The Voyage to Brobdingnag advocates the principles then held by the
Tory party in England and attacks those of the Whigs.
The Voyage to Laputa, from which we give no selections, was not generally understood and hence was not popular. Its chief purpose was to ridicule the proceedings of the Royal Society, but Swift was not well enough acquainted with music and some of the other sciences fostered by the Society to attack them to advantage.
The Voyage to the Houyhnhnms was a bitter screed against mankind, and is in many respects disgusting. It showed Swift's venom against the world and something of the approach of the malady which finally hurried him into insanity.
The following selections are somewhat condensed from the original story, chiefly by the omission of passages of no interest to people of to-day.
ADVENTURES IN LILLIPUT
I. The Arrival
We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our voyage at first was very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures; let it suffice to inform him, that, in our passage to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land.[1] By an observation we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labor and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition.
[Footnote 1: Van Diemen's Land is the old name for Tasmania, an island off the coast of Australia.]
On the 5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labor while we were in the ship. We, therefore, trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves; and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell, but conclude they were all lost.