JONATHAN SWIFT
Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World
Jonathan Swift, the greatest and most original satirist of his own, or perhaps of any age, was born in Dublin, Ireland, of English parents, November 30, 1667. His poverty and abject dependence upon his relatives in his early youth may have given the first impetus to that bitter resentment and haughty spirit of pride which characterized him through life. After a somewhat troubled career in Trinity College, Dublin, he removed to England, where he entered the household of the retired English statesman, Sir William Temple, whose literary executor he became ten years later. The advertisement which this connection, and the performance of its final office, gave him, led to his appointment to a small living and certain other church emoluments in Ireland. In the following years he paid several protracted visits to London, where by the power of his pen and his unrivalled genius as a satirist of the politics of his time, he rapidly rose to a most formidable position in the State,--the intimate of poets and of statesmen. And yet, owing to the opposition which his claims met with at court, he derived no higher preferment for himself than the deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 1713. In time Swift reconciled himself to this change by vehemently espousing the cause of the Irish against their English rulers, and by his writings made himself as famous in that country as he had formerly done in England. Gradually the gloom of cerebral decay descended upon his magnificent intellect, and he died October 19, 1745. "To think of his ruin," said Thackeray, "is like thinking of the ruin of an empire." No more original work of genius than Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" exists in the English language. For sheer intellectual power it may not be equal to the "Tale of a Tub," but as it has more variety, so it has more art. "Gulliver" was published in 1726, at a period when life's disappointments had ceased to worry Swift. It is probable, however, that the book was planned some years previously, the keenness of the satire on courts and statesmen suggesting that his frustrated aims still rankled in his mind. Curious is it that so perfect an artist should nevertheless have missed the main purpose which he set himself in this book, namely, "to vex the world rather than divert it." The world refused to be vexed, and was hugely diverted. The real greatness of "Gulliver" lies in its teeming imagination and implacable logic. Swift succeeded in endowing the wildest improbabilities with an air of veracity rivalling Defoe himself. (See also Vol. X, p. 282.)
I.--A Voyage to Lilliput
My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, but the charge of maintaining me at Cambridge being too great, after three years there I was bound apprentice to an eminent surgeon in London; in my spare time I studied navigation, and mathematics, useful to those who travel, as I always believed, at some time, it would be my fortune to do.
After studying physics in Leyden for two years, I became surgeon to the Swallow, and made a voyage or two in the Levant. I then settled in London, married, but after some years, my business beginning to fail, having consulted with my wife, I determined to go again to sea and made several voyages to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune.
In 1699, being on a voyage in the South Seas, we were driven on a rock, and the ship immediately split. I conclude my companions were all lost; for my part, I swam as fortune directed me, and being pushed forward by wind and tide, found myself at last within my depth, and had to wade near a mile before I got to shore. I was extremely tired, and lay down on the grass and slept soundly until daylight. I attempted to rise, but found myself strongly fastened to the ground, not able to turn even my head. I felt something moving gently up my leg, and over my breast, when bending my eyes downward, I perceived a human creature, not six inches high, with a bow and arrows in his hand; and felt a number more following him. I roared so loud, they all fell off in a fright, but soon returned. I struggled, and broke the strings that fastened my left hand, but the creatures ran off before I could seize them, and I felt about a hundred arrows discharged into my left hand, which pricked like so many needles. I lay still, groaning with grief and pain, till some of the inhabitants came and cut the strings that fastened my head, when turning it a little I saw one, who seemed to be a person of quality, who made me a long speech, of which I understood not one word; but in which I could observe many periods of threatening, and others of pity and kindness.
I answered in the most submissive manner, and being famished with hunger (perhaps against the strict rules of decency), put my finger in my mouth, to signify I wanted food. He understood me very well. Several ladders were applied to my sides, and a hundred of the inhabitants mounted, laden with food and drink, and supplied me as fast as they could, with marks of wonder at my bulk and appetite.
It seems that at the first moment I was discovered, the Emperor had notice by an express, and it was determined in council that I should be secured and fed, and at once conveyed to the capital city.
A sleepy potion having been mingled with my wine, I again slept. These people have arrived to a great perfection in mechanics, and by means of cords and pulleys, in less than three hours, I was raised and slung on to the largest of their machines, used for the carriage of trees and other great weights. Fifteen hundred of the largest horses, each about four and a half inches high, were employed to draw me towards the metropolis. The Emperor and all his Court came out to meet us. In the largest temple in the kingdom, disused because polluted by a murder some years before, I was to be lodged, secured by fourscore and eleven chains locked to my left leg. They were about two yards long and being fixed within four inches of the gate of the temple, allowed me to creep in and lie on the ground at my full length.