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_ CHAPTER VII
[The author's love of his country. He makes a proposal of much
advantage to the king, which is rejected. The king's great
ignorance in politics. The learning of that country very imperfect
and confined. The laws, and military affairs, and parties in the
state.]
Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from
concealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover my
resentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was
forced to rest with patience, while my noble and beloved country
was so injuriously treated. I am as heartily sorry as any of my
readers can possibly be, that such an occasion was given: but this
prince happened to be so curious and inquisitive upon every
particular, that it could not consist either with gratitude or good
manners, to refuse giving him what satisfaction I was able. Yet
thus much I may be allowed to say in my own vindication, that I
artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a
more favourable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth
would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to
my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis, with so much
justice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties
and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and
beauties in the most advantageous light. This was my sincere
endeavour in those many discourses I had with that monarch,
although it unfortunately failed of success.
But great allowances should be given to a king, who lives wholly
secluded from the rest of the world, and must therefore be
altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most
prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever
produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from
which we, and the politer countries of Europe, are wholly exempted.
And it would be hard indeed, if so remote a prince's notions of
virtue and vice were to be offered as a standard for all mankind.
To confirm what I have now said, and further to show the miserable
effects of a confined education, I shall here insert a passage,
which will hardly obtain belief. In hopes to ingratiate myself
further into his majesty's favour, I told him of "an invention,
discovered between three and four hundred years ago, to make a
certain powder, into a heap of which, the smallest spark of fire
falling, would kindle the whole in a moment, although it were as
big as a mountain, and make it all fly up in the air together, with
a noise and agitation greater than thunder. That a proper quantity
of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass or iron,
according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead, with
such violence and speed, as nothing was able to sustain its force.
That the largest balls thus discharged, would not only destroy
whole ranks of an army at once, but batter the strongest walls to
the ground, sink down ships, with a thousand men in each, to the
bottom of the sea, and when linked together by a chain, would cut
through masts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies in the middle,
and lay all waste before them. That we often put this powder into
large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into
some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear
the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side,
dashing out the brains of all who came near. That I knew the
ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood
the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workmen how to
make those tubes, of a size proportionable to all other things in
his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not be above a hundred
feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper
quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the
strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the
whole metropolis, if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute
commands." This I humbly offered to his majesty, as a small
tribute of acknowledgment, in turn for so many marks that I had
received, of his royal favour and protection.
The king was struck with horror at the description I had given of
those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. "He was
amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I" (these were
his expressions) "could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so
familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of
blood and desolation which I had painted as the common effects of
those destructive machines; whereof," he said, "some evil genius,
enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for
himself, he protested, that although few things delighted him so
much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather
lose half his kingdom, than be privy to such a secret; which he
commanded me, as I valued any life, never to mention any more."
A strange effect of narrow principles and views! that a prince
possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and
esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning,
endowed with admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects,
should, from a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can
have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands that
would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties,
and the fortunes of his people! Neither do I say this, with the
least intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent
king, whose character, I am sensible, will, on this account, be
very much lessened in the opinion of an English reader: but I take
this defect among them to have risen from their ignorance, by not
having hitherto reduced politics into a science, as the more acute
wits of Europe have done. For, I remember very well, in a
discourse one day with the king, when I happened to say, "there
were several thousand books among us written upon the art of
government," it gave him (directly contrary to my intention) a very
mean opinion of our understandings. He professed both to abominate
and despise all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a
prince or a minister. He could not tell what I meant by secrets of
state, where an enemy, or some rival nation, were not in the case.
He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds,
to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy
determination of civil and criminal causes; with some other obvious
topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his
opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades
of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before,
would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to
his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."
The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only in
morality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be
allowed to excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what
may be useful in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all
mechanical arts; so that among us, it would be little esteemed.
And as to ideas, entities, abstractions, and transcendentals, I
could never drive the least conception into their heads.
No law in that country must exceed in words the number of letters
in their alphabet, which consists only of two and twenty. But
indeed few of them extend even to that length. They are expressed
in the most plain and simple terms, wherein those people are not
mercurial enough to discover above one interpretation: and to
write a comment upon any law, is a capital crime. As to the
decision of civil causes, or proceedings against criminals, their
precedents are so few, that they have little reason to boast of any
extraordinary skill in either.
They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out
of mind: but their libraries are not very large; for that of the
king, which is reckoned the largest, does not amount to above a
thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long,
whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The queen's
joiner had contrived in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of
wooden machine five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a standing
ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long. It was indeed a
moveable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten feet distance
from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to read, was
put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted to the upper step
of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book, began at the
top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight
or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had
gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and then descending
gradually till I came to the bottom: after which I mounted again,
and began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the
leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as
thick and stiff as a pasteboard, and in the largest folios not
above eighteen or twenty feet long.
Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for
they avoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words, or
using various expressions. I have perused many of their books,
especially those in history and morality. Among the rest, I was
much diverted with a little old treatise, which always lay in
Glumdalclitch's bed chamber, and belonged to her governess, a grave
elderly gentlewoman, who dealt in writings of morality and
devotion. The book treats of the weakness of human kind, and is in
little esteem, except among the women and the vulgar. However, I
was curious to see what an author of that country could say upon
such a subject. This writer went through all the usual topics of
European moralists, showing "how diminutive, contemptible, and
helpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defend
himself from inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts:
how much he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in
speed, by a third in foresight, by a fourth in industry." He
added, "that nature was degenerated in these latter declining ages
of the world, and could now produce only small abortive births, in
comparison of those in ancient times." He said "it was very
reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were
originally much larger, but also that there must have been giants
in former ages; which, as it is asserted by history and tradition,
so it has been confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up
in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled
race of men in our days." He argued, "that the very laws of nature
absolutely required we should have been made, in the beginning of a
size more large and robust; not so liable to destruction from every
little accident, of a tile falling from a house, or a stone cast
from the hand of a boy, or being drowned in a little brook." From
this way of reasoning, the author drew several moral applications,
useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my
own part, I could not avoid reflecting how universally this talent
was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or indeed rather
matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with
nature. And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might
be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.
As to their military affairs, they boast that the king's army
consists of a hundred and seventy-six thousand foot, and thirty-two
thousand horse: if that may be called an army, which is made up of
tradesmen in the several cities, and farmers in the country, whose
commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay or reward.
They are indeed perfect enough in their exercises, and under very
good discipline, wherein I saw no great merit; for how should it be
otherwise, where every farmer is under the command of his own
landlord, and every citizen under that of the principal men in his
own city, chosen after the manner of Venice, by ballot?
I have often seen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise,
in a great field near the city of twenty miles square. They were
in all not above twenty-five thousand foot, and six thousand horse;
but it was impossible for me to compute their number, considering
the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large
steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole
body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once,
and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so
grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten
thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from
every quarter of the sky.
I was curious to know how this prince, to whose dominions there is
no access from any other country, came to think of armies, or to
teach his people the practice of military discipline. But I was
soon informed, both by conversation and reading their histories;
for, in the course of many ages, they have been troubled with the
same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the
nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and
the king for absolute dominion. All which, however happily
tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated
by each of the three parties, and have more than once occasioned
civil wars; the last whereof was happily put an end to by this
prince's grand-father, in a general composition; and the militia,
then settled with common consent, has been ever since kept in the
strictest duty.
_____
Content of PART II - A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG - CHAPTER VII [Jonathan Swift's novel: Gulliver's Travels] _
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