Scar. That were uncivil to be supposed by me; but lunatic we may call him, without breaking the Decorum of good Manners; for he is always travelling to the Moon.
Ela. And so religiously believes there is a World there, that he Discourses as gravely of the People, their Government, Institutions, Laws, Manners, Religion, and Constitution, as if he had been bred a Machiavel there.
Scar. How came he thus infected first?
Ela. With reading foolish Books, Lucian’s Dialogue of the Lofty Traveller, who flew up to the Moon, and thence to Heaven; an heroick Business, call’d The Man in the Moon, if you’ll believe a Spaniard, who was carried thither, upon an Engine drawn by wild Geese; with another Philosophical Piece, A Discourse of the World in the Moon; with a thousand other ridiculous Volumes, too hard to name.
Scar. Ay, this reading of Books is a pernicious thing. I was like to have run mad once, reading Sir John Mandevil;—but to the business,—I went, as you know, to Don Cinthio’s Lodgings, where I found him with his dear Friend Charmante, laying their Heads together for a Farce.
Ela. Farce!
Scar. Ay, a Farce, which shall be call’d,—The World in the Moon: Wherein your Father shall be so impos’d on, as shall bring matters most magnificently about.
Ela. I cannot conceive thee, but the Design must be good, since Cinthio and Charmante own it.
Scar. In order to this, Charmante is dressing himself like one of the Caballists of the Rosycrusian Order, and is coming to prepare my credulous Master for the greater Imposition. I have his Trinkets here to play upon him, which shall be ready.
Ela. But the Farce, where is it to be acted?