350 GULLIVER’S TRAVELS.

retired from the public, laden with the spoils of the
nation. /

The palace of a Chief Minister, is a seminary to breed
up others in his own trade; the pages, lacqueys, and
porter, by imitating their master, become Ministers of
State in their several districts, and learn to excel in the
three principal ingredients, of insolence, lying, and
bribery.. Accordingly, they have a subaltern Court
paid to them by persons of the best rank, and some-
times by the force of dexterity and impudence, arrive |
through several gradations to be successors to their
Lord.

He is usually governed by a favourite footman, who
is the tunnel through which all graces are conveyed,
and may properly be called, in the last resort, the
Governors of the Kingdom.

One day in discourse my master, having heard me
mention the Nobility of my country, was pleased to
make me acompliment which I could not pretend to
deserve; that he was sure, I must have been born of
‘some noble family, because I far exceeded in shape,
colour, and cleanliness, all the yahoos of his nation,
although I seemed to fail in strength and agility, which
must be imputed to my different way of living from
those other brutes, and besides, I was not only endowed
with the faculty of speech, but likewise with some rudi-
ments of reason, to a degree, that with all his acquaint-
ance I passed for a prodigy.

He made me observe, that among the Houyhnhnms,
the white, the sorrel, and the iron-grey, were not so