 man of much the same temper and way
of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to blisters, as
imagining that half a dozen of 'em on at once, would draw a man as surely to his
grave, as a herse and six - rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing
in the world, but one great bouncing Cantharidis. --
    I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty
in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out (that is polemically) to Philagrius --
    »Eyge!« O rare! 'tis fine reasoning, Sir, indeed! - »oti pilosopeis en
Patesi« -- and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about it in
your moods and passions.
    Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to enquire,
whether love is a disease, -- or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides,
whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver; - because this would lead me
on, to an examination of the two very opposite manners, in which patients have
been treated -- the one, of Aoetius, who always begun with a cooling glyster of
hempseed and bruised cucumbers; - and followed on with thin potations of snuff,
of the herb Hanea; - and where Aoetius durst venture it, - his topaz-ring.
    -- The other, that of Gordonius, who (in his cap. 15. de Amore) directs they
should be thrashed, »ad putorem usque,« -- till they stink again.
    These are disquisitions, which my father, who had laid in a great stock of
knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with, in the progress of my uncle
Toby's affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his theories of love,
(with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby's mind, almost as
much as his amours themselves) - he took a single step into practice; - and by
means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he found means to impose upon the taylor
for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he
produced Gordonius's effect upon my uncle Toby without the disgrace.
    What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is
needful to be added to the anecdote, is this, -- That whatever effect it had
upon my uncle Toby, -- it had a vile effect upon the house; -- and if my uncle
Toby had not
