fortunes are almost ruined, they marry fome women of mean birth, difagreeable perfon, and unfound conftitution, merely for the fake of money, whom they hate and defpife: That the production of fuch marriages are generally fcrophulous, ricketty, or deformed children; by which means the family feldom continues above three generations, unlefs the wife takes care to provide a healthy father among her neighbours or domeftics, in order to improve and continue the breed: That a weak difeafed body, a meagre countenance, and fallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is fo difgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom, or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a compofition of spleen, dulnefs, ignorance, caprice, fenfuality, and pride.

Without this consent of this illuftrious body, no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered; and thefe nobles have likewife the decifions of all our poffeffions, without appeal.

CHA P. VII.

The author's great love of his native country. His mafter's obfervations upon the conftitution and adminiftration of England, as defcribed by the author, with parallel cafes and comparisons. His master's obfervations upon human nature.

HE reader may be difpofed to wonder,

TH

how I could prevail on myself to give fo free a representation of my own fpecies, among a race of mortals who are already too apt to conceive the vileft opinion of human-kind, from that entire congruity betwixt me and their Taboos. But I muft freely confess, that the many virtues of thofe excellent Quadrupeds, placed in oppofite view to human corruptions, had fo far opened my eyes, and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and paffions of man in a very different light; and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which befides it was impoffible for me to do, before a person of fo acute a judgment as my mafter, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the leaft perception before, and which with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewife learned, from his example, an utter deteftation

deteftation of all falfhood or disguise; and truth appeared fo amiable to me, that I determined upon facrificing every thing to it.

Let me deal fo candidly with the reader, as to confefs, that there was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation of things. I had not been a year in this country, before I contracted fuch a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to return to human-kind, but to pass the reft of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms, in the contemplation and practice of every virtue, where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that fo great a felicity fhould not fall to my fhare. However it is now fome comfort to reflect, that in what I faid of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durft before fo ftrict an examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn, as the matter would bear. For indeed who is there alive, that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth ?

I have related the fubftance of feveral converfations I had with my.mafter, during the greateft part of the time I had the honour to be in his fervice; but have indeed, for brevity's fake, omitted much more than is here fet down.

When I had answered all his questions, and his curiofity feemed to be fully fatisfied; he fent for me one morning early, and commanding me to fit down at some distance (an honour which he

had

had never before conferred upon me), he faid, he had been very feriously confidering my whole ftory, as far as it related both to myself and my country: That he looked upon us as a fort of animals, to whofe fhare, by what accident he could not conjecture, fome small pittance of reafon had fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its affistance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which nature had not given us: That we difarmed ourselves of the few abilities fhe had bestowed; had been very fuccefsful in multiplying our original wants, and feemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours to fupply them by our own inventions : That as to myfelf, it was manifest I had neither the ftrength or agility of a common Yahoo; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter from the fun and the weather. Laftly, that I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren (as he called them) the Yahoos in this country.

That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our grofs defects in reason, and by confequence in virtue; because reafon alone is fufficient to govern a rational creature; which was therefore a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people: Although he manifeftly perceived, that in order to favour them, I had conceal

ed

ed many particulars, and often faid the thing which was not.

He was the more confirmed in his opinion, because he obferved, that as I agreed in every feature of my body with other Yahoos, except where it was to my real disadvantage, in point of strength, fpeed, and activity, the thortnefs of my claws, and fome other particulars where nature had no part; fo from the representation I had given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions, he found as near a refemblance in the difpofition of our minds. He faid the Yahoos were known to hate one another, more than they did any differ ent fpecies of animals; and the reafon ufually af figned was, the odiousness of their own fhapes, which all could fee in the reft, but not in themfelves. He had therefore begun to think it not unwife in us to cover our bodies, and by that invention, conceal many of our deformities from each other, which would elfe be hardly fupportable. But he now found he had been mistaken, and that, the diffenfions of thofe brutes in his country, were owing to the same caufe with ours, as I had defcribed them. For if (faid he) you throw among five Yahoos as much food as would be fufficient for fifty, they will, inftead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each fingle one impatient to have all to itself; and therefore a fervant was usually employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad, and thofe kept at Home were tied at a distance from each other; that if a cow died of age or accident, before a Houyhnhnm

could