Toby's pattern?—I care not what Aristotle, or Pacuvius, or Bossu, or Ricaboni, say-(though I never read one of them)—there is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and Madam Pompadour's vis-a-vis, than betwixt a single amour, and an amour thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand drama.-Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind,-is quite lost in five acts;-but that is neither here nor there.

After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my uncle Toby's quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle Toby, honest man! found it necessary to draw off his forces, and raise the siege somewhat indignantly.

Corporal Trim, as I said, had made no such bargain, either with himself-or with any one else:-the fidelity, however, of his heart, not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgust,-he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a blockade, that is, he kept others off;-for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod, or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her; or (as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand, or ask her lovingly how she did, -or would give her a ribband ;and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a

Precisely in this situation did these things stand for five years, that is, from the demolition of Dunkirk in the year thirteen, to the latter end of my uncle Toby's campaign in the year eighteen, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I'm speaking of,—when Trim, as his custom was, after he had put my uncle Toby to bed, going down one moon-shiny night to see that every thing was right at his fortifications,-in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly,-he espied his Bridget.

As the Corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in :- -This was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouthed trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reached my father's; with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby's curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditch,-was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night.

My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby's HOBBY-HORSE, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted; and, indeed, unless my uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never

think of it once, without smiling at it ;- -SO that it could never get lame, or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father's imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his humour than any one which had yet befallen it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him.--Well,-but, dear Toby! my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened. -How can you teaze me so much about it? my uncle Toby would reply.-I have told it you twenty times, word for word, as Trim told it me.Prithee, how was it then, Corporal? my father would cry, turning to Trim.—It was a mere misfortune, an' please your Honour;

-I was shewing Mrs Bridget our fortifications, and, in going too near the edge of the fossé, I unfortunately slipt in.-Very well, Trim! my father would cry,-(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod,-but without interrupting him)—and being linked fast, an' please your Honour, arm in arm with Mrs Bridget, I dragged her after me, by means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge;—and Trim's foot (my uncle Toby would cry, taking the

story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.

-It was a thousand to one, my uncle Toby would add, that the poor fellow did not break his leg.- -Ay, truly, my father would say,a limb is soon broke, brother Toby, in such encounters.- -And so, an' please your Honour, the bridge, which your Honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.

At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards,—my father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) in a panegyric upon the battering-rams of the ancients-the vinea which Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy.-He would tell my uncle Toby of the catapulta of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundations:-he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the ballista, which Marcellinus makes so much rout about!-the terrible effects of the pyraboli which cast fire;

the danger of the terebra and scorpio, which cast javelins.-But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of Corporal Trim?-Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge, or bastion, or sallyport, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery.

My uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoking his pipe: in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle Toby

leaped up, without feeling the pain upon his groin, and, with infinite pity, stood beside his brother's chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean cambric handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket. The affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little offices, -cut my father through his reins, for the pain he had just been giving hin.-May my brains be knocked out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself,—if ever I insult this worthy soul more!

CHAP. XXV.

THE draw-bridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about another,but not upon the same model: for Cardinal Alberoni's intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle Toby rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out betwixt Spain and the empire, and that the operations of the ensuing campaign must, in all likelihood, be either in Naples or Sicily,-he determined upon an Italian bridge-(my uncle Toby, by the bye, was not far out of his conjectures ;)-but my father, who was infinitely the better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my uncle Toby took it of him in the field,—convinced him, that if the King of Spain and the Emperor went together by the ears, England, France, and Holland, must, by force of their pre-engagements, all enter the lists too; and, if so, he would say, the combatants, brother Toby, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it again, pell-mell, upon the old prizefighting stage of Flanders ;-then what will you do with your Italian bridge?

-We will go on with it, then, upon the old model, cried my uncle Toby.

When Corporal Trim had about half finished it in that style,-iny uncle Toby found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the fossé, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was this, that, by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it empowered my uncle Toby to raise it up, or let it down with the end of his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as much as he could well spare ;-but the disadvantages of such a construction were insurmountable ;-for by this means, he would say, I leave one half of my bridge in my enemy's possession ;-and pray of what use is the other? The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up

together, and stand bolt upright ;-but that was rejected, for the reason given above.

For a whole week after, he was determined in his mind to have one of that particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage,-of which sorts your worships might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its destruction, and one now at Brisac, if I mistake not :---but my father advising my uncle Toby, with great earnestness, to have nothing more to do with thrusting bridges;-and my uncle foreseeing, moreover, that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal's misfortune, he changed his mind for that of the Marquis d'Hôpital's invention, which the younger Bernouilli so well and learnedly described, as your worships may see, Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695;-to these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of sentinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve line approximating to a cycloid,—if not a cycloid itself.

My uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man in England;-but was not quite such a master of the cycloid :-he talked, however, about it every day- -the bridge went not forwards. We'll ask somebody about it, cried my uncle Toby to Trim.

CHAP. XXVI.

WHEN Trim came in, and told my father that Dr Slop was in the kitchen, and busy in making a bridge, my uncle Tobythe affair of the jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his brain,took it instantly for granted, that Dr Slop was making a model of the Marquis d'Hôpital's bridge.'Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle Toby; -pray give my humble service to Dr Slop, Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily.

Had my uncle Toby's head been a Savoyard's box, and my father peeping in all the time at one end of it,—it could not have given him a more distinct conception of the operations in my uncle Toby's imagination than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and batteringram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just beginning to triumph,—

When Trim's answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and twisted it to pieces.

CHAP. XXVII.

THIS unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father-God bless your Honour, cried Trim, 'tis a bridge for master's nose.-In bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed his nose, Susannah

says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is making a false bridge, with a piece of cotton, and a thin piece of whalebone out of Susannah's stays, to raise it up.

-Lead me, brother Toby, cried my father, to my room this instant.

CHAP. XXVIII.

FROM the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my father.-A tide of little evils and distresses has been setting in against him. Not one thing, as he observed himself, has gone right; and now is the storm thickened, and going to break, and pour down full upon his head.

I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy frame of mind, that ever sympathetic breast was touched with. -My nerves relax as I tell it.-Every line I write, I feel an abatement of the quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, which every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things I should not :And this moment that I last dipped my pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and solemnity there appeared in my manner of doing it.— Lord! how different from the rash jerks and hair-brained squirts thou art wont, Tristram, to transact it with in other humours, dropping thy pen-spurting thy ink about thy table and thy books, -as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and thy furniture, cost thee nothing!

The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate across his bed, in the wildest disorder imaginable, but, at the same time, in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with sorrows, that ever the eye of pity dropped a tear for. The palm of his right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touched the quilt;-his left arm hung insensibly over the side of the bed, his knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peeped out beyond the valance, his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his body) hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of

it pressing upon his shin-bone.-He felt it not. A fixed inflexible sorrow took possession of every line of his face. He sighed once, heaved his breast often, but uttered not a word.

An old set-stitched chair, valanced and fringed around with party-coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed's head, opposite to the side where my father's head reclined.-My uncle Toby sat him down in it.

Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever comes too soon ;-and after it is digested,

it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at. My uncle Toby was always either on this side, or on that of it, and would often say, He believed in his heart he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down in his chair, he drew the curtains a little forwards, and having a tear at every one's service, he pulled out a cambric handkerchief,-gave a low sigh,—but held his peace.

CHAP. XXX.

"ALL is not gain that is got into the purse."-So that, notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books in the universe, and had, moreover, in himself, the oddest way of thinking that ever man in it was blessed with, yet it had this drawback upon him after all,- That it laid him open to some of the oddest and most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk under at present, is as strong an example as can be given.

No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child's nose, by the edge of a pair of forceps, however scientifically applied,-would vex any man in the world who was at so much pains in begetting a child as my father was ;— yet, it will not account for the extravagance of his affliction, nor will it justify the unchristian manner he abandoned and surrendered himself up to.

To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour, and my uncle Toby in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him.

stepping in to strengthen it; so that the whimsicality of my father's brain was far from having the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange notions. For, in a great measure, he might be said to have sucked this in with his mother's milk. He did his part, however.—If education planted the mistake, (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it to perfection.

He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that he did not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand it out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses. -And, for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line, did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom. He would often boast, that the Shandy family ranked very high in King Harry the VIII's time, but owed its rise to no state engine-he would say,-but to that only :but that, like other families, he would add,-it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never recovered the blow of my great-grandfather's nose. -It was an ace of clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head,—and as vile a one for an unfortunate family, as ever turned up trumps.

-Fair and softly, gentle reader !-where is thy fancy carrying thee!-If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather's nose, I mean the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands prominent in his face, and which painters say, in good jolly noses and well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third; that is, measured downwards from the setting on of the hair.

IT is a singular blessing, that nature has formed the mind of man with the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is observed in old dogs,-" of not learning new tricks."

What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever existed be whisked into at once, did he read such books, and observe such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him change sides!

Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this :-He picked up an opinion, sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple; -it becomes his own;-and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life rather than give it

up.

I am aware that Didius, the great civilian, will contest this point, and cry out against me, Whence comes this man's right to this apple?

ex confesso, he will say,-things were in a state of nature;-the apple is as much Frank's apple as John's.-Pray, Mr Shandy, what patent has he to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it when he set his heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he chewed it? or when he roasted it? or when he peeled it? or when he brought it home? or when he digested?-or when he -? For 'tis plain, sir, if the first picking up of the apple made it not his, that no subsequent act could.

Brother Didius, Tribonius will answer-(now Tribonius the civilian and church lawyer's beard being three inches and a-half, and three-eighths longer than Didius his beard,—I'm glad he takes up the cudgels for me; so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer.)-Brother Didius, Tribonius will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it in the fragments of Gregorius and Hermogines's codes, and in all the codes from Justinian's down to the codes of Louis and Des Eaux,-That the sweat of a man's brows, and the exsudations of a man's brains, are as much a man's own property as the breeches upon his backside;-which said exsudations, &c. being dropped upon the said apple by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annexed, by the picker up, to the thing picked up, carried home, roasted, peeled, eaten, digested, and so on,-'tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing, has mixed up something which was his own, with the apple which was not his own; by which means he has acquired a property; or, in other words, the apple is John's apple.

By the same learned chain of reasoning, my father stood up for all his opinions: he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they lay out of the common way, the better still was his title.-No mortal claimed them; they had cost him, moreover, as much labour in cooking and digesting as in the case above; so that they might well and truly be said to be of his own goods and chattels.-Accordingly, he held fast by 'em, both by teeth and claws,—would fly to whatever he could lay his hands on,—and, in a word, would entrench and fortify them round with as many circumvallations and breastworks, as my uncle Toby would a citadel.

There was one plaguy rub in the way of this: the scarcity of materials to make any thing of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; inasmuch as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books upon the subject of great neses. By the trotting of my lean horse, the thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my understanding, when I am considering what a treasure of precious time and talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects,-and how many millions of books in all languages, and in all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated on points not half so much tending to the