ur Lordship.

I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate
this work to you, I join Lady Spencer, in the liberty I take of
inscribing the story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other
motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a
humane one.

I am, My Lord, Your Lordship's most devoted and most humble Servant,

Laur. Sterne.

Chapter 3.I.

If it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of
a postillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had
never entered my head. He flew like lightning--there was a slope of
three miles and a half--we scarce touched the ground--the motion was
most rapid--most impetuous--'twas communicated to my brain--my heart
partook of it--'By the great God of day,' said I, looking towards the
sun, and thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the chaise, as I
made my vow, 'I will lock up my study-door the moment I get home, and
throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the earth, into the
draw-well at the back of my house.'

The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering
upon the hill, scarce progressive, drag'd--drag'd up by eight heavy
beasts--'by main strength!--quoth I, nodding--but your betters draw the
same way--and something of every body's!--O rare!'

Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk--so
little to the stock?

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by
pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever
in the same track--for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as
working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning, as monks do the
relicks of their saints--without working one--one single miracle with
them?

Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a
moment--that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the
world--the miracle of nature, as Zoroaster in his book (Greek) called
him--the Shekinah of the divine presence, as Chrysostom--the image of
God, as Moses--the ray of divinity, as Plato--the marvel of marvels,
as Aristotle--to go sneaking on at this pitiful--pimping--pettifogging
rate?

I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion--but if there is
no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that
every