CHAPTER VIII.

A further account of Glubbdubdrib. Ancient and modern history

corrected.

Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit

and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and

Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but these

were so numerous, that some hundreds were forced to attend in the

court, and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish

those two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from

each other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked

very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and

piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a

staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice

hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to

the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before;

and I had a whisper from a ghost who shall be nameless, “that these

commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their

principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and

guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of those

authors to posterity.” I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer,

and prevailed on him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved,

for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a

poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him

of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him; and he asked them,

“whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?”

I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gassendi, with

whom I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This great

philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy,

because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must

do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus

as palatable as he could, and the _vortices_ of Descartes, were equally

to be exploded. He predicted the same fate to _attraction_, whereof the

present learned are such zealous asserters. He said, “that new systems

of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; and

even those, who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical

principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of

vogue when that was determined.”

I spent five days in conversing with many others of the ancient

learned. I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on the

governor to call up Heliogabalus’s cooks to dress us a dinner, but they

could not show us much of their skill, for want of materials. A helot

of Agesilaus made us a dish of Spartan broth, but I was not able to get

down a second spoonful.

The two gentlemen, who conducted me to the island, were pressed by

their private affairs to return in three days, which I employed in

seeing some of the modern dead, who had made the greatest figure, for

two or three hundred years past, in our own and other countries of

Europe; and having been always a great admirer of old illustrious

families, I desired the governor would call up a dozen or two of kings,

with their ancestors in order for eight or nine generations. But my

disappointment was grievous and unexpected. For, instead of a long

train with royal diadems, I saw in one family two fiddlers, three

spruce courtiers, and an Italian prelate. In another, a barber, an

abbot, and two cardinals. I have too great a veneration for crowned

heads, to dwell any longer on so nice a subject. But as to counts,

marquises, dukes, earls, and the like, I was not so scrupulous. And I

confess, it was not without some pleasure, that I found myself able to

trace the particular features, by which certain families are

distinguished, up to their originals. I could plainly discover whence

one family derives a long chin; why a second has abounded with knaves

for two generations, and fools for two more; why a third happened to be

crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what

Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, _Nec vir fortis_, _nec

femina casta_; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be

characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as much as

by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house,

which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their posterity.

Neither could I wonder at all this, when I saw such an interruption of

lineages, by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen, gamesters, fiddlers,

players, captains, and pickpockets.

I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly

examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for

a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by

prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to

cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman

virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to

sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and excellent persons

had been condemned to death or banishment by the practising of great

ministers upon the corruption of judges, and the malice of factions:

how many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust,

power, dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events

of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds, whores,

pimps, parasites, and buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human

wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and

motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the

contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.

Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend to

write anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to their

graves with a cup of poison; will repeat the discourse between a prince

and chief minister, where no witness was by; unlock the thoughts and

cabinets of ambassadors and secretaries of state; and have the

perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here I discovered the true causes

of many great events that have surprised the world; how a whore can

govern the back-stairs, the back-stairs a council, and the council a

senate. A general confessed, in my presence, “that he got a victory

purely by the force of cowardice and ill conduct;” and an admiral,

“that, for want of proper intelligence, he beat the enemy, to whom he

intended to betray the fleet.” Three kings protested to me, “that in

their whole reigns they never did once prefer any person of merit,

unless by mistake, or treachery of some minister in whom they confided;

neither would they do it if they were to live again:” and they showed,

with great strength of reason, “that the royal throne could not be

supported without corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff

temper, which virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual clog to public

business.”

I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what methods

great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour, and

prodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a very modern period:

however, without grating upon present times, because I would be sure to

give no offence even to foreigners (for I hope the reader need not be

told, that I do not in the least intend my own country, in what I say

upon this occasion,) a great number of persons concerned were called

up; and, upon a very slight examination, discovered such a scene of

infamy, that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness.

Perjury, oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like

infirmities, were among the most excusable arts they had to mention;

and for these I gave, as it was reasonable, great allowance. But when

some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or

incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters;

others, to the betraying of their country or their prince; some, to

poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the

innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a

little to abate of that profound veneration, which I am naturally apt

to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost

respect due to their sublime dignity, by us their inferiors.

I had often read of some great services done to princes and states, and

desired to see the persons by whom those services were performed. Upon

inquiry I was told, “that their names were to be found on no record,

except a few of them, whom history has represented as the vilest of

rogues and traitors.” As to the rest, I had never once heard of them.

They all appeared with dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most

of them telling me, “they died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on

a scaffold or a gibbet.”

Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a little

singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old standing by his side.

He told me, “he had for many years been commander of a ship; and in the

sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to break through the enemy’s

great line of battle, sink three of their capital ships, and take a

fourth, which was the sole cause of Antony’s flight, and of the victory

that ensued; that the youth standing by him, his only son, was killed

in the action.” He added, “that upon the confidence of some merit, the

war being at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of

Augustus to be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been

killed; but, without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a

boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one

of the emperor’s mistresses. Returning back to his own vessel, he was

charged with neglect of duty, and the ship given to a favourite page of

Publicola, the vice-admiral; whereupon he retired to a poor farm at a

great distance from Rome, and there ended his life.” I was so curious

to know the truth of this story, that I desired Agrippa might be

called, who was admiral in that fight. He appeared, and confirmed the

whole account: but with much more advantage to the captain, whose

modesty had extenuated or concealed a great part of his merit.

I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in that

empire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced; which made me less

wonder at many parallel cases in other countries, where vices of all

kinds have reigned so much longer, and where the whole praise, as well

as pillage, has been engrossed by the chief commander, who perhaps had

the least title to either.

As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done

in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the

race of humankind was degenerated among us within these hundred years

past; how the pox, under all its consequences and denominations had

altered every lineament of an English countenance; shortened the size

of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles,

introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and

rancid.

I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the old stamp

might be summoned to appear; once so famous for the simplicity of their

manners, diet, and dress; for justice in their dealings; for their true

spirit of liberty; for their valour, and love of their country. Neither

could I be wholly unmoved, after comparing the living with the dead,

when I considered how all these pure native virtues were prostituted

for a piece of money by their grand-children; who, in selling their

votes and managing at elections, have acquired every vice and

corruption that can possibly be learned in a court.