himself in these words which I shall never forget, nor the
manner he spoke them in: "My little friend Grildrig, you have made a
most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that
ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying
a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by
those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and
eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in
its original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the
rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear, from
all you have said, how any one perfection is required towards the
procurement of any one station among you; much less that men are
ennobled on account of their virtue, that priests are advanced for their
piety or learning, soldiers for their conduct or valor, judges for their
integrity, senators for the love of their country, or counsellors for
their wisdom. As for yourself, continued the king, who have spent the
greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you
may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have
gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains
wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your
natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that
nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."

[Illustration: "YOU HAVE MADE A MOST ADMIRABLE PANEGYRIC." P. 79.]

CHAPTER VII

THE AUTHOR'S LOVE OF HIS COUNTRY. HE MAKES A PROPOSAL OF MUCH
ADVANTAGE TO THE KING, WHICH IS REJECTED. THE KING'S GREAT
IGNORANCE IN POLITICS. THE LEARNING OF THAT COUNTRY VERY IMPERFECT
AND CONFINED. THE LAWS, AND MILITARY AFFAIRS, AND PARTIES IN THE
STATE.

Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from
concealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover my
resentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced to
rest with patience, while my noble and beloved country was so
injuriously treated. I am as heartily sorry as any of my readers can
possibly be, that such an occasion was given: but this prince happened
to be so curious and inquisitive upon every particular, that it could
not consist either with gratitude or good manners, to refuse giving him
what satisfaction I was able. Yet this much I may be allowed to say, in