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By Root 1646 0

thing in the world to do with the horn-works of cuckoldom:—But the curtin, Sir, is the word we use in fortification, for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions and joins them.----Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well flanked; (’tis the case of other curtins, quoth Dr. Slop, laughing) however, continued my uncle Toby, to make them sure, we generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to extend them beyond the fossé or ditch:—The common men, who know very little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon together,—Tho’ they are very different things;—not in their figure or construction, for we make them exactly alike in all points;—for they always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges, not straight, but in form of a crescent.—Where then lies the difference? (quoth my father, a little testily)–In their situations, answered my uncle Toby:–For when a ravelin, brother, stands before the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion, then the ravelin is not a ravelin;–it is a half-moon;—a half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its bastion;—but was it to change place, and get before the curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.—I think, quoth my father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides,----as well as others.

—As for the horn-works (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my uncle Toby, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of an outwork;—they are called by the French engineers, Ouvrage á corne, and we generally make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;–’tis form’d by two epaulments or demi-bastions,—they are very pretty, and if you will take a walk, I’ll engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.——I own, continued my uncle Toby, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground; so that, in my opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; otherwise the double tenaille——By the mother who bore us!——brother Toby, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,—you would provoke a saint;—here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse into the middle of the old subject again:—But so full is your head of these confounded works, that tho’ my wife is this moment in the pains of labour,—and you hear her cry out,—yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the man-midwife.——Accoucheur;4—if you please, quoth Dr. Slop.—With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they call you,——but I wish the whole science of fortification, with all its inventors, at the Devil;—it has been the death of thousands,——and it will be mine, in the end.–I would not, I would not, brother Toby, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, palisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all the towns in Flanders with it.

My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of courage,—I have told you in the fifth chapter5 of this second book, “That he was a man of courage:”——And will add here, that 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;–for he felt this insult of my father’s as feelingly as a man could do;----but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mix’d up so kindly6 within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retalliate upon a fly.

—Go,—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzz’d about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinnertime,—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 a-cross the room,