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I would, therefore, desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from Shandy-Hall to Dr. Slop, the man-midwife’s house;—and that whilst Obadiah has been going those said miles and back, I have brought my uncle Toby from Namur, quite across all Flanders, into England:—That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years;—and have since travelled him and Corporal Trim, in a chariot and four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into Yorkshire;—all which put together, must have prepared the reader’s imagination for the enterance of Dr. Slop upon the stage,——as much, at least, (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts.5

If my hypercritick is intractable,—alledging, that two minutes and thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds,—when I have said all I can about them;——and that this plea, tho’ it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my book, from this very moment, a profess’d ROMANCE,6 which, before, was a book apocryphal:——If I am thus pressed—I then put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once,—by acquainting him, that Obadiah had not got above threescore yards from the stable-yard before he met with Dr. Slop;—and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him,----and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too.

Imagine to yourself;——but this had better begin a new chapter.

CHAP. IX

Imagine to yourself a little, squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop,1 of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality2 of belly, which might have done honour to a Serjeant in the Horse-Guards.

Such were the out-lines of Dr. Slop’s figure, which,—if you have read Hogarth’s analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would;—you must know, may as certainly be caracatur’d, and convey’d to the mind by three strokes3 as three hundred.

Imagine such a one,—for such, I say, were the out-lines of Dr. Slop’s figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony,—of a pretty colour;—but of strength,—alack!——scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel,4 had the roads been in an ambling condition.----They were not.——Imagine to yourself, Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, prick’d into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way.

Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.

Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that monstrous rate,—splashing and plunging like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approach’d, would not such a phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, round its axis,—have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. Slop in his situation, than the worst of Whiston’s comets?5—To say 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 hydrophobia6 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 approach’d to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden wall,—and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane,—when Obadiah and his coach-horse turn’d the corner, rapid, furious,—pop,—full upon him!—–Nothing, I think, in nature, can be supposed more terrible, than such a Rencounter,–so imprompt!7 so ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was!

What could Dr. Slop do?—He cross’d himself †——Pugh!----but the Doctor, Sir, was a Papist.——No matter; he had better have kept hold of the pummel.—He had so;—nay, as it happen’d, he had better have done nothing at all;—for in crossing himself he let go his whip,——and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it slipp’d, he lost his