CHAP. I.

Ir it had not been for these two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a postillion, who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had never entered my head. He flew like lightning:-there was a slope of three miles and a half; we scarcely touched the ground,-the motion was most rapid,-most impetuous; 'twas communicated to my brain, my heart partook of it." By the great God of day," said I, looking towards the sun, and thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the chaise, as I made my vow, "I will lock up my study-door the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the earth, into the draw-well at the back of my house."

The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon the hill, scarcely progressive, dragged-dragged up by cight heavy beasts,-" by main strength!"quoth I, nodding; "but your betters draw the same way, and something of every body's!— O rare!"

Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk,-so little to the stock?

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope! for ever in the same track, -for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days as well as working days, to be shewing the relics of learning, as monks do the

relics of their saints,-without working oneone single miracle with them?

Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a moment;-that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the world,-the miracle of nature, as Zoroaster, in his book we grews, called him;-the Shekinah of the Divine Presence, as Chrysostom;-the image of God, as Moses;— the ray of divinity, as Plato;-the Marvel of Marvels, as Aristotle, to go sneaking on at this pitiful,-pimping,-pettifogging rate?

I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion;-but if there is no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that every imitator in Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for his pains; and that there was a farcical house, large enough to hold,-ay-and sublimate them, tag-rag and bob-tail, male and female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of Whiskers:-but, by what chain of ideas, I leave as a legacy in mortmain to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of.

UPON WHISKERS.

I'm sorry I made it, 'twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a man's head.-A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear it!-'tis a delicate world;-but I knew not of what mettle it was made,-nor had I ever seen the underwritten fragment; otherwise, as surely as noses are noses, and whiskers are whiskers still, (let the world say what it will to the contrary,) so surely would I have steered clear of this dangerous chapter.

Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady Baussiere.The page took hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the ter

race.

There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the stronger. We see, spell, and put them together without a dic tionary.

Ha, ha! he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere, looking close at each other's prints. Ho, ho! cried La Batarelle and Maronette, doing the same.-Whist! cried one;-st, st, said a second;-hush, quoth a third;-poo, poo, replied a fourth-gramercy! cried the Lady Carnavalette;-'twas she who bewhiskered St

Bridget.

La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon one side of her upper lip, put it into La Rebours' hand.-La Rebours shook her head.

The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her muff.-La Guyol smiled.Fie! said the Lady Baussiere. The Queen of Navarre touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger, as much as to say, I understand you all.

"Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La Fosseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all these defiles. It made a faint stand, however, for a few months; by the expiration of which, the Sieur De Croix finding it high time to leave Navarre for the want of whiskers,-the word in course became indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.

The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have suffered under such combinations. -The Curate d'Estella wrote a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the Navarrois against them.

Does not all the world know, said the Curate d'Estella at the conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate, some centuries ago, in most parts of Europe, which whiskers have now done in the kingdom of Navarre?-The evil, indeed, spread no-further then; but have not beds and bolsters, and night-caps, and chamberpots, stood upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles, and spigots and faucets, in dan ger still, from the same association?-Chastity, by nature the gentlest of all affections,—give it but its head,'tis like a ramping and a roaring lion.

The drift of the Curate d'Estella's argument was not understood.-They ran the scent the wrong way. The world bridled his ass at the tail.—And when the extremes of Delicacy, and

the beginnings of Concupiscence, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also.

CHAP. II.

WHEN my father received the letter which brought him themelancholy account of my brother Bobby's death, he was busy calculating the expense of his riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyons.

'Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it to travel over again, and his calculations to begin afresh, when he had almost got to the end of it, by Obadiah's opening the door, to acquaint him the family was out of yeast, and to ask, whether he might not take the great coach-horse early in the morning, and ride in search of some. With all my heart, Obadiah, said my father (pursuing his journey ;)—take the coach-horse, and welcome.

-But he wants a shoe, poor creature! said Obadiah.Poor creature! said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison.- -Then ride the Scotch horse, quoth my father, bastily.He cannot bear a saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole world.The devil's in that horse; then take Patriot, cried my father, and shut the door. Patriot is sold, said Obadiah.Here's for you! cried my father, making a pause, and looking in my uncle Toby's face, as if the thing had not been a matter of fact.- -Your worship ordered me to sell him last April, said Obadiah. Then go on foot for your pains, cried my father. I had much rather walk than ride, said Óbadiah, shutting the door.

What plagues! cried my father, going on with his calculation.-But the waters are out, said Obadiah,-opening the door again.

Till that moment, my father, who had a map of Sanson's, and a book of the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage he had paid for,-purposing to go on from that point with his journey and calculation, as soon as Obadiah quitted the room but this second attack of Obadiah's, in opening the door, and laying the whole country under water, was too much.-He let go his compasses,-or, rather, with a mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table: and then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to Calais (like many others) as wise as he set out.

When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news of my brother's death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey, to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of Nevers. By your leave, Mons. Sanson, cried my father, striking the point of his compasses through Nevers into the

table, and nodding to my uncle Toby, to see what was in the letter,-twice in one night is too much for an English gentleman and his son, Mons. Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a town as Nevers. What think'st thou, Toby? added my father, in a sprightly tone.- -Unless it be a garrison-town, said my uncle Toby, for then I shall be a fool, said my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live.- -So giving a second nod, and keeping his compasses still upon Nevers with one hand, and holding his book of the post-roads in the other,-half calculating and half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my uncle Toby hummed over the letter.

he's gone! said my uncle Toby. Where ?-Who? cried my father.- -My nephew, said my uncle Toby.What,-without leave,-without money,―without governor? cried my father, in amazement. No:- he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle Toby.Without being ill? cried my father again.I dare say not, said my uncle Toby, in a low voice, and fetching a-deep sigh from the bottom of his heart ;-he has been ill enough, poor lad! I'll answer for him, for he is dead.

When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, that not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work. My father stuck his compasses into Nevers but so much the faster.What contrarieties! his, indeed, was a matter of calculation! Agrippina's must have been quite a different affair; who else could pretend to reason from history?

How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.

CHAP. III.

-AND a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too ;-so look to yourselves. 'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian, or some one, perhaps, of later date,— either Cardan, or Budæus, or Petrarch, or Stella, -or, possibly, it may be some divine or father of the church,-St Austin, or St Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms, that it is an irresistible and natural passion, to weep for the loss of our friends or children;-and Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel: and accordingly, we find, that David wept for his son Absalom, Adrian for his Antinous, Niobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death.

My father managed his affliction otherwise;

and indeed differently from most men, either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the Hebrews and the Romans,-nor slept it off, as the Laplanders,―nor hanged it, as the English,-nor drowned it, as the Germans ;nor did he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, nor rhyme it, nor lillabullero it. -He got rid of it, however.

Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two pages?

When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart,-he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it.-O, my Tullia! my daughter! my child!-Still, still, still,-it was, O, my Tullia! -my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.-But, as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion,-nobody upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.

My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullius Cicero could be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was, indeed, his strength, and his weakness too. His strength, for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness, for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one- (bating the case of a systematic misfortune)-he had all he wanted.

A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which set it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune but as five,-my father gained half in half; and, consequently, was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him.

This clew will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's domestic character:-and it is this, that in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps, unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture.

My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own riding. He was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke, and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some neglect or other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father's expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced.

My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiah, and that