-He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an' please your honour, as ever blood warmed.

Then he resembled thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby, rapidly.

The Corporal blushed down to his fingers' ends :—a tear of sentimental bashfulness,-another of gratitude to my uncle Toby,—and a tear of sorrow for his brother's misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek together.-My uncle Toby's kindled as one lamp does at another; and taking hold of the breast of Trim's coat (which had been that of Le Fevre's), as if to ease his lame leg, but in reality to gratify a finer feeling, he stood silent for a minute and a half; at the end of which he took his hand away; and the Corporal, making a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the Jew's widow.

CHAPTER CCLXXXV.

When Tom, an' please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies,-not killing them.

'Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle Toby; she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learned mercy.

-She was good, an' please your honour, from nature, as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said Trim; and some dismal winter's evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall be told you with the rest of Tom's story, for it makes a part of it.

-Then do not forget, Trim, said my uncle Toby. -A negro has a soul, an' please your honour, said the Corporal (doubtingly),

I am not much versed, Corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me.

-It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the Corporal.

It would so, said my uncle Toby.- -Why then, an' please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?

I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby. -Only, cried the Corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her.

-"Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, which recommends her to protection, and her brethren with her: 'tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now ;-where it may be hereafter, Heaven knows!--but be it where it will, the brave, Trim, will not use it unkindly.

-God forbid! said the Corporal.

-Amen! responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon his heart.

The Corporal returned to his story, and went on,but with an embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave sense and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and aiding nature at the same time, with his left arm a-kimbo on one side, and with his right, a little extended, supporting her on the other, -the Corporal got as near the note as he could; and in that attitude continued his story :

CHAPTER CCLXXXVI.

As Tom, an' please your honour, had no business at that time with the Moorish girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the Jew's widow about love, -and this pound of sausages; and being, as I have told your honour, an open cheery-hearted lad, with his character wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and, without much apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the table, and sat down.

There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman, an' please your honour, whilst she is making sausages. -So Tom began a discourse upon them; first, gravely,

As how they were made;-with what meats, herbs, and spices:'-then, a little gaily,-as, ' With what skins, and if they never burst;-whether the largest were not the best;' and so on,-taking care only, as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, rather under than over,—that he might have room to act in.

It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim's shoulder, that Count de la Motte lost the battle of Wynendale he pressed too speedily into the wood; which if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed her example. It was so late in the year, continued my uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perished in the open field.

-Why, therefore, may not battles, an' please your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?My uncle Toby mused.Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so, not being able to frame a reply exactly to his mind, my uncle Toby

said nothing at all; and the Corporal finished his story.

As Tom perceived, an' please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them ;-first, by taking hold of the rings of the sausage whilst she stroked the forcedmeat down with her hand;-then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand whilst she took them out, one by one ;-then by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them;-and so on, from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.

Now, a widow, an' please your honour, always chooses a second husband as unlike the first as she can; so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it.

She made a feint, however, of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage.Tom instantly laid hold of

another.

But seeing Tom's had more gristle in it,—

She signed the capitulation, and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.

CHAPTER CCLXXXVII.

All womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an' please your honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.

I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby, better than the thing itself.

VOL. II.

N

-Because your honour, quoth the Corporal, loves glory more than pleasure.

I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world;—and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of Ambition, and entrench the lives and fortunes of the few from the plunderings of the many;-whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, Corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling as to face about and march.

In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and marched firmly, as at the head of his company; -and the faithful Corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took the first step,-marched close behind him down the

avenue.

-Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother.-By all that's strange, they are besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation!

-I dare say, quoth my mother,—But stop, dear sir, for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion, and what my father did say upon it,with her replies, and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon,

or to say it all in a word, shall be thumbed over by Posterity, in a chapter apart;-I say, by Posterity, -and care not, if I repeat the word again;-for what has this book done more than the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?

I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more pre