PART IV. A VOYAGE TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS.

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

[_As given in the original edition_.]

The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and

intimate friend; there is likewise some relation between us on the

mother’s side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver growing weary of the

concourse of curious people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made

a small purchase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in

Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives retired, yet in

good esteem among his neighbours.

Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father

dwelt, yet I have heard him say his family came from Oxfordshire; to

confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard at Banbury in that

county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.

Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the following papers

in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of them as I should think fit.

I have carefully perused them three times. The style is very plain and

simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author, after the manner

of travellers, is a little too circumstantial. There is an air of truth

apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was so distinguished

for his veracity, that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours

at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if

Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.

By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with the author’s

permission, I communicated these papers, I now venture to send them

into the world, hoping they may be, at least for some time, a better

entertainment to our young noblemen, than the common scribbles of

politics and party.

This volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made

bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and

tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the several

voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the management of the

ship in storms, in the style of sailors; likewise the account of

longitudes and latitudes; wherein I have reason to apprehend, that Mr.

Gulliver may be a little dissatisfied. But I was resolved to fit the

work as much as possible to the general capacity of readers. However,

if my own ignorance in sea affairs shall have led me to commit some

mistakes, I alone am answerable for them. And if any traveller hath a

curiosity to see the whole work at large, as it came from the hands of

the author, I will be ready to gratify him.

As for any further particulars relating to the author, the reader will

receive satisfaction from the first pages of the book.

RICHARD SYMPSON.

A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.

Written in the Year 1727.

I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called

to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to

publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with

directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put

them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my

advice, in his book called “A Voyage round the world.” But I do not

remember I gave you power to consent that any thing should be omitted,

and much less that any thing should be inserted; therefore, as to the

latter, I do here renounce every thing of that kind; particularly a

paragraph about her majesty Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious

memory; although I did reverence and esteem her more than any of human

species. But you, or your interpolator, ought to have considered, that

it was not my inclination, so was it not decent to praise any animal of

our composition before my master _Houyhnhnm_: And besides, the fact was

altogether false; for to my knowledge, being in England during some

part of her majesty’s reign, she did govern by a chief minister; nay

even by two successively, the first whereof was the lord of Godolphin,

and the second the lord of Oxford; so that you have made me say the

thing that was not. Likewise in the account of the academy of

projectors, and several passages of my discourse to my master

_Houyhnhnm_, you have either omitted some material circumstances, or

minced or changed them in such a manner, that I do hardly know my own

work. When I formerly hinted to you something of this in a letter, you

were pleased to answer that you were afraid of giving offence; that

people in power were very watchful over the press, and apt not only to

interpret, but to punish every thing which looked like an _innuendo_

(as I think you call it). But, pray how could that which I spoke so

many years ago, and at about five thousand leagues distance, in another

reign, be applied to any of the _Yahoos_, who now are said to govern

the herd; especially at a time when I little thought, or feared, the

unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most reason to

complain, when I see these very _Yahoos_ carried by _Houyhnhnms_ in a

vehicle, as if they were brutes, and those the rational creatures? And

indeed to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one principal

motive of my retirement hither.

Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and to

the trust I reposed in you.

I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of judgment, in

being prevailed upon by the entreaties and false reasoning of you and

some others, very much against my own opinion, to suffer my travels to

be published. Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to

consider, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that the

_Yahoos_ were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by

precept or example: and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full

stop put to all abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island,

as I had reason to expect; behold, after above six months warning, I

cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect according to

my intentions. I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party

and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders

honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield

blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education

entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female _Yahoos_

abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees

of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and

learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse

condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst

with their own ink. These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly

counted upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly

deducible from the precepts delivered in my book. And it must be owned,

that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and

folly to which _Yahoos_ are subject, if their natures had been capable

of the least disposition to virtue or wisdom. Yet, so far have you been

from answering my expectation in any of your letters; that on the

contrary you are loading our carrier every week with libels, and keys,

and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts; wherein I see myself

accused of reflecting upon great state folk; of degrading human nature

(for so they have still the confidence to style it), and of abusing the

female sex. I find likewise that the writers of those bundles are not

agreed among themselves; for some of them will not allow me to be the

author of my own travels; and others make me author of books to which I

am wholly a stranger.

I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to confound

the times, and mistake the dates, of my several voyages and returns;

neither assigning the true year, nor the true month, nor day of the

month: and I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since the

publication of my book; neither have I any copy left: however, I have

sent you some corrections, which you may insert, if ever there should

be a second edition: and yet I cannot stand to them; but shall leave

that matter to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they

please.

I hear some of our sea _Yahoos_ find fault with my sea-language, as not

proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my first

voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest mariners,

and learned to speak as they did. But I have since found that the sea

_Yahoos_ are apt, like the land ones, to become new-fangled in their

words, which the latter change every year; insomuch, as I remember upon

each return to my own country their old dialect was so altered, that I

could hardly understand the new. And I observe, when any _Yahoo_ comes

from London out of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither of us

are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the

other.

If the censure of the _Yahoos_ could any way affect me, I should have

great reason to complain, that some of them are so bold as to think my

book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain, and have gone so

far as to drop hints, that the _Houyhnhnms_ and _Yahoos_ have no more

existence than the inhabitants of Utopia.

Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of _Lilliput_,

_Brobdingrag_ (for so the word should have been spelt, and not

erroneously _Brobdingnag_), and _Laputa_, I have never yet heard of any

_Yahoo_ so presumptuous as to dispute their being, or the facts I have

related concerning them; because the truth immediately strikes every

reader with conviction. And is there less probability in my account of

the _Houyhnhnms_ or _Yahoos_, when it is manifest as to the latter,

there are so many thousands even in this country, who only differ from

their brother brutes in _Houyhnhnmland_, because they use a sort of

jabber, and do not go naked? I wrote for their amendment, and not their

approbation. The united praise of the whole race would be of less

consequence to me, than the neighing of those two degenerate

_Houyhnhnms_ I keep in my stable; because from these, degenerate as

they are, I still improve in some virtues without any mixture of vice.

Do these miserable animals presume to think, that I am so degenerated

as to defend my veracity? _Yahoo_ as I am, it is well known through all

_Houyhnhnmland_, that, by the instructions and example of my

illustrious master, I was able in the compass of two years (although I

confess with the utmost difficulty) to remove that infernal habit of

lying, shuffling, deceiving, and equivocating, so deeply rooted in the

very souls of all my species; especially the Europeans.

I have other complaints to make upon this vexatious occasion; but I

forbear troubling myself or you any further. I must freely confess,

that since my last return, some corruptions of my _Yahoo_ nature have

revived in me by conversing with a few of your species, and

particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else

I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming

the _Yahoo_ race in this kingdom; but I have now done with all such

visionary schemes for ever.

_April_ 2, 1727