of governing within very narrow
bounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy
determination of civil and criminal causes; with some other obvious
topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his opinion,
"that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to
grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve
better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the
whole race of politicians put together."

The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only in
morality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed
to excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be useful
in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all mechanical arts; so
that among us, it would be little esteemed. And as to ideas, entities,
abstractions, and transcendentals, I could never drive the least
conception into their heads.

No law in that country must exceed in words the number of letters in
their alphabet, which consists only of two and twenty. But indeed few of
them extend even to that length. They are expressed in the most plain
and simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial enough to
discover above one interpretation: and to write a comment upon any law,
is a capital crime. As to the decision of civil causes, or proceedings
against criminals, their precedents are so few, that they have little
reason to boast of any extraordinary skill in either.

They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out of
mind: but their libraries are not very large; for that of the king, which
is reckoned the largest, does not amount to above a thousand volumes,
placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, whence I had liberty to
borrow what books I pleased. The queen's joiner had contrived in one of
Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine five-and-twenty feet
high, formed like a standing ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long.
It was indeed a moveable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten
feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to
read, was put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted to the upper
step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book, began at the
top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight or ten
paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a little
below the level of mine e