On the 16th of April, we put in at the Downs. I landed next morning, and faw once more my native country, after an absence of five years and fix months complete. I went ftraight to Redriff, where I arrived the fame day at two in the afternoon, and found my wife and family in good health.

A VOYAGE to the COUNTRY of the HOUYHNHNMS*.

CHA P. I.

The author fets out as captain of a ship. His men confpire against him, confine him a long time to his cabbin. Set him on fhore in an unknown land. He travels up into the country. The Yahoos, a ftrange fort of animal, defcribed. The author meets two Houyhnhnms.

Continued at home with my wife and chil dren about five months in a very happy condition, if I could have learned the leffon of know

ing

* In this last part of his imaginary travels, Swift has indulged a misanthropy that is intolerable. The representation which he has given us of human nature, must terrify, and even debafe the mind of the reader who views it. His fallies of wit and humour lose all their force, nothing remaining but a melancholy and disagreeable impression: We are disgusted, not entertained; we are fhocked, not inftructed by the fable. I fhould therefore chufe to take no notice of his YAHOOS, did I not think it necessary to affert the vindication of human nature, and thereby, in fome measure, to pay my duty to the great author of our

fpecies,

ing when I was well. I left my poor wife big with child, and accepted an advantageous offer made me to be captain of the Adventure, a ftout merchant

fpecies, who has created us in a very fearful, and a very wonderful manner.

We are compofed of a mind, and of a body, intimately united, and mutually affecting each other. Their operations indeed are entirely different. Whether the immortal spirit, that enlivens this fine machine, is originally of a superior nature in various bodies, (which, I own, seems most consistent, and agreeable to the scale and order of beings) or whether the difference depends on a fymmetry, or peculiar structure of the organs combined with it, is beyond my reach to determine. It is evidently certain, that the body is curiously formed with proper organs to delight, and fuch as are adapted to all the neceffary uses of life. The fpirit animates the whole; it guides the natural appetites, and confines them within just limits. But the natural force of this spirit is often immersed in matter; and the mind becomes fubfervient to paffions, which it ought to govern and direct. Horace, although of the Epicurean doctrine, acknowledges this truth, where he says,

Atque affigit humo divine particulam auræ.

It is no lefs evident, that this immortal fpirit has an inde pendent power of acting, and, when cultivated in a proper manner, feemingly quits the corporeal frame within which it is imprifoned, and foars into higher and more spacious regions; where, with an energy which I had almost said was divine, it ranges among those heavenly bodies, that, in this lower world, are fcarce vifible to our eyes; and we can at once explain the distance, magnitude, and velocity of the planets, and can fore-tell, even to a degree of minutenefs, the particular time when a comet will return, and when the fun will be eclipfed in the next century. These powers certainly evince the dignity of human nature, and the surprising effects of the immaterial fpirit within us; which, in fo confined a state, can thus difengage itelf from the fetters of matter. It is from this pre-eminence of

the