Читать книгу The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - The Original Classic Edition - Sterne Laurence - Страница 2

He has so,--replied my uncle Toby.--I knew it, said my father, though, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be betwixt Dr. Slop's sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortification;--yet I fear'd it.--Talk of what we will, brother,-- or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,--you are sure to bring it in. I would not, brother Toby, continued

my father,--I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and hornworks.--That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. Slop,

interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.

Dennis the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;--he would grow testy upon it at any time;--but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;--he saw no difference.

Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop,--the curtins my brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with beadsteads;--tho', I know Du Cange says, 'That bed-curtains, in all probability, have taken their name from them;'--nor have the hornworks he speaks of, any thing in the world to do with the hornworks of cuckoldom: But the Curtin, Sir, is the word we use in fortification, for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions and joins them--Besiegers seldom offer

to carry on their attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well flanked. ('Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. Slop, laughing.) However, continued my uncle Toby, to make them sure, we generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to extend them beyond the fosse or ditch:--The common men, who know very little of fortification, confound

the ravelin and the half-moon together,--tho' they are very different things;--not in their figure or construction, for we make them exactly alike, in all points; for they always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges, not straight, but in form of

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a crescent;--Where then lies the difference? (quoth my father, a little testily.)--In their situations, answered my uncle Toby:--For when a ravelin, brother, stands before the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion, then the ravelin is not a ravelin;--it is a half-moon;--a half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its bastion;--but was it to change place, and get before the curtin,--'twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a half-moon;--'tis no more than a ravelin.--I think, quoth my father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides--as well as others.

As for the hornwork (high! ho! sigh'd my father) which, continued my uncle Toby, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of an outwork;--they are called by the French engineers, Ouvrage a corne, and we generally make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;--'tis formed by two epaulments or demibastions--they are very pretty,--and if you will take a walk, I'll engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.--I own, continued my uncle Toby, when we crown them,-- they are much stronger, but then they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in my opinion, they are most

of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; otherwise the double tenaille--By the mother who bore us!--brother Toby, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,--you would provoke a saint;--here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse into the middle of the old subject again:--But so full is your head of these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in the pains of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the man-midwife.--Accoucheur,--if you please, quoth Dr. Slop.--With all my heart, replied my father, I don't care what they call you,--but I wish the whole science of

fortification, with all its inventors, at the devil;--it has been the death of thousands,--and it will be mine in the end.--I would not, I would not, brother Toby, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, pallisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all the towns in Flanders with it.

My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries;--not from want of courage,--I have told you in a former chapter, 'that he was a man of courage:'--And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,--I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;--nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;--for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do;--but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,--no jarring element in it,--all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,--and which after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;--I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy head:--Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?--This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;--or in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not;--this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the Literae hu-maniores, at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;--yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.

This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon the subject.

I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle Toby's picture, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,--that taking in no more than the mere Hobby-Horsical likeness:--this is a part of his moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he had a much more acute and

quick sensibility of nature, attended with a little soreness of temper; tho' this never transported him to any thing which looked like malignancy:--yet in the little rubs and vexations of life, 'twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty kind of peevishness:--He was, however, frank and generous in his nature;--at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of this subacid humour

towards others, but particularly towards my uncle Toby, whom he truly loved:--he would feel more pain, ten times told (except in the affair of my aunt Dinah, or where an hypothesis was concerned) than what he ever gave.

The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected light upon each other, and appeared with great advantage in this

affair which arose about Stevinus.

I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a Hobby-Horse,--that a man's Hobby-Horse is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these unprovoked strokes at my uncle Toby's could not be unfelt by him.--No:--as I said above, my uncle Toby did feel them, and very sensibly too.

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Pray, Sir, what said he?--How did he behave?--O, Sir!--it was great: For as soon as my father had done insulting his Hobby-Horse,--he turned his head without the least emotion, from Dr. Slop, to whom he was addressing his discourse, and looking up into my father's face, with a countenance spread over with so much goodnature;--so placid;--so fraternal;--so inexpressibly tender towards him:--it penetrated my father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair, and seizing hold of both my uncle Toby's hands as he spoke:--Brother Toby, said he:--I beg thy pardon;--forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour which my mother gave me.--My dear, dear brother, answered my uncle Toby, rising up by my father's help, say no more about it;--you are heartily welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But 'tis ungenerous, replied my father, to hurt any man;--a brother worse;--but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners,--so unprovoking,--and so unresenting;--'tis base:--By Heaven, 'tis cowardly.--You are heartily welcome, brother, quoth my uncle Toby,--had it been fifty times as much.--Besides, what have I to do, my dear Toby, cried my father, either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless it was in my power (which it is not) to increase their measure?

--Brother Shandy, answered my uncle Toby, looking wistfully in his face,--you are much mistaken in this point:--for you do increase my pleasure very much, in begetting children for the Shandy family at your time of life.--But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy increases his own.--Not a jot, quoth my father.

Chapter 1.XXXVIII.

My brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle.--In a family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop.--Pshaw!--said my father,--

'tis not worth talking of.

Chapter 1.XXXIX.

At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both standing, like Brutus and Cassius, at the close of the scene, making up their accounts.

As my father spoke the three last words,--he sat down;--my uncle Toby exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he rung the bell, to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step home for Stevinus:--my uncle Toby's house being no farther off than the opposite side of the way.

Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus;--but my uncle Toby had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, to shew my father that he had none.

Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, resuming the discourse, instantly brought Stevinus into my head. (My father, you may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus's head.)--Because, continued my uncle Toby, the celebrated sailing chariot, which belonged to Prince Maurice, and was of such wonderful contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty German miles, in I don't know how few minutes,--was invented by Stevinus, that great mathematician and engineer.

You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. Slop (as the fellow is lame) of going for Stevinus's account of it, because

in my return from Leyden thro' the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.

That's nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning

from Paris to Schevling, and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it, and nothing else.

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark, 'twas out of no contempt of Peireskius at all;--but that Peireskius's indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. Slop, in that affair, to nothing:--the more fool Peireskius, said he again.--Why so?--replied my father, taking his brother's part, not only to make reparation as fast as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my father's mind;--but partly, that my father began really to interest

himself in the discourse.--Why so?--said he. Why is Peireskius, or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other

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morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a very mechanical head; and tho' I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he has atchieved it;--yet certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not have answered at the rate my brother mentions.

It answered, replied my uncle Toby, as well, if not better; for, as Peireskius elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its mo-

tion, Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus; which, unless I have forgot my Latin, is, that it was as swift as the wind itself.

But pray, Dr. Slop, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho' not without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles was this self-same chariot set a-going?--Upon very pretty principles to be sure, replied Dr. Slop:--And I have often wondered, continued he, evading the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large plains like this of ours,--(especially they whose wives are not past child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be infinitely expeditious upon sud-den calls, to which the sex is subject,--if the wind only served,--but would be excellent good husbandry to make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than horses, which (the devil take 'em) both cost and eat a great deal.

For that very reason, replied my father, 'Because they cost nothing, and because they eat nothing,'--the scheme is bad;--it is the consumption of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread to the hungry, circulates trade,--brings in money, and supports the value of our lands;--and tho', I own, if I was a Prince, I would generously recompense the scientifick head which brought forth such contrivances;--yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them.

My father here had got into his element,--and was going on as prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had before, upon his of fortification;--but to the loss of much sound knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father that day,--for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence,

Chapter 1.XL.

In popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus:--But 'twas too late,--all the discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running

into a new channel.

--You may take the book home again, Trim, said my uncle Toby, nodding to him.

But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,--look first into it, and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it. Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned to obey,--and not to remonstrate,--so taking the book to a side-table, and run-

ning over the leaves; An' please your Honour, said Trim, I can see no such thing;--however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, I'll make sure work of it, an' please your Honour;--so taking hold of the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves fall down as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound shake.

There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an' please your Honour;--but it is not a chariot, or any thing like one:--Prithee, Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?--I think, answered Trim, stooping to take it up,--'tis more like a sermon,--for it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;--and then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly.

The company smiled.

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing as a sermon to have got into my Stevinus.

I think 'tis a sermon, replied Trim:--but if it please your Honours, as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page;--for Trim, you must

know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk.

I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these;--and as we have nothing better to do, at least till Obadiah gets back, I shall be obliged to you, brother, if Dr. Slop has no objection to it, to order the Corporal to give us a page or two of it,--if he is as able to do it, as he seems willing. An' please your honour, quoth Trim,

I officiated two whole campaigns, in Flanders, as clerk to the chaplain of the regiment.--He can read it, quoth my uncle Toby, as well as I can.--Trim, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow's

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misfortune. Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,--he advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could best see, and be best seen by his audience.

Chapter 1.XLI.

--If you have any objection,--said my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop. Not in the least, replied Dr. Slop;--for it does not ap-pear on which side of the question it is wrote,--it may be a composition of a divine of our church, as well as yours,--so that we run equal risques.--'Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth Trim, for 'tis only upon Conscience, an' please your Honours.

Trim's reason put his audience into good humour,--all but Dr. Slop, who turning his head about towards Trim, looked a little angry. Begin, Trim,--and read distinctly, quoth my father.--I will, an' please your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and be-

speaking attention with a slight movement of his right hand.

Chapter 1.XLII.

--But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude;--otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in an uneasy posture,--stiff,--perpendicular,--dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs;--his eye fixed, as if on duty;--his look determined,--clenching the sermon in his left hand, like his firelock.--In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action,--His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.

He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon;--which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to be the true persuasive angle of incidence;-- in any other angle you may talk and preach;--'tis certain;--and it is done every day;--but with what effect,--I leave the world to judge!

The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical exactness,--does it not shew us, by the way, how the

arts and sciences mutually befriend each other?

How the duce Corporal Trim, who knew not so much as an acute angle from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;--or whether it was chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c. shall be commented upon in that part of the cyclopaedia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under consideration.

He stood,--for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,--his right leg from under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,--the foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a little,--not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them;--his knee bent, but that not violently,--but so as to fall within the limits of the line of beauty;--and I add, of the line of science too;--for consider, it had one eighth part of

his body to bear up;--so that in this case the position of the leg is determined,--because the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too.

>This I recommend to painters;--need I add,--to orators!--I think not; for unless they practise it,--they must fall upon their noses. So much for Corporal Trim's body and legs.--He held the sermon loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his

stomach, and detached a little from his breast;--his right arm falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered

it,--but with the palm of it open and turned towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need.

Corporal Trim's eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony with the other parts of him;--he looked frank,--uncon-

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strained,-- something assured,--but not bordering upon assurance.

Let not the critic ask how Corporal Trim could come by all this.--I've told him it should be explained;--but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and Dr. Slop,--so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure,--a statuary might have modelled from it;--nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College,--or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it.

Trim made a bow, and read as follows:

The Sermon.

Hebrews xiii. 18.

--For we trust we have a good Conscience.

'Trust!--Trust we have a good conscience!'

(Certainly, Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man,

and read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse the Apostle.

He is, an' please your Honour, replied Trim. Pugh! said my father, smiling.

Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Trim is certainly in the right; for the writer (who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him;--if this treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. Slop, that the writer is of our church?--for aught I can see yet,--he may be of any church.--Because, answered Dr. Slop, if he was of ours,--he durst no more take such a licence,--than a bear by his beard:--If,

in our communion, Sir, a man was to insult an apostle,--a saint,--or even the paring of a saint's nail,--he would have his eyes scratched out.--What, by the saint? quoth my uncle Toby. No, replied Dr. Slop, he would have an old house over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building, answered my uncle Toby, or is it a modern one?--I know nothing of architecture, replied Dr. Slop.--An' please your Honours, quoth Trim, the Inquisition is the vilest--Prithee spare thy description, Trim, I hate the very name of it, said my father.--No matter for that, answered Dr. Slop,--it has its uses; for tho' I'm no great advocate for it, yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be flung into the Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my uncle Toby. Amen, added Trim; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor brother

who has been fourteen years a captive in it.--I never heard one word of it before, said my uncle Toby, hastily:--How came he there, Trim?--O, Sir, the story will make your heart bleed,--as it has made mine a thousand times;--but it is too long to be told now;-- your Honour shall hear it from first to last some day when I am working beside you in our fortifications;--but the short of the story is this;--That my brother Tom went over a servant to Lisbon,--and then married a Jew's widow, who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was the cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, where he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried directly to the Inquisition, where, God help him, continued Trim, fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart,--the poor honest lad lies confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, added Trim, (pulling out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.--

--The tears trickled down Trim's cheeks faster than he could well wipe them away.--A dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.--Certain proof of pity!

Come Trim, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow's grief had got a little vent,--read on,--and put this melancholy story out of thy head:--I grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon again;--for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the apostle has given.

Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his pocket, and, making a bow as he did it,--he began again.)

The Sermon.

Hebrews xiii. 18.

--For we trust we have a good Conscience.--

'Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing in this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowl-

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edge of which he is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be this very thing,--whether he has a good

conscience or no.'

(I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state of this account:--he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;--he must remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true springs and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.'

(I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the wise man complains, hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;--is conscious of the web she has wove;--knows its texture and fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.'

(The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my father.)

'Now,--as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives; 'tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the proposition,--whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man.--And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not:--that it is not a mat-ter of trust, as the apostle intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also.'

(Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. Paul and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.--As nearly so, quoth Dr. Slop, as east is to west;--but this, continued he, lifting both hands, comes from the liberty of the press.

It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be.

Go on, Trim, quoth my father.)

'At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man,--that did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;--and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it:--Did this never happen;--or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;--or that the little interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:--Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was ashamed to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, lastly, were we assured that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing--and that Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:--Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose;--no doubt then the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it:--and the guilt or innocence of every man's life could be known, in general, by no bet-ter measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and censure.

'I own, in one case, whenever a man's conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty;--and unless in melancholy and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is always sufficient grounds for the accusation.

'But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;--namely, that whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent.--This is not fact--So that the common consolation which some good christian or other is hourly administering to himself,--that he thanks God his mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good

conscience, because he hath a quiet one,--is fallacious;--and as current as the inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,--you see it liable to so much error from a false application;--the principle upon which it goes so often perverted;--the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away,

that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life, which confirm the account.

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'A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles;--exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify,--a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;--rob her of her best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishon-

our;--but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will think conscience must lead such a man a

troublesome life; he can have no rest night and day from its reproaches.

'Alas! Conscience had something else to do all this time, than break in upon him; as Elijah reproached the god Baal,--this domestic god was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure he slept and could not be awoke.

'Perhaps He was gone out in company with Honour to fight a duel: to pay off some debt at play;--or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust; Perhaps Conscience all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily;'--(If he was of our church, tho', quoth Dr. Slop, he could not)--'sleeps as soundly in his bed;--and at last meets death unconcernedly;--perhaps much more so, than a much better man.'

(All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father,--the case could not happen in our church.--It happens in ours, however, replied my father, but too often.--I own, quoth Dr. Slop, (struck a little with my father's frank acknowledgment)--that a man in the Romish church may live as badly;--but then he cannot easily die so.--'Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of indifference,--how a rascal dies.--I mean, answered Dr. Slop, he would be denied the benefits of the last sacraments.--Pray how many have you in all, said my uncle Toby,--for I always forget?--Seven, answered Dr. Slop.--Humph!--said my uncle Toby; tho' not accented as a note of acquiescence,--but as an interjection of that particular species of surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer, finds more of a thing than he expected.--Humph! replied my uncle Toby. Dr. Slop, who had an ear, understood my uncle Toby as well as if he had wrote a whole volume against the seven sacraments.--Humph! replied Dr. Slop, (stating my uncle Toby's argument over again to him)--Why, Sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues?--Seven mortal sins?--Seven golden candlesticks?-- Seven heavens?--'Tis more than I know, replied my uncle Toby.--Are there not seven wonders of the world?--Seven days of the

creation?--Seven planets?--Seven plagues?--That there are, quoth my father with a most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on with the rest of thy characters, Trim.)

'Another is sordid, unmerciful,' (here Trim waved his right hand) 'a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human life without a sigh or a prayer.' (An' please your honours, cried Trim, I think this a viler man than the other.)

'Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?--No; thank God there is no occasion, I pay every man his own;--I have no fornication to answer to my conscience;--no faithless vows or promises to make up;--I have debauched no man's wife or child; thank God, I am not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who stands before me.

'A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life;--'tis nothing but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws,--plain dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several properties.--You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man;--shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life.

'When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, and state it over again with his conscience--Conscience looks into the Statutes at Large;--finds no express law broken by what he has done;--perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred;--sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his gates upon him:--What is there to affright his conscience?--Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all sides;--that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.'

(Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.--Aye, Aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,--these are but sorry fortifications, Trim.--O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your Honour and I make of it.--The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:--Amongst us, a man's conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,--three

times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth my uncle Toby,--Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou has got to the end of thy sermon.--'Tis a very short one, replied Trim.--I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.--Trim went on.)

'A fourth man shall want even this refuge;--shall break through all their ceremony of slow chicane;--scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:--See the bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!--Horrid!--But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the present case--the poor man was in the dark!--his priest

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had got the keeping of his conscience;--and all he would let him know of it, was, That he must believe in the Pope;--go to Mass;-- cross himself;--tell his beads;--be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry him to heaven. What;--if he perjures?--Why;--he had a mental reservation in it.--But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;--if he robs,--if he stabs, will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself ?--Aye,--but the man has carried it to confession;-- the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou to answer for!--when not content with the too many natural and fatal ways, thro' which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to itself above all things;--thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself, and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.

'Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,--I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.

'Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there, tho' equally bad and vicious in their own natures;--he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand can give them;--and that the oth-ers, to which he feels no propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true circumstances of folly and dishonour.

'When David surprized Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe--we read his heart smote him for what he had done:--But in the matter of Uriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust,--where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow

or compunction of heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had done.

'Thus conscience, this once able monitor,--placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our maker as a just and equitable one too,--by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,--does its office so negligently,--sometimes so corruptly,--that it is not to be trusted alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its determinations.

'So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,--namely, in what degree of real merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your king, or a good servant to your God,--call in religion and morality.--Look, What is written in the law of God?--How readest thou?--Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth;--what say they?

'Let Conscience determine the matter upon these reports;--and then if thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle supposes,--the rule will be infallible;'--(Here Dr. Slop fell asleep)--'thou wilt have confidence towards God;--that is, have just grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous sentence which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions.

'Blessed is the man, indeed, then, as the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus expresses it, who is not pricked with the multitude of his sins: Blessed is the man whose heart hath not condemned him; whether he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart (a heart thus guided and informed) he shall at all times rejoice in a chearful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men that sit above upon a tower on high.'--(A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle Toby, unless 'tis flank'd.)--'in the darkest doubts it shall conduct him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in, a better security for his behaviour

than all the causes and restrictions put together, which law-makers are forced to multiply:--Forced, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a matter of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well intending, by the many provisions made,--that in all such corrupt and misguided cases,

where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us upright,--to supply their force, and, by the terrors of gaols and

halters, oblige us to it.'

(I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be preached at the Temple,--or at some Assize.--I like the reasoning,--and am sorry that Dr. Slop has fallen asleep before the time of his conviction:--for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at first, never insulted St. Paul in the least;--nor has there been, brother, the least difference between them.--A great matter, if they had differed, replied my uncle Toby,--the best friends in the world may differ sometimes.--True,--brother Toby quoth my father, shaking hands with him,--we'll fill our pipes, brother, and then Trim shall go on.

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Well,--what dost thou think of it? said my father, speaking to Corporal Trim, as he reached his tobacco-box.

I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the tower, who, I suppose, are all centinels there,--are more, an' please your Honour, than were necessary;--and, to go on at that rate, would harrass a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves his men, will never do, if he can help it, because two centinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty.--I have been a commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde a hundred times, continued Trim, rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,--and all the time I had the honour to serve his Majesty King William, in relieving the most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life.--Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,--but you do not consider, Trim, that the towers, in Solomon's days, were not such things as our bastions, flanked and defended by other works;--this, Trim, was an invention since Solomon's death; nor had they hornworks, or ravelins before the curtin, in his time;--or such a fosse as we make with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a Coup de main:--So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the Corps de Garde, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.--They could be no more, an' please your Honour, than a Corporal's Guard.--My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly--the subject being rather

too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.--So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,--he contented himself with ordering Trim to read on. He read on as follows:

'To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:--The first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;--the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables, even in imagination, (tho' the attempt is often made in practice) without breaking and mutually destroying them both.

I said the attempt is often made; and so it is;--there being nothing more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral character,--or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous to the uttermost mite.

'When there is some appearance that it is so,--tho' one is unwilling even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of his motive.

'Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress.

'I will illustrate this by an example.

'I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in,'--(There is no need, cried Dr. Slop, (waking) to call in any physician in this case)--'to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well;--notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one:--and what is dearer still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.

'Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage;--I consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life:--I know their success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters.--In a word, I'm persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting themselves more.

'But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the world;--or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art:--In this case, what hold have I of either of them?--Religion, the strongest of all motives, is out of the question;--Interest, the next most powerful motive in the world, is strongly against me:-- What have I left to cast into the opposite scale to balance this temptation?--Alas! I have nothing,--nothing but what is lighter than a bubble--I must lie at the mercy of Honour, or some such capricious principle--Strait security for two of the most valuable bless-ings!--my property and myself.

'As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;--so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without morality; nevertheless, 'tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man.

'He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,--but even wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks

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aloud against the infidelity of the age,--is zealous for some points of religion,--goes twice a day to church,--attends the sacraments,--and amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion,--shall cheat his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a religious man, and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find that such a man, through force of this delusion,

generally looks down with spiritual pride upon every other man who has less affectation of piety,--though, perhaps, ten times more

real honesty than himself.

'This likewise is a sore evil under the sun; and I believe, there is no one mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more serious mischiefs.--For a general proof of this,--examine the history of the Romish church;'--(Well what can you make of that? cried Dr. Slop)--'see what scenes of cruelty, murder, rapine, bloodshed,'--(They may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr. Slop)-- have all been sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality.

'In how many kingdoms of the world'--(Here Trim kept waving his right-hand from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it backwards and forwards to the conclusion of the paragraph.)

'In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this misguided saint-errant, spared neither age or merit, or sex, or condition?--and, as he fought under the banners of a religion which set him loose from justice and humanity, he shewed none; mercilessly trampled upon both,--heard neither the cries of the unfortunate, nor pitied their distresses.'

(I have been in many a battle, an' please your Honour, quoth Trim, sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this,--I would not have drawn a tricker in it against these poor souls,--to have been made a general officer.--Why? what do you understand of the affair? said Dr. Slop, looking towards Trim, with something more of contempt than the Corporal's honest heart deserved.--What do you know, friend, about this battle you talk of ?--I know, replied Trim, that I never refused quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it;--but to a woman or a child, continued Trim, before I would level my musket at them, I would loose my life a thousand times.--Here's a crown for thee, Trim, to drink with Obadiah to-night, quoth my uncle Toby, and I'll give Obadiah another too.-- God bless your Honour, replied Trim,--I had rather these poor women and children had it.--thou art an honest fellow, quoth my uncle Toby.--My father nodded his head, as much as to say--and so he is.--

But prithee, Trim, said my father, make an end,--for I see thou hast but a leaf or two left. Corporal Trim read on.)

'If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not sufficient,--consider at this instant, how the votaries of that religion are

every day thinking to do service and honour to God, by actions which are a dishonour and scandal to themselves.

'To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the Inquisition.'--(God help my poor brother Tom.)--

'Behold Religion, with Mercy and Justice chained down under her feet,--there sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks and instruments of torment. Hark!--hark! what a piteous groan!'--(Here Trim's face turned as pale as ashes.)--'See the melancholy wretch who uttered it'--(Here the tears began to trickle down)--'just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the utmost pains that a studied system of cruelty has been able to invent.'--(D..n them all, quoth Trim, his colour returning into his face as red as blood.)--'Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,--his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement.'--(Oh! 'tis my brother, cried poor Trim in a most passionate exclamation, dropping the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his hands together--I fear 'tis poor Tom. My father's and my uncle Toby's heart yearned with sympathy for the poor fellow's distress; even Slop himself acknowledged pity for him.--Why, Trim, said my father, this is not a history,--'tis a sermon thou art reading; prithee begin the sentence again.)--'Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,--his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers.

'Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!'--(I would rather face a cannon, quoth Trim, stamping.)--'See what convulsions it has thrown him into!--Consider the nature of the posture in which he how lies stretched,--what exquisite tortures he endures by it!'--(I hope 'tis not in Portugal.)--''Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!' (I would not read another line of it, quoth Trim for all this world;--I fear, an' please your Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother Tom is. I tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, 'tis not an historical account,--'tis a description.--'Tis only a description, honest man, quoth Slop, there's not a word of truth in it.--That's another story, replied my father.--However, as Trim reads it with so much concern,--'tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.--Give me hold of the sermon, Trim,--I'll finish it for

thee, and thou may'st go. I must stay and hear it too, replied Trim, if your Honour will allow me;--tho' I would not read it myself for a Colonel's pay.--Poor Trim! quoth my uncle Toby. My father went on.)

'--Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched,--what exquisite torture he endures by it!--'Tis all nature can bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips,--willing to take its leave,--but not suffered to de-

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part!--Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!'--(Then, thank God, however, quoth Trim, they have not killed him.)--'See him dragged out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle,--this principle, that there can be religion without mercy, has prepared for him.'--(Then, thank God,--he is dead, quoth Trim,--he is out of his pain,--and they have done their worst at him.--O Sirs!--Hold your peace, Trim, said my father, going on with the sermon, lest Trim should incense Dr. Slop,--we shall never have done at this rate.)

'The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with the spirit of Christianity;--'tis the short and decisive rule which our Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth a thousand arguments--By their fruits ye shall know them.

'I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or three short and independent rules deducible from it.

'First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the bet-

ter of his Creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it,

'tis for no other cause but quietness sake.

'Secondly, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular instance,--That such a thing goes against his conscience,--al-ways believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a thing goes against his stomach;--a present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both.

'In a word,--trust that man in nothing, who has not a Conscience in every thing.

'And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in which has ruined thousands,--that your conscience is not a law;--No, God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine;--not, like an Asiatic Cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions,--but like a British judge in this land of liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares that law which he knows already written.'

Finis.

Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, Trim, quoth my father.--If he had spared his comments, replied Dr. Slop,--he would have read it much better. I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so full.--That was the very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in what they deliver as deeply as this poor fellow has done,--as their compositions are fine;--(I deny it, quoth Dr. Slop)--I maintain it,--that the eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole world:--But alas! continued my father, and I own it, Sir, with sorrow, that, like French politicians in this respect, what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field.--'Twere a pity, quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father,--'tis dramatick,--and there is something in that way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention.--We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. Slop.--I know that very well, said my father,--but in a tone and manner which disgusted Dr. Slop, full as much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.--But in this, added Dr. Slop,

a little piqued,--our sermons have greatly the advantage, that we never introduce any character into them below a patriarch or a patriarch's wife, or a martyr or a saint.--There are some very bad characters in this, however, said my father, and I do not think the sermon a jot the worse for 'em.--But pray, quoth my uncle Toby,--who's can this be?--How could it get into my Stevinus? A man must be as great a conjurer as Stevinus, said my father, to resolve the second question:--The first, I think, is not so difficult;--for unless my judgment greatly deceives me,--I know the author, for 'tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish.

The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his conjecture,--proving it as strongly, as an argument a priori could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was Yorick's and no one's else:--It was proved to be so, a posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my uncle Toby's house to enquire after it.

It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelesly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to keep him company.

Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thru' an unsuspected fissure in thy master's pocket, down into a treacherous and a tattered lining,--trod deep into the dirt by the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou falledst;--buried ten days in the mire,--raised up out of it by a beggar,--sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,--transferred to his parson,--lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,--nor restored to his restless Manes till this

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very moment, that I tell the world the story.

Can the reader believe, that this sermon of Yorick's was preached at an assize, in the cathedral of York, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and actually printed by him when he had done,--and within so short a space as two years and three months after Yorick's death?--Yorick indeed, was never better served in his life;--but it was a little hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.

However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with Yorick,--and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give away;--and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one himself, had he thought fit,--I declare I would not have published this anecdote to the world;--nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his character and advancement in the church;--I leave that to others;--but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.

The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to Yorick's ghost;--which--as the country-people, and some others believe,--still

walks.

The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I gain an opportunity of informing it,--That in case the character of parson Yorick, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,--there are now in the possession of the Shandy family, as many as will make a handsome volume, at the world's service,--and much good may they do it.

Chapter 1.XLIII.

Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute;--for he came in jingling, with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, flung across his body, just as Corporal Trim went out of the room.

It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. Slop, (clearing up his looks) as we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. Shandy, to

send up stairs to know how she goes on.

I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us upon the least difficulty;--for you must know, Dr. Slop, continued my father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in this affair,--and not so much as that,--unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without you.--Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the species,--they claim a right of deciding, en Souveraines, in whose hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it.

They are in the right of it,--quoth my uncle Toby. But Sir, replied Dr. Slop, not taking notice of my uncle Toby's opinion, but turning to my father,--they had better govern in other points;--and a father of a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of it.--I know not, quoth my father, answering a letter too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said,--I know not, quoth he, what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the world, unless that,--of who shall beget them.--One would almost give up any thing, replied Dr. Slop.--I beg your pardon,--answered my uncle Toby.--Sir, replied Dr. Slop, it would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the foetus,--which has received such lights, that, for my part (holding up his hand) I declare I wonder how the world has--I wish, quoth my uncle Toby, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders.

Chapter 1.XLIV.

I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,--to remind you of one thing,--and to inform you of another.

What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;--for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages

ago, but that I foresaw then 'twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage here than elsewhere.--Writers had need look

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before them, to keep up the spirit and connection of what they have in hand.

When these two things are done,--the curtain shall be drawn up again, and my uncle Toby, my father, and Dr. Slop, shall go on with

their discourse, without any more interruption.

First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this;--that from the specimens of singularity in my father's notions in the point of Christian-names, and that other previous point thereto,--you was led, I think, into an opinion,--(and I am sure I said as much) that my father was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other opinions. In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the very first act of his begetting,--down to the lean and slippered pantaloon in his second childishness, but he