Could the world have been sued like a BODY-CORPORATE,—my father had brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to fall foul of individuals about it——as every soul who had mentioned the affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable;——’twas like flying in the very face of his best friends:——And yet to acquiesce under the report, in silence—was to acknowledge it openly,—at least in the opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in contradicting it,—was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the other half.—— ——Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my father. I would shew him publickly, said my uncle _Toby_, at the market cross. ——’Twill have no effect, said my father. C H A P. LVIII ——I’ll put him, however, into breeches, said my father,—let the world say what it will. C H A P. LIX THERE are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern;—which, though they have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and entered upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding this, (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed, poized, and perpended——argued upon——canvassed through——entered into, and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS OF COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could neither have wished it, or done it better. Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of putting me into breeches; which, though determined at once,—in a kind of huff, and a defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been _pro’d_ and _conn’d_, and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month before, in two several _beds of justice_, which my father had held for that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my father and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the breeches,—from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser matters. C H A P. LX THE ancient _Goths_ of _Germany_, who (the learned _Cluverius_ is positive) were first seated in the country between the _Vistula_ and the _Oder_, and who afterwards incorporated the _Herculi_, the _Bugians_, and some other _Vandallick_ clans to ’em—had all of them a wise custom of debating every thing of importance to their state, twice, that is,—once drunk, and once sober:——Drunk—that their councils might not want vigour;——and sober—that they might not want discretion.