Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 1).pdf/31

This page has been validated.

[27]

still more for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones;—when I behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment;—when I see such a one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my love to my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his glory wishes,—then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the first transport of an honest impatience, I wish the Hobby-Horse, with all his fraternity, at the Devil.

My Lord,
"I Maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in the three great essentials of matter,"form,