for his servant: and of an excellent use that these ravelins, bastions, curtains, and was he, attending my uncle Toby in the horn-works, make but a poor, contemptible, camp and in his quarters, as a valet, groom, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon barber, cook, sempster, and nurse; and in- paper, compared to what your Honor and I deed, from first to last, waited upon him, and could make of it were we in the country served him with great fidelity and affection. by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood My uncle Toby loved the man in return: and a half of ground, to do what we pleased and what attached him more to him still, with: as summer is coming on, continued was the similitude of their knowledge ;- Trim, your Honor might sit out of doors, for Corporal Trim (for so, for the future, I and give me the nography-(Call it ichnoshall call him) by four years' occasional at-graphy, quoth my uncle)—of the town or tention to his Master's discourse upon for- citadel your Honor was pleased to sit down tified towns, and the advantage of prying before, and I'll be shot by your Honor upon and peeping continually into his Master's the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your plans, &c. exclusive and besides what he Honor's mind. I dare say thou would'st, gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a body-ser-Trim, quoth my uncle.-For if your Honor, vant, Non Hobby-Horsical per se ;-had be- continued the corporal, could but mark me come no mean proficient in the science; the polygon, with its exact lines and angles and was thought, by the cook and chamber--(That I could do very well, quoth my maid, to know as much of the nature of uncle)—I would begin with the fossé; and strong-holds as my uncle Toby himself. if your Honor could tell me the proper I have but one more stroke to give to depth and breadth-(I can, to a hair's finish Corporal Trim's character,-and it is breadth, Trim, replied my uncle)-I would the only dark line in it.—The fellow loved to advise, or rather to hear himself talk: his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going, -you had no hold of him—he was voluble; -the eternal interlardings of your Honor, the glacis, as the finest fortifications are with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's done in Flanders, with sods,--(and as your manner, interceding so strong in behalf of Honor knows they should be)-and I would his elocution, that though you might have make the walls and parapets of sods too. been incommoded,-you could not well be -The best engineers call them Gazons, angry. My uncle Toby was seldom either Trim, said my uncle Toby.—Whether the one or the other with him,-or, at least, they are gazons or sods, is not much matthis fault in Trim broke no squares with ter, replied Trim; your Honor knows they them. My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the are ten times beyond a facing either of man; and besides, as he ever looked upon brick or stone. I know they are, Trim, a faithful servant as an humble friend,-he in some respects,-quoth my uncle Toby, could not bear to stop his mouth.-Such nodding his head :—for a cannon-ball enters was Corporal Trim. into the gazon right onwards, without

throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,-and on that hand towards the campaign for the counter-scarp

(Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby) and when I had sloped them to your mind,-an' please your Honor, I would face

If I durst presume, continued Trim, to bringing any rubbish down with it, which give your Honor my advice, and speak my might fill the fossé (as was the case at St. opinion in this matter-Thou art welcome, Nicholas's gate) and facilitate the passage Trim, quoth my uncle Toby-speak,-over it.

speak what thou thinkest upon the sub- Your Honor understands these matters, ject, man, without fear.-Why then, replied replied Corporal Trim, better than any offiTrim (not hanging his ears and scratching cer in his Majesty's service ;- -but would his head like a country lout, but) stroking your Honor please to let the bespeaking of his hair back from his forehead, and stand- the table alone, and let us but go into the ing erect as before his division,-I think, country, I would work under your Honor's quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submis- directions like a horse, and make fortificasion to your Honor's better judgment,―tions for you something like a tansy, with all

their batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, | Behind this house, and contiguous to it, that it should be worth all the world's was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre; riding twenty miles to go and see it. and at the bottom of the garden, and cut

My uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet off from it by a tall yew-hedge, was a bowlas Trim went on;-but it was not a blush ing-green, containing just about as much of guilt,―of modesty, or of anger,-it was ground as Corporal Trim wished for;-so a blush of joy; he was fired with Corporal that as Trim uttered the words, "A rood Trim's project and description.—Trim!" and a half of ground to do what they would said my uncle Toby, thou hast said enough." with," this identical bowling-green in-We might begin the campaign, continued stantly presented itself, and became cuTrim, on the very day that his Majesty and riously painted, all at once, upon the retina the Allies take the field, and demolish them, of my uncle Toby's fancy;-which was the town by town, as fast as-Trim, quoth my physical cause of making him change color, uncle Toby, say no more. Your Honor, or at least of heightening his blush to that continued Trim, might sit in your arm- immoderate degree I spoke of. chair (pointing to it) this fine weather, giv-| Never did lover post down to a beloved ing me your orders, and I would-Say mistress with more heat and expectation no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby- than my uncle Toby did, to enjoy the selfBesides, your Honor would get not only same thing in private;-I say in private ;pleasure and good pastime, but good air, for it was sheltered from the house, as I and good exercise, and good health;—and told you, by a tall yew-hedge, and was covyour Honor's wound would be well in a ered on the other three sides, from mortal month. Thou hast said enough, Trim, sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowerquoth my uncle Toby (putting his hand ing shrubs:-so that the idea of not being into his breeches' pocket)—I like thy pro- seen, did not a little contribute to the idea ject mightily. And if your Honor pleases, of pleasure preconceived in my uncle Toby's I'll this moment go and buy a pioneer's mind.-Vain thought! however thick it spade to take down with us; and I'll be- was planted about, or private soever it speak a shovel and a pick-ax, and a couple might seem,—to think, dear uncle Toby, of of-Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle enjoying a thing which took up a whole Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite over- rood and a half of ground, and not have it come with rapture,—and thrusting a guinea known! into Trim's hand,-Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more;-but go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.

How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter,—with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,-may make no uninteresting unTrim ran down and brought up his mas- derplot in the epitasis and working up of ter's supper,-to no purpose:-Trim's this drama.—At present the scene must plan of operation ran so in my uncle Toby's drop, and change for the parlor fire-side.

head, he could not taste it.-Trim, quoth

my uncle Toby, get me to bed.-'Twas all one.-Corporal Trim's description had fired his imagination;-my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes.-The more he considered it,

CHAP. VI.

-WHAT can they be doing, brother? the more bewitching the scene appeared to said my father.I think, replied my unhim;-so that, two full hours before day- cle Toby,-taking, as I told you, the pipe light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decampment.

from his mouth, and striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence;—I think, replied he,—it would not be amiss, brother, if we rang the bell.

My uncle Toby had a little neat countryhouse of his own, in the village where my Pray, what's all that racket over our father's estate lay at Shandy, which had heads, Obadiah?-quoth my father;-my been left him by an old uncle, with a small brother and I can scarce hear ourselves estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. speak.

Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow cætera,—give the true swell, which gives towards his left shoulder,-my Mistress is the true pleasure!-O my countrymen,— taken very badly.-And where's Susannah be nice:-be cautious of your language,— running, down the garden there, as if they and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon were going to ravish her?-Sir, she is what small particles your eloquence and running the shortest cut into the town, re- your fame depend. plied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife.— "My sister, mayhap," quoth my Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and uncle Toby, "does not choose to let a man do you go directly for Dr. Slop, the man-" come so near her." Make this dash, midwife, with all our services, and let him "? 'tis an Aposiopesis;-take the dash know your mistress is fallen into labor-away, and write BACKSIDE, -'tis bawdy; and that I desire he will return with you-scratch Backside out, and put coVER'D with all speed. WAY in, 'tis a metaphor;-and, I dare say,

It is very strange, says iny father, ad- as fortification ran so much in my uncle dressing himself to my uncle Toby, as Toby's head, that if it had been left to have Obadiah shut the door,-as there is so ex- added one word to the sentence,-that word pert an operator as Dr. Slop so near,-that was it.

my wife should persist to the very last in But whether that was the case, or not this obstinate humor of hers, in trusting the the case ;-or whether the snapping of my life of my child, who has had one misfortune father's tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened already, to the ignorance of an old woman! through accident or anger, will be seen in -and not only the life of my child, brother, due time. --but her own life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have begot out of her hereafter.

Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the expense.-A pudding's end,-replied my father;-the

CHAP. VII.

THOUGH my father was a good natural Doctor must be paid the same for inaction philosopher,-yet he was something of a as action,-if not better,-to keep him in moral philosopher too; for which reason, temper. when his tobacco-pipe snapp'd short in the

Then it can be out of nothing in the middle, he had nothing to do, as such, but whole world, quoth my uncle Toby, in the to have taken hold of the two pieces, and simplicity of his heart, but Modesty.-My thrown them gently upon the back of the sister, I dare say, added he, does not care to fire. He did no such thing; he threw let a man come so near her. I will not them with all the violence in the world;— say whether my uncle Toby had completed and, to give the action still more emphasis, the sentence or not;-'tis for his advantage—he started upon both legs to do it. to suppose he had,-as, I think, he could have added no ONE WORD which would have improved it.

This looked something like heat;-and the manner of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying, proved it was so.

If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had "Not choose," quoth my father (renot fully arrived at the period's end, then peating my uncle Toby's words) "to let a the world stands indebted to the sudden" man come so near her!"-By Heaven, snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe for one brother Toby! you would try the patience of of the neatest examples of that ornamental Job; and I think I have the plagues of one figure in oratory, which rhetoricians style already without it.Why?—Where?— the Aposiopesis. Just Heaven! how Wherein?Wherefore?Upon what does the Poco piu and Poco meno of the account? replied my uncle Toby, in the Italian artists;-the insensible MORE or utmost astonishment.To think, said my LESS, determine the precise line of beauty father, of a man living to your age, brother, in the sentence, as well as in the statue! and knowing so little about women!— How do the slight touches of the chisel, know nothing at all about them,-replied the pencil, the pen, me fiddle-stick, et my uncle Toby: and I think, continued he,

-I

that the shock I received the year after the dissertation as ever was engendered in the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with womb of speculation:—it was some months Widow Wadman:—which shock, you know, before my father could get an opportunity I should not have received, but from my to be safely delivered of it:—and, at this total ignorance of the sex,-has given me hour, it is a thing full as problematical as just cause to say, that I neither know, nor the subject of the dissertation itself,-(condo pretend to know, any thing about 'em, sidering the confusion and distress of our or their concerns either. Methinks, domestic misadventures, which are now

brother, replied my father, you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.

It is said in Aristotle's Master-Piece, "That when a man doth think of any thing "which is past, he looketh down upon the "ground;-but that when he thinketh of "something that is to come, he looketh up "towards the heavens."

coming thick, one upon the back of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third volume or not.

CHAP. VIII.

If the hypercritic will go upon this; and is resolved after all to take a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the bell and the rap at the door; and,

It is about an hour and a half's tolerable My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of good reading since my uncle Toby rung the neither, for he looked horizontally.-Right|bell, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a end! quoth my uncle Toby, muttering the horse, and go for Dr. Slop, the man-midtwo words low to himself, and fixing his wife;-so that no one can say, with reason, two eyes insensibly as he muttered them, that I have not allowed Obadiah time upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint enough, poetically speaking, and considerin the chimney-piece-Right end of a ing the emergency too, both to go and come; woman!—I declare, quoth my uncle, I-though, morally and truly speaking, the know no more which it is than the man in man perhaps has scarce had time to get on the moon; and if I was to think, continued his boots. my uncle Toby (keeping his eyes still fixed upon the bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out. Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I after finding it to be no more than two minwill tell you. utes, thirteen seconds, and three-fifths,Every thing in the world, continued my should take upon him to insult over me for father (filling a fresh pipe)—every thing in such a breach in the unity, or rather probathe world, my dear brother Toby, has two bility of time,-I would remind him, that handles:- -Not always, quoth my uncle the idea of duration, and of its simple Toby.—At least, replied my father, every modes, is got merely from the train and one has two hands,-which comes to the succession of our ideas and is the true same thing. Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make, the shape, the construction, come-atability and convenience of all the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and compare them analogically,- -I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,-quoth my uncle Toby.

scholastic pendulum,-and by which, as a scholar, I will be tried in this matter,-abjuring and detesting the jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever.

I would therefore desire him to consider, that it is but poor eight miles from Shandyhall to Dr. Slop the man-midwife's house:— and that whilst Obadiah has been going those said miles and back, I have brought ANALOGY, replied my father, is the cer- my uncle Toby from Namur, quite across tain relation and agreement which different all Flanders, into England;—that I have -Here a devil of a rap at the door snap- had him ill upon my hands near four years, ped my father's definition (like his tobacco--and have since travelled him and Corpopipe) in two,—and, at the same time, crush-ral Trim, in a chariot-and-four, a journey ing the head of as notable and curious a of near two hundred miles down into York

shire; all which put together, must have full gallop, and making all practicable speed prepared the reader's imagination for the the adverse way. entrance of Dr. Slop upon the stage,—as

Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment

much, at least (I hope) as a dance, a song, in this description. or a concerto between the acts.

Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, If my hypercritic is untractable, alleging posting in a narrow lane directly towards that two minutes and thirteen seconds are him, at that monstrous rate, splashing and no more than two minutes and thirteen sec- plunging like a devil through thick and onds, when I have said all I can about thin, as he approached; would not such a them; and that this plea, though it might phenomenon, with such a vortex of mud save me dramatically, will damn me bio- and water moving along with it, round its graphically, rendering my book, from this axis,-have been a subject of juster apprevery moment, a professed Romance, which, hension to Dr. Slop in his situation, than before, was a book apocryphal :-If I am the worst of Whiston's comets?-To say thus pressed,-I then put an end to the nothing of the Nucleus; that is, of Obadiah whole objection and controversy about it all and the coach-horse.-In my idea, the vorat once, by acquainting him, that Oba- tex alone of 'em was enough to have indiah had not got above threescore yards volved and carried, if not the doctor, at from the stable-yard, before he met with least the doctor's pony, quite away with it. Dr. Slop-and indeed he gave a dirty What, then do you think must the terror proof that he had met with him, and was and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, within an ace of giving a tragical one too. Imagine to yourself—But this had better begin a new chapter.

CHAP. IX.

when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily along towards Shandy-hall, and had approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute-angle of the garden-wall,—and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane,-when Obadiah and his coach-horse turned the IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, un- corner, rapid, furious,-pop,-full upon courtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about him!-Nothing, I think, in nature, can be four feet and a half perpendicular height, supposed more terrible than such a renwith a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality counter, so imprompt! so ill prepared to of belly, which might have done honor to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was. a serjeant in the horse-guards.

What could Dr. Slop do?-he crossed Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop's himself+-Pugh!—but the doctor, Sir, was figure; which-if you have read Hogarth's a Papist.-No matter; he had better have Analysis of Beauty,-and if you have not, kept hold of the pummel.-He had soI wish you would,—you must know, nay, as it happened, he had better have may as certainly be caricatured and con- done nothing at all; for in crossing himself veyed to the mind by three strokes as three he let go his whip; and in attempting to hundred. save his whip betwixt his knee and his Imagine such a one;-for such, I say, saddle's skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirwere the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, rup,-in losing which he lost his seat; and coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling in the multitude of all these losses (which, through the dirt upon the vertebra of a by the bye, shows what little advantage is little diminutive pony, of a pretty color-in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his but of strength,-alack! scarce able to have presence of mind. So that without waiting made an amble of it, under such a fardel, for Obadiah's onset, he left his pony to its had the roads been in an ambling condi- destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, sometion. They were not. Imagine to thing in the style and manner of a pack of yourself, Obadiah mounted upon a strong wool, and without any other consequence monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a from the fall save that of being left (as it G