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 my 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

humankind, 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 grandfather, in a general composition; and the

militia, then settled with common consent, has been ever since kept in

the strictest duty.