Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/59

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[53]

the interjectional whistle of Hey day! and the word itself.——

—By the golden beard of Jupiter—and of Juno, (if her majesty wore one), and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods, and gods aerial and acquatick,—to say nothing of the beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines, (that is in case they wore 'em)—all which beards, as Varro tells me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than thirty thousand effective beards upon the pagan establishment;—every beard of which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroked and sworn by,—by