Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 2/Chapter 6
from the Collection âGulliver's Travels. Part 2â
The divisions of this summary into sections are editorial.
At the royal court in the land of giants, Gulliver attended the King and found ways to amuse the royal family despite his tiny size.
Gifts made from royal hair
Gulliver regularly attended the Kingâs morning reception and watched his terrifyingly large razor in use. When Gulliverâs own comb was nearly broken, he obtained some of the Kingâs beard stubble and fitted the hairs into a piece of wood to make a replacement.
Gulliver also asked the Queenâs attendant to save the hair from her comb. With frames made by a cabinet-maker, he wove two miniature chairs as a gift for the Queen, who displayed them as curiosities. He refused her invitation to sit on one, saying it would dishonour the hair that had adorned her head.
With the Queenâs permission, Gulliver made a purse from more of her hair for Glumdalclitch, the girl who cared for him. It was too fragile for large coins, so she used it to keep toys.
A strenuous performance at court
The King enjoyed concerts, but their volume was overwhelming to Gulliver. He could appreciate the music only after his box had been moved away from the performers and its doors, windows and curtains closed.
Hoping to entertain the King and Queen with an English tune, Gulliver adapted Glumdalclitchâs enormous keyboard instrument. Standing on a bench below its keys, he ran from side to side and struck them with two sticks padded with mouse skin. The royal couple enjoyed his jig, though the exhausting method limited him to sixteen keys and prevented him from playing both the bass and the melody.
Gulliver praises England
During private conversations, Gulliver challenged the Kingâs contempt for Europe. He argued that intelligence did not increase with bodily size and pointed to the ingenuity of bees and ants. The King listened more respectfully and asked for an account of English government, hoping to find practices worth imitating.
Over five long audiences, Gulliver described Britainâs kingdoms and American colonies, its fertile land and its institutions. He praised Parliamentâs hereditary lords and bishops, presenting them as virtuous, learned advisers and lawmakers; he described the elected Commons as able patriots chosen by the people. He also spoke of the courts, finances, armed forces, religious and political groups, sports and the previous centuryâs history. The King listened closely and took notes.
The King questions Englandâs institutions
At a sixth audience, the King tested Gulliverâs flattering account. He asked how nobles were educated and whether new lords gained their places through merit, money, favour or party interests. He wondered whether bishops were chosen for learning and piety or for obedience to powerful patrons, and whether judges in the House of Lords were knowledgeable and free from corruption.
The King also questioned elections to the Commons. He suspected that wealthy outsiders could buy votes and that candidates who spent heavily on unpaid seats might recover their costs by serving a corrupt ministry instead of the public.
On justice, he asked about the cost and duration of lawsuits, the influence of political and religious loyalties, and lawyersâ willingness to argue unjust cases or use precedents to support opposing positions. Gulliver knew the subject well: a long lawsuit had nearly ruined him, although he had won it with costs awarded.
The Kingâs notes showed that English expenditure could exceed tax revenues by more than twice the amount collected. He asked how the resulting debts could be paid and why England fought such costly wars. A paid standing army in peacetime particularly puzzled him: he doubted that hired soldiers would defend a free people as faithfully as a household would defend itself.
The King also questioned the divisions by which Gulliver had counted the population. He considered it tyrannical to force people to change dangerous opinions, but weak to let them spread those opinions. He explained his view to Gulliver:
for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.
He asked whether gambling ruined the fortunes and characters of the nobility, making them dependent on skilful, disreputable gamblers. Gulliverâs history of England astonished him most: he saw it as a succession of conspiracies, violence and upheavals driven by greed, faction and ambition.
The Kingâs verdict
At another audience, the King compared Gulliverâs account with his answers. Taking him gently in his hand, he said that Gulliverâs praise had instead exposed a corrupted system. The King summed up what he believed qualified an English legislator:
My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator:
The King found no evidence that virtue was needed to obtain office. He hoped that Gulliver, having spent much of his life travelling, had escaped many of his countryâs vices. Nevertheless, the King concluded from Gulliverâs own account that most of his countrymen were among the most pernicious creatures on earth.