am
worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as
ever Cid Hamet offered his--to have stood by, and heard my uncle Toby's
accompanyment.

--'curse him!'--continued Dr. Slop,--'and may heaven, with all the
powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him'
(Obadiah) 'unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,--so
be it. Amen.'

I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the
devil himself with so much bitterness.--He is the father of curses,
replied Dr. Slop.--So am not I, replied my uncle.--But he is cursed, and
damn'd already, to all eternity, replied Dr. Slop.

I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby.

Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle
Toby the compliment of his Whu--u--u--or interjectional whistle--when
the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one--put an end to the
affair.

Chapter 2.V.

Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the
oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and
because we have the spirit to swear them,--imagine that we have had the
wit to invent them too.

I'll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except
to a connoisseur:--though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in
swearing,--as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the whole
set of 'em are so hung round and befetish'd with the bobs and trinkets
of criticism,--or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity--for
I have fetch'd it as far as from the coast of Guiney;--their heads,
Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal
propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had
better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick'd and tortured to
death by 'em.

--And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?--Oh, against all
rule, my lord,--most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the
adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and gender, he
made a breach thus,--stopping, as if the point wanted settling;--and
betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the
verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three
seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.--Admirable
grammarian!--But in suspending his voice--was the sense suspended
likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the
chasm?--