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 witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things, and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has rose within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that, in carrying them on, we were answering the great end of our creation.

Tristram Shandy, vol. iii.

MERCY.

My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries; not from want of courage,-where just occasions presented, or called it forth,

-I know no man under whose arm I would sooner have taken shelter;-nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts:—he was of a peaceful, placid nature,—no jarring element in it, all was mixed up so kindly with him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly :-Go,-says he one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner time,—and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught

at last as it flew by him;-I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,—I'll not hurt a hair of thy head :-Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape-go, poor devil,-get thee gone; why should I hurt thee?-This world surely is wide enough to hold thee and

me.

**This is to serve for parents and governors, instead of a whole volume upon the subject. Tristram Shandy, vol. i.

INDOLENCE.

Inconsistent soul 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, serving but to sharpen his sensibilities, -to multiply his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them! -Poor, unhappy creature, that he should do so!-are not the necessary causes of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock of sorrow; struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit to others, which a

tenth part of the trouble they create him would remove from his heart for ever?

Tristram Shandy, vol. ii.

CONSOLATION.

Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever comes too soon;-and after it is 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.

Ibid.

THE STARLING.

-Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I vauntingly-for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened; reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them.— 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition -the Bastille is not an evil to be despised -but strip it of its towers-fill up the fossé-unbarricade the doors-call it sim ply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper-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 soliloquy, with a voice, which I took to be

of a child, which complained "it could not get out."-I looked up and down the passage, and, seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without farther attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage-"I can't get out -I can't get out," said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity-"I can't get out," said the starling-God help thee, said I; but I will let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open, without pulling it to pieces-I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and, thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it, as if impatient-I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty-"No," said the starling-"I can't get out I can't get out," said the starling.

I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille; and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.-'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess! addressing myself to LIBERTY, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till NATURE herself shall change-no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron-with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled.Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent-Grant me but health, thou great Bestower cf it, and give me but this fair goddess as my com