Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/63

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[57]

I'll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur;—though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing,—as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the whole set of 'em are so hung round and befetish'd with the bobs and trinkets of criticism,—or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity,—for I have fetch'd it as far as from the coast of Guinea;—their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick'd and tortured to death by 'em.

—And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all rule, my Lord,—most ungrammatically! be-twixt