rning 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 book,
is that where Gulliver, in the unpronounceable country, describes his
parting from his master the horse. "I took," he says, "a second leave of
my master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he
did me the honour to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how
much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular.
Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a
person should descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a
creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some
travellers are to boast of extraordinary favours they have received. But
if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous
disposition of the Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion."

The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the
astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has
been censured, the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful
exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth
topsy-turvy, entirely logical and absurd.

As for the humour and conduct of this famous fable, I suppose there is no
person who reads but must admire; as for the moral, I think it horrible,
shameful, unmanly, blasphemous; and giant and great as this Dean is, I
say we should hoot him. Some of this audience mayn't have read the last
part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable
Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't." When Gulliver
first lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees
and assault him, and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the
filth which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of
"Gulliver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. It is
Yahoo language: a monster gibbering shrieks, an