mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father; where, by the assistance of him and my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden; there I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages, Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannell, commander, with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and some other parts.* When I came back I resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate Street, with whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion. But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my brethren. Having therefore consulted with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours modern representatives-the "fairies." The object of the satire is to assail the policy of Walpole and the Ministry of George I., with which Swift was then deeply dissatisfied, especially on account of the impeachment of Oxford and Bolingbroke, the flight of the latter to France, and the banishment of Atterbury, who retired to the same country. Against the Minister, accordingly, the keenest shafts of Swift's irony and stinging wit are directed, under the character of Lord Treasurer Flimnap, The struggles between the Tories and the Whigs are described under the contemptuous epithets of "High-heels" and "Low-heels;" while the religious controversies between the two great Church parties are ridiculed as being of no greater importance than the dispute between the "Big Endians" and the "Little Endians." In Blefuscu, we have France symbolised, as Lilliput is designed to typify England; and the flight of Gulliver to the former is intended to reprobate the treatment of Bolingbroke and Atterbury. Independently of these political allusions, the tale is highly amusing, the incidents happily conceived, and the adventures wonderfully captivating. The wonderful skill of Swift is shown in this opening. Gulliver gives a brief notice of himself in a manner so simple and so natural, that the reader is, at the very outset, impressed with a feeling of the reality of the narrative, and thus prepared to believe the narrator. How admirable is the mention, as it were casually, of such minute circumstances as that he was two years and seven months studying physic; that he took part of a house in the Old Jewry, and got £400 fortune with his wife. of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory. The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors, but it would not turn to account. After three years' expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South Seas. We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our voyage at first was very prosperous. It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas; let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the north-west of Van Dieman's Land.* By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the 5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seaman spied a rock within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labour while we were in the ship. We therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost. For It will be remembered how little was known of the South Pacific Ocean, or the Australian Continent, at the time when Swift wrote. The discoverer of Van Dieman's Land, in 1633— Abel Janson Tasman-gave but a very inaccurate account of the seas he traversed, and so Swift had sea room enough in which to place his ideal country of Lilliput. Fortunately, while he states the longitude of the shipwreck, he avoids giving the latitude, and so we have escaped the possibility of finding the scene of his adventures amongst the pigmies upon the coast of Western Australia. my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by the wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was so much abated. The declivity was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least, I was in so weak a condition that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked it was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir; for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when bending my eyes downward as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high,* with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the meantime, I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill but distinct voice, Hekinah degul; the others repeated the same words several times, but I then knew not what Swift takes the standard of the Lilliputians to be not six inches high, which, compared with the ordinary standard of men, makes an inch of the latter equivalent to a foot of the former This proportion will be found to be pretty accurately preserved in all the measurements, both superficial and solid. Thus we have, a little farther on, the page described as somewhat larger than my middle finger," or about four feet and a half high. 66 they meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness; at length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for by lifting it to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me; at the same time, with a violent pull, which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased I heard one of them cry aloud, Tolgo phonac; when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a groaning with grief and pain, and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself; and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against. me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows; but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a |