chapter I

was obliged to tear out, was the description of this cavalcade, in which Corporal _Trim_ and _Obadiah_, upon two coach-horses a-breast, led the way as slow as a patrole----whilst my uncle _Toby_, in his laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep roads and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and arms, as each could get the start.

--But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so much above the stile and manner of anything else I have been able to paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it--but, in my opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a song--but in tune with yourself, madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

--This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well----(as _Yorick_ told my uncle _Toby_ one night) by siege. ----My uncle _Toby_ looked brisk at the sound of the word _siege_, but could make neither head or tail of it.

I’m to preach at court next Sunday, said _Homenas_----run over my notes----so I humm’d over doctor _Homenas’s_ notes--the modulation’s very well----’twill do, _Homenas_, if it holds on at this rate----so on I humm’d----and a tolerable tune I thought it was; and to this hour, may it please your reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an air in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly, --it carried my soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as _Montaigne_ complained in a parallel accident)--had I found the declivity easy, or the ascent accessible------certes I had been outwitted. ------Your notes, _Homenas_, I should have said, are good notes; ----but it was so perpendicular a precipice------so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first note I humm’d I found myself flying into the other world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into it again.

[-->] A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size--take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one. --And so much for tearing out of chapters.

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