Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 1).pdf/146

 —Pray what was that man's name,—for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to recollect or look for it,—who first made the observation, "That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?" Whoever he was, 'twas a just and good observation in him.—But the corollary drawn from it, namely, "That it is this which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and whimsical characters;"—that was not his;—it was found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him:—Then again,—that this copious store-house of original materials, is the true and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of France, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the Continent:—that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of King William's reign,—when the great Dryden,