The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle _Toby_, the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves excite in my own --I will answer for it the book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done before it. ----Oh _Tristram!_ _Tristram!_ can this but be once brought about----the credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils which have befallen thee as a man----thou wilt feast upon the one----when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!---- No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours --They are the choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em----assure yourselves, good folks--(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words! ----and that’s the thing I have to _declare_. ------I shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fear----and the thing I _hope_ is, that your worships and reverences are not offended--if you are, depend upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be offended at----that’s my dear _Jenny’s_ way--but who my _Jenny_ is--and which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be _concealed_--it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my chapter of Button-holes----and not one chapter before. And now that you have just got to the end of these[4.14] four volumes----the thing I have to _ask_ is, how you feel your heads? my own akes dismally! ------as for your healths, I know, they are much better. --True _Shandeism_, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and chearfully round. Was I left, like _Sancho Panca_, to choose my kingdom, it should not be maritime--or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of; --no, it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politick as body natural----and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passions, and subject them to reason ------I should add to my prayer--that God would give my subjects grace to be as WISE as they were MERRY; and then should I be the happiest monarch, and they the happiest people under heaven.