FROM this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the _Shandy_
family——and it is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE
and my OPINIONS sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have
but been clearing the ground to raise the building——and such a building
do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was
executed since _Adam._ In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my
pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left
remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it—I have but half a
score things to do in the time——I have a thing to name——a thing to
lament——a thing to hope——a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten—I
have a thing to suppose—a thing to declare——a thing to conceal——a thing
to choose, and a thing to pray for——This chapter, therefore, I _name_
the chapter of THINGS——and my next chapter to it, that is, the first
chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon
WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my works.
The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me,
that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards
which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire;
and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle
_Toby_, the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so
Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the
same impressions to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves
excite in my own—I will answer for it the book shall make its way in
the world, much better than its master has done before it.——Oh
_Tristram! Tristram!_ can this but be once brought about——the credit,
which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many
evils will have befallen thee as a man——thou wilt feast upon the
one——when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!——
No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours—They are the
choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em——assure
yourselves, good folks—(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes
offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my
words!——and that’s the thing I have to _declare._——I shall never get
all through in five minutes, that I fear——and the thing I _hope_ is,
that your worships and reverences are not offended—if you are, depend
upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be
offended at——that’s my dear _Jenny_’s way—but who my _Jenny_ is—and
which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to
be _concealed_—it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my
chapter of Button-holes——and not one chapter before.
And now that you have just got to the end of these[21] three
volumes——the thing I have to _ask_ is, how you feel your heads? my own
akes dismally!——as for your healths, I know, they are much better.—True
_Shandeism_, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs,
and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces
the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its
channels, makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round.
Was I left, like _Sancho Pança_, to choose my kingdom, it should not be
maritime—or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of;—no, it should be a
kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more
saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours,
have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politick as body
natural——and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those
passions, and subject them to reason——I should add to my prayer—that
God would give my subjects grace to be as WISE as they were MERRY; and
then should I be the happiest monarch, and they are the happiest people
under heaven.
And so with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and
your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month,
when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the mean time) I’ll have
another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you
little dream of.
[21] According to the preceding Editions.