That's what The Independent says:

The man behind the lunar mission was Dr John Wilkins, scientist, theologian and brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. In 1640, as a young man of 26, Dr Wilkins wrote a detailed description of the machinery needed to communicate and even trade with beings from another world...

...Although earlier philosophers and poets had written about visiting the Moon, the writings of Dr Wilkins were in an altogether different league, Professor Chapman believes. Wilkins lived inwhat he describes as the "honeymoon period" of scientific discovery, between the astronomical revelations of Galileo and Copernicus, who showed a universe with other, possibly habitable worlds, and the later realisation that much of space was a vacuum and therefore impassable

Even if true, it seems improbable that it would have been successful--he was a little dodgy on his physics:

According to Dr Wilkins, the gravitational and magnetic pull of the Earth extended for only 20 miles into the sky. If it were possible to get airborne and pass beyond this point, it would be easy to continue on a journey to the Moon. Inspired by the discovery of other continents and the great sea voyages of explorers such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, Wilkins conceived an equally ambitious plan to explore space.

I'll be curious to see if this story stands up to peer review. If so, it's an interesting new and unknown chapter in the history of man's dreams of spaceflight.

[Via Jim Oberg]

No, this is unremarkable. I think the guy's physics is ludicrous, even by the standards of his own time. This is basically a Nostradamus story: some guy writes down a whole load of random rubbish, an idea salad, and -- lo ! -- somewhere in the middle is an actual idea that proved out right, several hundred years later.

Well, yes. Monkeys typing randomly will produce the occasional Shakespearean sextet. Noise is like that -- full of tantalizing hints of patterns.

I tell my students that many people think falsely that science is all about being able to imagine new and wonderful ideas. Nope. Imagining new and wonderful things is just human nature. Anyone who's had a little too much tequila can do it. Science is the process of winnowing new and wonderful and correct ideas from the merely new and wonderful.

Is this different from the fellow mentioned in the old Disney '50's series of shows? The one who though t he could rise with the morning dew and go sail off to the moon and trade with people there?

No, that was Cyrano de Bergerac, and it was early science fiction, not a serious proposal.