There is nothing improper in it, said my father, 't is a mode of expression: for in saying thou would'st lay thy Montero-cap to a shilling, all thou meanest is this, that thou believest. Now, what dost thou believe? That' That Widow Wadman, an' please your Worship, cannot hold it out ten days. And whence, cried Slop, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of woman, friend? By falling in love with a popish clergywoman, said Trim. '"T was a Beguine, said my uncle Toby. Doctor Slop was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my father taking that very crisis to fall in helterskelter upon the whole order of nuns and Beguines, Slop could not stand it: and my uncle Toby having some measures to take about his breeches, and Yorick about his fourth general division, in order for their several attacks next day, the company broke up; and my father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt that and bed-time, he called for pen, ink and paper, and wrote my uncle Toby the following letter of instructions: MY DEAR BROTHER TOBY: What I am going to say to thee, is upon the nature of women, and of love-making to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee, though not so well for me, that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon that head, and that I am able to write it to thee. Had it been the good pleasure of Him who disposes of our lots, and thou no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou should'st have dipped the pen this moment into the ink, instead of myself; but that not being the case, Mrs. Shandy being now close beside me, preparing for bed, I have thrown together, without order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and documents as I deem may be of use to thee, intending, in this, to give thee a token of my love; not doubting, my dear Toby, of the manner it will be accepted. In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the affair, though I perceive, from a glow in my cheek, that I blush as I begin to speak to thee upon the subject, as well knowing, notwithstanding thy unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou neglectest, yet I would remind thee of one (during the continuance of thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted; and that is, never to go forth upon the enterprise, whether it be in the morning or the afternoon, without first recommending thyself to the protection of Almighty God, that he may defend thee from the evil one. Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once, at least, every four or five days, but oftener if convenient; lest, in taking off thy wig before her, through absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been cut away by Time: how much by Trim. 'T were better to keep ideas of baldness out of her fancy. Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it as a sure maxim, Toby, "That women are timid;" and 't is well they are, else there would be no dealing with them. Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs, like the trunk-hose of our ancestors: A just medium prevents all conclusions. Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in a low soft tone of voice; silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: for this cause if thou canst help it, never throw down the tongs and poker. Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with her, and do whatever lies in thy power, at the same time, to keep from her all books and writings which tend thereto: there some devotional tracts, which if thou canst entice her to read over, it will be well; but suffer her not to look into Rabelais, or Scarron, or Don Quixote: are They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear Toby, that there is no passion so serious as love. Stick a pin in the bosom of thy shirt, before thou enterest the parlor. And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sofa with her, and she gives thee occasion to lay thy hand upon hers, beware of taking it: thou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper of thine. Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her curiosity on thy side; and if she is not conquered by that, and thy ass continues still kick ing his attack prosperous. ing, which there is great reason to suppose, | pocket, and join with my mother in wishthou must begin with first losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according to the practice of the ancient Scythians, who cured the most intemperate fits of the appetite by that means. Avicenna, after this, is for having the neck anointed with the syrup of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges; and I believe rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat's flesh, nor red deer; nor even foal's flesh by any means; and carefully abstain, that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, didappers, and water-hens. As for thy drink, I need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of Verbain and the herb Hanea, of which Ælian relates such effects; but if thy stomach palls with it, discontinue it from time to time, taking cucumbers, melons, purslain, water-lilies, woodbine, and lettuce in the stead of them. There is nothing further for thee which occurs to me at present. Unless the breaking out of a fresh war. So wishing everything, dear Toby, for the best, I rest thy affectionate brother, CHAPTER XXXV. WHILST my father was writing this letter of instructions, my Uncle Toby and the corporal were busy in preparing every thing for the attack. As the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for the present) there is nothing which should put it off beyond the next morning; so, accordingly it was resolved upon for eleven o'clock. Come, my dear, said my father to my mother, 't will be but like a brother and sister, if you and I take a walk down to my brother Toby's to countenance him in this attack of his. My uncle Toby and the corporal had both been accoutred some time, when my father and mother entered and, the clock striking eleven, were that moment in motion to sally forth; but the account of this is worth more than to be wove into the fag end of a chapter. My father had no time but to put the letter of instructions into my uncle Toby's coat I could like, said my mother, to look through the key-hole, out of curiosity. Call it by its right name, my dear, quoth my father, And look through the key-hole as long as you will. CHAPTER XXXVI. I CALL all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Toby's amours, till this very moment, that my mother's curiosity, as she stated the affair, or a different impulse in her, as my father would have it, wished her to take a peep at them through the key-hole. Call it, my dear, by its right name," quoth my father, "and look through the key-hole as long as you will." Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humor, which I have often spoken of, in my father's habit, could have vented such an insinuation; he was, however, frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him. My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested on the back of his; she raised her fingers, and let them fall, it could scarce be called a tap; or, if it was a tap, 't would have puzzled a casuist to say, whether 't was a tap of remonstrance or a tap of confession; my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, classed it right; Conscience redoubled her blow, he turned his face suddenly the other way, and my mother, supposing his body was about to turn with it, in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that, as he turned his head, he met her eye: Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself: a thin, blue, chill, pellucid crystal, with all its humors so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen at the bottom of it, had it existed; ; it did not; and how I hap- | have wished. The corporal, with cheery pened to be so lewd myself, particularly eye and both arms extended, had fallen a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, Heaven above knows; my mother, Madam, was so at no time, either by nature, by institution, or example. A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humors from the manual effervescences of devotional tracts, which, having little or no meaning in them, nature is oftentimes obliged to find one; and, as for my father's example! 't was so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that 't was the whole business of his life to keep all fancies of that kind out of her head; Nature had done her part to have spared him this trouble; and, what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew it. And here am I sitting, this 12th day of August, 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without wig or cap on, a most tragi-comical completion of his prediction "That I should neither think nor act like any other man's child, upon that very account." The mistake of my father was, in attacking my mother's motive instead of the act itself; for, certainly, key-holes were made for other purposes; and, considering the act as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a keyhole to be what it was, it became a violation of nature; and was, so far, you see, criminal. It is for this reason, an' please your Reverences, that key-holes are the occasion of more sin and wickedness than all the other holes in this world put together: Which leads me to my uncle Toby's amours. CHAPTER XXXVII. THOUGH the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby's great ramillie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaigntrunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business, as one would back perpendicular from it a score of times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air: had Spleen given a look at it, 't would have cost her ladyship a smile; it curled everywhere but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honor, he could as soon have raised the dead. Such it was, or rather, such would it have seemed upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had, moreover, wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnished gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffety became him; and, though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and, altogether, seemed to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage. Nothing in this world could have cooperated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby's blue and gold, had not quantity, in some measure, been necessary to grace. In a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life (for he seldom went farther than the bowling-green), his blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves was of no advantage: they were laced, however, down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the mode of King William's reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallic and doughty an air with them, that, had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armor, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination. As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripped by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevens. Yes, Madam; but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before; and, as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush. The corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fevre's regimental coat; and ther than this. That if Tom had not with his hair tucked up under his Mon- married the widow, or had it pleased tero-cap, which he had furbished up for God, after their marriage, that they had the occasion, marched three paces distant but put pork into their sausages, the honfrom his master: a whiff of military pride est soul had never been taken out of his had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipped into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal's stick. My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pipe. It looks well, at least, quoth my father to himself. CHAPTER XXXVIII. My uncle Toby turned his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal, as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick, but not vaporingly; and with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his Honor never fear." Now my uncle Toby did fear, and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproached him) so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong, and therefore, was never altogether at his ease near any one of them, unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman's eye; and yet, excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked steadfastly into one; and would often tell my father, in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as talking bawdy. And suppose it is? my father would say. CHAPTER XXXIX. warm bed, and dragged to the Inquisition; 't is a cursed place, added the corporal, shaking his head; when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an' please your Honor, for ever. 'Tis very true, said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house as he spoke. Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life, or so sweet, an' please your Honor, as liberty. Nothing, Trim, said my uncle Toby, musing. Whilst a man is free, cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick. A thousand of my father's most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy. My uncle Toby looked earnestly towards his cottage and his bowling-green. The corporal had unwarily conjured up the spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do but to conjure him down again with his story; and in this form of exorcism, most unecclesiastically did the corporal do it. CHAPTER XL. As Tom's place, an' please your Honor, was easy, and the weather warm, it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world, and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew, who kept a sausage-shop in the same street, had the ill-luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade, Tom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering his service to carry it on; so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop, Tom set out, counting the matter thus within himself as he walked along: That, let the worst come of it that could, sages for their worth; but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausages, but a wife and a sausage-shop, an' please your Honor, into the bargain. SHE cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had marched up to within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman's door, she cannot, corporal, take it amiss. She will take it, an please your Honor, said the corporal, just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom. he should, at least, get a pound of sau And how was that? quoth my uncle Toby, facing quite about to the corporal. Your Honor, replied the corporal, knows of Tom's misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any fur Every servant in the family, from high to low, wished Tom success; and I can fancy, an' please your Honor, I see him this moment with his white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o' one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a cheerful word for everybody he met. But alas! Tom! thou smilest no more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophized him in his dungeon. Poor fellow ! said my uncle Toby, feelingly. He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an' please your Honor, 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 XLI. WHEN Tom, 'an please your Honor, 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 learnt mercy. She was good, an' please your Honor, 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 Honor is in the humor, 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 Honor, 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 Honor, 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 XLII. As Tom, an' please your Honor, 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 his pound of sausages; and being, as I have told your Honor, an open, cheeryhearted lad, with his character wrote in |