taking it from her little finger, and throwing it over my head like a collar. I desired the captain would please to accept this ring in return for his civilities; which he absolutely refused. I showed him a corn that I had cut off, with my own hand, from a maid of honour's toe; it was about the bigness of a Kentish pippin, and grown so hard, that when I returned to England, I got it hollowed into a cup, and set in silver. Lastly, I desired him to see the breeches I had then on, which were made of a mouse's skin.

I could force nothing on him but a footman's tooth, which I observed him to exmine with great curiosity, and found he had a fancy for it. He received it with abundance of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve. It was drawn by an unskilful surgeon, in a mistake, from one of Glumdalclitch's men, who was afflicted with the toothach, but it was as sound as any in his head. I got it cleaned, and put it into my cabinet. It was about a foot long, and four inches in diameter.

The captain was very well satisfied with this plain relation I had given him, and said, 'he hoped, when we returned to England, I would oblige the world by putting it on paper, and making it public.' My answer was that I thought we were overstocked with books of travels: that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth, than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers; that my story could contain little beside common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take the matter into my thoughts.'

He said he wondered at one thing very much,

which was to hear me speak so loud;' asking me whether the king or queen of that country were thick of hearing? I told him, it was what I had been used to for above two years past, and that I admired as much at the voices of him and his men, who seemed to me only to whisper, and yet I could hear them well enough. But, when I spoke in that country, it was like a man talking in the streets, to another looking out from the top of a steeple, unless when I was placed on a table, or held in any person's hand. I told him, I had likewise observed another thing, that when I first got into the ship, and the sailors stood all about me, I thought they were the most little contemptible creatures I had ever beheld.' For indeed, while I was in that prince's country, I could never endure to look in a glass after mine eyes had been accustomed to such prodigious objects, because the comparison gave me so despicable a conceit of myself. The captain said, 'that while we were at supper, he observed me to look at every thing with a sort of wonder, and that I often seemed hardly able to contain my laughter, which he knew not well how to take, but imputed it to some disorder in my brain.' I answered, it was very true; and I wondered how I could forbear, when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver threepence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nut-shell;' and so I went on, describing the rest of his household stuff and provisions, after the same manner. For, although the queen had ordered a little equipage of all things necessary for me, while I was in her service, yet my ideas were wholly taken up with what I saw on every side of me, and I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults. The captain understood my raillery very well, and merrily replied with the old English proverb, that he doubted mine eyes

ne

were bigger than my belly, for he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and, continuing in his mirth, protested would have gladly given a hundred pounds, to have seen my chest in the eagle's bill, and afterwards in its fall from so great a height into the sea; which would certainly have been a most astonishing object, worthy to have the description of it transmitted to future ages:' and the comparison of Phaeton was so obvious, that he could not forbear applying it, although I did not much ad.

mire the conceit.

The captain, having been at Tonquin, was, in his return to England, driven north-eastward to the latitude of 44 degrees, and longitude of 143 But meeting a trade-wind two days after I came on board him, we sailed southward a long time, and coasting New-Holland, kept our course west south-west, and then south-south-west, till we doubled the cape of Good Hope. Our voyage was very prosperous but I shall not trouble the reader with a journal of it. The captain called in at one or two ports, and sent in his long-boat for provisions and fresh water; but I never went out of the ship, till we came into the Downs, which was on the third day of June, 1706, about nine months after my escape. I offered to leave my goods in security for payment of my freight; but the captain protested he would not receive one farthing We took a kind leave of each other. and I made him promise he would come to see me at my house in Redriff. I hired a horse and guide for five shillings, which I borrowed of the captain.

As I was on the road, observing the littleness of the houses, the trees, the cattle, and the people 1 began to think myself in Lilliput. I was afraid of trampling on every traveller I met, and often

called aloud to have them stand out of the way, so that I had liked to have gotten one or two broken heads for my impertinence.

When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to inquire, one of the servants opening the door I bent down to go in, (like a goose under a gate,) for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask my blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head and eyes erect to above sixty feet; and then I went to take her up with one hand by the waist. I looked down upon the servants, and one or two friends that were in the house, as if they had been pigmies and I a giant. I told my wife she had been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing.' In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably, that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power of habit and prejudice.

In a little time, I and my family and friends came to a right understanding: but my wife protested I should never go to sea any more;' ai though my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not power to hinder me, as the reader may know hereafter In the mean time, I here conclude the second part of my unfortunate voyages.

A

VOYAGE

TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN.*

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

The Author sets out on his third voyage. Is taken by pirates. The mulice of a Dutchman. His arrival at an island. He is received into Luputa.

I HAD not been at home above ten days, when captain William Robinson, a Cornish man, com. mander of the Hopewell, a stout ship of three hundred tons, came to my house. I had formerly been surgeon of another ship, where he was master and a fourth part owner, in a voyage to the Levant. He

* Dr. Swift seems to have borrowed several hints, in his Voyage to Laputa, from a novel written by the learned Dr. Francis Godwin, bishop of Llandaff, called Man in the Moon, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither, by Domingo Gonsales, 1638,' 8vo. This philosophic romance, which has been several times printed, shows that Bishop Godwin had a creative genius. His Nuncius Inanimatus, which contains instructions to convey secret intelligence, is very scarce. He died in April, 1633.-N.