CHAPTER III.

THE AUTHOR DIVERTS THE EMPEROR, AND HIS NOBILITY OF BOTH SEXES, IN A VERY UNCOMMON MANNER. THE DIVERSIONS OF THE COURT OF LILLIPUT DESCRIBED. THE AUTHOR HAS HIS LIBERTY GRANTED HIM UPON CERTAIN CONDITIONS.

My gentleness and good behaviour had gained so far upon the emperor and his court, and indeed upon the army and people in general, that I began to conceive hopes of getting my liberty in a short time. I took all possible methods to cultivate this favourable disposition. The natives came, by degrees, to be less apprehensive of any danger from me. I would sometimes lie down, and let five or six of them dance on my hand; and at last the boys and girls would venture to come and play at hideand-seek in my hair. I had now made a good progress in understanding and speaking the language. The emperor had a mind one day to entertain me with several of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed upon a slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little.

This diversion is only practised by those persons, who are candidates for great employments, and high favour at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth, or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace, (which often happens,) five or six of those candidates petition the emperor

to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to shew their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope, at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the summerset* several times together, upon a trencher fixed on a rope, which is no thicker than a common pack-thread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par.

These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater, when the ministers themselves are commanded to shew their dexterity; for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far, that there is hardly one of them who has not received a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured, that, a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would infallibly have broke his neck, if one of the king's cushions, that accidentally lay on the ground, had not weakened the force of his fall.t

There is likewise another diversion, which is only shewn before the emperor and empress, and first

* Summerset or Summersault, a gambol of a tumbler, in which he springs up, turns heels over-head in the air, and comes down upon his feet.-Orig.

†This seems to allude to Walpole's dismissal from office in 1717, through the successful intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope. The cushion which broke his fall was perhaps his interest with the Duchess of Kendal, the favourite mistress of George I. At a

The emperor

minister, upon particular occasions. lays on the table three fine silken threads of six inches long; one is blue, the other red, and the third green. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor has a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favour.* The ceremony is performed in his majesty's great chamber of state where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity, very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the new or old world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates advancing, one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backward and forward, several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and the first minister the other; sometimes the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-coloured silk;

future period he again saved himself by the petticoat influence of Queen Caroline. But that crisis had not arrived when Gulliver was written.

* An allusion to the ribbons of the Garter, of the Bath, and of the Thistle, and to the arts of courtly address and dexterity by which the satirist supposed them to have been attained. Walpole mentions his father's policy in reviving the Order of the Bath, in terms somewhat similar:-"It was an artful bank," he says, "of thirty-six ribbons to supply a fund of favours instead of places. He meant too to stave off the demands for garters, and intended that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took one of the former himself. He offered the new order to old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the Duke, and for the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters. She haughtily answered, 'they should take nothing but the Garter.' 'Madam,' said Sir Robert, coolly, 'they who take the Bath, will the sooner have the Garter.'"-WALPOLE'S Reminiscences.

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the red is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice round about the middle; and you see few great persons about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles.*

The horses of the army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. The riders would leap them over my hand, as I held it on the ground; and one of the emperor's huntsmen, upon a large courser, took my foot, shoe and all; which was indeed a prodigious leap. I had the good fortune to divert the

*Swift probably remembered that his foe, Sir Robert Walpole, was distinguished by the orders of the Garter and the Bath. Very different is the tone with which his ingenious historian has commemorated his preferment. "A few days before the prorogation of Parliament, the order of the Bath was received, and the minister was created a knight, from which period he assumed the title of Sir Robert Walpole, and in 1726 was installed knight of the Garter; the value of which distinction is greatly enhanced by the consideration, that, excepting Admiral Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, he was the only commoner, who, since the reign of James the First, had been dignified by that order.

"On this event he had the honour of being congratulated by the author of the Night Thoughts, in a poem called the Instalment. The poet commences in an exalted strain of panegyric, by invoking the shades of the deceased knights to descend from heaven to assist at the inauguration of the new compeer :

"Ye mighty dead, ye garter'd sons of praise!
Our morning stars! Our boast in former days!
Which hov'ring o'er, your purple wings display,
Lured by the pomp of this distinguish'd day,
Stoop and attend by one the knee be bound;
One, throw the mantle's crimson folds around;
By that, the sword on his proud thigh be placed,
This clasp the diamond girdle round his waist;
His breast, with rays, let just Godolphin spread ;
Wise Burleigh plant the plumage on his head ;
And Edward own, since first he fix'd the race,
None prest fair glory with a swifter pace.'

COXE's Memoirs, I. 340.

emperor one day after a very extraordinary manner. I desired he would order several sticks of two feet high, and the thickness of an ordinary cane, to be brought me; whereupon his majesty commanded the master of his woods to give directions accordingly; and the next morning six woodmen arrived with as many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each. I took nine of these sticks, and fixing them firmly in the ground in a quadrangular figure, two feet and a half square, I took four other sticks, and tied them parallel at each corner, about two feet from the ground; then I fastened my handkerchief to the nine sticks that stood erect; and extended it on all sides, till it was tight as the top of a drum; and the four parallel sticks, rising about five inches higher than the handkerchief, served as ledges on each sides. When I had finished my work, I desired the emperor to let a troop of the best horse, twenty-four in number, come and exercise upon this plain. His majesty approved of the proposal, and I took them up, one by one, in my hands, ready mounted and armed, with the proper officers to exercise them. As soon as they got into order, they divided into two parties, performed mock skirmishes, discharged blunt arrows, drew their swords, fled and pursued, attacked and retired, and, in short, discovered the best military discipline I ever beheld. The parallel sticks secured them and their horses from falling over the stage; and the emperor was so much delighted, that he ordered this entertainment to be repeated several days, and once was pleased to be lifted up and give the word of command; and with great difficulty persuaded even the empress herself to let me hold her in her close chair within two yards of the stage, when she was able to take a full view of the whole performance. It was my good fortune, that no ill accident happened in these