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I wifh, faid my uncle Toby, with a deep figh,-I with, Trim, I was afleep.

Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned ;-fhall I pour your honour out a glafs of fack to your pipe?-Do, Trim, faid my uncle Toby.

I remember, faid my uncle Toby, fighing again, the ftory of the enfign and his wife, with a circumstance his modefty omitted;and particularly well that he, as well as the, upon fome account or other, (I forget what) was univerfally pitied by the whole regiment;

but finifh the story thou art upon :- -'Tis finifh'd already, faid the corporal, for I could ftay no longer

fo wifhed his honour a good night; young Le Fevre rose from off the bed, and faw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join their regiment in Flanders-But, alas! faid the corporal,the lieutenant's laft day's march is over.

-Then what is to become of his poor boy, cried my

uncle Toby.

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,though I tell it only for the fake of thofe, who, when cooped in betwixt a natural and a pofitive law, know not for their fouls which way in the world to turn themselves,

-that notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the fiege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who preffed theirs on fo vigorously, that they fcarce allowed him time to get his dinner-that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterfcarp, and bent his whole thoughts towards the private diftreffes at the inn; and, except that he ordered the garden-ate to be bolted up, by which he might be faid to have turned the fiege of Dendermond into a blockade,he left Dendermond to itself,- -to be relieved or not by the French king, as the French king thought good; and only confidered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant ́and his fon.

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That

That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, fhall recompenfe thee for this.

Thou haft left this matter fhort, faid my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed,and I will tell thee in what, Trim.In the first place, when thou madeft an offer of my fervices to Le Fevre, -as fickness and travelling are both expenfive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to fubfift as well as himself, out of his pay,that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purfe; becaufe, had he stood in need, thou knoweft, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.

Your

honour knows, faid the corporal, I had no orders: True, quoth, my uncle Toby,-thou didst very right, Trim, as a foldier, but certainly very wrong as a

man,

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou haft the fame excufe, continued my uncle Toby,- -when thou offeredft him whatever was in my house,-thou fhouldft have offered him my houfe too:A fick brother officer fhould have the beft quarters, Trim; and if we had him with us,we could tend and look to him :-Thou art an excellent nurse, thyself, Trim, -and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and fet him upon his legs.

-In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, fmiling, he might march. He will never march, an' please your honour, in this world, faid the corporal:He will march, faid my uncle Toby, rifing up from the fide of the bed with one fhoe off:

-An' please your honour, faid the corporal, he will never march but to his grave: -He fhall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a fhoe on, though without advancing an inch, he fhall march to his regiment. it, faid the corporal. -He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.- -He'll drop at last, faid the corporal; and what will become of his boy?

He cannot ftand

-He

fhall

shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.-A-wello'day,--do what we can for him, faid Trim, maintaining his point,- -The poor foul will die :--He fhall not die, by G-, cried my uncle Toby.

-The Accufing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blufh'd as he gave it in-and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

-My uncle Toby went to his bureau,-put his purfe into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician,— he went to bed and fell asleep.

The fun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted fon's; the hand of death preffed heavy upon his eye-lids,—— and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had rofe up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and, without preface or apology, fat himself down upon the chair by the bed-fide, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did,-how he had rested in the night,-what was his complaint, where was his pain,—and what he could do to help him ;-and, without giving him time to answer any one of his enquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him.

-You fhall go home directly, Le Fevre, faid my uncle Toby, to my houfe,--and we'll fend for a doctor to fee what's the matter,-and we'll have an apothecary,—and the corporal shall be your nurse,and I'll be your fervant, Le Fevre.

There was a franknefs in my uncle Toby,-not the effect of familiarity,-but the caufe of it,-which let you at once into his foul, and fhewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was fomething in his looks and voice, and manner, fuperadded, which eternally beckoned

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beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take fhelter under him; fo that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the fon infenfibly preffed up clofe to his knees, and had taken hold of the breaft of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. -The blood and fpirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and flow within him, and were retreating to their laft citadel, the heartrallied back, the film forfook his eyes for a moment, --he looked up wifhfully in my uncle Toby's face, -then caft a look upon his boy,and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.

Nature inftantly ebb'd again,

-the film returned

to its place the pulfe flutter'd-stopp'd-went on-throbb'dftopp'd again--mov'd-stopp'd -fhall I go on?-No.

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IN treating of the moral duties which apply to different relations of life, men of humanity and feeling have not omitted thofe which are due from masters to fervants. Nothing, indeed, can be more natural than the attachment and regard to which the faithful fervices of our domeftics are entitled; the connection grows up, like all the other family charities, in early life, and is only extinguished by thofe corruptions which blunt the others, by pride, by folly, by diffipation, or by vice.

I hold it indeed as the fure fign of a mind not 'poifed as it ought to be, if it be infenfible to the pleasures of home, to the little joys and endearments of a family, to the affections of relations, to the fidelity of domestics. Next to being well with his own confcience, the friendfhip and attachment of a man's family and dependents

feems

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