CHAPTER XXXII

Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby_. --Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim’s_ saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby_. --Ask him, Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.----

--The fifth Commandment, _Trim_--said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent. --You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command: ----The fifth--------cried my uncle _Toby_. --I must begin with the first, an’ please your honour, said the corporal.----

--_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling. --Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position, --that ’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.--

“_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion.--

“_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both of adjutant and private man.

“_Rest your firelock_;” --one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see leads into another. --If his honour will begin but with the _first_--

THE FIRST--cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side-- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE SECOND--cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment. --The corporal went through his _manual_ with exactness! and having _honoured his father and mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.

Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest, --and has wit in it, and instruction too, --if we can but find it out.

--Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, without the BUILDING behind it.

--Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true dimensions.--

Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!

--SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE, BUT WISDOM NOT.

_Yorick_ thought my father inspired. --I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah’s_ legacy in charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated. --Prythee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to him, --What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_”

Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three half-pence a day out of my pay, when they grow old. --And didst thou do that, _Trim?_ said _Yorick_. --He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby_. --Then, _Trim_, said _Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue_; and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had a hand in the _Talmud_ itself.

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