CHAP. X.

THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED.

THE fun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his afflicted fon's; the hand of Death preffed heavy upon his eye-lids;-and hardly could the wheel at the ciftern turn round its circle,-when my uncle Toby, who had rofe up an hour before his wonted time, entered the Lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, fat himself down upon the chair by the bed-fide, and, independently of all modes and cuftoms, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brotherofficer would have done it, and afked him how he did,—how he had rested in the night,—what was his complaint,-where was his pain,-and what he could do to help him;-and without giving him time to answer any one of these inquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the Corporal the night before for him.

You fhall go home directly Le Fever, faid my uncle Toby, to my houfe, and we'll fend for a doctor to fee what's the matter;-and we'll have an apothecary;-and the Corporal fhall be your nurfe;-and I'll be your fervant,

Le Fever.

There was a franknefs in my uncle Toby, not the effect of familiarity,—but the cause of it,which let you at once into his foul, and fhewed you the goodness of his nature. To this, there was fomething in his looks, and voice, and man

ner,

ner, fuperadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; fo that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the fon infenfibly preffed up clofe to his knees, and had taken hold of the breaft of his coat, and was pulling it towards him.—The blood and spirits of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and flow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart,--rallied back, -the film forfook his eyes for a moment;-he looked up wifhfully in my uncle Toby's face;then caft a look upon his boy;-and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.

Nature inftantly ebb'd again;-the film returned to its place; -the pulfe fluttered, ftopp'd,-went on,-throbb'd,-stopp'd again, -moved,-stopp'd,— Shall I go on? -No.

CHAP. XI.

I AM fo impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young Le Fever's, that is, from this turn of his fortune to the time my uncle Toby recommended him for my preceptor, fhall be told in a very few words in the next chapter. All that is neceffary to be added to this chapter, is as follows:

That my uncle Toby, with young Le Fever in his hand, attended the poor Lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave.

That the governor of Dendermond paid his obfequies all military honours ;-and that Yo

C4

rick,

rick, not to be behind-hand,-paid him all ecclefiaftic, for he buried him in his chancel. -And it appears likewife, he preached a funeral-fermon over him. I fay it appears, -for it was Yorick's cuftom, which I fuppofe a general one with thofe of his profeffion, on the firft leaf of every fermon which he composed, to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occafion of its being preached to this, he was ever wont to add fome fhort comment or ftricture upon the fermon itself,-feldom, indeed, much to its credit.-For inftance, "This fermon 66 upon the Jewish difpenfation,—I don't like it at all-though I own there is a world of water-landish knowledge in it;--but 'tis all tritical, and mott tritically put together."This is but a flinify kind of compofition. "What was in my head when I made it!

66

66

66

-N. B. "The excellency of this text is, that "it will fuit any fermon ;--and of this fermon, "that it will fuit any text.

"For this fermon I fhall be hanged,"for I have ftolen the greatest part of it. Doc"tor Paidagunes found me out. Set a thief

"to catch a thief."

On the back of half a dozen I find written, So fo, and no more:-and upon a couple Moderato; by which, as far as one may gather from Altieri's Italian Dictionary, but mostly from the authority of a piece of green whipcord, which feemed to have been the unravelling of Yorick's whip-lafh, with which he has left us the two fermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So fo, tied faft together in one bundle by themselves,

9

themselves, one may fafely fuppofe he meant pretty nearly the fame thing.

There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is this, that the moderato's are five times better than the fo fo's;-fhow ten times more knowledge of the human heart;have seventy times more wit and spirit in them; -(and, to rife properly in my climax)-discover a thousand times more genius; and, to crown all, are infinitely more entertaining than thofe tied with them: for which reafon, whenever up Yorick's dramatic fermons are offered to the world, though I fhall admit but one out of the whole number of the fo fo's, I fhall, neverthelefs, adventure to print the two moderato's without any fort of fcruple.

What Yorick could mean by the words lentamente,—tenutè,—grave,—and fometimes adagio,- -as applied to theological compofitions, and with which he has characterized fome of thefe fermons, I dare not venture to guefs. I am more puzzled ftill, upon finding a l'octava alta! upon one-Con firepito upon the back of another-Scicilliana upon a third —Alla capella upon a fourth ;--Con Barco upon this ;-Senza l'arco upon that. All I know is, that they are mufical terms, and have a meaning-and as he was a mufical man, I will make no doubt but that, by fome quaint application of fuch metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impreffed very diftinct ideas of their feveral characters upon his fancy, whatever they may do that of others.

upon

Amongst

Amongft thefe, there is that particular fermon which has unaccountably led me into this digreffion. The funeral-fermon upon poor Le Fever, wrote out very fairly, as if from a hafty copy. I take notice of it the more, because it feems to have been his favourite compofition.It is upon mortality; and is tied length-ways and crofs-ways with a yarn thrumb, and then rolled up and twisted round with a half-fheet of dirty blue paper, which feems to have been once the caft cover of a general review, which to this day fmells horribly of horfe-drugs.--Whether thefe marks of humiliation were defigned, -I fomething doubt;-becaufe at the end of the fermon (and not at the beginning of it)-very different from his way of treating the rest, he had Bravo!

wrote

-Though not very offenfively, for it was at two inches, at least, and a half's distance from, and below the concluding line of the fermon, at the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it which, you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it juftice, it is wrote befides with a crow's quill fo faintly in a fmall Italian hand, as fcarce to folicit the eye towards the place, whether your thumb is there or not;-fo that, from the manner of it, it ftands half excufed; and being wrote, moreover, with very pale ink, diluted almoft to nothing, 'tis more like a ritratto of the fhadow of Vanity than of Vanity herfelf,-of the two; refembling rather a faint thought of tranfient applause,