CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I HAVE a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very
nonsensically, and I will not baulk my fancy,-Accordingly
I set off thus:
If the fixture of Momus's glass in the human breast,
according to the proposed emendation of that arch-critic,
had taken place,-first, This foolish consequence would
certainly have followed,-That the very wisest and the very
gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid
window-money every day of our lives.
And, secondly, That had the said glass been there set up,
nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have
taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone
softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and looked in,
-viewed the soul stark naked;-observed aR her motions,
-her machinations;-traced all her maggots from their first
engendering to their crawling forth;-Watched her loose
in her frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some
notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon
such frisks, &c-then taken your pen and ink and set
down nothing but what you have seen, and could have
sworn to: -But this is an advantage not to be had by the
biographer in this planet;-in the planet Mercury (belike)
it may be so, if not better still for him;-for there the
intense heat of the country, which is proved by computa-
tors, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than equal to
that of red-hot iron,-must, I think, long ago have vitrified
the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit
them for the climate (which is the final cause); so that, be-
twixt them both, all the tenements of their souls, from top
to bottom, may be nothing else, for aught the soundest philo-
sophy can shew to the contrary, but one fine transparent
body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot);-so that, till
the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby
the rays of light, in passin g through them, become so mon-
strously refracted, r return reflected from their sur-
faces in such transverse lines to the eye, that a man cannot
be seen through;-his soul might as well, unless, for
more ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the
umbilical point gave her,-might, upon all other accounts,
I say, as well play the fool out o? doors as in her own
house.
But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants
of this earth;-our minds shine not through the body, but
are wrapt up here in a dark covering of uncrystallized flesh
and blood; so that, if we would come to the specific charac-
ters of them, we must go some other way to work.
Many, in good truth, are the ways which human wit has
been forced to take to do this thing with exactness.
Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind
instruments.-Virgil takes notice of that way in the affair
of Dido and Aeneas;-but it is as fallacious as the breath of
fame;-and, moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not
ignorant that the Italians pretend to a mathematical exact-
ness in their designations of one particular sort of character
among them, from the forte or piano of a certain wind
instrument they use,-which they say is infallible.-I dare
not mention the name of the instrument in this place;-'tis
sufficient we have it amongst us,-but never think of making
a drawing by it;-this is enigmatical, and intended to be
so, at least ad populum:-And therefore, I beg, Madam,
when you come here, that you read on as fast as you can,
and never stop to make any enquiry about it.
There are others again, who will draw a man's character
from no other helps in the world, but merely from his evacu-
ations;-but this often gives a very incorrect outline,-un-
less, indeed, you take a sketch of his repletions too; and by
correcting one drawing from the other, compound one good
figure out of them both.
I should have no objection to this method, but that I
think it must smell too strong of the lamp,-and be rendered
still more operose, by forcing you to have an eye to the rest
of his Non-Naturals.-Why the most natural actions of a
man's life should be called his Non-Naturals,-is another
question.
There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these
expedients;-not from any fertility of their own, but from
the various ways of doing it, which they have borrowed
from the honourable devices which the Pentagraphic
Brethren I of the brush have shewn in taking copies.-These,
you must know, are your great historians.
One of these you will see drawing a full-length character
against the light;-that's illiberal,dishonest,-and hard
upon the character of the man who sits.
Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you
in the Camera;-that is most unfair of allbecause, there
you are sure to be represented in some of your most ridicu-
lous attitudes.
To avoid all and every one of these errors, in giving you
my uncle Toby's character, I am determined to draw it by
no mechanical help whatever;-nor shall my pencil be
guided by any one wind instrument which ever was blown
upon, either on this, or on the other side of the Alps;-nor
will I consider either his repletions or his discharges,-- are
touch upon his Non-Naturals;-but, in a word, I will draw
my uncle Toby's character from his HOBBY-HORSE.

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