that key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness than all the other holes in this world put together:

-Which leads me to my uncle Toby's amours.

CHAPTER CCLXXXI.

Though the Corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby's great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign-trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished.-The Corporal, with cheery eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air:-had Spleen given a look at it, 'twould have cost her ladyship a smile-it curled everywhere but where the Corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honour, he could as soon have raised the dead.

Such it was,-or, rather, such would it have seemed upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had, moreover, wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnished gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffety became him; and, though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and, altogether, seemed to have been picked up by the hand of Science, to set him off to advantage.

Nothing in this world could have cooperated more

powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby's blue and gold, had not Quantity, in some measure, been necessary to Grace. In a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life, (for he seldom went farther than the bowling-green) his blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the Corporal was able to get him into them the taking them up at the sleeves was of no advantage; they were laced, however, down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c. in the mode of King William's reign; and, to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallic and doughty an air with them, that, had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.

As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripped by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens.

-Yes, madam; but let us govern our fancies. -It is enough they were held impracticable the night before; and, as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.

The Corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fevre's regimental coat; and, with his hair tucked up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbished up for the occasion, marched three paces distant from his master; a whiff of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipped into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the Corporal's stick.-My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike.

self,

It looks well, at least, quoth my father to him

CHAPTER CCLXXXII.

My uncle Toby turned his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the Corporal; and the Corporal, as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick, but not vapouringly; and, with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour never fear.'

Now, my uncle Toby did fear, and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproached him), so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong, and, therefore, was never altogether at his ease near any one of them,-unless in sorrow or distress; then, infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone farther, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman's eye; and yet, excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked steadfastly into one; and would often tell my father, in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not all out) as bad as talking bawdy.

-And suppose

it is,

my

father would say.

CHAPTER CCLXXXIII.

She cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had marched up to within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman's door,-she cannot, Corporal, take it

amiss.

-She will take it, an' please your honour, said the Corporal, just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom.

And how was that? quoth my uncle Toby, facing quite about to the Corporal.

Your honour, replied the Corporal, knows of

Tom's misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any farther than this;-that if Tom had not married the widow,—or had it pleased God, after their marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragged to the Inquisition :-'tis a cursed place, added the Corporal, shaking his head; when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an' please your honour, for ever.

--Tis very true, said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house as he spoke.

-Nothing, continued the Corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life, or so sweet, an' please your honour, as liberty.

-Nothing, Trim, said my uncle Toby, musing. -Whilst a man is free, cried the Corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus:

A thousand of my father's most subtile syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy.

My uncle Toby looked earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green.

The Corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of Calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do but to conjure him down again with his story; and in this form of exorcism, most unecclesiastically did the Corporal do it.

CHAPTER CCLXXXIV.

As Tom's place, an' please your honour, was easy, -and the weather warm,-it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world; and, as it fell out about that time, that a Jew, who kept a sausage-shop in the same street, had the ill-luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade, Tom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on; so, without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop, Tom set out,-counting the matter thus within himself as he walked along,-that let the worst come of it that could, he should, at least, get a pound of sausages for their worth;-but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get, not only a pound of sausages, but a wife, and a sausage-shop, an' please your honour, into the bargain.

Every servant in the family, from high to low, wished Tom success; and I can fancy, an' please your honour, I see him this moment, with his white dimitywaistcoat and breeches, and a hat a little o' one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a cheerful word for every body he met. But alas! Tom, thou smilest no more! cried the Corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophised him in his dungeon.

-Poor fellow! said my uncle Toby, feelingly.