————And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too—so look to
yourselves.
’Tis either _Plato_, or _Plutarch_, or _Seneca_, or _Xenophon_, or
_Epictetus_, or _Theophrastus_, or _Lucian_—or some one perhaps of
later date—either _Cardan_, or _Budæus_, or _Petrarch_, or _Stella_—or
possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. _Austin_,
or St. _Cyprian_, or _Barnard_, who affirms that it is an irresistible
and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children—and
_Seneca_ (I’m positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate
themselves best by that particular channel—And accordingly we find,
that _David_ wept for his son _Absalom_—_Adrian_ for his
_Antinous_—_Niobe_ for her children, and that _Apollodorus_ and _Crito_
both shed tears for _Socrates_ before his death.
My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from
most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the
_Hebrews_ and the _Romans_—or slept it off, as the _Laplanders_—or
hanged it, as the _English_, or drowned it, as the _Germans_,—nor did
he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or
lillabullero it.——
——He got rid of it, however.
Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these
two pages?
When _Tully_ was bereft of his dear daughter _Tullia_, at first he laid
it to his heart,—he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his
own unto it.—O my _Tullia!_ my daughter! my child!—still, still,
still,—’twas O my _Tullia!_—my _Tullia!_ Methinks I see my _Tullia_, I
hear my _Tullia_, I talk with my _Tullia._—But as soon as he began to
look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent
things might be said upon the occasion—no body upon earth can conceive,
says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.
My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could
be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at
present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength—and his
weakness too.——His strength—for he was by nature eloquent; and his
weakness—for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in
life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise
thing, a witty, or a shrewd one—(bating the case of a systematic
misfortune)—he had all he wanted.—A blessing which tied up my father’s
tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were
pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the
two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as _ten_, and
the pain of the misfortune but as _five_—my father gained half in half,
and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen
him.
This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in
my father’s domestic character; and it is this, that, in the
provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or
other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the
duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture.
My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a
most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his
own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his
pad every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared,
broke,—and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some
neglect or other in _Obadiah_, it so fell out, that my father’s
expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly
a beast of the kind as ever was produced.
My mother and my uncle _Toby_ expected my father would be the death of
_Obadiah_—and that there never would be an end of the disaster——See
here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have
done!——It was not me, said _Obadiah._——How do I know that? replied my
father.
Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee—the _Attic_ salt
brought water into them—and so _Obadiah_ heard no more about it.
Now let us go back to my brother’s death.
Philosophy has a fine saying for every thing.—For _Death_ it has an
entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father’s
head, that ’twas difficult to string them together, so as to make any
thing of a consistent show out of them.—He took them as they came.
“’Tis an inevitable chance—the first statute in _Magna Charta_—it is an
everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother,—_All must die._
“If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder,—not that
he is dead.
“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.
“—_To die_, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and
monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and
the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have
erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller’s
horizon.” (My father found he got great ease, and went on)—“Kingdoms
and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and
when those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them
together, performed their several evolutions, they fall back.”—Brother
_Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, laying down his pipe at the word
_evolutions_—Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father,—by heaven! I meant
revolutions, brother _Toby_—evolutions is nonsense.——’Tis not
nonsense—said my uncle _Toby._——But is it not nonsense to break the
thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my father—do
not—dear _Toby_, continued he, taking him by the hand, do not—do not, I
beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.——My uncle _Toby_ put his
pipe into his mouth.
“Where is _Troy_ and _Mycenæ_, and _Thebes_ and _Delos_, and
_Persepolis_ and _Agrigentum?_”—continued my father, taking up his book
of post-roads, which he had laid down.—“What is become, brother _Toby_,
of _Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, of _Cizicum_ and _Mitylenæ?_ The fairest
towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are
left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling
themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be
forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night: the
world itself, brother _Toby_, must—must come to an end.
“Returning out of _Asia_, when I sailed from _Ægina_ towards _Megara_,”
(_when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby_,) “I began to view
the country round about. _Ægina_ was behind me, _Megara_ was before,
_Pyræus_ on the right hand, _Corinth_ on the left.—What flourishing
towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that
man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as
this lies awfully buried in his presence——Remember, said I to myself
again—remember thou art a man.”—
Now my uncle _Toby_ knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of
_Servius Sulpicius_’s consolatory letter to Tully.—He had as little
skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of
antiquity.—And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the _Turkey_
trade, had been three or four different times in the _Levant_, in one
of which he had stayed a whole year and an half at _Zant_, my uncle
_Toby_ naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had
taken a trip across the _Archipelago_ into _Asia;_ and that all this
sailing affair with _Ægina_ behind, and _Megara_ before, and _Pyræus_
on the right hand, &c. &c. was nothing more than the true course of my
father’s voyage and reflections.—’Twas certainly in his _manner_, and
many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon
worse foundations.—And pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying the
end of his pipe upon my father’s hand in a kindly way of
interruption—but waiting till he finished the account—what year of our
Lord was this?—’Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father.—That’s
impossible, cried my uncle _Toby._—Simpleton! said my father,—’twas
forty years before Christ was born.
My uncle _Toby_ had but two things for it; either to suppose his
brother to be the wandering _Jew_, or that his misfortunes had
disordered his brain.—“May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him
and restore him!” said my uncle _Toby_, praying silently for my father,
and with tears in his eyes.
—My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his
harangue with great spirit.
“There is not such great odds, brother _Toby_, betwixt good and evil,
as the world imagines”——(this way of setting off, by the bye, was not
likely to cure my uncle _Toby_’s suspicions).——“Labour, sorrow, grief,
sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life.”—Much good may do
them—said my uncle _Toby_ to himself.——
“My son is dead!—so much the better;—’tis a shame in such a tempest to
have but one anchor.
“But he is gone for ever from us!—be it so. He is got from under the
hands of his barber before he was bald—he is but risen from a feast
before he was surfeited—from a banquet before he had got drunken.
“The _Thracians_ wept when a child was born,”—(and we were very near
it, quoth my uncle _Toby_,)—“and feasted and made merry when a man went
out of the world; and with reason.——Death opens the gate of fame, and
shuts the gate of envy after it,—it unlooses the chain of the captive,
and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands.
“Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll shew
thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.”
Is it not better, my dear brother _Toby_, (for mark—our appetites are
but diseases,)—is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not
to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?
Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and
melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a
galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his
journey afresh?
There is no terrour, brother _Toby_, in its looks, but what it borrows
from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of noses and the wiping
away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s
room.—Strip it of these, what is it?—’Tis better in battle than in bed,
said my uncle _Toby._—Take away its hearses, its mutes, and its
mourning,—its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aids—What is
it?—_Better in battle!_ continued my father, smiling, for he had
absolutely forgot my brother _Bobby_—’tis terrible no way—for consider,
brother _Toby_,—when we _are_—death is _not;_—and when death _is_—we
are _not._ My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to consider the
proposition; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for any
man—away it went,—and hurried my uncle _Toby_’s ideas along with it.——
For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to recollect, how
little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have
made.—_Vespasian_ died in a jest upon his close-stool—_Galba_ with a
sentence—_Septimus Severus_ in a dispatch—_Tiberius_ in dissimulation,
and _Cæsar Augustus_ in a compliment.—I hope ’twas a sincere one—quoth
my uncle _Toby._
—’Twas to his wife,—said my father.