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24 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Adventure Books Collection

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  Chapter eight, a further account of glub dub drib ancient and modern history corrected.
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  Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and
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  learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and
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  Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators. But these were so
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  numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of
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  the palace. I knew and could distinguish those two heroes at first sight,
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  not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller
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  and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age,
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  and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle
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  stooped much and made use of a staff. His visage was meager, his
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  hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both
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  for them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had never
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  seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost
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  who shall be nameless, that these commentators always kept in the most distinct quarters
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  from their principles in the lower world through a consciousness of shame and guilt because
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  they had so horribly misinterpreted the meaning of those authors to posterity. I introduced
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  to Didymus and eused tathemas to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them
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  better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to
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  enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patients
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  with the account I gave Moscotus and Ramus as I presented them to him,
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  and he asked them whether the rest of the tribe were as great a dances
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  as themselves. I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gossendi,
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  with whom I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This great philosopher freely
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  acknowledged his own mistake in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon
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  conjecture, as all men must do. And he found that Cassendi, who
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  had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices
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  of Descartes, were equally to be exploded. He predicted the same fate to
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  attraction, whereof the present learned are such zealous asserters. He said that new
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  systems of nature were but new fashioned, which would vary in every age,
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  and even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles would flourish but a
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  short period of time and be out of vogue when that was determined. I
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  spent five days in conversing with many others of the ancient learned. I saw
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  most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on the governor to call up
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  Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us at dinner, but they could not show us much
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  of their skill, for want of materials. A helad of Agesilaeus made us
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  a dish of spartan broth, but I was not able to get down a
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  second spoonful. The two gentlemen who conducted me to the island were pressed by
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  their private affairs to return in three days, which I employed in seeing some
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  of the modern dead, who had made the greatest figure for two or three
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  hundred years past in our own and other countries of Europe. And having been
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  always a great admirer of old illustrious families, I desired the governor would call
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  up a dozen or two of kings with their ancestors, in order for eight
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  or nine generations. But my disappointment was grievous and unexpected, For instead of
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  a long train with royal diadems, I saw in one family two fiddlers,
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  three spruce courtiers, and an Italian prelate. In another a barber and an
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  ant, and two cardinals. I have too great a veneration for crowned heads
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  to dwell any longer so nice a subject. But as to counts, marquees,
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  dukes, earls, and the like, I was not so scrupulous,
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  And I confess it was not without some pleasure that I found myself able to
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  trace the peculiar features by which certain families are distinguished up to their originals.
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  I could plainly discover whence one family derives a long chin, why a second
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  has abounded with NAIs for two generations, and fools for two more. Why
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  a third happened to be crack brained, and a fourth to be sharpers.
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  Whence it came what polydor Virgil says of a certain great house neck via fortis
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  nec foemina castor how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice grew to be characteristics by
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  which certain families are distinguished, as much their coat of arms, who first
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  bought the parks into a noble house, which has linearly descended scrofulous tumors to
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  their posterity. Neither could I wonder at all this when I saw such an
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  interruption of lineages by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen, gamesters, fiddlers,
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  players, captains, and pickpockets, I was chiefly disgusted with modern history,
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  for having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of
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  princes for a hundred years past. I found how the world had been misled
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  by prostitute writers to ascribe the greatest exploits in war to cowards, the wisest
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  counsel to fools, sincerity to flatterers, Roman virtue to betrayers of their country,
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  piety to atheists, chastity to sodomites, truth to informers. How many
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  innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the practicing of
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  great ministers, upon the corruption of judges and the malice of factions. How
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  many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity,
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  and profit. How great a share in the motions and events of courts,
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  counsels, and senates might be challenged by boards, whores, pimps,
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  parasites, and buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and
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  integrity when I was truly informed the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions
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  in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.
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  Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretended to write anecdotes
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  or secret history, who send so many kings to their graves with a cup
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  of poison, will repeat the discourse between a prince and chief minister where no
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  witness was by unlock the thoughts and cabonets of ambassadors and secretaries of state,
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  and to have the perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here I discovered the true
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  cause of many great events that have surprised the world. How a haw can
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  govern the backstairs, the backstairs a council, and the council a senate.
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  A general confessed in my presence that he got a victory purely by the force
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  of cowardice and ill conduct, and an admiral that, for want of proper
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  intelligence, he beat the enemy to whom he intended to betray the fleet.
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  Three kings protested to me that in their whole reigns they never did once prefer
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  any person of merit, unless by mistake or treachery of some minister in whom
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  they confided. Neither would they do it if they were to live again.
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  And they showed with great strength of reason that the royal throne could not be
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  supported without corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff temper would which virtue
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  infused into a man, was a perpetual clobbed public business. I had the
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  curiosity to inquire in a particular manner by which methods great numbers had procured to
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  themselves high titles of honor and prodigious estates. And I confined my inquiry to
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  a very modern period, however, without grater upon present times, because I
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  would be sure to give no offense even to foreigners. For I hope the
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  reader need not be told that I do not in the least intend my own
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  country in what I say. Upon this occasion, a great number of persons
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  concerned or called up, and upon a very slight examination, discovered such a
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  scene of infamy that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness perjury oppression,
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  subornation, fraud, panderism, and the like infirmities were among the most excusable
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  art they had to mention, And for these I guess, as it was
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  reasonable great allowance. But when some confessed, they owed their greatness and wealth
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  to sodomy or incest, others to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters,
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  others to the betraying of their country or their prince, some to poisoning,
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  more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent.
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  I hope I may be pardoned if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate
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  of that profound veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high
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  rank who ought to be treated with the utmost respect, due to their sublime
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  dignity by us their inferiors. I had often read of some great services done
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  to princes and states, and desire to see the persons by whom those services
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  were performed. Upon inquiry, I was told that their names were to be
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  found on no record, except a few of them, whom the history has
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  represented as the violest of rogues and traitors. A the rest I had never
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  once heard of them. They all appeared with dejected looks and in the meanest
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  habit, most of them telling me they died in poverty and disgrace, and
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  the rest on a scaffold or gibbet. Among others. There was one person
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  whose case appeared a little singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old
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  standing by his side. He told me he had for many years been commander
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  of a ship, and in a sea fight at Actium, had the good
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  fortune to break through the enemy's great line of battle, sink three of their
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  capital ships, and take a fourth, which was the sole cause of Antony's
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  flight and of the victory that ensued. That the youth standing by him,
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  his only son, was killed in the action. He added that, upon
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  the confidence of some merit, the war being at an end, he went
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  to Rome and solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to a greates
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  shah whose commander had been killed. But without any regard to his pretensions,
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  it was given to a boy who had never seen the sea, the son
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  of Libertina, who waited on one of the Emperor's mistresses. Returning back to
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  his own vessel, he was charged with neglect of duty, and the ship
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  given to a favorite page of Publicola, the vice admiral, whereupon he retired
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  to a poor farm at a great distance from Rome, and there ended his
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  life. I was so curious to know the truth of this story that I
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  desired Agrippa might be called, who was admiral in that fight. He appeared
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  and confirmed the whole account, but with much more advantage to the captain,
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  whose modesty had extenuated or concealed a great part of his merit. I was
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  surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in that empire, by
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  the force of luxury so lately introduced, which made me less wonder at many
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  parallel cases in other countries, where visors of all kinds have reigned so much
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  longer, and where the whole praise as well as pillage, has been engrossed
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  by the chief commander, who perhaps had the least title to either. As
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  every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done in the world.
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  It gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much of the race of humankind
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  was degenerated among us within these hundred years past, how the parks, under
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  all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an English countenance, shortened
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  the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles,
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  introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid. I descended
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  so low as to desire some English yeomen of the old stamp might be summoned
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  to appear once so famous for the simplicity of their manners, diet and dress,
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  for justice in their dealings, for their true spirit of liberty, for
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  their valor and love of their country. Neither could I be wholly unmoved after
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  comparing the living with the dead, when I considered how these pure native virtues
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  were prostituted for a piece of money by their grandchildren, who, in selling
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  their votes and managing at elections, have acquired every vice and corruption that can
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  possibly be learned in a court. End of Part three, Chapter eight,