<h3>I - CHAPTER VI.</h3>
<p class="gutsumm">Of the inhabitants of Lilliput; their
learning, laws, and customs; the manner of educating their
children. The author’s way of living in that
country. His vindication of a great lady.</p>
<p>Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a
particular treatise, yet, in the mean time, I am content to
gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the
common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so
there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as
plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are
between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and
half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow,
and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the
smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature
has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper
for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great
distance. And, to show the sharpness of their sight towards
objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a
cook pulling a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and
a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible
silk. Their tallest trees are about seven feet high: I mean
some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof I could
but just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables
are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the
reader’s imagination.</p>
<p>I shall say but little at present of their learning, which,
for many ages, has flourished in all its branches among them: but
their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the
left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the right to the
left, like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese,
but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like
ladies in England.</p>
<p>They bury their dead with their heads directly downward,
because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they
are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they
conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means
they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on
their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of
this doctrine; but the practice still continues, in compliance to
the vulgar.</p>
<p>There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar;
and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear
country, I should be tempted to say a little in their
justification. It is only to be wished they were as well
executed. The first I shall mention, relates to
informers. All crimes against the state, are punished here
with the utmost severity; but, if the person accused makes his
innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is
immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or
lands the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss
of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his
imprisonment, and for all the charges he has been at in making
his defence; or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely
supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him some
public mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his
innocence through the whole city.</p>
<p>They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and
therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege,
that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may
preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no
defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that
there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling,
and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived
at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always
undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when
I was once interceding with the emperor for a criminal who had
wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received
by order and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by
way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the
emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the
greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say
in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations
had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed. <SPAN name="citation330"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote330" class="citation">[330]</SPAN></p>
<p>Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges
upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this
maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of
Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof, that he
has strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three
moons, has a claim to certain privileges, according to his
quality or condition of life, with a proportionable sum of money
out of a fund appropriated for that use: he likewise acquires the
title of <i>snilpall</i>, or legal, which is added to his name,
but does not descend to his posterity. And these people
thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told
them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any
mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image
of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six
eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to
signify circumspection; with a bag of gold open in her right
hand, and a sword sheathed in her left, to show she is more
disposed to reward than to punish.</p>
<p>In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard
to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is
necessary to mankind, they believe, that the common size of human
understanding is fitted to some station or other; and that
Providence never intended to make the management of public
affairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few persons of
sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age:
but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be
in every man’s power; the practice of which virtues,
assisted by experience and a good intention, would qualify any
man for the service of his country, except where a course of
study is required. But they thought the want of moral
virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of
the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous
hands as those of persons so qualified; and, at least, that the
mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would
never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal, as the
practices of a man, whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and
who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his
corruptions.</p>
<p>In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a
man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings
avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the
Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince
to employ such men as disown the authority under which he
acts.</p>
<p>In relating these and the following laws, I would only be
understood to mean the original institutions, and not the most
scandalous corruptions, into which these people are fallen by the
degenerate nature of man. For, as to that infamous practice
of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges
of favour and distinction by leaping over sticks and creeping
under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first
introduced by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and
grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and
faction.</p>
<p>Ingratitude is among them a capital crime, as we read it to
have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that
whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a
common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he has received no
obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live.</p>
<p>Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children
differ extremely from ours. For, since the conjunction of
male and female is founded upon the great law of nature, in order
to propagate and continue the species, the Lilliputians will
needs have it, that men and women are joined together, like other
animals, by the motives of concupiscence; and that their
tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural
principle: for which reason they will never allow that a child is
under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or to his
mother for bringing him into the world; which, considering the
miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself, nor
intended so by his parents, whose thoughts, in their love
encounters, were otherwise employed. Upon these, and the
like reasonings, their opinion is, that parents are the last of
all others to be trusted with the education of their own
children; and therefore they have in every town public nurseries,
where all parents, except cottagers and labourers, are obliged to
send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when
they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are
supposed to have some rudiments of docility. These schools
are of several kinds, suited to different qualities, and both
sexes. They have certain professors well skilled in
preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the
rank of their parents, and their own capacities, as well as
inclinations. I shall first say something of the male
nurseries, and then of the female.</p>
<p>The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth, are
provided with grave and learned professors, and their several
deputies. The clothes and food of the children are plain
and simple. They are bred up in the principles of honour,
justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their
country; they are always employed in some business, except in the
times of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours
for diversions consisting of bodily exercises. They are
dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to
dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and
the women attendant, who are aged proportionably to ours at
fifty, perform only the most menial offices. They are never
suffered to converse with servants, but go together in smaller or
greater numbers to take their diversions, and always in the
presence of a professor, or one of his deputies; whereby they
avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice, to which our
children are subject. Their parents are suffered to see
them only twice a year; the visit is to last but an hour; they
are allowed to kiss the child at meeting and parting; but a
professor, who always stands by on those occasions, will not
suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or bring
any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like.</p>
<p>The pension from each family for the education and
entertainment of a child, upon failure of due payment, is levied
by the emperor’s officers.</p>
<p>The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen, merchants,
traders, and handicrafts, are managed proportionably after the
same manner; only those designed for trades are put out
apprentices at eleven years old, whereas those of persons of
quality continue in their exercises till fifteen, which answers
to twenty-one with us: but the confinement is gradually lessened
for the last three years.</p>
<p>In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are
educated much like the males, only they are dressed by orderly
servants of their own sex; but always in the presence of a
professor or deputy, till they come to dress themselves, which is
at five years old. And if it be found that these nurses
ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish
stories, or the common follies practised by chambermaids among
us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned
for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of
the country. Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of
being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal
ornaments, beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive
any difference in their education made by their difference of
sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether
so robust; and that some rules were given them relating to
domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined
them: for their maxim is, that among peoples of quality, a wife
should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because
she cannot always be young. When the girls are twelve years
old, which among them is the marriageable age, their parents or
guardians take them home, with great expressions of gratitude to
the professors, and seldom without tears of the young lady and
her companions.</p>
<p>In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children
are instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex, and
their several degrees: those intended for apprentices are
dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept to eleven.</p>
<p>The meaner families who have children at these nurseries, are
obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as
possible, to return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly
share of their gettings, to be a portion for the child; and
therefore all parents are limited in their expenses by the
law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be more unjust,
than for people, in subservience to their own appetites, to bring
children into the world, and leave the burthen of supporting them
on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security
to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their
condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry
and the most exact justice.</p>
<p>The cottagers and labourers keep their children at home, their
business being only to till and cultivate the earth, and
therefore their education is of little consequence to the public:
but the old and diseased among them, are supported by hospitals;
for begging is a trade unknown in this empire.</p>
<p>And here it may, perhaps, divert the curious reader, to give
some account of my domestics, and my manner of living in this
country, during a residence of nine months, and thirteen
days. Having a head mechanically turned, and being likewise
forced by necessity, I had made for myself a table and chair
convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the royal
park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make me
shirts, and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and
coarsest kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to
quilt together in several folds, for the thickest was some
degrees finer than lawn. Their linen is usually three
inches wide, and three feet make a piece. The sempstresses
took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck,
and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended, that each
held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord
with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right
thumb, and desired no more; for by a mathematical computation,
that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to
the neck and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I
displayed on the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me
exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in the same
manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for
taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder
from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted,
and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just
answered the length of my coat: but my waist and arms I measured
myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my
house (for the largest of theirs would not have been able to hold
them), they looked like the patch-work made by the ladies in
England, only that mine were all of a colour.</p>
<p>I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little
convenient huts built about my house, where they and their
families lived, and prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took
up twenty waiters in my hand, and placed them on the table: a
hundred more attended below on the ground, some with dishes of
meat, and some with barrels of wine and other liquors slung on
their shoulders; all which the waiters above drew up, as I
wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as we draw
the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a
good mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable
draught. Their mutton yields to ours, but their beef is
excellent. I have had a sirloin so large, that I have been
forced to make three bites of it; but this is rare. My
servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones and all, as in
our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and
turkeys I usually ate at a mouthful, and I confess they far
exceed ours. Of their smaller fowl I could take up twenty
or thirty at the end of my knife.</p>
<p>One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of
living, desired “that himself and his royal consort, with
the young princes of the blood of both sexes, might have the
happiness,” as he was pleased to call it, “of dining
with me.” They came accordingly, and I placed them in
chairs of state, upon my table, just over against me, with their
guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer,
attended there likewise with his white staff; and I observed he
often looked on me with a sour countenance, which I would not
seem to regard, but ate more than usual, in honour to my dear
country, as well as to fill the court with admiration. I
have some private reasons to believe, that this visit from his
majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill offices to
his master. That minister had always been my secret enemy,
though he outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the
moroseness of his nature. He represented to the emperor
“the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to
take up money at a great discount; that exchequer bills would not
circulate under nine per cent. below par; that I had cost his
majesty above a million and a half of <i>sprugs</i>” (their
greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle) “and,
upon the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take
the first fair occasion of dismissing me.”</p>
<p>I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent
lady, who was an innocent sufferer upon my account. The
treasurer took a fancy to be jealous of his wife, from the malice
of some evil tongues, who informed him that her grace had taken a
violent affection for my person; and the court scandal ran for
some time, that she once came privately to my lodging. This
I solemnly declare to be a most infamous falsehood, without any
grounds, further than that her grace was pleased to treat me with
all innocent marks of freedom and friendship. I own she
came often to my house, but always publicly, nor ever without
three more in the coach, who were usually her sister and young
daughter, and some particular acquaintance; but this was common
to many other ladies of the court. And I still appeal to my
servants round, whether they at any time saw a coach at my door,
without knowing what persons were in it. On those
occasions, when a servant had given me notice, my custom was to
go immediately to the door, and, after paying my respects, to
take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for,
if there were six horses, the postillion always unharnessed
four,) and place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim
quite round, of five inches high, to prevent accidents. And
I have often had four coaches and horses at once on my table,
full of company, while I sat in my chair, leaning my face towards
them; and when I was engaged with one set, the coachmen would
gently drive the others round my table. I have passed many
an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I
defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and
let them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that
any person ever came to me <i>incognito</i>, except the secretary
Reldresal, who was sent by express command of his imperial
majesty, as I have before related. I should not have dwelt
so long upon this particular, if it had not been a point wherein
the reputation of a great lady is so nearly concerned, to say
nothing of my own; though I then had the honour to be a
<i>nardac</i>, which the treasurer himself is not; for all the
world knows, that he is only a <i>glumglum</i>, a title inferior
by one degree, as that of a marquis is to a duke in England; yet
I allow he preceded me in right of his post. These false
informations, which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an
accident not proper to mention, made the treasurer show his lady
for some time an ill countenance, and me a worse; and although he
was at last undeceived and reconciled to her, yet I lost all
credit with him, and found my interest decline very fast with the
emperor himself, who was, indeed, too much governed by that
favourite.</p>
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