the little good-natured, "broad-set"
gardener, who acted as the ladies' muleteer, and the recital of the
indiscretions by which he was betrayed into temporary desertion of his
duties. The whole scene is Chaucerian in its sharpness of outline
and translucency of atmosphere: though there, unfortunately, the
resemblance ends. Sterne's manner of saying what we now leave unsaid
is as unlike Chaucer's, and as unlike for the worse, as it can
possibly be.

Still, a certain amount of this element of the _non nominandum_ must
be compounded for, one regrets to say, in nearly every chapter that
Sterne ever wrote; and there is certainly less than the average amount
of it in the seventh volume. Then, again, this volume contains the
famous scene with the ass--the live and genuinely touching, and not
the dead and fictitiously pathetic, animal; and that perfect piece of
comic dialogue--the interview between the puzzled English traveller
and the French commissary of the posts. To have suggested this scene
is, perhaps, the sole claim of the absurd fiscal system of the _Ancien
regime_ upon the grateful remembrance of the world. A scheme of
taxation which exacted posting-charges from a traveller who proposed
to continue his journey by water, possesses a natural ingredient of
drollery infused into its mere vexatiousness; but a whole volume of
satire could hardly put its essential absurdity in a stronger
light than is thrown upon it in the short conversation between the
astonished Tristram and the officer of the fisc, who had just handed
him a little bill for six livres four sous:

"'Upon what account?' said I.

"''Tis upon the part of the King,' said the commissary, heaving
up his shoulders.

"'My good friend,' quoth I, 'as sure as I am I, and you are you--'

"'And who are you?' he said.

"'Don't puzzle me,' said I. 'But it is an indubitable verity,' I
continued, addressing myself to the commissary, changing only the
form of my asseveration,' that I owe the King of France nothing but
my good-will, for he is a very honest man, and I wish him all the health
and pastime in the world.'

"'Pardonnez-moi,' replied the commissary. 'You are indebted to
him six livres four sous for the next post from hence to St. Fons, on
your route to Avignon, which being a post royal, you pay double for
the horses and postilion, otherwise 'twould have amounted to no more
than three livres two sous.'

"'But I don't go by la