shifts, cried Susannah.-Tis better, said Slop, with a nod, than no shift at all, young woman. -I defy you, sir, cried Susannah, pulling her shift-sleeve below her elbow.

It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other, in a surgical case, with a more splenetic cordiality.

Slop snatched up the cataplasm :- Susannah snatched up the candle.-A little this way, said Slop. Susannah, looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop's wig; which, being somewhat bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled. -You impudent whore ! cried Slop,-(for what is passion but a wild beast?)— you impudent whore! said Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his hand.- -I never was the destruction of any body's nose, said Susannah;-which is more than you can say.- -Is it? cried Slop, throwing the cataplasm in her face.Yes, it is, cried Susannah, returning the compliment with what was left in the pan.

CHAPTER CLXV.

Doctor Slop and Susannah filed cross-bills against each other in the parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into the kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me;-and whilst that was doing, my father determined the point, as you will read.

CHAPTER CLXVI,

You see 'tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my uncle Toby and Yorick, to take this young creature out of these women's hands, and put him into those of a private governor. Marcus

Antoninus provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his son Commodus's education,-and in six weeks he cashiered five of them.-I know very well, continued my father, that Commodus's mother was in love with a gladiator at the time of her conception; which accounts for a great many of Commodus's cruelties when he became emperor :-but still I am of opinion, that those five whom Antoninus dismissed, did Commodus's temper, in that short time, more hurt, than the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long.

Now, as I consider the person who is to be about my son as the mirror in which he is to view himself from morning to night, and by which he is to adjust his looks, his carriage, and, perhaps, the inmost sentiments of his heart, I would have one, Yorick, if possible, polished at all points, fit for my child to look into.- This is very good sense, quoth my uncle Toby to himself.

-There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body and all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man well within; and Ĭ am not at all surprised that Gregory of Nazianzum, upon observing the hasty and untoward gestures of Julian, should foretell he would one day become an apostate; or that St. Ambrose should turn his amanuensis out of doors, because of an indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and forwards like a flail;-or that Democritus should conceive Protagoras to be a scholar, from seeing him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs inwards.-There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my ther, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes which discovers him.

fa

It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the

governor I make choice of shall neither lisp, nor squint, nor wink, nor talk loud, nor look fierce, nor foolish ;-nor bite his lips, nor grind his teeth, nor speak through his nose, nor pick it, nor blow it with his fingers.

He shall neither walk fast, nor slow, nor fold his arms,-for that is laziness; nor hang them down,for that is folly; nor hide them in his pocket,—for that is nonsense.

He shall neither strike, nor pinch, nor tickle,-nor bite, nor cut his nails, nor hawk, nor spit, nor snift, nor drum with his feet or fingers in company :-nor (according to Erasmus) shall he speak to any one in making water, nor shall he point to carrion or excrement. -Now this is all nonsense again, quoth my uncle Toby to himself.

I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, faceté, jovial; at the same time prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, argute, inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions ;-he shall be wise, and judicious, and learned.And why not humble, and moderate, and gentle-tempered, and good? said Yorick.-And why not, cried my uncle Toby, free, and generous, and bountiful, and brave?

He shall, my dear Toby, replied my father, getting up and shaking him by his hand. Then, brother Shandy, answered my uncle Toby, raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of my father's other hand,-I humbly beg I may recommend poor Le Fevre's son to you-(a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in my uncle Toby's eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the Corporal's, as the proposition was made)-you will see why, when you read Le Fevre's story,Fool that I was! nor can I recollect, (nor perhaps you) without turning back to the

1 Vid. Pellegrina.

place, what it was that hindered me from letting the Corporal tell it in his own words;-but the occasion is lost, I must tell it now in my own.

CHAPTER CLXVII.

THE STORY OF LE FEVRE.

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies, which was about seven years before my father came into the country,—and about as many after the time that my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe; - when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard,-I say sitting,-for, in consideration of the Corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain), when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the Corporal to stand; and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a time, when my uncle Toby supposed the Corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect. This bred more little squabbles betwixt them than all other causes for five-and-twenty years together but this is neither here nor there,-why do I mention it? Ask my pen; it governs me,-I govern

not it.

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a