CHAPTER XXXI

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of _Utrecht_, it was within a point of giving my uncle _Toby_ a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet _Calais_ itself left not a deeper scar in _Mary’s_ heart, than _Utrecht_ upon my uncle _Toby’s_. To the end of his life he never could hear _Utrecht_ mentioned upon any account whatever, --or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the _Utrecht Gazette_, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great MOTIVE-MONGER, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying, --for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself--would always console my uncle _Toby_ upon these occasions, in a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle _Toby_ grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his _hobby-horse_. ----Never mind, brother _Toby_, he would say, --by God’s blessing we shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does, --the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play. ----I defy ’em, my dear _Toby_, he would add, to take countries without taking towns, ----or towns without sieges.

My uncle _Toby_ never took this back-stroke of my father’s at his hobby-horse kindly. ----He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle _Toby_ was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary: ----I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again. --He was not eloquent, --it was not easy to my uncle _Toby_ to make long harangues, --and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle _Toby_, for a time, was at least equal to _Tertullus_----but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle _Toby’s_, which he had delivered one evening before him and _Yorick_, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father’s papers, with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus [ ], and is endorsed,

MY BROTHER TOBY’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS OWN PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT IN WISHING TO CONTINUE THE WAR

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle _Toby’s_ a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence, --and shows so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.

##