-The love and pity of all the villages around us, said the postilion :-it is but three years ago that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted, and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have her banns forbid by the intrigues of the curate of the parish, who published them.

He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth, and began the air again; they were the same notes,-yet were ten times sweeter.- It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young man ;-but who has taught her to play it, or how she came by her pipe, no one knows we think that Heaven has assisted her in both; for, ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation; she has never once had that pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day.

The postilion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help deciphering something in his face above his condition; and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria's taken such full possession of me.

We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side-she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her.

-God help her, poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postilion, have been said, in the several parish-churches and convents around, for her, -but without effect: we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.

As the postilion spoke this, Maria made a cadence

so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my

enthusiasm.

Maria looked wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat, and then at me,—and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately.

do

Well, Maria, said I, softly, what resemblance you find?

I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a beast man is, that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scattered ;-and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days;—and never, never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live. As for writing nonsense to them,-I believe there was a reserve ;-but that I leave to the world.

-some

Adieu, Maria! adieu, poor hapless damsel!time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips, but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe, and told me such a tale of wo with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walked softly to my chaise.

-What an excellent inn at Moulins!

CHAPTER CCCIV.

When we have got to the end of this chapter, (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour has lain bleeding this half-hour.-I stop it, by pulling off one

of my yellow slippers, and throwing it, with all my violence, to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it,-

That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are written in the world, or, for aught I know, may now be writing in it, that it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse: besides, I look upon a chapter which has only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what worse things there are in the world, that it is no way a proper subject for satire.

-Why, then, was it left so? And here, without staying for my reply, shall I be called as many blockheads, numskulls, doddypoles, dunderheads, ninnyhammers, goosecaps, jolt-heads, nincompoops, and s-s, and other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of Lerne cast in the teeth of King Garagantua's shepherds:-and I'll let them do it, as Bridget said, as much as they please; for how was it possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 304th chapter of my book before the 297th? &c.

-So I don't take it amiss.-All I wish is,—that it may be a lesson to the world, to let people tell their stories their own way.'

The 297th Chapter.

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the Corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into the parlour was so short, that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from behind the curtain,-lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two towards the door to receive him.

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman after the manner in which women were saluted, by men in the

year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and thirteen;-then facing about, he marched up abreast with her to the sofa, and in three plain words,-though not before he was sat down,-nor after he was sat down, but as he was sitting down, told her,' he was in love; so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration than he needed.

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every moment that my uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification,—and love, moreover, of all others, being a subject of which he was the least a master,-when he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way.

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it; and would often say,-that could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco, he had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe.

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie under;-but the French, every one of them to a man, who believe in it almost as much as the real presence, • That talking of love, is making it.'

-I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt.

Let us go on:-Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other generally becomes indecent: so, edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she did it,—she took up the gauntlet, --or the discourse, (if you like it better) and communed with my uncle Toby thus:

The cares and disquietudes of the marriage-estate, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great. I suppose so, said my uncle Toby.- -And therefore, when a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you are,-so happy, Captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends, and your amusements,-I wonder what reasons can incline you to the state!

-They are written, quoth my uncle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book.

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulf as she pleased.

-As for children, said Mrs. Wadman, though a principal end, perhaps, of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent,—yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heart-aches?-what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother, who brings them into life?declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God

A fiddlestick! quoth she.

Chapter the 298th.

-I

Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents, with which the word fiddlestick may be pronounced in all such cases as this, every one of them impressing a sense and meaning as different from the other as dirt from cleanliness, that casuists (for it is an affair of conscience upon that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand, in which you may do either right or wrong.

Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby's modest blood into his