——WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small
estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.
My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving
the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand.
—Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather
twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and
fifty pounds half-yearly—(on _Michaelmas_ and _Lady-day_,)—during all
that time.
No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my
father.——And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon
the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest
welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to
fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he
generally gave a loud _Hem!_ rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with
the flat part of his fore finger——inserted his hand cautiously betwixt
his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea
as he parted with it——and seldom could get to the end of the fifty
pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.
Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no
allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down
in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the
force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from
ancestors!
For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had
gradually been taking root in our family.——TRADITION was all along on
its side, and INTEREST was every half-year stepping in to strengthen
it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having
the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange
notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this in
with his mother’s milk. He did his part however.——If education planted
the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it
to perfection.
He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that
he did not conceive how the greatest family in _England_ could stand it
out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short
noses.—And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it
must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same
number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line,
did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the
kingdom.——He would often boast that the _Shandy_ family rank’d very
high in king _Harry_ the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state
engine—he would say—but to that only;——but that, like other families,
he would add——it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never
recovered the blow of my great-grandfather’s nose.——It was an ace of
clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head—and as vile a one for an
unfortunate family as ever turn’d up trumps.
——Fair and softly, gentle reader!——where is thy fancy carrying
thee!——If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather’s nose, I mean
the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands
prominent in his face——and which painters say, in good jolly noses and
well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third——that is,
measured downwards from the setting on of the hair.
——What a life of it has an author, at this pass!