wonder and envy of the whole world. But having here accidentally mentioned a minifter of ftate, he commanded me fome time after to inform him, what fpecies of yahoo I particularly meant by that appellation.

I told him, that a firft or chief minister of state, who was the perfon I intended to defcribe, was a creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at leaft, makes ufe of no other paffions but a violent defire of wealth, power and titles; that he applies his words to all ufes, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a defign that you fhould take it for a truth; that those he speaks worft of behind their backs are in the fureft way of preferment; and whenever he begins to praife you to others, or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worft mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wife man retires, and gives over all hopes.

THERE are three methods, by which a man may rife to be chief minifter. The firft is by knowing how with prudence to difpofe of a wife, a daughter, or a fifter: the fecond, by betraying or undermining his predeceffor: and the third is by a furious zeal in public assemblies against the corruptions of the court. But a wife prince would rather choose to employ thofe, who practife the laft of thefe methods; becaufe fuch zealots prove always the moft obfequious and fubfervient to the will and paffions of their master. That thefe minifters, having all employments at their difpofal, preferve themfelves in power by bribing the majority of a fenate or great council; and at laft by an expedient, called an act of indemnity (whereof I defcribed the nature to him) they secure themselves from after reckonings, and retire from the public laden with the spoils of the nation.

THE palace of a chief minister is a feminary to breed up others in his own trade: the pages, lacquies, and porter by imitating their mafter, become minifters of flate in their several diftricts, and learn to excel in the three principal ingredients, of infolence, lying, and bribery. Accordingly they have a fubaltern court paid to them by perfons of the beft rank; and fometimes, by the

Y 2

force

Part IV. force of dexterity and impudence, arrive thro' feveral gradations to be fucceffors to their lord.

He is ufually governed by a decayed wench, or favourite footman, who are the tunnels thro' which all graces are conveyed, and may properly be called, in the laft refort, the governors of the kingdom. One day in difcourfe my mafter, having heard me mention the nobility of my country, was pleafed to make me a compliment, which I could not pretend to deferve: that he was fure, I must have been born of fome noble family, because I far exceeded in shape, colour, and cleanliness all the yaboos of his nation, altho' I feemed to fail in ftrength and agility, which must be imputed to my different way of living from those other brutes; and befides, I was not only endued with the faculty of speech, but likewife with fome rudiments of reafon, to a degree, that with all his acquaintance I paffed for a prodigy.

He made me obferve, that among the Houyhnhnms, the white, the forrel, and the iron-grey, were not fo exactly shaped as the bay, the dapple-grey, and the black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a capacity to improve them; and therefore continued always in the condition of fervants, without ever afpiring to match out of their own race, which in that country would be reckoned monstrous and unnatural.

I made his honour my moft humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me; but affured him at the fame time, that my birth was of the lower fort, having been born of plain honeft parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education: that nobility among us was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that as foon as years will permit, they confume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, difagreeable perfon, and unfound conftitution, merely for the fake of money, whom they hate and defpife. That the productions of fuch marriages are generally fcrophulous, ricketty, or deformed children; by which means the family feldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a heal

thy

thy father among her neighbours or domeftics in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak disease i body, a meagre countenance, and fallow complexion, ai♬ the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is fo difgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom, or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a compofition of spleen, dulnefs, ignorance, caprice, fenfuality, and pride.

WITHOUT the consent of this illuftrious body no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered; and these nobles have likewise the decisions of all our poffeffions, without appeal.

CHAP. VII.

The author's great love of his native country. His ma fler's obfervations upon the conflitution and admiņiftration of England, as defcribed by the author, with parallel cafes and comparisons. His mafter's obfervations upon human nature.

TH

HE reader may be difpofed to wonder, how I could prevail on myself to give fo free a reprefentation of my own fpecies among a race of mortals, who are already too apt to conceive the vileft opinion of human kind from that entire congruity betwixt me and their Jaboos. But I must freely confefs, that the many virtues of thofe excellent quadrupeds, placed in oppofite view to human corruptions, had fo far opened my eyes, and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and paffions of man in a very different light; and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which befides it was impoffible for me to do before a perfon of fo acute a judgment as my mafter, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the leaft perception before, and which with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewife learned from his example an utter deteftation of all falfhood or difguife; and truth appeared fo amiable to me, that I determined upon, facrificing every thing to it.

LET me deal fo candidly with the reader as to confefs, that there was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation of things. I had not been a year in this country, before I contracted fuch a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to return to human kind, but to pass the rest of my life among thefe admirable Houy hnhnms in the contemplation and practice of every vir tue; where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that fo great a felicity fhould not fall to my fhare: However it is now fome comfort to reflect, that in what I faid of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durft before fo ftrict an examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn, as the matter would bear. For indeed who is there alive, that will not be fwayed by his biafs and partiality to the place of his birth?

I have related the substance of several converfations I had with my master, during the greateft part of the time I had the honour to be in his fervice; but have indeed for brevity fake omitted much more than is here fet down.

WHEN I had answered all his questions, and his curiofity feemed to be fully fatisfied; he fent for me one morning early, and commanding me to fit down at fome distance (an honour which he had never before conferred upon me) he faid, he had been very feriously confidering my whole ftory as far as it related both to myfelf and my country that he looked upon us as a fort of animals, to whofe fhare, by what accident he could not conjecture, fome small pittance of reafon had fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its affiftance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which na ture had not given us that we difarmed ourselves of the few abilities fhe had beftowed; had been very fuc cessful in multiplying our original wants, and feemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours to fupply them by our own inventions. That as to myfelf it was manifeft, I had neither the ftrength or agility of a common yahoo ; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no ufe or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which

was

was intended as a fhelter from the fun and the weather. Laftly, That I could neither run with fpeed, nor climb trees like my brethren (as he called them) the yahoos in this country.

THAT our inftitutions of government and law were plainly owing to our grofs defects in reafon, and by confequence in virtue because reafon alone is fufficient to govern a rational creature; which was therefore a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people: altho' he ma nifeftly perceived, that in order to favour them I had concealed many particulars, and often faid the thing. which was not.

He was the more confirmed in this opinion, because he obferved, that as I agreed in every feature of my bo dy with other jakoos, except where it was to my real difadvantage, in point of strength, fpeed, and activity,. the shortness of my claws, and fome other particulars where nature had no part; fo from the reprefentation I had given him of our lives, our manners and our actions, be found as near a refemblance in the difpofition of our minds. He faid the yahoos were known to hate one another, more than they did any different fpecies of animals; and the reafon ufually affigned was, the odioufness of their own fhapes, which all could fee in the reft but not in themselves. He had therefore begun to think it not unwife in us to cover our bodies, and by that invention conceal many of our deformities from each other, which would elfe be hardly fupportable.. But he now found he had been mistaken, and that the diffenfions of thofe brutes in his country were owing to the fame caufe with ours, as I had defcribed them. For if (faid he) you throw among five yahoos as much food as would be fufficient for fifty, they will instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each fingle one impatient to have all to itself; and therefore a fervant was usually employed to stand by, while they were feeding abroad, and those kept at home were tied at a distance from each other; that if a cow died of age or accident, before a Houyhnhnm could fecure it for his own yahoos, thofe in the neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it, and then would enfue fuch a battle as I had defcribed,