and groves, were all disposed with exact
judgment and taste. I gave due praises to every thing I saw, whereof his
excellency took not the least notice till after supper; when, there being
no third companion, he told me with a very melancholy air "that he
doubted he must throw down his houses in town and country, to rebuild
them after the present mode; destroy all his plantations, and cast others
into such a form as modern usage required, and give the same directions
to all his tenants, unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride,
singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps increase his
majesty's displeasure; that the admiration I appeared to be under would
cease or diminish, when he had informed me of some particulars which,
probably, I never heard of at court, the people there being too much
taken up in their own speculations, to have regard to what passed here
below."

The sum of his discourse was to this effect: "That about forty years ago,
certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion,
and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little
smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that
airy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike the
management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all
arts, sciences, 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 so strongly among the people, that there
is not a town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy.
In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of
agriculture and building, and new instruments, 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
last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come
to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a
hundred fold more than they do at present; 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 lies
miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or
clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty
times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, drive