and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies, which justice ever
and anon calls him back to stay the reading of:--In short there is no end
of it;--for my own part, I declare I have been at it these six weeks,
making all the speed I possibly could,--and am not yet born:--I have just
been able, and that's all, to tell you when it happen'd, but not how;--so
that you see the thing is yet far from being accomplished.

These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I first
set out;--but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase than diminish
as I advance,--have struck out a hint which I am resolved to follow;--and
that is,--not to be in a hurry;--but to go on leisurely, writing and
publishing two volumes of my life every year;--which, if I am suffered to
go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my bookseller, I shall
continue to do as long as I live.



Chapter 1.XV.

The article in my mother's marriage-settlement, which I told the reader I
was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it, I
think proper to lay before him,--is so much more fully express'd in the
deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be barbarity
to take it out of the lawyer's hand:--It is as follows.

'And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said Walter Shandy,
merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had, and, by
God's blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consummated between the
said Walter Shandy and Elizabeth Mollineux aforesaid, and divers other good
and valuable causes and considerations him thereunto specially moving,--