to diflike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, fciences, languages, and mechanics upon a new foot. To this end they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado; and the humour prevailed fo ftrongly among the people, that there is not a town of any confequence in the kingdom without fuch an academy. In thefe colleges the profeffors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new inftruments and tools for all trades and manufactures, whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten, a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable, as to laft for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth fhall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to chuse, and increase an hundred-fold more than they do at prefent; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the mean time the whole country. hes miferably wafte, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or cloaths. By all which, inftead of being difcouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon profecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and defpair; that as for himself, being not of an enterpriling fpirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houfes his ancestors had built, and act as they did in every part of life without innovation: That fome few other perfons of quality and gentry had done · the fame, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill commonwealths-men, preferring their own cafe and floth before the general improvement of their country.

His lordship added, that he would not by any further particulars prevent the pleafure Ifhould certainly take in viewing the grand academy, whither he was refolved I fhould go. He only defired me to ebserve a ruined building upon the fide of a mountain about three miles diftant, of which he gave me this account: that he had a very convenient mill within half a mile of his houfe, turned by a current from a large river, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number of his tenants. That about feven years ago, a club of thefe projectors came to him with propofals to deftroy this mill, and build another

on the fide of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a loi g canal must be cut for a repofitory of water to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to fupply the mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated the water, and thereby made it fitter for motion: and because the water defcending down a declivity would turn the mill. with half the current of a river, whofe course is more apon a level. He faid, that being then not very well with the court, and preffed by many of his friends, he com plied with the propofal; and after employing an hundred men for two years the work miscarried, the projectors went off, laying the blame entirely upon him, railing at. him ever fince, and putting others upon the fame expe riment with equal affurance of fuccefs, as well as equal difappointment.

In a few days we came back to town, and his excel lency confidering the bad character he had in the acades. my would not go with me himself, but recommended me to a friend of his to bear me company thither. My lord was pleased to reprefent me as a great admirer of projects, and a perfon of much curiofity, and eafy belief: which indeed was not without truth; for 1 had myself been a fort of projector in my younger days..

CHA P. V.

The author permitted to fee the grand academy of Lagado. The academy largely defcribed. The arts wherein the profeffors employ themselves *.

T HIS academy is not an entire fingle building, but a continuation of feveral houses on both fides of a ftreet, which growing waste, was purchased and applied

to that use.

I was

* However wild the description 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. It is a fatire upon those aftronomers and mathematicians who have so entirely dedicated their time to the pla

nets

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 saw was of a meagre aspect, with footy hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged and Linged in feveral places. His cloaths, fhirt, and skin, 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 into vials hermetically fealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement fummers. He nets, that they have been careless of their family and country, and have been chiefly anxious about the economy and welfare of the upper worlds. But if we confider Swift's romance in a ferious light, we shall find him of opinion, that those determi nations in philofophy, which at present seem to the most know. ing men to be perfectly well founded and understood, are in reality unfettled, or uncertain, and may perhaps some ages hence be as much decried as the axioms of Aristotle are at this day. Sir Ifaac Newton and his notions may hereafter be out of fashion. There is a kind of mode in philofophy, as well as in other things: and fuch modes often change more from the humour and caprice of men, than either from the unreasonable, or the ill-founded conclusions of the philosophy itself. The reafonings of fome philosophers have undoubtedly better foundation than those of others: but I am of opinion, (and Swift seems to be in the same way of thinking) that the most applauded philosophy, hitherto extant, has not fully, clearly, and certainly explained many difficulties in the phænomena of nature: I am induced to believe, that God may have abfolutely denied us the perfect knowledge of many points in philosophy, so that ́ we shall never arrive at that perfection, however certain we may fuppofe ourselves of having attained to it already. Upon the whole, we may fay with Tully, Omnibus fere in rebus, et maxime in phyficis, quid non fit citius quam quid fit, dixerim. Orrery.

This note in general feems to be a teftimony of his lordhip's approbation, but it is not easy to discover what in particular is meant by the word real, fince every picture is a reat 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 bidden. Hawkef.

told

told me, he did not doubt, that in eight years more he fhould be able to fupply the governor's gardens with funThine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his flock was low, and intreated me to give him fomething as an encouragement to ingenuity, efpecially fince this had been a very dear feafon for cucumbers. I made him a fmall prefent, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, 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 whisper to give no offence, which would be highly refented, and therefore I durft not fo much as ftop my nofe. The projector of this cell was the most ancient student 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 clofe 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 feveral 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 filled with human ordure about the bignefs of a Bristol barrel.

I faw another at work to calcine ice into gun-powder, who likewife fhewed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publifh.

There was a moft ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houfes 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 appren tices in his own condition: their employment was to mix colours for painters, which their mafter taught them to diftinguifh by feeling and fmelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find them at that time not very perfect in their leffons, and the profeffor himself happened to be generally

nerally mistaken. This artift 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 la bour. The method is this: in an acre of ground you bury at fix inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chefnuts, and other maffe or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest: 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 search 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 to be doubted that this invention may be capable of great improvement.

I went into another room, where the walls and cieling were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow paffage for the artift 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 using filk-worms, while we had fuch plenty of domeftic infects, who infinitely excelled the former, because they underftood how to weave as well as fpin. And he propofed farther, that by employing spiders the charge of dying filks fhould be wholly faved; whereof I was fully convinced, when he fhewed me a vast number of flies molt 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 consistence to the threads.

There was an aftronomer, who had undertaken to place a fun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and fun, fo as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

I was complaining of a fmall fit of the cholic, upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great physician refided, who was famous for curing that difeafe by contrary operations from the fame inftrument." He

had