Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Page 27

  CHAPTER VIII.

  A further account of Glubbdubdrib. Ancient and modern history corrected.

  Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit andlearning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer andAristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators; but thesewere so numerous, that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court,and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish those twoheroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other.Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erectfor one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I everbeheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage wasmeagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discoveredthat both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, andhad never seen or heard of them before; and I had a whisper from a ghostwho shall be nameless, "that these commentators always kept in the mostdistant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through aconsciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horriblymisrepresented the meaning of those authors to posterity." I introducedDidymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat thembetter than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a geniusto enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of allpatience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presentedthem to him; and he asked them, "whether the rest of the tribe were asgreat dunces as themselves?"

  I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gassendi, with whomI prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This greatphilosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy,because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must do;and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus aspalatable as he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally to beexploded. He predicted the same fate to _attraction_, whereof thepresent learned are such zealous asserters. He said, "that new systemsof nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; and eventhose, who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles,would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when thatwas determined."

  I spent five days in conversing with many others of the ancient learned.I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on the governor tocall up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us a dinner, but they could notshow us much of their skill, for want of materials. A helot of Agesilausmade us a dish of Spartan broth, but I was not able to get down a secondspoonful.

  The two gentlemen, who conducted me to the island, were pressed by theirprivate affairs to return in three days, which I employed in seeing someof the modern dead, who had made the greatest figure, for two or threehundred years past, in our own and other countries of Europe; and havingbeen always a great admirer of old illustrious families, I desired thegovernor would call up a dozen or two of kings, with their ancestors inorder for eight or nine generations. But my disappointment was grievousand unexpected. For, instead of a long train with royal diadems, I sawin one family two fiddlers, three spruce courtiers, and an Italianprelate. In another, a barber, an abbot, and two cardinals. I have toogreat a veneration for crowned heads, to dwell any longer on so nice asubject. But as to counts, marquises, dukes, earls, and the like, I wasnot so scrupulous. And I confess, it was not without some pleasure, thatI found myself able to trace the particular features, by which certainfamilies are distinguished, up to their originals. I could plainlydiscover whence one family derives a long chin; why a second has aboundedwith knaves for two generations, and fools for two more; why a thirdhappened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence itcame, what Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, _Nec virfortis_, _nec foemina casta_; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grewto be characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as muchas by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house,which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their posterity.Neither could I wonder at all this, when I saw such an interruption oflineages, by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen, gamesters, fiddlers,players, captains, and pickpockets.

  I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictlyexamined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for ahundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitutewriters, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisestcounsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayersof their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, toinformers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned todeath or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon thecorruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains hadbeen exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit:how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, andsenates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, andbuffoons. How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when Iwas truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises andrevolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which theyowed their success.

  Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend to writeanecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to their graves witha cup of poison; will repeat the discourse between a prince and chiefminister, where no witness was by; unlock the thoughts and cabinets ofambassadors and secretaries of state; and have the perpetual misfortuneto be mistaken. Here I discovered the true causes of many great eventsthat have surprised the world; how a whore can govern the back-stairs,the back-stairs a council, and the council a senate. A generalconfessed, in my presence, "that he got a victory purely by the force ofcowardice and ill conduct;" and an admiral, "that, for want of properintelligence, he beat the enemy, to whom he intended to betray thefleet." Three kings protested to me, "that in their whole reigns theynever did once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, ortreachery of some minister in whom they confided; neither would they doit if they were to live again:" and they showed, with great strength ofreason, "that the royal throne could not be supported without corruption,because that positive, confident, restiff temper, which virtue infusedinto a man, was a perpetual clog to public business."

  I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what methodsgreat numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour, andprodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a very modern period:however, without grating upon present times, because I would be sure togive no offence even to foreigners (for I hope the reader need not betold, that I do not in the least intend my own country, in what I sayupon this occasion,) a great number of persons concerned were called up;and, upon a very slight examination, discovered such a scene of infamy,that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury,oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like infirmities, wereamong the most excusable arts they had to mention; and for these I gave,as it was reasonable, great allowance. But when some confessed they owedtheir greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to theprostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to the betrayingof their country or their prince; some, to poisoning; more to theperverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent, I hope I may bepardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of thatprofound veneration, which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of highrank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to theirsublime dignity, by us their inferiors.

  I had often read of some great services done to princes and states, anddesired to see the persons by whom those services were performed. Uponinquiry I was told, "that their names were to be found on no record,except a few of them, whom history has represented as the vilest ofrogues and traitors." As to the rest, I had never once heard of them.They all appeared with dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most ofthem telling me, "they died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on ascaffold or a gibbet."

  Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a littlesingu
lar. He had a youth about eighteen years old standing by his side.He told me, "he had for many years been commander of a ship; and in thesea fight at Actium had the good fortune to break through the enemy'sgreat line of battle, sink three of their capital ships, and take afourth, which was the sole cause of Antony's flight, and of the victorythat ensued; that the youth standing by him, his only son, was killed inthe action." He added, "that upon the confidence of some merit, the warbeing at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of Augustusto be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been killed; but,without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who hadnever seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of theemperor's mistresses. Returning back to his own vessel, he was chargedwith neglect of duty, and the ship given to a favourite page ofPublicola, the vice-admiral; whereupon he retired to a poor farm at agreat distance from Rome, and there ended his life." I was so curious toknow the truth of this story, that I desired Agrippa might be called, whowas admiral in that fight. He appeared, and confirmed the whole account:but with much more advantage to the captain, whose modesty had extenuatedor concealed a great part of his merit.

  I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in thatempire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced; which made me lesswonder at many parallel cases in other countries, where vices of allkinds have reigned so much longer, and where the whole praise, as well aspillage, has been engrossed by the chief commander, who perhaps had theleast title to either.

  As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done inthe world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the raceof human kind was degenerated among us within these hundred years past;how the pox, under all its consequences and denominations had alteredevery lineament of an English countenance; shortened the size of bodies,unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallowcomplexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid.

  I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the old stampmight be summoned to appear; once so famous for the simplicity of theirmanners, diet, and dress; for justice in their dealings; for their truespirit of liberty; for their valour, and love of their country. Neithercould I be wholly unmoved, after comparing the living with the dead, whenI considered how all these pure native virtues were prostituted for apiece of money by their grand-children; who, in selling their votes andmanaging at elections, have acquired every vice and corruption that canpossibly be learned in a court.