…it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres revolutions, banishments, and…ambition, could produce.

…it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres revolutions, banishments, and very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice and ambition, could produce.

Answer: These lines are extracted from Chapter 6, Part 2 of Jonathan Swift’s celebrated satire Gulliver’s Travels. These are the words by which the Brobdingnagian King describes Gulliver’s country and its history of the last hundred years.

The Brobdingnagian King had a number of conversations with Gulliver on European, particularly English life, manners, government and history. In one such occasion, Gulliver presented to the King a glorious account of English history of the last hundred years. Gulliver was hyperbolically full of admiration and pride for the history, government and life of his country. However, the Brobdingnagian King | found nothing admirable in the English history. Gulliver’s description of his country and its history only aroused contempt in the King’s mind. For the King, the history of England is history of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres revolutions and banishments. There is neither open-heartedness nor simplicity which should be the essential quality of a man and a nation as a whole. Had people possessed the virtue of a man in the true sense of the term, there would have been no massacres or murders. But people in Gulliver’s country are worst affected by avarice, hypocrisy, cruelty, madness, hatred, and malice. These are the vices that lead a country to its destruction causing immense sufferings to its people. So, the King says, the English cannot be taken as a civilized race. But the people in the land of the Brobdingnags are free and fair and possess a humane heart. There is nothing worthy of praise in Gulliver’s England and the history of his country.

Swift here exhibits the vices of his countrymen in particular and the fallibility of mankind in general. Using allegory here Swift gives a crashing blow to man’s pride in his rationality. For this reason is often called misanthrope.