A ftrange effect of narrow principles and fhort views! that a prince poffeffed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of ftrong parts, great wifdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents for government, and almost adored by his fubjects, fhould from a nice unneceffary fcruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let flip an opportunity put into his hands, that would have made him abfolute mafter of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do I fay this with the leaft intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whofe character, I am fenfible, will on this account be very much leffened in the opinion of an English reader: but I take this defect among them to have rifen from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a fcience, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I remember very well in a difcourfe one day with the King, when I happened to fay there were feveral thousand books among us written upon the art of government, it gave him (directly_contrary to my intention,) a very mean opinion of our underftandings. He profeffed both to abominate and defpife all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a Prince or a Minifter. He could not tell what I meant by fecrets of ftate, where an enemy, or fome rival nation, were not in the cafe. He con'fined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and reason, to juftice and lenity, to the fpeedy determination of civil and criminal caufes; with fome other obvious topics, which are not worth confidering. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grafs, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deferve better of mankind, and do more effential fervice to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

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The learning of this people is very defective, confifting only in morality, hiftory, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel. But the last of thefe is wholly applied to what may be useful in life, to the improvement of agricul ture, and all mechanical arts; fo that among us it would be little efteemed. And as to ideas, entities, abstractions, and tranfcendantals, I could never drive the leaft conception into their heads.

No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which confifts only in two and twenty. But indeed few of them extend even to that length. They are expreffed in the moft plain and fimple 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 decifion of civil caufes, or proceedings against criminals, their precedents are fo few, that they have little reason to boast of any extraordinary fkill 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 largeft, doth not amount to above a thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, from whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleafed. 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 diftance 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 ftep of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book, began at the top of the page, and fo 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 defcending gradually till I came to the bottom: after which I mounted again, and began the other page in the fame manner, and fo turned over the leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and ftiff as a pafte-board, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long.

Their ftyle is clear, mafculine, and fmooth, but not florid; for they avoid nothing more than multiplying unneceffary words, or ufing various expreffions. I have perufed many of their books, efpecially thofe in hiftory and morality. Among the reft I was much diverted with a little old treatife, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed-chamber,. and belonged to her governefs, a grave elderly gen-tlewoman, who dealt in writings of morality and devotion. The book treats of the weakness of hu man kind, and is in little efteem, except among the women and the vulgar. However I was curious to fee what an author of that country could fay upon fuch a fubject. This writer went through all the ufual topics of European moralifts, fhewing howe 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 beafts: how much he was excelled by one creature in ftrength, by another in fpeed, by a third in forefight, by a fourth in industry. He added, that nature was degenerated in thefe latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce only small abortive births, in comparifon of thofe in ancient times. He faid it was very reasonable to think, not only that the fpecies of men were originally much larger, but alfo that there muft have been giants in former ages; which, as it is afferted by history and tradition, fo it hath been confirmed by huge bones and skulls cafually dug up in feveral parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of man in our days. He argued, that the very laws of

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nature abfolutely required we should have been made in the beginning of a fize more large and robust, not fo liable to destruction from every little accident of a tile falling from an houfe, or a stone caft from the hand of a boy, or being drowned in a little brook. From this way of reafoning, the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needlefs here to repeat. For my own part, I could not avoid reflecting how univerfally this talent was fpread, of drawing lectures in morality, or indeed rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raife with Nature. And, I believe, upon a strict enquiry, those quarrels might be fhewn as ill-grounded among us, as they are among that people

As to their military affairs, they boast that the King's army confifts of an hundred and feventy-fix thousand foot, and thirty two thousand horfe: if that may be called an army, which is made up of tradesmen in the feveral cities, and farmers in the country, whofe commanders are only the nobility and gentry without pay or reward. They are indeed perfect enough in their exercises, and under very good difcipline, wherein I faw no great merit; for how fhould it be otherwife, where every farmer is under the command of his own landlord, and every citizen under that of the principal men in his own city, chofen after the manner of Venice by ballot?

I have often feen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise in a great field, near the city, of twenty miles fquare. They were in all not above twenty-five thoufand foot, and fix thousand horse: but it was impoffible for me to compute their number, confidering the space of ground they took up.

* The author's zeal to juftify Providence has before been remarked; and these quarrels with Nature, or, in other words, with God, could not have been more forcibly reproved, than by fhewing, that the complaints upon which they are founded, would be equally fpecious asmong beings of such astonishing fuperiority of ftature and ftrength.

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A cavalier, mounted on a large fteed, might be about ninety feet high. I have feen this whole bo dy of horfe, upon a word of command, draw their fwords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing fo grand, fo furprising,. and fo aftonifhing! it looked as if ten thoufand flashes of lightning were darting at the fame time from every quarter of the sky.

I was curious to know how this prince, to whofe dominions there is no accefs from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach his people the practice of military difcipline. But I was foon informed both by converfation and reading their hiftories: for in the course of many ages they have been troubled with the fame disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the King for abfolute dominion. All which, however, happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been fometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have more than once occafioned civil wars, the last whereof was happily put an end to by this prince's grandfather in a general compofition; and the militia, then fettled with common confent, hath been ever fince kept in the ftricteft duty.

CHAP. VIII.

The King and Queen make a progrefs to the frontiers. The author attends them. The manner in which he leaves the country very particularly related. He re turns to England.

I

HAD always a ftrong impulfe, that I fhould some time recover my liberty, though it was im

poffible