of our
English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of
our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying
glass; where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins
look rough, and coarse, and ill-coloured.

I remember when I was at Lilliput, the complexion of those diminutive
people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and talking upon this
subject with a person of learning there, who was an intimate friend of
mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother when he
looked on me from the ground, than it did upon a nearer view, when I took
him up in my hand, and brought him close, which he confessed was at first
a very shocking sight. He said, "he could discover great holes in my
skin; that the stumps of my beard were ten times stronger than the
bristles of a boar, and my complexion made up of several colours
altogether disagreeable:" although I must beg leave to say for myself,
that I am as fair as most of my sex and country, and very little sunburnt
by all my travels. On the other side, discoursing of the ladies in that
emperor's court, he used to tell me, "one had freckles; another too wide
a mouth; a third too large a nose;" nothing of which I was able to
distinguish. I confess this reflection was obvious enough; which,
however, I could not forbear, lest the reader might think those vast
creatures were actually deformed: for I must do them the justice to say,
they are a comely race of people, and particularly the features of my
master's countenance, although he was but a farmer, when I beheld him
from the height of sixty feet, appeared very well proportioned.

When dinner was done, my master went out to his labourers, and, as I
could discover by his voice and gesture, gave his wife strict charge to
take care of me. I was very much tired, and disposed to sleep, which my
mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a
clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of a
man-of-war.

I slept about two hours, and dreamt I was at home with my wife and
children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked, and found myself
alone in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and above
two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide. My mistress was gone
about her household affairs, and had locked me in. The bed was eight
yards from the floor. Some natural necessities required me to get dow