ough he be as learned a person as any in his dominions,
had been educated in the study of philosophy, and particularly
mathematics; yet, when he observed my shape exactly, and saw me walk
erect, before I began to speak, conceived I might be a piece of
clockwork (which is in that country arrived to a very great perfection)
contrived by some ingenious artist. But when he heard my voice, and
found what I delivered to be regular and rational, he could not conceal
his astonishment. He was by no means satisfied with the relation I gave
him of the manner I came into his kingdom, but thought it a story
concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father, who had taught me a set
of words, to make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination he
put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers,
no otherwise defective than by a foreign accent, and an imperfect
knowledge in the language, with some rustic phrases, which I had learned
at the farmer's house, and did not suit the polite style of a court.

His majesty sent for three great scholars, who were then in their weekly
waiting[58] according to the custom in that country. These gentlemen,
after they had a while examined my shape with much nicety, were of
different opinions concerning me. They all agreed that I could not be
produced according to the regular laws of nature, because I was not
framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness or
climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth. They observed by my
teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous
animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field-mice,
with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be
able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects,
which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could
not possibly do. They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my
littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison; for the queen's
favorite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was nearly
thirty feet high. After much debate, they concluded unanimously that I
was only _relplum scalcath_, which is interpreted literally, _lusus
naturae_;[59] a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy
of Europe: whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult
causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavored in vain to
disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solu