with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my 15 lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them. 2. I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish. 3. There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method of building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downward to the foundation; which he justified to me by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider. 20 25 4. In another department, I was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labor. The method is this: In an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance, and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other 30 mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest. Then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where in a 12, 13. his stock: that is, his stock of 20. malleability, the quality of being sunbeams. malleable, or extended by hammering. 15, 16. my lord: that is, the King of 28. charges, cost. Laputa. 18. calcine, to reduce to a powder by 31. mast, the fruit of the oak, beech, or the action of heat. other forest trees. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-18. calcine. Define this word, and state from what the aptness of its employment here arises. Would a generic term, such as "change" or "convert," be as felicitous?-who. Notice the distance of the relative pronoun from its antecedent, and improve the sentence by breaking it up into two. 21. ingenious. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 26.)-By what two examples did this projector justify his new method of building? Note the element of the absurd in this. 26-37. In another department... improvement. In the device of ploughing by hogs, point how by the mention of minute details and exact figures, the author gives verisimilitude to the mad project.-With what ironical touch does the paragraph close? few days they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing. It is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little 35 or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable of great improvement. 5. There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sundial upon the great weathercock in the town-house by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun so 40 as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind. I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my readers with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity. 6. We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, 45 as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided. The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said perhaps I might 50 wander to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical mechanical operations; but the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knows how laborious the usual 55 method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and 46. speculative learning. The term is 47. large room. "Large," perhaps, in used in contrast with the practical pursuits of the projectors. allusion to the vastness of the domain of speculation. We are not to look for astro LITERARY ANALYSIS.-40. annual... sun. nomical accuracy in this satirical description: otherwise what should we say in regard to Swift's speaking of the "annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun?" 45-81. Give synonyms of the following words in paragraph 6: "resided" (46, 47); “salutation" (48); “wonder” (51); “employed” (51); “exalted" "contrivance" (56, 57); "assistance" (59, 60); "slender" (65); “command" (70); "shifted" (80). (54); 48. observing me to look. Modernize this expression. with a little bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, 60 about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were 65 covered, on every square, with papers pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils, at his command, 70 took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed around the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame ; 75 and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood moved so upside down. 7. Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labor; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio,* already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the world a 85 complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might 63. superficies, surface. 64. die, singular of dice. 73. disposition, arrangement. 83. folio, a book in sheets once folded, a book of the largest size made. LITERARY ANALYSIS. — 62-64. The superficies. . . others. Analyze this sentence. 78-81. This work... down. Rewrite this sentence, substituting synonymous words wherever possible. 82. hours. What is the grammatical construction of "hours?" be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections. He assured me that this invention had em- 90 ployed all his thoughts from his youth; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in books between the number of particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech. 8. I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious 95 person for his great communicativeness, and promised, if ever I had the good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him justice as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine. I told him, although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least 100 this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner, yet I would take such caution that he should have the honor entire, without a rival. 9. In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained; the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their 105 senses, which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services ; 110 of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild, impossible chimeras that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old ob- 115 servation, "that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth." LITERARY ANALYSIS.-99. were. In what mood is this verb? 104-117. In the school... truth. State in your own language the aims of the political projectors. These are characterized as "chimeras:" explain this term. What would be the condition of a country in which these aims were realized?. |