He was by no means satisfied with the relation I gave him, of the manner I came into his kingdom, but thought it a story concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father, who had taught me a set of words, to make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination, he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers; no otherwise defective, than by a foreign accent, and an imperfect knowledge in the language, with some rustick phrases which I had learned at the farmer's house, and did not suit the polite style of a court.
His majesty sent for three great scholars, who were then in their weekly waiting, according to the custom in that country. These gentlemen, after they had a while examined my shape with much nicety, were of different opinions concerning me. They all agreed, that I could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature, because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth. They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field-mice, with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could not possibly do[1]. One of these virtuosi seemed to think
- ↑ By this reasoning the author probably intended to ridicule the pride of those philosophers, who have thought fit to arraign the wisdom of Providence in the creation and government of the world; whose cavils are specious, like those of the Brobdingnagian sages, only in proportion to the ignorance of those to whom they are proposed.
