4. No writer is so happy as Sterne in the unexaggerated and truly natural representation of that species of slander, which consists in gossiping about our neighbours, as whetstones of our moral discrimination; as if they were conscience-blocks which we used in our apprenticeship, in order not to waste such precious materials as our own consciences in the trimming and shaping of ourselves by self-examination:-- Alas o'day!--had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman!) had but her wish in going up to town just to lie in and come down again; which, they say, she begged and prayed for upon her bare knees, and which, in my opinion, considering the fortune which Mr. Shandy got with her, was no such mighty matter to have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been alive at this hour. (Vol. i. c. 18.) 5. When you have secured a man's likings and prejudices in your favour, you may then safely appeal to his impartial judgment. In the following passage not only is acute sense shrouded in wit, but a life and a character are added which exalt the whole into the dramatic:-- "I see plainly, Sir, by your looks" (or as the case happened) my father would say--"that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine--which, to those," he would add, "who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom,--I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it; and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you, not as a party in the dispute, but as a judge, and trusting my appeal upon it to your good sense and candid disquisition in this matter; you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as most men; and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into you, of a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely because it wants friends. Your son,--your dear son,--from whose sweet and open temper you have so much to expect,--your Billy, Sir!-- would you, for the world, have called him JUDAS? Would you, my dear Sir," he would say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,--and in that soft and irresistible 'piano' of voice which the nature of the 'argumentum ad hominem' absolutely requires,--"Would you, Sir, if a 'Jew' of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration of him? O my God!" he would say, looking up, "if I know your temper rightly, Sir, you are incapable of it;--you would have trampled upon the offer;--you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head with abhorrence. Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous contempt of money, which you show me in the whole transaction, is really noble;--and what renders it more so, is the principle of it;--the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of