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tied with a black ribband about his neck, and kiss'd it twice.Here, Billy, faid he,--the boy flew across the room to the bed fide,-and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand, and kifled it too,then kiffed his father, and fat down upon the bed and wept.

"I wish, faid my uncle Toby, with a deep figh,—I wish, Trim, I was afleep.

"Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned;-fhall I pour your honour out a glafs of fack to your pipe? Do, Trim, faid my uncle Toby.

"I remember, faid my uncle Toby, fighing again, the ftory of the enfign and his wife, with a circumftance his modefty omitted;-and particularly well that he, as well as fhc, upon fome account or other, (I forget what) was univerfally pitied by the whole regiment; but finifh the ftory thou art upon.- 'Tis finifhed already, faid the corporal, -for I could ftay no longer,-fo wifhed his honour a good night: young Le Fever role from off the bed, and faw me to the bottom of the ftairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in Flanders. But alas! faid the

corpora',-the lieutenant's laft day's march is over. Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle Toby.

"It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,— -though I tell it only for the fake of thofe, who, when coop'd in betwixt a natural and a pofitive law, know not for their fouls, which way in the world to turn themselves.-That notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the fiege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who preffed theirs on fo vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner-that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterfcarp,-and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and, except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be faid to have turned the fiege of Dendermond into a blockade, he left Dendermond to itfelf,- -to be relieved or not by the French King, as the French King thought good; and only confidered how he himself fhould relieve the poor lieutenant and his fon,

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That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendlefs, fhall recompenfe thee for this.

"Thou

"Thou haft left this matter fhort, faid my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee in what, Trim.In the first place, when thou madeft an offer of my fervice to Le Fever, as fickness and travelling are both expenfive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a fon to fubfift as well as himself, out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purfe; because, had he ftood in need, thou knoweft, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.- Your honour knows, faid the corporal, I had no orders.-True, quoth my uncle Toby,-thou didst very right, Trim, as a foldier,— but certainly very wrong as a man.

when thou

"In the fecond place, for which, indeed, thou haft the fame excufe, continued my uncle Toby, offeredst him whatever was in my houfe, thou fhouldst have offered him my house too :- A fick brother officer fhould have the beft quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,-we could tend and look to him. Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim,-and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and fet him upon his legs.

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In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, fmiling, he might march. He will never march, an' please your honour, in this world, faid the corporal. He will march, faid my uncle Toby, rifing up ftom the side of the bed, with one fhoe off.. An' please your honour, faid the corporal, he will never march, but to his grave. — He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,-he fhall march to his regiment. He cannot ftand it, faid the corporal. He shall be supported, faid my uncle Toby.He'll drop at laft, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy?He shall not drop, faid my uncle Toby, firmly. A-well-o'day,-do what we can for him, faid Trim, maintaining his point,the poor foul will die. He fhall not die, by G! cried my uncle Toby. "The ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in ;and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

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My uncle Toby went to his bureau,put his purfe into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the cor

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poral

poral to go early in the morning for a phyfician, he went to bed, and fell asleep.

"The fun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his afflicted fon's; the hand of death prefs'd heavy upon his eye-lids,and hardly could the wheel at the ciftern turn round its circle,-when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, fat himself down upon the chair by the bed fide, and independantly of all modes and cuftoms, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and afked him how he did,- -how he had refted in the night,what was his complaint, where was his

pain, and what he could do to help him?and without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him.—— You fhall go home directly, Le Fever, and we'll fend for a -and we'll have an apo

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faid my uncle Toby, to my house, doctor to see what's the matter,thecary, and the corporal fhall be your nurse,and I'll be your fervant, Le Fever.

"There was a franknefs in my uncle Toby,not the effect of familiarity, but the caufe of it,which let you at once into his foul, and fhewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was fomething in his looks, and voice, and manner, fuperadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; fo that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the fon infenfibly preffed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits

-rallied he

of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and flow within him, and were retreating to their laft citadel, the heart,back,- -the film forfook his eyes for a moment, looked up wifhfully in my uncle Toby's face,then cast a look upon his boy,—and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.

"Nature inftantly ebb'd again, the film returned to its place, the pulfe flutter'd-ftopp'd-went onftopp'd again.

throbb'd

hall I go on?. -No."

-moved

-stopp'd

Such is the affecting ftory of Le Fever; who was attended by his fon and uncle Toby, as chief mourners to the grave.

Since Mr. Sterne published his Sermons, we have been of opinion, that his excellence lay not fo much in the humorous as in the pathetic; and in this opinion we have been confirmed by the above story of Le Fever. We appeal to the Heart of every reader whether our judgment is not right?

La

Fingal. An ancient Epic Poem, in fix Books. Together with Jeveral other Poems, compofed by Offian, the Son of Fingal. Tranflated from the Galic Language by James Macpherson. 4to. 10s. 6d. in boards. Becket and De Hondt.

TRANGE as it may feem, that an epic poem, com

STR
S pofed in our own country, above fourteen hundred years

ago, and handed down by tradition from the ancient bards, fhould not have made an earlier appearance in the English language, it had been yet ftranger, if the prefent publication of fo uncommon a production had failed to engage the attention of the literary world. Its extraordinary mcrit, indeed, has not a little contributed to increase that admiration, which must be naturally excited by fo great a curiofity. The fenfible pleasure we ourselves received in the perusal, makes us readily fubfcribe to the univerfally-allowed merits of this poem; for which we think the public much obliged to the ingenious Editor, whofe tranflation is very juftly deemed a valuable acquifition to English poetry. We should be wanting, however, in a due regard both to our own character and the justice we owe to our readers, did we implicitly join in that exceffive admiration, which, indifcriminately entertained, even for the beft performances, is diametrically oppofite to the candour of true criticism, and deftructive of the very elements of literary compofition. The noble flights, and native excurfions, of true genius are, indeed, frequently too excentric to be exactly measured by critical rules; nor is it to be wifhed they should be too ftrictly fubjected to such reftraint: it is expedient, nevertheless, that the mechanism and execution of every confiderable performance should be compared with that ftandard, and examined by thofe laws, which have, for many ages, been allowed to conftitute the perfection of that peculiar fpecies of writing, under the denomination of which fuch performance is prefented to the world. Criticifm degenerates, otherwife, into a fervile echo of the leading voices of the times, and gives encouragement for every rifing genius to indulge the luxuriance of his ima

gination,

gination, at the hazard of being hurried, by the impetuofity of unbridled fancy, into bombaft, extravagance, and abfurdity. At the fame time, the taste and judgment of the reader, mifled by fuch general and undistinguishing applaufe, become gradually vitiated, and the very end and design of all critical inftitution thereby totally fubverted.

Were we to judge from the many unsuccessful attemptsthat have been made by poets, in different ages, to reach the dignity and perfection of the Epopeia, we should be apt to conclude it the most difficult, as well as the most perfect, fpecies of poetry. But though we should agree with the Sta. gyrite, that an epic poem is inferior in excellence to a perfect tragedy, yet certain it is, the former requires fuch fuperior faculties of the human mind, as have been feldom found to correfpond with the ftudies and inclinations of those who have undertaken fo arduous a task.

The Iliad of Homer, the father of heroic poefy, as it is the moft ancient, fo it is univerfally allowed to be the moft perfect epic poem extant. It was, indeed, from an examination into the conftruction and execution of Homer's poems, and not from the efforts of intuitive genius, that Aristotle deduced thofe laws, which he has laid down as effential to the Epopeia. In admitting the juftice of thofe laws, therefore, we do not implicitly fubfcribe to any abftract reasonings, founded on arbitrary affumptions, a priori, or to the mere ipfe dixit of the Stagyrite; but to the propriety of those precepts, which he rationally deduced, a pofteriori, from the approved practice of the Grecian bard, and in composing

which

Nature and Homer were, he found, the fame.

Some critics, from a fuperficial knowlege of these rules, have talked of them as if they related only to the form, and not the fpirit, of poetry. This, however, is far from being the cafe; and though we are not, as above hinted, fo prejudiced in favour of the models of antiquity, as to pretend a poetical genius fhould fervilely conform to them in the mere forms of compofition, yet experience is ftrong on our fide, to prove, that fuch as deviate from those effential parts, which compofe the fublime and perfect works of the ancients, will ever fall fhort of their perfection. If Ariofto has been cenfured by fome, for neglecting the established rules of Ariftotle, and juftified by others, as having a right to invent a new fpecies of compofition, the critics on both fides the question may, nevertheless, have been right in their different opinions,

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