ho was infinitely the better politician,
and took the lead as far of my uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my uncle
Toby took it of him in the field--convinced him, that if the king of
Spain and the Emperor went together by the ears, England and France and
Holland must, by force of their pre-engagements, all enter the lists
too;--and if so, he would say, the combatants, brother Toby, as sure
as we are alive, will fall to it again, pell-mell, upon the old
prize-fighting stage of Flanders;--then what will you do with your
Italian bridge?

--We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle Toby.

When corporal Trim had about half finished it in that style--my uncle
Toby found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly
considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of
it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the
fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was this,
that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it
impowered my uncle Toby to raise it up or let it down with the end of
his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was
as much as he could well spare--but the disadvantages of such a
construction were insurmountable;--for by this means, he would say, I
leave one half of my bridge in my enemy's possession--and pray of what
use is the other?

The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only
at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together,
and stand bolt upright--but that was rejected for the reason given
above.

For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of
that particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally,
to hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage--of
which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires
before its destruction--and one now at Brisac, if I mistake not;--but my
father advising my uncle Toby, with great earnestness, to have nothing
more to do with thrusting bridges--and my uncle foreseeing moreover
that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal's misfortune--he
changed his mind for that of the marquis d'Hopital's invention, which
the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as your
worships may see--Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695--to these a lead weight is
an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of centinels,
inasmuch