Now, in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have found to answer so well as this.

Certainly, if there is any dependence upon logic, and that I am not blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me, merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is : for never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing that all mankind should write as well as myself:

-Which they certainly will, when they think as little.

CHAPTER CCXCII.

Now, in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen,

Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of the chapter, unless something be done,

I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of snuff, or a stride or two across the room will not do the business for me,—I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without farther ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only, if I do leave a hair, that it be not a gray one this done, I change my shirt,-put on a better coat, send for my last wig,-put my topaz ring upon my finger; and, in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.

Now, the devil in hell must be in it if this does not

do for consider, sir, as every man chooses to be present at the shaving of his own beard, (though there is no rule without an exception) and unavoidably sits over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand in it, -the situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put into the brain.

I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man are seven years more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up, by continual sha vings, to the highest pitch of sublimity.-How Homer could write with so long a beard, I don't know; -and as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little care; but let us return to the toilet.

Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body, (wτeρIKÝ πρāķis) as he calls it, but he is deceived: the soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get a man cannot dress, but his ideas get clothed at the same time: and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him;-so that he has nothing to do but take his pen, and write like himself.

For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I write clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by looking into my laundress's bill as my book: there was one single month, in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one-and-thirty shirts with clean writing; and, after all, was more abused, cursed, criticised, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote in that one month, than in all the other months of that year put together.

But their honours and reverences had not seen my bills.

CHAPTER CCXCIII.

As I never had any intention of beginning the digression I am making all this preparation for, till I come to the 294th chapter,-I have this chapter to put to whatever use I think proper.-I have twenty this moment ready for it.-I could write my chapter of Button-holes in it,

Or my chapter of Pishes, which should follow them,

Or my chapter of Knots, in case their reverences have done with them :-they might lead me into mischief. The safest way is to follow the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been writing; though I declare before-hand, I know no more than my heels how to answer them.

And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of Thersitical satire, as black as the very ink 'tis wrote with (and, by the bye, whoever says so, is indebted to the muster-master-general of the Grecian army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouthed a man as Thersites to continue upon his roll,—for it has furnished him with an epithet): in these productions he will urge, all the personal washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of good,—but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is, the better generally he succeeds in it.

To this I have no other answer,—at least ready,but that the Archbishop of Benevento wrote his nasty romance of the Galatea, as all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the book of the Revelations, as severe as it was looked upon by one part of the world, was far from being deemed so by the other, upon the single account of that investment.

Another objection to all this remedy, is its want of

universality; forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid, by an unalterable law of nature, excludes one half of the species entirely from its use, all I can say is, that female writers, whether of England or of France, must e'en go without it.

As for the Spanish ladies,—I am in no sort of dis

tress.

CHAPTER CCXCIV.

The 294th chapter is come at last; thing with it but a sad signature of sures slip from under us in this world!'

and brings noHow our plea

For in talking of my digression,-I declare, before heaven, I have made it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.

'Tis very true, said I;-but 'twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle Toby.

CHAPTER CCXCV.

When my uncle Toby and the Corporal had marched down to the bottom of the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they faced about, and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman's door.

I warrant your honour, said the Corporal, touching his Montero-cap with his hand as he passed him, in order to give a knock at the door. My uncle Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful servant, said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not altogether marshalled his ideas; he wished for another conference, and, as the Corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door, he hemmed twice; a portion of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, towards the Corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door suspended for a

full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch, benumbed with expectation; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her bedchamber, watching their approach.

-Trim! said my uncle Toby ;-but, as he articulated the word, the minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper.

My uncle Toby, perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knocked on the head by it, whistled Lillabullero.

CHAPTER CCXCVI.

As Mrs. Bridget's finger and thumb were upon the latch, the Corporal did not knock as often as, perchance, your honour's tailor.-I might have taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine some five-and-twenty pounds at least, and wonder at the man's patience.

But this is nothing at all to the world only 'tis a cursed thing to be in debt; and there seems to be a fatality in the exchequers of some poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no economy can bind down in irons. For my own part, I am persuaded there is not any one prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small, upon earth, more desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I am,- -or who takes more likely means for it. I never give above half-a-guinea,-nor walk with boots,-nor cheapen tooth-picks,-nor lay out a shilling upon a band-box, the year round; and, for the six months I am in the country, I am upon so small a scale, that, with all the good temper in the world, I outdo Rousseau a bar length!-for I keep neither man nor boy, nor horse, nor cow, nor dog, nor cat, nor any thing