CHAPTER VIII



[A further account of Glubbdubdrib. Ancient and modern
history corrected.]


Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for
wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed
that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their
commentators; but these were so numerous, that some hundreds were
forced to attend in the court, and outward rooms of the palace.
I knew, and could distinguish those two heroes, at first sight,
not only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the
taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one
of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever
beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His
visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow.
I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the
rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before;
and I had a whisper from a ghost who shall be nameless, "that
these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from
their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of
shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the
meaning of those authors to posterity." I introduced Didymus and
Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better
than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a
genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out
of all patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus,
as I presented them to him; and he asked them, "whether the rest
of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves?"

I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gassendi,
with whom I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle.
This great philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in
natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon
conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who
had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and
the vortices of Descartes, were equally to be exploded. He
predicted the same fate to ATTRACTION, whereof the present
learned are such zealous asserters. He said, "that new systems
of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age;
and even those, who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical
principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be out
of vogue when that was determined."

I spent five days in conversing with many others of the ancient
learned. I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on
the governor to call up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us a
dinner, but they could not show us much of their skill, for want
of materials. A helot of Agesilaus made us a dish of Spartan
broth, but I was not able to get down a second spoonful.

The two gentlemen, who conducted me to the island, were pressed
by their private affairs to return in three days, which I
employed in seeing some of the modern dead, who had made the
greatest figure, for two or three hundred years past, in our own
and other countries of Europe; and having been always a great
admirer of old illustrious families, I desired the governor would
call up a dozen or two of kings, with their ancestors in order
for eight or nine generations. But my disappointment was
grievous and unexpected. For, instead of a long train with royal
diadems, I saw in one family two fiddlers, three spruce
courtiers, and an Italian prelate. In another, a barber, an
abbot, and two cardinals. I have too great a veneration for
crowned heads, to dwell any longer on so nice a subject. But as
to counts, marquises, dukes, earls, and the like, I was not so
scrupulous. And I confess, it was not without some pleasure,
that I found myself able to trace the particular features, by
which certain families are distinguished, up to their originals.
I could plainly discover whence one family derives a long chin;
why a second has abounded with knaves for two generations, and
fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and
a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what Polydore Virgil
says of a certain great house, NEC VIR FORTIS, NEC FOEMINA CASTA;
how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be characteristics
by which certain families are distinguished as much as by their
coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house,
which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their
posterity. Neither could I wonder at all this, when I saw such
an interruption of lineages, by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen,
gamesters, fiddlers, players, captains, and pickpockets.

I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly
examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of
princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been
misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in
war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to
flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety,
to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how
many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death
or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon the
corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many
villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power,
dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events
of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds,
whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons. How low an opinion I had
of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the
springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the
world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their
success.

Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend
to write anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to
their graves with a cup of poison; will repeat the discourse
between a prince and chief minister, where no witness was by;
unlock the thoughts and cabinets of ambassadors and secretaries
of state; and have the perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here
I discovered the true causes of many great events that have
surprised the world; how a whore can govern the back-stairs, the
back-stairs a council, and the council a senate. A general
confessed, in my presence, "that he got a victory purely by the
force of cowardice and ill conduct;" and an admiral, "that, for
want of proper intelligence, he beat the enemy, to whom he
intended to betray the fleet." Three kings protested to me,
"that in their whole reigns they never did once prefer any person
of merit, unless by mistake, or treachery of some minister in
whom they confided; neither would they do it if they were to live
again:" and they showed, with great strength of reason, "that the
royal throne could not be supported without corruption, because
that positive, confident, restiff temper, which virtue infused
into a man, was a perpetual clog to public business."

I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what
methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of
honour, and prodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a
very modern period: however, without grating upon present times,
because I would be sure to give no offence even to foreigners
(for I hope the reader need not be told, that I do not in the
least intend my own country, in what I say upon this occasion,) a
great number of persons concerned were called up; and, upon a
very slight examination, discovered such a scene of infamy, that
I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury,
oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like
infirmities, were among the most excusable arts they had to
mention; and for these I gave, as it was reasonable, great
allowance. But when some confessed they owed their greatness and
wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the prostituting of their
own wives and daughters; others, to the betraying of their
country or their prince; some, to poisoning; more to the
perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent, I hope I
may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to
abate of that profound veneration, which I am naturally apt to
pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the
utmost respect due to their sublime dignity, by us their
inferiors.

I had often read of some great services done to princes and
states, and desired to see the persons by whom those services
were performed. Upon inquiry I was told, "that their names were
to be found on no record, except a few of them, whom history has
represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors." As to the
rest, I had never once heard of them. They all appeared with
dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most of them telling
me, "they died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on a
scaffold or a gibbet."

Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a little
singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old standing by
his side. He told me, "he had for many years been commander of a
ship; and in the sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to
break through the enemy's great line of battle, sink three of
their capital ships, and take a fourth, which was the sole cause
of Antony's flight, and of the victory that ensued; that the
youth standing by him, his only son, was killed in the action."
He added, "that upon the confidence of some merit, the war being
at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of
Augustus to be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had
been killed; but, without any regard to his pretensions, it was
given to a boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina,
who waited on one of the emperor's mistresses. Returning back to
his own vessel, he was charged with neglect of duty, and the ship
given to a favourite page of Publicola, the vice-admiral;
whereupon he retired to a poor farm at a great distance from
Rome, and there ended his life." I was so curious to know the
truth of this story, that I desired Agrippa might be called, who
was admiral in that fight. He appeared, and confirmed the whole
account: but with much more advantage to the captain, whose
modesty had extenuated or concealed a great part of his merit.

I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in
that empire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced; which
made me less wonder at many parallel cases in other countries,
where vices of all kinds have reigned so much longer, and where
the whole praise, as well as pillage, has been engrossed by the
chief commander, who perhaps had the least title to either.

As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had
done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe
how much the race of human kind was degenerated among us within
these hundred years past; how the pox, under all its consequences
and denominations had altered every lineament of an English
countenance; shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves,
relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion,
and rendered the flesh loose and rancid.

I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the old
stamp might be summoned to appear; once so famous for the
simplicity of their manners, diet, and dress; for justice in
their dealings; for their true spirit of liberty; for their
valour, and love of their country. Neither could I be wholly
unmoved, after comparing the living with the dead, when I
considered how all these pure native virtues were prostituted for
a piece of money by their grand-children; who, in selling their
votes and managing at elections, have acquired every vice and
corruption that can possibly be learned in a court.

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