CHA P. V.

The author permitted to fee the grand academy of Lagado. The academy largely defcribed. The arts wherein the profellors employ employ themfelves..

TH

HIS academy is not an entire single building, but a continuation of several houfes on both fides of a street, which growing waste was purchased, and applied to that ufe.

I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room hath in it one or more projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

The first man I faw was of a meagre afpect, with footy hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged and finged in feveral places. His cloaths, fhirt, and fkin, were all of the fame colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting fun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials

However wild the defcription of the flying island and the manners and various projects of the philofophers of Lagado may appear, yet it is a real picture embellished with much latent wit and humour. ORRERY.

This note in general feems o be a teftimony of his lord

fhip's approbation, but it is not easy to discover what in particular is meant by the word real, fince every picture is a real picture, whether it be copied from nature or fancy; and indeed it is equally difficult to conceive how a picture of any kind can be embellished with that which is hidden.

hermetically

hermetically fealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement fummers. He told me, he did not doubt, that in eight years more he fhould be able to fupply the governor's gar dens with fun-fhine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his ftock was low, and entreated me to give him fomething as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially fince this had been a very dear feafon for cucumbers. I made him a small prefent, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpofe, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to fee them.

I went into another chamber, but was ready to haften back, being almost overcome with a horrible stink. My conductor preffed me forward, conjuring me in a whifper to give no offence, which would be highly refented, and therefore I durft not fo much as ftop my nose. The projector of this cell was the most ancient ftudent of the academy; his face and beard were of a pale yellow; his hands and cloaths dawbed over with filth. When I was prefented to him he gave me a close embrace (a compliment I could well have excufed.) His employment from his first coming into the academy was an operation to reduce human excrement to its original food by feparating the several parts, removing the tincture which it receives from the gall, making the odour exhale, and fcumming off the faliva. He had a weekly allowance from the fociety of a veffel

a veffel filled with human ordure about the bignefs of a Bristol barrel.

I faw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewife fhewed me a treatife he had written concerning the malleabili ty of fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a moft ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houses by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation, which he juftified to me by the like practice of those two prudent infects the bee and the fpider.

There was a man born blind, who had feveral apprentices in his own condition their employment was to mix colours for painters, which their mafter taught them to diftinguish by feeling and fmelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find them at that time not very perfect in their leffons, and the profeffor himfelf happened to be generally mistaken. This artist is much encouraged and efteemed by the whole fraternity.

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector, who had found a device of plowing the ground with hogs to fave the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method is this: in an acre of ground you bury at fix inches diftance and eight deep a quantity of acorns, dates, chefnuts, and other mafte or vegetables, whereof thefe animals are fondeft: then you drive fix hundred or more of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up the whole ground in fearch of

their food, and make it fit for fowing, at the fame time manuring it with their dung; it is true, upon experiment they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable of great improve

ment..

I went into another room, where the walls and cieling were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow paffage for the artist to go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world had been fo long in of ufing filk-worms, while we had fuch plenty of domestic infects who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave as well as fpin. And he propofed farther, that by employing fpiders the charge of dying filks fhould be wholly faved; whereof I was fully convinced, when he fhewed me a vaft number of flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his fpiders, affuring us that the webs would take a tincture from them; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit every body's fancy, as foon as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter to give a ftrength and confiflence to the threads.

There was an aftronomer, who had undertaken to place a fun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town-houfe, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and

fun,

fun, fo as to anfwer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

I was complaining of a small fit of the cholic, upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing that disease by contrary operations from the fame inftrument. He had a large pair of bellows with a long flender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the difeafe was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the inftrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb ftrongly against the orifice of the fundament; and this being repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rufh out, bringing the noxious along with it (like water put into a pump) and the patient recover. I faw him try both experiments upon a dog, but could not difcern effect from the former. After the latter the animal was ready to burst, and made fo violent a discharge, as was very offenfive to me and my companions. The dog died on the fpot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to recover him by the fame operation.

any

I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader with all the curiofities I obferved, being ftudious of brevity.