CHAPTER VI.
A further account of the academy. The author proposes some improvements,which are honourably received.
In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained; theprofessors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses, whichis a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy peoplewere proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites uponthe score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers toconsult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, eminentservices; of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placingit on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing foremployments persons qualified to exercise them, with many other wild,impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man toconceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothingso extravagant and irrational, which some philosophers have notmaintained for truth.
But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the Academy, asto acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a mostingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole natureand system of government. This illustrious person had very usefullyemployed his studies, in finding out effectual remedies for all diseasesand corruptions to which the several kinds of public administration aresubject, by the vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as bythe licentiousness of those who are to obey. For instance: whereas allwriters and reasoners have agreed, that there is a strict universalresemblance between the natural and the political body; can there be anything more evident, than that the health of both must be preserved, andthe diseases cured, by the same prescriptions? It is allowed, thatsenates and great councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient,and other peccant humours; with many diseases of the head, and more ofthe heart; with strong convulsions, with grievous contractions of thenerves and sinews in both hands, but especially the right; with spleen,flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of fetidpurulent matter; with sour frothy ructations: with canine appetites, andcrudeness of digestion, besides many others, needless to mention. Thisdoctor therefore proposed, that upon the meeting of the senate, certainphysicians should attend it the three first days of their sitting, and atthe close of each day's debate feel the pulses of every senator; afterwhich, having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of theseveral maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth dayreturn to the senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored withproper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of themlenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents,palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics,acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as thesemedicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at the nextmeeting.
This project could not be of any great expense to the public; and mightin my poor opinion, be of much use for the despatch of business, in thosecountries where senates have any share in the legislative power; begetunanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, andclose many more which are now open; curb the petulancy of the young, andcorrect the positiveness of the old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert.
Again: because it is a general complaint, that the favourites of princesare troubled with short and weak memories; the same doctor proposed,that whoever attended a first minister, after having told his business,with the utmost brevity and in the plainest words, should, at hisdeparture, give the said minister a tweak by the nose, or a kick in thebelly, or tread on his corns, or lug him thrice by both ears, or run apin into his breech; or pinch his arm black and blue, to preventforgetfulness; and at every levee day, repeat the same operation, tillthe business were done, or absolutely refused.
He likewise directed, that every senator in the great council of anation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence ofit, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if thatwere done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of thepublic.
When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivanceto reconcile them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders ofeach party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearestof a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each coupleat the same time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided.Let the occiputs, thus cut off, be interchanged, applying each to thehead of his opposite party-man. It seems indeed to be a work thatrequires some exactness, but the professor assured us, that if it weredexterously performed, the cure would be infallible. For he arguedthus: that the two half brains being left to debate the matter betweenthemselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a goodunderstanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity ofthinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of those, who imaginethey come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as tothe difference of brains, in quantity or quality, among those who aredirectors in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, thatit was a perfect trifle.
I heard a very warm debate between two professors, about the mostcommodious and effectual ways and means of raising money, withoutgrieving the subject. The first affirmed, the justest method would be,to lay a certain tax upon vices and folly; and the sum fixed upon everyman to be rated, after the fairest manner, by a jury of his neighbours.The second was of an opinion directly contrary; to tax those qualitiesof body and mind, for which men chiefly value themselves; the rate to bemore or less, according to the degrees of excelling; the decision whereofshould be left entirely to their own breast. The highest tax was uponmen who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, and theassessments, according to the number and nature of the favours they havereceived; for which, they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit,valour, and politeness, were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, andcollected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word forthe quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom, andlearning, they should not be taxed at all; because they arequalifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow themin his neighbour or value them in himself.
The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skillin dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to bedetermined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense,and good nature, were not rated, because they would not bear the chargeof collecting.
To keep senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that themembers should raffle for employment; every man first taking an oath, andgiving security, that he would vote for the court, whether he won or not;after which, the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling uponthe next vacancy. Thus, hope and expectation would be kept alive; nonewould complain of broken promises, but impute their disappointmentswholly to fortune, whose shoulders are broader and stronger than those ofa ministry.
Another professor showed me a large paper of instructions for discoveringplots and conspiracies against the government. He advised greatstatesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons; their timesof eating; upon which side they lay in bed; with which hand they wipetheir posteriors; take a strict view of their excrements, and, from thecolour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturityof digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because menare never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool,which he found by frequent experiment; for, in such conjunctures, when heused, merely as a trial, to consider which was the best way of murderingthe king, his ordure would have a tincture of green; but quite different,when he thought only of raising an insurrection, or burning themetropolis.
The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing manyobservations, both curious and useful for politicians; but, as Iconceived, not altogether complete. This I ventured to tell the author,and offered, if he pleased, to supply him with some additions. Hereceived my proposition with more compliance than is usual among writers,especially those of the projecting species, professing he would be gladto receive further information.
I told him, that in the kingdom of Tribnia, {454a} by the natives calledLangdon, {454b} where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulkof the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses,informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together withtheir several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under thecolours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and theirdeputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship ofthose persons who desire to raise their own characters of profoundpoliticians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifleor divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures;and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall bestanswer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled amongthem, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectualcare is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the ownersin chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, verydexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, andletters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify aprivy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; theplague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a highpriest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee ofgrandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, anemployment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap andbells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, ageneral; a running sore, the administration. {455}
When this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which thelearned among them call acrostics and anagrams. First, they can decipherall initial letters into political meanings. Thus _N_, shall signify aplot; _B_, a regiment of horse; _L_, a fleet at sea; or, secondly, bytransposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they canlay open the deepest designs of a discontented party. So, for example,if I should say, in a letter to a friend, 'Our brother Tom has just gotthe piles,' a skilful decipherer would discover, that the same letterswhich compose that sentence, may be analysed into the following words,'Resist ---, a plot is brought home--The tour.' And this is theanagrammatic method.
The professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating theseobservations, and promised to make honourable mention of me in histreatise.
I saw nothing in this country that could invite me to a longercontinuance, and began to think of returning home to England.