Page 42 - Gullivers

vision of the mad Gulliver, and against that of the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnagians, the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms. We must be able to grasp the nettle of Swift’s satiric message and decide how we, ourselves, wish to react to the bleak description
of humanity articulated by that ‘Prince
of excellent understanding’, the King
of Brobdingnag, when he told earnest, enthusiastic Gulliver who had just spent several days extolling the virtues of human society:“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.”
This bleak vision of actual human behaviour came from the pen of a man who was into middle age when he started writing it. His life to this point had been full of difficulties and vexations – personal, political, professional; he has been
crossed in love, frustrated in his career
as a churchman, deceived and abused by politicians. Though he had risen to fame
in London during the years 1700-1713 and had been called upon by highly-placed politicians to use his pen in their defence, his friends had fallen from power and he had been forced to retire from an exciting
First edition 1726