TRIM can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby._—Pugh!
said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim_’s saying his
Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby._—Ask him,
Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.——
—The fifth Commandment, _Trim_,—said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and
with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood
silent.—You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his
voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command:——The
fifth———cried my uncle _Toby._—I must begin with the first, an’ please
your honour, said the corporal.——
—_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling.—Your reverence does not consider,
said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching
into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,—that ’tis
exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.—
“_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving
the word of command, and performing the motion.—
“_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both
of adjutant and private man.
“_Rest your firelock;_”—one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see
leads into another.—If his honour will begin but with the _first_—
THE FIRST—cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side—* * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.
THE SECOND—cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would
have done his sword at the head of a regiment.—The corporal went
through his _manual_ with exactness; and having _honoured his father
and mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.
Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and has
wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out.
—Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly,
without the BUILDING behind it.
—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors,
gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true
dimensions.—
Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning,
which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!
—SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE BUT WISDOM NOT.
_Yorick_ thought my father inspired.—I will enter into obligations this
moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah_’s legacy in
charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion),
if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he
has repeated.—Prithee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to
him,—What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_”
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my
pay, when they grow old.—And didst thou do that, _Trim_? said
_Yorick._—He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby._—Then, _Trim_, said
_Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the
hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue;_
and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had
a hand in the _Talmud_ itself.