lent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people.

But this defeription, I confefs, doth by no means affect the British nation, who may be an example to the whole world, for the wildom, care, and juftice in planting colonies; their liberal endowments for the advancement of religion and learning; their choice of devout and able paftors to propagate chriflianity; their caution in ftocking their provinces with people of fober lives and converfations, from this the mother kingdom; their strict regard to the diftribution of justice, in fupplying the civil adminstration through all their colonies with officers of the greatest abilities, utter ftrangers to corruption; and to crown all, by fending the most vigilant and virtuous governors, who have no other views than the happinessof the people over whom they prefide, and the honour of the King their master.

But as thofe countries, which I have defcribed, do not appear to have any defire of being conquered, and enflaved, murdered or driven out by colonies; nor abound either in gold, filver, fugar, or tobacco I did humbly conceive, they were by no means proper objects of our zeal, our valour, or our intereft. However, if those, whom it more concerns, think it fit to be of another opi nion, I am ready to depofe, when I fhall be lawfully called, that no European did ever vifit thefe countries before me: I mean, if the inhabitants ought to be belie ved; unless a difpute may arife, concerning the two yahoos faid to have been teen many ages ago upon a mountain in Houyhnhnm-land.

But, as to the formality of taking poffeffion in my fovereign's name, it never came once into my thoughts; and if it had, yet, as my affairs then flood, I should perhaps in point of prudence and felf prefervation have put it off to a better opportunity.

Hoving thus anfwered the only objection that can ever be railed against me as a traveller; I here take a final leave of all my courtcous readers, and return to enjoy. my own fpeculations in my little garden at Redriff; to apply thofe excellent leflons of virtue which I learned a mong the Houyhnhnms; to inftruct the yahoos of my. own family, as far as I fhall find them docible animals';

to.

to behold my figure often in a glass, and thus, if poffible, habituate myself by time to tolerate the fight of a human creature to lament the brutality of Houyhnhnms in my own country, but always treat their perfons with respect for the fake of my noble mafter, his family, his friends, and the whole Houyhnhnm-race, whom thefe of ours have the honour to refemble in all their lincaments, however their intellectuals came to degenerate..

I began last week to permit my wife to fit at dinner with me at the farthest end of a long table; and to anfwer (but with the utmost brevity) the few questions I afked her. Yet, the smell of a yahoo continuing very offenfive, I always kept my nofe well topped with rue, lavender, or tobacco-leaves. And, although it be hard for a man late in life to remove old habits, I am not altogether out of hopes in fome time to fuffer a neighbour yahoo in my company, without the apprehenfions I am yet under of his teeth or his claws.

*

to.

My reconcilement to the yahoo-kind in general, might not be fo difficult, if they would be content with thofe vices and follies only which nature hath intitled them I am not in the least provoked at the fight of a law-yer, a pick-pocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a gamefter, a politician, a whore-monger, a phyfician, an evidence, a fuborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like: this is all. according to the due courfe of things; but when I behold a lump of deformity and difeafes, both in body and mind,. fmitten with pride, it immediately breaks all the meafures of my patience; neither fhall I be ever able to com prehend how fuch an animal, and fuch a vice, could tally together. The wife and virtuous Houyhnhnms, who a bound in all excellencies that can adorn a rational crea ture, have no name for this vice in their language, which hath no terms to exprefs any thing that is evil, except thole whereby they defcribe the deteftable qualities of their yahoos, among which they were not able to distinguifh this of pride, for want of thoroughly understanding human nature, as it fheweth itself in other countries where that animal prefides: But I, who had more experience, could plainly obferve fome rudiments of it a inong the wild yahoos.

But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of reason,

reafon, are no more proud of the good qualities they pof fefs, than I fhould be for not wanting a leg or an arm, which no man in his wits would boast of, although he must be miferable without them. I dwell the longer upon this fubject, from the defire I have to make the fociety of an English yahoo by any means not infupportable; and therefore I here intreat thofe, who have any tincture of this abfurd vice, that they will not prefume to come in my fight.

To mortify pride, which indeed was not made for man, and produces not only the most ridiculous follies, but the most extensive calamity, appears to have been one general view of the author in every part of these travels. Perfonal strength and beauty, the wisdom and the virtue of mankind, become objects, not of pride, but of humility, in the diminutive ftature and contemptible weakness of the Lilliputians; in the horrid deformity of the Brobdingnagians; in the learned folly of the Laputians; and in the parallel drawn between our manners and those of the Houyhnhnms.

Hawkef.

Swift's Gulliver is a direct, plain, and bitter satire, against the innumerable follies and corruptions in law, politics, learning, morals, and religion. And without difpute these manifold corruptions have, in a course of ages, by the refinements and glosses of iniquitous men, arrived at last to fuch strength and effrontery, as to render it impoffible for all the wit and genius that ever warmed the imagination of a fatirist, to lash them with any degree of feverity proportioned to that excess of perturbation and mischief which they severally occasion in the great circle of fociety. All therefore, which can be done by a wife man (seeing that by nature he is appointed to act, for the space of thirty, fifty, or feventy years, fome ridiculous filly part in this fantastic theatre of mifery, vice, and corruption), is either to lament, with Heraclitus, the iniquities of the world; or, which is the more chearful, and therefore I do prefume the more eligible courfe, to laugh with Democritus, at all the knaves and fools upon earth. And accordingly we find, that Dr. Swift has, in these travels, exerted a fort of ridicule and fatire, pointed fo directly against the depravities of human kind, and fupported with such an abundance of wit and pleafantry, as indeed more than perfuade us to believe, that his intention was either to laugh vice and immorality, if it were poffible, quite out of the world; or at leaft to avenge the caufe of virtue on all the patrons or abettors of iniquity. Swift.

A

A TRITICAL ESSAY upon the FACUL TIES of the MIND *.

BE

SIR,

To

EING fo great a lover of antiquities, it was rea Jonable to fuppofe you would be very much obliged with any thing that was new. I have been of late offended with many writers of effays and moral discourses, for running into tale topics and thread-bare quotations, and not handling their fubject fully and clofely: all which errors I have carefully avoided in the following effay, which I have propofed for a pattern for young writers to imitate. The thoughts and obfervations being entirely new, the qua tations untouched by others, the fubject of mighty importance, and treated with much order and perfpicuity, it hath cost me a great deal of time; and I defire you will accept and confider it as the utmost effort of my genius.

Hilofophers fay, that man is a microcosm, or little world, refembling in miniature every part of the

In this piece the fpirit of ridicule is very highly displayed. The author gravely pretends, that this subject is of mighty importance; that his fentiments are entirely new; that his quotations are entouched by others; and, above all, that he has treated his fubject with much order, falnefs, and perfpicuity: on which account he hath proposed it as a pattern for young writers to imitate, and defires it may be confidered as the utmost effort of his genius. Whereas, in fact, the fubject is of little importance, the fentiments are old and ftale, the quotations are thread-bare; and, to complete his ridicule, he has treated his fubject in a light, careless, rambling, fuperficial manner, without order, fulness, meaning, or perfpicuity: and therefore it is only to be considered, like the Meditation on a broomftick, [vol. 5. p. 3.72. ] in a farcical, fatiric light, defigned purely to expofe the folly and temerity of those brainless, illiterate scribblers who are eternally plaguing their cotemporaries with a parcel of wild incoherent, nonfenfical trash.

Swift.

great

great; and, in my opinion, the body natural may be confpared to the body politic: and if this be fo, how can the Epicurean's opinion be true, that the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourfe of atoms; which I will no mote believe, than that the accidental jumbling of the letters of the alphabet could fall by chance into a moft ingenious and learned treatife of philofophy. Rifum teneatis amici? [HOR.] This falfe opinion muft needs create many more; it is like an error in the first concoction, which cannot be corrected in the second; the foundation is weak, and whatever fuperftructure you raife upon it, muft of neceflity fall to the ground. Thus men are led from one error to another, until with Ixion they embrace a cloud instead of Juno; or, like the dog in the fable, lose the substance in gaping at the fhadow: For fuch opinions cannot cohere; but like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image, must separate and break in pieces. I have read in a certain author, that Alexander wept, becaule he had no more worlds to conquer ; which he needed not have done, if the fortuituous concourfe of atoms could create one; but this is an opinion fitter for that many-headed beaft the vulgar to entertain, than for fo wife a inan as Epicurus; the corrupt part of his fect only borrowed his name, as the monkey did the cat's claw to draw the chefiut out of the fire. .. However, the first step to the cure is to know the difeafe; and though truth may be difficult to find, bɛ• 'caufe, as the philofopher obferves, he lives in the bot tom of a well, yet we need not, like blind men, grope in open day-light. I hope I may be allowed among fo many far more learned men to offer my mite, fince a ftander-by may fometimes perhaps fee more of the game, than he that plays it. But I do not think a philofopher obliged to account for every phænomenon in nature, or drown himself with Ariftole, for not being able to folve the ebbing and flowing of the tide, in that fatal fentence he paft upon himself, Quia te non capio, tu capies me. Wherein he was at once the judge and the criminal, the acculer and executioner. Socrates, on the other hand, who faid he knew nothing, was pronounced by the ora cle to be the wifeft man in the world.

But to return from this digreffion, I think it as clear

as