IF I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all
patience for my uncle Toby's character I would here
previously have convinced him, that there is no instrument
so fit to draw such a thing with, as that which I have pitched
upon.
A man and his HOBBY-HORSE , though I cannot say that
they act and re-act exactly after the same manner in which
the soul and body do upon each other: Yet doubtless there
is a communication between them of some kind, and my
i. Pentagraph, an instrument to copy prints and pictures mechanic-
ally, and in any proportion.
opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the
manner of electrified bodies,-and that, by means of the
heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into con-
tact with the back of the HOBBY-HORSE ,-By long jour-
neys and much friction, it so happens that the body of the
rider is at length filled as full of HOBBY-HORSICAL matter
as it can hold;-so that if you are able to give but a clear
description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty
exact notion of the genius and character of the other.
Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle Toby always
rode upon, was in my opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth
giving a description of, if it was only upon the score of his
great singularity;-for you might have travelled from York
to Dover,-from Dover to Penzance in Cornwall, and from
Penzance to York back again, and not have seen such
another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, what-
ever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopped
to have taken a view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of
him was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his
head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was
now and then made a matter of dispute,-whether he was
really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: but as the Philosopher
would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed
with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising
up upon his legs, and walking across the room;-so would
my uncle Toby use no other argument to prove his HOBBY-
HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but by getting upon
his back and riding him about;-leaving the world, after
that, to determine the point as it thought fit.
In good truth, my uncle Toby mounted him with so much
pleasure, and he carried my uncle Toby so well,-that he
troubled his head very little with what the world either said
or thought about it.
It is now high time, however, that I give you a description
of him: -But to go on regularly, I only beg you will give
me leave to acquaint you first, how my uncle Toby came
by him.