is one of the more entertaining scenes of the book, for at every step one or another of the listeners throws in an exclamation which intimates how the words are falling in with his own peculiar train of thought. The result is a delightful cross-section of human nature, as it actually exists. "Our armies swore terribly in _Flanders_, cried my Uncle _Toby_--but nothing to this.--For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so." But it is not this persistent and very human egotism alone which makes the good people of Shandy Hall so real to us. Sterne is the originator and master of the gesture and the attitude. Like a skilful player of puppets, he both puts words into the mouths of his creatures and pulls the wires that move them. No one has ever approached him in the art with which he carries out every mood of the heart and every fancy of the brain into the most minute and precise posturing. Before Corporal Trim reads the sermon his exact attitude is described so that, as the author says, "a statuary might have modelled from it." Throughout all the dialogue between the two contrasted brothers we follow every movement of the speakers, as if we sat with them in the flesh, and when Mr. Shandy breaks his pipe the moment is tense with expectation. But the supreme exhibition of this art occurs at the announcement of Bobby's death. Let us leave Mr. Shandy and my Uncle Toby discoursing over this sad event, and turn to the kitchen. Those who know the scene may pass on: ----My young master in _London_ is dead! said Obadiah.-- ----A green sattin night-gown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah's_ exclamation brought into _Susannah's_ head.... --O! 'twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah_.--My mother's whole wardrobe followed.--What a procession! her red damask,--her orange tawney,--her white and yellow lutestrings,--her brown taffata,--her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats.--Not a rag was left behind.--"_No,--she will never look up again_," said _Susannah_. We had a fat, foolish scullion--my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity;--she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.--He is dead, said _Obadiah_,--he is certainly dead!--So am not I, said the foolish scullion. ----Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as _Trim_ stepp'd into the kitchen,--master _Bobby_ is dead and _buried_--the funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah's_--we shall have all to go into mourning, said _Susannah_.