Jonathan Swift visits Laputa’s works in progress. After having seen all the curiosities of the island of Laputa, I was very desirous to leave it, being heartily weary of those people. They were indeed excellent in two sciences, mathematics and music, for which I have great esteem and wherein I am not unversed, but at the same time so abstracted and involved in speculation that I never met with such disagreeable companions. On the sixteenth day of February, I took leave of his majesty and the court. The king made me a present to the value of about two hundred pounds English, together with ...