He is ufually governed by a decayed wench, or favourite footman, who are the tunnels through which all graces are conveyed, and may properly be called, in the last refort, the governors of the kingdom. One day in difcourfe my master, having heard me mention the nobility of my country, was pleased to make me a compliment, which I could not pretend to deferve: that he was fure I must have been born of fome noble family, because I far exceeded in fhape, colour, and cleanliness all the yahoos of his nation, although I feemed to fail in ftrength and agility, which must be imputed to my different way of living from thofe other brutes; and befides, I was not only endowed with the faculty of fpeech, but likewife with fome rudiments of reason, to a degree, that with all his acquaintance I paffed for a prodigy. He made me obferve, that among the Houyhnhnms, the white, the forrel, and the irongrey, were not fo exactly fhaped as the bay, the dapple-grey, and the black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a capacity to improve them; and therefore continued always in the condition of fervants, without ever afpiring to match out of their own race, which in that country would be reckoned monftrous and unnatural. I made his honour my moft humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleafed to conceive of me; but affured him at the fame time, that my birth was of the lower fort, having been born of plain honeft pa rents, rents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education that nobility among us was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that as foon as years will permit, they confume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry fome woman of mean. birth, difagreeable perfon, and unfound conftitution, merely for the fake of money, whom they hate and defpife. That the productions of fuch marriages are generally fcrophulous, ricketty, or deformed children; by which means the family feldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father among her neighbours or domeftics in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and fallow complexion are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is fo difgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom, or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a compofition of fpleen, dulnefs, ignorance, caprice, fenfuality, and pride. Without the confent of this illuftrious body no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered ; and thefe nobles have likewife the decifions of all our poffeffions, without appeal. СНАР. CHAP. VII. The author's great love of his native country. His mafter's obfervations upon the conftitution and administration of England, as described by the author, with parallel cafes and comparifons. His mafter's obfervations upon human nature. THO HE reader may be difpofed to wonder, how I could prevail on myself to give fo free a representation of my own fpecies among a race of mortals, who are already too apt to conceive the vileft opinion of human kind from that intire congruity betwixt me and their yaboos. But I must freely confefs, that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in oppofite view to human corruptions, had fo far opened my eyes, and enlarged, my underftanding, that I began to view the actions and paffions of man in a very different light; and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which befides it was impoffible for me to do before a perfon of fo acute a judgment as my mafter, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before, and which with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewife learned from his example an utter deteftation of all falfhood or difguife; and truth appeared fo amiable to me, me, that I determined upon facrificing every thing to it. Let me deal fo candidly with the reader as to confefs, that there was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my reprefentation of things. I had not been a year in this country, before I contracted fuch a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm refolution never to return to human kind, but to pass the reft of my life among these admirable bouyhnhnms in the contemplation and practice of every virtue; where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that fo great a felicity fhould not fall to my fhare. However it is now fome comfort to reflect, that in what I faid of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durft before fo ftrict an examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn, as the matter would bear. For indeed who is there alive, that will not be swayed by his byafs and partiality to the place of his birth? I have related the fubftance of feveral converfations I had with my mafter, during the greatest part of the time I had the honour to be in his fervice; but have indeed for brevity fake omitted much more than is here fet down. When I had answered all his questions, and his curiofity feemed to be fully fatisfied; he fent for me one morning early, and commanding me to fit down at fome distance (an honour which he had never before conferred upon me) he faid, he had been very seriously confidering my whole story as far as it related both to myself and my country: that he looked upon us as a fort of animals, to whofe share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reafon had fallen, whereof we made no other ufe, than by its affiftance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which nature had not given us: that we difarmed ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very fuccefsful in multiplying our original wants, and feemed to fpend our whole lives in vain endeavours to fupply them by our own inventions. That as to myself it was manifeft, I had neither the ftrength or agility of a common yaboo; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no ufe or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a fhelter from the fun and the weather. Laftly, That I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren, (as he called them) the yahoos in this country. That our inftitutions of government and law were plainly owing to our grofs defects in reafon, and by confequence in virtue; because reafon alone is fufficient to govern a rational creature; which was therefore a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people; although he manifeftly perceived, that in order to |