Of "Gulliver's Travels," contained in the present volume, we can but shortly speak: it is a moral and political romance, on which the author has exerted all his strength and imagination; and in proportion as the political interest is removed by time, the romance delights by the extraordinary situations and characters, and by the poignancy of the general satire. It is perhaps to be regretted that the Voyage to the Houyhnhnms possesses so strong a tincture of misanthropy; but great allowance must be made for Swift's splenetic temper, and for the disappointments he had met with in the course of his life. As a whole, it is one of the most extraordinary productions of the human mind, and cannot fail to be read with pleasure. We think Dr. Johnson, when he said, that "There were two books which he never read without regretting when he came to their conclusion: namely, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Robinson Crisoe," might have added a third, and that third, "Gulliver's Travels."

Z.

PREFACE

Το

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.

THE first part of these Travels appeared in 1726; the second early in 1727. Bishop Atterbury, in a letter from Paris to Mr. Morice, December 24, 1726, having seen the work advertised, expresses his impatience to see it :-' I shall long,' he says, 'till it is with me; and March 31, 1727, adds,' I had the first part of Gulliver, but not the second; however, it has been sent me here, and I have had the pleasure of reading it. Both parts are translating here, though the French will not be able to relish the humour of that piece, nor understand the meaning of it.'-The bishop was perfectly right. Neither Gulliver nor John Bull can properly be either relished or understood by our volatile neighbours. Gulliver, however, was immediately translated by the Abbé Des Fontaines, and had an extensive sale.*

'These voyages are considered as a mere political romance,-to correct Vice, by showing its deformity in opposition to Virtue, and to amend the false systems of philosophy, by pointing out the errors, and applying salutary means to amend them.' Orrery

See the correspondence on this translation, between the Abbé and the Dean. B 2

'This important year [1727] sent into the world "Gulliver's Travels," a production so new and so strange, that it filled the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and amazement. It was received with such avidity, that the price of the first edition was raised before the second could be made; it was read by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for a while lost in wonder. No rules of judgment were applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and regularity. But when distinctions came to be made, the part which gave least pleasure was that which describes the Flying Island, and that which gave most disgust must be the history of the Houyhnhnms. Whilst Swift was enjoying the reputation of his new work, the news of the king's death arrived, and he kissed the hands of the new king and queen three days after their accession.'

Johnson.

""Gulliver's Travels" and the Tale of a Tub" are indisputably the two most capital works of Swift.' Warton.

• From the whole of those two voyages to Lilli put and Brobdingnag arises one general remark, which, however obvious, has been overlooked by those who consider them as little more than the sport of a wanton imagination. When human ac tions are ascribed to pigmies and giants, there are few that do not excite either contempt, disgust, or horror; to ascribe them therefore to such beings was perhaps the most probable method of engag ing the mind to examine them with attention, and judge of them with impartiality, by suspending the fascination of habit, and exhibiting familiar objects in a new light. The use of the fable then is not less apparent than important and extensive; and that this use was intended by the author, can be

doubted only by those who are disposed to affirm, that order and regularity are the effects of chance.

To mortify pride, which indeed was not made for man, and produces not only the most ridiculous follies, but the most extensive calamity, appears to have been one general view of the author in every part of these Travels. Personal strength and beauty, the wisdom and the virtue of mankind, become objects not of pride but of humility, in the diminutive stature and contemptible weakness of the Lilliputians, in the horrid deformity of the Brobdingnagians, in the learned folly of the Laputans, and in the parallel drawn between our manners and those of the Houyhnhnms.'

Hawkesworth.

The Lilliputians of Swift may pass for probable beings, not so much because we know that a belief in pigmies was once current in the world (for the true ancient pigmy was at least thrice as tall as those whom Gulliver visited,) but because we find that every circumstance relating to them accords with itself, and their supposed character. It is not the size of the people only that is diminutive; their country, seas, ships, and towns are all in exact proportion: their theological and political principles, their passions, manners, customs, and all the parts of their conduct, betray a levity and littleness perfectly suitable: and so simple is the whole narration, and apparently so artless and sincere, that I should not wonder if it had imposed (as I have been told it has) upon some persons of no contemptible understanding. And some degree of credit may, perhaps, for the same reason, be due to the giants.

When Swift grounds his narrative upon a contradiction to nature; when he presents us with rational brutes, and irrational men; when he tells us of horses building houses for habitation, milk