care; when a man has done this, he is fafe; the reft is of little confequence

Cover his head with a turf or aftone,

It is all one, it is all one!

LETTER IV. TO HIS FRIENDS,

THING

THE CONTRAST.

HINGS are carried on in this world, fometimes fo contrary to all our reafonings, and the feeming probability of fuccefs,-that even the race is not to the fwift, nor the battle to the strong;-nay, what is ftranger still, nor yet bread to the wife, who fhould least stand in want of it, nor yet riches to the men of understanding, whom you would think beft qualified to acquire them,-nor yet favour to men of skill, whose merit and pretences bid the fairest for it,— but that there are fome fecret and unfeen workings in human affairs, which baffle all our endeavours, and turn afide the courfe of things in fuch a manner,←→ that the most likely caufes disappoint and fail of producing for us the effect which we wish, and naturally expected from them.

You will fee a man, of whom were you to form a conjecture from the appearance of things in his favour, you would fay, was fetting out in the world

with the fairest prospect of making his fortune in it; with all the advantages of birth to recommend him, of perfonal merit to fpeak for him, and of friends to push him forwards: you will behold him, not. withstanding this, difappointed in every effect you might naturally have looked for, from them; every step he takes towards his advancement, fomething invisible shall pull him back, fome unforeseen obftacle shall rise up perpetually in his way, and keep there. -In every application he makes-some untoward circumftance fhall blaft it. He fhall rife early,-late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness,-yet some happier man shall rife up, and ever step in before him, and leave him struggling to the end of his life, in the very fame place in which he first began.

The hiftory of a second shall in all refpects be the contraft to this. He fhall come into the world with the most unpromising appearance,-shall fet forward without fortune, without friends-without talents to procure him either the one or the other. Neverthelefs you will fee this clouded prospect brighten up infenfibly, unaccountably before him; every thing prefented in his way fhall turn out beyond his expectations, in fpite of that chain of unfurmountable dithculties which first threatened him,-time and chance hall open him a way, a series of fuccessful occurrences shall lead him by the hand to the fummit of honour and fortune; and, in a word, without giving him the pains of thinking, or the credit of project

ing, it fhall place him in a safe poffeffion of all that

ambition could wish for.

1

SERMON VIII. P. 1527

DR. SLOP AND OBADIAH, MEETING.

IMAGINE

MAGINE to yourself, a little, fquat, uncourtly figure of a Dr. Shop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of hack, and a fufquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a ferjeant in the horse-guards.

Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, whichif you have read Hogarth's analyfis of beauty, (and if you have not, I wish you would);-you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to the mind by three ftrokes as three hundred.

Imagine fuch a one,-for such, I fay, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming flowly along, foot by foot, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour-but of ftrength-alack! fcarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition. They were not. gine to yourself, Obadiah mounted upon a ftrong monfter of a coach-horfe, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverfe

way.

-

Ima

Pray, Sir, let me intereft you a moment in this defcription.

Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, pofting in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that monstrous rate, splashing and plunging like a devil through thick and thin as he approached, would not fuch a phænomenon, with fuch a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, round its axis,-have been a fubject of jufter apprehenfion to Dr. Slop in his fituation, than the worst of Whifton's comets?-To fay nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of Obadiah and the coach-horse. In my idea, the vortex alone of 'em was enough to have involved and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor's pony, quite away with it.

What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily along towards Shandy Hall, and had ap proached to within fixty yards of it, and within five yards of a fudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden wall,-and in the dirtieft part of a dirty lane,-when Cbadiah and his coach-horse turned the corner, rapid, furious,-pop,-full upon him !-Nothing, I think, in nature can be fuppofed more terrible than fuch a rencounter,-fo imprompt! fo ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was!

What could Dr. Slop do? -he croffed himself-Pugh but the doctor, Sir, was a Papift. No matter; he had better have kept hold of the pummel. He had fo; nay, as it happened, he had

better have done nothing at all; for in croffing him. felf he let go his whip, and in attempting to fave his whip between his knee and his faddle's skirt, as it flipped, he loft his ftirrup,-in lofing which he loft his feat; and in the multitude of all these loffes (which, by the bye, fhew what little advantage there is in croffing) the unfortunate doctor loft his prefence of mind. So that without waiting for Obadiah's onfet, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, fomething in the ftyle and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other confequence from the fall, fave that of being left (as it would have been) with the broadest part of him funk about twelve inches deep in the mire.

Obadiah pull'd off his cap twice to Dr Slop ;once as he was falling, and then again when he faw him feated.- Ill-timed complaifance;-had not the fellow better have stopped his horfe, and got off, and helped him?-Sir, he did all that his fituation would allow; but the MOMENTUM of the coachhorfe was fo great, that Obadiah could not do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times round Dr. Slop, before he could fully accomplish it any how; and at laft, when he did stop the beaft, 'twas done with fuch an explosion of mud, that Obadiah had better have been a league off. In fhort, never was a Dr. Slop fo beluted, and fo tranfubftantiated, fince that affair came into fashion.

TRISTRAM SHANDY, C. XXXV. P. 187.