which was sometimes done with great violence, then he complained to the grand justiciary that these affronts were designed to the emperor, and that he was singled out only as being the emperor's servant. By this trick he got that great officer to favour him, which made his enemies cautious, and him insolent. Bullum attended the court some years, but could not get into a higher post; for though he constantly wore the heels of his shoes high or low, as the fashion was, yet having a long back and a stiff neck, he never could with any dexterity creep under the stick which the emperor or the chief minister held. As to his dancing on the rope, I shall speak of it presently; but the greatest skill at that art will not procure a man a place at court, without some agility at the stick. Bullum, vexed at these disappointments, withdrew from court, and only appeared there upon extraordinary occasions; at other times he retired to his post of mulro in the gomflastru ; there he led a gloomy solitary life, heaped up wealth, and pored upon the old Blefuscudian books. It might have been expected, that from so long an acquaintance with those admirable writers, he should have grown more polite and humane; but his manner was never to regard the sense or subject of the author, but only the shape of letters, in which he arrived to such perfection, that, as I have been assured, he could tell, very near, in what year of the Blefuscudian Commonwealth any book was written; and to this, and to restoring the old characters that were effaced, all his labour was confined. Upon these points he had wrote several books, some in the Blefuscudian, and some in the mixed language; and whenever he had finished a book, he presented it to some great man at court, with a panegyrical oration, so contrived that it would fit any man in a great post; and the highest bidder had it. Whilst I was in Lilliput, he proposed to publish a new Blundecral or Alcoran; and that he might do something uncommon, he began at the end, and designed to have wrote backwards; but the Lilliputians, some liking the old Blundecral, others not caring for any, gave him no encouragement; and therefore he desisted from that project. As this nation was very much divided about breaking their eggs, which they generally eat in public once a day, or at least once in seven days, I desired to know how Bullum behaved himself in this particular; and was told that he was thought to have an aversion to eggs, for he was never seen to eat any in public, but once or twice in a year, when his post obliged him to it at those times he gave orders to have them served up to him ready dressed, and the shells and whites being carefully taken off, he gulped up the yolks in a very indecent manner, and immediately drank a bumper of strong liquor after them, to wash the taste out of his mouth, and promote the digestion of them. When anyone represented to him the ill example of this practice, his answer was, that his modesty would not let him devour eggs in public, when he had so many eyes upon him; that he was not yet determined at which end he ought to break them; that the shells and whites were insipid, and only fit for children: but for the eggs themselves, he was so far from hating them, that he had a dish at his own table every day. But whether this was truth, or, if they were at his table, whether he eat of them or not, I could never learn. Bullum was always of an haughty mind, and in his own school took a great deal of pleasure in mimicking the actions of the emperor. Thus, he got a little stick and used to divert himself in seeing his scholars leap over, and creep under it, as he held it between his hands. Those who performed best, were rewarded, sometimes, with a pompous title in the old Blefuscudian language, signifying, most learned, most famous, most accomplished youth, or the like: sometimes with little sugar-plums; and sometimes only with the promise of them. In dancing on the ropes he took great delight himself; and this was the only bodily exercise he used. Those who had been eye-witnesses informed me that he could cut a caper very high, but that he did it in a clumsy manner, and with little delight to the spectators, who were in continual apprehensions of his falling, which sometimes he did very dangerously. It was observed that he danced best in his own house, but that he never danced before the gomflastru with success. When he first came to his place of mulro, he did nothing but dance and cut capers on the ropes, for a year together: as this was a new sport in this part of the Island, he got a great deal of money by it; but striving to leap higher than ordinary, he fell off from the rope, broke his head, and disordered his brain so much, that most people thought it would incapacitate him for his post of mulro: however, at length, he pretty well recovered; he himself says, he is as well, or better, than he was before his fall: but his enemies think his brain is still affected by it. Some years after, the present emperor, in a progress through his dominions, came to the gomflastru; and Bullum, without being asked, was resolved to divert his Majesty with his performance on the strait-rope; up he mounts, and capers bravely for some time; at last, endeavouring to shew the utmost of his skill, in the midst of an high caper, he reached out his right hand too far, which gave him a terrible fall. Most people imputed it to his over-reaching himself; but he laid the fault partly upon the robes he was obliged to wear before the emperor, which, as he said, entangled his feet; and partly upon the maliciousness of a by-stander, whom he accused of pulling the rope aside, as he was in the midst of his caper: however that was, poor Bullum broke his leg, and was carried to his own house, where he continued lame above two years, not being able to show himself in public all that time; and it was thought he would never have recovered, if the emperor at last had not taken pity on him, and sent one of his own surgeons to him, who cured him immediately. After all these misfortunes Bullum could not forsake his beloved diversion, but as soon as he was recovered, he forgot all that was past, and danced again in his own school every day; where, by his frequent falls he so bruised himself, that it was believed they would come to a mortification; besides, he dances so long upon the same rope that through age and rottenness, and his great weight, it must break at last; and the emperor would scarce lend him a surgeon a second time; which indeed would be in vain, for he can never leave off the sport, though he performs worse and worse every day; so that in all probability he will break his neck for a conclusion. CRITICAL REMARKS ON CAPT. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. BY DOCTOR BANTLEY. Published from the author's original MSS.1 Ythalonim Vualonyth si chorathisima Comsyth, TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS MARLAY, ESQ.; LORD CHIEF BARON OF THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER IN MY LORD, HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL. The following short treatise is particularly designed for those who are masters of classical learning, and perfectly acquainted with the beauties of the ancient authors. To a person thus qualified I had a desire to inscribe it; and, after the strictest enquiry, common fame hath directed me to you. I do not pretend to have the felicity of your friendship, nor can I hope to merit it by this performance; and contrary to the received maxim of all dedicators, I will freely confess, that if any other person might be found, whose virtues were as universally owned or esteemed, or of whose learning and polite taste the world conceived so high an opinion, your Lordship would probably have escaped this impertinent application, from, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, 1 See page 145, note 2, and page 432, note. R. B. |