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24 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight, a further account of glub dub drib ancient
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  Speaker 1: and modern history corrected. Having a desire to see those
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  Speaker 1: ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I
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  Speaker 1: set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer
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  Speaker 1: and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators.
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  Speaker 1: But these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced
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  Speaker 1: to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace.
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  Speaker 1: I knew and could distinguish those two heroes at first sight,
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  Speaker 1: not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer
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  Speaker 1: was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked
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  Speaker 1: very erect for one of his age, and his eyes
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  Speaker 1: were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle
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  Speaker 1: stooped much and made use of a staff. His visage
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  Speaker 1: was meager, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow.
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  Speaker 1: I soon discovered that both for them were perfect strangers
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  Speaker 1: to the rest of the company, and had never seen
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  Speaker 1: or heard of them before. And I had a whisper
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  Speaker 1: from a ghost who shall be nameless, that these commentators
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  Speaker 1: always kept in the most distinct quarters from their principles
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  Speaker 1: in the lower world through a consciousness of shame and
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  Speaker 1: guilt because they had so horribly misinterpreted the meaning of
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  Speaker 1: those authors to posterity. I introduced to Didymus and eused
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  Speaker 1: tathemas to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them
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  Speaker 1: better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they
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  Speaker 1: wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet.
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  Speaker 1: But Aristotle was out of all patients with the account
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  Speaker 1: I gave Moscotus and Ramus as I presented them to him,
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  Speaker 1: and he asked them whether the rest of the tribe
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  Speaker 1: were as great a dances as themselves. I then desired
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  Speaker 1: the governor to call up Descartes and Gossendi, with whom
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  Speaker 1: I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This great
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  Speaker 1: philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistake in natural philosophy, because
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  Speaker 1: he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men
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  Speaker 1: must do. And he found that Cassendi, who had made
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  Speaker 1: the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and
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  Speaker 1: the vortices of Descartes, were equally to be exploded. He
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  Speaker 1: predicted the same fate to attraction, whereof the present learned
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  Speaker 1: are such zealous asserters. He said that new systems of
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  Speaker 1: nature were but new fashioned, which would vary in every age,
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  Speaker 1: and even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical
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  Speaker 1: principles would flourish but a short period of time and
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  Speaker 1: be out of vogue when that was determined. I spent
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  Speaker 1: five days in conversing with many others of the ancient learned.
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  Speaker 1: I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed
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  Speaker 1: on the governor to call up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress
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  Speaker 1: us at dinner, but they could not show us much
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  Speaker 1: of their skill, for want of materials. A helad of
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  Speaker 1: Agesilaeus made us a dish of spartan broth, but I
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  Speaker 1: was not able to get down a second spoonful. The
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  Speaker 1: two gentlemen who conducted me to the island were pressed
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  Speaker 1: by their private affairs to return in three days, which
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  Speaker 1: I employed in seeing some of the modern dead, who
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  Speaker 1: had made the greatest figure for two or three hundred
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  Speaker 1: years past in our own and other countries of Europe.
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  Speaker 1: And having been always a great admirer of old illustrious families,
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  Speaker 1: I desired the governor would call up a dozen or
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  Speaker 1: two of kings with their ancestors, in order for eight
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  Speaker 1: or nine generations. But my disappointment was grievous and unexpected,
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  Speaker 1: For instead of a long train with royal diadems, I
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  Speaker 1: saw in one family two fiddlers, three spruce courtiers, and
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  Speaker 1: an Italian prelate. In another a barber and an ant,
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  Speaker 1: and two cardinals. I have too great a veneration for
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  Speaker 1: crowned heads to dwell any longer so nice a subject.
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  Speaker 1: But as to counts, marquees, dukes, earls, and the like,
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  Speaker 1: I was not so scrupulous, And I confess it was
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  Speaker 1: not without some pleasure that I found myself able to
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  Speaker 1: trace the peculiar features by which certain families are distinguished
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  Speaker 1: up to their originals. I could plainly discover whence one
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  Speaker 1: family derives a long chin, why a second has abounded
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  Speaker 1: with NAIs for two generations, and fools for two more.
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  Speaker 1: Why a third happened to be crack brained, and a
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  Speaker 1: fourth to be sharpers. Whence it came what polydor Virgil
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  Speaker 1: says of a certain great house neck via fortis nec
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  Speaker 1: foemina castor how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice grew to be
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  Speaker 1: characteristics by which certain families are distinguished, as much their
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  Speaker 1: coat of arms, who first bought the parks into a
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  Speaker 1: noble house, which has linearly descended scrofulous tumors to their posterity.
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  Speaker 1: Neither could I wonder at all this when I saw
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  Speaker 1: such an interruption of lineages by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen, gamesters, fiddlers, players, captains,
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  Speaker 1: and pickpockets, I was chiefly disgusted with modern history, for
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  Speaker 1: having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in
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  Speaker 1: the courts of princes for a hundred years past. I
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  Speaker 1: found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers
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  Speaker 1: to ascribe the greatest exploits in war to cowards, the
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  Speaker 1: wisest counsel to fools, sincerity to flatterers, Roman virtue to
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  Speaker 1: betrayers of their country, piety to atheists, chastity to sodomites,
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  Speaker 1: truth to informers. How many innocent and excellent persons had
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  Speaker 1: been condemned to death or banishment by the practicing of
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  Speaker 1: great ministers, upon the corruption of judges and the malice
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  Speaker 1: of factions. How many villains had been exalted to the
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  Speaker 1: highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit. How great
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  Speaker 1: a share in the motions and events of courts, counsels,
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  Speaker 1: and senates might be challenged by boards, whores, pimps, parasites,
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  Speaker 1: and buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human
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  Speaker 1: wisdom and integrity when I was truly informed the springs
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  Speaker 1: and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world,
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  Speaker 1: and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.
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  Speaker 1: Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who
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  Speaker 1: pretended to write anecdotes or secret history, who send so
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  Speaker 1: many kings to their graves with a cup of poison,
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  Speaker 1: will repeat the discourse between a prince and chief minister
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  Speaker 1: where no witness was by unlock the thoughts and cabonets
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  Speaker 1: of ambassadors and secretaries of state, and to have the
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  Speaker 1: perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here I discovered the true
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  Speaker 1: cause of many great events that have surprised the world.
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  Speaker 1: How a haw can govern the backstairs, the backstairs a council,
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  Speaker 1: and the council a senate. A general confessed in my
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  Speaker 1: presence that he got a victory purely by the force
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  Speaker 1: of cowardice and ill conduct, and an admiral that, for
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  Speaker 1: want of proper intelligence, he beat the enemy to whom
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  Speaker 1: he intended to betray the fleet. Three kings protested to
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  Speaker 1: me that in their whole reigns they never did once
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  Speaker 1: prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake or treachery
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  Speaker 1: of some minister in whom they confided. Neither would they
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  Speaker 1: do it if they were to live again. And they
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  Speaker 1: showed with great strength of reason that the royal throne
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  Speaker 1: could not be supported without corruption, because that positive, confident,
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  Speaker 1: restiff temper would which virtue infused into a man, was
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  Speaker 1: a perpetual clobbed public business. I had the curiosity to
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  Speaker 1: inquire in a particular manner by which methods great numbers
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  Speaker 1: had procured to themselves high titles of honor and prodigious estates.
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  Speaker 1: And I confined my inquiry to a very modern period, however,
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  Speaker 1: without grater upon present times, because I would be sure
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  Speaker 1: to give no offense even to foreigners. For I hope
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  Speaker 1: the reader need not be told that I do not
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  Speaker 1: in the least intend my own country in what I say.
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  Speaker 1: Upon this occasion, a great number of persons concerned or
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  Speaker 1: called up, and upon a very slight examination, discovered such
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  Speaker 1: a scene of infamy that I cannot reflect upon it
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  Speaker 1: without some seriousness perjury oppression, subornation, fraud, panderism, and the
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  Speaker 1: like infirmities were among the most excusable art they had
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  Speaker 1: to mention, And for these I guess, as it was
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  Speaker 1: reasonable great allowance. But when some confessed, they owed their
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  Speaker 1: greatness and wealth to sodomy or incest, others to the
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  Speaker 1: prostituting of their own wives and daughters, others to the
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  Speaker 1: betraying of their country or their prince, some to poisoning,
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  Speaker 1: more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy
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  Speaker 1: the innocent. I hope I may be pardoned if these
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  Speaker 1: discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound
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  Speaker 1: veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to persons
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  Speaker 1: of high rank who ought to be treated with the
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  Speaker 1: utmost respect, due to their sublime dignity by us their inferiors.
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  Speaker 1: I had often read of some great services done to
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  Speaker 1: princes and states, and desire to see the persons by
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  Speaker 1: whom those services were performed. Upon inquiry, I was told
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  Speaker 1: that their names were to be found on no record,
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  Speaker 1: except a few of them, whom the history has represented
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  Speaker 1: as the violest of rogues and traitors. A the rest
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  Speaker 1: I had never once heard of them. They all appeared
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  Speaker 1: with dejected looks and in the meanest habit, most of
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  Speaker 1: them telling me they died in poverty and disgrace, and
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  Speaker 1: the rest on a scaffold or gibbet. Among others. There
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  Speaker 1: was one person whose case appeared a little singular. He
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  Speaker 1: had a youth about eighteen years old standing by his side.
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  Speaker 1: He told me he had for many years been commander
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  Speaker 1: of a ship, and in a sea fight at Actium,
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  Speaker 1: had the good fortune to break through the enemy's great
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  Speaker 1: line of battle, sink three of their capital ships, and
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  Speaker 1: take a fourth, which was the sole cause of Antony's
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  Speaker 1: flight and of the victory that ensued. That the youth
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  Speaker 1: standing by him, his only son, was killed in the action.
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  Speaker 1: He added that, upon the confidence of some merit, the
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  Speaker 1: war being at an end, he went to Rome and
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  Speaker 1: solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to
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  Speaker 1: a greates shah whose commander had been killed. But without
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  Speaker 1: any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a
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  Speaker 1: boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina,
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  Speaker 1: who waited on one of the Emperor's mistresses. Returning back
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  Speaker 1: to his own vessel, he was charged with neglect of duty,
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  Speaker 1: and the ship given to a favorite page of Publicola,
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  Speaker 1: the vice admiral, whereupon he retired to a poor farm
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  Speaker 1: at a great distance from Rome, and there ended his life.
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  Speaker 1: I was so curious to know the truth of this
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  Speaker 1: story that I desired Agrippa might be called, who was
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  Speaker 1: admiral in that fight. He appeared and confirmed the whole account,
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  Speaker 1: but with much more advantage to the captain, whose modesty
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  Speaker 1: had extenuated or concealed a great part of his merit.
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  Speaker 1: I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and
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  Speaker 1: so quick in that empire, by the force of luxury
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  Speaker 1: so lately introduced, which made me less wonder at many
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  Speaker 1: parallel cases in other countries, where visors of all kinds
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  Speaker 1: have reigned so much longer, and where the whole praise
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  Speaker 1: as well as pillage, has been engrossed by the chief commander,
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  Speaker 1: who perhaps had the least title to either. As every
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  Speaker 1: person called up made exactly the same appearance he had
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  Speaker 1: done in the world. It gave me melancholy reflections to
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  Speaker 1: observe how much of the race of humankind was degenerated
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  Speaker 1: among us within these hundred years past, how the parks,
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  Speaker 1: under all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament
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  Speaker 1: of an English countenance, shortened the size of bodies, unbraced
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  Speaker 1: the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion,
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  Speaker 1: and rendered the flesh loose and rancid. I descended so
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  Speaker 1: low as to desire some English yeomen of the old
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  Speaker 1: stamp might be summoned to appear once so famous for
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  Speaker 1: the simplicity of their manners, diet and dress, for justice
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  Speaker 1: in their dealings, for their true spirit of liberty, for
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  Speaker 1: their valor and love of their country. Neither could I
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  Speaker 1: be wholly unmoved after comparing the living with the dead,
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  Speaker 1: when I considered how these pure native virtues were prostituted
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  Speaker 1: for a piece of money by their grandchildren, who, in
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  Speaker 1: selling their votes and managing at elections, have acquired every
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  Speaker 1: vice and corruption that can possibly be learned in a court.
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  Speaker 1: End of Part three, Chapter eight,