Chapter: 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 this 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 favorable 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[79] 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 endeavor,
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 farther 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 farther into
his majesty's favor, I told him of an invention discovered between three
and four hundred years ago, to make a certain powder into a heap, on
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 workman
how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in
his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to 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 return for so many marks that I had received of his
royal favor and protection.

The king was struck with horror at the description I had given him 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 my life, never to mention any more.

A strange effect of narrow principles and short 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 for government, 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 arisen
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,[80] I could never drive the least
conception into their heads.

No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in
their alphabet, which consists only in 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[81] 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, 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 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 movable 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 paste-board, 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.

[Illustration]

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
births, in comparison to 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 hath been
confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up in several parts of
the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of man 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;[82] and the
militia, then settled with common consent, hath been ever since kept in
the strictest duty.

[Illustration]

 Gulliver sits and listens to the King's intense criticism of England. He keeps quiet because it would be ungrateful of him to contradict the King, his benefactor. He also reassures us that we should forgive the Brobdingnagian King for his criticism of England - how could the King know better, when his own country is so remote from all other nations of the world? To prove how ignorant and foolish the King is, Gulliver tells us, the readers, that he offered to show the King how to make gunpowder to subdue his enemies. The Brobdingnagian King listens to Gulliver's description of guns and is totally horrified. He makes Gulliver promise never even to mention these weapons to him again. Gulliver exclaims to the reader about the foolishness of the Brobdingnagian King, who has let this great opportunity for power slip through his fingers. Gulliver also criticizes Brobdingnagian education, which focuses on practical applications of knowledge rather than on abstract mysteries. No law in Brobdingnag can be longer than 20 words. They also don't have very many books. He comments on the clarity of their writing style: they never use too many words, and everything appears in simple language. The King's army is well-disciplined because all of its soldiers are farmers and tradesmen who serve under their own landlords and chief citizens. Gulliver wonders why the King bothers to have armies at all if there are no other countries nearby. It turns out that Brobdingnag has had a number of civil wars between nobles, who want power, the people, who want freedom, and the king, who wants total authority. In the aftermath of these civil wars, all three of these - the nobles, the people, and the king - have agreed that they need a militia to keep the peace.

