CHAPTER VII.
The author's love of his country. He makes a proposal of much advantageto the king, which is rejected. The king's great ignorance in politics.The learning of that country very imperfect and confined. The laws, andmilitary affairs, and parties in the state.
Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me fromconcealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover myresentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced torest with patience, while my noble and beloved country was so injuriouslytreated. 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 socurious and inquisitive upon every particular, that it could not consisteither with gratitude or good manners, to refuse giving him whatsatisfaction I was able. Yet thus much I may be allowed to say in my ownvindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave toevery point a more favourable turn, by many degrees, than the strictnessof truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partialityto my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis, with so muchjustice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties anddeformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties inthe most advantageous light. This was my sincere endeavour in those manydiscourses I had with that monarch, although it unfortunately failed ofsuccess.
But great allowances should be given to a king, who lives wholly secludedfrom the rest of the world, and must therefore be altogether unacquaintedwith the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the wantof which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certainnarrowness of thinking, from which we, and the politer countries ofEurope, are wholly exempted. And it would be hard indeed, if so remote aprince's notions of virtue and vice were to be offered as a standard forall mankind.
To confirm what I have now said, and further to show the miserableeffects of a confined education, I shall here insert a passage, whichwill hardly obtain belief. In hopes to ingratiate myself further intohis majesty's favour, I told him of an invention, discovered betweenthree and four hundred years ago, to make a certain powder, into a heapof which, the smallest spark of fire falling, would kindle the whole in amoment, although it were as big as a mountain, and make it all fly up inthe air together, with a noise and agitation greater than thunder. Thata proper quantity of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass oriron, according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead, withsuch violence and speed, as nothing was able to sustain its force. Thatthe largest balls thus discharged, would not only destroy whole ranks ofan army at once, but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink downships, with a thousand men in each, to the bottom of the sea, and whenlinked together by a chain, would cut through masts and rigging, dividehundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all waste before them. That weoften put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and dischargedthem by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip upthe pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters onevery side, dashing out the brains of all who came near. That I knew theingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood themanner of compounding them, and could direct his workmen how to makethose tubes, of a size proportionable to all other things in hismajesty's kingdom, and the largest need not be above a hundred feet long;twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper quantity ofpowder and balls, would batter down the walls of the strongest town inhis dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole metropolis, if ever itshould pretend to dispute his absolute commands. This I humbly offeredto his majesty, as a small tribute of acknowledgment, in turn for so manymarks that I had received, of his royal favour and protection.
The king was struck with horror at the description I had given of thoseterrible engines, and the proposal I had made. He was amazed, how soimpotent and grovelling an insect as I (these were his expressions)could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as toappear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation which Ihad painted as the common effects of those destructive machines;whereof, he said, some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have beenthe first contriver. As for himself, he protested, that although fewthings delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yethe would rather lose half his kingdom, than be privy to such a secret;which he commanded me, as I valued any life, never to mention any more.
A strange effect of narrow principles and views! that a prince possessedof every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strongparts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirabletalents, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice,unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, letslip an opportunity put into his hands that would have made him absolutemaster of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people!Neither do I say this, with the least intention to detract from the manyvirtues of that excellent king, whose character, I am sensible, will, onthis account, be very much lessened in the opinion of an English reader:but I take this defect among them to have risen from their ignorance, bynot having hitherto reduced politics into a science, as the more acutewits of Europe have done. For, I remember very well, in a discourse oneday with the king, when I happened to say, there were several thousandbooks among us written upon the art of government, it gave him (directlycontrary to my intention) a very mean opinion of our understandings. Heprofessed both to abominate and despise all mystery, refinement, andintrigue, either in a prince or a minister. He could not tell what Imeant by secrets of state, where an enemy, or some rival nation, were notin the case. He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrowbounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedydetermination of civil and criminal causes; with some other obvioustopics, 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, togrow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deservebetter of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than thewhole race of politicians put together.
The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only inmorality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowedto excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be usefulin life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all mechanical arts; sothat among us, it would be little esteemed. And as to ideas, entities,abstractions, and transcendentals, I could never drive the leastconception into their heads.
No law in that country must exceed in words the number of letters intheir alphabet, which consists only of two and twenty. But indeed few ofthem extend even to that length. They are expressed in the most plainand simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial enough todiscover above one interpretation: and to write a comment upon any law,is a capital crime. As to the decision of civil causes, or proceedingsagainst criminals, their precedents are so few, that they have littlereason to boast of any extraordinary skill in either.
They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out ofmind: but their libraries are not very large; for that of the king, whichis reckoned the largest, does not amount to above a thousand volumes,placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, whence I had liberty toborrow what books I pleased. The queen's joiner had contrived in one ofGlumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine five-and-twenty feethigh, 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 tenfeet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind toread, was put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted to the upperstep of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book, began at thetop of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight or tenpaces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a littlebelow the level of mine eyes, and then descending gradually till I cameto the bottom: after which I mounted again, and began the other page inthe same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could easily dowith both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a pasteboard, and inthe largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long.
Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for theyavoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words, or using variousexpressions. I have perused many of their books, especially those inhistory and morality. Among the rest, I was much diverted with a littleold treatise, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed chamber, andbelonged to her governess, a grave elderly gentlewoman, who dealt inwritings of morality and devotion. The book treats of the weakness ofhuman kind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and thevulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that countrycould say upon such a subject. This writer went through all the usualtopics of European moralists, showing how diminutive, contemptible, andhelpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defendhimself from inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts: howmuch he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in speed, bya third in foresight, by a fourth in industry. He added, that naturewas degenerated in these latter declining ages of the world, and couldnow produce only small abortive births, in comparison of those in ancienttimes. He said it was very reasonable to think, not only that thespecies of men were originally much larger, but also that there must havebeen giants in former ages; which, as it is asserted by history andtradition, so it has been confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casuallydug up in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindledrace of men in our days. He argued, that the very laws of natureabsolutely required we should have been made, in the beginning of a sizemore large and robust; not so liable to destruction from every littleaccident, of a tile falling from a house, or a stone cast from the handof a boy, or being drowned in a little brook. From this way ofreasoning, the author drew several moral applications, useful in theconduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I couldnot avoid reflecting how universally this talent was spread, of drawinglectures in morality, or indeed rather matter of discontent and repining,from the quarrels we raise with nature. And I believe, upon a strictinquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as theyare among that people.
As to their military affairs, they boast that the king's army consists ofa 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 theseveral cities, and farmers in the country, whose commanders are only thenobility and gentry, without pay or reward. They are indeed perfectenough in their exercises, and under very good discipline, wherein I sawno great merit; for how should it be otherwise, where every farmer isunder the command of his own landlord, and every citizen under that ofthe principal men in his own city, chosen after the manner of Venice, byballot?
I have often seen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise, in agreat field near the city of twenty miles square. They were in all notabove twenty-five thousand foot, and six thousand horse; but it wasimpossible for me to compute their number, considering the space ofground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might beabout ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon aword of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air.Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and soastonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning weredarting at the same time from every quarter of the sky.
I was curious to know how this prince, to whose dominions there is noaccess from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach hispeople the practice of military discipline. But I was soon informed,both by conversation and reading their histories; for, in the course ofmany ages, they have been troubled with the same disease to which thewhole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending forpower, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion. Allwhich, however happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have beensometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have more than onceoccasioned civil wars; the last whereof was happily put an end to by thisprince's grand-father, in a general composition; and the militia, thensettled with common consent, has been ever since kept in the strictestduty.