Rural England is
truthfully presented, and the political cast of the day is shown in his
references to the war in Flanders. Among the sterling original portraits
are those of Mr. Shandy, the country gentleman, controversial and
consequential; Mrs. Shandy, the nonentity,--the Amelia Osborne and Mrs.
Nickleby of her day; Yorick, the lukewarm, time-serving priest--Sterne
himself: and these are only supplementary characters.
The sieges of towns in the Low Countries, then going on, are pleasantly
connected with that most exquisite of characters, _my Uncle Toby_, who has
a fortification in his garden,--sentry-box, cannon, and all,--and who
follows the great movement on this petty scale from day to day, as the
bulletins come in from the seat of war.
The _Widow Wadman_, with her artless wiles, and the "something in her
eye," makes my Uncle Toby--who protests he can see nothing in the
white--look, not without peril, "with might and main into the pupil." Ah,
that sentry-box and the widow's tactics might have conquered many a more
wary man than my Uncle Toby! and yet my Uncle Toby escaped.
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