# Memoirs of the Twentieth Century/Constantinople, April 16, 1998

To the Lord High-Treasurer, &c.
MY LORD,
Constantinople, April 16, 1998.
IN my former Letters I believe I gave you a sufficient surfeit of my political observations on this great Empire, and its present Condition, Laws, and Customs; and I shall now furnish another kind of entertainment for you, if any thing I can send your Lordship can be justly called so. I shall chiefly confine myself at present to give you some imperfect accounts of my Telescope's performances, and of several conversations I have had on it, with the Grand Seignior in person; in those secret recesses of his retirement, the Apartments of the Seraglio, and the lovely Gardens with which it is almost surrounded, to the very Banks of the Sea.
I have formerly told your Lordship, how extremely affable and courteous, not to say obliging and affectionate, I have on many occasions found the Grand Seignior to me; insomuch, that I am really considered here as the greatest Favourite, of any Ambassador that has appeared here from a Christian ​Prince, for these many years. This, I believe, has been chiefly occasioned by my speaking the Turkish Language to some perfection, and by my studying to gratify, as far as I could, his great passion for such Curiosities, as I could furnish him with from London; such as Globes, Maps, Clocks of all kinds, and Watches; Dogs, Guns, Barges, Coaches, and, in a word, whatever I found him most desirous of.
It is certain, by these means I have ingratiated myself mightily with him; so that when he refuses Audiences to other Ministers, he often sends for me, and will make me sit in his presence, and discourse of Europe and my Travels, with a familiarity very unusual to this Court.
Since my last Letters by Mr. Biron, I received his commands to wait on him, and found him in one of his Gardens, after our European Models, with Grass, Gravel, Portico's, and Fountains, by the side of one of which he was reposing himself. He told me, he had heard of the wonderful Telescope your Lordship had sent me, and that he was impatient to see it, and try if it answered the surprizing relation the Grand Vizier had made him of it; and desired to ​know, if it could be set up in that place immediately. I answered every one of his demands, in the manner I knew to be most agreeable to him; and as I had been prepared for it by the Grand Vizier, I told him, I had brought it by some of his Highness's Slaves, who, with my Servants directions, should soon set it up, and regulate it. As he expressed a great desire to make trial of it immediately, and as the Evening was very serene and cloudless, I gave my People proper directions, and with a very little time and trouble, the necessary Apparatus for it was set in order; and then, without delay, it was brought in, and made ready for using. All this time he employed in examining me about it, how much it magnified, and if it were possible we could discern Mountains, Hills, Seas, and Rivers, in the Moon by it.
I assured him I had tried it, and though in the last age few magnified more than two hundred, I found it magnified Objects many thousand times bigger than they appeared to the naked Eye; and that we could not only discern Hills and Rivers, but even objects like Towns and Forests in the Moon; and that, if the Inhabitants ​there were as large as some great Astronomers conceived them to be, I doubted not in time, our Glasses might be so far improved, as to see even Men and their actions there.
He repeated all this after me with vast surprize; and after musing on it, he turned to me, and said with some concern, Seignior Stanhope, do you think there can be living Creatures, and above all, Men in our Moon? I told him, I had great and weighty reasons to be persuaded of it; and as he himself would see Hills and Woods in it, Clouds and Vapours surrounding it, though they are very thin and small, and also actual Waters, Seas and Rivers in it, I durst undertake he would be of the same opinion. For since she is found to resemble our Earth in all such Conveniencies, what is more natural than to suppose she must have Fruits and Herbs also, as we have; and if those, unquestionably Animals to live on them; and above all others, Men, since Nature does nothing in vain.
That it was absurd to suppose such a beauteous Work of God, should be so amiably and usefully adorned, and yet be furnished to no purpose, with such vast Con​veniences, which might be so pleasant and useful an Habitation, for rational, intelligent Beings; who might there enjoy with so much happiness, the Beauties and Delights of the Place, and with due praise and gratitude look up to the excellent Author. That though our Eyes did not convince us by such evident appearances, that there were so many resemblances in the Moon, of what we see on our own Earth, yet it was absurd to suppose, the wise Maker would have formed such immense, solid, opake Globes, rolling by rules, and in Orbits he has prescribed them in the Heavens, as bare useless Heaps of Matter, and unwieldy Lumps of Rock or Clay, to no end, but to give an imperfect Light to our system, and to be looked at by the Eye. And if this is not to be imagined as to the other Planets, much less as to the Moon, who enjoys the Heat and Light of the Sun, to much greater advantage than several of them, and almost as well as our Earth. I said a great deal of this sort to him; to which he made several slight objections, that were easily got over: and perceiving our Telescope was by this time near ready, I presented him with the vast Map of the ​Moon, which I had from London, with all the Seas, Rivers, Mountains, Hills, Valleys, Forests, and the supposed Towns that are so accurately laid down in it by the Selenographers; and especially by the Savilian Professor Dr. Bertie, who has divided it into its several Kingdoms and Provinces.
He examined it with abundance of care, and was delighted with the prodigious size, as well as the beauty and exactness of the Performance, asking me many questions on it; and appeared particularly pleased to see Stamboul, and his own Dominions (which I shewed him) set down in it. But by this time our Telescope being perfectly settled, I begg'd his Highness to let his own Eyes answer his curiosity better than I could, and to compare the Map with what the Telescope would shew him; the Moon being just at the Full, and the Heavens clear and serene.
He immediately set himself to make his observations, and with the greatest surprize and transport, one while applied his eye to the Telescope, and then to the Map, surveying all the different ranges of Mountains, Hills, and Valleys, the vast Surfaces of Seas, Lakes, and Rivers, in the Lunar ​Globe, tracing out every thing with the greatest sagacity.
It is hard for your Lordship to believe the amazement that appeared in his Face all this while; and as the faithful Telescope represented every thing so plain and distinct, and brought the Objects he surveyed so clear and close to his eye, that he could not be more convinced of their existence, had he walked on the face of the Earth he was surveying, he would ever and anon break out into some expressions of admiration.
He seem'd, indeed, to doubt a little as to the darkness of the vast Plains of the Pontus Euxinus, the Caspian, and Mediterranean, and the Baltick, and East Seas, and the great Rivers that roll into them, by so many mouths; and supposed the Sea would rather appear with a lucid brightness, and even outshine the everlasting Snows and Rocks of Mount Taurus. But I soon convinced him, without troubling him with the philosophical reasons of things, with putting him in mind, that the Earth and Sea had just this appearance from the elevated heights of his own Mount Olympus, where he so often had been. The only scruple that remained with him, was as to ​the great Hyrcanian Forest, and the resemblances, to call them no more, of the several Cities, such as Rome, Stamboul, Paris, Vienna, and London. As to the Forests, I made him observe the vast difference there was between the appearance of the bright even flats and plains, and that dusky, brown roughness that swelled up in the middle of those extended fields; and that as all the higher grounds in the surface of the Moon's Globe wear a remarkable brightness, compared with those vast levels; it was impossible these, being so dark, could be high Downs, or Hills, not to insist on the even Level that their tops appeared with, which hilly Countries never have.
That it is certain, besides all this, that allowing there are Woods and Forests in the Moon, (and such she must probably have, in so many different Soils as the saw there) they could appear no otherwise than they did here, because they imbibe the Sun's rays through so many apertures of their Boughs and Shades, and therefore cannot reflect them back, as the surfaces of hard, solid bodies would; and since it is plain, there must be Woods and Forests there, and if there, they must appear in the same man​ner he saw them; it is most reasonable to call them, and suppose them such.
For the Cities, I must own, my Lord, I had not much to say; and though it is true, the running of Rivers close by them, the white circles that like Walls seemed to surround them, and the different heights and hollows, as it were Houses and Towers, and Shade and Lights, that reflect from them within those circles; and above all, that blackness, that like a thin cloud hung over the largest, and looks like a vast collection of smoke, such as we see about Cities here; all which make it possible, they may be what the Map calls them: yet I cannot but think, they may be rather white Rocks, shaded by Woods on them, or some neighbouring Hills, than real Cities. However I endeavoured to convince the Grand Seignior, that the resemblance was so strong, and agreeable to what one would imagine Cities would make to us, if they were built there; that one could not charge the composers of the Map, with over-great rashness or folly, for assigning such denominations to them.
The Grand Seignior seemed pretty well satisfied with what I said to him, and con​tinued some hours surveying and contemplating the beauteous Object he had before him, till the interposing of some clouds, and a little rain that fell, put an end to this agreeable amusement I had furnished him with. We retired from the Garden into the gerat Kiosc, or Summer-house, where he often spends the Summer Evenings, and the beginnings of the warm Nights, with his chief Favourites and Bassas, drinking Sherbets and Coffee, and smoaking Tobacco. He made me sit down on the Sofa, and begun a long discourse with me, of the wonderful instrument I had brought him, which, as he expressed it, drew down the Heavens to the Earth, and made us as it were neighbours to those celestial Orbs, which the great Author of them had placed so remote from us. He asked me of the distance between us and the Moon, and when I told him it was generally computed by Astronomers, that her mean distance was about sixty semidiameters of the Earth, he seemed astonished that our Telescopes could bring her so near us; but he was a great deal more so, when I acquainted him with the much greater distance, betwixt us and the other Planets of our system, some ​of which I told him I would shew him, whenever he could have leisure for it; and, if he pleased, the next day about evening, if the Sky was serene and cloudless. He seemed much rejoiced with ed with my undertaking, to procure him that satisfaction so soon; and telling me, he would not detain me any longer for that night, he in a very gracious manner dismist me, and left me to retire to my house, where I immediately hastened; much pleased that I had the honour, of being the first that had introduced the Turkish Moon, (the Arms of this Empire) into the acquaintance of her great Masters, that had oftener alarmed the World, with her appearance in their Standards, than ever she had been able to do, with all her Eclipses.
Early in the evening of the next day, I returned to the Seraglio before it was dark, the weather being very favourable, where I found the Grand Seignior attending my coming. He immediately began to tell me, that as he was convinced by what I had said, and what he had seen the night before, that the Moon must be inhabited, he had been considering with himself, what sort of Men they must be that were placed ​there. I told him, that, was what no one could pretend to account for, but that probably they must in many things resemble us pretty nearly, and in all likelihood be not much more different from us, than many Nations of the Indians, which the Ancients had discovered in America.
But, says he, I am perplexed with a great scruple, that I know not how to get over; and that is, as we know of a certainty that Mahomet, in his passage to Heaven with the Angel Gabriel, touched there, I cannot conceive, had there been Men there, but he must have communicated his Law to them; and if he had done so, he must have mentioned it in that holy book his Alcoran, which he has left us. Now as he has not taken the least notice of so important a point, I am persuaded there cannot be such Inhabitants there, as you and your Philosophers have disputed for.
I saw the danger immediately, of touching on this point, and therefore shifted it off, by saying, that there were so many Worlds more, as thick planted with such Colonies as the Moon was, that it was probable he chose to leave them to themselves, since had he undertaken to visit them all, they ​were so infinitely numerous, and so infinitely distant, it would have taken up many millions of years, to have gone through with them. Your Highness, continued I, will allow there is some weight in this reasoning, since it is as probable that every Star we see in the Heavens, and an immense number we cannot see, even with our Telescopes, are every one of them so many Suns, in the centre of as great and as noble a system, at this which we are placed in, all the Planets whereof have the same pretensions to be inhabited as the Moon. This, I observed to him, was a point which all Astronomers contend for, as in the highest degree reasonable; not only from the same arguments that evince the Moon's being replenished with living Creatures, and rational Beings, which I already touched on; but also because, in the first place, all the denser Planets are seated nearest the Sun, in regard that the denser matter requires more heat, to render it capable of natural Productions; and secondly, because the nearer such Planet is to the Sun, the greater is the velocity of its motion, and consequently, the vicissitudes of its Seasons are rendered the quicker, as it is highly pro​per they should be, in order to favour the productions of Nature in it, of what kind soever they are. And really the presumptions on these accounts, and many others, are so exceedingly strong in favour of this opinion, that I think we must leave the Astronomers, in possession of this favourite Doctrine of theirs, till we can bring better arguments against them, than I have ever yet heard of. I perceived he was going to reply, and as I had a mind to avoid the dialogue, I told his Highness, if he pleased, we would leave those enquiries, to see what information we could get about it from Jupiter, one of the noblest Planets of our system; which, says I, (pointing to it) shines so brightly yonder, as if he had spruc'd himself out in order to shew himself to us, and entertain your Highness in the best manner, his great distance from the Sun and our Earth will allow him.
Accordingly, I immediately applied my Telescope to him, and as I had seldom seen him so bright, he made a very glorious figure, drest up with all his Belts, and Spots, and Satellites about him. I laid the fine Map your Lordship sent me of him, before the Grand Seignior, with the imaginary ​Regions, Mountains, and Seas, which these admirable Glasses have furnished us the prospect of.
I pointed out all the most considerable tracts on his mighty Globe, and especially the bright Mount Olympus, and Athos, and the wide Atlantick Ocean, and South Sea on his Western Limb, and the vast Islands here and there dispers'd in them.
I then made him turn his observations, to such of his Satellites as we were able to observe, and explained to him how these attendant Moons, served to enlighten the darkness of his Inhabitants, and to make him some amends, for their being so far removed from the warmth and splendor, of that sole source of light and heat in our system, the Sun. He attended to both their appearances, in the Map and the Heavens, and the explanatory hints I added to all, with infinite surprize and delight; every now and then crying out, how wonderful it all was, and what a pity, that so immense a Globe, should be confined to so dark and gloomy a scituation!
To remove his concern on this account, I told him, that though Jupiter's People, certainly received but the twenty-fifth part ​of our light from the Sun, and that his days were but five hours long, yet it was plain, by the very brightness he now shone with, and by the splendor of so many attendant Moons, he had abundant light to make every thing agreeable, and pleasing to his inhabitants; who had probably more light and warmth than our Polar Regions, and were certainly so formed as Moles, Owls, and Batts with us, to take more delight in the gloom of the evening, than the dazling glare of the broad-day. That possibly in Jupiter, they measured not their days by sun-rise and sun-set, but by several successions of them, and called them only sun-hours, and moon-hours; after such a proportion of which, according to the strength of their bodies, they divided their times of rest and labour. ******************** N.B. There were here some new, and (in the Editor's and Translator's poor opinion) some beautiful hints given the learned World, in relation to Jupiter, and the rest of our Planets. But as several of our greatest Astronomers, whom I will not name, for fear of exposing them to the rage and resentment of Mankind, have been pleased to threaten, they would lay out all ​their skill, in publickly opposing the new systems, which had been communicated to him, it has been thought proper to suppress them for the present. A method which the Translator has the more willingly complied with, for the sake of peace, and to prevent new Schisms, Feuds, and Factions, between great and learned Men; and especially, since such amicable methods have been proposed, that there is good hope all points may be so fairly adjusted, that these vast discoveries, in this new system of things, may, to the satisfaction of all parties, be communicated to the World in the subsequent Volumes. Accordingly, the Translator has modestly deferred his Publication of them, and in the mean time, has so carefully connected the paragraphs in this admirable Letter, that there will appear no material interruption in the sense. ******************** But certainly, says he, how contented soever they may be with their Light, they must suffer severely by cold; nay, I am afraid their Waters are constantly frozen. I told him there was no fear of that evil, if we either supposed their Waters of a warm nature, like our mineral Springs, and Hot-Wells, or the ​inhabitants so fram'd, as to delight in a cold climate, and abhor a warm one, as our northern nations do the heat of the Line; or if warmth, like ours, must be suppos'd necessary for them and their plants, &c. possibly as Jupiter's Diameter is 20 times greater than that of our earth, and all of it bask'd in the sun's beams, the warmth of the sun might be greatly increas'd there by Jupiter's so frequent rotation round its own axis, and by its acting on so much greater an extent of surface; which answer, however your Lordship may think of it, pass'd for very good reasoning at the Seraglio. But, says he, I fancy I am the more sensible of their being pinch'd by cold yonder, because I find the night air grow very uneasy; and as we have fully observ'd these wonders of the heavens for this time, let us retire to our former shelter in the Kiosc, and talk over our coffee of these amazing Discoveries.
We were hardly set down on our Sofa's, when he began to ask me, whether the Astronomers in Europe, or elsewhere, were often thus employ'd, and to what uses their labours serv'd? I told him, unhappily Astronomy had been confin'd to Europe to its great disservice; having been banish'd Egypt, ​and those regions in his Empire, that by their serene skies and air were fittest for her observations, and where she first appear'd, and for many ages flourish'd considerably. That in Europe our Astronomers were perpetually taken up in watching the Stars, Comets and Planets, adjusting their places, and observing their motions. That by their labours we both discover the harmony by which the immense works of the Creator are knit together in the great Universe, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the degrees of their magnitudes, light, heat and motion, and how they act on each other, their natural intercourse and regulated circulations, with their certain returns and periods. That by their observations on each and all of these, we are oblig'd to confess and adore the infinite magnificence, power and goodness of the great Mover and Former of them all; of which we could before have no true notions, till these his glorious works were thus reveal'd to us to our equal convenience and pleasure.
That besides these advantages, we also were indebted to the labours of Astronomers, for the clearing up the now establish'd system of all the Comets in their immense ​Orbits, as well as the perfection of our Geography and Chronology; both which would be made up of mere fables and guesses without their assistance. Nay, that we owe to the same means, that our navigation is become so safe and secure thro' the vast seas and pathless oceans through which our commerce is extended. That his Highness might have some notion hereof by those very Satellites of Jupiter which he had been so long observing that night, the observation of whose frequent Eclipses alone, had ascertain'd the Longitude of many thousand places in our Earth, which before were utterly unknown; and had thereby made that noble Globe, I had presented him with from your Lordship, so admirably compleat, as I had often shewn to him.
That besides many other things, by the observations of their Eclipses, as I had explain'd them to him, men had demonstrated, by their being seen earlier when the Earth is nearer, and later than calculation when it is remoter from Jupiter, that Light was not propagated to us instantaneously, but by a successive motion; and that we can measure out its journeys from the Sun and the Planets to us, as by a stated scale, which ​was about 500000 miles in a minute. We had a vast deal of conversation on these subjects, in which as I gave him accounts, that probably our Earth, by its smalness, had never yet been observ'd from Jupiter, and that Jupiter's Moons, to say nothing of Venus's, which are vastly smaller, were as large as our Earth, and that as their days were proportion'd to their revolutions round their Axes, so they were in some of them double, and in others 16 times as long as ours. We fell again into a long discourse, whether these vast Orbs, no ways inferior to the Earth in bulk, ought not to be allow'd inhabitants as well as our Moon. As to Jupiter, the very beholding him thro' the telescope with his seas and mountains, made it sufficiently probable to him: but tho' I urg'd to him, that it was absurd to suppose that an infinite Creator would have such glorious parts of his Creation void and empty of proper classes of his creatures, like an extravagant builder raising more edifices than he was able to place fitting furniture in, and used many arguments, which I need not repeat to your Lordship, I could hardly make him confess, that he thought it very probable that they must be inhabited.
​However, I had the pleasure to find that my hopes had not deceiv'd me, and that what I had said now and formerly of Astronomy's being driven out of Egypt, and those parts of his Empire, which Nature had, as it were, cut out for an Observatory for this lovely Science, had made great impressions on him. In short, before we parted, he order'd the Visier to take care directly for chusing a fit place there, and building and endowing an Astronomical College, as I should direct; and desir'd that I should send for some of the best Professors in Europe to settle there, with large and honourable provisions. I can assure your Lordship this is already settled so far, that a large quantity of ground near Grand-Cairo is set out, and by this time actually building; and as I am persuaded no delay or obstacle will arise from hence to compleat this noble design, I intreat your Lordship to give such orders, that some excellent Astronomers may be prevail'd with to set out with the next fleet for Turky, whose provision and protection to their full content, I do hereby, on sufficient warrant, bind my self to be answerable for.
Judge, my Lord, what progresses we shall be able to make in this noble Science, when ​she is restor'd to her native Empire, and the serene and cloudless skies of Egypt, where neither rains nor vapours, nor the exhalations, mists and fogs of our Northern Climate shall once interrupt her divine Contemplations. What discoveries shall we not make in the Heavens of new Stars arising, old ones decaying, unobserv'd Comets, with new Suns and Planets in their several systems, arranging the thousands and ten thousands of the yet undiscover'd hosts of Heaven, in the beauteous order and array of Glory, in which their omnipotent Creator has plac'd them in his infinite Wisdom and Power?
But I must leave this subject, my Lord, lest I run out into too great lengths on it; and tho' I have often since attended the Grand Signior, to shew him the rest of the Planets, and particularly Saturn with his Ring, and his Satellites, which he was infinitely pleas'd with; and had many farther conversations with him on their Eclipses, one of which I shew'd him; and also on the new discoveries and improvements in Astronomy, and the new College for its Professors in Egypt; yet as the repetition of them would be needless, after what I have ​said on them here, I shall not trouble you with them.
On my return home from the Seraglio, I met your Lordship's dispatches of the 28th of December; but as my last of the 25th of Febr. effectually answer'd all their Contents, I shall make no other return to them here, than my humble thanks for the care you express so obligingly for me, and to make my compliments to Mr. Secretary for the huge Pacquets of English News Papers he was pleas'd to inclose to me. It was really a surprize to me, to see such a vast spawn of the productions of these insects, that thus float and feed upon the air we breathe, and have no appearance of existence but in their constant buzzing about, hearkening out, and attending and list'ning to the noise and motions of their neighbours. They seem to make their ears as useful to them, as the Pigmies which Pigafetta tells us he saw in the Island of Aruchet near the Moluccas, who liv'd in dark high caverns (like the garrets, I suppose, of these Authors) and lay upon one ear as a bed, and cover'd themselves by way of warm bedcloaths with the other.
​I send your Lordship, as a little return for all your favours, a very excellent statue of Constantine the Great, which was lately dug up near this city by some Greek masons, and with great difficulty preserv'd from the barbarous hands of the workmen, who maim all such statues as they meet with any where. It is the more curious, because it is represented with a cross to it; which (tho' the Ecclesiastical Writers assure us there were many such erected to him) is, I believe, the only one to be found now in Europe. Your Lordship will observe, that it perfectly agrees with the Medals of this Emperor that are stampt with it, of which I send your Lordship two very fair and well preserv'd. He is crown'd by a victory on the reverse with this Inscription, In hoc signo Victor eris; and I am rejoic'd I have got such a treasure to adorn that admirable collection you have made, and are daily increasing.
Every thing here continues on the same happy foot as when I last wrote, and our merchants are treated with the greatest favour and regard we can possibly desire. As I have few correspondents, I have no foreign news worth sending your Lordship, unless the late death of his Polish Majesty, ​who, after the most intemperate Life, died at (I think) near eighty. A great age for any one to arrive at, and especially a King; it being observ'd by historians, that of all the Roman, Greek, French and German Emperors, but four liv'd to eighty, and but five Popes; and none of those in any late Century.
He was so given up to his belly, one would have thought he could not have liv'd to fifty, unless the devil had kept him alive to procure credit to intemperance. He was a sowre, ill-natur'd man, but an excellent King; for it made him inaccessible to flatterers, and not to be practis'd on by favourites, and the skilfullest courtiers, who could neither lead or blind him. He had so little Religion, that he infamously gave up that which he was born in for his Crown; and us'd to fay, as it was necessary to profess some kind or other, if he was not a Prince, he would have lik'd that of the Jews best, because it allow'd railing at all the rest, and was never believ'd or minded by those that profest it.
As that Crown is soon to be set to sale, I hear there are already as many new Kings set up among them, as ever were made on ​a twelfth-night for diversion; and will probably have the same fate, and be unking'd again, when their parties that set them up are tir'd of them and their silly play, and sick of the poppets they created.
I beg the continuation of your Lordship's undeserv'd favours, and to believe me, with all possible gratitude, my Lord,
Your Lordship's, &c.
STANHOPE.
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