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By Root 1723 0

the golden beard of Jupiter—and of Juno, (if her majesty wore one), and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods, and gods aerial and acquatick,—to say nothing of the beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines, (that is in case they wore ’em)——all which beards, as Varro tells me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than thirty thousand effective beards upon the pagan establishment;4——every beard of which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroked and sworn by,—by all these beards together then,——I vow and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as ever Cid Hamet5 offered his,——only to have stood by, and heard my uncle Toby’s accompanyment.]

——“Curse him,”——continued Dr. Slop,——“and may heaven with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him (Obadiah) unless he repent and make satisfaction. Amen. So be it,—so be it. Amen.”

I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness.——He is the father of curses, replied Dr. Slop.——So am not I, replied my uncle.——But he is cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity,——replied Dr. Slop.

I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby.

Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle Toby the compliment of his Whu—u—u——or interjectional whistle,——when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one——put an end to the affair.

CHAP. XII

Now don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.

I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur;——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing,—as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the whole set of ’em are so hung round and befetish’d with the bobs and trinkets of criticism;——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity,——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of Guinea;1——their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and tortured to death by ’em.

——And how did Garrick2 speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all rule, my Lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case and gender, he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;——and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three fifths by a stop-watch, my Lord, each time.———Admirable grammarian!———But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm?—Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?—I look’d only at the stop-watch, my Lord.——Excellent observer!

And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?—Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my Lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and compasses, &c. my Lord, in my pocket.———Excellent critic!

—And for the epick poem, your lordship bid me look at;—upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu’s,3—’tis out, my Lord, in every one of its dimensions.———Admirable connoisseur!

—And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture, in your way back?———’tis a melancholy daub!4 my Lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian,——the expression