liver's Travels_ the satire grows more unbearable. Strangely enough,
this book, upon which Swift's literary fame generally rests, was not
written from any literary motive, but rather as an outlet for the author's
own bitterness against fate and human society. It is still read with
pleasure, as _Robinson Crusoe_ is read, for the interesting adventures of
the hero; and fortunately those who read it generally overlook its
degrading influence and motive.

_Gulliver's Travels_ records the pretended four voyages of one Lemuel
Gulliver, and his adventures in four astounding countries. The first book
tells of his voyage and shipwreck in Lilliput, where the inhabitants are
about as tall as one's thumb, and all their acts and motives are on the
same dwarfish scale. In the petty quarrels of these dwarfs we are supposed
to see the littleness of humanity. The statesmen who obtain place and favor
by cutting monkey capers on the tight rope before their sovereign, and the
two great parties, the Littleendians and Bigendians, who plunge the country
into civil war over the momentous question of whether an egg should be
broken on its big or on its little end, are satires on the politics of
Swift's own day and generation. The style is simple and convincing; the
surprising situations and adventures are as absorbing as those of Defoe's
masterpiece; and altogether it is the most interesting of Swift's satires.

On the second voyage Gulliver is abandoned in Brobdingnag, where the
inhabitants are giants, and everything is done upon an enormous scale. The
meanness of humanity seems all the more detestable in view of the greatness
of these superior beings. When Gulliver tells about his own people, their
ambitions and wars and conquests, the giants can only wonder that such
great venom could exist in such little insects.

In the third voyage Gulliver continues his adventures in Laputa, and this
is a satire upon all the scientists and philosophers. Laputa is a flying
island, held up in the air by a loadstone; and all the professors of the
famous academy at Lagado are of the same airy constitution. The philosopher
who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers is typical of
Swift's satiric treatment of all scientific problems. It is in this voyage
that we hear of the Struldbrugs, a ghastly race of men who are doomed to
live upon earth after losing hope and the desire for life. The picture is
all the more terrible in view of the last years