paftimes, down to this, I have concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it-fuck as I am, brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all my weakneffes too, whether my age, my temper, my paffions, or my understanding.

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht, and grieved the war was not carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon unworthy views; or that in wifhing for war, he fhould be bad enough to with more of his fellow creatures flain,-more flaves made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own pleafure:-Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it?

If, when I was a fchool-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart beat with it—was it my fault? Did I plant the propenfity there? Did I found the alarm within, or Nature?

When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parifmus and Parifmenus, and Valentine and Orfon, and the Seven Champions of England were handed around the school, -were they not all purchafed with my own pocketmoney! Was that selfish, brother Shandy? When we read over the fiege of Trey, which lafted ten years , and eight months,-though with fuch a train of artillery as we had at Namur, the town might have been carried in a week-was I not as much concerned for the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of the whole school? Had I not three ftrokes of a ferula given me, two on

my right hand, and one on my left, for calling Helena a bitch for it? Did any one of you fhed more tears for Hector? And when king Priam came to the camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy without it, you know, brother, I could not eat my dinner.

-Did that befpeak me cruel? Or, because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war,-was it a proof it could not ach for the diftreffes of war too?

O brother! 'tis one thing for a foldier to gather laurels, and 'tis another to fcatter cyprefs.

'Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a foldier to hazard his own life-to leap first down into the trench, where he is fure to be cut in pieces :-'Tis one thing, from public fpirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the breach the first man,-to ftand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears :-'tis one thing, I fay, brother Skandy, to do this;--and 'tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war, to view the defolations of whole countries, and confider the intolerable fatigues and hardfhips which the foldier himself, the inftrument who works them, is forced (for fix-pence a-day, if he can get it) to undergo.

Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fevre's funeral fermon, That fo feft and gentle a creature, born to love mercy and kindness, as man is, was not shaped 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 Honour-what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their fwords 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 rose within me, and I hope in the Corporal too, from the confcioufnefs we both had, that in carrying them on, we were answering the great end of our creation.

T. SHANDY, VOL. ILI. CHAP. 75.

MERCY.

Y uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries ;not from want of courage,-where just occa fions prefented, or called it forth,-I know no man under whose arm I would fooner have taken fhelter;nor did this arife from any infenfibility or obtufenefs of his intellectual parts;-he was of a peaceful, placid nature,-no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up fo kindly with him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly :-Go,-fays he one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nofe, and tormented him cruelly all dinner time,

—and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at laft-as it flew by him;-I'll not hurt thee, fays my uncle Toby, rifing from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand, I'll not hurt a hair of thy head-Go, fays he, lifting up the fath, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;-go, poor devil, get thee gone; why fhould I hurt thee?This world furely is wide enough to hold thee and me.

*

governors,

* *This is to ferve for parents and stead of a whole volume upon the subject.

T. SHANDY, VOL. I. CHAP. 37

in

INDOLENCE.

NCONSISTENT foul that man is !-languishing under wounds which he has the power to heal! his whole life a contradiction to his knowledge!-his reason, that precious gift of God to him—(instead of pouring in oil) ferving but to fharpen his fenfibilities, to multiply his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneafy under them!-Poor unhappy creature, that he should do fo!-are not the neceffary caules of mis fery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock of forrow;-ftruggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and fubmit to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him, would remove from his heart for ever?

T. SHANDY, VOL. II. CHAP: 14.

B

CONSOLATION.

EFORE an affliction is digefted, confolation ever

comes too foon ;-and after it it digested-it comes too late: there is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at.

T. SHANDY, VOL. II. CHAP. 22.

B'

THE STARLING.

ESHREW the fombre pencil! faid I vauntingly for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with fo hard and deadly a colouring. The mind fits terrified at the objects fhe has magnified herself, and blackened; reduce them to their proper fize and hue, the overlooks them.-'Tis true, faid I, correcting the propofition-the Bastille is not an evil to be despised-but ftrip it of its towersfill up the founbarricade the doors-call it fimply a confinement, and fuppofe 'tis fome tyrant of a diftemper and not a man which holds you in it-the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

I was interrupted in the hey-day of this foliloquy, with a voice, which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out."-I looked up