hearts, they had taken the two strings and tied them close (pursing up the mouth of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, each of which Obadiah, to make all safe, had twitched and drawn together with all the strength of his body.

This answered all that Obadiah and the maid intended; but was no remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much room to play in it, towards the bottom (the shape of the bag being conical) that Obadiah could not make a trot of it, but with such a terrible jingle, what with the tire tête, forceps, and squirt, as would have been enough, had Hymen been taking a jaunt that way, to have frightened him out of the country; but when Obadiah accelerated his motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coachhorse into a full gallop- -by Heaven! Sir,

the jingle was incredible.

As Obadiah had a wife and three children

the turpitude of fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this jingling, never once entered his brain, he had however his objection, which came home

to himself, and weighed with him, as it has oft-times done with the greatest patriots."The poor fellow, Sir, was not able to hear himself whistle."

As

CHAPTER VIII.

S Obadiah loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music he carried with him,-he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a condition of enjoying it.

In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt to enter a man's head as his hat-band:- -the philosophy of this is so near the surfaceI scorn to enter into it.

As Obadiah's was a mix'd case- -mark, Sirs, -I say, a mixed case; for it was

obstetrical,scrip-tical, squirtical, papistical and as far as the coach-horse was concerned in it, caballistical and only partly musical;—Obadiah made no scruple

of availing himself of the first expedient which offered; so taking hold of the bag and instruments, and griping them hard together with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other putting the end of the hat-band betwixt his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of it,he tied and cross-tied them all fast together from one end to the other (as you would cord a trunk) with such a multiplicity of round-abouts and intricate cross turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point where the strings met,-that Dr Slop must have had three fifths of Job's patience at least to have unloosed them.-I think in my conscience, that had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in humour for such a contest- -and she and Dr Slop both fairly started together

there is no bag with all

-and known

man living who had seen the that Obadiah had done to it,likewise the great speed the Goddess can make when she thinks proper, who would have had the least doubt remaining in his mind-which of the two would have carried off the prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag infalli

bly at least by twenty knots.

Sport of small accidents, Tristram Shandy! that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been for thee, and it was fifty to one but it had,-thy affairs had not been so depress'd (at least by the depression of thy nose) as they have been; nor had the fortunes of thy house and the occasions of making them, which have so often presented themselves in the course of thy life, to thee, been so often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so irrecoverably abandoned-as thou hast been forced to leave them;-but 'tis over,

all but the account of 'em, which cannot be given to the curious till I am got out into the world.

GR

CHAPTER IX.

REAT wits jump: for the moment Dr Slop cast his eyes upon his bag (which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle Toby about midwifery put him in mind of it)—the very same thought oc

curred. 'Tis God's mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs Shandy has had so bad a time of it, -else she might have been brought to bed seven times told, before one half of these knots could have got untied.

But here, you must distinguish - the thought floated only in Dr Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards or forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest drive them to one side.

A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother's bed, did the proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that's unfortunate, quoth Dr Slop, unless I make haste, the thing will actually befall me as it is.