Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/67

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[61]

a single spark of thy own fire along with it,—and send Mercury, with the rules and compasses, if he can be spared, with my compliments to—no matter.

Now to any one else, I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and imprecations, which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two hundred and fifty years last past, as originals,—except St. Paul's thumb,—God's flesh and God's fish, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, 'tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;—else, I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus, a thousand times: but, likes all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spiritof