all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upfide down, and by this means they fhall at their refurrection be found ready ftanding on their feet. The learned among them confefs the abfurdity of this doctrine, but the practice ftill continues in compliance to the vulgar.

There are fome laws and cuftoms in this empire very peculiar; and, if they were not fo directly contrary to thofe of my own dear country, I fhould be tempted to fay a little in their juftification. It is only to be wished they were as well executed. The firft I fhall mention, relates to informers. All crimes against the state are punished here with the utmost severity; but, if the perfon accused maketh his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accufer is immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or lands the innocent perfon is quadruply recompenfed for the lofs of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he hath been at in making his defence. Or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely fupplied by the crown. The emperor alfo confers on him fome publick mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city.

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore feldom fail to punish it with death; for they alledge, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preferve a man's goods from thieves, but honefly

honesty has no fence against fuperior cunning; and since it is neceffary that there should be a perpetual intercourfe of buying and felling, and dealing upon credit; where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honeft dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal, who had wronged his master of a great fum of money, which he had received by order, and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of truft; the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to fay in return, farther than the common anfwer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confefs, I was heartily afhamed *.

Although we ufually call reward and punishment the two hinges, upon which all government turns, yet I could never obferve this max, im to be put in practice by any nation, except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring fufficient proof, that he hath strictly obferved the laws of his country for feventy-three moons, hath a claim to certain privileges, according to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable fum of money out of a fund appropriated for that ufe: he likewife acquires the title of fnilpall, or legal, which is added to

a An act of parliament hath been fince paffed, by which fome

breaches of truft have been made capital.

his name, but doth not defcend to his pofterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them, that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account, that the image of justice in their courts of judicature is formed with fix eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each fide one, to fignify circumfpection; with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a fword heathed in her left, to fhew fhe is more difpofed to reward than to punish.

In chufing perfons for all employments they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, fince government is neceffary to mankind, they believe that the common fize of human understanding is fitted to some station. or other, and that providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few perfons of fublime genius, of which there feldom are three born in an age: but they fuppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, affifted by experience and a good intention, would qualify any man for the fervice of his country, except where a course of ftudy is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was fo far from being fupplied by fuperior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as thofe of perfons fo qualified; and at least, that the mistakes committed

by.

by ignorance in a virtuous difpofition would never be of fuch fatal confequence to the public weal, as the practices of a man whofe inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions.

In like manner, the difbelief of a divine providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public ftation; for, fince kings avow themselves to be the deputies of providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more abfurd than for a prince to employ fuch men as difown the authority, under which he acteth.

In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original inftitutions, and not the moft fcandalous cor-ruptions, into which these people are fallen by the degenerate nature of man. For as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favour and diftinction by leaping over sticks, and creeping under them, the reader is to obferve, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and grew to the present heighth by the gradual increase of party and faction.

Ingratitude is among them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in fome other countries; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, muft needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore fuch a man is not fit to live.

Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours. For, fince the conjunction of male and female is founded upon the great law of nature in order to propagate and continue the fpecies, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that men and women are joined together like other animals by the motives of concupifcence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural principle: for which reafon they will never allow, that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or to his mother for bringing him into the world, which, confidering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itfelf, nor intended fo by his parents, whofe thoughts in their loveencounters were otherwife employed. Upon these, and the like reafonings, their opinion is, that parents are the laft of all others to be trufted with the education of their own children and therefore they have in every town public nurferies, where all parents, except cottagers and labourers, are obliged to fend their infants of both fexes to be reared and educated when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are fuppofed to have fome rudiments of docility. These schools are of feveral kinds, fuited to different qualities, and to both fexes. They have certain profeffors well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the rank of their parents, and their own capacities as well as VOL. II. F

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