TH

OPPOSITION.

HERE are fecret workings in human affairs which over-rule all human contrivance, and counterplot the wifeft of our councils, in fo ftrange and unexpected a manner, as to cast a damp upon our beft fchemes and warmest endeavours.

SER. XXXIX. P. 170.

Captain Shandy's fuftification of his own Principles and Conduct, in wishing to continue

I

the War, Written to his Brother.

AM not infenfible, brother Shandy, that when a man, whofe profeffion is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,-it has an ill af pect to the world;-and that how juft and right foever his motives and intentions may be,-he ftands in an uneafy pofture in vindicating himfelf from private views in doing it.

For this caufe, if a foldier is a prudent man, which he may be, without being a jot the lefs brave, he will be fure not to utter his wifh in the hearing of an enemy; for fay what he will an enemy will not believe him.-He will becau

tious of doing it even to a friend,-left he may fuffer in his esteem :-But if his heart is overcharged, and a fecret figh for arms must have its vent, he will referve it for the ear of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true notions, difpofitions, and principles of honour are: What, I hope, I have been in all thefe, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to fay :-much worfe I know, have I been than I ought, and fomething worse, perhaps, than I think: but fuch as 1 am, you my dear brother Shandy, who have fucked the fame breafts with me,-and with whom I have been brought up from my cradle, and from whofe knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no one action of my life, and fcarce a thought in it-Such as I am brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all my weakneffes too, whether of 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 on wifhing for war, he should be bad enough to wifh more of his fellow-creatures flain,more flaves made and more families driven from their peaceful habitations mere

ly

ly for his own pleasure :-Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it ?

If when I was a school-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 purchased with my own pocket-money? Was that selfish brother Shandy? When we read over the frege of Troy, 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 strokes of a ferula gi ven 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 tỏ Troy without it, you know, brother, I could not eat my dinner.

1-Did that befpeak me cruel? or because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out into the

A

camp, and my heart panted for war,was it a proof it could not ache for the distresses of war

too?

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

'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 firft man,-to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears:Tis one thing, I fay, brother Shandy, 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 hardships which the foldier himfelf, 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 Fever's funeral fermon, That fo foft 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 Ho

nour

nour-what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmlefs 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 pleafure 1 have taken in these things, and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my fieges in. my bowling green, has rofe within me, and I hope in the Corporal too, from the confciouf-, nefs we both had, that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our creation.

T. SHANDY, VOL. III, CHAP. 75,

Y

MERCY.

My uncle Toby was a man patient of inju

ries; not from want of courage,-where juft occafions prefented, or called it forth,-I know no man under whofe arm I would fooner have taken shelter ;-nor did this arise 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 for kindly within him; my uncle Toby had fcarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly :-Go,-says 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 infiM 2

nite