 this should be lost. I like
the sermon well, replied my father, -- 'tis dramatic, -- and there is something
in that way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention. --
We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. Slop. - I know that very well, said
my father, - but in a tone and manner which disgusted Dr. Slop, full as much as
his assent, simply, could have pleased him. -- But in this, added Dr. Slop, a
little piqued, -- our sermons have greatly the advantage, that we never
introduce any character into them below a patriarch or a patriarch's wife, or a
martyr or a saint. - There are some very bad characters in this, however, said
my father, and I do not think the sermon a jot the worse for 'em. -- But pray,
quoth my uncle Toby, - who's can this be? - How could it get into my Stevinus? A
man must be as great a conjurer as Stevinus, said my father, to resolve the
second question: - The first, I think, is not so difficult; - for unless my
judgment greatly deceives me, - I know the author, for 'tis wrote, certainly, by
the parson of the parish.
    The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father
constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his
conjecture, -- proving it as strongly, as an argment a priori could prove such a
thing to a philosophic mind, That it was Yorick's and no one's else: -- It was
proved to be so a posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my
uncle Toby's house to enquire after it.
    It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had
borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelessly popp'd his sermon, as
soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and, by an act of
forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his
sermon to keep him company.
    Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second
time, dropp'd thro' an unsuspected fissure in thy master's pocket, down into a
treacherous and a tatter'd lining, - trod deep into the dirt by the left hind
foot of his Rosinante, inhumanly stepping upon
