op,
of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of
back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a
serjeant in the horse-guards.

Such were the out-lines of Dr. Slop's figure, which--if you have
read Hogarth's analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you
would;--you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to
the mind by three strokes as three hundred.

Imagine such a one,--for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's
figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro' the dirt upon
the vertebrae of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour--but of
strength,--alack!--scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such
a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition.--They were
not.--Imagine to yourself, Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of
a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable
speed the adverse way.

Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.

Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting in a narrow lane
directly towards him, at that monstrous rate,--splashing and plunging
like a devil thro' thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a
phaenomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it,
round its axis,--have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. Slop
in his situation, than the worst of Whiston's comets?--To say nothing of
the Nucleus; that is, of Obadiah and the coach-horse.--In my idea, the
vortex alone of 'em was enough to have involved and carried, if not the
doctor, at least the doctor's pony, quite away with it. What then do you
think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, when you
read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily
along towards Shandy-Hall, and had approached to within sixty yards of
it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle
of the garden-wall,--and in the dirtiest part of a dirty
lane,--when Obadiah and his coach-horse turned the corner, rapid,
furious,--pop,--full upon him!--Nothing, I think, in nature, can be
supposed more terrible than such a rencounter,--so imprompt! so ill
prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was.

What could Dr. Slop do?--he crossed himself + --Pugh!--but the doctor,
Sir, was a Papist.--No matter; he had better have kept hold of the
pummel.--He had so;--nay, as it happened, he had better have done
nothing at all; for in cross