Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 1).pdf/37

 the bye, of all the  or  I can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world run mad after it.

Bright Goddess,

If thou art not too busy with and Miss  affairs,—take Tristram Shandy's under thy protection also.

Hatever degree of small merit, the act of benignity in favour of the midwife, might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested,—at first sight seems not very material to this history;—certain however it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson's wife, did run away at that time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking but that the parson himself, Rh