Page:The Discovery of a World in the Moone, 1638.djvu/34

foolish superstition. I remember, that Ludovicus Vives relates a more ridiculous sory of a people that imprisoned an Asset for drinking up the Moone, whose image appearing in the water was covered with a cloud, as the Asse was drinking, for which the poore beast was afterward brought to the barre to receive a sentence according to his deserts, where the grave Senate being set to examine the matter, one of the Counsell (perhaps wiser than the rest) rises up, and out of his deepe judgement, thinkes it not fit that their Towne should lose its Moone, but that rather the Asse should be cut up, and that taken out of him, which sentence being approved by the rest of those Politicians, as the subtilIest way for the condition of the matter was accordingly performed. But whether this tale were true or no l will not question, how-