oals are stated to be
the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. In
fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was
unadvisable, and illustrated the theory by his own practice and
example--God help him--which made him about the most wretched being in God's
world.(47)

The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, as exemplified in
the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our author's constant method
through all his works of humour. Given a country of people six inches or
sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand
wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation.
Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff
near as tall as the mainmast of the _Royal Sovereign_, the King of
Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as
represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The
Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" (what a
surprising humour there is in this description!)--"the Emperor's features,"
Gulliver says, "are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched
nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs
well-proportioned, and his deportment majestic. He is taller _by the
breadth of my nail_ than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike
an awe into beholders."

What a surprising humour there is in these descriptions! How noble the
satire is here! how just and honest! How perfect the image! Mr. Macaulay
has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the pygmies
is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear
that was like "the mast of some tall admiral", but these images are surely
likely to come to the comic poet originally. The subject is before him. He
is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests
itself naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that
wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the eagle
into the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's cabin, he
calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on the
table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the
_veracity_ of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from such
a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so.

But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best in that abounding bo