about? cried my father to my mother.-By all that's ftrange, they are befieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her houfe to mark out the lines of circumvallation!

I dare fay, quoth my mother,But ftop, dear Sir, for what my mother dared to fay upon the occafion, and what my father did fay upon it, with her replies and his rejoinders, fhall be read, perufed, paraphrafed, commented, and defcanted upon,-or to fay it all in a word, fhall be thumb'd over by Pofterity in a chapter apart;-I fay, by Pofterity,--and care not, if I repeat the word again,-for what has this book done more than the Legation of Mofes, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not fwim down the gutter of Time along with them?

I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too' faft: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it more precious, my dear Jenny.-than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more;-every thing preffes on,-whilft thou art twifting that lock;-fee! it grows grey; and every time I kifs thy hand to bid adieu, and every abfence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal feparation which we are shortly to make.

Heaven have mercy upon us both!

CHAP. IX.

NOW, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation,-I would not give a groat.

CHAP. X.

MY mother had gone with her left arm twifted in my father's right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden-wall, where Doctor Slop was overthrown by Obadiah on the coach-horfe. As this was directly oppofite to the front of Mrs. Wadman's houfe, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and feeing my uncle Toby and the Corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn'd about,-" Let us juft ftop a moment," quoth my father, "and fee with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their firft en"try-it will not detain us,” added my father, a fingle minute."

66

66

66

my

No matter if it be ten minutes, quoth mother.

father.

-It will not detain us half a one, faid my

The Corporal was just then fetting in with the ftory of his brother Tom and the Jew's widow: the ftory went on,--and on;-it had epifodes in it, it came back, and went on,and on again; there was no end of it:-the reader found it very long.

G-help my father! he pish'd fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the Corporal's ftick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to as many Devils as chofe to accept of them.

When iffues of events like thefe my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the prin

ciple

1

ciple of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to fee it out.

Curiofity governs the first moment; and the fecond moment is all economy to juftify the expence of the firft;-and for the third, fourth, fifth, and fixth moments, and fo on to the day of judgment, 'tis a point of Honour.

I need not be told, that the ethic writers have affigned this all to Patience; but that Virtue, methinks, has extent of dominion fufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few difmantled caftles which Honour has left him upon the earth.

My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries, to the end of Trim's ftory; and from thence to the end of my uncle Toby's panegyric upon arms, in the chapter following it; when feeing that, inftead of marching up to Mrs. Wadman's door, they both faced about and march'd down the avenue diametrically oppofite to his expectation, he broke out at once with that little fubaçid forenefs of humour, which, in certain fituations, diftinguished his character from that of all other men.

CHAP. XI.

"NOW what can their two noddles be about?" cried my father, &c.

I dare fay, faid my mother, they are

making fortifications.

-Not on Mrs. Wadman's premises! cried

my father, stepping back.