
attracted the attention of the traveller, was
the last transformation of the sun; and the
nightingale, who, being a real nightingale,