ea-combats, at that period, but in many of their most memorable sieges
in Spain and Barbary--And all the world knows, that Friar Bacon had
wrote expressly about it, and had generously given the world a receipt
to make it by, above a hundred and fifty years before even Schwartz was
born--And that the Chinese, added my uncle Toby, embarrass us, and all
accounts of it, still more, by boasting of the invention some hundreds
of years even before him--

They are a pack of liars, I believe, cried Trim--

--They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle Toby, in this
matter, as is plain to me from the present miserable state of military
architecture amongst them; which consists of nothing more than a fosse
with a brick wall without flanks--and for what they gave us as a bastion
at each angle of it, 'tis so barbarously constructed, that it looks for
all the world--Like one of my seven castles, an' please your honour,
quoth Trim.

My uncle Toby, tho' in the utmost distress for a comparison, most
courteously refused Trim's offer--till Trim telling him, he had half a
dozen more in Bohemia, which he knew not how to get off his hands--my
uncle Toby was so touch'd with the pleasantry of heart of the
corporal--that he discontinued his dissertation upon gun-powder--and
begged the corporal forthwith to go on with his story of the King of
Bohemia and his seven castles.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles, Continued.

This unfortunate King of Bohemia, said Trim,--Was he unfortunate, then?
cried my uncle Toby, for he had been so wrapt up in his dissertation
upon gun-powder, and other military affairs, that tho' he had desired
the corporal to go on, yet the many interruptions he had given, dwelt
not so strong upon his fancy as to account for the epithet--Was he
unfortunate, then, Trim? said my uncle Toby, pathetically--The corporal,
wishing first the word and all its synonimas at the devil, forthwith
began to run back in his mind, the principal events in the King of
Bohemia's story; from every one of which, it appearing that he was the
most fortunate man that ever existed in the world--it put the corporal
to a stand: for not caring to retract his epithet--and less to explain
it--and least of all, to twist his tale (like men of lore) to serve a
system--he looked up in my uncle Toby's face for assistance--but seeing
it was the very thing my uncle Toby sat in expectation of himself--after
a hum and a haw, he went on-