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 by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings.

—That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it.—But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into this mystery.

With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.

My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it—for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the fore-finger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he