the fpinet a bench was placed about four feet below the keys, and I was put up on the bench. I ran fideling upon it that way and this, as fast as I could, banging the proper keys with my two fticks, and made a fhift to play a jigg to the great fatisfaction of both their majesties but it was the most violent exercise I ever underwent, and yet I could not strike above fixteen keys, nor confequently play the bafs and treble together, as other artists do, which was a great difadvantage to my performance.

The king, who, as I before obferved, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I fhould be brought in my box, and fet upon the table in his clofet; he would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and fit down within three yards diftance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almoft to a level with his face. In this manner I had feveral converfations with him. I one day took the freedom to tell his majefty, that the contempt he difcovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not feem anfwerable to thofe excellent qualities of mind that he was mafter of: that reafon did not extend itfelf with the bulk of the body; on the contrary, we obferved in our country, that the tallest perfons were ufually leaft provided with it: that, among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more induftry, art, and fagacity, than many of the larger kinds; and that, as inconfiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his majefty fome fignal fervice. The king heard me with attention, and began to conceive a much better opinion of me than he had ever before. He defired I would give him as exact an account of the government of EngJand as I poffibly could; becaufe, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for fo he conjectured of other monarchs by my former difcourfes) he fhould be glad to hear of any thing that might deferve imitation.

Imagine with thy felf, courteous reader, how often I then wifhed for the tongue of Demofthenes or Cicero, that

might have enabled me to celebrate the praife of my own dear native country in a ftyle equal to its merits and feli city.

I began my difcourfe by informing his majefty, that our dominions confifted of two islands, which compofed three mighty kingdoms under one fovereign, befides our plantations in America. I dwelt long upon the fertility of our foil, and the temperature of our climate. I then fpoke at large upon the conftitution of an English parliament, partly made up of an illuftrious body called the houfe of peers, perfons of the nobleft blood, and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies. I defcribed that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them for being counsellors both to the king and kingdom; to have a fhare in the legislature; to be members of the higheft court of judicature, from whence there could be no appeal; and to be champions always ready for the defence of their prince and country, by their valour, conduct, and fidelity. That thefe were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom, worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whofe honour had been the reward of their virtue, from which their pofterity. were never once known to degenerate. To thefe were joined feveral holy per'fons as part of that affembly under the title of bifhops, whofe peculiar business it is to take care of religion, and of those who inftruct the people therein. Thefe were fearched and fought out through the whole nation, by the prince and his wifeft counsellors, among fuch of the priesthood as were most defervedly diftinguished by the fanctity of their lives, and the depth of their erudition, who were indeed the fpiritual fathers of the clergy and the people.

That the other part of the parliament confifted of an affembly called the house of commons, who were all principal gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities and love of their country, to reprefent the wifdom of the whole nation. And that these two bodies made up the moft auguft affem

bly

picked up at a venture in the streets for fmall wages, who might get an hundred times more by cutting their throats.

perfons educated in the general knowedge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs. Whether they or their judges had any part in penning thofe laws, which they affumed the liberty of interpreting and gloffing upon at their pleafure. Whether they had ever at different times pleaded for and against the fame caufe, and cited precedents to prove contrary opinions. Whether they were a rich or a poor corporation. Whether they received any pecuniary reward for pleading or deli-ed to change, or should not be obliged vering their opinions. And particularly, whether they were ever admitted as members in the lower fenate.

He laughed at my odd kind of arith metic (as he was pleafed to call it) in reckoning the numbers of our people by a computation drawn from the several fects among us in religion and politics. He faid, he knew no reason. why thofe, who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public, fhould be oblig

to conceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the firft, fo it was weaknefs not to enforce the fecond: for a man may be allowed to keep poifons in his clofet; but not to vend them about for cordials.

as

He obferved, that among the .diverfions of our nobility and gentry I had mentioned gaming: he defired to know at what age this entertainment was ufually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed: whether it ever went to high to affect their fortunes: whether mean vicious people by their dexterity in that art might not arrive at great riches, and fometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of He their minds, and force them by the loffes they received to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others.

He fell next upon the management of our treafury; and faid, he thought my memory had failed me, becaufe I computed our taxes at about five or fix millions a year, and when I came to mention the iffaes, he found they fometimes amounted to more than double; for the notes he had taken were very particular in this point, becaufe he hoped, as he told me, that the knowledge of our conduct might be ufeful to him, and he could not be deceived 'in his calculations. But, if what I told him were true, he was fill at a lofs how a kingdom could run out of its eftate like a private perfon. He afked me, who were our creditors, and where we found money to pay them. wondered to hear me talk of fuch chargable and expenfive wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelfome people, or live among very bad neighbours, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings. He afked what business we had out of our own idlands, unless upon the fcore of trade or treaty, or to defend the coafts with our fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary ftanding army in the midft of peace, and among a free people. He faid, if we were governed by our own confent in the perfons of our reprefentatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man's houfe might not better be defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half a dozen rafcals

He was perfectly aflonithed with the hiftorical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, proteft. ing it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, maffacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrify, perfidioufnefs, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, luft, malice, and ambition could produce.

His majefly in another audience was at the pains to recapitulate the fum of all I had fpoken; compared the quef tions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and ftroking me gently, delivered him felf in thefe words, which I fhall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: My little friend Grildrig, you have

made

made a moft admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idlenefs, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legiflator; that laws are beft explained, interpreted, and applied by thofe whofe intereft and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I obferve among you fome lines of an inftitution, which in its original might have been tolerable, but thefe half erafed, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear from all you have faid, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one ftation among you; much lefs, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue, that priests are advanced for their piety or learning, foldiers for their conduct or valour, judges for their integrity, fenators for the love of their country, or counfellors for their wifdom. As for yourself, continued the king, who have Spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well difpofed to hope you may hitherto have efcaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the anfwers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin, that nature ever fuffered to crawl upon the furface of the earth."

CHAP. VII.

The author's love of his country. He makes a propofal 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 fate.

Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my itory. It was in vain to difcover my refentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced to reft with patience, while my noble and most beloved country was fo injuriously treated. I am as heartily forry as any of my readers can poffibly be, that fuch an occafion was given:

but this prince happened to be fo curious and inquifitive upon every particular, that it could not confift either with gratitude or good manners to refuse giving him what fatisfaction I was able. Yet thus much I may be allowed to fay in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favourable turn by many degrees than the ftriétnefs of truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionyfius Halicarnaffenlis with fo much juftice 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 fincere endeavour in thofe many difcourfes I had with that monarch, although it unfortunately failed of fuccefs.

But great allowances fhould be given to a king, who lives wholly fecluded from the rest of the world, and mult therefore be altogether unacquainted with the manners and cuftoms that moft 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 fo 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 faid, and further to fhew the miferable ef fects of a confined education, I fhall here infert a paffage which will hardly obtain belief. In hopes to ingratiate myfelf farther into his majesty's favour, I told him of an invention difcovered between three and four hundred years ago to make a certain powder, into an heap of which the fmaileft fpark 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 noife and agitation greater than thunder. That a proper quantity of this powder rammed into an hollow tube of brafs or iron, according to its bignefs, would drive a ball of iron or lead with fuch violence and fpeed, as nothing was able to fuf3 K 4

tain

tain 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, fink down fhips, with a thousand men in each, to the bottom of the fea; and, when linked by a chain together, would cut thro' mafts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all wafte before them. That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and difcharged them by an engine into fome city we were befieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houfes to pieces, burft and throw fplinters on every fide, dafhing out the brains of all who came near. That 1 knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workmen how to make thofe tubes of a fize proportionable to all other things in his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not be above an 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 ftrongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole metropolis, if ever it fhould pretend to difpute his abfolute commands. This I humbly offered to his majesty as a fmall tribute of acknowledgment in return for fo many marks that I had received of his royal favour and protection.

The king was ftruck with horror at the defcription I had given of thofe terrible engines, and the propofal I had made. He was amazed, how fo impotent and groveling an infect as I (thefe were his expreffions) could entertain fuch inhuman ideas, and in fo familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the fcenes of blood and defolation, which I had painted as the common effects of thofe deftructive machines, whereof he faid fome evil genius, enemy to mankind, muft have been the first contriver. As for himfelf, he protested, that although few things delighted him fo much as new difcoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather lofe half his kingdom, than be privy to fuch a fecret, which

he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any more.

A ftrange effect of narrow principles and short views! that a prince, poffeffed 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 fubjects, fhould, from a nice unneceffary fcruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let flip an opportunity put into his hands, that would have made him abfolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do I fay this with the leaft intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whofe character I am fenfible will on this account be very much leffened in the opinion of an English reader : but I take this defect among them to have rifen from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a fcience, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I remember very well in a difcourfe one day with the king, when I happened to fay there were feveral thoufand 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 profeffed both to abominate and defpife all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a prince or a minifter. He could not tell what I meant by fecrets of ftate, where an enemy, or fome rival nation, were not in the cafe. He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common fenfe and reafon, to juftice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal caufes; with fome other obvious topics, which are not worth confidering. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grafs, to grow upon a fpot of ground where only one grew before, would deferve better of mankind, and do more effential fervice to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

The learning of this people is very defective, confifting only in morali.

ty,