——I WONDER what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards
for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour
and a half’s silence, to my uncle _Toby_,——who, you must know, was
sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoaking his social pipe all
the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches
which he had got on:—What can they be doing, brother?—quoth my
father,—we can scarce hear ourselves talk.
I think, replied my uncle _Toby_, taking his pipe from his mouth, and
striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left
thumb, as he began his sentence,——I think, says he:——But to enter
rightly into my uncle _Toby_’s sentiments upon this matter, you must be
made to enter first a little into his character, the out-lines of which
I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father
will go on as well again.
Pray what was that man’s name,—for I write in such a hurry, I have no
time to recollect or look for it,——who first made the observation,
“That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?” Whoever he
was, ’twas a just and good observation in him.—But the corollary drawn
from it, namely, “That it is this which has furnished us with such a
variety of odd and whimsical characters;”—that was not his;—it was
found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then
again,—that this copious store-house of original materials, is the true
and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of
_France_, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the
Continent:——that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of
King _William_’s reign,—when the great _Dryden_, in writing one of his
long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed
toward the latter end of queen _Anne_, the great _Addison_ began to
patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in one
or two of his Spectators;—but the discovery was not his.—Then, fourthly
and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so
strange an irregularity in our characters,——doth thereby, in some sort,
make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the
weather will not suffer us to go out of doors,—that observation is my
own;—and was struck out by me this very rainy day, _March_ 26, 1759,
and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning.
Thus—thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of
our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps
of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical,
physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical,
technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with
fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending as these do, in _ical_)
have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping
upwards towards that Ἀκμὴ of their perfections, from which, if we may
form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we
cannot possibly be far off.
When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of
writings whatsoever;—the want of all kind of writing will put an end to
all kind of reading;—and that in time, _As war begets poverty; poverty
peace_,——must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge,—and
then——we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be
exactly where we started.
———Happy! Thrice happy times! I only wish that the æra of my begetting,
as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter’d,—or
that it could have been put off, with any convenience to my father or
mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in
the literary world might have stood some chance.——
But I forget my uncle _Toby_, whom all this while we have left knocking
the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe.
His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our
atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst
one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too
many strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he
derived the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind
or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I
have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho’ I believe he
had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity,
in my course, when I was a boy,—should never once endeavour to account
for them in this way: for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original
character throughout:——I mean the males,—the females had no character
at all,—except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about sixty years
ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my
father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would often
say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.
It will seem strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle
in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon
guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many
years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of
the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my
father and my uncle _Toby._ One would have thought, that the whole
force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the
family at first,—as is generally the case.—But nothing ever wrought
with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this
happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as
afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done
the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times
and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its
office.——Observe, I determine nothing upon this.——My way is ever to
point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at
the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic
_Fescue_,—or in the decisive manner or _Tacitus_, who outwits himself
and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to
the assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,——and by them
I shall be read,——if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold
out so long,—to the very end of the world.
Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father
and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it
exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between
them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with
great exactness, and is as follows:
My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues
which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and
rectitude,—possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or
never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and
unparallel’d modesty of nature;——though I correct the word nature, for
this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to
a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or
acquir’d.——Whichever way my uncle _Toby_ came by it, ’twas nevertheless
modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to
words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,—but
to things;——and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to
such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be,
even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward
cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the
awe of ours.
You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle _Toby_ had contracted all this
from this very source;—that he had spent a great part of his time in
converse with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and
the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he
had acquired this amiable turn of mind.
I wish I could say so,—for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my
father’s wife and my mother——my uncle _Toby_ scarce exchanged three
words with the sex in as many years;——no, he got it, Madam, by a
blow.——A blow!—Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke
off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur,
which struck full upon my uncle _Toby_’s groin.—Which way could that
effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;—but it
would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.——’Tis
for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its
proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you:—’Till then, it is
not in my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more
than what I have said already,——That my uncle _Toby_ was a gentleman of
unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and
rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,——they both so
wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the
affair of my aunt DINAH touch’d upon, but with the greatest
emotion.——The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into
his face;—but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed
companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged
him to do,—the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the
family, would set my uncle _Toby_’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and
he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern
imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him any thing in
the world, only to let the story rest.
My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle
_Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done
any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of
another, to have made my uncle _Toby_’s heart easy in this, or any
other point. But this lay out of his power.
——My father, as I told you was a philosopher in
grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt _Dinah_’s affair was a
matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the
planets to _Copernicus_:—The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit
fortified the _Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the
backslidings of my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in
establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever
hereafter be called the _Shandean System_, after his.
In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a
sense of shame as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say,
_Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have
taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they
owed, as they thought, to truth.—_Amicus Plato_, my father would say,
construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus
Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt;—_sed magis amica veritas_—but TRUTH
is my sister.
This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the
source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the
tale of family disgrace recorded,——and the other would scarce ever let
a day pass to an end without some hint at it.
For God’s sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry,——and for my sake, and for
all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_,—do let this story of our
aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;——how can you,——how can you have so
little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?——What is
the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would
reply.——Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family?——The
life of a family!—my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself back in
his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg——Yes,
the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many
thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all
civilized countries at least)——and considered as nothing but common
air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my
uncle _Toby_ would answer,—every such instance is downright MURDER, let
who will commit it.——There lies your mistake, my father would
reply;——for, in _Foro Scientiæ_ there is no such thing as MURDER,——’tis
only DEATH, brother.
My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of
argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of
_Lillebullero._——You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his
passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him:——but
especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offered.
As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon
them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this
particular species of argument.—I here take the liberty to do it
myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion
in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every
other species of argument———as the _Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex
Absurdo, ex Fortiori_, or any other argument whatsoever:——And,
secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head
is laid to rest,——that their learn’d grandfather’s head had been busied
to as much purpose once, as other people’s;—That he had invented a
name, and generously thrown it into the TREASURY of the _Ars Logica_,
for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And,
if the end of disputation is more to silence than convince,—they may
add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.
I do, therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it
be known and distinguished by the name and title of the _Argumentum
Fistulatorium_, and no other;—and that it rank hereafter with the
_Argumentum Baculinum_ and the _Argumentum ad Crumenam_, and for ever
hereafter be treated of in the same chapter.
As for the _Argumentum Tripodium_, which is never used but by the woman
against the man;—and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is
made use of by the man only against the woman;—As these two are enough
in conscience for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best
answer to the other,—let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of
in a place by themselves.