ILLUSTRATIONS, &c. CHAPTER VII. Uncle Toby's hobby-horse-Amours— Story of Sorlisi. ST Augustine has said very justly, in his Confessions, that the trifling of adults is called business: majorum nuga negotia vocantur. The present times are peculiarly indulgent in this respect. What the last age denominated follies, or hobby-horses, we style collections: Uncle Toby's library would have required no apology, among the hunters of old ballads, and church-wardens' bills of our day. I am sensible that a much better defence might be made for him: it would be easy to prove the utility of his studies, and to shew, not only that the fate of empires has sometimes depended on the construction of the retired flank of a bastion, but that without some portion of his knowledge, it is impossible to understand completely some of the most interesting passages in modern history. But I am aware that this "sweet fountain of knowledge," as Sterne names it, is relished by few: it is "caviar" to the generality of readers. They will probably feel more interest in the curious coincidence between the story of Widow Wadman, and one which made a great noise in Germany, a little after the middle of the last century. The origin of the lady's distress was nearly the same, but her conduct was very different from that of Sterne's heroine, and did the high est honour to her purity. The misadventure of the gentleman happened only, . thirty-six years before the siege of Namur* by King William, where Sterne laid the scene of Uncle Toby's wound. The distresses of this pair, who may be almost termed the Abelard and Heloïse of Germany (saving that they prosecuted their affections with the strictest virtue, en tout * I am in possession of a very curious account of the siege of Namur, published under the immediate direction of King William 1. in 1695. . It is a thin folio, of sixty-one pages, with very beautiful plans, engraved by order of the king. If the late Lord Orford had seen this work, he would perhaps have given William a place among the Royal authors. Much personal pique entered into the contests between that hero, and Louis XIV. I consider this book as a proof of it. When Louis took Namur, he published a splendid account of the siege, in folio. The work which I am describing was William's retort, and it concludes with a triumphant, though dignified enumeration of the increased difficulties, under which the fortress was recovered from the French arms. One of the plans represents the movements of the covering, aud observing armies, and bears for its device, the conceit of lions tearing cocks in pieces, which Sir John Vanbrugh was blamed for adopting, afterwards, at Blenheim. It is difficult to say, whether the inventor or imitator of such a Rebus had the worse taste. Vanbrugh has shewed that he was capable of much better things.......... |