——“curse him!”—continued Dr. _Slop_,—“and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him” (_Obadiah_) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,—so be it. Amen.” I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, replied Dr. _Slop_.——So am not I, replied my uncle.——But he is cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. _Slop_. I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle _Toby_. Dr. _Slop_ drew up his mouth, and wasjust beginning to return my uncle _Toby_ the compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle——when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one——put an end to the affair. C H A P. V NOW don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too. I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing,——as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and trinkets of criticism,——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;—their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and tortured to death by ’em. —And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all rule, my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in _number, case_, and _gender_, he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.—Admirable grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?——I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer! And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critick! ——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of _Bossu_’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.—Admirable connoisseur!