mon, That fo foft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not fhaped for this?. -But why did you not add, Yorick,—if not by NATURE-that he is fo by NECESSITY? -For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of bonour-what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witnefs, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my fieges in my bowling green, has arose within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that in carrying them on, we were anfwering the great ends of our creation. CHAP. I CHA P. XXXIII. Told the Christian reader-I fay and if he is not, I am forry for it I told him, Sir-for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the ftrange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going backwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader's fancy which, for my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there is fo much unfixed and equivocal matter ftarting up, with fo many breaks and gaps in it,-and fo little fervice do the stars afford, which, nevertheless, I hang up in fome of the darkest paffages, knowing that the K 2 world world is apt to lofe its way, with all the lights the fun itself at noon day can give it and now, you fee, I am loft myfelf! -But 'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be diffected, you will perceive, without fpectacles, that he has left a large uneven thread, as you sometimes fee in an unfaleable piece of cambrick, running along the whole length of the web, and fo untowardly, you cannot fo much as cut out a (here I hang up a couple of lights again) -or a fillet, or a thumb-ftall, but it is feen or felt.. Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum, fayeth Cardan. All which being confidered, and that you fee 'tis morally impracticable for me to wind this round to where I fet out I begin the chapter over again. CHAP. CHA P. XXXIV. Told the Chriftian reader in the be ginning of the chapter which preceded my uncle Toby's apologetical oration,though in a different trope from what I shall make use of now, That the peace of Utrecht was within an ace of creating the fame fhynefs betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobby-horfe, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the confederating powers. There is an indignant way in which a man fometimes difmounts his horfe, which as good as fays to him, "I'll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my life, "before I would ride a fingle mile upon "your back again." Now my uncle Toby could not be faid to difmount his horse in this manner; for in ftrictness of language, he could not be faid to dif mount his horfe at all-his horfe rather flung him and fomewhat vicioufly, which made my uncle Toby take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be fettled by ftate jockies as they like. -It created, I fay, a fort of shynefs betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobby-horse. He had no occafion for him from the month of March to November, which was the fummer after the articles were figned, except it was now and then to take a fhort ride out, juft to fee that the fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk were demolished, according to ftipulation. The French were fo backwards all that fummer in setting about that affair, and Monfieur Tugghe, the deputy from the magiftrates of Dunkirk, prefented fo many affecting petitions to the queen,-befeeching her majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works, which |