most part of my uncle Toby,-the first shootings of which (as my uncle Toby had no experience of love) he had taken for a part of the passion,-till the blister breaking in the one case, and the other remaining, my uncle Toby was presently convinced that his wound was not a skin-deep wound, but that it had gone to his heart.

CHAPTER CCLXXI.

The world is ashamed of being virtuous. My uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore, when he felt he was in love with Widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a mystery of, than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gaped knife across his finger. Had it been otherwise, yet, as he ever looked upon Trim as a humble friend, and saw fresh reasons every day of his life to treat him as such, it would have made no variation in the manner in which he informed him of the affair.

I am in love, Corporal!' quoth my uncle Toby,

CHAPTER CCLXXII.

In love said the Corporal;-your honour was very well the day before yesterday, when I was telling your honour the story of the King of Bohemia. Bohemia! said my uncle Toby, -musing a long time ;- What became of that story, Trim?

-We lost it, an' please your honour, somehow betwixt us;-but your honour was as free from love then, as I am.- 'Twas just whilst thou went'st off with the wheelbarrow,- -with Mrs. Wadman, quoth my uncle Toby.-She has left a ball here,—added my uncle Toby, pointing to his breast.

-She can no more, an' please your honour, stand a siege, than she can fly, cried the Corporal.

-But as we are neighbours, Trim, the best way, I think, is to let her know it civilly first, quoth my uncle Toby.

Now, if I might presume, said the Corporal, to differ from your honour,

Why else do I talk to thee, Trim? said my uncle Toby, mildly.

Then I would begin, an' please your honour, with making a good thundering attack upon her, in return, and telling her civilly afterwards;-for if she knows any thing of your honour's being in love beL-d help her!-she knows no more at present of it, Trim, said my uncle Toby,-than the child unborn.

fore-hand

Precious souls!

Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its circumstances, to Mrs. Bridget, twenty-four hours before; and was, at that very moment, sitting in council with her, touching some slight misgivings with regard to the issue of the affairs, which the devil, who never lies dead in a ditch, had put into her head,-before he would allow half time to get quietly through her Te Deum.

I am terribly afraid, said Widow Wadman, in case I should marry him, Bridget,-that the poor Captain will not enjoy his health, with the monstrous wound upon his groin.

-It may not, madam, be so very large, replied Bridget, as you think ;-and I believe, besides, added she, that 'tis dried up.

I could like to know,-merely for his sake, said Mrs. Wadman.

We'll know the long and the broad of it in ten days, answered Mrs. Bridget; for whilst the Captain is paying his addresses to you, I'm confident Mr. Trim will be for making love to me;-and I'll let him

as much as he will, added Bridget, to get it all out of him.

The measures were taken at once;-and my uncle Toby and the Corporal went on with theirs.

Now, quoth the Corporal, setting his left hand akimbo, and giving such a flourish with his right, as just promised success, and no more ;- -if your honour will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack.

Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, exceedingly;—and as I foresee thou must act in it as my aid-de-camp, here's a crown, Corporal, to begin with, to steep thy commission.

-Then, an' please your honour, said the Corporal, (making a bow first for his commission)—we will begin with getting your honour's laced clothes out of the great campaign-trunk, to be well aired; and have the blue and gold taken up at the sleeves;-and I'll put your white ramallie-wig fresh into pipes;and send for a tailor to have your honour's thin scarlet breeches turned.

I had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle Toby.They will be too clumsy, said the Corporal.

CHAPTER CCLXXIII.

-Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword. Twill be only in your honour's way, replied Trim.

CHAPTER CCLXXIV.

-But your honour's two razors shall be new set ;and I will get my Montero-cap furbished up, and put on poor Lieutenant Le Fevre's regimental coat, which

your honour gave me to wear for his sake;—and as soon as your honour is clean shaved, and has got your clean shirt on, with your blue and gold, or your fine scarlet,-sometimes one and sometimes t'other,and every thing is ready for the attack,-we'll march up boldly, as if 'twas to the face of a bastion; and whilst your honour engages Mrs. Wadman in the parlour, to the right, I'll attack Mrs. Bridget in the kitchen, to the left; and having seized that pass, I'll answer for it, said the Corporal, snapping his fingers. over his head,-that the day is our own.

-I wish I may but manage it right, said my uncle Toby; but I declare, Corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench.

A woman is quite a different thing, said the

Corporal.
-I

-I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby.

CHAPTER CCLXXV.

If any thing in this world which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit, who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion,-would say,- though with more facetiousness than became a hermit, That they were the means he used to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.'

It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconic way of expressing,-but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and appetites of the lower part of us; so that, for many years of my father's life, 'twas his constant mode of expression;-he never used the word passions once, but ass always, instead of them ;-so

that he might be said truly to have been upon the bones or the back of his own ass, or else of some other man's, during all that time.

I must here observe to you the difference betwixt My father's Ass and

My HOBBY-HORSE,-in order to keep characters as separate as may be, in our fancies, as we go along.

For my Hobby-horse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him.-'Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour, -a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick,an uncle Toby's siege, or an any thing which a man makes a shift to get astride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life.-'Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole creation ;-nor do I really see how the world could do without it.

-But for my father's ass. -O! mount him,mount him,-mount him,-(that's three times, is it not?)-mount him not :-'tis a beast concupiscent; and foul befal the man who does not hinder him from kicking.

CHAPTER CCLXXVI.

Well, dear brother Toby, said my father, upon his first seeing him after he fell in love, and how goes it with your ass?

Now, my uncle Toby thinking more of the part where he had had the blister, than of Hilarion's metaphor, and our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of things, he had imagined, that my father, who was not very ceremonious in his choice of words, had inquired after the part by its proper name: so, notwithstanding my mother, Doctor Slop, and Mr. Yorick