rludes introduced to amuse us while the stage is
being prepared for one of those more elaborate and deliberate displays
of pathos or humour, which do not always turn out to be unmixed
successes when they come. Sterne prided himself vastly upon the
incident of Le Fevre's death; but I dare say that there is many a
modern reader who would rather have lost this highly-wrought piece of
domestic drama, than that other exquisite little scene in the kitchen
of the inn, when Corporal Trim toasts the bread which the sick
lieutenant's son is preparing for his father's posset, while "Mr.
Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the fire, but said not a word,
good or bad, to comfort the youth." The whole scene is absolute life;
and the dialogue between the Corporal and the parson, as related by
the former to his master, with Captain Shandy's comments thereon, is
almost Shakspearian in its excellence. Says the Corporal:

"When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast he
felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me
know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step
upstairs, I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers,
for there was a book laid on the chair by the bed-side, and as I
shut the door I saw him take up a cushion. I thought, said the curate,
that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers
at all. I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,
said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could
not have believed it. Are you sure of it? replied the curate. A
soldier, an' please your reverence, said I, prays as often (of his own
accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king, and for
his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray
to God of any one in the whole world. 'Twas well said of thee, Trim,
said my Uncle Toby. But when a soldier, said I, an' please your
reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches,
up to his knees in cold water--or engaged, said I, for months together
in long and dangerous marches; harassed, perhaps, in his rear today;
harassing others to-morrow; detached here; countermanded
there; resting this night out upon his arms; beat up in his shirt the
next; benumbed in his joints; perhaps without straw in his tent to
kneel on, [he] must say his prayers how and when he can. I believe,
said I--for I was