Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my opinion a HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the score of his great singularity; --for you might have travelled from _York_ to _Dover_, --from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in _Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp'd to have taken a view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of dispute, ----whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: but as the Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his legs, and walking across the room; --so would my uncle _Toby_ use no other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him about; --leaving the world, after that, to determine the point as it thought fit.

Now the Hobby-Horse which my uncle Toby always rode, was in my opinion well worth describing because of its uniqueness; - for you might have travelled from York to Dover to Penzance, and not have seen one like it. Indeed, so strange, and so utterly unlike any of the species was he, that it might be disputed whether he was really a Hobby-Horse at all: but it was proved by my uncle Toby's getting upon his back and riding him about.
