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that are not clearly mere misprints.
The same principle was used in the e-text. Unless otherwise noted,
spelling, punctuation and capitalization are as in the original.
Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text. Footnotes
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Everyman’s Library
Edited By Ernest Rhys
FICTION
TRISTRAM SHANDY
With An Introduction By
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
This is No. 617 of _EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY_. The Publishers will be
pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published
and projected volumes, arranged under the following sections:
Travel * Science * Fiction
Theology & Philosophy
History * Classical
For Young People
Essays * Oratory
Poetry & Drama
Biography
Reference
Romance
[Decoration]
In four styles of binding: Cloth, Flat Back, Coloured Top;
Leather, Round Corners, Gilt Top; Library Binding in Cloth,
& Quarter Pigskin
London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
[Decorative Text:
A TALE
WHICH
HOLDETH
CHILDREN
FROM PLAY
& OLD MEN
FROM THE
CHIMNEY
CORNER
Sir Philip Sidney]
[Decorative Text:
THE LIFE &
OPINIONS of
TRISTRAM
SHANDY *
GENTLEMAN
By LAURENCE
* STERNE
London & Toronto
J·M·Dent & Sons
Ltd. * New York
E·P·Dutton & Co]
First Issue of this Edition 1912
Reprinted 1915, 1917
INTRODUCTION
It can hardly be said that Sterne was an unfortunate person during his
lifetime, though he seems to have thought himself so. His childhood was
indeed a little necessitous, and he died early, and in debt, after some
years of very bad health. But from the time when he went to Cambridge,
things went on the whole very fairly well with him in respect of
fortune; his ill-health does not seem to have caused him much disquiet;
his last ten years gave him fame, flirting, wandering, and other
pleasures and diversions to his heart’s content; and his debts only
troubled those he left behind him. He delighted in his daughter; he was
able to get rid of his wife, when he was more than usually _fatigatus et
aegrotus_ of her, with singular ease. During the unknown, or almost
unknown, middle of his life he had friends of the kind most congenial to
him; and both in his time of preparation and his time of production in
literature, he was able to indulge his genius in a way by no means
common with men of letters. If his wish to die in a certain manner and
circumstance was only bravado--and borrowed bravado--still it was
granted; and it is quite certain that to him an old age of real illness
would have been unmitigated torture. Even if we admit the ghastly
stories of the fate of his remains, there was very little reason why any
one should not have anticipated Mr. Swinburne’s words on the morrow of
Sterne’s death and said, “Oh! brother, the gods were good to you,”
though even then he might have said it with a sort of mental reservation
on the question whether Sterne had been very good to the gods.
Nemesis, for the purpose of adjusting things, played him the
exceptionally savage trick of using the intervention of his idolised
daughter. Little or nothing seems to be known of “Lydia Sterne de
Medalle,” as she was pleased to sign herself; “Mrs. Medalle,” as her
bluff British contemporaries call her. But that she must have been
either a very silly, a very stupid, or an excessively callous person,
appears certain. It would seem, indeed, to require a combination of the
flightiness and lack of taste which her father too often displayed, with
the stolidity which (from rather unfair inference through Mrs. Shandy)
is sometimes supposed to have characterised her mother, to prompt or
permit a daughter to publish such a collection of letters as those which
were first given to the world in 1775. Charity, not unsupported by
probability, has trusted that Madame de Medalle could not read Latin,
but she certainly could read English; and only an utterly corrupted
heart, or an incurably dense or feather-brained head, could hide from
her the fact that not a few of the English letters she published were
damaging to her father’s character. Her alleged excuse--that her mother,
who was then dead, had desired her, if any letters should be published
under her father’s name, to publish these, and that the “Yorick and
Eliza” correspondence had appeared--is utterly insufficient. For Mrs.
Sterne, of whose conduct we know nothing unfavourable, and one or two
things decidedly to her credit, could only have meant “such of these as
will put your father in a favourable light,” else she would have
published them herself. Yet though Lydia could, while taking no
editorial trouble whatever, go out of her way to make a silly missish
apology for publishing a passage in which her charms and merits are
celebrated, she seems never to have given a thought to what she was
doing in other ways. Nor were Sterne’s misfortunes in this way over with
the publication of these things; for the subsequently discovered
Fourmentelle correspondence sunk him, with precise judges, a little
deeper. No doubt _Tristram Shandy_, the _Sentimental Journey_, and the
curious stories or traditions about their author, were not exactly
calculated to give Sterne a very high reputation with grave authorities.
But it is these unlucky letters which put him almost hopelessly out of
court. Even the slight relenting of fortune which gave him at last, in
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, a biographer very good-natured, very
indefatigable, and with a natural genius for detecting undiscovered
facts and documents, only made matters worse in some ways. And the
consequence is, that it has become a commonplace and almost a necessity
to make up for praising Sterne’s genius by damning his character.
Johnson, while declining to deny him ability, seems to have been too
much disgusted to talk freely about him; Scott’s natural kindliness,
warm admiration for my Uncle Toby, and total freedom from squeamish
prudery, seem yet to have left him ill at ease and tongue-tied in
discussing Sterne; Thackeray, as is well known, exceeded all measure in
denouncing him; and his chief recent critical biographer, Mr. Traill,
who is probably as free from cant, Britannic or other, as any man who
ever wrote in English, speaks his mind in the most unsparing fashion.
For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that I do not think letters of
this kind ought to be published at all; and though it may seem
paradoxical or foolish, I am by no means sure that, if they are
published, they ought to be admitted as evidence. That which is not
written for the public, is no business of the public’s; and I never read
letters of this kind, published for the first time, without feeling like
an eavesdropper.[I.1] Unluckily, the evidence furnished by the letters
fits in only too well with that furnished by the published works, by his
favourite cronies and companions, and by his general reputation, so that
“what the prisoner says” must, no doubt, “be used against him.”
[Footnote I.1: It is perhaps barely necessary to observe that
the parallel does not extend to a further parallel between
republication and tale-bearing. Once published, the thing is
public.]
* * * * *
It may be doubted whether it was accident or his usual deliberate
fantasticality that made Sterne, in the well-known summary of his life
which (very late in it) he drew up for his daughter, devote almost the
whole space to his childhood. Perhaps it may be accounted for,
reasonably enough, by supposing that of his later years he thought his
daughter knew quite as much as he wished her to know, while of the
middle period he had little or nothing to tell. In fact, of the two
earlier divisions we still know very little but what he has chosen to
tell us in one of the most characteristic and not the least charming
excursions of his pen. Laurence Sterne was, with two sisters, the only
“permanent child” (to borrow a pleasant phrase of Mr. Traill’s) out of a
very plentiful but most impermanent family, borne in the most
inconvenient circumstances possible by Agnes Nuttle or Herbert or
Sterne, a widow, and daughter or stepdaughter of a sutler of our army in
Flanders, to Roger, second son of Simon Sterne of Elvington, in
Yorkshire, who was the third son of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of
York. The Sternes were of a gentle if not very distinguished family,
which, after being seated in Suffolk, migrated to Nottinghamshire. After
the promotion of the archbishop (who had been a stout cavalier, as
Master of Jesus at Cambridge, in the bad times), they obtained, as was
fitting, divers establishments by marriage or benefice in Yorkshire
itself. Very little endowment of any kind, however, fell to the lot of
Roger Sterne, who was an ensign in what ranked later as the 34th
regiment. Laurence, his eldest son, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland,
where his mother’s relations lived, and just after his father’s regiment
had been disbanded. It was shortly re-established, however, and became
the most “marching” of all marching corps; for though its headquarters
were generally in Ireland, it was constantly being ordered elsewhere,
and Roger Sterne saw active service both at Vigo and Gibraltar. In this
latter station he fought a duel of an extremely Shandean character
“about a goose.” He was run through the body and pinned to the wall;
whereupon, it is said, he requested his antagonist to be so kind as to
wipe the plaster off the sword before pulling it out of his body. In
despite of this thoughtfulness, however, and of an immediate recovery,
the wound so weakened him that, being ordered to Jamaica, he took fever
and died there in March 1731. As Lawrence had been born on November 24,
1713, he was nearly eighteen; and the family had meanwhile been
increased by four other children who all died, and a youngest daughter,
Catherine, who, like the eldest, Mary, lived. Till he was about nine or
ten the boy followed the exceedingly fluctuating fortunes of his family,
which he diversified further on by falling through, not a millrace, but
a going mill. Then he was sent to school at Halifax, in Yorkshire, and
soon after practically adopted by his cousin Sterne of Elvington, who,
when the time came, sent him to Jesus College at Cambridge, the family
connection with which had begun with his great-grandfather. He was
admitted there on July 6, 1733, being then nearly twenty, and took his
degree of B.A. in 1736, and that of M.A. in 1740. The only tradition of
his school career is his own story that, having written his name on the
school ceiling, he was whipped by the usher, but complimented as a “boy
of genius” by the master, who said the name should never be effaced.
This anecdote, as might be expected, has not escaped the _aqua fortis_
of criticism.
We know practically nothing of Sterne’s Cambridge career except the
dates above mentioned, the fact of his being elected first to a
sizarship and then as founder’s kin to a scholarship endowed by
Archbishop Sterne, and the incident told by himself that he there
contracted his lifelong friendship with a distant relative and fellow
Jesus man, John Hall, or John Hall Stevenson, of whom more presently.
But Sterne had further reason to acknowledge that his family stood
together. He had no sooner taken his degree, than he was taken up by a
brother of his father’s, Jaques Sterne, a great pluralist in the diocese
of York, a very busy and masterful person, and a strong Whig and
Hanoverian. Under his care, Sterne took deacon’s orders in March 1736 at
the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln; and as soon as, two years later, he
had been ordained priest, he was appointed to the living of
Sutton-on-the-Forest, eight miles from York. The uncle and nephew some
years later quarrelled bitterly--according to the latter’s account,
because he would not write “dirty paragraphs in the newspapers,” being
“no party man.” That Sterne would have been particularly squeamish about
what he wrote may be doubted; but it is certain that he shows no
partisan spirit anywhere, and very little interest in politics as such.
However, for some years his uncle was certainly his active patron, and
obtained for him two prebends and some other special preferments in
connection with the diocese and chapter of York, so that he became, as
_Tristram_ shows, intimately acquainted with cathedral society there.
It has been a steady rule in the Anglican Church (if not, as in the
Greek, a _sine quâ non_) that when a man has been provided with a
living, he should, if he has not done so before, provide himself with a
wife; and Sterne was a very unlikely man to break good custom in this
respect. Very soon at least after his ordination he fell in love with
Elizabeth Lumley, a young lady of a good Yorkshire family, and of some
little fortune, which, however, for a time she thought “not enough” to
share with him, but which, as she told him during a fit of illness, she
left to him in her will. On the strength of two quite unauthenticated
and, I believe, not now traceable portraits seen by this or that person
in printshops or elsewhere, she is said to have been plain. Certain
expressions in Sterne’s letters seem to imply that she had a rather
exasperatingly steady and not too intelligent will of her own; and some
twenty or five and twenty years after the marriage, M. Tollot,
a gossiping Frenchman, with French ideas on the duty of husbands and
wives going separate ways, said that she wished to have a finger in
every pie, and pestered “the good and agreeable Tristram” with her
presence. But Sterne, despite his reckless confessions of conjugal
indifference, and worse, says nothing serious or even ill-natured of
her; and one or two traits and sayings of hers, especially her refusal
to listen to a meddlesome person who wished to tell her tales about
“Eliza,” seem to argue sense and dignity. That in the latter years she
cared little to be with a husband who had long been “tired and sick” of
her is not to her discredit. Their daughter, with the almost invariable
ill-luck or ill-judgment which seems to have attended her, printed
certain letters of this courtship time, though she gave nothing for many
years afterwards. The use made of these Strephon or Damon blandishments,
in contrast with the expressions used by the writer of his wife, and of
other women, long afterwards, is perhaps a little unfair; but it must be
admitted that though far too characteristic and amusing to be omitted,
they are anything but brilliant specimens of their kind. In particular,
Thackeray’s bitter fun on the ineffably lackadaisical passage, “My L.
has seen a polyanthus blow in December,” is pretty fully justified.
If, however, the marriage, which, difficulties being removed, took place
on Easter Monday, March 30, 1741, did not bring lasting happiness to
Sterne, it probably brought him some at the time, and it certainly
brought him an accession of fortune; for in addition to what little
money Miss Lumley had, a friend of hers bestowed the additional living
of Stillington on her husband. These various sources of income must have
made a tolerable revenue, which, after the publication of _Tristram_,
was further supplemented by yet another benefice given him by Lord
Falconbridge at Coxwold, a living of no great value, but a pleasant
place of residence. Add to this the profits of his books in the last
eight years of his life, which were for that day considerable, and it
will be seen that, as has been said above, Sterne might have been much
worse off in this world’s goods than he was. He seems, like other
people, to have made some rather costly experiments in farming; and his
way of life latterly, what with his own journeys and sojourns in London,
and the long separate residence of his wife and daughter in France, was
expensive. But he complains little of poverty; and though he died in
debt, much of that debt was due to no fault of his, but to the burning
of the parsonage of Sutton.
It is all the more remarkable in one way, though the absence of any
pressure of want may explain it in another, that Sterne’s great literary
gifts should have remained so long without finding any kind of literary
expression, unless it was in the newspaper way, in respect to which he
first obliged and afterwards disobliged his uncle. There is, I believe,
no dispute about the fact that he distances, and that by many years,
every other man of letters of anything like his rank--except Cowper,
whose affliction puts him out of comparison--in the lateness of his
fruiting time. All but a quarter of a century had passed since he took
his degree when _Tristram Shandy_ appeared; and, putting sermons aside,
the very earliest thing of his known, _The History of a Good Watch
Coat_, only antedated _Tristram_ by two years or rather less. He was no
doubt “making himself all this time;” but the making must have been an
uncommonly slow process. Nor did he, like a good many writers, occupy
the time in preparing what he was afterwards to publish, unless in the
case of a few of his sermons. It is positively known that _Tristram_ was
written merely as it was published, and the _Journey_ likewise. Nor is
even the first by any means a long book. It is as nearly as possible the
same length as Fielding’s _Amelia_ when printed straight on; and even
then more allowance has to be made, not merely for its free and
audacious plagiarisms, but for its constantly broken paragraphs, stars,
dashes, and other trickeries. If it were possible to squeeze it up, as
one squeezes a sponge, into the solid texture of an ordinary book,
I doubt whether it would be very much longer than _Joseph Andrews_.
It will probably be admitted, however, that the idiosyncrasy of the
writings of Sterne’s last and incomplete decade, even if it be in part
only an idiosyncrasy of mannerism, is almost great enough to justify the
nearly three decades of _Lehrjahre_ (starting from his entrance at
Cambridge) which preceded it. It is true that of the actual occupations
of these years we know extremely little--indeed, what we know as
distinguished from what is guesswork and inference is mostly summed up
by Sterne’s own current and curvetting pen thus: “I remained near twenty
years at Sutton, doing duty at both places [_i.e._, Sutton and
Stillington]. I had then very good health. Books, painting, fiddling,
and shooting were my amusements;” to which he adds only that he and the
squire of Sutton were not very good friends, but that at Stillington the
Croft family were extremely kind and amiable. From other sources,
including, it is true, his own letters--though the dates and allusions
of these are so uncertain that they are very doubtful guides--we find
that his chief crony during this period, as during his life, was the
already-mentioned John Hall, who had taken to the name of Stevenson, and
was master of Skelton Castle, a very old and curious house on the border
of the Cleveland moors, not far from the town of Guisborough. The master
of “Crazy” Castle--he liked to give his house this name, which he
afterwards used in entitling his book of _Crazy Tales_--his ways and his
library, have usually been charged with debauching Sterne’s innocent
mind, which I should imagine lent itself to that process in a most
docile and _morigerant_ fashion; but whether this was the case or not,
it is clear that Stevenson bore no very good reputation. It is not
certain, but was asserted, that he had been a monk of Medmenham. He
gathered about him at Skelton a society which, though no such
imputations were made on it as on that of Wilkes and Dashwood, was of a
pretty loose kind; he was a humourist, both in the old and the modern
sense; and his _Crazy Tales_ were, if not very mad, rather sad and bad
exercises of the imagination.
Amid all this dream- and guess-work, almost the only solid facts in
Sterne’s life are the births of two daughters, one in 1745, and the
other two years later. Both were christened Lydia; the first died soon
after she was born, the second lived to be the darling of both her
parents, the object of the most respectable emotions of Sterne’s life,
the wife of an unknown Frenchman, M. de Medalle, and, as has been said,
the probably unwitting destroyer of her father’s last chance of
reputation.
Our exuberant nescience in matters Sternian extends up to the very
publication of _Tristram_, as far as the determining causes of its
production are concerned. It is true that in passages of the letters
Sterne seems to say that his experiment with the pen was prompted by a
desire to make good some losses in farming, and elsewhere that he was
tired of employing his brains for other people’s advantage, as he had
done for some years for an ungrateful person, that is to say, his uncle.
This last passage was written just before _Tristram_ came out; but at no
time was Sterne a very trustworthy reporter of his own motives, and it
would seem that the quarrel with his uncle must have been a good deal
earlier. At any rate, the year 1759 seems to have been spent in writing
the first two volumes of the book, and _The Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, Gent._, published by John Hinxham, Stonegate, York, but
obtainable also from divers London booksellers, appeared on the 1st of
January 1760. I wish Sterne had thought of keeping it till the 1st of
April, which he would probably then have done.
The comparatively short last scenes of his life were as busy and varied
as his long middle course had been outwardly monotonous. Although his
book was nominally published at York, he had gone up to London to
superintend arrangements for its sale there, perhaps not without a hope
of triumph. If so, Fortune chose not to play him her usual tricks. In
York, the extreme personality of the book excited interest of a twofold
and dubious kind; but, to play on some words of Dryden’s, “London liked
grossly” and swallowed _Tristram Shandy_ whole with singular avidity.
Its author came to town just in time to enjoy the results of this, and
was one of the chief lions of the season of 1760, a position which he
enjoyed with a childish frankness that is not the least pleasant thing
in his history. One, probably of the least important, though by accident
one of the best known of his innumerable flirtations, with a Miss
Fourmentelle, was apparently quenched by this distraction when it was on
the point of going such lengths that the lady had actually come up alone
to London to meet Sterne there. He was introduced to persons as
different as Garrick and Warburton, from the latter of whom he received,
in rather mysterious circumstances, a present of money. He haunted
Ministers and Knights of the Garter; he was overwhelmed with invitations
and callers; and, as has been said, he received one very solid present
in the shape of the living of Coxwold. _Tristram_ went into a second
edition rapidly; its author was enabled to announce a collection of
“_Sermons_ by Mr. Yorick” in April; and he went to his new living in the
early summer, determined to set to work vigorously on more of the work
that had been so fortunate. By the end of the year he was ready with two
more volumes, again came up to town, and again, when vols. iii. and iv.
had appeared, at the end of January 1761, was besieged by admirers. For
these two he received £380 from Dodsley, who had fought shy of the book
earlier. They were quite as successful as the first pair; and again
Sterne stayed all the spring and earlier summer in London, returning to
Yorkshire to make more _Shandy_ in the autumn. He was still quicker over
the third batch, and it was published in December 1761, when he was
again in town, but he now meditated a longer flight. His health had been
really declining, and he obtained leave from the archbishop for a year
certain, and perhaps two, that he might go to the south of France. He
was warmly received in Paris, where his work had obtained a popularity
which it has never wholly lost, and the framework of fact (including the
passport difficulties) for the _Sentimental Journey_, as well as for the
seventh volume of _Tristram_, was laid during the spring. His plans were
now changed, it being determined that his wife and daughter (who had
inherited his constitution) should join him. They did so after some
difficulties, and the consumptive novelist, having spent all the winter
in one of the worst climates in Europe, that of the French capital,
started with his family in the torrid heats of July for Toulouse, where
at last they were established about the middle of August.
Toulouse became Sterne’s abode for nearly a year, his headquarters for a
somewhat longer period, and the home of his wife and daughter, with
migrations to Bagnères, Montpellier, and a great many other places in
France, for about five years. He himself--he had been ill at Toulouse,
and worse at Montpellier--reached England again (after a short stay in
Paris) during the early summer of 1764. Nor was it till January 1765
that the seventh and eighth volumes of _Tristram_ appeared. As usual
Sterne went to town to receive the congratulations of the public, which
seem to have been fairly hearty; for though the instalment immediately
preceding had not been an entire success, the longer interval had now
had its effect not merely on the art and materials of the caterer, but
on the appetite of his guests. He followed this up with two more volumes
of Sermons, of a much more characteristic kind than his earlier venture
in this way, and published partly by subscription. These, however, were
not actually issued till 1766. Meanwhile, in October 1765, Sterne had
set out for his second attempt in travel on the Continent, which was to
supply the remaining material for the _Sentimental Journey_, and to be
prolonged as far as Naples. Little is known of his winter stay at that
city and in Rome. On his way homeward he met his wife and daughter in
Franche-Comté, but at Mrs. Sterne’s request left them there, and went on
alone to Coxwold.
He reached England in extremely bad health, and never left it again; but
he had still nearly two years of fairly well filled life to run. The
ninth, or last volume of _Tristram_ occupied him during the autumn of
1766, and was produced with the invariable accompaniment of its author’s
appearance in London during January 1767. This visit, which lasted till
May, saw the flirtation with “Eliza” Draper, the young wife of an Indian
official, who was at home for her health, an affair which exalted Sterne
in the eyes of eighteenth-century sensibility, especially in France,
about as much as it has depressed him in the eyes not merely of the
propriety, not merely of the common sense, but of the romance of later
times. He was very ill when he got back to Coxwold, but recovered, and
in October was joined by his wife and daughter. Even then, however, the
community was a very temporary and divided one, for he took a house for
them at York, and they were not to stay in England beyond the spring. He
himself finished what we have of the _Sentimental Journey_, and went to
London with it, where it was published rather later than usual, on the
27th February 1768. Three weeks later its author, at his lodgings at 41
New Bond Street, in the presence only of a hired nurse and a footman,
who had been sent by some of his friends to inquire after him, took a
journey other than sentimental, and so far unreported. Some odd but not
very well authenticated stories gathered round his death, which occurred
on Friday the 18th March. It was said, and it is probable enough, that
his gold sleeve-links were stolen by his landlady. After his funeral,
scantily attended, at the burying-ground of St. George’s, Hanover
Square, opposite Hyde Park (which used to be known by the squalid brown
of its unrestored, and afterwards made more hideous by the bedizened red
of its restored chapel), his body is said to have been snatched by
resurrection men. And the myth is rounded off by the addition that the
remains, having been sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge, were
dissected there in public, one of the spectators, a friend of Sterne’s,
recognising the face too late, and fainting.
His affairs, which had never been managed in a very business-like
manner, were in considerable disorder. Some years before, the
carelessness of his curate had caused or allowed the parsonage at Sutton
to be burnt to the ground; and Sterne, besides losing valuable effects
of his own, was of course liable for the rebuilding. He managed to put
this off till his death, after which his widow and administratrix was
sued for dilapidations. These, as she was in very poor circumstances,
had to be compounded for sixty pounds only, but they probably ranked for
a much larger sum in the £1100 at which Sterne’s indebtedness was
reckoned. His widow had a little money of her own: £800 was collected
for her and her daughter at York races; there must have been profits
from the copyrights; and a fresh collection of _Sermons_ was issued by
subscription. But though very little is known about the pair, they are
said to have been ill off. They applied first to Wilkes and then to
Stevenson to write a life of Sterne to prefix to his Works, but neither
complied. Mr. Fitzgerald, who seldom deserves the curse laid on those
who use harsh judgment, is very severe on both for this. Yet surely
each, considering his own reputation, must have felt that he was the
last person to set Sterne right with the stricter part of society, and
that to write a “Crazy” or “Shandean” life of him would be a cruel
crime. It is not known exactly when Lydia married, or when either she or
her mother died. Mrs. Sterne must have been dead by 1775, the date of
the publication of the letters; Lydia is said to have perished in the
French Revolution.
Beginning authorship very late in life, having schooled himself to an
intensely artificial method, both in style and in construction, and not
allowed by Fate more than a few years in which to write at all, Sterne,
as is natural, displays a great uniformity throughout his work. Indeed,
it might be said that he has written but one book, _Tristram Shandy_.
The _Sentimental Journey_ (as to the relative merits of which, compared
with the earlier and larger work, there is a _polemos aspondos_ between
the Big-endians and the Little-endians of Sternism) is after all only an
expansion of the seventh book of Tristram, with _fioriture_, variations,
and new divertisements. The sermon which occurs so early is an actual
sermon of “Yorick’s,” and a sufficient specimen of his more serious
concionatory vein; many, if not most of his letters might have been
twined into _Tristram_ without being in the least degree more out of
place than most of its actual contents. And so there is more propriety
than depends upon the mere fact that _Tristram Shandy_ is the earliest
and the largest part of its author’s work, in making no extremely
scholastic distinction between the specially Shandean and the generally
Sternian characteristics; for, indeed, all Sterne is in it more or less
eminently.
No less a critic than M. Scherer has given his sanction to the idea that
in Sterne we have a special, if not even _the_ special, type of the
humourist; and probably few people who have given no particular thought
or attention to the matter, would refuse to agree with him. I am myself
inclined rather to a demur, or, at any rate, to a distinction, though
few better things have been written about humour itself than a passage
in M. Scherer’s essay on our author. Sterne has no doubt in a very
eminent degree the sense of contrast, which all the best critics admit
to be the root of humour--the note of the humourist. But he has it
partially, occasionally, and, I should even go as far as to say, not
_greatly_. The _great_ English humourists, I take it, are Shakespeare,
Swift, Fielding, Thackeray, and Carlyle. All these--even Fielding, whose
eighteenth-century manner, the contemporary and counterpart of Sterne’s,
cannot hide the truth--apply the humourist contrast, the humourist sense
of the irony of existence, to the great things, the _prima et
novissima_. They see, and feel, and show the simultaneous sense of Death
and Life, of Love and Loss, of the Finite and the Infinite. Sterne stops
a long way short of this; _les grands sujets lui sont défendus_ in
another sense than La Bruyère’s. It is scarcely too much to say that his
ostentatious preference for the _bagatelle_ was a real, and not in the
least affected fact. Nowhere, not in the true pathos of the famous
deathbed letter to Mrs. James, not in the, as it seems to me, by no
means wholly true pathos of the Le Fever episode, does he pierce to “the
accepted hells beneath.” He has an unmatched command of the lesser and
lower varieties of the humorous contrast--over the odd, the petty, the
queer, above all, over what the French untranslatably call the
_saugrenu_. His forte is the foible; his _cheval de bataille_, the
hobby-horse. If you want to soar into the heights, or plunge into the
depths of humour, Sterne is not for you. But if you want what his own
generation called a frisk on middle, _very_ middle-earth, a hunt in
curiosity-shops (especially of the technically “curious” description),
a peep into all manner of _coulisses_ and behind-scenes of human nature,
a ride on a sort of intellectual switchback, a view of moral, mental,
religious, sentimental dancing of all the kinds that have delighted man,
from the rope to the skirt, then have with Sterne in any direction he
pleases. He may sometimes a very little disgust you, but you will seldom
have just cause to complain that he disappoints and deceives.
The _Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent._ (which, as it has been
excellently observed, is in reality based on the life of the gent’s
uncle, and the opinions of the gent’s father), is the largest and in
every way the chief field for these diversions. The apparatus, and, so
far as there can be said to have been one, the object with which Sterne
marked it out and filled it up, are clear, and even the former must have
been clear enough to anybody of some reading and some intelligence long
before the excellent Dr. Ferriar, in the spirit of a reverent
iconoclast, set himself to work to point out Sterne’s exact indebtedness
to Rabelais, Burton, Beroalde (if Beroalde wrote the _Moyen de
Parvenir_), Bruscambille, and the rest. Of this particular part of the
matter I do not think it necessary to say much. The charge of plagiarism
is usually an excessively idle one; for when a man of genius steals, he
always makes the thefts his own; and when a man steals without genius,
the thefts are mere fairy gold which turns to leaves and pebbles under
his hand. No doubt Sterne “lifted” in _Tristram_, and still more in the
_Sermons_, with rather more freedom and audacity than most men of
genius; but when we remember that he took Burton’s denunciation of the
practice and reproduced it (all but in Burton’s very words) as his own,
it must be clear to any one who is not very dull indeed that he was
playing an audacious practical joke. Where he is best, he does not steal
at all, and that is the only point of real importance.
It is somewhat more, I think, the business of the critic (who is here
more especially bound not to look only at the stop-watch) to note the
far more striking way in which Sterne borrowed, not actual passages and
words, but manner and style. Here, perhaps, we shall find him accountant
for a greater debt; and here also we may think that though his genius is
indisputable, he gives more reason to those who should deny him the
highest kind of genius. Beyond doubt not merely his reading, but his
temper and his characteristics of all kinds, inclined him to the style
to which the French fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave the name of
_fatrasie_, or pillar-to-post divagation, with more or less of a covert
satiric aim. But if we compare the dealing of Swift with Cyrano de
Bergerac, the dealing of Fielding with the romance and novel as it
existed before his time, nay, the dealing of Shakespeare with the
Marlowe drama, we shall note a marked difference in Sterne’s procedure.
Nobody, even in his own day, who knew Rabelais at all could fail to
detect the almost servile following of manner in great things and in
small which _Tristram_ displays. No one--a much smaller designation--who
knows the strange, unedifying, but very far from commonplace book of
which, as I have hinted, I never can quite believe that Beroalde de
Verville was the author, can fail to detect an even closer, though a
somewhat less obvious and, so to speak, less verifiable following here.
In another region--the purgatory of all Sterne’s commentators--we can
trace this corrupt following as distinctly at least, though it has,
I think, been less often definitely attributed. Sterne’s too celebrated
indecency, is, with one exception, _sui generis_. No doubt much nonsense
has been and is talked about “indecency” in general literature. When it
is indulged, as it has been, for instance, in French of late, it becomes
a nuisance of the most loathsome kind. It is always perhaps better left
alone. But if it be a sin to laugh now and then frankly at what were
once called “gentlemen’s stories,” then not merely many a gallant,
noble, and not unwise gentleman, but I fear not a few ladies, both fair
and fine, are damned, with Shakespeare and Scott and Southey, with
Margaret of Navarre and Marie de Sévigné, to keep them in countenance.
Yet to merit indulgence, this questionable quality, in addition to being
treated as genius treats, must have certain sub-qualities, or freedoms
from quality, of its own. It must not be brutal and inhuman, since the
quality of humanity is the main thing that saves it. It must not be
underhand and sniggering. It must be frank and jovial, or frank and
passionate. Perhaps, in some cases, it may be saved, as Swift’s is to a
great extent, by the overmastering pessimism of despair, which enforces
its contempt of man and man’s fate by bringing forward these evidences
of his weakness. But Sterne can plead none of these exemptions. He has
neither the frank laughter of Aristophanes and Rabelais, nor the frank
passion of Catullus and Donne. He was incapable of feeling any _sæva
indignatio_ whatever. The attraction of the thing for him was, I fear,
merely the attraction of the improper, because it is improper; because
it shocks people, or makes them blush, or gives them an unholy little
quiver of sordid shamefaced delectation. His famous apology of the child
playing on the floor and showing in innocence what is not usually shown,
was desperately unlucky. For his displays are those of educated and
economic un-innocency. And he took this manner, I am nearly sure, wholly
and directly from Voltaire, who enjoys the unenviable copyright and
patent of it.
The third characteristic which Sterne took from others, which dyed his
work deeply, and which injured more than it helped it, was his famous,
his unrivalled, Sensibility or Sentimentalism. A great deal has been
written about this admired eighteenth-century device, and there is no
space here for discussing it. Suffice it to say, that although Sterne
certainly did not invent it--it had been inculcated by two whole
generations of French novelists before him, and had been familiar in
England for half a century--he has the glory, such as it is, of carrying
it to the farthest possible. The dead donkey and the live donkey, the
latter (as I humbly but proudly join myself to Mr. Thackeray and Mr.
Traill in thinking) far the finer animal; Le Fever and La Fleur; Maria
and Eliza; Uncle Toby’s fly, and poor Mrs. Sterne’s antenuptial
polyanthus; the stoics that Mr. Sterne (with a generous sense that he
was in no danger of that lash) wished to be whipped, and the critics
from whom he would have fled from Dan to Beersheba to be delivered;
--all the celebrated persons and passages of his works, all the
decorations and fireworks thereof, are directed mainly to the exhibition
of _Sensibility_, once so charming, now, alas! hooted and contemned of
the people!
And now it will be possible to have done with his foibles, all the rest
in Sterne being for praise, with hardly any mixture of blame. We have
seen what he borrowed from others, mostly to his hurt; let us now see
what he contributed of his own, almost wholly to his credit and
advantage. He had, in the first place, what most writers when they begin
almost invariably and almost inevitably lack, a long and carefully
amassed store, not merely of reading, but of observation of mankind.
Although his nearly fifty years of life had been in the ordinary sense
uneventful, they had given him opportunities which he had amply taken.
A “son of the regiment,” he had evidently studied with the greatest and
most loving care the ways of an army which still included a large
proportion of Marlborough’s veterans; and it has been constantly and
reasonably held that his chief study had been his father, whom he
evidently adored in a way. Roger Sterne is the admitted model of my
Uncle Toby; and I at least have no doubt that he was the original of Mr.
Shandy also, for some of the qualities which appear in his son’s
character of him are Walter’s, not Toby’s. It would have required,
perhaps, even greater genius than Sterne possessed, and an environment
less saturated with the delusive theory of the “ruling passion,” to have
given us the mixed and blended temperament instead of separating it into
two gentlemen at once, and making Walter Shandy all wayward intellect,
and Tobias all gentle goodness. But if it had been done--as Shakespeare
perhaps alone could have done it--we should have had a greater and more
human figure than either. Mr. Shandy would then never have come near, as
he does sometimes, to being a bore; and my Uncle Toby (if I may say so
without taking the wings of the morning to flee from the wrath of the
extreme Tobyolaters) would have been saved from the occasional
appearance of being something like a fool.
Still, these two are delightful even in their present dichotomy; and
Sterne was amply provided by his genius, working on his experience, with
company for them. His fancy portrait of himself as “Yorick” (his
unfeigned Shakespearianism is one of his best traits) is a little vague
and fantastic; and that of Eugenius, which is supposed to represent John
Hall Stevenson, is almost as slight as it is flattering. But Dr. Slop,
who is known to have been drawn (with somewhat unmerciful fidelity in
externals, but not at all unkindly when we look deeper) from Dr. Burton,
a well-known Jacobite practitioner who had suffered from the Hanoverian
zeal of Yorick’s uncle Jaques in the ’45, is a masterpiece. The York
dignitaries are veritable etchings in outline, more instinct with life
and individuality than a thousand elaborately painted pictures; all the
servants, Obadiah, Susannah, Bridget, and the rest, are the equals of
Fielding’s, or of Thackeray’s domestics; and though Tristram himself is
the shadow of a shade, I confess that I seem to see a vivid portrait in
the three or four strokes which alone give us “my dear, dear Jenny.” Mr.
Fitzgerald, succumbing to a not unnatural temptation, considering the
close juxtaposition in time, approximates this to the “dear, dear Kitty”
of the letters to Miss Catherine de Fourmentelle. But this, taking all
things together, would be a rather serious _scandalum damigellarum_; and
I do not think it necessary to identify, though the traits seem to me to
suit not ill with the few genuine ones in the letters about Mrs. Sterne
herself. That the “dear, dear” should be ironical more or less is quite
Shandean. All these, if not drawn directly from individuals (the lower
exercise), are first generalised and then precipitated into
individuality from a large observation (which is the infinitely higher
and better). I fear I must except Widow Wadman, save in the sentry-box
scene, from this encomium. But then Widow Wadman is not really a real
person. She is partly an instrument to put my Uncle Toby through some
new motions, and partly a cue to enable Sterne to indulge in his worst
foible. As for Trim, _quis vituperavit_ Trim? The lover of the “popish
clergywoman” is simply perfect, with a not much less good heart and a
much better head than his master’s, and in his own degree hardly less of
a gentleman.
The manner in which these delightful persons (I observe with shame that
I had omitted the modest worth of Mrs. Shandy, nearly the most
delightful of them all) are introduced to the reader, may have suffered
a little from that corrupt following of which enough has been said.
I can only say, that I would compound for a good deal more corruption of
the same kind, allied with a good deal less genius. It can scarcely be
doubted that there was a real pre-established harmony between Sterne’s
gifts and the _fatrasie_ manner; certainly this manner, if it sometimes
exhibited his weaknesses, gave rare opportunities to his strength. And
the same may be said of his style. He might certainly have given us less
of the typographical tricks with which he chose to bedizen and bedaub
it, and sometimes in his ultra-Rabelaisian moods --I do not mean of
_gauloiserie_ but of sheer fooling--we feel the falsetto rather
disastrously. It is constantly forgotten by unfavourable critics of
Rabelais that his extravagances were to a great extent, at any rate,
quite natural outbursts of animal spirits. The Middle Ages, though it
has become the fashion with those who know nothing about them to
represent them as ages of gloom, were probably the merriest time of this
world’s history; and the Reformation and the Renaissance, with their
pedantry and their puritanism, and worst of all their physical science,
had not quite killed the merriment when Rabelais wrote. But though
animal spirits still survived in Sterne’s day, it cannot be said that in
England, any more than elsewhere, there was much genuine merriment of
the honest, childish, mediæval kind, and thus his manner perpetually
jars. Still the style, independently of the tricks, was excellently
suited for the work. It is a moot point how far the extremely loose and
ungirt character of this style, which sometimes, and indeed often,
reaches sheer slovenliness and solecism, was intentional. I think myself
that it was nearly as deliberate as the asterisks, and the black and
marble pages. We know from the _Sermons_ that Sterne could write
carefully enough when he chose, and we know from the MS. of the
_Journey_ that he corrected sedulously. Nor is it likely that he had the
excuse of hurry. The shortest time that he ever took over one of his
two-volume batches was more than six months; and looking at the
practice, not of miracles of industry and facility like Scott, but of
rather dilatory writers like Thackeray, one would think that the
quantity (which is not more than a couple of hundred pages of one of
these present volumes) might be written in little more than six weeks.
At any rate, the style, conversational, unpretentious, too easy to be
jerky, and yet too broken to be sustained, suits subject and scheme as
few others could.
* * * * *
But there is perhaps little need to say more about a book which, though
some say that few read it through nowadays, is thoroughly well known in
outline and in its salient passages, and which will pretty certainly lay
hold of all fit readers as soon as they take to it. Of its writer a very
little more may perhaps be said, all the more so because those who, not
understanding critical admiration, think that biographers and editors
ought not only to be just and a little kind, but extravagantly partial
to their subjects, may conceive that I have been a little unjust, or, at
any rate, a little unkind to Sterne. If so, they have not read his own
extremely ingenious, and in general, if not in particular, very sound
attack on the adage _de mortuis_. But if not _nil nisi_, there is yet
very much _bonum_ to be said of Sterne. He was not merely endowed with a
singular and essential genius; he was not merely the representative and
mouthpiece, in a way hardly surpassed by any one, of a certain way of
thought and feeling more or less peculiar to his time. These were his
merits, his very great merits as a writer. But he had others, and great,
if not very great ones, as a man. Though never rich, he seems to have
been free from the fault of parsimony; and albeit he died in debt, not
deeply tainted with that of extravagance in money matters. For most of
his later expenditure was on others, and he might justly calculate on
his pen paying, and more than paying, his shot. Little love as there was
lost between him and his wife, he always took the greatest care to
provide for her wants in the rather costly severance of their
establishments, and never even in his most indiscreet moments hints a
grumble at her expenditure, a vice of which some people of much higher
general reputation have been known to be guilty. Though he was certainly
pleased at the attentions of “the great,” I do not know that there is
any just cause for accusing him of truckling to, or fawning on them
beyond the custom and courtesy of the time. For all his reckless humour,
there was no ill-nature in him. His worst enemies have admitted that his
affection for his daughter was very pretty and quite unaffected; and his
letters to and of Mrs. James show that he could think of a woman nobly
and wholesomely as a friend, for all his ignoble and unwholesome ways of
thought in regard to the sex. If it had not been for the cruel
indiscretion of his Lydia (which, however, has something of the old
virtue of conveying the balm as well as the sting), he would probably
have been much better thought of than he is. And considering the
delightful books here once more presented, I think we may consent to
forgive the faults which, after all, were mainly his own business, for
the merits by which we so largely benefit and for which he reaped no
over-bounteous guerdon.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
WORKS. --The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Vols. I. and II.,
1759; III. and IV., 1761; V. and VI., 1762; VII. and VIII., 1765;
IX., 1767; first collected edition, 1767; numerous later editions,
chiefly of recent date. Sermons of Mr. Yorick, Vols. I. and II.,
1760; III. and IV., 1766; V., VI., and VII., 1769. A Sentimental
Journey, 1768; many later editions; Letters from Yorick to Eliza,
1775; Sterne’s Letters to his Friends on Various Occasions, 1775;
Letters of Laurence Sterne to his most intimate friends, 1775;
Original Letters never before published, 1788; Letters of Yorick and
Eliza, 1807; Seven Letters written by Sterne and his Friends,
hitherto unpublished, 1844; Unpublished Letters of Laurence Sterne,
edited by J. Murray, 1856.
Collected editions of the works of Laurence Sterne appeared in 1779,
1780; edited by G. Saintsbury, 1894; by Wilbur L. Cross, 1906.
LIFE. --An account of the life and writings of the author is prefixed
to the edition of his Works, 1779; a life of the author written by
himself in edition of works, 1780; by Sir W. Scott in edition of
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 1867; by H. D. Traill, 1878;
by P. H. Fitzgerald, 1896; Laurence Sterne in Germany, by H. W.
Thayer, 1905; Life and Times, by Wilbur L. Cross, 1909; A Study, by
Walter S. Sichel, 1910; Life and Letters, by Lewis Melville, 1911.
⁂ The text which has been here adopted is that of the ten-volume
edition, first printed in 1781, and reprinted several times before the
end of the century, which is as near as anything to the “standard”
Sterne. It seems, however, to have had no competent editing; and the
renumbering of the chapters to suit the _four_ volumes, in which
_Tristram_ was printed, completely upsets the original and important
division into _nine_ volumes, or books, which has here, as in some other
editions, been restored. Another piece of thoughtlessness was that of
sticking the Dedication, which originally came between the eighth and
ninth volumes, or books, at the beginning of the _fourth_ volume as
reprinted, thereby making nonsense or puzzle of Sterne’s joke about _à
priori_. It should be observed that the Dedication to Pitt, which here
leads off, was not prefixed till the _second_ edition of the original,
and that sometimes in the last-century editions it appears displaced at
a later spot. No attempt has been made to correct any oddities of
spelling that are not clearly mere misprints.
CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK I. 3
BOOK II. 59
BOOK III. 113
BOOK IV. 176
BOOK V. 251
BOOK VI. 300
BOOK VII. 349
BOOK VIII. 395
BOOK IX. 441
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
Ταράσσει τοὺς Ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα,
Ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν Πραγμάτων Δόγματα.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
_MR. PITT_
SIR, --Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his
Dedication, than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye
corner of the kingdom, and in a retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in
a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and
other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a
man smiles, ----but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to
this Fragment of Life.
I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it----(not
under your Protection, ----it must protect itself, but)----into the
country with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or
can conceive it has beguiled you of one moment’s pain ----I shall think
myself as happy as a minister of state; ------perhaps much happier than
any one (one only excepted) that I have read or heard of.
I am, GREAT SIR,
(and what is more to your Honour)
I am, GOOD SIR,
Your Well-wisher, and
most humble Fellow-subject,
THE AUTHOR.
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they
were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about
when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what
they were then doing; --that not only the production of a rational Being
was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and
temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his
mind; --and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of
his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions
which were then uppermost; ----Had they duly weighed and considered all
this, and proceeded accordingly, ----I am verily persuaded I should have
made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader
is likely to see me. --Believe me, good folks, this is not so
inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it; --you have all,
I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from
father to son, &c., &c. --and a great deal to that purpose: --Well, you
may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his
nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their
motions and activity, and the different tracts and trains you put them
into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong,
’tis not a halfpenny matter, --away they go cluttering like hey-go mad;
and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make
a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they
are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive
them off it.
_Pray, my Dear_, quoth my mother, _have you not forgot to wind up the
clock? ------Good G--!_ cried my father, making an exclamation, but
taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, ----_Did ever woman,
since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly
question?_ Pray, what was your father saying? ------Nothing.
CHAPTER II
------Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see,
either good or bad. ----Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very
unseasonable question at least, --because it scattered and dispersed the
animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in
hand with the _HOMUNCULUS_, and conducted him safe to the place destined
for his reception.
The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may appear,
in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice; --to the eye of
reason in scientifick research, he stands confess’d--a BEING guarded and
circumscribed with rights. ----The minutest philosophers, who, by the
bye, have the most enlarged understandings (their souls being inversely
as their enquiries), shew us incontestably, that the HOMUNCULUS is
created by the same hand, --engender’d in the same course of nature,
--endow’d with the same locomotive powers and faculties with us: --That
he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries,
ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals,
humours, and articulations; --is a Being of as much activity, --and, in
all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my
Lord Chancellor of _England_. --He may be benefited, --he may be
injured, --he may obtain redress; --in a word, he has all the claims and
rights of humanity, which _Tully_, _Puffendorf_, or the best ethick
writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone!
--or that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my
little Gentleman had got to his journey’s end miserably spent; --his
muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread; --his own animal
spirits ruffled beyond description, --and that in this sad disordered
state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series
of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together.
--I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand
weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the
philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights.
CHAPTER III
To my uncle Mr. _Toby Shandy_ do I stand indebted for the preceding
anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher,
and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft,
and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my
uncle _Toby_ well remember’d, upon his observing a most unaccountable
obliquity (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting up my top, and
justifying the principles upon which I had done it, --the old gentleman
shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than
reproach, --he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it
verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made
upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s child:
--_But alas!_ continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping
away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, _My Tristram’s
misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world_.
--My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up, --but she knew no more than
her backside what my father meant, --but my uncle, Mr. _Toby Shandy_,
who had been often informed of the affair, --understood him very well.
CHAPTER IV
I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people
in it, who are no readers at all, who find themselves ill at ease,
unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of
everything which concerns you.
It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a
backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have
been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to
make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in
all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever, --be no less
read than the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ itself--and in the end, prove the
very thing which _Montaigne_ dreaded his Essays should turn out, that
is, a book for a parlour-window; --I find it necessary to consult every
one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a
little farther in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I
have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am
able to go on, tracing everything in it, as _Horace_ says, _ab Ovo_.
_Horace_, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that
gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy; --(I forget
which), --besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. _Horace’s_ pardon;
--for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither
to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived.
To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things,
I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part
of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the
curious and inquisitive.
------------Shut the door. -------------------------------------- I was
begot in the night, betwixt the first _Sunday_ and the first _Monday_ in
the month of _March_, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred
and eighteen. I am positive I was. --But how I came to be so very
particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is
owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now
made publick for the better clearing up this point.
My father, you must know, who was originally a _Turkey_ merchant, but
had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die
upon, his paternal estate in the county of ------, was, I believe, one
of the most regular men in everything he did, whether ’twas matter of
business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen
of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, --he
had made it a rule for many years of his life, --on the first
_Sunday-night_ of every month throughout the whole year, --as certain as
ever the _Sunday-night_ came, ----to wind up a large house-clock, which
we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands: --And being
somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been
speaking of, --he had likewise gradually brought some other little
family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say
to my uncle _Toby_, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be
no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.
It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell
upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my
grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no
connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother
could never hear the said clock wound up, ----but the thoughts of some
other things unavoidably popped into her head--and _vice versâ_:
----Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious _Locke_, who
certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men,
affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of
prejudice whatsoever.
But this by the bye.
Now it appears by a memorandum in my father’s pocket-book, which now
lies upon the table, “That on _Lady-day_, which was on the 25th of the
same month in which I date my geniture, ----my father set out upon his
journey to _London_, with my eldest brother _Bobby_, to fix him at
_Westminster_ school;” and, as it appears from the same authority, “That
he did not get down to his wife and family till the _second week_ in
_May_ following,” --it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However,
what follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it beyond all
possibility of doubt.
------But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all _December_,
_January_, and _February?_ ----Why, Madam, --he was all that time
afflicted with a Sciatica.
CHAPTER V
On the fifth day of _November_, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as
near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected,
--was I _Tristram Shandy_, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and
disasterous world of ours. ----I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in
any of the planets (except _Jupiter_ or _Saturn_, because I never could
bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any
of them (though I will not answer for _Venus_) than it has in this vile,
dirty planet of ours, --which, o’ my conscience, with reverence be it
spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the rest;
----not but the planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in
it to a great title or to a great estate; or could any how contrive to
be called up to publick charges, and employments of dignity or power;
----but that is not my case; ----and therefore every man will speak of
the fair as his own market has gone in it; ------for which cause I
affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;
--for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it,
to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in
scating against the wind in _Flanders_; --I have been the continual
sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her
by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal
evil; ----yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her,
that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she
could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set
of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small HERO
sustained.
CHAPTER VI
In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly _when_ I
was born; but I did not inform you _how. No_, that particular was
reserved entirely for a chapter by itself; --besides, Sir, as you and I
are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been
proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself
all at once. --You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you
see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and
expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a
mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other:
As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now
beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one
of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship. --_O diem
præclarum!_--then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling
in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and
companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my
first setting out--bear with me, --and let me go on, and tell my story
my own way: --Or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road,
--or should sometimes put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it, for a
moment or two as we pass along, --don’t fly off, --but rather
courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my
outside; --and as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in
short, do anything, --only keep your temper.
CHAPTER VII
In the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a
thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with
the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in
her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own
efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature, --had acquired, in
her way, no small degree of reputation in the world: ----by which word
_world_, need I in this place inform your worship, that I would be
understood to mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the
circle of the great world, of four _English_ miles diameter, or
thereabouts, of which the cottage where the good old woman lived, is
supposed to be the centre? --She had been left, it seems, a widow in
great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh
year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage, --grave
deportment, --a woman moreover of few words, and withal an object of
compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, called out the louder
for a friendly lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched
with pity; and having often lamented an inconvenience, to which her
husband’s flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was
no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the
case have been never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles
riding; which seven said long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the
country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to
fourteen; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at
all; it came into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a
kindness to the whole parish, as to the poor creature herself, to get
her a little instructed in some of the plain principles of the business,
in order to set her up in it. As no woman thereabouts was better
qualified to execute the plan she had formed than herself, the
gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great influence
over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in effecting
it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson join’d his interest
with his wife’s in the whole affair; and in order to do things as they
should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise, as
his wife had given by institution, --he chearfully paid the fees for the
ordinary’s licence himself, amounting in the whole, to the sum of
eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them both, the good
woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her
office, together with all its _rights, members, and appurtenances
whatsoever_.
These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in
which such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like
cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was
according to a neat _Formula_ of _Didius_ his own devising, who having a
particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over again, all
kind of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty
amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the
neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this
wham-wham of his inserted.
I own I never could envy _Didius_ in these kinds of fancies of his:
--But every man to his own taste. --Did not Dr. _Kunastrokius_, that
great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in
combing of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth,
though he had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that,
Sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting _Solomon_
himself, --have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES; --their running horses,
--their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets,
their fiddles, their pallets, --their maggots and their butterflies?
--and so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and quietly along
the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,
--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?
CHAPTER VIII
--_De gustibus non est disputandum_; --that is, there is no disputing
against HOBBY-HORSES; and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with any
sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for happening,
at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fidler and
painter, according as the fly stings: --Be it known to you, that I keep
a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor do I care who
knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air; --though sometimes, to
my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a wise
man would think altogether right. --But the truth is, --I am not a wise
man; --and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in the world, it
is not much matter what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at all about it:
Nor does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great Lords and tall
Personages as hereafter follow; --such, for instance, as my Lord A, B,
C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row,
mounted upon their several horses; --some with large stirrups, getting
on in a more grave and sober pace; ----others on the contrary, tucked up
to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and
scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a
mortgage, --and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks.
----So much the better--say I to myself; --for in case the worst should
happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well without them;
and for the rest, ----why ----God speed them----e’en let them ride on
without opposition from me; for were their lordships unhorsed this very
night--’tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse mounted by
one half before to-morrow morning.
Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my
rest. ----But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard,
and that is, when I see one born for great actions, and what is still
more for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones; --when
I behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and
conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that
reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment; --when I see such a
one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time
which my love to my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his
glory wishes, --then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the
first transport of an honest impatience, I wish the HOBBY-HORSE, with
all his fraternity, at the Devil.
“MY LORD,
“I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in
the three great essentials of matter, form, and place: I beg, therefore,
you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with
the most respectful humility, at your Lordship’s feet, --when you are
upon them, --which you can be when you please; --and that is, my Lord,
whenever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes
too. I have the honour to be,
“_My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient,
and most devoted,
and most humble servant_,
TRISTRAM SHANDY.”
CHAPTER IX
I solemnly declare to all mankind, that the above dedication was made
for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate, --Duke, Marquis, Earl,
Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other Realm in Christendom; ----nor
has it yet been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately, directly
or indirectly, to any one person or personage, great or small; but is
honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul living.
I labour this point so particularly, merely to remove any offence or
objection which might arise against it from the manner in which I
propose to make the most of it; --which is the putting it up fairly to
public sale; which I now do.
----Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear;
--for my own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas
in a dark entry; --I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to
deal squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try
whether I should not come off the better by it.
If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron,
in these his Majesty’s dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel
dedication, and whom the above will suit, (for by the bye, unless it
suits in some degree, I will not part with it)----it is much at his
service for fifty guineas; ----which I am positive is twenty guineas
less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius.
My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross
piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship
sees, is good, --the colouring transparent, --the drawing not amiss;
--or to speak more like a man of science, --and measure my piece in the
painter’s scale, divided into 20, --I believe, my Lord, the outlines
will turn out as 12, --the composition as 9, --the colouring as 6, --the
expression 13 and a half, --and the design, --if I may be allowed, my
Lord, to understand my own _design_, and supposing absolute perfection
in designing, to be as 20, --I think it cannot well fall short of 19.
Besides all this, --there is keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the
HOBBY-HORSE, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to
the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your own figure,
and make it come off wonderfully; ----and besides, there is an air of
originality in the _tout ensemble_.
Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of
Mr. _Dodsley_, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition
care shall be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship’s
titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of
the preceding chapter: All which, from the words, _De gustibus non est
disputandum_, and whatever else in this book relates to HOBBY-HORSES,
but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship. --The rest I
dedicate to the MOON, who, by the bye, of all the PATRONS or MATRONS I
can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world
run mad after it.
_Bright Goddess_,
If thou art not too busy with CANDID and Miss CUNEGUND’S affairs, --take
_Tristram Shandy’s_ under thy protection also.
CHAPTER X
Whatever degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the
midwife might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested, --at
first sight seems not very material to this history; ----certain however
it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson’s wife, did run away at that
time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking
but that the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit
upon the design first, --yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment
it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry
it into execution, had a claim to some share of it, --if not to a full
half of whatever honour was due to it.
The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise.
Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable
guess at the grounds of this procedure.
Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the
midwife’s licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an account,
--the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk by a
breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his
station, and his office; --and that was in never appearing better, or
otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jack-ass of a horse, value
about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of
him, was full brother to _Rosinante_, as far as similitude congenial
could make him; for he answered his description to a hair-breadth in
every thing, --except that I do not remember ’tis any where said, that
_Rosinante_ was broken-winded; and that, moreover, _Rosinante_, as is
the happiness of most _Spanish_ horses, fat or lean, --was undoubtedly a
horse at all points.
I know very well that the HERO’S horse was a horse of chaste deportment,
which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But it is as
certain at the same time, that _Rosinante’s_ continency (as may be
demonstrated from the adventure of the _Yanguesian_ carriers) proceeded
from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and
orderly current of his blood. --And let me tell you, Madam, there is a
great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which you
could not say more for your life.
Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do extra justice to every
creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work, --I could not
stifle this distinction in favour of Don _Quixote’s_ horse; ----in all
other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another, --for he
was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as HUMILITY herself could
have bestrided.
In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was
greatly in the parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse of
his, --for he was master of a very handsome demi-peak’d saddle, quilted
on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of
silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a
housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of
black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, _poudré d’or_,
--all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life,
together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it
should be. ----But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these
up behind his study door: --and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted
him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the figure and value
of such a steed might well and truly deserve.
In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits
to the gentry who lived around him, --you will easily comprehend, that
the parson, so appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his
philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a
village, but he caught the attention of both old and young. ----Labour
stood still as he pass’d----the bucket hung suspended in the middle of
the well, ----the spinning-wheel forgot its round, ----even
chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got
out of sight; and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had
generally time enough upon his hands to make his observations, --to hear
the groans of the serious, --and the laughter of the light-hearted;
--all which he bore with excellent tranquillity. --His character was,
--he loved a jest in his heart--and as he saw himself in the true point
of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing
him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his
friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who
therefore made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his
humour, --instead of giving the true cause, --he chose rather to join in
the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of
flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his
beast, --he would sometimes insist upon it, that the horse was as good
as the rider deserved; --that they were, centaur-like, --both of a
piece. At other times, and in other moods, when his spirits were above
the temptation of false wit, --he would say, he found himself going off
fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity, would pretend, he could
not bear the sight of a fat horse, without a dejection of heart, and a
sensible alteration in his pulse; and that he had made choice of the
lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in
spirits.
At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for
riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one
of mettle; --for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate
as delightfully _de vanitate mundi et fugâ sæculi_, as with the
advantage of a death’s-head before him; --that, in all other
exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along, --to as
much account as in his study; --that he could draw up an argument in his
sermon, --or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the
other; --that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and
judgment, were two incompatible movements. --But that upon his steed--he
could unite and reconcile every thing, --he could compose his sermon--he
could compose his cough, ----and, in case nature gave a call that way,
he could likewise compose himself to sleep. --In short, the parson upon
such encounters would assign any cause but the true cause, --and he
with-held the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he
thought it did honour to him.
But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this
gentleman’s life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle
were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it
what you will, --to run into the opposite extreme. --In the language of
the county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and
generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his stable
always ready for saddling; and as the nearest midwife, as I told you,
did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile
country, --it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole
week together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he
was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more
distressful than the last, --as much as he loved his beast, he had never
a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this, that his
horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d; --or he was
twitter-bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had
befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh; --so that he had every
nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of, --and a good horse to
purchase in his stead.
What the loss on such a balance might amount to, _communibus annis_, I
would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to
determine; --but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it
for many years without a murmur, till at length, by repeated ill
accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under
consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his
mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but
withal so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other
act of generosity in his parish: Besides this, he considered that with
half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good;
--and what still weighed more with him than all other considerations put
together, was this, that it confined all his charity into one particular
channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely, to
the child-bearing and child-getting part of his parish; reserving
nothing for the impotent, --nothing for the aged, --nothing for the many
comfortless scenes he was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty,
and sickness, and affliction dwelt together.
For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there
appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it; --and
these were, either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his
steed upon any application whatever, --or else be content to ride the
last poor devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and
infirmities, to the very end of the chapter.
As he dreaded his own constancy in the first--he very chearfully betook
himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it,
as I said, to his honour, --yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit
above it; choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the
laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story, which
might seem a panegyrick upon himself.
I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this
reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I
think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight
of _La Mancha_, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and
would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the
greatest hero of antiquity.
But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to
shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair. --For you must
know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson
credit, --the devil a soul could find it out, --I suppose his enemies
would not, and that his friends could not. ----But no sooner did he
bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the
ordinary’s licence to set her up, --but the whole secret came out; every
horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all
the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly
remembered. --The story ran like wild-fire-- “The parson had a returning
fit of pride which had just seized him; and he was going to be well
mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, ’twas plain as the sun
at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the licence, ten times told,
the very first year: --So that every body was left to judge what were
his views in this act of charity.”
What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life, --or
rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other
people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own,
and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound
asleep.
About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made
entirely easy upon that score, --it being just so long since he left his
parish, --and the whole world at the same time behind him, --and stands
accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain.
But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men: Order them as
they will, they pass thro’ a certain medium, which so twists and
refracts them from their true directions----that, with all the titles to
praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are
nevertheless forced to live and die without it.
Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example. ----But to
know by what means this came to pass, --and to make that knowledge of
use to you, I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters,
which contain such a sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry
its moral along with it. --When this is done, if nothing stops us in our
way, we will go on with the midwife.
CHAPTER XI
Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable in it
(as appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong
vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt
for near, ----I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years; ----but
I would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however
indisputable in itself; ----and therefore I shall content myself with
only saying ----It had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation
or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which
is more than I would venture to say of one half of the best surnames in
the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as
many chops and changes as their owners. --Has this been owing to the
pride, or to the shame of the respective proprietors? --In honest truth,
I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other, just as the
temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day
so blend and confound us altogether, that no one shall be able to stand
up and swear, “That his own great grandfather was the man who did either
this or that.”
This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of
the _Yorick’s_ family, and their religious preservation of these records
I quote, which do farther inform us, That the family was originally of
_Danish_ extraction, and had been transplanted into _England_ as early
as in the reign of _Horwendillus_, king of _Denmark_, in whose court, it
seems, an ancestor of this Mr. _Yorick’s_, and from whom he was lineally
descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of what
nature this considerable post was, this record saith not; --It only
adds, That, for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished, as
altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in every other court
of the Christian world.
It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than
that of the king’s chief Jester; --and that _Hamlet’s Yorick_, in our
_Shakespeare_, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon
authenticated facts, was certainly the very man.
I have not the time to look into _Saxo-Grammaticus’s Danish_ history, to
know the certainty of this; --but if you have leisure, and can easily
get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself.
I had just time, in my travels through _Denmark_ with Mr. _Noddy’s_
eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding
along with him at a prodigious rate thro’ most parts of _Europe_, and of
which original journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative
will be given in the progress of this work; I had just time, I say, and
that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long
sojourner in that country; ----namely, “That nature was neither very
lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to
its inhabitants; --but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to
them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her
favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with
each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of
refined parts; but a great deal of good plain household understanding
amongst all ranks of people, of which everybody has a share;” which is,
I think, very right.
With us, you see, the case is quite different: --we are all ups and
downs in this matter; --you are a great genius; --or ’tis fifty to one,
Sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead; --not that there is a total
want of intermediate steps, --no, --we are not so irregular as that
comes to; --but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater
degree in this unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and
dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune
herself not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than
she.
This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to _Yorick’s_
extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts
I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of
_Danish_ blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might
possibly have all run out: ----I will not philosophize one moment with
you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this: --That instead
of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would
have looked for, in one so extracted; --he was, on the contrary, as
mercurial and sublimated a composition, --as heteroclite a creature in
all his declensions; --with as much life and whim, and _gaité de cœur_
about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put
together. With all this sail, poor _Yorick_ carried not one ounce of
ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of
twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a
romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting
out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul
ten times in a day of somebody’s tackling; and as the grave and more
slow-paced were oftenest in his way, ----you may likewise imagine, ’twas
with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For
aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of
such _Fracas_: ----For, to speak the truth, _Yorick_ had an invincible
dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity; --not to gravity as
such; --for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or
serious of mortal men for days and weeks together; --but he was an enemy
to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it
appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it fell
in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much
quarter.
Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say that Gravity was an
errant scoundrel, and he would add, --of the most dangerous kind too,
--because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest,
well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in
one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In
the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say, there was
no danger, --but to itself: --whereas the very essence of gravity was
design, and consequently deceit; --’twas a taught trick to gain credit
of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and
that, with all its pretensions, --it was no better, but often worse,
than what a _French_ wit had long ago defined it, --_viz._ _A mysterious
carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind_; --which
definition of gravity, _Yorick_, with great imprudence, would say,
deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.
But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the
world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other
subject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint. _Yorick_
had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the nature of
the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually translate into
plain _English_ without any periphrasis; --and too oft without much
distinction of either person, time, or place; --so that when mention was
made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding----he never gave himself a
moment’s time to reflect who was the hero of the piece, ----what his
station, ----or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter; ----but if
it was a dirty action, --without more ado, --The man was a dirty fellow,
--and so on. --And as his comments had usually the ill fate to be
terminated either in a _bon mot_, or to be enlivened throughout with
some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to _Yorick’s_
indiscretion. In a word, tho’ he never sought, yet, at the same time, as
he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without
much ceremony; ----he had but too many temptations in life, of
scattering his wit and his humour, --his gibes and his jests about him.
----They were not lost for want of gathering.
What were the consequences, and what was _Yorick’s_ catastrophe
thereupon, you will read in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XII
The _Mortgager_ and _Mortgagée_ differ the one from the other, not more
in length of purse, than the _Jester_ and _Jestée_ do, in that of
memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts
call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more
than some of the best of _Homer’s_ can pretend to; --namely, That the
one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and thinks no
more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; --the
periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the memory
of the affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour, --pop comes the
creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot, together
with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the full extent
of their obligations.
As the reader (for I hate your _ifs_) has a thorough knowledge of human
nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my HERO could not go on
at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental
mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a
multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding
_Eugenius’s_ frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that as
not one of them was contracted thro’ any malignancy; --but, on the
contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they
would all of them be cross’d out in course.
_Eugenius_ would never admit this; and would often tell him, that one
day or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often
add, in an accent of sorrowful apprehension, --to the uttermost mite. To
which _Yorick_, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often
answer with a pshaw! --and if the subject was started in the
fields--with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent
up in the social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado’d in,
with a table and a couple of armchairs, and could not so readily fly off
in a tangent, --_Eugenius_ would then go on with his lecture upon
discretion in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put
together.
Trust me, dear _Yorick_, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or
later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can
extricate thee out of. ----In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens,
that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person
injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and
when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, his
family, his kindred and allies, ----and musters up with them the many
recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;
----’tis no extravagant arithmetick to say, that for every ten jokes,
--thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and
raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by
them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.
I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least
spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies ----I believe
and know them to be truly honest and sportive: --But consider, my dear
lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, --and that knaves will not: and
thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry
with the other: ----whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend
upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my
dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too.
Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at
thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set
right. ----The fortunes of thy house shall totter, --thy character,
which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it, --thy faith
questioned, --thy works belied, --thy wit forgotten, --thy learning
trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and
COWARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall
strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes: ----The best of us,
my dear lad, lie open there, ----and trust me, ----trust me, _Yorick,
when to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an
innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy
matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed,
to make a fire to offer it up with_.
_Yorick_ scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read
over to him, but with a fear stealing from his eye, and a promissory
look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride
his tit with more sobriety. --But, alas, too late! --a grand
confederacy, with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before
the first prediction of it. --The whole plan of the attack, just as
_Eugenius_ had foreboded, was put in execution all at once, --with so
little mercy on the side of the allies, --and so little suspicion in
_Yorick_, of what was carrying on against him, --that when he thought,
good easy man! full surely preferment was o’ ripening, --they had smote
his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him.
_Yorick_, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some
time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the
calamities of the war, --but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which
it was carried on, --he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his
spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was
generally thought, quite broken-hearted.
What inclined _Eugenius_ to the same opinion was as follows:
A few hours before _Yorick_ breathed his last, _Eugenius_ stept in with
an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his
drawing _Yorick’s_ curtain, and asking how he felt himself, _Yorick_
looking up in his face took hold of his hand, --and after thanking him
for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it
was their fate to meet hereafter, --he would thank him again and again,
--he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip
for ever. --I hope not, answered _Eugenius_, with tears trickling down
his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke. --I hope
not, _Yorick_, said he. ----_Yorick_ replied, with a look up, and a
gentle squeeze of _Eugenius’s_ hand, and that was all, --but it cut
_Eugenius_ to his heart, --Come--come, _Yorick_, quoth _Eugenius_,
wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him, --my dear lad, be
comforted, --let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this
crisis when thou most wants them; ----who knows what resources are in
store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee? ----_Yorick_ laid
his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head; --For my part,
continued _Eugenius_, crying bitterly as he uttered the words, --I
declare I know not, _Yorick_, how to part with thee, and would gladly
flatter my hopes, added _Eugenius_, chearing up his voice, that there is
still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to see
it. ----I beseech thee, _Eugenius_, quoth _Yorick_, taking off his
night-cap as well as he could with his left hand, ----his right being
still grasped close in that of _Eugenius_, ----I beseech thee to take a
view of my head. --I see nothing that ails it, replied _Eugenius_. Then,
alas! my friend, said _Yorick_, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised
and mis-shapened with the blows which ***** and *****, and some others
have so unhandsomely given me, in the dark, that I might say with
_Sancho Pança_, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered
to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit
it.” ----_Yorick’s_ last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips
ready to depart as he uttered this: ----yet still it was uttered with
something of a _Cervantick_ tone; ----and as he spoke it, _Eugenius_
could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his
eyes; ----faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which
(as _Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a
roar!
_Eugenius_ was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was
broke: he squeezed his hand, ----and then walked softly out of the room,
weeping as he walked. _Yorick_ followed _Eugenius_ with his eyes to the
door, --he then closed them, --and never opened them more.
[Illustration (full-page black tombstone)]
He lies buried in the corner of his churchyard, in the parish of ------,
under a plain marble slab, which his friend _Eugenius_, by leave of his
executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of
inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy.
____________________
| |
| Alas, poor YORICK! |
|____________________|
Ten times a day has _Yorick’s_ ghost the consolation to hear his
monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones,
as denote a general pity and esteem for him; ----a foot-way crossing the
churchyard close by the side of his grave, --not a passenger goes by
without stopping to cast a look upon it, --and sighing as he walks on,
Alas, poor YORICK!
CHAPTER XIII
It is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted
from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him,
merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world,
and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at present,
--I am going to introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh matter
may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt the reader
and myself, which may require immediate dispatch; ----’twas right to
take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the meantime;
--because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her.
I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note
and consequence throughout our whole village and township; --that her
fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that
circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a
shirt to his back or no, ----has one surrounding him; --which said
circle, by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a one is of great
weight and importance in the _world_, ----I desire may be enlarged or
contracted in your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station,
profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways)
of the personage brought before you.
In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five miles,
which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two
or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish; which
made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That she was, moreover,
very well looked on at one large grange-house, and some other odd houses
and farms within two or three miles, as I said, from the smoke of her
own chimney: ----But I must here, once for all, inform you, that all
this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d in a map, now in the
hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developements
of this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume, --not to
swell the work, --I detest the thought of such a thing; --but by way of
commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to such passages, incidents,
or innuendos as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation,
or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my life and my opinions shall have
been read over (now don’t forget the meaning of the word) by all the
_world_; ----which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all the
gentlemen-reviewers in _Great Britain_, and of all that their worships
shall undertake to write or say to the contrary, --I am determined shall
be the case. --I need not tell your worship, that all this is spoke in
confidence.
CHAPTER XIV
Upon looking into my mother’s marriage-settlement, in order to satisfy
myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could
proceed any farther in this history; --I had the good fortune to pop
upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight
forwards, --it might have taken me up a month; --which shews plainly,
that when a man sits down to write a history, --tho’ it be but the
history of _Jack Hickathrift_ or _Tom Thumb_, he knows no more than his
heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way,
--or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all
is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer
drives on his mule, --straight forward; ----for instance, from _Rome_
all the way to _Loretto_, without ever once turning his head aside
either to the right hand or to the left, ----he might venture to
foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end; ----but
the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the
least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make
with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways avoid. He
will have views and prospects to himself perpetually soliciting his eye,
which he can no more help standing still to look at than he can fly; he
will moreover have various
Accounts to reconcile:
Anecdotes to pick up:
Inscriptions to make out:
Stories to weave in:
Traditions to sift:
Personages to call upon:
Panegyricks to paste up at this door;
Pasquinades at that: ----All which both the man and his mule are quite
exempt from. To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be
look’d into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies,
which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of:
----In short, there is no end of it; ----for my own part, I declare I
had been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could,
--and am not yet born: --I have just been able, and that’s all, to tell
you _when_ it happen’d, but not _how_; --so that you see the thing is
yet far from being accomplished.
These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I
first set out; --but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase
than diminish as I advance, --have struck out a hint which I am resolved
to follow; ----and that is, --not to be in a hurry; but to go on
leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year;
----which, if I am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable
bargain with my bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.
CHAPTER XV
The article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader
I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it,
I think proper to lay before him, --is so much more fully express’d in
the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be
barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand: --It is as follows.
“#And this Indenture further witnesseth#, That the said _Walter Shandy_,
merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had, and,
by God’s blessing, to be well and truly solemnised and consummated
between the said _Walter Shandy_ and _Elizabeth Mollineux_ aforesaid,
and divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him
thereunto specially moving, --doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent,
conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with _John Dixon_, and _James
Turner_, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, _&c. &c._--#to Wit#, --That in
case it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come
to pass, --That the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, shall have left off
business before the time or times, that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_
shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off
bearing and bringing forth children; --and that, in consequence of the
said _Walter Shandy_ having so left off business, he shall in despight,
and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said
_Elizabeth Mollineux_, --make a departure from the city of _London_, in
order to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at _Shandy Hall_, in the
county of ----, or at any other country-seat, castle, hall,
mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now purchased, or hereafter to
be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof: --That then, and as
often as the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall happen to be enceint with
child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon
the body of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, during her said coverture,
--he the said _Walter Shandy_ shall, at his own proper cost and charges,
and out of his own proper monies, upon good and reasonable notice, which
is hereby agreed to be within six weeks of her the said _Elizabeth
Mollineux’s_ full reckoning, or time of supposed and computed delivery,
--pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds of
good and lawful money, to _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. or
assigns, --upon TRUST and confidence, and for and unto the use and uses,
intent, end, and purpose following: --#That is to say#, --That the said
sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid into the hands of the
said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, or to be otherwise applied by them the said
Trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one coach, with able and
sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of the said _Elizabeth
Mollineux_, and the child or children which she shall be then and there
enceint and pregnant with, --unto the city of _London_; and for the
further paying and defraying of all other incidental costs, charges, and
expences whatsoever, --in and about, and for, and relating to, her said
intended delivery and lying-in, in the said city or suburbs thereof. And
that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall and may, from time to time,
and at all such time and times as are here covenanted and agreed upon,
--peaceably and quietly hire the said coach and horses, and have free
ingress, egress, and regress throughout her journey, in and from the
said coach, according to the tenor, true intent, and meaning of these
presents, without any let, suit, trouble, disturbance, molestation,
discharge, hindrance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation, interruption, or
incumbrance whatsoever. --And that it shall moreover be lawful to and
for the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, from time to time, and as oft or
often as she shall well and truly be advanced in her said pregnancy, to
the time heretofore stipulated and agreed upon, --to live and reside in
such place or places, and in such family or families, and with such
relations, friends, and other persons within the said city of _London_,
as she at her own will and pleasure, notwithstanding her present
coverture, and as if she was a _femme sole_ and unmarried, --shall think
fit. --#And this Indenture further Witnesseth#, That for the more
effectually carrying of the said covenant into execution, the said
_Walter Shandy_, merchant, doth hereby grant, bargain, sell, release,
and confirm unto the said _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. their
heirs, executors, and assigns, in their actual possession now being, by
virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale for a year to them the said
_John Dickson_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. by him the said _Walter
Shandy_, merchant, thereof made; which said bargain and sale for a year,
bears date the day next before the date of these presents, and by force
and virtue of the statute for transferring of uses into possession,
--#All# that the manor and lordship of _Shandy_, in the county of ----,
with all the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof; and all and
every the messuages, houses, buildings, barns, stables, orchards,
gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts, garths, cottages, lands, meadows,
feedings, pastures, marshes, commons, woods, underwoods, drains,
fisheries, waters, and water-courses; --together with all rents,
reversions, services, annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of
frankpledge, escheats, reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of
felons and fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in exigent,
deodands, free warrens, and all other royalties and seigniories, rights
and jurisdictions, privileges and hereditaments whatsoever. ----#And
also# the advowson, donation, presentation, and free disposition of the
rectory or parsonage of _Shandy_ aforesaid, and all and every the
tenths, tythes, glebe-lands.” ----In three words, ----“My mother was to
lay in, (if she chose it) in _London_.”
But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the
part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too
manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of
at all, but for my uncle _Toby Shandy_; --a clause was added in security
of my father, which was this: --“That in case my mother hereafter
should, at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a
_London_ journey, upon false cries and tokens; ----that for every such
instance, she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant
gave her to the next turn; ----but to no more, --and so on, _toties
quoties_, in as effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them
had not been made.” --This, by the way, was no more than what was
reasonable; --and yet, as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it
hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely,
as it did, upon myself.
But I was begot and born to misfortunes: --for my poor mother, whether
it was wind or water--or a compound of both, --or neither; --or whether
it was simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her; --or how
far a strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment:
--in short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no
way becomes me to decide. The fact was this, That in the latter end of
_September_ 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having
carried my father up to town much against the grain, --he peremptorily
insisted upon the clause; --so that I was doom’d, by marriage-articles,
to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had
actually spun me without one.
How this event came about, --and what a train of vexatious
disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from
the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member, --shall
be laid before the reader all in due time.
CHAPTER XVI
My father, as anybody may naturally imagine, came down with my mother
into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty or
five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze
himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he
said might every shilling of it have been saved; --then what vexed him
more than everything else was, the provoking time of the year, --which,
as I told you, was towards the end of _September_, when his wall-fruit
and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just
ready for pulling: ----“Had he been whistled up to _London_, upon a _Tom
Fool’s_ errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not have
said three words about it.”
For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy
blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully
reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his pocket-book, as a
second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should fail him. The
disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a wise man, than
all the money which the journey, etc., had cost him, put together, --rot
the hundred and twenty pounds, ----he did not mind it a rush.
From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair
provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish
figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_; ----of
which, in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by
vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking descriptions,
--and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes
in the face of the whole congregation; --that my mother declared, these
two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did nothing but laugh
and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of them all the way.
From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out of
all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied
my mother had put upon him in this affair-- “Certainly,” he would say to
himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived
herself----if she could, ----what weakness!” --tormenting word! --which
led his imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the
duce and all with him; ----for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was
uttered, and struck full upon his brain--so sure it set him upon running
divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were; ----that there
was such a thing as weakness of the body, ----as well as weakness of the
mind, --and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a
stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might,
or might not, have arisen out of himself.
In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of
this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up
in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy
journey of it down. ----In a word, as she complained to my uncle _Toby_,
he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive.
CHAPTER XVII
Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the best
of moods, --pshawing and pishing all the way down, --yet he had the
complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to himself;
--which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the justice,
which my uncle _Toby’s_ clause in the marriage-settlement empowered him;
nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, which was thirteen
months after, that she had the least intimation of his design: when my
father, happening, as you remember, to be a little chagrin’d and out of
temper, ----took occasion as they lay chatting gravely in bed
afterwards, talking over what was to come, ----to let her know that she
must accommodate herself as well as she could to the bargain made
between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in of her next
child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey.
My father was a gentleman of many virtues, --but he had a strong spice
of that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.
--’Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, --and of
obstinacy in a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that
she knew ’twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance, --so she e’en
resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it.
CHAPTER XVIII
As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother
should lye-in of me in the country, she took her measures accordingly;
for which purpose, when she was three days, or thereabouts, gone with
child, she began to cast her eyes upon the midwife, whom you have so
often heard me mention; and before the week was well got round, as the
famous Dr. _Manningham_ was not to be had, she had come to a final
determination in her mind, ----notwithstanding there was a scientific
operator within so near a call as eight miles of us, and who, moreover,
had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon the subject of midwifery,
in which he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself,
----but had likewise superadded many curious improvements for the
quicker extraction of the fœtus in cross births, and some other cases of
danger, which belay us in getting into the world; notwithstanding all
this, my mother, I say, was absolutely determined to trust her life, and
mine with it, into no soul’s hand but this old woman’s only. --Now this
I like; --when we cannot get at the very thing we wish----never to take
up with the next best in degree to it: --no; that’s pitiful beyond
description; --it is no more than a week from this very day, in which I
am now writing this book for the edification of the world; --which is
_March_ 9, 1759, ----that my dear, dear _Jenny_, observing I looked a
little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five-and-twenty
shillings a yard, --told the mercer, she was sorry she had given him so
much trouble; --and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide
stuff of tenpence a yard. --’Tis the duplication of one and the same
greatness of soul; only what lessened the honour of it, somewhat, in my
mother’s case, was, that she could not heroine it into so violent and
hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation might have wished, because
the old widwife had really some little claim to be depended upon, --as
much, at least, as success could give her; having, in the course of her
practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought every mother’s son
of them into the world without any one slip or accident which could
fairly be laid to her account.
These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy
some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father’s spirits
in relation to this choice. --To say nothing of the natural workings of
humanity and justice--or of the yearnings of parental and connubial
love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible in
a case of this kind; ----he felt himself concerned in a particular
manner, that all should go right in the present case; --from the
accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and
child in lying-in at _Shandy-Hall_. ----He knew the world judged by
events, and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by
loading him with the whole blame of it. ----“Alas, o’day; --had Mrs.
_Shandy_, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in going up to town just to
lye-in and come down again; --which, they say, she begged and prayed for
upon her bare knees, ----and which, in my opinion, considering the
fortune which Mr. _Shandy_ got with her, --was no such mighty matter to
have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been
alive at this hour.”
This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable; --and yet, it was
not merely to shelter himself, --nor was it altogether for the care of
his offspring and wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this
point; --my father had extensive views of things, ----and stood
moreover, as he thought, deeply concerned in it for the publick good,
from the dread he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance
might be put to.
He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had
unanimously agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen
_Elizabeth’s_ reign down to his own time, that the current of men and
money towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or another,
--set in so strong, --as to become dangerous to our civil rights,
--though, by the bye, ----a _current_ was not the image he took most
delight in, --a _distemper_ was here his favourite metaphor, and he
would run it down into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was
identically the same in the body national as in the body natural where
the blood and spirits were driven up into the head faster than they
could find their ways down; ----a stoppage of circulation must ensue,
which was death in both cases.
There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by
_French_ politicks or _French_ invasions; ----nor was he so much in pain
of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humours
in our constitution, which he hoped was not so bad as it was imagined;
--but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go off, all
at once, in a state-apoplexy; --and then he would say, _The Lord have
mercy upon us all_.
My father was never able to give the history of this distemper,
--without the remedy along with it.
“Was I an absolute prince,” he would say, pulling up his breeches with
both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, “I would appoint able
judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of
every fool’s business who came there; --and if, upon a fair and candid
hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, and
come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer’s sons,
&c., &c., at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable
to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of their legal
settlements. By this means I shall take care, that my metropolis
totter’d not thro’ its own weight; --that the head be no longer too big
for the body; --that the extremes, now wasted and pinn’d in, be restored
to their due share of nourishment, and regain with it their natural
strength and beauty: --I would effectually provide, That the meadows and
corn-fields of my dominions, should laugh and sing; --that good chear
and hospitality flourish once more; --and that such weight and influence
be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of my kingdom, as should
counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now taking from them.
“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s seats,” he would ask, with
some emotion, as he walked across the room, “throughout so many
delicious provinces in _France?_ Whence is it that the few remaining
_Chateaus_ amongst them are so dismantled, --so unfurnished, and in so
ruinous and desolate a condition? ----Because, Sir,” (he would say) “in
that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support; --the little
interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is concentrated
in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of
whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every _French_
man lives or dies.”
Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard
against the least evil accident in my mother’s lying-in in the country,
----was, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance of
power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in his
own, or higher stations; ----which, with the many other usurped rights
which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing, --would, in
the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestick government
established in the first creation of things by God.
In this point he was entirely of Sir _Robert Filmer’s_ opinion, That the
plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern parts
of the world were, originally, all stolen from that admirable pattern
and prototype of this household and paternal power; --which, for a
century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a
mix’d government; ----the form of which, however desirable in great
combinations of the species, ----was very troublesome in small ones,
--and seldom produced anything, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion.
For all these reasons, private and publick, put together, --my father
was for having the man-midwife by all means, --my mother by no means. My
father begg’d and intreated she would for once recede from her
prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her; --my
mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privilege in this matter, to
choose for herself, --and have no mortal’s help but the old woman’s.
--What could my father do? He was almost at his wit’s end; ----talked it
over with her in all moods; --placed his arguments in all lights;
--argued the matter with her like a christian, --like a heathen, --like
a husband, --like a father, --like a patriot, --like a man: --My mother
answered everything only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her;
--for as she could not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of
characters, --’twas no fair match: --’twas seven to one. --What could my
mother do? ----She had the advantage (otherwise she had been certainly
overpowered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom,
which bore her up, and enabled her to dispute the affair with my father
with so equal an advantage, ----that both sides sung _Te Deum_. In a
word, my mother was to have the old woman, --and the operator was to
have licence to drink a bottle of wine with my father and my uncle _Toby
Shandy_ in the back parlour, --for which he was to be paid five guineas.
I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the
breast of my fair reader; --and it is this, ----Not to take it
absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have
dropp’d in it, ----“That I am a married man.” --I own, the tender
appellation of my dear, dear _Jenny_, --with some other strokes of
conjugal knowledge, interspersed here and there, might, naturally
enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a
determination against me. --All I plead for, in this case, Madam, is
strict justice, and that you do so much of it, to me as well as to
yourself, --as not to prejudge, or receive such an impression of me,
till you have better evidence, than, I am positive, at present can be
produced against me. --Not that I can be so vain or unreasonable, Madam,
as to desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear _Jenny_ is
my kept mistress; --no, --that would be flattering my character in the
other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has
no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the utter impossibility, for
some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth,
should know how this matter really stands. --It is not impossible, but
that my dear, dear _Jenny!_ tender as the appellation is, may be my
child. ----Consider, --I was born in the year eighteen. --Nor is there
anything unnatural or extravagant in the supposition, that my dear
_Jenny_ may be my friend. --Friend! --My friend. --Surely, Madam,
a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported
without ------Fy! Mr. _Shandy_: --Without anything, Madam, but that
tender and delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friendship, where
there is a difference of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and
sentimental parts of the best _French_ Romances; --it will really,
Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions
this delicious sentiment, which I have the honour to speak of, is
dress’d out.
CHAPTER XIX
I would sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry,
than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great
good sense, ----knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and
curious too in philosophy, --wise also in political reasoning, --and in
polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant, --could be capable of
entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track, --that I
fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of
a cholerick temper, will immediately throw the book by; if mercurial, he
will laugh most heartily at it; --and if he is of a grave and saturnine
cast, he will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and
extravagant; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of
christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than
what superficial minds were capable of conceiving.
His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of
magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly
impressed upon our characters and conduct.
The hero of _Cervantes_ argued not the point with more seriousness,
----nor had he more faith, ----or more to say on the powers of
necromancy in dishonouring his deeds, --or on DULCINEA’S name, in
shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS
or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand--or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How
many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names,
have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add, are
there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their
characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICOMEDUS’D into
nothing?
I see plainly, Sir, by your looks (or as the case happened), my father
would say--that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine,
--which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the
bottom, --I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it;
----and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am
morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you, --not
as a party in the dispute, --but as a judge, and trusting my appeal upon
it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this matter;
----you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as
most men; --and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into you, --of a
liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely because it
wants friends. Your son, --your dear son, --from whose sweet and open
temper you have so much to expect. --Your BILLY, Sir! --would you, for
the world, have called him JUDAS? --Would you, my dear Sir, he would
say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,
--and in that soft and irresistible _piano_ of voice, which the nature
of the _argumentum ad hominem_ absolutely requires, --Would you, Sir, if
a _Jew_ of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered
you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a
desecration of him? ----O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know
your temper right, Sir, --you are incapable of it; ----you would have
trampled upon the offer; --you would have thrown the temptation at the
tempter’s head with abhorrence.
Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that
generous contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction,
is really noble; --and what renders it more so, is the principle of it;
--the workings of a parent’s love upon the truth and conviction of this
very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS, --the sordid
and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have
accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a
miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example.
I never knew a man able to answer this argument. ----But, indeed, to
speak of my father as he was; --he was certainly irresistible; --both in
his orations and disputations; --he was born an orator; --Θεοδίδακτος.
--Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and
Rhetorick were so blended up in him, --and, withal, he had so shrewd a
guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent, ----that NATURE
might have stood up and said, --“This man is eloquent.” --In short,
whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas
hazardous in either case to attack him. --And yet, ’tis strange, he had
never read _Cicero_, nor _Quintilian de Oratore_, nor _Isocrates_, nor
_Aristotle_, nor _Longinus_ amongst the antients; --nor _Vossius_, nor
_Skioppius_, nor _Ramus_, nor _Farnaby_ amongst the moderns; --and what
is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or
spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon
_Crackenthorp_ or _Burgersdicius_, or any Dutch logician or commentator;
--he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument _ad
ignorantiam_, and an argument _ad hominem_ consisted; so that I well
remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at _Jesus
College_ in ****, --it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor,
and two or three fellows of that learned society, --that a man who knew
not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work after that
fashion with them.
To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was,
however, perpetually forced upon; ----for he had a thousand little
sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend----most of which notions,
I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and
of a _vive la Bagatelle_; and as such he would make merry with them for
half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss them
till another day.
I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the
progress and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions, --but as a
warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such
guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance, for some years, into
our brains, --at length claim a kind of settlement there, ----working
sometimes like yeast; --but more generally after the manner of the
gentle passion, beginning in jest, --but ending in downright earnest.
Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions--or
that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit; --or how far,
in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;
----the reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain
here, is, that in this one, of the influence of christian names, however
it gained footing, he was serious; --he was all uniformity; --he was
systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would move both
heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support
his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again; --he was serious;
--and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever
he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better,
----as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon
their child, --or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_ for
their puppy-dog.
This, he would say, look’d ill; --and had, moreover, this particular
aggravation in it, viz., That when once a vile name was wrongfully or
injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character,
which, when wrong’d, might hereafter be cleared; ----and, possibly, some
time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least after his death, --be,
somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this,
he would say, could never be undone; --nay, he doubted even whether an
act of parliament could reach it: ----He knew as well as you, that the
legislature assumed a power over surnames; --but for very strong
reasons, which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say,
to go a step farther.
It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion,
had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards
certain names; --that there were still numbers of names which hung so
equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely indifferent
to him. _Jack_, _Dick_, and _Tom_ were of this class: These my father
called neutral names; --affirming of them, without a satire, That there
had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men, since
the world began, who had indifferently borne them; --so that, like equal
forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they
mutually destroyed each other’s effects; for which reason, he would
often declare, He would not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them.
_Bob_, which was my brother’s name, was another of these neutral kinds
of christian names, which operated very little either way; and as my
father happen’d to be at _Epsom_, when it was given him, --he would
oft-times thank Heaven it was no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a
negative quantity in Algebra with him; --’twas worse, he said, than
nothing. --_William_ stood pretty high: ----_Numps_ again was low with
him: --and _Nick_, he said, was the DEVIL.
But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable
aversion for TRISTRAM; --he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion
of it of anything in the world, --thinking it could possibly produce
nothing in _rerum naturâ_, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So
that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he
was frequently involved, ----he would sometimes break off in a sudden
and spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and
sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse, ----and demand it
categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say,
he had ever remembered, ----whether he had ever read, --or even whether
he had ever heard tell of a man, called _Tristram_, performing anything
great or worth recording? --No, --he would say, --TRISTRAM! --The thing
is impossible.
What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish
this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle
speculatist to stand single in his opinions, --unless he gives them
proper vent: --It was the identical thing which my father did: --for in
the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the
pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word
_Tristram_, --shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the
grounds of his great abhorrence to the name.
When this story is compared with the title-page, --Will not the gentle
reader pity my father from his soul? --to see an orderly and
well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular, --yet inoffensive in his
notions, --so played upon in them by cross purposes; ----to look down
upon the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little
systems and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out
against him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had
purposedly been plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his
speculations. ----In a word, to behold such a one, in his old age,
ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow; --ten
times in a day calling the child of his prayers TRISTRAM! --Melancholy
dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to _Nincompoop_,
and every name vituperative under heaven. ----By his ashes! I swear it,
--if ever malignant spirit took pleasure, or busied itself in traversing
the purposes of mortal man, --it must have been here; --and if it was
not necessary I should be born before I was christened, I would this
moment give the reader an account of it.
CHAPTER XX
------How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last
chapter? I told you in it, _That my mother was not a papist_.
----Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir. --Madam, I beg leave to
repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as words, by
direct inference, could tell you such a thing. --Then, Sir, I must have
miss’d a page. --No, Madam, --you have not miss’d a word. ----Then I was
asleep, Sir. --My pride, Madam, cannot allow you that refuge. ----Then,
I declare, I know nothing at all about the matter. --That, Madam, is the
very fault I lay to your charge; and as a punishment for it, I do insist
upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to
the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again. I have
imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness nor
cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall make her no
apology for it when she returns back: --’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste,
which has crept into thousands besides herself, --of reading straight
forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition
and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be,
would infallibly impart with them ----The mind should be accustomed to
make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along;
the habitude of which made _Pliny_ the younger affirm, “That he never
read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of
_Greece_ and _Rome_, run over without this turn and application, --do
less service, I affirm it, than the history of _Parismus_ and
_Parismenus_, or of the Seven Champions of _England_, read with it.
------But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter,
Madam, as I desired you? --You have: And did you not observe the
passage, upon the second reading, which admits the inference? ----Not a
word like it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but
one of the chapter, where I take upon me to say, “It was _necessary_ I
should be born before I was christen’d.” Had my mother, Madam, been a
Papist, that consequence did not follow.[1.1]
It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to
the Republick of letters; --so that my own is quite swallowed up in the
consideration of it, --that this selfsame vile pruriency for fresh
adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humour,
--and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our
concupiscence that way, --that nothing but the gross and more carnal
parts of a composition will go down: --The subtle hints and sly
communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards, ----the heavy
moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much lost
to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn.
I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and
curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected.
I wish it may have its effects; --and that all good people, both male
and female, from her example, may be taught to think as well as read.
MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE[1.2]
_Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de
SORBONNE, qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne sçauroit
accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa
mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit
un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous condition,
le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le moyen d’une
_petite canulle_, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement l’enfant, sans
faire aucun tort à la mere. ----Il demand si ce moyen, qu’il vient de
proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir dans les cas
qu’il vient d’exposer._
[Footnote 1.1: The _Romish_ Rituals direct the baptizing of the
child, in cases of danger, _before_ it is born; --but upon this
proviso, That some part or other of the child’s body be seen by
the baptizer: ----But the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, by a
deliberation held amongst them, _April_ 10, 1733, --have enlarged
the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part
of the child’s body should appear, ----that baptism shall,
nevertheless, be administered to it by injection, --_par le moyen
d’une petite canulle_, --Anglicè _a squirt_. ----’Tis very strange
that St. _Thomas Aquinas_, who had so good a mechanical head,
both for tying and untying the knots of school-divinity, --should,
after so much pains bestowed upon this, --give up the point at
last, as a second _La chose impossible_, --“Infantes in maternis
uteris existentes (quoth St. _Thomas!_) baptizari possunt _nullo
modo_.” --O _Thomas!_ _Thomas!_
If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism
_by injection_, as presented to the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_,
with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.]
[Footnote 1.2: Vide Deventer, Paris edit., 4to, 1734, p. 366.]
REPONSE
_Le Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes
difficultés. Les Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le
baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere
naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour renaître en _Jesus
Christ_, comme ils l’enseignent. _S. Thomas, 3 part, quæst. 88, artic.
II_, suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit
ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de
leurs meres, & _S. Thomas_ est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont
point nés, & ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il
conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet d’une action extérieure, pour
reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens nécessaires au salut:_ Pueri
in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis
hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanæ, ut per
eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. _Les rituels
ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les
mêmes matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de
baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres,
s’ils ne font paroître quelque partie de leurs corps. Le concours des
théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des diocéses, paroit
former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le
conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des
théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la
deffense des rituels suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement les
enfans ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre la
supposition presente; & d’un autre côté, considerant que les mêmes
théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les sacremens que _Jesus
Christ_ a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour
sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés
dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut,
parcequ’ils sont capables de damnation; --pour ces considerations, & en
egard à l’exposé, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen certain
de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans faire aucun tort à la mere,
le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen proposé, dans la
confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces sortes d’enfans sans
aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé, que le moyen dont il
s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême; cependant comme il
s’agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposée, de changer une regie
universellement établie, le Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit
s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il appartient de juger de l’utilité, &
du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le bon plaisir de l’evêque, le
Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le droit
d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans le cas, ou la loi
ne sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que paroisse la
maniére de baptiser dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit l’approuver
sans le concours de ces deux autorités. On conseile au moins à celui qui
consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque, & de lui faire part de la
presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les raisons sur
lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être autorisé
dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que la
permission fût demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose si
avantageux au salut de l’enfant. Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant que
l’on pourroit s’en servir, croit cependant, que si les enfans dont il
s’agit, venoient au monde, contre l’esperance de ceux qui se seroient
servis du même moyen, il seroit nécessaire de les baptiser sous
condition; & en cela le Conseil se conforme à tous les rituels, qui en
autorisant le baptême d’un enfant qui fait paroître quelque partie de
son corps, enjoignent néantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser sous
condition, s’il vient heureusement au monde._
Deliberé en _Sorbonne_, le 10 _Avril_, 1733.
A. LE MOYNE.
L. DE ROMIGNY.
DE MARCILLY.
Mr. _Tristram Shandy’s_ compliments to Messrs. _Le Moyne_, _De Romigny_,
and _De Marcilly_; hopes they all rested well the night after so
tiresome a consultation. --He begs to know, whether after the ceremony
of marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the
HOMUNCULI at once, slapdash, by _injection_, would not be a shorter and
safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the HOMUNCULI do well,
and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of them
shall be baptized again (_sous condition_) ----And provided, in the
second place, That the thing can be done, which _Mr. Shandy_ apprehends
it may, _par le moyen d’une petite canulle_, and _sans faire aucun tort
au pere_.
CHAPTER XXI
----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, smoking 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 outlines 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 very 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 of _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 anything 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 this.
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 _Lillabullero_.
----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.
CHAPTER XXII
The learned Bishop _Hall_, I mean the famous Dr. _Joseph Hall_, who was
Bishop of _Exeter_ in King _James_ the First’s reign, tells us in one of
his _Decads_, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at
_London_, in the year 1610, by _John Beal_, dwelling in
_Aldersgate-street_, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to
commend himself;” ----and I really think it is so.
And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind
of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out; --I think it is
full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out
of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head.
This is precisely my situation.
For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all
my digressions (one only excepted) there is a masterstroke of digressive
skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my
reader, --not for want of penetration in him, --but because ’tis an
excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression; --and
it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as you observe, --and
that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as often too, as any
writer in _Great Britain_; yet I constantly take care to order affairs
so that my main business does not stand still in my absence.
I was just going, for example, to have given you the great outlines of
my uncle _Toby’s_ most whimsical character; --when my aunt _Dinah_ and
the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles
into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this,
you perceive that the drawing of my uncle _Toby’s_ character went on
gently all the time; --not the great contours of it, --that was
impossible, --but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it,
were here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much
better acquainted with my uncle _Toby_ now than you was before.
By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself;
two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were
thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is
digressive, and it is progressive too, --and at the same time.
This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving
round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her
elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that
variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy; --though I own it suggested
the thought, --as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and
discoveries have come from such trifling hints.
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; ----they are the life, the
soul of reading! --take them out of this book, for instance, --you might
as well take the book along with them; --one cold eternal winter would
reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; --he steps forth
like a bridegroom, --bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the
appetite to fail.
All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as
to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author,
whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a
digression, --from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock
still; --and if he goes on with his main work, --then there is an end of
his digression.
----This is vile work. --For which reason, from the beginning of this,
you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of
it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the
digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the
whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going; --and, what’s more, it
shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of
health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.
CHAPTER XXIII
I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very
nonsensically, and I will not baulk my fancy. --Accordingly I set off
thus:
If the fixture of _Momus’s_ glass in the human breast, according to the
proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place, ----first,
This foolish consequence would certainly have followed, --That the very
wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid
window-money every day of our lives.
And, secondly, That had the said glass been there set up, nothing more
would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but
to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical
beehive, and look’d in, --view’d the soul stark naked; --observed all
her motions, --her machinations; --traced all her maggots from their
first engendering to their crawling forth; --watched her loose in her
frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more
solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, etc. ----then taken your
pen and ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have
sworn to: --But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in
this planet; --in the planet _Mercury_ (belike) it may be so, if not
better still for him; ----for there the intense heat of the country,
which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more
than equal to that of red-hot iron, --must, I think, long ago have
vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to
suit them for the climate (which is the final cause); so that betwixt
them both, all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be
nothing else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the
contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the
umbilical knot)--so that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably
wrinkled, whereby the rays of light, in passing through them, become so
monstrously refracted, ----or return reflected from their surfaces in
such transverse lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through;
--his soul might as well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling
advantage which the umbilical point gave her, --might, upon all other
accounts, I say, as well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house.
But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this
earth; --our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in
a dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would
come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to
work.
Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to
take, to do this thing with exactness.
Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind-instruments.
--_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of _Dido_ and _Æneas_;
--but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame; --and, moreover,
bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the _Italians_ pretend
to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one particular sort
of character among them, from the _forte_ or _piano_ of a certain
wind-instrument they use, --which they say is infallible. --I dare not
mention the name of the instrument in this place; --’tis sufficient we
have it amongst us, --but never think of making a drawing by it; --this
is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at least _ad populum_: --And
therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you read on as fast as
you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about it.
There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other
helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations; --but this often
gives a very incorrect outline, --unless, indeed, you take a sketch of
his repletions too; and by correcting one drawing from the other,
compound one good figure out of them both.
I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must
smell too strong of the lamp, --and be render’d still more operose, by
forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his _Non-naturals_. ----Why
the most natural actions of a man’s life should be called his
Non-naturals, --is another question.
There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these expedients;
--not from any fertility of their own, but from the various ways of
doing it, which they have borrowed from the honourable devices which the
Pentagraphic Brethren[1.3] of the brush have shewn in taking copies.
--These, you must know, are your great historians.
One of these you will see drawing a full-length character _against the
light_; --that’s illiberal, --dishonest, --and hard upon the character
of the man who sits.
Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the _Camera_;
--that is most unfair of all, --because, _there_ you are sure to be
represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes.
To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle
_Toby’s_ character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help
whatever; ----nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument
which ever was blown upon, either on this, or on the other side of the
_Alps_; --nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges,
--or touch upon his Non-naturals--but, in a word, I will draw my uncle
_Toby’s_ character from his HOBBY-HORSE.
[Footnote 1.3: Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and
Pictures mechanically, and in any proportion.]
CHAPTER XXIV
If I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience
for my uncle _Toby’s_ character, ----I would here previously have
convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing
with, as that which I have pitch’d upon.
A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act
exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each
other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind;
and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the
manner of electrified bodies, --and that, by means of the heated parts
of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the
HOBBY-HORSE, --by long journeys and much friction, it so happens, that
the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of HOBBY-HORSICAL
matter as it can hold; ----so that if you are able to give but a clear
description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion
of the genius and character of the other.
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.
In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and he
carried my uncle _Toby_ so well, ----that he troubled his head very
little with what the world either said or thought about it.
It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:
--But to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint
you first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him.
CHAPTER XXV
The wound in my uncle _Toby’s_ groin, which he received at the siege of
_Namur_, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient
he should return to _England_, in order, if possible, to be set to
rights.
He was four years totally confined, --part of it to his bed, and all of
it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time
in hand, suffer’d unspeakable miseries, --owing to a succession of
exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of
the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_, ----both which bones were
dismally crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told
you was broke off the parapet, --as by its size, --(tho’ it was pretty
large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great
injury which it had done my uncle _Toby’s_ groin, was more owing to the
gravity of the stone itself, than to the projectile force of it, --which
he would often tell him was a great happiness.
My father at that time was just beginning business in _London_, and had
taken a house; --and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted
between the two brothers, --and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_
could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house,
----he assign’d him the very best apartment in it. --And what was a much
more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend
or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but he would
take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his brother _Toby_,
and chat an hour by his bedside.
The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it; --my uncle’s
visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from
the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the
discourse to that subject, --and from that subject the discourse would
generally roll on to the siege itself.
These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle _Toby_ received
great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they
brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months
together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an
expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they would
have laid him in his grave.
What these perplexities of my uncle _Toby_ were, ----’tis impossible for
you to guess; --if you could, --I should blush; not as a relation, --not
as a man, --nor even as a woman, --but I should blush as an author;
inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that
my reader has never yet been able to guess at anything. And in this,
Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was
able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of
what was to come in the next page, --I would tear it out of my book.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to
explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle _Toby_ was
involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of
_Namur_, where he received his wound.
I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King
_William’s_ wars, --but if he has not, --I then inform him, that one of
the most memorable attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the
_English_ and _Dutch_ upon the point of the advanced counterscarp,
between the gate of _St. Nicolas_, which inclosed the great sluice or
water-stop, where the _English_ were terribly exposed to the shot of the
counter-guard and demi-bastion of _St. Roch_. The issue of which hot
dispute, in three words, was this; That the _Dutch_ lodged themselves
upon the counter-guard, --and that the _English_ made themselves masters
of the covered-way before _St. Nicolas_-gate, notwithstanding the
gallantry of the _French_ officers, who exposed themselves upon the
glacis sword in hand.
As this was the principal attack of which my uncle _Toby_ was an
eye-witness at _Namur_, ----the army of the besiegers being cut off, by
the confluence of the _Maes_ and _Sambre_, from seeing much of each
other’s operations, ----my uncle _Toby_ was generally more eloquent and
particular in his account of it; and the many perplexities he was in,
arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling
his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences
and distinctions between the scarp and counter-scarp, --the glacis and
covered-way, --the half-moon and ravelin, --as to make his company fully
comprehend where and what he was about.
Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you will
the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in opposition
to many misconceptions, that my uncle _Toby_ did oft-times puzzle his
visitors, and sometimes himself too.
To speak the truth, unless the company my father led upstairs were
tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle _Toby_ was in one of his explanatory
moods, ’twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse
free from obscurity.
What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle
_Toby_, was this, --that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the
gate of _St. Nicolas_, extending itself from the bank of the _Maes_,
quite up to the great water-stop, --the ground was cut and cross cut
with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all
sides, --and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst
them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save
his life; and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very
account only.
These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle _Toby Shandy_ more perturbations
than you would imagine: and as my father’s kindness to him was
continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers, ----he had
but a very uneasy task of it.
No doubt my uncle _Toby_ had great command of himself, could guard
appearances, I believe, as well as most men; --yet any one may imagine,
that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into
the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the
counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the
ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly: --He did so;
and the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no
account to the man who has not read _Hippocrates_, yet, whoever has read
_Hippocrates_, or Dr. _James Mackenzie_, and has considered well the
effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the
digestion--(Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner?)--may easily
conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle
_Toby_ must have undergone upon that score only.
--My uncle _Toby_ could not philosophize upon it; --’twas enough he felt
it was so, --and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three
months together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate himself.
He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and
nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other
position, when a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase
such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of
the fortification of the town and citadel of _Namur_, with its environs,
it might be a means of giving him ease. --I take notice of his desire to
have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this reason,
--because my uncle _Toby’s_ wound was got in one of the traverses, about
thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench, opposite to the
salient angle of the demi-bastion of _St. Roch_: ----so that he was
pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground
where he was standing on when the stone struck him.
All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of
sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you
will read, of procuring my uncle _Toby_ his HOBBY-HORSE.
CHAPTER II
There is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an
entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your
criticks and gentry of refined taste run it down: Nor is there anything
so likely to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the party,
or, what is full as offensive, of bestowing your attention upon the rest
of your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such thing as
a critick (by occupation) at table.
----I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a
dozen places purposely open for them; --and in the next place, I pay
them all court. --Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company
could give me half the pleasure, --by my soul I am glad to see
you ------I beg only you will make no strangers of yourselves, but sit
down without any ceremony, and fall on heartily.
I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my
complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them, --and in
this very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho’ not by
occupation, --but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough,
I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the meantime, that I shall be
able to make a great deal of more room next year.
------How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle _Toby_, who, it
seems, was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,
----be at the same time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed,
fellow, as --Go look.
So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it. --’Tis language
unurbane, --and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and
satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first
causes of human ignorance and confusion. It is moreover the reply
valiant--and therefore I reject it: for tho’ it might have suited my
uncle _Toby’s_ character as a soldier excellently well, and had he not
accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle the _Lillabullero_, as
he wanted no courage, ’tis the very answer he would have given; yet it
would by no means have done for me. You see as plain as can be, that I
write as a man of erudition; --that even my similies, my allusions, my
illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite, --and that I must sustain my
character properly, and contrast it properly too, --else what would
become of me? Why, Sir, I should be undone; --at this very moment that I
am going here to fill up one place against a critick, --I should have
made an opening for a couple.
----Therefore I answer thus:
Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever
read such a book as _Locke’s_ Essay upon the Human Understanding?
----Don’t answer me rashly--because many, I know, quote the book, who
have not read it--and many have read it who understand it not: --If
either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will tell you in
three words what the book is. --It is a history. --A history! of who?
what? where? when? Don’t hurry yourself ----It is a history-book, Sir
(which may possibly recommend it to the world) of what passes in a man’s
own mind; and if you will say so much of the book, and no more, believe
me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysick circle.
But this by the way.
Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the
bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and
confusion, in the mind of a man, is threefold.
Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and
transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not
dull. And thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what
it has received. --Call down _Dolly_ your chambermaid, and I will give
you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain
that _Dolly_ herself should understand it as well as _Malbranch_.
----When _Dolly_ has indited her epistle to _Robin_, and has thrust her
arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side; --take that
opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception
can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by
that one thing which _Dolly’s_ hand is in search of. --Your organs are
not so dull that I should inform you--’tis an inch, Sir, of red
seal-wax.
When this is melted, and dropped upon the letter, if _Dolly_ fumbles too
long for her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not receive
the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint
it. Very well. If _Dolly’s_ wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of
a temper too soft, --tho’ it may receive, --it will not hold the
impression, how hard soever _Dolly_ thrusts against it; and last of all,
supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied thereto in
careless haste, as her Mistress rings the bell; ----in any one of these
three cases the print left by the thimble will be as unlike the
prototype as a brass-jack.
Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the
confusion in my uncle _Toby’s_ discourse; and it is for that very reason
I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists--to
shew the world, what it did _not_ arise from.
What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of
obscurity it is, --and ever will be, --and that is the unsteady uses of
words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted
understandings.
It is ten to one (at _Arthur’s_) whether you have ever read the literary
histories of past ages; --if you have, what terrible battles, ’yclept
logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and
ink-shed, --that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them
without tears in his eyes.
Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within
thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has
been pestered and disordered at one time or other, by this, and this
only: --What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about οὐσία and ὑπόστασις;
and in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit; --about
essences, and about quintessences; ----about substances, and about
space. ----What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little
meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this, thou
wilt not wonder at my uncle _Toby’s_ perplexities, --thou wilt drop a
tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp; --his glacis and his
covered way; --his ravelin and his half-moon: ’Twas not by ideas, --by
Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words.
CHAPTER III
When my uncle _Toby_ got his map of _Namur_ to his mind, he began
immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the
study of it; for nothing being of more importance to him than his
recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the
passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest
care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to talk
upon it without emotion.
In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did
my uncle _Toby’s_ wound, upon his groin, no good, --he was enabled, by
the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant,
together with _Gobesius’s_ military architecture and pyroballogy,
translated from the _Flemish_, to form his discourse with passable
perspicuity; and before he was two full months gone, --he was right
eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced
counterscarp with great order; ----but having, by that time, gone much
deeper into the art, than what his first motive made necessary, my uncle
_Toby_ was able to cross the _Maes_ and _Sambre_; make diversions as far
as _Vauban’s_ line, the abbey of _Salsines_, etc., and give his visitors
as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of the gate
of _St. Nicolas_, where he had the honour to receive his wound.
But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with
the acquisition of it. The more my uncle _Toby_ pored over his map, the
more he took a liking to it! --by the same process and electrical
assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of
connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the
happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d--be-pictured,
--be-butterflied, and befiddled.
The more my uncle _Toby_ drank of this sweet fountain of science, the
greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the
first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a
fortified town in _Italy_ or _Flanders_, of which, by one means or
other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and
carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their
demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read
with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself,
his wound, his confinement, his dinner.
In the second year my uncle _Toby_ purchased _Ramelli_ and _Cataneo_,
translated from the _Italian_; --likewise _Stevinus_, _Moralis_, the
Chevalier _de Ville_, _Lorini_, _Cochorn_, _Sheeter_, the Count _de
Pagan_, the Marshal _Vauban_, Mons. _Blondel_, with almost as many more
books of military architecture, as Don _Quixote_ was found to have of
chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library.
Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in _August_,
ninety-nine, my uncle _Toby_ found it necessary to understand a little
of projectiles: --and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from
the fountain-head, he began with _N. Tartaglia_, who it seems was the
first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball’s doing all that
mischief under the notion of a right line --This _N. Tartaglia_ proved
to my uncle _Toby_ to be an impossible thing.
----Endless is the search of Truth.
No sooner was my uncle _Toby_ satisfied which road the cannon-ball did
not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to
enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he
was obliged to set off afresh with old _Maltus_, and studied him
devoutly. --He proceeded next to _Galileo_ and _Torricellius_, wherein,
by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise
part to be a PARABOLA--or else an HYPERBOLA, --and that the parameter,
or _latus rectum_, of the conic section of the said path, was to the
quantity and amplitude in a direct _ratio_, as the whole line to the
sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breech upon an
horizontal plane; --and that the semiparameter, ----stop! my dear uncle
_Toby_----stop! --go not one foot farther into this thorny and
bewildered track, --intricate are the steps! intricate are the mazes of
this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this
bewitching phantom KNOWLEDGE will bring upon thee. --O my uncle;
--fly--fly, fly from it as from a serpent. ----Is it fit----good-natured
man! thou should’st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights
baking thy blood with hectic watchings? ----Alas! ’twill exasperate thy
symptoms, --check thy perspirations--evaporate thy spirits--waste thy
animal strength, --dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a
costive habit of body, ----impair thy health, ----and hasten all the
infirmities of thy old age. ----O my uncle! my uncle _Toby_.
CHAPTER IV
I would not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pencraft, who does
not understand this, ----That the best plain narrative in the world,
tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle
_Toby_----would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s palate;
--therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the
middle of my story.
------Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters.
Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the
less evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth,
than beauty. This is to be understood _cum grano salis_; but be it as it
will, --as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the
apostrophe cool, than any thing else, --’tis not very material whether
upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.
In the latter end of the third year, my uncle _Toby_ perceiving that the
parameter and semiparameter of the conic section angered his wound, he
left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook
himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of
which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force.
It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily
regularity of a clean shirt, ----to dismiss his barber unshaven, ----and
to allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound,
concerning himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven
times dressing, how it went on: when, lo! --all of a sudden, for the
change was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his
recovery, ----complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon:
----and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he shut up
his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate
with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told him, might
surely have been accomplished at least by that time: --He dwelt long
upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years
melancholy imprisonment; --adding, that had it not been for the kind
looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers, --he had long
since sunk under his misfortunes. ----My father was by: My uncle
_Toby’s_ eloquence brought tears into his eyes; ----’twas unexpected:
----My uncle _Toby_, by nature was not eloquent; --it had the greater
effect: ----The surgeon was confounded; ----not that there wanted
grounds for such, or greater marks of impatience, --but ’twas unexpected
too; in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen anything
like it in my uncle _Toby’s_ carriage; he had never once dropped one
fretful or discontented word; ----he had been all patience, --all
submission.
--We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it; --but we
often treble the force: --The surgeon was astonished; but much more so,
when he heard my uncle _Toby_ go on, and peremptorily insist upon his
healing up the wound directly, --or sending for Monsieur _Ronjat_, the
king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him.
The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature; ----the love
of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle
_Toby_ had in common with his species; ----and either of them had been
sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of
doors; ----but I have told you before, that nothing wrought with our
family after the common way; ----and from the time and manner in which
this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating
reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my
uncle _Toby’s_ head: ----There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next
chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when
that’s done, ’twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side,
where we left my uncle _Toby_ in the middle of his sentence.
CHAPTER V
When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, --or,
in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong, ----farewel cool
reason and fair discretion!
My uncle _Toby’s_ wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon
recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much----he told
him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation
happened, which there was no sign of, --it would be dried up in five or
six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would
have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle _Toby’s_ mind.
----The succession of his ideas was now rapid, --he broiled with
impatience to put his design in execution; ----and so, without
consulting farther with any soul living, --which, by the bye, I think is
right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice, ----he
privately ordered _Trim_, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and
dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by
twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change.
----So leaving a banknote upon the table for the surgeon’s care of him,
and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s--he packed up his maps,
his books of fortification, his instruments, &c., and by the help of a
crutch on one side, and _Trim_ on the other, ----my uncle _Toby_
embarked for _Shandy-Hall_.
The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as
follows:
The table in my uncle _Toby’s_ room, and at which, the night before this
change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c., about him--being
somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small
instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it--he had the
accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his
compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he
threw down his case of instruments and snuffers; --and as the dice took
a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling,
----he thrust Monsieur _Blondel_ off the table, and Count _de Pagan_
o’top of him.
’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle _Toby_ was, to think of
redressing these evils by himself, --he rung his bell for his man
_Trim_; ------_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, prithee see what confusion
I have here been making --I must have some better contrivance, _Trim_.
----Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and breadth of
this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again? ----Yes, an’
please your Honour, replied _Trim_, making a bow; but I hope your Honour
will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where, --as
your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage
this matter to a T.
I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle _Toby’s_, who went
by the name of _Trim_, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own company,
--his real name was _James Butler_, --but having got the nick-name of
_Trim_ in the regiment, my uncle _Toby_, unless when he happened to be
very angry with him, would never call him by any other name.
The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his
left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of _Landen_, which was two
years before the affair of _Namur_; --and as the fellow was well-beloved
in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle _Toby_
took him for his servant; and of an excellent use was he, attending my
uncle _Toby_ in the camp and in his quarters as a valet, groom, barber,
cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon
him and served him with great fidelity and affection.
My uncle _Toby_ loved the man in return, and what attached him more to
him still, was the similitude of their knowledge. ----For Corporal
_Trim_ (for so, for the future, I shall call him), by four years
occasional attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and
the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans,
&c., exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a
body-servant, _Non Hobby Horsical per se_; ----had become no mean
proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and
chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle
_Toby_ himself.
I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal _Trim’s_
character, ----and it is the only dark line in it. --The fellow loved to
advise, --or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so
perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so;
but set his tongue a-going, --you had no hold of him--he was voluble;
--the eternal interlardings of _your Honour_, with the respectfulness of
Corporal _Trim’s_ manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his
elocution, --that though you might have been incommoded, ----you could
not well be angry. My uncle _Toby_ was seldom either the one or the
other with him, --or, at least, this fault, in _Trim_, broke no squares
with them. My uncle _Toby_, as I said, loved the man; ----and besides,
as he ever looked upon a faithful servant, --but as an humble friend,
--he could not bear to stop his mouth. ----Such was Corporal _Trim_.
If I durst presume, continued _Trim_, to give your Honour my advice, and
speak my opinion in this matter. --Thou art welcome, _Trim_, quoth my
uncle _Toby_--speak, ----speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man,
without fear. Why then, replied _Trim_ (not hanging his ears and
scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back
from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division, --I think,
quoth _Trim_, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little
forwards, --and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of
_Dunkirk_, which was pinned against the hangings, ----I think, quoth
Corporal _Trim_, with humble submission to your Honour’s better
judgment, ----that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and horn-works,
make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here
upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we
in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of
ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued
_Trim_, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the
nography--(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle)----of the town or
citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before, --and I will be
shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to
your Honour’s mind ----I dare say thou would’st, _Trim_, quoth my uncle.
--For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the
polygon, with its exact lines and angles --That I could do very well,
quoth my uncle. --I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could
tell me the proper depth and breadth --I can to a hair’s breadth, _Trim_,
replied my uncle. --I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards
the town for the scarp, --and on that hand towards the campaign for the
counterscarp. --Very right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_: ----And when
I had sloped them to your mind, ----an’ please your Honour, I would face
the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in _Flanders_, with
sods, ----and as your Honour knows they should be, --and I would make
the walls and parapets with sods too. --The best engineers call them
gazons, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. ----Whether they are gazons or
sods, is not much matter, replied _Trim_; your Honour knows they are ten
times beyond a facing either of brick or stone. ----I know they are,
_Trim_, in some respects, ----quoth my uncle _Toby_, nodding his head;
--for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without
bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé (as was
the case at _St. Nicolas’s_ gate), and facilitate the passage over it.
Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal _Trim_, better
than any officer in his Majesty’s service; ----but would your Honour
please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into
the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse,
and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their
batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all
the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.
My uncle _Toby_ blushed as red as scarlet as _Trim_ went on; --but it
was not a blush of guilt, --of modesty, --or of anger, --it was a blush
of joy; --he was fired with Corporal _Trim’s_ project and description.
----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, thou hast said enough. --We might
begin the campaign, continued _Trim_, on the very day that his Majesty
and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town as fast
as--_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, say no more. Your Honour, continued
_Trim_, might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this fine weather,
giving me your orders, and I would ----Say no more, _Trim_, quoth my
uncle _Toby_ ----Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure and
good pastime, --but good air, and good exercise, and good health, --and
your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough,
_Trim_, --quoth my uncle _Toby_ (putting his hand into his
breeches-pocket) ----I like thy project mightily. --And if your Honour
pleases, I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down with
us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of ----Say no
more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaping up upon one leg, quite
overcome with rapture, --and thrusting a guinea into _Trim’s_ hand,
--_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, say no more; --but go down, _Trim_, this
moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.
_Trim_ ran down and brought up his master’s supper, ----to no purpose:
--_Trim’s_ plan of operation ran so in my uncle _Toby’s_ head, he could
not taste it. --_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get me to bed. --’Twas
all one. --Corporal _Trim’s_ description had fired his imagination, --my
uncle _Toby_ could not shut his eyes. --The more he considered it, the
more bewitching the scene appeared to him; --so that, two full hours
before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had
concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal _Trim’s_ decampment.
My uncle _Toby_ had a little neat country-house of his own, in the
village where my father’s estate lay at _Shandy_, which had been left
him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds
a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of
about half an acre; and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off from it
by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about as much
ground as Corporal _Trim_ wished for; --so that as _Trim_ uttered the
words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with,” --this
identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously
painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle _Toby’s_ fancy; --which
was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least of
heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree I spoke of.
Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and
expectation, than my uncle _Toby_ did, to enjoy this self-same thing in
private; --I say in private; --for it was sheltered from the house, as I
told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three sides,
from mortal sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowering shrubs: --so
that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute to the idea
of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. --Vain thought!
however thick it was planted about, ----or private soever it might seem,
--to think, dear uncle _Toby_, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole
rood and a half of ground, ----and not have it known!
How my uncle _Toby_ and Corporal _Trim_ managed this matter, ----with
the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,
----may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up
of this drama. --At present the scene must drop, --and change for the
parlour fire-side.
CHAPTER VI
----What can they be doing, brother? said my father. --I think, replied
my uncle _Toby_, --taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and
striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence; ----I think,
replied he, --it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell.
Pray, what’s all that racket over our heads, _Obadiah?_ ----quoth my
father; ----my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak.
Sir, answered _Obadiah_, making a bow towards his left shoulder, --my
Mistress is taken very badly. --And where’s _Susannah_ running down the
garden there, as if they were going to ravish her? ----Sir, she is
running the shortest cut into the town, replied _Obadiah_, to fetch the
old midwife. --Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go
directly for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife, with all our services, ----and
let him know your mistress is fallen into labour----and that I desire he
will return with you with all speed.
It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle
_Toby_, as _Obadiah_ shut the door, ----as there is so expert an
operator as Dr. _Slop_ so near, --that my wife should persist to the
very last in this obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of my
child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old
woman; ----and not only the life of my child, brother, ----but her own
life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure,
have begot out of her hereafter.
Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, my sister does it to save the
expense: --A pudding’s end, --replied my father, ----the Doctor must be
paid the same for inaction as action, ----if not better, --to keep him
in temper.
----Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle
_Toby_, in the simplicity of his heart, --but MODESTY. --My sister,
I dare say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her ****.
I will not say whether my uncle _Toby_ had completed the sentence or
not; ----’tis for his advantage to suppose he had, ----as, I think, he
could have added no ONE WORD which would have improved it.
If, on the contrary, my uncle _Toby_ had not fully arrived at the
period’s end, --then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of
my father’s tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that
ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the
_Aposiopesis_. ----Just Heaven! how does the _Poco piu_ and the _Poco
meno_ of the _Italian_ artists; --the insensible MORE OR LESS, determine
the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statute!
How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the
fiddle-stick, _et cætera_, --give the true swell, which gives the true
pleasure! --O my countrymen; --be nice; --be cautious of your language;
--and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your
eloquence and your fame depend.
----“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “does not choose to let
a man come so near her ****.” Make this dash, --’tis an Aposiopesis.
--Take the dash away, and write _Backside_, ----’tis Bawdy. --Scratch
Backside out, and put _Cover’d way_ in, ’tis a Metaphor; --and, I dare
say, as fortification ran so much in my uncle _Toby’s_ head, that if he
had been left to have added one word to the sentence, ----that word was
it.
But whether that was the case or not the case; --or whether the snapping
of my father’s tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident or
anger, will be seen in due time.
CHAPTER VII
Tho’ my father was a good natural philosopher, --yet he was something of
a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapp’d
short in the middle, --he had nothing to do, as such, but to have taken
hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of the
fire. ----He did no such thing; ----he threw them with all the violence
in the world; --and, to give the action still more emphasis, --he
started upon both his legs to do it.
This looked something like heat; --and the manner of his reply to what
my uncle _Toby_ was saying, proved it was so.
--“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle _Toby’s_ words) “to
let a man come so near her!” ----By Heaven, brother _Toby!_ you would
try the patience of _Job_; --and I think I have the plagues of one
already without it. ----Why? ----Where? ----Wherein? ----Wherefore?
----Upon what account? replied my uncle _Toby_, in the utmost
astonishment. --To think, said my father, of a man living to your age,
brother, and knowing so little about women! ----I know nothing at all
about them, --replied my uncle _Toby_: And I think, continued he, that
the shock I received the year after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in my
affair with widow _Wadman_; --which shock you know I should not have
received, but from my total ignorance of the sex, --has given me just
cause to say, That I neither know nor do pretend to know anything about
’em or their concerns either. --Methinks, brother, replied my father,
you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the
wrong.
It is said in _Aristotle’s_ _Master Piece_, “That when a man doth think
of anything which is past, ----he looketh down upon the ground; ----but
that when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up
towards the heavens.”
My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d
horizontally. --Right end! quoth my uncle _Toby_, muttering the two
words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered
them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the
chimney-piece ----Right end of a woman! ----I declare, quoth my uncle,
I know no more which it is than the man in the moon; ----and if I was to
think, continued my uncle _Toby_ (keeping his eye still fixed upon the
bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find
it out.
Then, brother _Toby_, replied my father, I will tell you.
Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh
pipe)--every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two
handles. ----Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----At least, replied my
father, everyone has two hands, ----which comes to the same thing.
----Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself
the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience
of all the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called
Woman, and compare them analogically ----I never understood rightly the
meaning of that word, --quoth my uncle _Toby_.--
ANALOGY, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which
different ----Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s
definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two, --and, at the same time,
crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was
engendered in the womb of speculation; --it was some months before my
father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it: --And, at
this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the
dissertation itself, --(considering the confusion and distresses of our
domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of
another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third
volume or not.
CHAPTER VIII
It is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle
_Toby_ rung the bell, when _Obadiah_ was ordered to saddle a horse, and
go for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife; --so that no one can say, with
reason, that I have not allowed _Obadiah_ time enough, poetically
speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and come;
----though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce had
time to get on his boots.
If the hypercritick will go upon this; and is resolved after all to take
a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the
bell, and the rap at the door; --and, after finding it to be no more
than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three fifths, --should take upon
him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather
probability of time; --I would remind him, that the idea of duration,
and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of
our ideas, ----and is the true scholastic pendulum, ----and by which, as
a scholar, I will be tried in this matter, --abjuring and detesting the
jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever.
I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles
from _Shandy-Hall_ to Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife’s house; --and that
whilst _Obadiah_ has been going those said miles and back, I have
brought my uncle _Toby_ from _Namur_, quite across all _Flanders_, into
_England_: --That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years;
--and have since travelled him and Corporal _Trim_ in a
chariot-and-four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into
_Yorkshire_, ----all which put together, must have prepared the reader’s
imagination for the entrance of Dr. _Slop_ upon the stage, --as much, at
least (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts.
If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and
thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds,
--when I have said all I can about them; and that this plea, though it
might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my
book from this very moment, a professed ROMANCE, which, before, was a
book apocryphal: ----If I am thus pressed --I then put an end to the
whole objection and controversy about it all at once, ----by acquainting
him, that _Obadiah_ had not got above threescore yards from the
stable-yard before he met with Dr. _Slop_; --and indeed he gave a
dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a
tragical one too.
Imagine to yourself; --but this had better begin a new chapter.
CHAPTER IX
Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor _Slop_,
of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of
back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a
serjeant in the horse-guards.
Such were the out-lines of Dr. _Slop’s_ figure, which, --if you have
read _Hogarth’s_ analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you
would; ----you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed
to the mind by three strokes as three hundred.
Imagine such a one, ----for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr.
_Slop’s_ figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the
dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty
colour----but of strength, ----alack! ----scarce able to have made an
amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling
condition. ----They were not. ----Imagine to yourself, _Obadiah_ mounted
upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and
making all practicable speed the adverse way.
Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.
Had Dr. _Slop_ beheld _Obadiah_ a mile off, posting in a narrow lane
directly towards him, at that monstrous rate, --splashing and plunging
like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a
phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it,
round its axis, --have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr.
_Slop_ in his situation, than the _worst_ of _Whiston’s_ comets? --To
say nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of _Obadiah_ and the coach-horse.
--In my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved and
carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with
it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. _Slop_
have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was
advancing thus warily along towards _Shandy-Hall_, and had approached to
within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made
by an acute angle of the garden-wall, --and in the dirtiest part of a
dirty lane, --when _Obadiah_ and his coach-horse turned the corner,
rapid, furious, --pop, --full upon him! --Nothing, I think, in nature,
can be supposed more terrible than such a rencounter, --so imprompt! so
ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. _Slop_ was.
What could Dr. _Slop_ do? ----he crossed himself + --Pugh! --but the
doctor, Sir, was a Papist. --No matter; he had better have kept hold of
the pummel --He had so; --nay, as it happened, he had better have done
nothing at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip, ----and in
attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as
it slipped, he lost his stirrup, ----in losing which he lost his seat;
----and in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews
what little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost
his presence of mind. So that without waiting for _Obadiah’s_ onset, he
left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in
the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other
consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have
been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the
mire.
_Obadiah_ pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. _Slop_; --once as he was
falling, --and then again when he saw him seated. ----Ill-timed
complaisance; --had not the fellow better have stopped his horse, and
got off and help’d him? --Sir, he did all that his situation would
allow; --but the MOMENTUM of the coach-horse was so great, that
_Obadiah_ could not do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times
round Dr. _Slop_, before he could fully accomplish it any how; --and at
the last, when he did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion
of mud, that _Obadiah_ had better have been a league off. In short,
never was a Dr. _Slop_ so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that
affair came into fashion.
CHAPTER X
When Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle
_Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women, ----it was hard to
determine whether Dr. _Slop’s_ figure, or Dr. _Slop’s_ presence,
occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near
the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount him,
----Obadiah had led him in as he was, _unwiped_, _unappointed_,
_unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him. --He stood like
_Hamlet’s_ ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a
half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all the
majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall,
totally besmeared, ----and in every other part of him, blotched over in
such a manner with _Obadiah’s_ explosion, that you would have sworn
(without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.
Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over
my father in his turn; --for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in
that pickle, could have dissented from so much at least, of my uncle
_Toby’s_ opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a
Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****.” But it was the _Argumentum ad
hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may
think, he might not care to use it. ----No; the reason was, --’twas not
his nature to insult.
Dr. _Slop’s_ presence at that time, was no less problematical than the
mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father
might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week
before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had
heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to
have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how matters
went on.
But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the
investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the
ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door, --measuring their
distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation as to have
power to think of nothing else, ----common-place infirmity of the
greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the
demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have
none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with.
The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise
strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_, --but it excited a very
different train of thoughts; --the two irreconcileable pulsations
instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into
my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair,
--is the greatest problem of all: ----It shall be solved, --but not in
the next chapter.
CHAPTER XI
Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is
but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is
about in good company, would venture to talk all; ----so no author, who
understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would
presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the
reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him
something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.
For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and
do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.
’Tis his turn now; --I have given an ample description of Dr. _Slop’s_
sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour; --his
imagination must now go on with it for a while.
Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. _Slop_ has told his tale--and in
what words, and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses; --Let him
suppose, that _Obadiah_ has told his tale also, and with such rueful
looks of affected concern, as he thinks best will contrast the two
figures as they stand by each other. ----Let him imagine, that my father
has stepped upstairs to see my mother. --And, to conclude this work of
imagination--let him imagine the doctor washed, --rubbed down, and
condoled, --felicitated, --got into a pair of _Obadiah’s_ pumps,
stepping forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon
action.
Truce! --truce, good Dr. _Slop_: --stay thy obstetrick hand; ----return
it safe into thy bosom to keep it warm; ----little dost thou know what
obstacles, ------little dost thou think what hidden causes, retard its
operation! ----Hast thou, Dr. _Slop_, --hast thou been intrusted with
the secret articles of the solemn treaty which has brought thee into
this place? --Art thou aware that at this instant, a daughter of
_Lucina_ is put obstetrically over thy head? Alas! --’tis too true.
--Besides, great son of _Pilumnus!_ what canst thou do? --Thou hast come
forth unarm’d; --thou hast left thy _tire-tête_, --thy new-invented
_forceps_, --thy _crotchet_, --thy _squirt_, and all thy instruments of
salvation and deliverance, behind thee, --By Heaven! at this moment they
are hanging up in a green bays bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the
bed’s head! --Ring; --call; --send _Obadiah_ back upon the coach-horse
to bring them with all speed.
----Make great haste, _Obadiah_, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a
crown! --and quoth my uncle _Toby_, I’ll give him another.
CHAPTER XII
Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing
himself to Dr. _Slop_ (all three of them sitting down to the fire
together, as my uncle _Toby_ began to speak)--instantly brought the
great _Stevinus_ into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite author
with me. --Then, added my father, making use of the argument _Ad
Crumenam_, --I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece (which
will serve to give away to _Obadiah_ when he gets back) that this same
_Stevinus_ was some engineer or other, --or has wrote something or
other, either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.
He has so, --replied my uncle _Toby_. --I knew it, said my father,
though, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there
can be betwixt Dr. _Slop’s_ sudden coming, and a discourse upon
fortification; --yet I fear’d it. --Talk of what we will, brother,
----or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,
--you are sure to bring it in. I would not, brother _Toby_, continued my
father, ------I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and
hornworks. --That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. _Slop_,
interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.
_Dennis_ the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation
of a pun, more cordially than my father; --he would grow testy upon it
at any time; --but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse,
was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose; ----he saw no
difference.
Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_, --the
curtins my brother _Shandy_ mentions here, have nothing to do with
bedsteads; --tho’, I know _Du Cange_ says, “That bed-curtains, in all
probability, have taken their name from them;” --nor have the hornworks
he speaks of, anything in the world to do with the horn-works of
cuckoldom: --But the _Curtin_, Sir, is the word we use in fortification,
for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions
and joins them --Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks
directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well
_flanked_. (’Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. _Slop_,
laughing.) However, continued my uncle _Toby_, to make them sure, we
generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to
extend them beyond the fossé or ditch: ----The common men, who know very
little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon
together, --tho’ they are very different things; --not in their figure
or construction, for we make them exactly alike, in all points; --for
they always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the
gorges, not straight, but in form of a crescent: ----Where then lies the
difference? (quoth my father, a little testily). --In their situations,
answered my uncle _Toby_: --For when a ravelin, brother, stands before
the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion,
then the ravelin is not a ravelin; --it is a half-moon; --a half-moon
likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its
bastion; ----but was it to change place, and get before the curtin,
--’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a
half-moon; --’tis no more than a ravelin. ----I think, quoth my father,
that the noble science of defence has its weak sides----as well as
others.
--As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my
uncle _Toby_, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable
part of an outwork; ----they are called by the _French_ engineers,
_Ouvrage à corne_, and we generally make them to cover such places as we
suspect to be weaker than the rest; --’tis formed by two epaulments or
demi-bastions--they are very pretty, --and if you will take a walk, I’ll
engage to shew you one well worth your trouble. --I own, continued my
uncle _Toby_, when we crown them, --they are much stronger, but then
they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in
my opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp;
otherwise the double tenaille --By the mother who bore us! ----brother
_Toby_, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer, ----you would
provoke a saint; ----here have you got us, I know not how, not only
souse into the middle of the old subject again: --But so full is your
head of these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in
the pains of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve
you but to carry off the man-midwife. ----_Accoucheur_, --if you please,
quoth Dr. _Slop_. ----With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care
what they call you, --but I wish the whole science of fortification,
with all its inventors, at the devil; --it has been the death of
thousands, --and it will be mine in the end, --I would not, I would not,
brother _Toby_, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions,
pallisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor
of _Namur_, and of all the towns in _Flanders_ with it.
My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries; --not from want of
courage, --I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of
courage:” --And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or
called it forth, --I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner
taken shelter; ----nor did this arise from any insensibility or
obtuseness of his intellectual parts; --for he felt this insult of my
father’s as feelingly as a man could do; --but he was of a peaceful,
placid nature, --no jarring element in it, --all was mixed up so kindly
within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.
--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed
about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, --and which
after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;
--I’ll not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and
going across the room, with the fly in his hand, ----I’ll not hurt a
hair of thy head: --Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his
hand as he spoke, to let it escape; --go, poor devil, get thee gone, why
should I hurt thee? ----This world surely is wide enough to hold both
thee and me.
I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the
action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which
instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable
sensation; --or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards
it; --or in what degree, or by what secret magick, --a tone of voice and
harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart,
I know not; --this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then
taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_, has never since been worn out
of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the study of the
_Literæ humaniores_, at the university, have done for me in that
respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed
upon me, both at home and abroad since; --yet I often think that I owe
one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.
[-->] This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole
volume upon the subject.
I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle _Toby’s_ picture, by
the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it, --that taking in
no more than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness: ----this is a part of his
moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I
mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he
had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with a
little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him to anything
which looked like malignancy: --yet in the little rubs and vexations of
life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty kind of
peevishness: ----He was, however, frank and generous in his nature;
----at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of
this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my uncle
_Toby_, whom he truly loved: ----he would feel more pain, ten times told
(except in the affair of my aunt _Dinah_, or where an hypothesis was
concerned) than what he ever gave.
The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected
light upon each other, and appeared with great advantage in this affair
which arose about _Stevinus_.
I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HOBBY-HORSE, ----that a man’s
HOBBY-HORSE is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these
unprovoked strokes at my uncle _Toby’s_ could not be unfelt by him.
----No: ------as I said above, my uncle _Toby_ did feel them, and very
sensibly too.
Pray, Sir, what said he? --How did he behave? --O, Sir! --it was great:
For as soon as my father had done insulting his HOBBY-HORSE, ------he
turned his head without the least emotion, from Dr. _Slop_, to whom he
was addressing his discourse, and looking up into my father’s face, with
a countenance spread over with so much good-nature; ----so placid;
----so fraternal; ----so inexpressibly tender towards him: --it
penetrated my father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair,
and seizing hold of both my uncle _Toby’s_ hands as he spoke: --Brother
_Toby_, said he, --I beg thy pardon; ----forgive, I pray thee, this rash
humour which my mother gave me. ----My dear, dear brother, answered my
uncle _Toby_, rising up by my father’s help, say no more about it; --you
are heartily welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis
ungenerous, replied my father, to hurt any man; ----a brother worse;
----but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners, --so unprovoking,
--and so unresenting; ----’tis base: ----By Heaven, ’tis cowardly. --You
are heartily welcome, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, ------had it been
fifty times as much. ----Besides, what have I to do, my dear _Toby_,
cried my father, either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless
it was in my power (which it is not) to increase their measure?
----Brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_, looking wistfully in his
face, ----you are much mistaken in this point: --for you do increase my
pleasure very much, in begetting children for the _Shandy_ family at
your time of life. --But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, Mr. _Shandy_
increases his own. --Not a jot, quoth my father.
CHAPTER XIII
My brother does it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, out of _principle_. ----In a
family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. _Slop_. ----Pshaw! --said my father,
--’tis not worth talking of.
CHAPTER XIV
At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle _Toby_ were left
both standing, like _Brutus_ and _Cassius_, at the close of the scene,
making up their accounts.
As my father spoke the three last words, ----he sat down; --my uncle
_Toby_ exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his
chair, he rung the bell, to order Corporal _Trim_, who was in waiting,
to step home for _Stevinus_: --my uncle _Toby’s_ house being no farther
off than the opposite side of the way.
Some men would have dropped the subject of _Stevinus_; ----but my uncle
_Toby_ had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject,
to shew my father that he had none.
Your sudden appearance, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my uncle, resuming the
discourse, instantly brought _Stevinus_ into my head. (My father, you
may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon _Stevinus’s_
head.) ----Because, continued my uncle _Toby_, the celebrated sailing
chariot, which belonged to Prince _Maurice_, and was of such wonderful
contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty
_German_ miles, in I don’t know how few minutes, ----was invented by
_Stevinus_, that great mathematician and engineer.
You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (as the
fellow is lame) of going for _Stevinus’s_ account of it, because in my
return from _Leyden_ thro’ the _Hague_, I walked as far as _Schevling_,
which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.
That’s nothing, replied my uncle _Toby_, to what the learned
_Peireskius_ did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning
from _Paris_ to _Schevling_, and from _Schevling_ to _Paris_ back again,
in order to see it, --and nothing else.
Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.
The more fool _Peireskius_, replied Dr. _Slop_. But mark, ’twas out of
no contempt of _Peireskius_ at all; ----but that _Peireskius’s_
indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the
sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. _Slop_, in that affair, to nothing:
--the more fool _Peireskius_, said he again. --Why so? --replied my
father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast
as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my
father’s mind; ----but partly, that my father began really to interest
himself in the discourse. ----Why so? ----said he. Why is _Peireskius_,
or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other
morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the
chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a
very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of
philosophy he has atchieved it; --yet certainly his machine has been
constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not
have answered at the rate my brother mentions.
It answered, replied my uncle _Toby_, as well, if not better; for, as
_Peireskius_ elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its
motion, _Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus_; which, unless I have forgot
my Latin, is, _that it was as swift as the wind itself_.
But pray, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho’ not
without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles was
this self-same chariot set a-going? --Upon very pretty principles to be
sure, replied Dr. _Slop_: --And I have often wondered, continued he,
evading the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large plains
like this of ours, --(especially they whose wives are not past
child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be
infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is subject,
--if the wind only served, --but would be excellent good husbandry to
make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather
than horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a great deal.
For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing, and
because they eat nothing,” --the scheme is bad; --it is the consumption
of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread
to the hungry, circulates trade, --brings in money, and supports the
value of our lands: --and tho’, I own, if I was a Prince, I would
generously recompense the scientifick head which brought forth such
contrivances; --yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them.
My father here had got into his element, ----and was going on as
prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle _Toby_ had
before, upon his of fortification; --but to the loss of much sound
knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dissertation
of any kind should be spun by my father that day, ----for as he opened
his mouth to begin the next sentence.
CHAPTER XV
In popped Corporal _Trim_ with _Stevinus_: --But ’twas too late, --all
the discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new
channel. --You may take the book home again, _Trim_, said my uncle
_Toby_, nodding to him.
But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling, --look first into it,
and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it.
Corporal _Trim_, by being in the service, had learned to obey, --and not
to remonstrate; --so taking the book to a side-table, and running over
the leaves; An’ please your Honour, said _Trim_, I can see no such
thing; --however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn,
I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your Honour; --so taking hold of
the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves
fall down, as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound
shake.
There is something falling out, however, said _Trim_, an’ please your
Honour; --but it is not a chariot, or anything like one: --Prithee,
Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then? --I think, answered
_Trim_, stooping to take it up, ----’tis more like a sermon, ------for
it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse; --and
then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly.
The company smiled.
I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle _Toby_, for such a
thing as a sermon to have got into my _Stevinus_.
I think ’tis a sermon, replied _Trim_; --but if it please your Honours,
as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page; --for _Trim_, you must
know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk.
I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things
which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these; --and as we
have nothing better to do, at least till _Obadiah_ gets back, I shall be
obliged to you, brother, if Dr. _Slop_ has no objection to it, to order
the Corporal to give us a page or two of it, --if he is as able to do
it, as he seems willing. An’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_, I
officiated two whole campaigns, in _Flanders_, as clerk to the chaplain
of the regiment. ----He can read it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, as well as I
can. ----_Trim_, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and
should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s misfortune.
Corporal _Trim_ laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to
his master; --then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the
sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty, ----he
advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could
best see, and be best seen by his audience.
CHAPTER XVI
--If you have any objection, --said my father, addressing himself to Dr.
_Slop_. Not in the least, replied Dr. _Slop_; --for it does not appear
on which side of the question it is wrote; ----it may be a composition
of a divine of our church, as well as yours, --so that we run equal
risques. ----’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth _Trim_, for ’tis only
upon _Conscience_, an’ please your Honours.
_Trim’s_ reason put his audience into good-humour, --all but Dr. _Slop_,
who turning his head about towards _Trim_, looked a little angry.
Begin, _Trim_, --and read distinctly, quoth my father. --I will, an’
please your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking
attention with a slight movement of his right hand.
CHAPTER XVII
----But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description
of his attitude; ----otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by
your imagination, in an uneasy posture, --stiff, --perpendicular,
--dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs; ----his eye
fixed, as if on duty; --his look determined, --clenching the sermon in
his left hand, like his firelock. ----In a word, you would be apt to
paint _Trim_, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action.
--His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.
He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so
far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the
horizon; --which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well
to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; --in any other angle you
may talk and preach; --’tis certain; --and it is done every day; --but
with what effect, --I leave the world to judge!
The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half to a
mathematical exactness, ----does it not shew us, by the way, how the
arts and sciences mutually befriend each other?
How the duce Corporal _Trim_, who knew not so much as an acute angle
from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly; ----or whether it was
chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c., shall be commented
upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the
instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the
bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under
consideration.
He stood, ----for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one
view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards, --his right leg
from under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight, ------the
foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his
attitude, advanced a little, --not laterally, nor forwards, but in a
line betwixt them; --his knee bent, but that not violently, --but so as
to fall within the limits of the line of beauty; --and I add, of the
line of science too; --for consider, it had one eighth part of his body
to bear up; --so that in this case the position of the leg is
determined, --because the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee
more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth
part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too.
[-->] This I recommend to painters: --need I add, --to orators! --I
think not; for unless they practise it, ------they must fall upon their
noses.
So much for Corporal _Trim’s_ body and legs. ----He held the sermon
loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his
stomach, and detached a little from his breast; ----his right arm
falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity
ordered it, ----but with the palm of it open and turned towards his
audience, ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need.
Corporal _Trim’s_ eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony
with the other parts of him; --he looked frank, --unconstrained,
--something assured, --but not bordering upon assurance.
Let not the critic ask how Corporal _Trim_ could come by all this.
----I’ve told him it should be explained; --but so he stood before my
father, my uncle _Toby_, and Dr. _Slop_, --so swayed his body, so
contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the
whole figure, ----a statuary might have modelled from it; ----nay,
I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College, --or the _Hebrew_
Professor himself, could have much mended it.
_Trim_ made a bow, and read as follows:
The SERMON
HEBREWS xiii. 18
----_For we _trust_ we have a good Conscience_
“Trust! ----Trust we have a good conscience!”
[Certainly, _Trim_, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that
sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and
read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse
the Apostle.
He is, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim_. Pugh! said my father,
smiling.
Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_ is certainly in the right; for the writer
(who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he
takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him; --if this
treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my
father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. _Slop_, that the writer is of
our church? --for aught I can see yet, --he may be of any church.
----Because, answered Dr. _Slop_, if he was of ours, --he durst no more
take such a licence, --than a bear by his beard: --If, in our communion,
Sir, a man was to insult an apostle, ----a saint, ----or even the paring
of a saint’s nail, --he would have his eyes scratched out. --What, by
the saint? quoth my uncle _Toby_. No, replied Dr. _Slop_, he would have
an old house over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building,
answered my uncle _Toby_, or is it a modern one? --I know nothing of
architecture, replied Dr. _Slop_. --An’ please your Honours, quoth
_Trim_, the Inquisition is the vilest ----Prithee spare thy description,
_Trim_, I hate the very name of it, said my father. --No matter for
that, answered Dr. _Slop_, --it has its uses; for tho’ I’m no great
advocate for it, yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught
better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be
flung into the Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my
uncle _Toby_. Amen, added _Trim_; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor
brother who has been fourteen years a captive in it. --I never heard one
word of it before, said my uncle _Toby_, hastily: --How came he there,
_Trim?_ ----O, Sir! the story will make your heart bleed, --as it has
made mine a thousand times; --but it is too long to be told now; --your
Honour shall hear it from first to last some day when I am working
beside you in our fortifications; --but the short of the story is this;
--That my brother _Tom_ went over a servant to _Lisbon_, --and then
married a Jew’s widow, who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which
somehow or other, was the cause of his being taken in the middle of the
night out of his bed, where he was lying with his wife and two small
children, and carried directly to the Inquisition, where, God help him,
continued _Trim_, fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart, --the
poor honest lad lies confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul,
added _Trim_, (pulling out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.----
--The tears trickled down _Trim’s_ cheeks faster than he could well wipe
them away. --And dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.
--Certain proof of pity!
Come, _Trim_, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow’s grief had
got a little vent, --read on, --and put this melancholy story out of thy
head: --I grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon
again; --for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou
sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the
apostle has given.
Corporal _Trim_ wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his
pocket, and, making a bow as he did it, --he began again.]
The SERMON
HEBREWS xiii. 18
_----For we _trust_ we have a good Conscience. --_
“Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing in
this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he
is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be
this very thing, --whether he has a good conscience or no.”
[I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. _Slop_.]
“If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state
of this account; ----he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;
--he must remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true
springs and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his
life.”
[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. _Slop_.]
“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the
wise man complains, _hardly do we guess aright at the things that are
upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before
us_. But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;
----is conscious of the web she has wove; ----knows its texture and
fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working
upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.”
[The language is good, and I declare _Trim_ reads very well, quoth my
father.]
“Now, --as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind
has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or
censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our
lives; ’tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the proposition,
--whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands
self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man. --And, on the
contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart
condemns him not: --that it is not a matter of _trust_, as the apostle
intimates, but a matter of _certainty_ and fact, that the conscience is
good, and that the man must be good also.”
[Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr.
_Slop_, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience,
replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. _Paul_
and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion. --As nearly so, quoth
Dr. _Slop_, as east is to west; --but this, continued he, lifting both
hands, comes from the liberty of the press.
It is no more, at the worst, replied my uncle _Toby_, than the liberty
of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or
ever likely to be.
Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father.]
“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I make
no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon
the mind of man, --that did no such thing ever happen, as that the
conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture
assures it may) insensibly become hard; --and, like some tender parts of
his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that
nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it: --Did
this never happen; --or was it certain that self-love could never hang
the least bias upon the judgment; --or that the little interests below
could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and
encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness: ----Could no such
thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court: --Did WIT disdain
to take a bribe in it; --or was ashamed to shew its face as an advocate
for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, lastly, were we assured that
INTEREST stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing--and that
Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the
stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon
the case: --Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose; --no doubt
then the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he
himself esteemed it: --and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life
could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of
his own approbation and censure.
“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it
seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty; and unless in melancholy
and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is
always sufficient grounds for the accusation.
“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true; --namely, that
whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not,
that a man is therefore innocent. ----This is not fact ------So that the
common consolation which some good christian or other is hourly
administering to himself, --that he thanks God his mind does not misgive
him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he hath a
quiet one, --is fallacious; --and as current as the inference is, and as
infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer
to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts, ----you see it
liable to so much error from a false application; ----the principle upon
which it goes so often perverted; ----the whole force of it lost, and
sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common
examples from human life, which confirm the account.
“A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles;
--exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in
the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify,
----a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall
ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt; --rob her of her best
dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour; --but involve a
whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will
think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can have no
rest night or day from its reproaches.
“Alas! CONSCIENCE had something else to do all this time, than break in
upon him; as _Elijah_ reproached the god _Baal_, ----this domestic god
_was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure
he slept and could not be awoke_.
“Perhaps HE was gone out in company with HONOUR to fight a duel: to pay
off some debt at play; ----or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust;
Perhaps CONSCIENCE all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud
against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny
crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all
temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily” ----[If he was of
our church, tho’, quoth Dr. _Slop_, he could not]-- “sleeps as soundly
in his bed; --and at last meets death as unconcernedly; --perhaps much
more so, than a much better man.”
[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my father,
--the case could not happen in our church. --It happens in ours,
however, replied my father, but too often. ----I own, quoth Dr. _Slop_,
(struck a little with my father’s frank acknowledgment)--that a man in
the _Romish_ church may live as badly; --but then he cannot easily die
so. ----’Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of
indifference, --how a rascal dies. --I mean, answered Dr. _Slop_, he
would be denied the benefits of the last sacraments. --Pray how many
have you in all, said my uncle _Toby_, ----for I always forget?
----Seven, answered Dr. _Slop_. ----Humph! --said my uncle _Toby_; tho’
not accented as a note of acquiescence, --but as an interjection of that
particular species of surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer,
finds more of a thing than he expected. ----Humph! replied my uncle
_Toby_. Dr. _Slop_, who had an ear, understood my uncle _Toby_ as well
as if he had wrote a whole volume against the seven sacraments.
----Humph! replied Dr. _Slop_ (stating my uncle _Toby’s_ argument over
again to him) ----Why, Sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues?
----Seven mortal sins? ----Seven golden candlesticks? ----Seven heavens?
--’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle _Toby_. ------Are there not
seven wonders of the world? ----Seven days of the creation? ----Seven
planets? ----Seven plagues? ----That there are, quoth my father with a
most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on with the rest of
thy characters, _Trim_.]
“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here _Trim_ waved his right hand)
“a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private
friendship or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and
orphan in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human
life without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your honours, cried
_Trim_, I think this a viler man than the other.]
“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions? ----No;
thank God there is no occasion, _I pay every man his own; --I have no
fornication to answer to my conscience; --no faithless vows or promises
to make up; --I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am
not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who
stands before me._
“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life;
--’tis nothing but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable
subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws,
----plain-dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several properties.
----You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon
the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man; --shall raise
a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper
of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life.
“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this
black account, and state it over again with his conscience --CONSCIENCE
looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE; --finds no express law broken by what
he has done; --perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels
incurred; --sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his
gates upon him: --What is there to affright his conscience? --Conscience
has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there
invulnerable, fortified with #Cases# and #Reports# so strongly on all
sides; --that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.”
[Here Corporal _Trim_ and my uncle _Toby_ exchanged looks with each
other. --Aye, aye, _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, shaking his head,
------these are but sorry fortifications, _Trim_. ------O! very poor
work, answered _Trim_, to what your Honour and I make of it. ----The
character of this last man, said Dr. _Slop_, interrupting _Trim_, is
more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from
some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you: --Amongst us, a man’s conscience
could not possibly continue so long _blinded_, ----three times in a
year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight?
quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father, or _Obadiah_
will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon.
----’Tis a very short one, replied _Trim_. ----I wish it was longer,
quoth my uncle _Toby_, for I like it hugely. --_Trim_ went on.]
“A fourth man shall want even this refuge; --shall break through all
their ceremony of slow chicane; ----scorns the doubtful workings of
secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose: ----See the
bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!
--Horrid! --But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the
present case--the poor man was in the dark! ------his priest had got the
keeping of his conscience; ----and all he would let him know of it, was,
That he must believe in the Pope; --go to Mass; --cross himself; --tell
his beads; --be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was
enough to carry him to heaven. What; --if he perjures! --Why; --he had a
mental reservation in it. --But if he is so wicked and abandoned a
wretch as you represent him; --if he robs, --if he stabs, will not
conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? --Aye, --but the
man has carried it to confession; ----the wound digests there, and will
do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution.
O Popery! what hast thou to answer for? ----when, not content with the
too many natural and fatal ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every
day thus treacherous to itself above all things; --thou hast wilfully
set open the wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary
traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself; and confidently
speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.
“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too
notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of
them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,
--I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then
venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.
“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of
wicked actions stand _there_, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own
natures; --he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination
and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and
painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand
can give them; --and that the others, to which he feels no propensity,
appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true
circumstances of folly and dishonour.
“When _David_ surprized _Saul_ sleeping in the cave, and cut off the
skirt of his robe--we read his heart smote him for what he had done:
----But in the matter of _Uriah_, where a faithful and gallant servant,
whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust,
--where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his
heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from the first
commission of that crime, to the time _Nathan_ was sent to reprove him;
and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which
he testified, during all that time, for what he had done.
“Thus conscience, this once able monitor, ----placed on high as a judge
within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too,
--by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such
imperfect cognizance of what passes, ----does its office so negligently,
----sometimes so corruptly--that it is not to be trusted alone; and
therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute necessity, of
joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its
determinations.
“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite
importance to you not to be misled in, --namely, in what degree of real
merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful
subject to your king, or a good servant to your God, ----call in
religion and morality. --Look, What is written in the law of God?
----How readest thou? --Consult calm reason and the unchangeable
obligations of justice and truth; ----what say they?
“Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports; ----and then if
thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle supposes,
----the rule will be infallible;” --[Here Dr. _Slop_ fell asleep]--
“_thou wilt have confidence towards God_; ----that is, have just grounds
to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the judgment of
God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous sentence
which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to whom thou
art finally to give an account of thy actions.
“_Blessed is the man_, indeed, then, as the author of the book of
_Ecclesiasticus_ expresses it, _who is not pricked with the multitude of
his sins: Blessed is the man whose heart hath not condemned him; whether
he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart_ (a heart
thus guided and informed) _he shall at all times rejoice in a chearful
countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men that sit
above upon a tower on high_.” --[A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle
_Toby_, unless ’tis flank’d.]-- “In the darkest doubts it shall conduct
him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in,
a better security for his behaviour than all the causes and restrictions
put together which law-makers are forced to multiply: --_Forced_, I say,
as things stand; human laws not being a matter of original choice, but
of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the mischievous effects
of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well intending,
by the many provisions made, --that in all such corrupt and misguided
cases, where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us
upright, --to supply their force, and, by the terrors of gaols and
halters, oblige us to it.”
[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be
preached at the Temple, ----or at some Assize. --I like the reasoning,
--and am sorry that Dr. _Slop_ has fallen asleep before the time of his
conviction: --for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at
first, never insulted St. _Paul_ in the least; --nor has there been,
brother, the least difference between them. ----A great matter, if they
had differed, replied my uncle _Toby_, --the best friends in the world
may differ sometimes. ----True, --brother _Toby_, quoth my father,
shaking hands with him, --we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then _Trim_
shall go on.
Well, ----what dost thou think of it? said my father speaking to
Corporal _Trim_, as he reached his tobacco-box.
I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the tower,
who, I suppose, are all centinels there, --are more, an’ please your
Honour, than were necessary; --and, to go on at that rate, would harrass
a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves his men,
will never do, if he can help it, because two centinels, added the
Corporal, are as good as twenty. --I have been a commanding officer
myself in the _Corps de Garde_ a hundred times, continued _Trim_, rising
an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke, --and all the time I had the
honour to serve his Majesty King _William_, in relieving the most
considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life. ----Very
right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --but you do not consider,
_Trim_, that the towers, in _Solomon’s_ days, were not such things as
our bastions, flanked and defended by other works; --this, _Trim_, was
an invention since _Solomon’s_ death; nor had they horn-works, or
ravelins before the curtin, in his time; ----or such a fossé as we make
with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and
counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a _Coup de main_:
--So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from
the _Corps de Garde_, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.
--They could be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s
Guard. --My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly; --the subject
being rather too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest
of. --So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,
--he contented himself with ordering _Trim_ to read on. He read on as
follows:]
“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings
with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right
and wrong: ----The first of these will comprehend the duties of
religion; --the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably
connected together, that you cannot divide these two _tables_, even in
imagination (tho’ the attempt is often made in practice) without
breaking and mutually destroying them both.
“I said the attempt is often made; and so it is; ----there being nothing
more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and
indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as
the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral
character, ----or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous
to the uttermost mite.
“When there is some appearance that it is so, --tho’ one is unwilling
even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty,
yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am
persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of
his motive.
“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be
found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his
pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will give
us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress.
“I will illustrate this by an example.
“I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in”
--[There is no need, cried Dr. _Slop_ (waking), to call in any physician
in this case]---- “to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear
them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so
much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well; --notwithstanding
this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one: --and what is dearer
still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.
“Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in
the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them
will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage; --I
consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life: --I know their
success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters. --In
a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting
themselves more.
“But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other
side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his
reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the world;
--or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate by my
death, without dishonour to himself or his art: --In this case, what
hold have I of either of them? --Religion, the strongest of all motives,
is out of the question; --Interest, the next most powerful motive in the
world, is strongly against me: ------What have I left to cast into the
opposite scale to balance this temptation? ------Alas! I have nothing,
----nothing but what is lighter than a bubble ------I must lie at the
mercy of HONOUR, or some such capricious principle --Strait security for
two of the most valuable blessings! --my property and myself.
“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without
religion; --so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be
expected from religion without morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy
to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet
entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious
man.
“He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable, --but even
wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud
against the infidelity of the age, ----is zealous for some points of
religion, ----goes twice a day to church, --attends the sacraments,
--and amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion, --shall
cheat his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a religious
man, and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find such a
man, through force of this delusion, generally looks down with spiritual
pride upon every other man who has less affectation of piety, --though,
perhaps, ten times more real honesty than himself.
“_This likewise is a sore evil under the sun_; and I believe, there is
no one mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more serious
mischiefs. ------For a general proof of this, --examine the history of
the _Romish_ church;” --[Well, what can you make of that? cried Dr.
_Slop_]-- “see what scenes of cruelty, murder, rapine, bloodshed,”
----[They may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr. _Slop_]---- “have all
been sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality.
“In how many kingdoms of the world” --[Here _Trim_ kept waving his right
hand from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it backwards
and forwards to the conclusion of the paragraph.]
“In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this
misguided saint-errant, spared neither age nor merit, or sex, or
condition? --and, as he fought under the banners of a religion which set
him loose from justice and humanity, he shewed none; mercilessly
trampled upon both, --heard neither the cries of the unfortunate, nor
pitied their distresses.”
[I have been in many a battle, an’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_,
sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this, --I would not have
drawn a tricker in it against these poor souls, ----to have been made a
general officer. ----Why? what do you understand of the affair? said Dr.
_Slop_, looking towards _Trim_, with something more of contempt than the
Corporal’s honest heart deserved. ----What do you know, friend, about
this battle you talk of? --I know, replied _Trim_, that I never refused
quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it; ----but to a woman
or a child, continued _Trim_, before I would level my musket at them,
I would lose my life a thousand times. ----Here’s a crown for thee,
_Trim_, to drink with _Obadiah_ to-night, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and
I’ll give _Obadiah_ another too. --God bless your Honour, replied
_Trim_, ----I had rather these poor women and children had it. ----Thou
art an honest fellow, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----My father nodded his
head, as much as to say, --and so he is.----
But prithee, _Trim_, said my father, make an end, --for I see thou hast
but a leaf or two left.
Corporal _Trim_ read on.]
“If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not sufficient,
--consider at this instant, how the votaries of that religion are every
day thinking to do service and honour to God, by actions which are a
dishonour and scandal to themselves.
“To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of
the Inquisition.” --[God help my poor brother _Tom_.]-- “Behold
_Religion_, with _Mercy_ and _Justice_ chained down under her feet,
----there sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks
and instruments of torment. Hark! --hark! what a piteous groan!” --[Here
_Trim’s_ face turned as pale as ashes.]---- “See the melancholy wretch
who uttered it” --[Here the tears began to trickle down.]---- “just
brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the
utmost pains that a studied system of cruelty has been able to invent.”
--[D--n them all, quoth _Trim_, his colour returning into his face as
red as blood.]-- “Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his
tormentors, --his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement.” ----[Oh!
’tis my brother, cried poor _Trim_ in a most passionate exclamation,
dropping the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his hands together --I
fear ’tis poor _Tom_. My father’s and my uncle _Toby’s_ heart yearned
with sympathy for the poor fellow’s distress; even _Slop_ himself
acknowledged pity for him. ----Why, _Trim_, said my father, this is not
a history, ----’tis a sermon thou art reading; prithee begin the
sentence again.]---- “Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his
tormentors, --his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement, you will
see every nerve and muscle as it suffers.
“Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!” --[I would rather
face a cannon, quoth _Trim_, stamping.]-- “See what convulsions it has
thrown him into! ----Consider the nature of the posture in which he now
lies stretched, --what exquisite tortures he endures by it!” --[I hope
’tis not in _Portugal_.]-- “’Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how
it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!” [I would not
read another line of it, quoth _Trim_, for all this _world_; --I fear,
an’ please your Honours, all this is in _Portugal_, where my poor
brother _Tom_ is. I tell thee, _Trim_, again, quoth my father, ’tis not
an historical account, --’tis a description. --’Tis only a description,
honest man, quoth _Slop_, there’s not a word of truth in it. ----That’s
another story, replied my father. --However, as _Trim_ reads it with so
much concern, --’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it. --Give me
hold of the sermon, _Trim_, --I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st
go. I must stay and hear it, too, replied _Trim_, if your Honour will
allow me; --tho’ I would not read it myself for a Colonel’s pay.
------Poor _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_. My father went on.]--
“----Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched,
--what exquisite torture he endures by it! --’Tis all nature can bear!
Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling
lips, --willing to take its leave, ----but not suffered to depart!
--Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!” ----[Then, thank God,
however, quoth _Trim_, they have not killed him.]-- “See him dragged out
of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last agonies,
which this principle, --this principle, that there can be religion
without mercy, has prepared for him.” ----[Then, thank God, ----he is
dead, quoth _Trim_, --he is out of his pain, --and they have done their
worst at him. --O Sirs! --Hold your peace, _Trim_, said my father, going
on with the sermon, lest _Trim_ should incense Dr. _Slop_, --we shall
never have done at this rate.]
“The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace
down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with
the spirit of Christianity; ----’tis the short and decisive rule which
our Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth
a thousand arguments----_By their fruits ye shall know them._
“I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or
three short and independent rules deducible from it.
“_First_, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect
that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better
of his CREED. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and
troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, ’tis
for no other cause but quietness’ sake.
“_Secondly_, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular
instance, ----That such a thing goes against his conscience, ----always
believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a
thing goes _against_ his stomach; --a present want of appetite being
generally the true cause of both.
“In a word, --trust that man in nothing, who has not a CONSCIENCE in
everything.
“And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in
which has ruined thousands, --that your conscience is not a law: --No,
God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to
determine; ----not, like an _Asiatic_ Cadi, according to the ebbs and
flows of his own passions, --but like a _British_ judge in this land of
liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares
that law which he knows already written.”
_FINIS_
Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, _Trim_, quoth my father. --If
he had spared his comments, replied Dr. _Slop_, ----he would have read
it much better. I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered
_Trim_, but that my heart was so full. --That was the very reason,
_Trim_, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well
as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father,
addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_, would take part in what they deliver
as deeply as this poor fellow has done, --as their compositions are
fine; --[I deny it, quoth Dr. _Slop_]-- I maintain it, --that the
eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to enflame it, would be a
model for the whole world: ----But alas! continued my father, and I own
it, Sir, with sorrow, that, like _French_ politicians in this respect,
what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field. ----’Twere a pity,
quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well,
replied my father, ----’tis dramatick, --and there is something in that
way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention.
----We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. _Slop_. --I know that
very well, said my father, ----but in a tone and manner which disgusted
Dr. _Slop_, full as much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.
----But in this, added Dr. _Slop_, a little piqued, --our sermons have
greatly the advantage, that we never introduce any character into them
below a patriarch or a patriarch’s wife, or a martyr or a saint. --There
are some very bad characters in this, however, said my father, and I do
not think the sermon a jot the worse for ’em. ----But pray, quoth my
uncle _Toby_, --who’s can this be? --How could it get into my
_Stevinus?_ A man must be as great a conjurer as _Stevinus_, said my
father, to resolve the second question: --The first, I think, is not so
difficult; --for unless my judgment greatly deceives me, ----I know the
author, for ’tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish.
The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father
constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of
his conjecture, --proving it as strongly, as an argument _à priori_
could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was _Yorick’s_
and no one’s else: --It was proved to be so, _à posteriori_, the day
after, when _Yorick_ sent a servant to my uncle _Toby’s_ house to
enquire after it.
It seems that _Yorick_, who was inquisitive after all kinds of
knowledge, had borrowed _Stevinus_ of my uncle _Toby_, and had
carelessly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle
of _Stevinus_; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever
subject, he had sent _Stevinus_ home, and his sermon to keep him
company.
Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second
time, dropped thro’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down
into a treacherous and a tattered lining, --trod deep into the dirt by
the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou
falledst; --buried ten days in the mire, ----raised up out of it by a
beggar, --sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk, ----transferred to his
parson, ----lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days, ----nor
restored to his restless MANES till this very moment, that I tell the
world the story.
Can the reader believe, that this sermon of _Yorick’s_ was preached at
an assize, in the cathedral of _York_, before a thousand witnesses,
ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and
actually printed by him when he had done, ----and within so short a
space as two years and three months after _Yorick’s_ death? --_Yorick_
indeed, was never better served in his life; ------but it was a little
hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his
grave.
However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with
_Yorick_, --and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give
away; --and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one
himself, had he thought fit, --I declare I would not have published this
anecdote to the world; ----nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt
his character and advancement in the church; ----I leave that to others;
--but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.
The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to _Yorick’s_
ghost; ----which--as the country-people, and some others, believe,
----_still walks_.
The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world,
I gain an opportunity of informing it, --That in case the character of
parson _Yorick_, and this sample of his sermons, is liked, ----there are
now in the possession of the _Shandy_ family, as many as will make a
handsome volume, at the world’s service, ----and much good may they do
it.
CHAPTER XVIII
Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute; for he came in jingling,
with all the instruments in the green bays bag we spoke of, slung across
his body, just as Corporal _Trim_ went out of the room.
It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (clearing up his looks), as
we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. _Shandy_, to send
upstairs to know how she goes on.
I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us
upon the least difficulty; --for you must know, Dr. _Slop_, continued my
father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by
express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no
more than an auxiliary in this affair, --and not so much as that,
--unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without
you. --Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this
nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and
suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the
good of the species, --they claim a right of deciding, _en Souveraines_,
in whose hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it.
They are in the right of it, ----quoth my uncle _Toby_. But, Sir,
replied Dr. _Slop_, not taking notice of my uncle _Toby’s_ opinion, but
turning to my father, --they had better govern in other points; ----and
a father of a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had
better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other
rights in lieu of it. ----I know not, quoth my father, answering a
little too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said, --I know
not, quoth he, what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring
our children into the world, unless that, --of who shall beget them.
------One would almost give up anything, replied Dr. _Slop_. --I beg
your pardon, ----answered my uncle _Toby_. --Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, it
would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years
in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one
single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the _fœtus_,
----which has received such lights, that, for my part (holding up his
hands) I declare I wonder how the world has ----I wish, quoth my uncle
_Toby_, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in _Flanders_.
CHAPTER XIX
I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute, ----to remind
you of one thing, ----and to inform you of another.
What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;
----for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that
I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage
here than elsewhere. --Writers had need look before them, to keep up the
spirit and connection of what they have in hand.
When these two things are done, --the curtain shall be drawn up again,
and my uncle _Toby_, my father, and Dr. _Slop_, shall go on with their
discourse, without any more interruption.
First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this; ----that
from the specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point of
christian-names, and that other previous point thereto, --you was led,
I think, into an opinion (and I am sure I said as much), that my father
was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other opinions.
In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the very first
act of his begetting, ----down to the lean and slippered pantaloon in
his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion to himself,
springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the highway of
thinking, as these two which have been explained.
--Mr. _Shandy_, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which
others placed it; --he placed things in his own light; --he would weigh
nothing in common scales; --no, he was too refined a researcher to lie
open to so gross an imposition. --To come at the exact weight of things
in the scientific steel-yard, the fulcrum, he would say, should be
almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets; --without
this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn the balance,
will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm, was
divisible _in infinitum_; ----that the grains and scruples were as much
a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world. --In a word, he
would say, error was error, --no matter where it fell, ----whether in a
fraction, --or a pound, --’twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept
down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust
of a butterfly’s wings, ----as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all
the stars of heaven put together.
He would often lament that it was for want of considering this properly,
and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to speculative
truths, that so many things in this world were out of joint; ----that
the political arch was giving way; ----and that the very foundations of
our excellent constitution, in church and state, were so sapped as
estimators had reported.
You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would
ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of _Zeno_ and _Chrysippus_,
without knowing it belonged to them. --Why? why are we a ruined people?
--Because we are corrupted. --Whence is it, dear Sir, that we are
corrupted? ----Because we are needy; ----our poverty, and not our wills,
consent. ----And wherefore, he would add, are we needy? --From the
neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence: --Our bank
notes, Sir, our guineas, --nay, our shillings take care of themselves.
’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the
sciences; --the great, the established points of them, are not to be
broke in upon. --The laws of nature will defend themselves; --but
error----(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)----error, Sir,
creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices which human nature
leaves unguarded.
This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:
--The point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for
this place, is as follows.
Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged
my mother to accept of Dr. _Slop’s_ assistance preferably to that of the
old woman, ----there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he
had done arguing the manner with her as a Christian, and came to argue
it over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength
to, depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor. ----It failed him;
tho’ from no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could,
he was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of it.
----Cursed luck! ----said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out
of the room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to her,
to no manner of purpose; --cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as he
shut the door, ----for a man to be master of one of the finest chains of
reasoning in nature, --and have a wife at the same time with such a
headpiece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it,
to save his soul from destruction.
This argument, though it was entirely lost upon my mother, ----had more
weight with him, than all his other arguments joined together: --I will
therefore endeavour to do it justice, --and set it forth with all the
perspicuity I am master of.
My father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms:
_First_, That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other
people’s; and,
_Secondly_ (Which by the bye, was the ground-work of the first axiom,
----tho’ it comes last), That every man’s wit must come from every man’s
own soul, ----and no other body’s.
Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal,
----and that the great difference between the most acute and the most
obtuse understanding----was from no original sharpness or bluntness of
one thinking substance above or below another, ----but arose merely from
the lucky or unlucky organisation of the body, in that part where the
soul principally took up her residence, ----he had made it the subject
of his enquiry to find out the identical place.
Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he
was satisfied it could not be where _Des Cartes_ had fixed it, upon the
top of the _pineal_ gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized,
formed a cushion for her about the size of a marrow pea; tho’, to speak
the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all in that one place,
--’twas no bad conjecture; ----and my father had certainly fallen with
that great philosopher plumb into the centre of the mistake, had it not
been for my uncle _Toby_, who rescued him out of it, by a story he told
him of a _Walloon_ officer at the battle of _Landen_, who had one part
of his brain shot away by a musket-ball, --and another part of it taken
out after by a _French_ surgeon; and after all, recovered, and did his
duty very well without it.
If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the
separation of the soul from the body; and if it is true that people can
walk about and do their business without brains, --then certes the soul
does not inhabit there. Q. E. D.
As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which
_Coglionissimo Borri_, the great _Milanese_ physician affirms, in a
letter to _Bartholine_, to have discovered in the cellulæ of the
occipital parts of the cerebellum, and which he likewise affirms to be
the principal seat of the reasonable soul (for, you must know, in these
latter and more enlightened ages, there are two souls in every man
living, --the one, according to the great _Metheglingius_, being called
the _Animus_, the other, the _Anima_;)--as for the opinion, I say, of
_Borri_, --my father could never subscribe to it by any means; the very
idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial, and so exalted a being as
the _Anima_, or even the _Animus_, taking up her residence, and sitting
dabbling, like a tadpole all day long, both summer and winter, in a
puddle, ----or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin soever, he
would say, shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the doctrine a
hearing.
What, therefore, seemed the least liable to objections of any, was that
the chief sensorium, or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place
all intelligences were referred, and from whence all her mandates were
issued, --was in, or near, the cerebellum, --or rather somewhere about
the _medulla oblongata_, wherein it was generally agreed by _Dutch_
anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the organs of the seven
senses concentered, like streets and winding alleys, into a square.
So far there was nothing singular in my father’s opinion, --he had the
best of philosophers, of all ages and climates, to go along with him.
----But here he took a road of his own, setting up another _Shandean_
hypothesis upon these corner-stones they had laid for him; ----and which
said hypothesis equally stood its ground; whether the subtilty and
fineness of the soul depended upon the temperature and clearness of the
said liquor, or of the finer network and texture in the cerebellum
itself; which opinion he favoured.
He maintained, that next to the due care to be taken in the act of
propagation of each individual, which required all the thought in the
world, as it laid the foundation of this incomprehensible contexture, in
which wit, memory, fancy, eloquence, and what is usually meant by the
name of good natural parts, do consist; --that next to this and his
christian-name, which were the two original and most efficacious causes
of all; ----that the third cause, or rather what logicians call the
_Causa sine quâ non_, and without which all that was done was of no
manner of significance, ----was the preservation of this delicate and
fine-spun web, from the havock which was generally made in it by the
violent compression and crush which the head was made to undergo, by the
nonsensical method of bringing us into the world by that foremost.
----This requires explanation.
My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into
_Lithopædus Senonesis de Partu difficili_,[2.1] published by _Adrianus
Smelvgot_, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child’s
head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that
time, was such, ----that by force of the woman’s efforts, which, in
strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470
pounds averdupois acting perpendicularly upon it; --it so happened, that
in 49 instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into
the shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook
generally rolls up in order to make a pye of. --Good God! cried my
father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely
fine and tender texture of the cerebellum! --Or if there is such a juice
as _Borri_ pretends, --is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in
the world both feculent and mothery?
But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that
this force acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured the
brain itself, or cerebrum, --but that it necessarily squeezed and
propelled the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate
seat of the understanding! ----Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
cried my father, ----can any soul withstand this shock? --No wonder the
intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and that so many
of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk, ----all
perplexity, ----all confusion within-side.
But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a
child was turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and
was extracted by the feet; --that instead of the cerebrum being
propelled towards the cerebellum, the cerebellum, on the contrary, was
propelled simply towards the cerebrum, where it could do no manner of
hurt: ----By heavens! cried he, the world is in conspiracy to drive out
what little wit God has given us, ----and the professors of the
obstetric art are lifted into the same conspiracy. --What is it to me
which end of my son comes foremost into the world, provided all goes
right after, and his cerebellum escapes uncrushed?
It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it,
that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and,
from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the
stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand. This is of
great use.
When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a
phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve
by it; --it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in
the family. ----Poor devil, he would say, --he made way for the capacity
of his younger brothers. ----It unriddled the observations of drivellers
and monstrous heads, ----shewing _à priori_, it could not be otherwise,
----unless **** I don’t know what. It wonderfully explained and
accounted for the acumen of the _Asiatic_ genius, and that sprightlier
turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; not
from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more
perpetual sunshine, &c. --which for aught he knew, might as well rarefy
and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme, --as
they are condensed in colder climates by the other; ----but he traced
the affair up to its spring-head; --shewed that, in warmer climates,
nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the creation;
--their pleasures more; --the necessity of their pains less, insomuch
that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the
whole organisation of the cerebellum was preserved; ----nay, he did not
believe, in natural births, that so much as a single thread of the
net-work was broke or displaced, ----so that the soul might just act as
she liked.
When my father had got so far, ------what a blaze of light did the
accounts of the _Cæsarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had
come safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see,
he would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium; --no pressure
of the head against the pelvis; ----no propulsion of the cerebrum
towards the cerebellum, either by the _os pubis_ on this side, or the
_os coxygis_ on that; ------and pray, what were the happy consequences?
Why, Sir, your _Julius Cæsar_, who gave the operation a name; --and your
_Hermes Trismegistus_, who was born so before ever the operation had a
name; ----your _Scipio Africanus_; your _Manlius Torquatus_; our
_Edward_ the Sixth, --who, had he lived, would have done the same honour
to the hypothesis: ----These, and many more who figured high in the
annals of fame, --all came _side-way_, Sir, into the world.
The incision of the _abdomen_ and _uterus_ ran for six weeks together in
my father’s head; ----he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in the
_epigastrium_, and those in the _matrix_, were not mortal; --so that the
belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a passage to
the child. --He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my mother,
------merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as ashes
at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his hopes,
--he thought it as well to say no more of it, ----contenting himself
with admiring, --what he thought was to no purpose to propose.
This was my father Mr. _Shandy’s_ hypothesis; concerning which I have
only to add, that my brother _Bobby_ did as great honour to it (whatever
he did to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke of: For
happening not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be born too,
when my father was at _Epsom_, ----being moreover my mother’s _first_
child, --coming into the world with his head _foremost_, --and turning
out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts, ----my father spelt all
these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one end, --he
was determined to try the other.
This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not
easily to be put out of their way, ----and was therefore one of my
father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could
better deal with.
Of all men in the world, Dr. _Slop_ was the fittest for my father’s
purpose; ----for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had
proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of
deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book,
in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy; ----tho’ not
with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my
father’s system, --but for reasons merely obstetrical.
This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_, in
the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle _Toby_.
----In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, could
bear up against two such allies in science, --is hard to conceive. --You
may conjecture upon it, if you please, ----and whilst your imagination
is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes
and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle _Toby_ got
his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin. --You may raise a
system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles, --and
shew the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to
be called TRISTAM, in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish
of the whole family, Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted. --These,
with fifty other points left yet unravelled, you may endeavour to solve
if you have time; ----but I tell you beforehand it will be in vain, for
not the sage _Alquife_, the magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor
the no less famous _Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive),
could pretend to come within a league of the truth.
The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these
matters till the next year, ----when a series of things will be laid
open which he little expects.
[Footnote 2.1: The author is here twice mistaken; for
_Lithopædus_ should be wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon_.
The second mistake is, that this _Lithopædus_ is not an author,
but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this,
published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen at the end of
_Cordæus’s_ works in _Spachius_. Mr. _Tristram Shandy_ has been
led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus’s_ name of
late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ----, or by
mistaking _Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_, ----from the too
great similitude of the names.]
BOOK III
Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia; meis tamen, rogo,
parcant opusculis------in quibus fuit propositi semper,
a jocis ad seria, a seriis vicissim ad jocos transire.
--JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS, _Episcopus Lugdun._
CHAPTER I
----“_I WISH, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish for
Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness
in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at first[3.1])---- “_I
wish, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen what prodigious
armies we had in_ Flanders.”
My uncle _Toby’s_ wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart never
intended any man, --Sir, it confounded him----and thereby putting his
ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them
again for the soul of him.
In all disputes, ----male or female, ----whether for honour, for profit,
or for love, --it makes no difference in the case; --nothing is more
dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner
upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the wish,
is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs--and wish the
_wisher_ something in return, of pretty near the same value, ----so
balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were--nay
sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.
This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.--
Dr. _Slop_ did not understand the nature of this defence; --he was
puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four
minutes and a half; --five had been fatal to it: --my father saw the
danger--the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the
world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born
without a head or with one:” --he waited to the last moment, to allow
Dr. _Slop_, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning
it; but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking
with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare
with--first in my uncle _Toby’s_ face--then in his--then up--then
down--then east--east and by east, and so on, ----coasting it along by
the plinth of the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the
compass, ----and that he had actually begun to count the brass nails
upon the arm of his chair, --my father thought there was no time to be
lost with my uncle _Toby_, so took up the discourse as follows.
[Footnote 3.1: Vide page 105.] [[end of ch. II.XVIII]]
CHAPTER II
“--What prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”----
Brother _Toby_, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with
his right hand, and with his _left_ pulling out a striped _India_
handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as he
argued the point with my uncle _Toby_.----
----Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give
you my reasons for it.
Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “_Whether my
father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his
left_,” ----have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of
the monarchs who governed them, to totter upon their heads. ----But need
I tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which every thing in this
world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape!
--and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing
to be, what it is--great--little--good--bad--indifferent or not
indifferent, just as the case happens?
As my father’s _India_ handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he
should by no means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on
the contrary, instead of taking off his wig with it, as he did, he ought
to have committed that entirely to the left; and then, when the natural
exigency my father was under of rubbing his head, called out for his
handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have done, but
to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and taken it out;
----which he might have done without any violence, or the least
ungraceful twist in any one tendon or muscle of his whole body
In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a
fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand----or by
making some nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or
arm-pit)--his whole attitude had been easy--natural--unforced:
_Reynolds_ himself, as great and gracefully as he paints, might have
painted him as he sat.
Now as my father managed this matter, --consider what a devil of a
figure my father made of himself.
In the latter end of Queen _Anne’s_ reign, and in the beginning of the
reign of King _George_ the first-- “_Coat pockets were cut very low down
in the skirt_.” --I need say no more--the father of mischief, had he
been hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion
for one in my father’s situation.
CHAPTER III
It was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean a
subject as myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across
your whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat pocket.
----In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this
happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle _Toby_
discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s approaches towards
it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, before
the gate of _St. Nicolas_; ----the idea of which drew off his attention
so entirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand
to the bell to ring up _Trim_ to go and fetch his map of _Namur_, and
his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the returning angles
of the traverses of that attack, --but particularly of that one, where
he received his wound upon his groin.
My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his body
seemed to rush up into his face----my uncle _Toby_ dismounted
immediately.
----I did not apprehend your uncle _Toby_ was o’ horseback.------
CHAPTER IV
A man’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it,
are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining; --rumple the one,
--you rumple the other. There is one certain exception however in this
case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have had
your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a
sarcenet, or thin persian.
_Zeno_, _Cleanthes_, _Diogenes Babylonius_, _Dionysius_, _Heracleotes_,
_Antipater_, _Panætius_, and _Posidonius_ amongst the _Greeks_;
----_Cato_ and _Varro_ and _Seneca_ amongst the _Romans_;
----_Pantæonus_ and _Clemens Alexandrinus_ and _Montaigne_ amongst the
Christians; and a score and a half of good, honest, unthinking
_Shandean_ people as ever lived, whose names I can’t recollect, --all
pretended that their jerkins were made after this fashion, --you might
have rumpled and crumpled, and doubled and creased, and fretted and
fridged the outside of them all to pieces; ----in short, you might have
played the very devil with them, and at the same time, not one of the
insides of them would have been one button the worse, for all you had
done to them.
I believe in my conscience that mine is made up somewhat after this
sort: ----for never poor jerkin has been tickled off at such a rate as
it has been these last nine months together, ----and yet I declare, the
lining to it, ------as far as I am a judge of the matter, ----is not a
three-penny piece the worse; --pell-mell, helter-skelter, ding-dong, cut
and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long way, have
they been trimming it for me: --had there been the least gumminess in my
lining, --by heaven! it had all of it long ago been frayed and fretted
to a thread.
------You Messrs. the Monthly reviewers! ------how could you cut and
slash my jerkin as you did? ----how did you know but you would cut my
lining too?
Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will
injure none of us, do I recommend you and your affairs, --so God bless
you; --only next month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and
storm and rage at me, as some of you did last MAY (in which I remember
the weather was very hot)--don’t be exasperated, if I pass it by again
with good temper, --being determined as long as I live or write (which
in my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a
worse word or a worse wish than my uncle _Toby_ gave the fly which
buzz’d about his nose all _dinner-time_, ------“Go, --go, poor devil,”
quoth he, --“get thee gone, --why should I hurt thee? This world is
surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.”
CHAPTER V
Any man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious
suffusion of blood in my father’s countenance, --by means of which
(as all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his face, as I told
you) he must have reddened, pictorically and scientifically speaking,
six whole tints and a half, if not a full octave above his natural
colour: --any man, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, who had observed this,
together with the violent knitting of my father’s brows, and the
extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair, --would have
concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted, --had he
been a lover of such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments
being put in exact tune, --he would instantly have skrew’d up his, to
the same pitch; --and then the devil and all had broke loose--the whole
piece, Madam, must have been played off like the sixth of Avison
Scarlatti--_con furia_, --like mad. --Grant me patience! ----What has
_con furia_, ----_con strepito_, ----or any other hurly burly whatever
to do with harmony?
Any man, I say, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, the benignity of whose heart
interpreted every motion of the body in the kindest sense the motion
would admit of, would have concluded my father angry, and blamed him
too. My uncle _Toby_ blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the
pocket-hole; ----so sitting still till my father had got his
handkerchief out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with
inexpressible good-will----my father, at length, went on as follows.
CHAPTER VI
“What prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_” ----Brother _Toby_, quoth
my father, I do believe thee to be as honest a man, and with as good and
as upright a heart as ever God created; --nor is it thy fault, if all
the children which have been, may, can, shall, will, or ought to be
begotten, come with their heads foremost into the world: ----but believe
me, dear _Toby_, the accidents which unavoidably waylay them, not only
in the article of our begetting ’em----though these, in my opinion, are
well worth considering, ----but the dangers and difficulties our
children are beset with, after they are got forth into the world, are
enow--little need is there to expose them to unnecessary ones in their
passage to it. ----Are these dangers, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying his
hand upon my father’s knee, and looking up seriously in his face for an
answer, ----are these dangers greater now o’ days, brother, than in
times past? Brother _Toby_, answered my father, if a child was but
fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the mother did well after
it, --our forefathers never looked farther. ----My uncle _Toby_
instantly withdrew his hand from off my father’s knee, reclined his body
gently back in his chair, raised his head till he could just see the
cornice of the room, and then directing the buccinatory muscles along
his cheeks, and the orbicular muscles around his lips to do their
duty--he whistled _Lillabullero_.
CHAPTER VII
Whilst my uncle _Toby_ was whistling _Lillabullero_ to my father, --Dr.
_Slop_ was stamping, and cursing and damning at _Obadiah_ at a most
dreadful rate, ------it would have done your heart good, and cured you,
Sir, for ever of the vile sin of swearing, to have heard him; I am
determined therefore to relate the whole affair to you.
When Dr. _Slop’s_ maid delivered the green bays bag with her master’s
instruments in it, to _Obadiah_, she very sensibly exhorted him to put
his head and one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across
his body: so undoing the bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him,
without any more ado, she helped him on with it. However, as this, in
some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag, lest anything should bolt
out in galloping back, at the speed _Obadiah_ threatened, they consulted
to take it off again: and in the great care and caution of their hearts,
they had taken the two strings and tied them close (pursing up the mouth
of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, each of which _Obadiah_,
to make all safe, had twitched and drawn together with all the strength
of his body.
This answered all that _Obadiah_ and the maid intended; but was no
remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The
instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much
room to play in it, towards the bottom (the shape of the bag being
conical) that _Obadiah_ could not make a trot of it, but with such a
terrible jingle, what with the _tire tête_, _forceps_, and _squirt_, as
would have been enough, had _Hymen_ been taking a jaunt that way, to
have frightened him out of the country; but when _Obadiah_ accelerated
his motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coach-horse into
a full gallop----by Heaven! Sir, the jingle was incredible.
As _Obadiah_ had a wife and three children----the turpitude of
fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this
jingling, never once entered his brain, ----he had however his
objection, which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has
oft-times done with the greatest patriots. ----“_The poor fellow, Sir,
was not able to hear himself whistle._”
CHAPTER VIII
As _Obadiah_ loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music
he carried with him, --he very considerately set his imagination to
work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a
condition of enjoying it.
In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing
is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band: ----the philosophy of
this is so near the surface ----I scorn to enter into it.
As _Obadiah’s_ was a mix’d case----mark, Sirs, ----I say, a mixed case;
for it was obstetrical, ----_scrip_tical, squirtical, papistical----and
as far as the coach-horse was concerned in it, ----caballistical----and
only partly musical; --_Obadiah_ made no scruple of availing himself of
the first expedient which offered; so taking hold of the bag and
instruments, and griping them hard together with one hand, and with the
finger and thumb of the other putting the end of the hat-band betwixt
his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of it, --he
tied and cross-tied them all fast together from one end to the other
(as you would cord a trunk) with such a multiplicity of roundabouts and
intricate cross turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point
where the strings met, --that Dr. _Slop_ must have had three-fifths of
_Job’s_ patience at least to have unloosed them. --I think in my
conscience, that had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in
humour for such a contest----and she and Dr. _Slop_ both fairly started
together----there is no man living who had seen the bag with all that
_Obadiah_ had done to it, ----and known likewise the great speed the
Goddess can make when she thinks proper, who would have had the least
doubt remaining in his mind--which of the two would have carried off the
prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag
infallibly----at least by twenty _knots_. ----Sport of small accidents,
_Tristram Shandy!_ that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been
for thee, and it was fifty to one but it had, ----thy affairs had not
been so depress’d--(at least by the depression of thy nose) as they have
been; nor had the fortunes of thy house and the occasions of making
them, which have so often presented themselves in the course of thy
life, to thee, been so often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so
irrecoverably abandoned--as thou hast been forced to leave them; ----but
’tis over, ----all but the account of ’em, which cannot be given to the
curious till I am got out into the world.
CHAPTER IX
Great wits jump: for the moment Dr. _Slop_ cast his eyes upon his bag
(which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle _Toby_ about
midwifery put him in mind of it)--the very same thought occurred. --’Tis
God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. _Shandy_ has had so bad a
time of it, ----else she might have been brought to bed seven times
told, before one half of these knots could have got untied. ----But here
you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. _Slop’s_ mind,
without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of
which, as your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the
middle of the thin juice of a man’s understanding, without being carried
backwards or forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest
drive them to one side.
A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother’s bed, did the
proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that’s
unfortunate, quoth Dr. _Slop_, unless I make haste, the thing will
actually befall me as it is.
CHAPTER X
In the case of _knots_, --by which, in the first place, I would not be
understood to mean slip-knots--because in the course of my life and
opinions--my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I
mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. _Hammond Shandy_, --a
little man, --but of high fancy: --he rushed into the duke of
_Monmouth’s_ affair: ----nor, secondly, in this place, do I mean that
particular species of knots called bow-knots; --there is so little
address, or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they
are below my giving any opinion at all about them. --But by the knots I
am speaking of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean
good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots, made _bona fide_, as _Obadiah_
made his; ----in which there is no quibbling provision made by the
duplication and return of the two ends of the strings thro’ the annulus
or noose made by the second _implication_ of them--to get them slipp’d
and undone by. --I hope you apprehend me.
In the case of these _knots_ then, and of the several obstructions,
which, may it please your reverences, such knots cast in our way in
getting through life----every hasty man can whip out his penknife and
cut through them. ----’Tis wrong. Believe me, Sirs, the most virtuous
way, and which both reason and conscience dictate----is to take our
teeth or our fingers to them. ----Dr. _Slop_ had lost his teeth--his
favourite instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some
misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a hard
labour, knock’d out three of the best of them with the handle of it:
------he tried his fingers--alas; the nails of his fingers and thumbs
were cut close. ----The duce take it! I can make nothing of it either
way, cried Dr. _Slop_. ----The trampling overhead near my mother’s
bedside increased. --Pox take the fellow! I shall never get the knots
untied as long as I live. ----My mother gave a groan. ----Lend me your
penknife ----I must e’en cut the knots at last----pugh! ----psha!
--Lord! I have cut my thumb quite across to the very bone----curse the
fellow--if there was not another man-midwife within fifty miles ----I am
undone for this bout --I wish the scoundrel hang’d --I wish he was
shot ----I wish all the devils in hell had him for a blockhead!------
My father had a great respect for _Obadiah_, and could not bear to hear
him disposed of in such a manner--he had moreover some little respect
for himself--and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself
in it.
Had Dr. _Slop_ cut any part about him, but his thumb----my father had
pass’d it by--his prudence had triumphed: as it was, he was determined
to have his revenge.
Small curses, Dr. _Slop_, upon great occasions, quoth my father
(condoling with him first upon the accident), are but so much waste of
our strength and soul’s health to no manner of purpose. --I own it,
replied Dr. _Slop_. --They are like sparrow-shot, quoth my uncle _Toby_
(suspending his whistling), fired against a bastion. ----They serve,
continued my father, to stir the humours----but carry off none of their
acrimony: --for my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all --I hold it
bad----but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much
presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle _Toby_) as to make it answer my
purpose----that is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wise and a
just man however would always endeavour to proportion the vent given to
these humours, not only to the degree of them stirring within
himself--but to the size and ill intent of the offence upon which they
are to fall. --“_Injuries come only from the heart_,” --quoth my uncle
_Toby_. For this reason, continued my father, with the most _Cervantick_
gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world for that gentleman,
who, in distrust of his own discretion in this point, sat down and
composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of swearing suitable to all
cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which could possibly
happen to him----which forms being well considered by him, and such
moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the
chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use. --I never apprehended,
replied Dr. _Slop_, that such a thing was ever thought of----much less
executed. I beg your pardon, answered my father; I was reading, though
not using, one of them to my brother _Toby_ this morning, whilst he
pour’d out the tea--’tis here upon the shelf over my head; --but if I
remember right, ’tis too violent for a cut of the thumb. --Not at all,
quoth Dr. _Slop_--the devil take the fellow. ----Then, answered my
father, ’Tis much at your service, Dr. _Slop_--on condition you will
read it aloud; ----so rising up and reaching down a form of
excommunication of the church of _Rome_, a copy of which, my father (who
was curious in his collections) had procured out of the leger-book of
the church of _Rochester_, writ by ERNULPHUS the bishop----with a most
affected seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled
ERNULPHUS himself--he put it into Dr. _Slop’s_ hands. ----Dr. _Slop_
wrapt his thumb up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with a wry
face, though without any suspicion, read aloud, as follows------my uncle
_Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_ as loud as he could all the time.
Textus de Ecclesiâ Roffensi, per Ernulfum Episcopum.
[Transcriber’s Note:
The following section was printed on facing pages, Latin and English.
For this e-text it has been broken into alternating paragraphs. The
letters inserted between Latin lines are alternative endings determined
by the number and gender of the person(s) being excommunicated.]
CAP. XI
EXCOMMUNICATIO[3.2]
Ex auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus
Sancti, et sanctorum canonum, sanctæque et intemeratæ Virginis Dei
genetricis Mariæ,--
CHAPTER XI
“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and
of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and
patroness of our Saviour.” I think there is no necessity, quoth Dr.
_Slop_, dropping the paper down to his knee, and addressing himself to
my father----as you have read it over, Sir, so lately, to read it
aloud----and as Captain _Shandy_ seems to have no great inclination to
hear it ------I may as well read it to myself. That’s contrary to treaty,
replied my father: ------besides, there is something so whimsical,
especially in the latter part of it, I should grieve to lose the
pleasure of a second reading. Dr. _Slop_ did not altogether like it,
------but my uncle _Toby_ offering at that instant to give over
whistling, and read it himself to them; ------Dr. _Slop_ thought he
might as well read it under the cover of my uncle _Toby’s_
whistling------as suffer my uncle _Toby_ to read it alone; ----so
raising up the paper to his face, and holding it quite parallel to it,
in order to hide his chagrin------he read it aloud as follows--------my
uncle _Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_, though not quite so loud as
before.
------Atque omnium cœlestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum,
thronorum, dominationum, potestatuum, cherubin
ac seraphin, & sanctorum patriarchum, prophetarum, & omnium
apostolorum & evangelistarum, & sanctorum innocentum, qui
in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt canticum cantare
novum, et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum confessorum, et
sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et electorum
_vel_ os
Dei, ----Excommunicamus, et anathematizamus hunc
s _vel_ os s
furem, vel hunc malefactorem, N. N. et a liminibus sanctæ Dei
_vel_ i n
ecclesiæ sequestramus, et æternis suppliciis excruciandus, mancipetur,
cum Dathan et Abiram, et cum his qui dixerunt Domino
Deo, Recede à nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus: et
_vel_ eorum
sicut aquâ ignis extinguitur, sic extinguatur lucerna ejus in
n n
secula seculorum nisi resipuerit, et ad satisfactionem venerit.
Amen.
“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and
of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and
of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,
powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs,
prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy
innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing
the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy
virgins, and of all the saints, together with the holy and elect of God,
----May he” (_Obadiah_) “be damn’d” (for tying these knots)---- “We
excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy
church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented,
disposed, and delivered over with _Dathan_ and _Abiram_, and with those
who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways.
And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out
for evermore, unless it shall repent him” (_Obadiah_, of the knots which
he has tied) “and make satisfaction” (for them) “Amen.”
os
Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui hominem creavit. Maledicat
os os
illum Dei Filius qui pro homine passus est. Maledicat illum
os
Spiritus Sanctus qui in baptismo effusus est. Maledicat illum
sancta crux, quam Christus pro nostrâ salute hostem triumphans
ascendit.
“May the Father who created man, curse him. ----May the Son who suffered
for us, curse him. ----May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in
baptism, curse him (_Obadiah_) ----May the holy cross which Christ,
for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him.
os
Maledicat illum sancta Dei genetrix et perpetua Virgo Maria.
os
Maledicat illum sanctus Michael, animarum susceptor sacrarum.
os
Maledicant illum omnes angeli et archangeli, principatus et
potestates, omnisque militia cœlestis.
“May the holy and eternal Virgin _Mary_, mother of God, curse him.
------May St. _Michael_, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. ----May
all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the
heavenly armies, curse him.” [Our armies swore terribly in _Flanders_,
cried my uncle _Toby_, ------but nothing to this. ------For my own part
I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.]
os
Maledicat illum patriarcharum et prophetarum laudabilis
os
numerus. Maledicat illum sanctus Johannes Præcusor et
Baptista Christi, et sanctus Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque
sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi apostoli, simul et cæteri
discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistæ, qui sua prædicatione
os
mundum universum converterunt. Maledicat illum cuneus
martyrum et confessorum mirificus, qui Deo bonis operibus
placitus inventus est.
“May St. John, the Præcursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter
and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ’s apostles, together
curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who
by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and
wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are
found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him” (_Obadiah_).
os
Maledicant illum sacrarum virginum chori, quæ mundi vana
causa honoris Christi respuenda contempserunt. Maledicant
os
illum omnes sancti qui ab initio mundi usque in finem seculi
Deo dilecti inveniuntur.
os
Maledicant illum cœli et terra, et omnia sancta in eis manentia.
“May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ
have despised the things of the world, damn him ----May all the saints,
who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be
beloved of God, damn him ------May the heavens and earth, and all the
holy things remaining therein, damn him” (_Obadiah_) “or her”
(or whoever else had a hand in tying these knots).
i n n
Maledictus sit ubicunque fuerit, sive in domo, sive in agro,
sive in viâ, sive in semitâ, sive in silvâ, sive in aquâ, sive in
ecclesiâ.
i n
Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, ----------------------------
------ ------ ------
------ ------ ------
------ ------ ------
manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando,
dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo,
jacendo, operando, quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, flebotomando.
“May he (_Obadiah_) be damn’d wherever he be----whether in the house or
the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or
in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. ----May he be cursed in
living, in dying.” [Here my uncle _Toby_, taking the advantage of a
_minim_ in the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued note
to the end of the sentence. ----Dr. _Slop_, with his division of curses
moving under him, like a running bass all the way.] “May he be cursed in
eating, and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in
sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying,
in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting!”
i n
Maledictus sit in totis viribus corporis,
“May he” (_Obadiah_) “be cursed in all the faculties of his body!
i n
Maledictus sit intus et exterius.
i n i n i
Maledictus sit in capillis; maledictus sit in cerebro. Maledictus
n
sit in vertice, in temporibus, in fronte, in auriculis, in
superciliis, in oculis, in genis, in maxillis, in naribus, in
dentibus, mordacibus, sive molaribus, in labiis, in guttere, in
humeris, in harnis, in brachiis, in manubus, in digitis, in pectore,
in corde, et in omnibus interioribus stomacho tenus, in renibus,
in inguinibus, in femore, in genitalibus, in coxis, in genubus,
in cruribus, in pedibus, et in inguibus.
“May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! ------May he be cursed in the
hair of his head! ----May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex”
(that is a sad curse, quoth my father), “in his temples, in his
forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his
jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips,
in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his
hands, in his fingers!
“May he be damn’d in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and
purtenance, down to the very stomach!
“May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin” (God in heaven forbid!
quoth my uncle _Toby_), “in his thighs, in his genitals” (my father
shook his head), “and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet,
and toe-nails!
Maledictus sit in totis compagibus membrorum, a vertice
capitis, usque ad plantam pedis--non sit in eo sanitas.
“May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of his members,
from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no
soundness in him!
Maledicat illum Christus Filius Dei vivi toto suæ majestatis
imperio.----
“May the Son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty”
----[Here my uncle _Toby_, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous,
long, loud Whew--w--w--------something betwixt the interjectional
whistle of _Hay-day!_ and the word itself.------
----By the golden beard of _Jupiter_--and of _Juno_ (if her majesty wore
one) and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by
the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your
celestial gods, and gods aerial and aquatick--to say nothing of the
beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your
wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines (that is
in case they wore them)------all which beards, as _Varro_ tells me, upon
his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than thirty
thousand effective beards upon the Pagan establishment; ----every beard
of which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroken and sworn
by--by all these beards together then ----I vow and protest, that of the
two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better
of them, as freely as ever _Cid Hamet_ offered his----to have stood by,
and heard my uncle _Toby’s_ accompanyment.]
----et insurgat adversus illum cœlum cum omnibus virtutibus
quæ in eo moventur ad _damnandum_ eum, nisi penituerit et ad
satisfactionem venerit. Amen. Fiat, fiat. Amen.
----“curse him!” continued Dr. _Slop_, --“and may heaven, with all the
powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him”
(_Obadiah_) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,
--so be it. Amen.”
I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, my heart would not let me curse the
devil himself with so much bitterness. --He is the father of curses,
replied Dr. _Slop_. ----So am not I, replied my uncle. ----But he is
cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. _Slop_.
I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle _Toby_.
Dr. _Slop_ drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle
_Toby_ the compliment of his Whu--u--u--or interjectional
whistle----when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but
one----put an end to the affair.
[Footnote 3.2: As the genuineness of the consultation of the
_Sorbonne_ upon the question of baptism, was doubted by some,
and denied by others----’twas thought proper to print the
original of this excommunication; for the copy of which Mr.
_Shandy_ returns thanks to the chapter clerk of the dean and
chapter of _Rochester_.]
CHAPTER XII
Now don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the
oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and
because we have the spirit to swear them, ----imagine that we have had
the wit to invent them too.
I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except
to a connoisseur: ----though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in
swearing, ----as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c., &c., the
whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and
trinkets of criticism, ----or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a
pity, ----for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;
--their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have
that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of
genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and
tortured to death by ’em.
--And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night? --Oh, against
all rule, my lord, --most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and
the adjective, which should agree together in _number_, _case_, and
_gender_, he made a breach thus, --stopping, as if the point wanted
settling; --and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows
should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen
times three seconds and three-fifths by a stop-watch, my lord, each
time, --Admirable grammarian! ----But in suspending his voice----was the
sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance
fill up the chasm? ----Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?
------I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord. --Excellent observer!
And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?
----Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord, ----quite an irregular thing!
--not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. --I had
my rule and compasses, &c., my lord, in my pocket. --Excellent critick!
----And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at----upon taking
the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home
upon an exact scale of _Bossu’s_----’tis out, my lord, in every one of
its dimensions. --Admirable connoisseur!
----And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way
back? --’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the
_pyramid_ in any one group! ----and what a price! ----for there is
nothing of the colouring of _Titian_--the expression of _Rubens_--the
grace of _Raphael_--the purity of _Dominichino_--the _corregiescity_ of
_Corregio_--the learning of _Poussin_--the airs of _Guido_--the taste of
the _Carrachis_--or the grand contour of _Angela_. --Grant me patience,
just Heaven! --Of all the cants which are canted in this canting
world--though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst----the cant of
criticism is the most tormenting!
I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on,
to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins
of his imagination into his author’s hands----be pleased he knows not
why, and cares not wherefore.
Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour--give me --I ask no more,
but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire
along with it----and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if
he can be spared, with my compliments to--no matter.
Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and
imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two
hundred and fifty years last past as originals----except St. _Paul’s
thumb_----_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical,
and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings’ oaths,
’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh; --else I say,
there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not
been copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times:
but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit
of the original! --It is thought to be no bad oath----and by itself
passes very well-- “_G--d damn you._” --Set it beside _Ernulphus’s_----
“God Almighty the Father damn you --God the Son damn you --God the Holy
Ghost damn you”--you see ’tis nothing. --There is an orientality in his,
we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his
invention--possess’d more of the excellencies of a swearer----had such a
thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments,
knittings of the joints, and articulations, ----that when _Ernulphus_
cursed--no part escaped him. --’Tis true there is something of a
_hardness_ in his manner----and, as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of
_grace_----but then there is such a greatness of _gusto!_
My father, who generally look’d upon everything in a light very
different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an
original. ----He considered rather, _Ernulphus’s_ anathema, as an
institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of
_swearing_ in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the
succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence collected
together all the laws of it; --for the same reason that _Justinian_, in
the decline of the empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to
collect the _Roman_ or civil laws all together into one code or
digest----lest, through the rust of time----and the fatality of all
things committed to oral tradition--they should be lost to the world for
ever.
For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath,
from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the Conqueror (_By the
splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your
eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus_. --In short, he would
add --I defy a man to swear _out_ of it.
The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious too;
----nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.
CHAPTER XIII
----Bless my soul! --my poor mistress is ready to faint----and her pains
are gone--and the drops are done--and the bottle of julap is
broke----and the nurse has cut her arm--(and I, my thumb, cried Dr.
_Slop_,) and the child is where it was, continued _Susannah_, --and the
midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised
her hip as black as your hat. --I’ll look at it, quoth Dr. _Slop_.
--There is no need of that, replied _Susannah_, --you had better look at
my mistress--but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how
things are, so desires you would go up stairs and speak to her this
moment.
Human nature is the same in all professions.
The midwife had just before been put over Dr. _Slop’s_ head --He had not
digested it, --No, replied Dr. _Slop_, ’twould be full as proper, if the
midwife came down to me. --I like subordination, quoth my uncle _Toby_,
--and but for it, after the reduction of _Lisle_, I know not what might
have become of the garrison of _Ghent_, in the mutiny for bread, in the
year Ten. --Nor, replied Dr. _Slop_, (parodying my uncle _Toby’s_
hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical
himself)------do I know, Captain _Shandy_, what might have become of the
garrison above stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are
in at present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to
******------the application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine,
comes in so _à propos_, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might
have been felt by the _Shandy_ family, as long as the _Shandy_ family
had a name.
CHAPTER XIV
Let us go back to the ******----in the last chapter.
It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence
flourished at _Athens_ and _Rome_, and would be so now, did orators wear
mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing
about you _in petto_, ready to produce, pop, in the place you want it.
A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a
half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle pot--but above
all, a tender infant royally accoutred. --Tho’ if it was too young, and
the oration as long as _Tully’s_ second _Philippick_--it must certainly
have beshit the orator’s mantle. --And then again, if too old, --it must
have been unwieldy and incommodious to his action--so as to make him
lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it. --Otherwise,
when a state orator has hit the precise age to a minute----hid his
BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it----and
produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by head
and shoulders --Oh Sirs! it has done wonders --It has open’d the sluices,
and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the
politicks of half a nation.
These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and
times, I say, where orators wore mantles----and pretty large ones too,
my brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple,
superfine, marketable cloth in them--with large flowing folds and
doubles, and in a great style of design. --All which plainly shews, may
it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little
good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing
to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of
_trunk-hose_. ----We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth
shewing.
CHAPTER XV
Dr. _Slop_ was within an ace of being an exception to all this
argumentation: for happening to have his green bays bag upon his knees,
when he began to parody my uncle _Toby_--’twas as good as the best
mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the
sentence would end in his new-invented _forceps_, he thrust his hand
into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, when your
reverences took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed----my
uncle _Toby_ had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the
argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two
lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin, ----Dr. _Slop_ would
never have given them up; --and my uncle _Toby_ would as soon have
thought of flying, as taking them by force: but Dr. _Slop_ fumbled so
vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a
ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in
pulling out his _forceps_, his _forceps_ unfortunately drew out the
_squirt_ along with it.
When a proposition can be taken in two senses--’tis a law in
disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he
pleases, or finds most convenient for him. ----This threw the advantage
of the argument quite on my uncle _Toby’s_ side. ----“Good God!” cried
my uncle _Toby_, “_are children brought into the world with a squirt?_”
CHAPTER XVI
--Upon my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the
back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle _Toby_--and you
have crush’d all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly. ’Tis
your own fault, said Dr. _Slop_----you should have clinch’d your two
fists together into the form of a child’s head as I told you, and sat
firm. I did so, answered my uncle _Toby_. ----Then the points of my
forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing--or
else the cut in my thumb has made me a little aukward--or possibly--’Tis
well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities--that
the experiment was not first made upon my child’s head-piece. ------It
would not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. _Slop_. --I
maintain it, said my uncle _Toby_, it would have broke the cerebellum
(unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turn’d it
all into a perfect posset. ------Pshaw! replied Dr. _Slop_, a child’s
head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple; --the sutures give
way--and besides, I could have extracted by the feet after. --Not you,
said she. ----I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father.
Pray do, added my uncle _Toby_.
CHAPTER XVII
----And pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it
may not be the child’s hip, as well as the child’s head? ------’Tis most
certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. _Slop_
(turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally
are--’tis a point very difficult to know--and yet of the greatest
consequence to be known; ----because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for
the head--there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps
* * * * * *
----What the possibility was, Dr. _Slop_ whispered very low to my
father, and then to my uncle _Toby_. ----There is no such danger,
continued he, with the head. --No, in truth, quoth my father--but when
your possibility has taken place at the hip--you may as well take off
the head too.
----It is morally impossible the reader should understand this----’tis
enough Dr. _Slop_ understood it; ----so taking the green bays bag in his
hand, with the help of _Obadiah’s_ pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for
a man of his size, across the room to the door------and from the door
was shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother’s apartments.
CHAPTER XVIII
It is two hours, and ten minutes--and no more--cried my father, looking
at his watch, since Dr. _Slop_ and _Obadiah_ arrived--and I know not how
it happens, brother _Toby_--but to my imagination it seems almost an
age.
----Here--pray, Sir, take hold of my cap--nay, take the bell along with
it, and my pantoufles too.
Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present
of ’em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter.
Though my father said, “_he knew not how it happen’d_,” --yet he knew
very well how it happen’d; ----and at the instant he spoke it, was
pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle _Toby_ a clear account of
the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of _duration
and its simple modes_, in order to shew my uncle _Toby_ by what
mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid
succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse
from one thing to another, since Dr. _Slop_ had come into the room, had
lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent. ----“I
know not how it happens--cried my father, --but it seems an age.”
----’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to the succession of our
ideas.
My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of
reasoning upon everything which happened, and accounting for it
too--proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of
ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of
his hands by my uncle _Toby_, who (honest man!) generally took
everything as it happened; ----and who, of all things in the world,
troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking; --the ideas of time
and space--or how we came by those ideas--or of what stuff they were
made----or whether they were born with us--or we picked them up
afterwards as we went along--or whether we did it in frocks----or not
till we had got into breeches--with a thousand other inquiries and
disputes about INFINITY, PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth,
upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine heads have
been turned and cracked----never did my uncle _Toby’s_ the least injury
at all; my father knew it--and was no less surprized than he was
disappointed, with my uncle’s fortuitous solution.
Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
--But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?--
No more than my horse, replied my uncle _Toby_.
Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two
hands together----there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother
_Toby_----’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge. --But
I’ll tell thee.----
To understand what _time_ is aright, without which we never can
comprehend _infinity_, insomuch as one is a portion of the other----we
ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of
_duration_, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it.
----What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle _Toby_. [3.3]_For if you
will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind_, continued my father, _and
observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I
are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we
receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and
so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of
ourselves, or anything else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas
in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing
co-existing with our thinking----and so according to that
preconceived_ ------You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle _Toby_.
------’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of
_time_, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months----and of
clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out
their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us----that
’twill be well, if in time to come, the _succession of our ideas_ be of
any use or service to us at all.
Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound
man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other,
which follow each other in train just like ------A train of artillery?
said my uncle _Toby_ ----A train of a fiddle-stick! --quoth my
father--which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain
distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round
by the heat of a candle. --I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, mine are
more like a smoak-jack. ------Then, brother _Toby_, I have nothing more
to say to you upon that subject, said my father.
[Footnote 3.3: Vide Locke.]
CHAPTER XIX
----What a conjecture was here lost! ----My father in one of his best
explanatory moods--in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the
very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have
encompassed it about; --my uncle _Toby_ in one of the finest
dispositions for it in the world; --his head like a smoak-jack; ----the
funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all
obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter! --By the tomb-stone
of _Lucian_----if it is in being----if not, why then by his ashes! by
the ashes of my dear _Rabelais_, and dearer _Cervantes!_------my father
and my uncle _Toby’s_ discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY----was a
discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father’s
humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the
_Ontologic Treasury_ of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions
and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.
CHAPTER XX
Tho’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse--yet he
could not get my uncle _Toby’s_ smoak-jack out of his head--piqued as he
was at first with it; --there was something in the comparison at the
bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon
the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his
hand----but looking first stedfastly in the fire----he began to commune
with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out
with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion
of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their
turn in the discourse------the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all
his ideas upside down--so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what
he was about.
As for my uncle _Toby_, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions,
before he fell asleep also. ----Peace be with them both! ----Dr. _Slop_
is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs. ----_Trim_ is
busy in turning an old pair of jackboots into a couple of mortars, to be
employed in the siege of _Messina_ next summer--and is this instant
boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker. ----All my heroes
are off my hands; --’tis the first time I have had a moment to
spare--and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface.
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE
No, I’ll not say a word about it----here it is; --in publishing it --I
have appealed to the world----and to the world I leave it; --it must
speak for itself.
All I know of the matter is--when I sat down, my intent was to write a
good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold
out--a wise, aye, and a discreet--taking care only, as I went along, to
put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the
great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give
me------so that, as your worships see--’tis just as God pleases.
Now, _Agelastes_ (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some
wit in it, for aught he knows----but no judgment at all. And
_Triptolemus_ and _Phutatorius_ agreeing thereto, ask, How is it
possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go
together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other
as wide as east from west ------So, says _Locke_----so are farting and
hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, _Didius_ the great church
lawyer, in his code _de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis_, doth
maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no
argument----nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean to be
a syllogism; ----but you all, may it please your worships, see the
better for it------so that the main good these things do is only to
clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument
itself, in order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular
matter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and
spoil all.
Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and
fellow-labourers (for to you I write this Preface)------and to you,
most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do--pull off your beards)
renowned for gravity and wisdom; ----_Monopolus_, my politician--
_Didius_, my counsel; _Kysarcius_, my friend; --_Phutatorius_, my guide;
----_Gastripheres_, the preserver of my life; _Somnolentius_, the balm
and repose of it----not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as
waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no
resentment to you, I lump all together. ------Believe me, right worthy,
My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own
too, in case the thing is not done already for us----is, that the great
gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with everything which
usually goes along with them------such as memory, fancy, genius,
eloquence, quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without
stint or measure, let or hindrance, be poured down warm as each of us
could bear it--scum and sediment and all (for I would not have a drop
lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles,
dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains------in such
sort, that they might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according
to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them,
both great and small, be so replenish’d, saturated, and filled up
therewith, that no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be
got either in or out.
Bless us! --what noble work we should make! ----how should I tickle it
off! ----and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away
for such readers! ----and you--just heaven! ----with what raptures would
you sit and read--but oh! --’tis too much ----I am sick ----I faint away
deliciously at the thoughts of it--’tis more than nature can bear! --lay
hold of me ----I am giddy --I am stone blind --I’m dying --I am gone.
--Help! Help! Help! --But hold --I grow something better again, for I am
beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us
continue to be great wits--we should never agree amongst ourselves, one
day to an end: ----there would be so much satire and sarcasm----scoffing
and flouting, with raillying and reparteeing of it--thrusting and
parrying in one corner or another----there would be nothing but mischief
among us ----Chaste stars! what biting and scratching, and what a racket
and a clatter we should make, what with breaking of heads, rapping of
knuckles, and hitting of sore places--there would be no such thing as
living for us.
But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we
should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we
should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or
devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy
and kindness, milk and honey--’twould be a second land of promise--a
paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had--so that upon
the whole we should have done well enough.
All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at
present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships
well know, that of these heavenly emanations of _wit_ and _judgment_,
which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and
myself--there is but a certain _quantum_ stored up for us all, for the
use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small _modicums_
of ’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and
there in one bye corner or another--and in such narrow streams, and at
such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it
holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so
many great estates, and populous empires.
Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in _Nova Zembla_,
_North Lapland_, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe,
which lie more directly under the arctick and antarctick circles, where
the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months
together within the narrow compass of his cave--where the spirits are
compressed almost to nothing--and where the passions of a man, with
everything which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone
itself--there the least quantity of _judgment_ imaginable does the
business--and of _wit_----there is a total and an absolute saving--for
as not one spark is wanted--so not one spark is given. Angels and
ministers of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have been to
have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or
run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial
chapter there, with so _plentiful a lack_ of wit and judgment about us!
For mercy’s sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast
as we can southwards into _Norway_--crossing over _Swedeland_, if you
please, through the small triangular province of _Angermania_ to the
lake of _Bothnia_; coasting along it through east and west _Bothnia_,
down to _Carelia_, and so on, through all those states and provinces
which border upon the far side of the _Gulf of Finland_, and the
north-east of the _Baltick_, up to _Petersbourg_, and just stepping into
_Ingria_; --then stretching over directly from thence through the north
parts of the _Russian_ empire--leaving _Siberia_ a little upon the left
hand, till we got into the very heart of _Russian_ and _Asiatick
Tartary_.
Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good
people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have
just left: --for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very
attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of
wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain _household_ judgment,
which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very
good shift with------and had they more of either the one or the other,
it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied
moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.
Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more
luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and
humours runs high------where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy,
and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and
subject to reason------the _height_ of our wit, and the _depth_ of our
judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the _length_ and
_breadth_ of our necessities------and accordingly we have them sent down
amongst us in such a flowing kind of descent and creditable plenty, that
no one thinks he has any cause to complain.
It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot
and cold--wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular
and settled way; --so that sometimes for near half a century together,
there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of
amongst us: ----the small channels of them shall seem quite dried
up----then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit
of running again like fury----you would think they would never stop:
----and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other
gallant things, we drive all the world before us.
It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that
kind of argumentative process, which _Suidas_ calls _dialectick
induction_------that I draw and set up this position as most true and
veritable;
That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered
from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom
which dispenses everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just
serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that
your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in
my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf
with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating _How d’ye_
of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does
a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light
have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it --I tremble to
think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned
sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all
the nights of their lives----running their heads against posts, and
knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end;
----some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks----others
horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned
profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then
tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs. --Here
the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to
each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a
row the same way. --What confusion! --what mistakes! ----fiddlers and
painters judging by their eyes and ears--admirable! --trusting to the
passions excited--in an air sung, or a story painted to the
heart----instead of measuring them by a quadrant.
In the fore-ground of this picture, a _statesman_ turning the political
wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round----_against_ the stream of
corruption--by Heaven! ----instead of _with_ it.
In this corner, a son of the divine _Esculapius_, writing a book against
predestination; perhaps worse--feeling his patient’s pulse, instead of
his apothecary’s----a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his
knees in tears--drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his
forgiveness; --offering a fee--instead of taking one.
In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it,
driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their
might and main, the wrong way! ----kicking it _out_ of the great doors,
instead of _in_----and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree
of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been
originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind: ----perhaps a
more enormous mistake committed by them still------a litigated point
fairly hung up; ------for instance, Whether _John o’Nokes_ his nose
could stand in _Tom o’Stiles_ his face, without a trespass, or
not--rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with
the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might
have taken up as many months----and if carried on upon a military plan,
as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems
practicable therein, ------such as feints, ----forced marches,
----surprizes----ambuscades----mask-batteries, and a thousand other
strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on
both sides------might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding
food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.
As for the Clergy ------No----if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.
----I have no desire; --and besides, if I had --I durst not for my soul
touch upon the subject----with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the
condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth,
to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account--and
therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as
fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to
clear up----and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least
_wit_ are reported to be men of most judgment. ----But mark --I say,
_reported to be_--for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and
which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to
be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.
This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already
weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith
make appear.
I hate set dissertations----and above all things in the world, ’tis one
of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by
placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right
line, betwixt your own and your reader’s conception--when in all
likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something
standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at once--
“for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of knowledge
bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool,
a winter-mittain, a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s
crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair?” --I am this
moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustrate this
affair of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top of the back of
it? --they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into
two gimlet-holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a light,
as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole preface, as
plainly as if every point and particle of it was made up of sun-beams.
I enter now directly upon the point.
--Here stands _wit_--and there stands _judgment_, close beside it, just
like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same
chair on which I am sitting.
--You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its
_frame_--as wit and judgment are of _ours_--and like them too,
indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in
all such cases of duplicated embellishments--------_to answer one
another_.
Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this
matter--let us for a moment take off one of these two curious ornaments
(I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it now stands
on--nay, don’t laugh at it, --but did you ever see, in the whole course
of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made of it? --Why,
’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there is just as
much sense and symmetry in the one as in the other: ----do----pray, get
off your seats only to take a view of it. ----Now would any man who
valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of work out of his
hand in such a condition? --nay, lay your hands upon your hearts, and
answer this plain question, Whether this one single knob, which now
stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any purpose upon
earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the other? --and let me
farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your
consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it would be ten times
better without any knob at all?
Now these two knobs------or top ornaments of the mind of man, which
crown the whole entablature----being, as I said, wit and judgment, which
of all others, as I have proved it, are the most needful----the most
priz’d--the most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest
to come at--for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal
among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding----or so
ignorant of what will do him good therein--who does not wish and
stedfastly resolve in his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least,
master of the one or the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing
seems any way feasible, or likely to be brought to pass.
Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at
the one--unless they laid hold of the other, ----pray what do you think
would become of them? ----Why, Sirs, in spite of all their _gravities_,
they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides
naked----this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to
be supposed in the case we are upon----so that no one could well have
been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they
could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great
perriwigs, had they not raised a _hue_ and _cry_ at the same time
against the lawful owners.
I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning
and artifice----that the great _Locke_, who was seldom outwitted by
false sounds------was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was
so deep and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave
faces, and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one
against the _poor wits_ in this matter, that the philosopher himself was
deceived by it--it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a
thousand vulgar errors; ----but this was not of the number; so that
instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done,
to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon
it----on the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in
with the cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest.
This has been made the _Magna Charta_ of stupidity ever since----but
your reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that
the title to it is not worth a groat: ----which by the bye is one of the
many and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer
for hereafter.
As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind
too freely ------I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly
said to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration ----That
I have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great
wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and
let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture--for any
purpose----peace be with them! --[-->] mark only ----I write not for
them.
CHAPTER XXI
Every day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have
it mended--’tis not mended yet; --no family but ours would have borne
with it an hour----and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject
in the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of
door-hinges. ----And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the
greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his
rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs. --Never did the
parlour-door open--but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to
it; ----three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a
hammer, had saved his honour for ever.
----Inconsistent soul that man is! ----languishing under wounds, which
he has the power to heal! --his whole life a contradiction to his
knowledge! --his reason, that precious gift of God to him--(instead of
pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities--to multiply
his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them --Poor
unhappy creature, that he should do so! ----Are not the necessary causes
of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock
of sorrow; --struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit
to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him would
remove from his heart for ever?
By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be
got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of _Shandy Hall_------the
parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign.
CHAPTER XXII
When Corporal _Trim_ had brought his two mortars to bear, he was
delighted with his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a pleasure
it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to resist the
desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour.
Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of
_hinges_, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is
this.
Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door should
do--
Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its
hinges----(that is, in case things have all along gone well with your
worship, --otherwise I give up my simile)--in this case, I say, there
had been no danger either to master or man, in Corporal _Trim’s_ peeping
in: the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle _Toby_ fast
asleep--the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have
retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs,
dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally
speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this
hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances
my father submitted to upon its account--this was one; that he never
folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being
unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the door, was
always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepp’d in
betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as
he often declared, of the whole sweets of it.
“_When things move upon bad hinges_, an’ please your lordships, _how can
it be otherwise?_”
Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the
moment the door began to creak. ----I wish the smith would give a peep
at that confounded hinge. ----’Tis nothing, an’ please your honour, said
_Trim_, but two mortars I am bringing in. --They shan’t make a clatter
with them here, cried my father hastily. --If Dr. _Slop_ has any drugs
to pound, let him do it in the kitchen. --May it please your honour,
cried _Trim_, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which
I have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which _Obadiah_ told me
your honour had left off wearing. --By Heaven! cried my father,
springing out of his chair, as he swore ----I have not one appointment
belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these
jack-boots----they were our great grandfather’s, brother _Toby_--they
were _hereditary_. Then I fear, quoth my uncle _Toby_, _Trim_ has cut
off the entail. --I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour,
cried _Trim_ ----I hate _perpetuities_ as much as any man alive, cried my
father----but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry
at the same time) have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil
wars; ----Sir _Roger Shandy_ wore them at the battle of _Marston-Moor_.
--I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for them. ----I’ll pay you
the money, brother _Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking at the two
mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches
pocket as he viewed them ----I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment
with all my heart and soul.----
Brother _Toby_, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what
money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but
upon a SIEGE. ----Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year,
besides my half pay? cried my uncle _Toby_. --What is that--replied my
father hastily--to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots? --twelve guineas
for your _pontoons?_ --half as much for your _Dutch_ draw-bridge? --to
say nothing of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last
week, with twenty other preparations for the siege of _Messina_: believe
me, dear brother _Toby_, continued my father, taking him kindly by the
hand--these military operations of yours are above your strength; --you
mean well, brother----but they carry you into greater expences than you
were first aware of; --and take my word, dear _Toby_, they will in the
end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you. --What signifies
it if they do, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, so long as we know ’tis
for the good of the nation?----
My father could not help smiling for his soul--his anger at the worst
was never more than a spark; --and the zeal and simplicity of
_Trim_--and the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle
_Toby_, brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant.
Generous souls! --God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too!
quoth my father to himself.
CHAPTER XXIII
All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs --I hear
not one foot stirring. --Prithee, _Trim_, who’s in the kitchen? There is
no one soul in the kitchen, answered _Trim_, making a low bow as he
spoke, except Dr. _Slop_. --Confusion! cried my father (getting up upon
his legs a second time)--not one single thing was gone right this day!
had I faith in astrology, brother (which, by the bye, my father had),
I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this
unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out
of its place. ----Why, I thought Dr. _Slop_ had been above stairs with
my wife, and so said you. ----What can the fellow be puzzling about in
the kitchen! --He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied _Trim_, in
making a bridge. ----’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle _Toby_:
------pray, give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_, and tell him I
thank him heartily.
You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge--as widely as my
father mistook the mortars; ----but to understand how my uncle _Toby_
could mistake the bridge --I fear I must give you an exact account of
the road which led to it; --or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing
more dishonest in an historian than the use of one)----in order to
conceive the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must
give you some account of an adventure of _Trim’s_, though much against
my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one
sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come
in, either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby’s_ amours with widow
_Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor--or else in the
middle of his and my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns on the bowling-green--for
it will do very well in either place; --but then if I reserve it for
either of those parts of my story ----I ruin the story I’m upon; ----and
if I tell it here --I anticipate matters, and ruin it there.
--What would your worships have me to do in this case?
--Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means. --You are a fool, _Tristram_, if
you do.
O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)--which enable
mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing------that kindly shew him,
where he is to begin it--and where he is to end it----what he is to put
into it----and what he is to leave out--how much of it he is to cast
into a shade--and whereabouts he is to throw his light! --Ye, who
preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how
many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into; ----will you do
one thing?
I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that
wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three
several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here----that at
least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to
direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take.
CHAPTER XXIV
Tho’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition of
_Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a
resolution never more to think of the sex--or of aught which belonged to
it; --yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed
in my uncle _Toby’s_ case there was a strange and unaccountable
concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay siege
to that fair and strong citadel. ----In _Trim’s_ case there was a
concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the
kitchen; --though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master
was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had my
uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points ----I am
persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and
followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat
down before the mistress--corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground
before the maid.
Now, my dear friend _Garrick_, whom I have so much cause to esteem and
honour--(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)--can it escape your
penetration --I defy it--that so many playwrights, and opificers of
chit-chat have ever since been working upon _Trim’s_ and my uncle
_Toby’s_ pattern. ----I care not what _Aristotle_, or _Pacuvius_, or
_Bossu_, or _Ricaboni_ say--(though I never read one of them)----there
is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam
_Pompadour’s_ _vis-à-vis_; than betwixt a single amour, and an amour
thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand
drama ----Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind--is quite
lost in five acts; --but that is neither here nor there.
After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my
uncle _Toby’s_ quarter, a most minute account of every particular of
which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle _Toby_, honest man!
found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat
indignantly.
Corporal _Trim_, as I said, had made no such bargain either with
himself----or with any one else----the fidelity however of his heart not
suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with
disgust----he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into
a blockade; --that is, he kept others off; --for though he never after
went to the house, yet he never met _Bridget_ in the village, but he
would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her--or
(as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand--or ask her
lovingly how she did--or would give her a ribbon--and now-and-then,
though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give
_Bridget_ a--
Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that
is, from the demolition of _Dunkirk_ in the year 13, to the latter end
of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaign in the year 18, which was about six or
seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of. ----When _Trim_, as his
custom was, after he had put my uncle _Toby_ to bed, going down one
moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his
fortifications----in the lane separated from the bowling-green with
flowering shrubs and holly--he espied his _Bridget_.
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth
shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle _Toby_ had made,
_Trim_ courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in:
this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of
Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s,
with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle _Toby’s_
curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the _Dutch_ fashion,
and which went quite across the ditch--was broke down, and somehow or
other crushed all to pieces that very night.
My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle
_Toby’s_ hobby-horse, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever
gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle _Toby_ vexed him about it,
could never think of it once, without smiling at it----so that it could
never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father’s
imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his
humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an
inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him. ----Well----but dear _Toby!_
my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge
happened. ----How can you tease me so much about it? my uncle _Toby_
would reply --I have told it you twenty times, word for word as _Trim_
told it me. --Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry,
turning to _Trim_. --It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour;
----I was shewing Mrs. _Bridget_ our fortifications, and in going too
near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in ----Very well,
_Trim!_ my father would cry----(smiling mysteriously, and giving a
nod--but without interrupting him)----and being link’d fast, an’ please
your honour, arm in arm with Mrs. _Bridget_, I dragg’d her after me, by
means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge----and
_Trim’s_ foot (my uncle _Toby_ would cry, taking the story out of his
mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.
--It was a thousand to one, my uncle _Toby_ would add, that the poor
fellow did not break his leg. ------Ay truly, my father would say----
a limb is soon broke, brother _Toby_, in such encounters. ----And so,
an’ please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very
slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.
At other times, but especially when my uncle _Toby_ was so unfortunate
as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards--my father would
exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great)
in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients--the VINEA which
_Alexander_ made use of at the siege of _Troy_. --He would tell my uncle
_Toby_ of the CATAPULTÆ of the _Syrians_, which threw such monstrous
stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their
very foundation: --he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism
of the BALLISTA which _Marcellinus_ makes so much rout about! --the
terrible effects of the PYROBOLI, which cast fire; ----the danger of the
TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins. ----But what are these, would
he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal _Trim?_ ----Believe me,
brother _Toby_, no bridge, or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was
constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery.
My uncle _Toby_ would never attempt any defence against the force of
this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his
pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after
supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a
suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle _Toby_ leap’d up without
feeling the pain upon his groin--and, with infinite pity, stood beside
his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his
head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean
cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket. ----The
affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle _Toby_ did these
little offices--cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just
been giving him. ----May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram
or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself--if ever I
insult this worthy soul more!
CHAPTER XXV
The draw-bridge being held irreparable, _Trim_ was ordered directly to
set about another------but not upon the same model: for cardinal
_Alberoni’s_ intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle
_Toby_ rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out
betwixt _Spain_ and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing
campaign must in all likelihood be either in _Naples_ or _Sicily_----he
determined upon an _Italian_ bridge--(my uncle _Toby_, by the bye, was
not far out of his conjectures)----but my father, who was infinitely the
better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle _Toby_ in the
cabinet, as my uncle _Toby_ took it of him in the field------convinced
him, that if the king of _Spain_ and the Emperor went together by the
ears, _England_ and _France_ and _Holland_ must, by force of their
pre-engagements, all enter the lists too; ----and if so, he would say,
the combatants, brother _Toby_, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it
again, pell-mell, upon the old prizefighting stage of _Flanders_; --then
what will you do with your _Italian_ bridge?
--We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle _Toby_.
When Corporal _Trim_ had about half finished it in that style----my
uncle _Toby_ found out a capital defect in it, which he had never
thoroughly considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both
ends of it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side
of the fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was
this, that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions,
it impowered my uncle _Toby_ to raise it up or let it down with the end
of his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was
as much as he could well spare--but the disadvantages of such a
construction were insurmountable; ----for by this means, he would say,
I leave one half of my bridge in my enemy’s possession----and pray of
what use is the other?
The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only
at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together,
and stand bolt upright------but that was rejected for the reason given
above.
For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that
particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to
hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage--of
which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at _Spires_
before its destruction--and one now at _Brisac_, if I mistake not; --but
my father advising my uncle _Toby_, with great earnestness, to have
nothing more to do with thrusting bridges--and my uncle foreseeing
moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal’s
misfortune--he changed his mind for that of the marquis _d’Hôpital’s_
invention, which the younger _Bernouilli_ has so well and learnedly
described, as your worships may see------_Act. Erud. Lips._ an. 1695--to
these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a
couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve
line approximating to a cycloid------if not a cycloid itself.
My uncle _Toby_ understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man
in _England_--but was not quite such a master of the cycloid; ----he
talked however about it every day----the bridge went not forwards.
----We’ll ask somebody about it, cried my uncle _Toby_ to _Trim_.
CHAPTER XXVI
When _Trim_ came in and told my father, that Dr. _Slop_ was in the
kitchen, and busy in making a bridge--my uncle _Toby_----the affair of
the jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his
brain----took it instantly for granted that Dr. _Slop_ was making a
model of the marquis _d’Hôpital’s_ bridge. ----’Tis very obliging in
him, quoth my uncle _Toby_; --pray give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_,
_Trim_, and tell him I thank him heartily.
Had my uncle _Toby’s_ head been a _Savoyard’s_ box, and my father
peeping in all the time at one end of it----it could not have given him
a more distinct conception of the operations of my uncle _Toby’s_
imagination, than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and
battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just
beginning to triumph----
When _Trim’s_ answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and
twisted it to pieces.
CHAPTER XXVII
----This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father ----God bless
your honour, cried _Trim_, ’tis a bridge for master’s nose. ----In
bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed
his nose, _Susannah_ says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is
making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of
whalebone out of _Susannah’s_ stays, to raise it up.
----Lead me, brother _Toby_, cried my father, to my room this instant.
CHAPTER XXVIII
From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of
the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly
been gathering over my father. ----A tide of little evils and distresses
has been setting in against him. --Not one thing, as he observed
himself, has gone right: and now is the storm thicken’d and going to
break, and pour down full upon his head.
I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy
frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with. ----My
nerves relax as I tell it. ----Every line I write, I feel an abatement
of the quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it,
which every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things
I should not. ----And this moment that I last dipp’d my pen into my ink,
I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and
solemnity there appear’d in my manner of doing it. ----Lord! how
different from the rash jerks and hair-brain’d squirts thou art wont,
_Tristram_, to transact it with in other humours--dropping thy
pen----spurting thy ink about thy table and thy books--as if thy pen and
thy ink, thy books and furniture cost thee nothing!
CHAPTER XXIX
----I won’t go about to argue the point with you--’tis so----and I am
persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman bear
pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a
horizontal position.”
The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate
across the bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the same time
in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with sorrows, that
ever the eye of pity dropp’d a tear for. ----The palm of his right hand,
as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and covering the
greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head (his
elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the quilt; ----his
left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his knuckles
reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out beyond
the valance--his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his body)
hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon his
shin-bone --He felt it not. A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took possession of
every line of his face. --He sigh’d once----heaved his breast often--but
uttered not a word.
An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with
party-coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the
side where my father’s head reclined. --My uncle _Toby_ sat him down in
it.
Before an affliction is digested--consolation ever comes too soon; --and
after it is digested--it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there
is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a
comforter to take aim at: my uncle _Toby_ was always either on this
side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart he
could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down in
the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear at
every one’s service----he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief----gave a
low sigh----but held his peace.
CHAPTER XXX
----“_All is not gain that is got into the purse._” --So that
notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books
in the universe, and had moreover, in himself, the oddest way of
thinking that ever man in it was bless’d with, yet it had this drawback
upon him after all------that it laid him open to some of the oddest and
most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk
under at present, is as strong an example as can be given.
No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child’s nose, by the edge
of a pair of forceps--however scientifically applied--would vex any man
in the world, who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as my
father was--yet it will not account for the extravagance of his
affliction, nor will it justify the unchristian manner he abandoned and
surrendered him self up to.
To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour--and my
uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair sitting beside him.
CHAPTER XXXI
----I think it a very unreasonable demand--cried my great-grandfather,
twisting up the paper, and throwing it upon the table. ----By this
account, madam, you have but two thousand pounds fortune, and not a
shilling more--and you insist upon having three hundred pounds a year
jointure for it.------
--“Because,” replied my great-grandmother, “you have little or no nose,
Sir.”--
Now before I venture to make use of the word _Nose_ a second time--to
avoid all confusion in what will be said upon it, in this interesting
part of my story, it may not be amiss to explain my own meaning, and
define, with all possible exactness and precision, what I would
willingly be understood to mean by the term: being of opinion, that ’tis
owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising this
precaution, and to nothing else----that all the polemical writings in
divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon _a Will o’ the
Wisp_, or any other sound part of philosophy, and natural pursuit; in
order to which, what have you to do, before you set out, unless you
intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment----but to give the world
a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most
occasion for----changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small
coin? --which done--let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can;
or put a different idea either into your head, or your reader’s head, if
he knows how.
In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as this I am
engaged in--the neglect is inexcusable; and Heaven is witness, how the
world has revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings to
equivocal strictures--and for depending so much as I have done, all
along, upon the cleanliness of my readers’ imaginations.
----Here are two senses, cried _Eugenius_, as we walk’d along, pointing
with the forefinger of his right hand to the word _Crevice_, in the one
hundred and seventy-eighth page of the first volume of this book of
books; ------here are two senses--quoth he --And here are two roads,
replied I, turning short upon him----a dirty and a clean one----which
shall we take? --The clean, by all means, replied _Eugenius_.
_Eugenius_, said I, stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his
breast----to define--is to distrust. ----Thus I triumph’d over
_Eugenius_; but I triumph’d over him as I always do, like a fool.
----’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one: therefore
I define a nose as follows--intreating only beforehand, and beseeching
my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition
soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the
temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or
wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my
definition --For by the word _Nose_, throughout all this long chapter of
noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word _Nose_
occurs --I declare, by that word I mean a nose, and nothing more, or
less.
CHAPTER XXXII
----“Because,” quoth my great-grandmother, repeating the words again--
“you have little or no nose, Sir.”------
S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose,
--’tis not so small as that comes to; ----’tis a full inch longer than
my father’s. --Now, my great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world
like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom
_Pantagruel_ found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN. ------By the
way, if you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so
flat-nosed a people----you must read the book; ----find it out yourself,
you never can.----
--’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs.
--’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of
his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion----’tis
a full inch longer, madam, than my father’s ----You must mean your
uncle’s, replied my great-grandmother.
------My great-grandfather was convinced. --He untwisted the paper, and
signed the article.
CHAPTER XXXIII
----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!
CHAPTER XXXIV
It is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with
the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is
observed in old dogs-- “of not learning new tricks.”
What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever
existed be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe
such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him
change sides!
Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this --He pick’d up
an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple. --It
becomes his own--and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life
rather than give it up.
I am aware that _Didius_, the great civilian, will contest this point;
and cry out against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple? _ex
confesso_, he will say--things were in a state of nature --The apple, as
much _Frank’s_ apple as _John’s_. Pray, Mr. _Shandy_, what patent has he
to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it, when he set his
heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he chew’d it? or when he
roasted it? or when he peel’d, or when he brought it home? or when he
digested? --or when he----? ----For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first
picking up of the apple, made it not his--that no subsequent act could.
Brother _Didius_, _Tribonius_ will answer--(now _Tribonius_ the civilian
and church lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three
eighths longer than _Didius_ his beard --I’m glad he takes up the cudgels
for me, so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer). --Brother
_Didius_, _Tribonius_ will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it
in the fragments of _Gregorius_ and _Hermogines’s_ codes, and in all the
codes from _Justinian’s_ down to the codes of _Louis_ and _Des
Eaux_ --That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations of a man’s
brains, are as much a man’s own property as the breeches upon his
backside; --which said exsudations, &c., being dropp’d upon the said
apple by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover
indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annex’d, by the picker up, to
the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d, eaten, digested, and
so on; ----’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing, has
mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not his
own, by which means he has acquired a property; --or, in other words,
the apple is _John’s_ apple.
By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his
opinions; he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they
lay out of the common way, the better still was his title. ----No mortal
claimed them; they had cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and
digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truly be
said to be of his own goods and chattles. --Accordingly he held fast by
’em, both by teeth and claws--would fly to whatever he could lay his
hands on--and, in a word, would intrench and fortify them round with as
many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle _Toby_ would a
citadel.
There was one plaguy rub in the way of this----the scarcity of materials
to make anything of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; inasmuch
as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books
upon the subject of great noses: by the trotting of my lean horse, the
thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my understanding, when I am
considering what a treasure of precious time and talents together has
been wasted upon worse subjects--and how many millions of books in all
languages, and in all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated
upon points not half so much tending to the unity and peace-making of
the world. What was to be had, however, he set the greater store by; and
though my father would oft-times sport with my uncle _Toby’s_
library--which, by the bye, was ridiculous enough--yet at the very same
time he did it, he collected every book and treatise which had been
systematically wrote upon noses, with as much care as my honest uncle
_Toby_ had done those upon military architecture. ----’Tis true, a much
less table would have held them--but that was not thy transgression, my
dear uncle.--
Here----but why here----rather than in any other part of my story ----I
am not able to tell: ------but here it is------my heart stops me to pay
to thee, my dear uncle _Toby_, once for all, the tribute I owe thy
goodness. ----Here let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the
ground, whilst I am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for
thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy character, that ever
virtue and nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom. ----Peace and comfort
rest for evermore upon thy head! --Thou enviedst no man’s
comforts----insultedst no man’s opinions ----Thou blackenedst no man’s
character--devouredst no man’s bread: gently, with faithful _Trim_
behind thee, didst thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures,
jostling no creature in thy way: --for each one’s sorrow thou hadst a
tear, --for each man’s need, thou hadst a shilling.
Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder--thy path from thy door to thy
bowling-green shall never be grown up. ----Whilst there is a rood and a
half of land in the _Shandy_ family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle
_Toby_, shall never be demolish’d.
CHAPTER XXXV
My father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was
curious; and consequently he was some time in making it; he had the
great good fortune however, to set off well, in getting _Bruscambille’s_
prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing--for he gave no more for
_Bruscambille_ than three half-crowns; owing indeed to the strong fancy
which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the moment he laid
his hands upon it. ----There are not three _Bruscambilles_ in
_Christendom_--said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the
libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as
lightning----took _Bruscambille_ into his bosom----hied home from
_Piccadilly_ to _Coleman_-street with it, as he would have hied home
with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from _Bruscambille_
all the way.
To those who do not yet know of which gender _Bruscambille_
is------inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by
either------’twill be no objection against the simile--to say, That when
my father got home, he solaced himself with _Bruscambille_ after the
manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with
your first mistress------that is, from morning even unto night: which,
by the bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato--is of
little or no entertainment at all to by-standers. ----Take notice, I go
no farther with the simile--my father’s eye was greater than his
appetite--his zeal greater than his knowledge--he cool’d--his affections
became divided----he got hold of _Prignitz_--purchased _Scroderus_,
_Andrea Paræus_, _Bouchet’s_ Evening Conferences, and above all, the
great and learned _Hafen Slawkenbergius_; of which, as I shall have much
to say by and by --I will say nothing now.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Of all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in
support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more
cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between
_Pamphagus_ and _Cocles_, written by the chaste pen of the great and
venerable _Erasmus_, upon the various uses and seasonable applications
of long noses. ------Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter,
take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your
imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to
slip on--let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, _to frisk it, to
squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it--and to kick it, with
long kicks and short kicks_, till, like _Tickletoby’s_ mare, you break
a strap or a crupper and throw his worship into the dirt. --You need
not kill him.--
--And pray who was _Tickletoby’s_ mare? --’tis just as discreditable and
unscholarlike a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (_ab. urb.
con._) the second Punic war broke out. --Who was _Tickletoby’s_ mare?
----Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read--or by the
knowledge of the great saint _Paraleipomenon_ --I tell you before-hand,
you had better throw down the book at once; for without _much reading_,
by which your reverence knows I mean _much knowledge_, you will no more
be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of
my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel
the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically
hid under the dark veil of the black one.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXVII
“_Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi_,” quoth _Pamphagus_; ----that is-- “My
nose has been the making of me.” ----------“_Nec est cur pœniteat_,”
replies _Cocles_; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?”
The doctrine, you see, was laid down by _Erasmus_, as my father wished
it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in
finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself;
without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of
argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to
investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides. ----My father pish’d
and pugh’d at first most terribly------’tis worth something to have a
good name. As the dialogue was of _Erasmus_, my father soon came to
himself, and read it over and over again with great application,
studying every word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most
strict and literal interpretation--he could still make nothing of it,
that way. Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my
father. ----Learned men, brother _Toby_, don’t write dialogues upon long
noses for nothing. ------I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick
sense----here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother.
My father read on. ------Now I find it needful to inform your reverences
and worships, that besides the many nautical uses of long noses
enumerated by _Erasmus_, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not
without its domestic conveniencies also; for that in a case of
distress--and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently
well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to stir up the fire).
Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and
had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had
done the seeds of all other knowledge------so that he had got out his
penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he
could not scratch some better sense into it. ----I’ve got within a
single letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic
meaning. --You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all
conscience. ------Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on ----I might as
well be seven miles off. --I’ve done it--said my father, snapping his
fingers --See, my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense.
----But you have marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_. ----My father
put on his spectacles----bit his lip------and tore out the leaf in a
passion.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
_O Slawkenbergius!_ thou faithful analyzer of my _Disgrazias_--thou sad
foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which in one stage or
other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose,
and no other cause, that I am conscious of. --Tell me, _Slawkenbergius!_
what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it?
how did it sound in thy ears? ----art thou sure thou heard’st it?
----which first cried out to thee------go------go, _Slawkenbergius!_
dedicate the labours of thy life----neglect thy pastimes------call forth
all the powers and faculties of thy nature----macerate thyself in the
service of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject
of their noses.
How the communication was conveyed into _Slawkenbergius’s_
sensorium----so that _Slawkenbergius_ should know whose finger touch’d
the key--and whose hand it was that blew the bellows----as _Hafen
Slawkenbergius_ has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and
ten years------we can only raise conjectures.
_Slawkenbergius_ was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of
_Whitefield’s_ disciples----that is, with such a distinct intelligence,
Sir, of which of the two _masters_ it was that had been practising upon
his _instrument_------as to make all reasoning upon it needless.
------For in the account which _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ gives the world of
his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his
life upon this one work--towards the end of his prolegomena, which by
the bye should have come first----but the bookbinder has most
injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book, and
the book itself--he informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived
at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down coolly, and consider
within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the
main end and design of his being; ----or--to shorten my translation, for
_Slawkenbergius’s_ book is in _Latin_, and not a little prolix in this
passage--ever since I understood, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, any
thing----or rather _what was what_----and could perceive that the point
of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before;
----have I, _Slawkenbergius_, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and
unresistible call within me, to gird up myself to this undertaking.
And to do justice to _Slawkenbergius_, he has entered the list with a
stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man
who had ever entered it before him----and indeed, in many respects,
deserves to be _en-nich’d_ as a prototype for all writers, of voluminous
works at least, to model their books by----for he has taken in, Sir, the
whole subject--examined every part of it _dialectically_------then
brought it into full day; dilucidating it with all the light which
either the collision of his own natural parts could strike--or the
profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him to cast upon
it--collating, collecting, and compiling------begging, borrowing, and
stealing, as he went along, all that had been wrote or wrangled
thereupon in the schools and porticos of the learned: so that
_Slawkenbergius_ his book may properly be considered, not only as a
model--but as a thorough-stitched DIGEST and regular institute of
_noses_, comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known
about them.
For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise)
valuable books and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either,
plump upon noses----or collaterally touching them; ------such for
instance as _Prignitz_, now lying upon the table before me, who with
infinite learning, and from the most candid and scholar-like examination
of above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty
charnel-houses in _Silesia_, which he had rummaged------has informed us,
that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of
human noses, in any _given_ tract of country, except _Crim Tartary_,
where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be
formed upon them--are much nearer alike, than the world imagines; --the
difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking
notice of; ----but that the size and jollity of every individual nose,
and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is
owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts
and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by
the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it
(bating the case of idiots, whom _Prignitz_, who had lived many years in
_Turky_, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)--it so
happens, and ever must, says _Prignitz_, that the excellency of the nose
is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s
fancy.
It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in
_Slawkenbergius_, that I say nothing likewise of _Scroderus_ (_Andrea_)
who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn _Prignitz_ with great
violence--proving it in his own way, first _logically_, and then by a
series of stubborn facts, “That so far was _Prignitz_ from the truth, in
affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary--the nose
begat the fancy.”
--The learned suspected _Scroderus_ of an indecent sophism in this--and
_Prignitz_ cried out aloud in the dispute, that _Scroderus_ had shifted
the idea upon him----but _Scroderus_ went on, maintaining his thesis.
My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he
should take in this affair; when _Ambrose Paræus_ decided it in a
moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of _Prignitz_ and
_Scroderus_, drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at
once.
Be witness------
I don’t acquaint the learned reader--in saying it, I mention it only to
shew the learned, I know the fact myself------
That this _Ambrose Paræus_ was chief surgeon and nose-mender to
_Francis_ the ninth of _France_, and in high credit with him and the two
preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)--and that, except in
the slip he made in his story of _Taliacotius’s_ noses, and his manner
of setting them on--he was esteemed by the whole college of physicians
at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any one who had
ever taken them in hand.
Now _Ambrose Paræus_ convinced my father, that the true and efficient
cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon
which _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_ had wasted so much learning and fine
parts----was neither this nor that----but that the length and goodness
of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the
nurse’s breast------as the flatness and shortness of _puisne_ noses was
to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in
the hale and lively--which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of
the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated,
and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive _ad mensuram suam
legitimam_; ----but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the
nurse or mother’s breast--by sinking into it, quoth _Paræus_, as into so
much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up, refresh’d,
refocillated, and set a growing for ever.
I have but two things to observe of _Paræus_; first, That he proves and
explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression:
--for which may his soul for ever rest in peace!
And, secondly, that besides the systems of _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_,
which _Ambrose Paræus_ his hypothesis effectually overthrew--it
overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our
family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between
my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and
everything in it, except my uncle _Toby_, quite upside down.
Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never
surely in any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a
street-door.
My mother, you must know------but I have fifty things more necessary to
let you know first ----I have a hundred difficulties which I have
promised to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick
misadventures crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck
of another. A cow broke in (to-morrow morning) to my uncle _Toby’s_
fortifications, and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass,
tearing up the sods with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.
----_Trim_ insists upon being tried by a court-martial--the cow to be
shot--_Slop_ to be _crucifix’d_--myself to be _tristram’d_ and at my
very baptism made a martyr of; ----poor unhappy devils that we all are!
----I want swaddling------but there is no time to be lost in
exclamations ------I have left my father lying across his bed, and my
uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him, and promised
I would go back to them in half an hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are
laps’d already. ------Of all the perplexities a mortal author was ever
seen in----this certainly is the greatest, for I have _Hafen
Slawkenbergius’s_ folio, Sir, to finish----a dialogue between my father
and my uncle _Toby_, upon the solution of _Prignitz_, _Scroderus_,
_Ambrose Paræus_, _Ponocrates_, and _Grangousier_ to relate--a tale out
of _Slawkenbergius_ to translate, and all this in five minutes less than
no time at all; ------such a head! --would to Heaven my enemies only saw
the inside of it!
CHAPTER XXXIX
There was not any one scene more entertaining in our family--and to do
it justice in this point; ----and I here put off my cap and lay it upon
the table close beside my ink-horn, on purpose to make my declaration to
the world concerning this one article the more solemn----that I believe
in my soul (unless my love and partiality to my understanding blinds me)
the hand of the supreme Maker and first Designer of all things never
made or put a family together (in that period at least of it which I
have sat down to write the story of)----where the characters of it were
cast or contrasted with so dramatick a felicity as ours was, for this
end; or in which the capacities of affording such exquisite scenes, and
the powers of shifting them perpetually from morning to night, were
lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a confidence, as in the SHANDY
FAMILY.
Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical
theatre of ours----than what frequently arose out of this self-same
chapter of long noses------especially when my father’s imagination was
heated with the enquiry, and nothing would serve him but to heat my
uncle _Toby’s_ too.
My uncle _Toby_ would give my father all possible fair play in this
attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoaking his pipe for
whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, and
trying every accessible avenue to drive _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus’s_
solutions into it.
Whether they were above my uncle _Toby’s_ reason------or contrary to
it------or that his brain was like _damp_ timber, and no spark could
possibly take hold----or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds,
curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into
_Prignitz_ and _Scroderus’s_ doctrines ----I say not--let
schoolmen--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it among
themselves----
’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father
had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle _Toby_,
and render out of _Slawkenbergius’s_ _Latin_, of which, as he was no
great master, his translation was not always of the purest----and
generally least so where ’twas most wanted. --This naturally open’d a
door to a second misfortune; ----that in the warmer paroxysms of his
zeal to open my uncle _Toby’s_ eyes------my father’s ideas ran on as
much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle
_Toby’s_------ neither the one or the other added much to the
perspicuity of my father’s lecture.
CHAPTER XL
The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms ----I mean in man--for in
superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits----’tis all done,
may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION; --and beings
inferior, as your worships all know----syllogize by their noses: though
there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its
ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so
wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and
oft-times to make very well out too: ------but that’s neither here nor
there------
The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or--the great and
principal act of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the
finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with another,
by the intervention of a third (called the _medius terminus_); just as a
man, as _Locke_ well observes, by a yard, finds two men’s
nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought
together, to measure their equality, by _juxta-position_.
Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his
systems of noses, and observed my uncle _Toby’s_ deportment--what great
attention he gave to every word--and as oft as he took his pipe from his
mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of
it----surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his
thumb------then fore-right------then this way, and then that, in all its
possible directions and foreshortenings------he would have concluded my
uncle _Toby_ had got hold of the _medius terminus_, and was syllogizing
and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in
order, as my father laid them before him. This, by the bye, was more
than my father wanted----his aim in all the pains he was at in these
philosophick lectures--was to enable my uncle _Toby_ not to
_discuss_----but _comprehend_----to _hold_ the grains and scruples of
learning----not to _weigh_ them. ----My uncle _Toby_, as you will read
in the next chapter, did neither the one or the other.
CHAPTER XLI
’Tis a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours’
painful translation of _Slawkenbergius_----’tis a pity, cried my father,
putting my mother’s thread-paper into the book for a mark, as he
spoke----that truth, brother _Toby_, should shut herself up in such
impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself
sometimes up upon the closest siege.----
Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle
_Toby’s_ fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of _Prignitz_
to him------having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to
the bowling-green! ------his body might as well have taken a turn there
too--so that with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent upon the
_medius terminus_------my uncle _Toby_ was in fact as ignorant of the
whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been
translating _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ from the _Latin_ tongue into the
_Cherokee_. But the word _siege_, like a talismanic power, in my
father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle _Toby’s_ fancy, quick as a note
could follow the touch--he open’d his ears----and my father observing
that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer
the table, as with a desire to profit--my father with great pleasure
began his sentence again----changing only the plan, and dropping the
metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father
apprehended from it.
’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother
_Toby_------considering what ingenuity these learned men have all shewn
in their solutions of noses. ----Can noses be dissolved? replied my
uncle _Toby_.
------My father thrust back his chair------rose up--put on his
hat------took four long strides to the door------jerked it
open----thrust his head half way out----shut the door again----took no
notice of the bad hinge----returned to the table--pluck’d my mother’s
thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius’s_ book------went hastily to his
bureau--walked slowly back--twisted my mother’s thread-paper about his
thumb--unbutton’d his waistcoat--threw my mother’s thread-paper into the
fire----bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d his mouth with
bran--confounded it; --but mark! --the oath of confusion was levell’d at
my uncle _Toby’s_ brain--which was e’en confused enough already----the
curse came charged only with the bran--the bran, may it please your
honours, was no more than powder to the ball.
’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they did
last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most
unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human
nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make
his passions go off so like gunpowder, as the unexpected strokes his
science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby’s_
questions. ----Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many
different places all at one time--he could not have exerted more
mechanical functions in fewer seconds------or started half so much, as
with one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon
him in his hobby-horsical career.
’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_------he smoaked his pipe on with
unvaried composure----his heart never intended offence to his
brother--and as his head could seldom find out where the sting of it
lay----he always gave my father the credit of cooling by himself. ----He
was five minutes and thirty-five seconds about it in the present case.
By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself, and
taking the oath out of _Ernulphus’s_ digest of curses----(though to do
my father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. _Slop_ in the affair of
_Ernulphus_) which he as seldom committed as any man upon earth) ------By
all that’s good and great! brother _Toby_, said my father, if it was not
for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as they do--you
would put a man beside all temper. ----Why, by the _solutions_ of noses,
of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known, had you
favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts which
learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world of the
causes of short and long noses. ----There is no cause but one, replied
my uncle _Toby_----why one man’s nose is longer than another’s, but
because that God pleases to have it so. ----That is _Grangousier’s_
solution, said my father. --’Tis he, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking
up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us all, and
frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such
ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom. ----’Tis a pious account,
cried my father, but not philosophical----there is more religion in it
than sound science. ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle _Toby’s_
character----that he feared God, and reverenced religion. ----So the
moment my father finished his remark----my uncle _Toby_ fell a whistling
_Lillabullero_ with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.--
What is become of my wife’s thread-paper?
CHAPTER XLII
No matter--as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of
some consequence to my mother--of none to my father, as a mark in
_Slawkenbergius_. _Slawkenbergius_ in every page of him was a rich
treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father--he could not open him
amiss; and he would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts
and sciences in the world, with the books which treated of them, were
lost--should the wisdom and policies of governments, he would say,
through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had
wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of
courts and kingdoms, should they be forgot also--and _Slawkenbergius_
only left----there would be enough in him in all conscience, he would
say, to set the world a-going again. A treasure therefore was he indeed!
an institute of all that was necessary to be known of noses, and
everything else--at _matin_, noon, and vespers was _Hafen
Slawkenbergius_ his recreation and delight: ’twas for ever in his
hands----you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s
prayer-book--so worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with
fingers and with thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the
other.
I am not such a bigot to _Slawkenbergius_ as my father; ----there is a
fund in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the most
profitable, but the most amusing part of _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, is his
tales------and, considering he was a _German_, many of them told not
without fancy: ------these take up his second book, containing nearly
one half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad
containing ten tales ------Philosophy is not built upon tales; and
therefore ’twas certainly wrong in _Slawkenbergius_ to send them into
the world by that name! ----there are a few of them in his eighth,
ninth, and tenth decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive,
than speculative--but in general they are to be looked upon by the
learned as a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning
round somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject, and
collected by him with great fidelity, and added to his work as so many
illustrations upon the doctrines of noses.
As we have leisure enough upon our hands----if you give me leave, madam,
I’ll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Like the Excommunication, the following section was printed on facing
pages. For this e-text it is given in consecutive paragraphs, with the
Latin text inset.]
BOOK IV
SLAWKENBERGII FABELLA[4.1]
SLAWKENBERGIUS’S TALE
_Vespera quâdam frigidulâ, posteriori in parte mensis _Augusti_,
peregrinus, mulo fusco colore insidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis
indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta,
_Argentoratum_ ingressus est._
It was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day,
in the latter end of the month of _August_, when a stranger, mounted
upon a dark mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few
shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered
the town of _Strasburg_.
_Militi eum percontanti, quum portas intraret dixit, se apud
Nasorum promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et
Argentoratum, transitu ad fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo,
reversurum._
He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that
he had been at the Promontory of NOSES--was going on to
_Frankfort_----and should be back again at _Strasburg_ that day month,
in his way to the borders of _Crim Tartary_.
_Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit ----Dî boni, nova forma nasi!_
The centinel looked up into the stranger’s face----he never saw such a
Nose in his life!
_At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens,
e quo pependit acinaces: Loculo manum inseruit; et magnâ cum
urbanitate, pilei parte anteriore tactâ manu sinistrâ, ut extendit
dextram, militi florinum dedit et processit._
--I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the stranger--so slipping
his wrist out of the loop of a black ribbon, to which a short scymetar
was hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy
touching the fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended his
right----he put a florin into the centinel’s hand, and passed on.
_Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum
adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse: itinerari haud poterit nudâ
acinaci; neque vaginam toto _Argentorato_, habilem
inveniet. ------Nullam unquam habui, respondit peregrinus
respiciens------seque comiter inclinans--hoc more gesto, nudam
acinacem elevans, mulo lentò progrediente, ut nasum tueri possim._
It grieves me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish
bandy-legg’d drummer, that so courteous a soul should have lost his
scabbard------he cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not
be able to get a scabbard to fit it in all _Strasburg_. ----I never had
one, replied the stranger, looking back to the centinel, and putting his
hand up to his cap as he spoke ----I carry it, continued he,
thus----holding up his naked scymetar, his mule moving on slowly all the
time--on purpose to defend my nose.
_Non immerito, benigne peregrine, respondit miles._
It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the centinel.
_Nihili æstimo, ait ille tympanista, e pergamenâ factitius est._
----’Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg’d
drummer----’tis a nose of parchment.
_Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major
sit, meo esset conformis._
As I am a true catholic--except that it is six times as big--’tis a
nose, said the centinel, like my own.
_Crepitare audivi ait tympanista._
--I heard it crackle, said the drummer.
_Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, respondit miles._
By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it bleed.
_Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui non ambo tetigimus!_
What a pity, cried the bandy-legg’d drummer, we did not both touch it!
_Eodem temporis puncto, quo hæc res argumentata fuit inter militem
et tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem tubicine et uxore suâ qui tunc
accesserunt, et peregrino prætereunte, restiterunt._
At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and
the drummer--was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a
trumpeter’s wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see
the stranger pass by.
_Quantus nasus! æque longus est, ait tubicina, ac tuba._
_Benedicity!_ ------What a nose! ’tis as long, said the trumpeter’s wife,
as a trumpet.
_Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, velut sternutamento audias._
And of the same metal, said the trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing.
_Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod fistulam dulcedine vincit._
’Tis as soft as a flute, said she.
_Æneus est, ait tubicen._
--’Tis brass, said the trumpeter.
_Nequaquam, respondit uxor._
--’Tis a pudding’s end, said his wife.
_Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod æneus est._
I tell thee again, said the trumpeter, ’tis a brazen nose.
_Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim digito tangam, ait uxor, quam
dormivero._
I’ll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter’s wife, for I will touch
it with my finger before I sleep.
_Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum
controversiæ, non tantum inter militem et tympanistam, verum etiam
inter tubicinem et uxorem ejus, audiret._
The stranger’s mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every word
of the dispute, not only betwixt the centinel and the drummer, but
betwixt the trumpeter and trumpeter’s wife.
_Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fræna demittens, et manibus
ambabus in pectus positis, (mulo lentè progrediente) nequaquam, ait
ille respiciens, non necesse est ut res isthæc dilucidata foret.
Minime gentium! meus nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget
artus --Ad quid agendum? ait uxor burgomagistri._
No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule’s neck, and laying both
his hands upon his breast, the one over the other, in a saint-like
position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking
up --I am not such a debtor to the world----slandered and disappointed as
I have been--as to give it that conviction----no! said he, my nose shall
never be touched whilst Heaven gives me strength ----To do what? said a
burgomaster’s wife.
_Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto
Nicolao; quo facto, in sinum dextrum inserens, e quâ negligenter
pependit acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati
latam quæ ad diversorium templo ex adversum ducit._
The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster’s wife------he was making
a vow to _Saint Nicolas_; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the
same solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his
bridle with his left hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom,
with his scymetar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as
slowly as one foot of the mule could follow another, thro’ the principal
streets of _Strasburg_, till chance brought him to the great inn in the
market-place over against the church.
_Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri
jussit: quâ apertâ et coccineis sericis femoralibus extractis cum
argenteo laciniato Περιζώματα, his sese induit, statimque, acinaci
in manu, ad forum deambulavit._
The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into the
stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought in; then opening, and taking out
of it his crimson-sattin breeches, with a silver-fringed--(appendage to
them, which I dare not translate)--he put his breeches, with his fringed
codpiece on, and forthwith, with his short scymetar in his hand, walked
out on to the grand parade.
_Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem
aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur,
atque ad diversorium regressus est--exuit se vestibus; braccas
coccineas sericas manticæ imposuit mulumque educi jussit._
The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he
perceived the trumpeter’s wife at the opposite side of it--so turning
short, in pain lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went back
to his inn--undressed himself, packed up his crimson-sattin breeches,
&c., in his cloak-bag, and called for his mule.
_Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc
hebdomadis revertar._
I am going forwards, said the stranger, for _Frankfort_----and shall be
back at _Strasburg_ this day month.
_Bene curasti hoc jumentum? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcens--me,
manticamque mean, plus sexcentis mille passibus portavit._
I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with
his left hand as he was going to mount it, that you have been kind to
this faithful slave of mine--it has carried me and my cloak-bag,
continued he, tapping the mule’s back, above six hundred leagues.
_Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset
negoti. --Enimvero, ait peregrinus, a Nasorum promontorio redii, et
nasum speciosissimum, egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam
sortitus est, acquisivi._
----’Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn----unless a
man has great business. ----Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at
the Promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank
Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot.
_Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor
ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini nasum contemplantur ----Per sanctos
sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto
Argentorato major est! --estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans,
nonne est nasus prægrandis?_
Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master
of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the
stranger’s nose ----By saint _Radagunda_, said the inn-keeper’s wife to
herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put
together in all _Strasburg!_ is it not, said she, whispering her husband
in his ear, is it not a noble nose?
_Dolus inest, anime mî, ait hospes--nasus est falsus._
’Tis an imposture, my dear, said the master of the inn----’tis a false
nose.
_Verus est, respondit uxor----_
’Tis a true nose, said his wife.
_Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet------_
’Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell the turpentine.------
_Carbunculus inest, ait uxor._
There’s a pimple on it, said she.
_Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes._
’Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-keeper.
_Vivus est ait illa, --et si ipsa vivam tangam._
’Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the inn-keeper’s wife,
I will touch it.
_Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore
usque ad --Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa._
I have made a vow to saint _Nicolas_ this day, said the stranger, that
my nose shall not be touched till --Here the stranger, suspending his
voice, looked up. ------Till when? said she hastily.
_Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque
ad illam horam ------Quam horam? ait illa ------Nullam, respondit
peregrinus, donec pervenio ad --Quem locum, --obsecro? ait
illa ----Peregrinus nil respondens mulo conscenso discessit._
It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing them
close to his breast, till that hour --What hour? cried the inn-keeper’s
wife. --Never! --never! said the stranger, never till I am got --For
Heaven’s sake, into what place? said she ------The stranger rode away
without saying a word.
The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards _Frankfort_
before all the city of _Strasburg_ was in an uproar about his nose. The
_Compline_ bells were just ringing to call the _Strasburgers_ to their
devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer: --no soul in all
_Strasburg_ heard ’em--the city was like a swarm of bees------men,
women, and children (the _Compline_ bells tinkling all the time) flying
here and there--in at one door, out at another----this way and that
way--long ways and cross ways--up one street, down another street----in
at this alley, out of that------did you see it? did you see it? did you
see it? O! did you see it? ------who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s
sake, who saw it?
Alack o’day! I was at vespers! --I was washing, I was starching, I was
scouring, I was quilting ----God help me! I never saw it ----I never
touch’d it! ----would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer,
a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in
every street and corner of _Strasburg_.
Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great
city of _Strasburg_, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon
his mule in his way to _Frankfort_, as if he had no concern at all in
the affair------talking all the way he rode in broken sentences,
sometimes to his mule--sometimes to himself--sometimes to his Julia.
O Julia, my lovely Julia! --nay, I cannot stop to let thee bite that
thistle----that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed
me of enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.----
----Pugh! --’tis nothing but a thistle--never mind it----thou shalt have
a better supper at night.
----Banish’d from my country----my friends----from thee.----
Poor devil, thou’rt sadly tired with thy journey! ----come--get on a
little faster--there’s nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts----a
crimson-sattin pair of breeches, and a fringed ----Dear Julia.
----But why to _Frankfort_--is it that there is a hand unfelt, which
secretly is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected tracts?
----Stumbling! by saint _Nicolas!_ every step--why, at this rate we
shall be all night in getting in------
----To happiness----or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander--
destined to be driven forth unconvicted----unheard----untouch’d----if
so, why did I not stay at _Strasburg_, where justice--but I had sworn!
Come, thou shalt drink--to _St. Nicolas_ --O Julia! ------What dost thou
prick up thy ears at? ----’tis nothing but a man, &c.
The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and
Julia--till he arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he
alighted------saw his mule, as he had promised it, taken good care
of----took off his cloak-bag, with his crimson-sattin breeches, &c., in
it--called for an omelet to his supper, went to his bed about twelve
o’clock, and in five minutes fell fast asleep.
It was about the same hour when the tumult in _Strasburg_ being abated
for that night, --the _Strasburgers_ had all got quietly into their
beds--but not like the stranger, for the rest either of their minds or
bodies; queen _Mab_, like an elf as she was, had taken the stranger’s
nose, and without reduction of its bulk, had that night been at the
pains of slitting and dividing it into as many noses of different cuts
and fashions, as there were heads in _Strasburg_ to hold them. The
abbess of _Quedlingberg_, who with the four great dignitaries of her
chapter, the prioress, the deaness, the sub-chantress, and senior
canoness, had that week come to _Strasburg_ to consult the university
upon a case of conscience relating to their placket-holes------was ill
all the night.
The courteous stranger’s nose had got perched upon the top of the pineal
gland of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of the
four great dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of
sleep the whole night thro’ for it----there was no keeping a limb still
amongst them----in short, they got up like so many ghosts.
The penitentiaries of the third order of saint _Francis_----the nuns
of mount _Calvary_----the _Præmonstratenses_----the _Clunienses_[4.2]
----the _Carthusians_, and all the severer orders of nuns who lay that
night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than
the abbess of _Quedlingberg_--by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and
tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night
long----the several sisterhoods had scratch’d and maul’d themselves all
to death----they got out of their beds almost flay’d alive--everybody
thought saint _Antony_ had visited them for probation with his fire----
they had never once, in short, shut their eyes the whole night long from
vespers to matins.
The nuns of saint _Ursula_ acted the wisest--they never attempted to go
to bed at all.
The dean of _Strasburg_, the prebendaries, the capitulars and
domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case
of butter’d buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint
_Ursula’s_ example.------
In the hurry and confusion everything had been in the night before, the
bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven--there were no butter’d buns
to be had for breakfast in all _Strasburg_--the whole close of the
cathedral was in one eternal commotion----such a cause of restlessness
and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into the cause of that
restlessness, had never happened in _Strasburg_, since _Martin Luther_,
with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down.
If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into
the dishes[4.3] of religious orders, &c., what a carnival did his nose
make of it, in those of the laity! --’tis more than my pen, worn to the
stump as it is, has power to describe; tho’ I acknowledge, (_cries
_Slawkenbergius_, with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected
from him_) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world
which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of such
a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the
greatest part of my life----tho’ I own to them the simile is in being,
yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have either
time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say, that the
riot and disorder it occasioned in the _Strasburgers’_ fantasies was so
general--such an overpowering mastership had it got of all the faculties
of the _Strasburgers’_ minds--so many strange things, with equal
confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all places, were
spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole stream of all
discourse and wonder towards it--every soul, good and bad--rich and
poor--learned and unlearned----doctor and student----mistress and
maid----gentle and simple----nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in
_Strasburg_ spent their time in hearing tidings about it--every eye in
_Strasburg_ languished to see it----every finger----every thumb in
_Strasburg_ burned to touch it.
Now what might add, if anything may be thought necessary to add, to so
vehement a desire--was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d
drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgomaster’s widow,
the master of the inn, and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely
soever they all differed every one from another in their testimonies and
description of the stranger’s nose--they all agreed together in two
points--namely, that he was gone to _Frankfort_, and would not return to
_Strasburg_ till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was true
or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect paragons
of beauty--the finest-made man--the most genteel! --the most generous of
his purse--the most courteous in his carriage that had ever entered the
gates of _Strasburg_--that as he rode, with scymetar slung loosely to
his wrist, thro’ the streets--and walked with his crimson-sattin
breeches across the parade--’twas with so sweet an air of careless
modesty, and so manly withal----as would have put the heart in jeopardy
(had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had cast her
eyes upon him.
I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and
yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of
_Quedlingberg_, the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for
sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the
streets of _Strasburg_ with her husband’s trumpet in her hand, ----the
best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the
illustration of her theory--she staid no longer than three days.
The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer! ----nothing on this side of old
_Athens_ could equal them! they read their lectures under the city-gates
to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a _Chrysippus_ and a _Crantor_
in their porticos.
The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also
in the same stile--under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard--his
wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures;
not promiscuously--but to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and
credulity marshal’d them----in a word, each _Strasburger_ came crouding
for intelligence----and every _Strasburger_ had the intelligence he
wanted.
’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural
philosophy, &c., that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the
abbess of _Quedlingberg’s_ private lecture, and had begun to read in
public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great parade,
----she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining
incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of _Strasburg_ for
her auditory ----But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries
_Slawkenbergius_) has a _trumpet_ for an apparatus, pray what rival in
science can pretend to be heard besides him?
Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all
busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRUTH keeps her
little court------were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her
up thro’ the conduits of dialect induction----they concerned themselves
not with facts------they reasoned------
Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the
Faculty--had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of
_Wens_ and œdematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for
their bloods and souls------the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either
with wens or œdematous swellings.
It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous
mass of heterogeneous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to
the nose, whilst the infant was _in Utero_, without destroying the
statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine
months before the time.------
----The opponents granted the theory----they denied the consequences.
And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c., said they, was not
laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first
stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world
(bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained
afterwards.
This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect
which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and
prolongation of the muscular parts of the greatest growth and expansion
imaginable --In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to
affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to
the size of the man himself.
The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to
them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs ----For
the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception
of food, and turning it into chyle--and the lungs the only engine of
sanguification--it could possibly work off no more, than what the
appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s overloading
his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs--the engine was
of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a certain
quantity in a given time------that is, it could produce just as much
blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that, if
there was as much nose as man----they proved a mortification must
necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for
both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man
inevitably fall off from his nose.
Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the
opponents--else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach--a whole
pair of lungs, and but _half_ a man, when both his legs have been
unfortunately shot off?
He dies of a plethora, said they--or must spit blood, and in a fortnight
or three weeks go off in a consumption.------
----It happens otherwise--replied the opponents.----
It ought not, said they.
The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings,
though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided
about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself.
They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical
arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to
its several destinations, offices, and functions which could not be
transgressed but within certain limits--that nature, though she
sported----she sported within a certain circle; --and they could not
agree about the diameter of it.
The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of the
classes of the literati; ------they began and ended with the word Nose;
and had it not been for a _petitio principii_, which one of the ablest
of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole
controversy had been settled at once.
A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood--and not only
blood--but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a
succession of drops--(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops,
that is included, said he). ----Now death, continued the logician, being
nothing but the stagnation of the blood----
I deny the definition ----Death is the separation of the soul from the
body, said his antagonist ----Then we don’t agree about our weapons,
said the logician --Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the
antagonist.
The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in
the nature of a decree----than a dispute.
Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not
possibly have been suffered in civil society----and if false--to impose
upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater
violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shewn it.
The only objection to this was, that if it proved anything, it proved
the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false.
This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the
advocates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit a
decree, since the stranger _ex mero motu_ had confessed he had been at
the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, &c. &c.
------To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a
place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it
lay. The commissary of the bishop of _Strasburg_ undertook the
advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases,
shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick
expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long
nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten
authorities,[4.4] which had decided the point incontestably, had it not
appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands
had been determined by it nineteen years before.
It happened ----I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were
giving her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of
_Strasburg_----the _Lutheran_, founded in the year 1538 by _Jacobus
Surmis_, counsellor of the senate, ----and the _Popish_, founded by
_Leopold_, arch-duke of _Austria_, were, during all this time, employing
the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the affair of the
abbess of _Quedlingberg’s_ placket-holes required)----in determining the
point of _Martin Luther’s_ damnation.
The _Popish_ doctors had undertaken to demonstrate _à priori_, that from
the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of
_October_ 1483------when the moon was in the twelfth house, _Jupiter_,
_Mars_, and _Venus_ in the third, the _Sun_, _Saturn_, and _Mercury_,
all got together in the fourth--that he must in course, and unavoidably,
be a damn’d man--and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be
damn’d doctrines too.
By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all
at once with Scorpio[4.5] (in reading this my father would always shake
his head) in the ninth house, which the _Arabians_ allotted to
religion--it appeared that _Martin Luther_ did not care one stiver about
the matter------and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction
of _Mars_--they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and
blaspheming----with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt)
sailed before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire.
The little objection of the _Lutheran_ doctors to this, was, that it
must certainly be the soul of another man, born _Oct._ 22, 83, which was
forced to sail down before the wind in that manner--inasmuch as it
appeared from the register of _Islaben_ in the county of _Mansfelt_,
that _Luther_ was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the
22d day of _October_, but on the 10th of _November_, the eve of
_Martinmas_ day, from whence he had the name of _Martin_.
[----I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not,
I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess
of _Quedlingberg_ ----It is to tell the reader, that my father never
read this passage of _Slawkenbergius_ to my uncle _Toby_, but with
triumph------not over my uncle _Toby_, for he never opposed him in
it----but over the whole world.
--Now you see, brother _Toby_, he would say, looking up, “that christian
names are not such indifferent things;” ------had _Luther_ here been
called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all
eternity ------Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good
name----far from it----’tis something better than a neutral, and but a
little----yet little as it is, you see it was of some service to him.
My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as
the best logician could shew him----yet so strange is the weakness of
man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life
but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though
there are many stories in _Hafen Slawkenbergius’s_ Decads full as
entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them
which my father read over with half the delight------it flattered two of
his strangest hypotheses together----his NAMES and his NOSES. ----I will
be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the _Alexandrian_
Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a
book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head
at one stroke.]
The two universities of _Strasburg_ were hard tugging at this affair of
_Luther’s_ navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he
had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had
pretended; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth
of it--they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points
he was off; whether _Martin_ had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a
lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at
least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on
with it in spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size of
the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world from what they
were about----it was their business to follow.
The abbess of _Quedlingberg_ and her four dignitaries was no stop; for
the enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their
fancies as their case of conscience----the affair of their placket-holes
kept cold--in a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their
types----all controversies dropp’d.
’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it--to a
nut-shell--to have guessed on which side of the nose the two
universities would split.
’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side.
’Tis below reason, cried the others.
’Tis faith, cried one.
’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.
’Tis possible, cried the one.
’Tis impossible, said the other.
God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do anything.
He can do nothing, replied the Antinosarians, which implies
contradictions.
He can make matter think, said the Nosarians.
As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied
the Antinosarians.
He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors. ----’Tis
false, said their other opponents.----
Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the
_reality_ of the nose. --It extends only to all possible things, replied
the _Lutherans_.
By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he
thinks fit, as big as the steeple of _Strasburg_.
Now the steeple of _Strasburg_ being the biggest and the tallest
church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied
that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least by
a middle-siz’d man ----The Popish doctors swore it could --The _Lutheran_
doctors said No; --it could not.
This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, upon
the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of
God --That controversy led them naturally into _Thomas Aquinas_, and
_Thomas Aquinas_ to the devil.
The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute--it just served
as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity----and
then they all sailed before the wind.
Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.
The controversy about the attributes, &c., instead of cooling, on the
contrary had inflamed the _Strasburgers’_ imaginations to a most
inordinate degree ----The less they understood of the matter, the greater
was their wonder about it--they were left in all the distresses of
desire unsatisfied----saw their doctors, the _Parchmentarians_, the
_Brassarians_, the _Turpentarians_, on one side--the Popish doctors on
the other, like _Pantagruel_ and his companions in quest of the oracle
of the bottle, all embarked out of sight.
----The poor _Strasburgers_ left upon the beach!
----What was to be done? --No delay--the uproar increased----every one
in disorder----the city gates set open.----
Unfortunate _Strasburgers!_ was there in the storehouse of
nature------was there in the lumber-rooms of learning------was there in
the great arsenal of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to
torture your curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not
pointed by the hand of Fate to play upon your hearts? ----I dip not my
pen into my ink to excuse the surrender of yourselves--’tis to write
your panegyrick. Shew me a city so macerated with expectation----who
neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls
either of religion or nature for seven-and-twenty days together, who
could have held out one day longer.
On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to
_Strasburg_.
Seven thousand coaches (_Slawkenbergius_ must certainly have made some
mistake in his numerical characters) 7000 coaches----15,000 single-horse
chairs--20,000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with
senators, counsellors, syndicks--beguines, widows, wives, virgins,
canons, concubines, all in their coaches --The abbess of _Quedlingberg_,
with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress, leading the procession
in one coach, and the dean of _Strasburg_, with the four great
dignitaries of his chapter, on her left-hand--the rest following
higglety-pigglety as they could; some on horseback----some on
foot----some led----some driven----some down the _Rhine_----some this
way----some that----all set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous
stranger on the road.
Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale ------I say _Catastrophe_
(cries _Slawkenbergius_) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly
disposed, not only rejoiceth (_gaudet_) in the _Catastrophe_ and
_Peripetia_ of a DRAMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and
integrant parts of it----it has its _Protasis_, _Epitasis_,
_Catastasis_, its _Catastrophe_ or _Peripetia_ growing one out of the
other in it, in the order _Aristotle_ first planted them----without
which a tale had better never be told at all, says _Slawkenbergius_, but
be kept to a man’s self.
In all my ten tales, in all my ten decads, have I _Slawkenbergius_ tied
down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of
the stranger and his nose.
----From his first parley with the sentinel, to his leaving the city of
_Strasburg_, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is
the _Protasis_ or first entrance----where the characters of the _Personæ
Dramatis_ are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun.
The _Epitasis_, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and
heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the
_Catastasis_, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included
within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night’s uproar
about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures
upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking
of the learned in the dispute--to the doctors finally sailing away, and
leaving the _Strasburgers_ upon the beach in distress, is the
_Catastasis_ or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their
bursting forth in the fifth act.
This commences with the setting out of the _Strasburgers_ in the
_Frankfort_ road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing
the hero out of a state of agitation (as _Aristotle_ calls it) to a
state of rest and quietness.
This, says _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, constitutes the _Catastrophe_ or
_Peripetia_ of my tale--and that is the part of it I am going to relate.
We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep----he enters now upon the
stage.
--What dost thou prick up thy ears at? --’tis nothing but a man upon a
horse----was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not
proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master’s word for
it; and without any more _ifs_ or _ands_, let the traveller and his
horse pass by.
The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to _Strasburg_
that night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had
rode about a league farther, to think of getting into _Strasburg_ this
night. --_Strasburg!_----the great _Strasburg!_----_Strasburg_, the
capital of all _Alsatia!_ _Strasburg_, an imperial city! _Strasburg_, a
sovereign state! _Strasburg_, garrisoned with five thousand of the best
troops in all the world! --Alas! if I was at the gates of _Strasburg_
this moment, I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat--nay a
ducat and half--’tis too much----better go back to the last inn I have
passed----than lie I know not where----or give I know not what. The
traveller, as he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse’s
head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted into
his chamber, he arrived at the same inn.
------We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread------and till
eleven o’clock this night had three eggs in it----but a stranger, who
arrived an hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have
nothing.------
Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a bed.
------I have one as soft as is in _Alsatia_, said the host.
----The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for ’tis my
best bed, but upon the score of his nose. --------He has got a
defluxion, said the traveller. ----Not that I know, cried the host.
----But ’tis a camp-bed, and _Jacinta_, said he, looking towards the
maid, imagined there was not room in it to turn his nose in. ------Why
so? cried the traveller, starting back. --It is so long a nose, replied
the host. ----The traveller fixed his eyes upon _Jacinta_, then upon the
ground--kneeled upon his right knee--had just got his hand laid upon his
breast ------Trifle not with my anxiety, said he, rising up again.
----’Tis no trifle, said _Jacinta_, ’tis the most glorious nose! ----The
traveller fell upon his knee again--laid his hand upon his breast--then,
said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast conducted me to the end of my
pilgrimage. --’Tis _Diego_.
The traveller was the brother of the _Julia_, so often invoked that
night by the stranger as he rode from _Strasburg_ upon his mule; and was
come, on her part, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from
_Valadolid_ across the _Pyrenean_ mountains through _France_, and had
many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit of him through the many
meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover’s thorny tracks.
----_Julia_ had sunk under it------and had not been able to go a step
farther than to _Lyons_, where, with the many disquietudes of a tender
heart, which all talk of----but few feel--she sicken’d, but had just
strength to write a letter to _Diego_; and having conjured her brother
never to see her face till he had found him out, and put the letter into
his hands, _Julia_ took to her bed.
_Fernandez_ (for that was her brother’s name)----tho’ the camp-bed was
as soft as any one in _Alsace_, yet he could not shut his eyes in it.
----As soon as it was day he rose, and hearing _Diego_ was risen too, he
entered his chamber, and discharged his sister’s commission.
The letter was as follows:
“Seig. DIEGO,
“Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not------’tis
not now to inquire--it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to
farther tryal.
“How could I know so little of myself, when I sent my _Duenna_ to forbid
your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you,
_Diego_, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in _Valadolid_
to have given ease to my doubts? --Was I to be abandoned, _Diego_,
because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether my
suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey to much
uncertainty and sorrow?
“In what manner _Julia_ has resented this----my brother, when he puts
this letter into your hands, will tell you; He will tell you in how few
moments she repented of the rash message she had sent you----in what
frantic haste she flew to her lattice, and how many days and nights
together she leaned immoveably upon her elbow, looking through it
towards the way which _Diego_ was wont to come.
“He will tell you, when she heard of your departure--how her spirits
deserted her----how her heart sicken’d----how piteously she
mourned----how low she hung her head. O _Diego!_ how many weary steps
has my brother’s pity led me by the hand languishing to trace out yours;
how far has desire carried me beyond strength----and how oft have I
fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry
out --O my _Diego!_
“If the gentleness of your carriage has not belied your heart, you will
fly to me, almost as fast as you fled from me--haste as you will----you
will arrive but to see me expire. ------’Tis a bitter draught, _Diego_,
but oh! ’tis embitter’d still more by dying _un_--------”
She could proceed no farther.
_Slawkenbergius_ supposes the word intended was _unconvinced_, but her
strength would not enable her to finish her letter.
The heart of the courteous _Diego_ overflowed as he read the
letter------he ordered his mule forthwith and _Fernandez’s_ horse to be
saddled; and as no vent in prose is equal to that of poetry in such
conflicts----chance, which as often directs us to remedies as to
_diseases_, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the window----_Diego_
availed himself of it, and whilst the hostler was getting ready his
mule, he eased his mind against the wall as follows.
ODE
_Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love,
Unless my _Julia_ strikes the key,
Her hand alone can touch the part,
Whose dulcet move-
ment charms the heart,
And governs all the man with sympathetick sway._
2d
O Julia!
The lines were very natural----for they were nothing at all to the
purpose, says _Slawkenbergius_, and ’tis a pity there were no more of
them; but whether it was that Seig. _Diego_ was slow in composing
verses--or the hostler quick in saddling mules----is not averred;
certain it was, that _Diego’s_ mule and _Fernandez’s_ horse were ready
at the door of the inn, before _Diego_ was ready for his second stanza;
so without staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth,
passed the _Rhine_, traversed _Alsace_, shaped their course towards
_Lyons_, and before the _Strasburgers_ and the abbess of _Quedlingberg_
had set out on their cavalcade, had _Fernandez_, _Diego_, and his
_Julia_, crossed the _Pyrenean_ mountains, and got safe to _Valadolid_.
’Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that when _Diego_ was
in _Spain_, it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the
_Frankfort_ road; it is enough to say, that of all restless desires,
curiosity being the strongest----the _Strasburgers_ felt the full force
of it; and that for three days and nights they were tossed to and fro in
the _Frankfort_ road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion, before
they could submit to return home. ----When alas! an event was prepared
for them, of all other, the most grievous that could befal a free
people.
As this revolution of the _Strasburgers’_ affairs is often spoken of,
and little understood, I will, in ten words, says _Slawkenbergius_, give
the world an explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale.
Every body knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by
order of Mons. _Colbert_, and put in manuscript into the hands of
_Lewis_ the fourteenth, in the year 1664.
’Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system, was the
getting possession of _Strasburg_, to favour an entrance at all times
into _Suabia_, in order to disturb the quiet of _Germany_----and that in
consequence of this plan, _Strasburg_ unhappily fell at length into
their hands.
It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such
like revolutions --The vulgar look too high for them --Statesmen look
too low ----Truth (for once) lies in the middle.
What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one
historian --The _Strasburgers_ deemed it a diminution of their freedom
to receive an imperial garrison----so fell a prey to a _French_ one.
The fate, says another, of the _Strasburgers_, may be a warning to all
free people to save their money. ------They anticipated their
revenues----brought themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength,
and in the end became so weak a people, they had not strength to keep
their gates shut, and so the _French_ pushed them open.
Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, ’twas not the _French_, ----’twas
CURIOSITY pushed them open ------The _French_ indeed, who are ever upon
the catch, when they saw the _Strasburgers_, men, women, and children,
all marched out to follow the stranger’s nose----each man followed his
own, and marched in.
Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever
since--but not from any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for
it is owing to this only, that Noses have ever so run in their heads,
that the _Strasburgers_ could not follow their business.
Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, making an exclamation--it is not the
first----and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either
won----or lost by NOSES.
The End Of
_Slawkenbergius’s_ TALE
[Footnote 4.1: As _Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis_ is extremely
scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see
the specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no
reflection upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much
more concise than his philosophic--and, I think, has more of
Latinity in it.]
[Footnote 4.2: _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ means the Benedictine nuns
of _Cluny_, founded in the year 940, by _Odo_, abbé de _Cluny_.]
[Footnote 4.3: Mr. _Shandy’s_ compliments to orators----is very
sensible that _Slawkenbergius_ has here changed his
metaphor------which he is very guilty of: ----that as a
translator, Mr. _Shandy_ has all along done what he could to
make him stick to it--but that here ’twas impossible.]
[Footnote 4.4: Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formulâ
utun. Quinimo & Logistæ & Canonistæ ----Vid. Parce Barne Jas in
d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul.
1. n. 7. quâ etiam in re conspir. Om de Promontorio Nas.
Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de
contrahend. empt, &c. necnon J. Scrudr, in cap. § refut. per
totum. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. cap. 9.
ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras.
Belg. ad finem, cum comment, N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip.
Argentotarens. de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc. Archiv. fid coll. per
Von Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583. præcip. ad finem.
Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de
jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. aliena feud. per federa, test.
Joha. Luxius in prolegom, quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1,
2, 3. Vid. Idea.]
[Footnote 4.5: Hæc mira, satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio
sub Scorpio Asterismo in nona cœli statione, quam Arabes
religioni deputabant efficit _Martinum Lutherum_ sacrilegum
hereticum, Christianæ religionis hostem acerrimum atque
prophanum, ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum,
religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad infernos
navigavit--ab Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara flagellis igneis
cruciata perenniter.
----Lucas Gaurieus in Tractatu astrologico de præteritis
multorum hominum accidentibus per genituras examinatis.]
CHAPTER I
With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s
fancy----with so many family prejudices--and ten decads of such tales
running on for ever along with them----how was it possible with such
exquisite----was it a true nose? ----That a man with such exquisite
feelings as my father had, could bear the shock at all below
stairs----or indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the very
posture I have described?
----Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times----taking care only
to place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you
do it --But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one?
To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the
best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth
decad, which immediately follows this.
This tale, cried _Slawkenbergius_, somewhat exultingly, has been
reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right
well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it
thro’--’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book;
inasmuch, continues _Slawkenbergius_, as I know of no tale which could
possibly ever go down after it.
’Tis a tale indeed!
This sets out with the first interview in the inn at _Lyons_, when
_Fernandez_ left the courteous stranger and his sister _Julia_ alone in
her chamber, and is over-written
_THE INTRICACIES_
of
_Diego_ and _Julia_
Heavens! thou art a strange creature, _Slawkenbergius!_ what a whimsical
view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this
can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of _Slawkenbergius’s_
tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the
world--translated shall a couple of volumes be. ------Else, how this can
ever be translated into good _English_, I have no sort of conception.
--There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do it rightly.
----What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat,
five notes below the natural tone----which you know, madam, is little
more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive
an attempt towards a vibration in the strings, about the region of the
heart. ------The brain made no acknowledgment. ----There’s often no good
understanding betwixt ’em --I felt as if I understood it. ----I had no
ideas. ----The movement could not be without cause. --I’m lost. I can
make nothing of it--unless, may it please your worships, the voice, in
that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes
to approach not only within six inches of each other--but to look into
the pupils--is not that dangerous? ----But it can’t be avoided--for to
look up to the ceiling, in that case the two chins unavoidably
meet----and to look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to
immediate contact, which at once puts an end to the conference ----I mean
to the sentimental part of it. ----What is left, madam, is not worth
stooping for.
CHAPTER II
My father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death
had pushed him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play
upon the floor with the toe of that foot which hung over the bed-side;
my uncle _Toby’s_ heart was a pound lighter for it. ------In a few
moments, his left-hand, the knuckles of which had all the time reclined
upon the handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling--he thrust it a
little more within the valance--drew up his hand, when he had done, into
his bosom--gave a hem! My good uncle _Toby_, with infinite pleasure,
answered it; and full gladly would have ingrafted a sentence of
consolation upon the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I
said, that way, and fearing moreover that he might set out with
something which might make a bad matter worse, he contented himself with
resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his crutch.
Now whether the compression shortened my uncle _Toby’s_ face into a more
pleasurable oval--or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his
brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had
braced up his muscles----so that the compression upon his chin only
doubled the benignity which was there before, is not hard to decide.
----My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam of
sunshine in his face, as melted down the sullenness of his grief in a
moment.
He broke silence as follows.
CHAPTER III
Did ever man, brother _Toby_, cried my father, raising himself upon his
elbow, and turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where
my uncle _Toby_ was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin
resting upon his crutch----did ever a poor unfortunate man, brother
_Toby_, cried my father, receive so many lashes? ----The most I ever saw
given, quoth my uncle _Toby_ (ringing the bell at the bed’s head for
_Trim_) was to a grenadier, I think in _Mackay’s_ regiment.
------Had my uncle _Toby_ shot a bullet through my father’s heart, he
could not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly.
Bless me! said my uncle _Toby_.
CHAPTER IV
Was it _Mackay’s_ regiment, quoth my uncle _Toby_, where the poor
grenadier was so unmercifully whipp’d at _Bruges_ about the ducats? --O
Christ! he was innocent! cried _Trim_, with a deep sigh. --And he was
whipp’d, may it please your honour, almost to death’s door. --They had
better have shot him outright, as he begg’d, and he had gone directly to
heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour. ------I thank thee,
_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----I never think of his, continued
_Trim_, and my poor brother _Tom’s_ misfortunes, for we were all three
school-fellows, but I cry like a coward. ----Tears are no proof of
cowardice, _Trim_. --I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle
_Toby_. ----I know your honour does, replied _Trim_, and so am not
ashamed of it myself. --But to think, may it please your honour,
continued _Trim_, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he
spoke--to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their
bodies, and as honest as God could make them--the children of honest
people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the
world--and fall into such evils! --poor _Tom!_ to be tortured upon a
rack for nothing--but marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages--honest
_Dick Johnson’s_ soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats
another man put into his knapsack! --O! --these are misfortunes, cried
_Trim_, --pulling out his handkerchief--these are misfortunes, may it
please your honour, worth lying down and crying over.
--My father could not help blushing.
’Twould be a pity, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, thou shouldst ever
feel sorrow of thy own--thou feelest it so tenderly for others.
--Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face------your
honour knows I have neither wife or child ----I can have no sorrows in
this world. ----My father could not help smiling. --As few as any man,
_Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light
heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age--when
thou art passed all services, _Trim_--and hast outlived thy friends.
----An’ please your honour, never fear, replied _Trim_, chearily.
----But I would have thee never fear, _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_,
and therefore, continued my uncle _Toby_, throwing down his crutch, and
getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word _therefore_--in
recompence, _Trim_, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy
heart I have had such proofs of--whilst thy master is worth a
shilling----thou shalt never ask elsewhere, _Trim_, for a penny. _Trim_
attempted to thank my uncle _Toby_--but had not power----tears trickled
down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off --He laid his hands
upon his breast----made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.
----I have left _Trim_ my bowling-green, cried my uncle _Toby_. ----My
father smiled. ------I have left him moreover a pension, continued my
uncle _Toby_. ----My father looked grave.
CHAPTER V
Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and
GRENADIERS?
CHAPTER VI
When my uncle _Toby_ first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said,
fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my
uncle _Toby_ had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb
and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same
precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal
_Trim_ left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off
the bed--he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again,
before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam----’tis the
transition from one attitude to another----like the preparation and
resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.
For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe
upon the floor----pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within
the valance--gave a hem--raised himself up upon his elbow--and was just
beginning to address himself to my uncle _Toby_--when recollecting the
unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude----he got upon his
legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short
before my uncle _Toby_: and laying the three first fingers of his
right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed
himself to my uncle _Toby_ as follows:
CHAPTER VII
When I reflect, brother _Toby_, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark
side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of
trouble--when I consider, brother _Toby_, how oft we eat the bread of
affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our
inheritance ------I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle _Toby_,
interrupting my father--but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did
not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year? ------What
could I have done without it? replied my uncle _Toby_ ------That’s
another concern, said my father testily --But I say, _Toby_, when one
runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful
_Items_ with which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful by
what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself
up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature. ------’Tis
by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle _Toby_, looking up,
and pressing the palms of his hands close together----’tis not from our
own strength, brother _Shandy_----a centinel in a wooden centry-box
might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.
----We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings.
----That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it.
----But give me leave to lead you, brother _Toby_, a little deeper into
the mystery.
With all my heart, replied my uncle _Toby_.
My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which
_Socrates_ is so finely painted by _Raffael_ in his school of _Athens_;
which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even
the particular manner of the reasoning of _Socrates_ is expressed by
it--for he holds the forefinger of his left hand between the forefinger
and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the
libertine he is reclaiming------ “_You grant me_ this----and this: and
this, and this, I don’t ask of you--they follow of themselves in
course.”
So stood my father, holding fast his forefinger betwixt his finger and
his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle _Toby_ as he sat in his old
fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs ----O
_Garrick!_--what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make!
and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy
immortality, and secure my own behind it.
CHAPTER VIII
Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father,
yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put
together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets
with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen
times a day----was it not, brother _Toby_, that there is a secret spring
within us. --Which spring, said my uncle _Toby_, I take to be Religion.
--Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his
finger, and striking one hand against the other. ----It makes everything
straight for us, answered my uncle _Toby_. ----Figuratively speaking,
dear _Toby_, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I
am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of
counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered
machine, though it can’t prevent the shock----at least it imposes upon
our sense of it.
Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his forefinger, as he
was coming closer to the point----had my child arrived safe into the
world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him--fanciful and extravagant
as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of
that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our
characters and conducts --Heaven is witness! that in the warmest
transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once
wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what GEORGE or
EDWARD would have spread around it.
But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen
him ----I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good.
He shall be christened _Trismegistus_, brother.
I wish it may answer----replied my uncle _Toby_, rising up.
CHAPTER IX
What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon
the first landing, as he and my uncle _Toby_ were going downstairs--what
a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us!
Take pen and ink in hand, brother _Toby_, and calculate it fairly ----I
know no more of calculation than this balluster, said my uncle _Toby_
(striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate
blow souse upon his shin-bone)----’Twas a hundred to one--cried my uncle
_Toby_ --I thought, quoth my father (rubbing his shin), you had known
nothing of calculations, brother _Toby_. ’Tis a mere chance, said my
uncle _Toby_. ------Then it adds one to the chapter----replied my
father.
The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his
shin at once--it was well it so fell out--(chance! again)--or the world
to this day had never known the subject of my father’s calculation----to
guess it--there was no chance ----What a lucky chapter of chances has
this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express,
and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it. --Have not
I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and
the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon
wishes? ----a chapter of noses? --No, I have done that--a chapter upon
my uncle _Toby’s_ modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters,
which I will finish before I sleep--by my great-grandfather’s whiskers,
I shall never get half of ’em through this year.
Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother _Toby_, said
my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts
of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to
fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the
fortunes of our house with it.
It might have been worse, replied my uncle _Toby_. ----I don’t
comprehend, said my father. ------Suppose the hip had presented, replied
my uncle _Toby_, as Dr. _Slop_ foreboded.
My father reflected half a minute--looked down----touched the middle of
his forehead slightly with his finger------
--True, said he.
CHAPTER X
Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one
pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing,
and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I
know, as my father and my uncle _Toby_ are in a talking humour, there
may be as many chapters as steps: ----let that be as it will, Sir, I can
no more help it than my destiny: --A sudden impulse comes across
me----drop the curtain, _Shandy_ ----I drop it --Strike a line here
across the paper, _Tristram_ --I strike it--and hey for a new chapter.
The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this
affair--and if I had one--as I do all things out of all rule --I would
twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had
done --Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it----a pretty story! is a
man to follow rules------or rules to follow him?
Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I
promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my
conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew
about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out
dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world
a story of a roasted horse----that chapters relieve the mind--that they
assist--or impose upon the imagination--and that in a work of this
dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes----with
fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted
him? --O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of
_Diana’s_ temple--you must read _Longinus_--read away--if you are not a
jot the wiser by reading him the first time over--never fear--read him
again--_Avicenna_ and _Licetus_ read _Aristotle’s_ metaphysicks forty
times through apiece, and never understood a single word. --But mark the
consequence--_Avicenna_ turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of
writing--for he wrote books _de omni scribili_; and for _Licetus_
(_Fortunio_) though all the world knows he was born a fœtus,[4.6] of no
more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that
astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a
title as long as himself------the learned know I mean his
_Gonopsychanthropologia_, upon the origin of the human soul.
So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best
chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as
well employed, as in picking straws.
[Footnote 4.6: _Ce Fœtus_ n’étoit pas plus grand que la paume de
la main; mais son pere l’ayant éxaminé en qualité de Médecin, &
ayant trouvé que c’etoit quâlque chose de plus qu’un Embryon, le
fit transporter tout vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à
Jerôme Bardi & à d’autres Médecins du lieu. On trouva qu’il ne
lui manquoit rien d’essentiel à la vie; & son pere pour faire
voir un essai de son experience, entreprit d’achever l’ouvrage
de la Nature, & de travailler à la formation de l’Enfant avec le
même artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire écclorre les
Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce qu’elle
avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour
proprement accommodé, il reussit à l’élever & à lui faire
prendre ses accroissemens necessaires, par l’uniformité d’une
chaleur étrangere mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d’un
Thermométre, ou d’un autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich.
Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri à Cart. 223. 488.)
On auroit toujours été très satisfait de l’industrie d’un pere
si experimenté dans l’Art de la Generation, quand il n’auroit pû
prolonger la vie à son fils que pour quelques mois, ou pour peu
d’années.
Mais quand on se represente que l’Enfant a vecu près de
quatre-vingts ans, & qu’il a composé quatre-vingts Ouvrages
differents tous fruits d’une longue lecture--il faut convenir
que tout ce qui est incroyable n’est pas toujours faux, & que la
_Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du côté de la Verité_.
Il n’avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu’il composa
Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animæ humanæ.
(Les Enfans celebres, revûs & corrigés par M. de la Monnoye de
l’Academie Françoise.)]
CHAPTER XI
We shall bring all things to rights, said my father, setting his foot
upon the first step from the landing. --This _Trismegistus_, continued
my father, drawing his leg back and turning to my uncle _Toby_----was
the greatest (_Toby_) of all earthly beings--he was the greatest
king----the greatest law-giver----the greatest philosopher----and the
greatest priest----and engineer--said my uncle _Toby_.
------In course, said my father.
CHAPTER XII
--And how does your mistress? cried my father, taking the same step over
again from the landing, and calling to _Susannah_, whom he saw passing
by the foot of the stairs with a huge pincushion in her hand--how does
your mistress? As well, said _Susannah_, tripping by, but without
looking up, as can be expected. --What a fool am I! said my father,
drawing his leg back again--let things be as they will, brother _Toby_,
’tis ever the precise answer ----And how is the child, pray? ----No
answer. And where is Dr. _Slop?_ added my father, raising his voice
aloud, and looking over the ballusters--_Susannah_ was out of hearing.
Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, crossing the
landing in order to set his back against the wall, whilst he propounded
it to my uncle _Toby_----of all the puzzling riddles, said he, in a
marriage state, ----of which you may trust me, brother _Toby_, there are
more asses loads than all _Job’s_ stock of asses could have
carried----there is not one that has more intricacies in it than
this--that from the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to
bed, every female in it, from my lady’s gentlewoman down to the
cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for it; and give themselves more
airs upon that single inch, than all their other inches put together.
I think rather, replied my uncle _Toby_, that ’tis we who sink an inch
lower. --If I meet but a woman with child --I do it. --’Tis a heavy tax
upon that half of our fellow-creatures, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle
_Toby_--’Tis a piteous burden upon ’em, continued he, shaking his
head --Yes, yes, ’tis a painful thing--said my father, shaking his head
too----but certainly since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did
two heads shake together, in concert, from two such different springs.
God bless } ’em all------said my uncle _Toby_ and my
Deuce take } father, each to himself.
CHAPTER XIII
Holla! ----you, chairman! ----here’s sixpence----do step into that
bookseller’s shop, and call me a _day-tall_ critick. I am very willing
to give any one of ’em a crown to help me with his tackling, to get my
father and my uncle _Toby_ off the stairs, and to put them to bed.
--’Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got
whilst _Trim_ was boring the jack-boots--and which, by the bye, did my
father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hinge--they have not
else shut their eyes, since nine hours before the time that Dr. _Slop_
was led into the back parlour in that dirty pickle by _Obadiah_.
Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this--and to take
up --Truce.
I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon the
strange state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as things
stand at present--an observation never applicable before to any one
biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to myself--and
I believe, will never hold good to any other, until its final
destruction--and therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it must be
worth your worships attending to.
I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month;
and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth
volume[4.7]--and no farther than to my first day’s life--’tis
demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to
write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing,
as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it--on the
contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back--was every day of my
life to be as busy a day as this --And why not? ----and the transactions
and opinions of it to take up as much description --And for what reason
should they be cut short? as at this rate I should just live 364 times
faster than I should write --It must follow, an’ please your worships,
that the more I write, the more I shall have to write--and consequently,
the more your worships read, the more your worships will have to read.
Will this be good for your worships’ eyes?
It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my OPINIONS will be the
death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this
self-same life of mine; or, in other words, shall lead a couple of fine
lives together.
As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it no
way alters my prospect--write as I will, and rush as I may into the
middle of things, as _Horace_ advises --I shall never overtake myself
whipp’d and driven to the last pinch; at the worst I shall have one day
the start of my pen--and one day is enough for two volumes----and two
volumes will be enough for one year.--
Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign,
which is now opened to us----as I trust its providence will prosper
everything else in it that is taken in hand.----
As for the propagation of Geese --I give myself no concern --Nature is
all bountiful --I shall never want tools to work with.
--So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle _Toby_ off the
stairs, and seen them to bed? ------And how did you manage it? ----You
dropp’d a curtain at the stair-foot --I thought you had no other way for
it ------Here’s a crown for your trouble.
[Footnote 4.7: According to the original Editions.]
CHAPTER XIV
--Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to _Susannah_.
----There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried
_Susannah_--the child is as black in the face as my ----As your what?
said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into
comparisons. --Bless me, Sir, said _Susannah_, the child’s in a fit.
--And where’s Mr. _Yorick?_ --Never where he should be, said _Susannah_,
but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm,
waiting for the name--and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to
know, as captain _Shandy_ is the godfather, whether it should not be
called after him.
Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that
the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother _Toby_
as not--and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a
name as _Trismegistus_ upon him----but he may recover.
No, no, ----said my father to _Susannah_, I’ll get up ------There is no
time, cried _Susannah_, the child’s as black as my shoe. _Trismegistus_,
said my father ------But stay--thou art a leaky vessel, _Susannah_, added
my father; canst thou carry _Trismegistus_ in thy head, the length of
the gallery without scattering? ------Can I? cried _Susannah_, shutting
the door in a huff. ----If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father,
bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
_Susannah_ ran with all speed along the gallery.
My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.
_Susannah_ got the start, and kept it--’Tis _Tris_--something, cried
_Susannah_ --There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate,
beginning with _Tris_--but _Tristram_. Then ’tis _Tristram-gistus_,
quoth _Susannah_.
----There is no _gistus_ to it, noodle! --’tis my own name, replied the
curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason--_Tristram!_ said
he, &c. &c. &c. &c., so _Tristram_ was I called, and _Tristram_ shall I
be to the day of my death.
My father followed _Susannah_, with his night-gown across his arm, with
nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a
single button, and that button through haste thrust only half into the
button-hole.
----She has not forgot the name? cried my father, half opening the door.
----No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence. ----And the
child is better, cried _Susannah_. ----And how does your mistress? As
well, said _Susannah_, as can be expected. --Pish! said my father, the
button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole --So that whether
the interjection was levelled at _Susannah_, or the button-hole--whether
Pish was an interjection of contempt or an interjection of modesty, is a
doubt, and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three
following favourite chapters, that is, my chapter of _chamber-maids_, my
chapter of _pishes_, and my chapter of _button-holes_.
All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, that the
moment my father cried Pish! he whisk’d himself about--and with his
breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm
of the other, he turned along the gallery to bed, something slower than
he came.
CHAPTER XV
I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep.
A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this
moment offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn--the
candles put out--and no creature’s eyes are open but a single one, for
the other has been shut these twenty years, of my mother’s nurse.
It is a fine subject!
And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters
upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single
chapter upon this.
Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of
’em----and trust me, when I get amongst ’em ----You gentry with great
beards----look as grave as you will ------I’ll make merry work with my
button-holes --I shall have ’em all to myself--’tis a maiden subject
--I shall run foul of no man’s wisdom or fine sayings in it.
But for sleep ----I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin
--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next,
I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the
world--’tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of
the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the
broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by
affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature,
by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to
recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure
has wearied us----that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten
of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and
passions of the day are over, and he lies down upon his back, that his
soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her
eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or
fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present,
or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in
that sweet secession.
“God’s blessing,” said _Sancho Pança_, “be upon the man who first
invented this self-same thing called sleep--it covers a man all over
like a cloak.” Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to
my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeez’d out of the
heads of the learned together upon the subject.
--Not that I altogether disapprove of what _Montaigne_ advances upon
it--’tis admirable in its way--(I quote by memory).
The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep,
without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by. --We should
study and ruminate upon it, in order to render proper thanks to him who
grants it to us. --For this end I cause myself to be disturbed in my
sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it. ----And yet I
see few, says he again, who live with less sleep, when need requires; my
body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and sudden agitation --I
evade of late all violent exercises ----I am never weary with
walking----but from my youth, I never liked to ride upon pavements.
I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife ----This last word
may stagger the faith of the world----but remember, “La Vraisemblance
(as _Bayle_ says in the affair of _Liceti_) n’est pas toujours du Côté
de la Verité.” And so much for sleep.
CHAPTER XVI
If my wife will but venture him--brother _Toby_, _Trismegistus_ shall be
dress’d and brought down to us, whilst you and I are getting our
breakfasts together.------
----Go, tell _Susannah_, _Obadiah_, to step here.
She is run upstairs, answered _Obadiah_, this very instant, sobbing and
crying, and wringing her hands as if her heart would break.
We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from
_Obadiah_, and looking wistfully in my uncle _Toby’s_ face for some
time--we shall have a devilish month of it, brother _Toby_, said my
father, setting his arms a-kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water,
women, wind--brother _Toby!_--’Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle
_Toby_. ----That it is, cried my father--to have so many jarring
elements breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a
gentleman’s house --Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother
_Toby_, that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and
unmoved----whilst such a storm is whistling over our heads.------
And what’s the matter, _Susannah?_ They have called the child
_Tristram_----and my mistress is just got out of an hysterick fit about
it ----No----’tis not my fault, said _Susannah_ --I told him it was
_Tristram-gistus_.
----Make tea for yourself, brother _Toby_, said my father, taking down
his hat----but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice
and members which a common reader would imagine!
--For he spake in the sweetest modulation--and took down his hat with
the genteelest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and
attuned together.
----Go to the bowling-green for corporal _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_,
speaking to _Obadiah_, as soon as my father left the room.
CHAPTER XVII
When the misfortune of my NOSE fell so heavily upon my father’s head;
--the reader remembers that he walked instantly up stairs, and cast
himself down upon his bed; and from hence, unless he has a great insight
into human nature, he will be apt to expect a rotation of the same
ascending and descending movements from him, upon his misfortune of my
NAME; ----no.
The different weight, dear Sir----nay even the different package of two
vexations of the same weight----makes a very wide difference in our
manner of bearing and getting through with them. ----It is not half an
hour ago, when (in the great hurry and precipitation of a poor devil’s
writing for daily bread) I threw a fair sheet, which I had just
finished, and carefully wrote out, slap into the fire, instead of the
foul one.
Instantly I snatch’d off my wig, and threw it perpendicularly, with all
imaginable violence, up to the top of the room--indeed I caught it as it
fell----but there was an end of the matter; nor do I think anything else
in _Nature_ would have given such immediate ease: She, dear Goddess, by
an instantaneous impulse, in all _provoking cases_, determines us to a
sally of this or that member--or else she thrusts us into this or that
place or posture of body, we know not why ----But mark, madam, we live
amongst riddles and mysteries----the most obvious things, which come in
our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate
into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us
find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature’s
works: so that this, like a thousand other things, falls out for us in a
way, which tho’ we cannot reason upon it--yet we find the good of it,
may it please your reverences and your worships----and that’s enough for
us.
Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction for his
life----nor could he carry it up stairs like the other--he walked
composedly out with it to the fish-pond.
Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which
way to have gone------reason, with all her force, could not have
directed him to anything like it: there is something, Sir, in
fish-ponds----but what it is, I leave to system-builders and
fish-pond-diggers betwixt ’em to find out--but there is something, under
the first disorderly transport of the humours, so unaccountably
becalming in an orderly and a sober walk towards one of them, that I
have often wondered that neither _Pythagoras_, nor _Plato_, nor _Solon_,
nor _Lycurgus_, nor _Mahomet_, nor any one of your noted lawgivers, ever
gave order about them.
CHAPTER XVIII
Your honour, said _Trim_, shutting the parlour-door before he began to
speak, has heard, I imagine, of this unlucky accident ----O yes, _Trim_,
said my uncle _Toby_, and it gives me great concern. --I am heartily
concerned too, but I hope your honour, replied _Trim_, will do me the
justice to believe, that it was not in the least owing to me. ----To
thee--_Trim?_ --cried my uncle _Toby_, looking kindly in his
face------’twas _Susannah’s_ and the curate’s folly betwixt them.
------What business could they have together, an’ please your honour, in
the garden? ----In the gallery thou meanest, replied my uncle _Toby_.
_Trim_ found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low
bow ----Two misfortunes, quoth the corporal to himself, are twice as many
at least as are needful to be talked over at one time; ----the mischief
the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his
honour hereafter. ----_Trim’s_ casuistry and address, under the cover of
his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle _Toby_, so he went on
with what he had to say to _Trim_ as follows:
------For my own part, _Trim_, though I can see little or no difference
betwixt my nephew’s being called _Tristram_ or _Trismegistus_--yet as
the thing sits so near my brother’s heart, _Trim_ ------I would freely
have given a hundred pounds rather than it should have happened. ----A
hundred pounds, an’ please your honour! replied _Trim_, ----I would not
give a cherry-stone to boot. ----Nor would I, _Trim_, upon my own
account, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --------but my brother, whom there is no
arguing with in this case--maintains that a great deal more depends,
_Trim_, upon christian-names, than what ignorant people imagine----for
he says there never was a great or heroic action performed since the
world began by one called _Tristram_--nay, he will have it, _Trim_, that
a man can neither be learned, or wise, or brave. ----’Tis all fancy, an’
please your honour --I fought just as well, replied the corporal, when
the regiment called me _Trim_, as when they called me _James Butler_.
----And for my own part, said my uncle _Toby_, though I should blush to
boast of myself, _Trim_----yet had my name been _Alexander_, I could
have done no more at _Namur_ than my duty. --Bless your honour! cried
_Trim_, advancing three steps as he spoke, does a man think of his
christian-name when he goes upon the attack? ------Or when he stands in
the trench, _Trim?_ cried my uncle _Toby_, looking firm. ----Or when he
enters a breach? said _Trim_, pushing in between two chairs. ----Or
forces the lines? cried my uncle, rising up, and pushing his crutch like
a pike. ----Or facing a platoon? cried _Trim_, presenting his stick like
a fire-lock. ----Or when he marches up the glacis? cried my uncle
_Toby_, looking warm and setting his foot upon his stool.------
CHAPTER XIX
My father was returned from his walk to the fish-pond----and opened the
parlour-door in the very height of the attack, just as my uncle _Toby_
was marching up the glacis----_Trim_ recovered his arms----never was my
uncle _Toby_ caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life!
Alas! my uncle _Toby!_ had not a weightier matter called forth all the
ready eloquence of my father--how hadst thou then and thy poor
HOBBY-HORSE too been insulted!
My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and after
giving a slight look at the disorder of the room, he took hold of one of
the chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and placing it
over-against my uncle _Toby_, he sat down in it, and as soon as the
tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out in a
lamentation as follows.
MY FATHER’S LAMENTATION
It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to
_Ernulphus’s_ curse, which was laid upon the corner of the
chimney-piece----as to my uncle _Toby_ who sat under it----it is in vain
longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to
struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human
persuasions ----I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother
_Toby_, or the sins and follies of the _Shandy_ family, Heaven has
thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and
that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force
of it is directed to play. ------Such a thing would batter the whole
universe about our ears, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_--if it
was so --Unhappy _Tristram_: child of wrath! child of decrepitude!
interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or disaster
in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or
entangle thy filaments! which has not fallen upon thy head, or ever thou
camest into the world----what evils in thy passage into it! ------what
evils since! ----produced into being, in the decline of thy father’s
days----when the powers of his imagination and of his body were waxing
feeble----when radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which
should have temper’d thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found
thy stamina in, but negations--’tis pitiful------brother _Toby_, at the
best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention on
both sides could give it. But how were we defeated! You know the event,
brother _Toby_----’tis too melancholy a one to be repeated now----when
the few animal spirits I was worth in the world, and with which memory,
fancy, and quick parts should have been convey’d------were all
dispersed, confused, confounded, scattered, and sent to the
devil.
------
Here then was the time to have put a stop to this persecution against
him; ------and tried an experiment at least------whether calmness and
serenity of mind in your sister, with a due attention, brother _Toby_,
to her evacuations and repletions------and the rest of her non-naturals,
might not, in a course of nine months gestation, have set all things to
rights. ------My child was bereft of these! ------What a teazing life
did she lead herself, and consequently her fœtus too, with that
nonsensical anxiety of hers about lying-in in town? I thought my sister
submitted with the greatest patience, replied my uncle _Toby_ --------I
never heard her utter one fretful word about it. ------She fumed
inwardly, cried my father; and that, let me tell you, brother, was ten
times worse for the child--and then! what battles did she fight with me,
and what perpetual storms about the midwife. ------There she gave vent,
said my uncle _Toby_. ------Vent! cried my father, looking up.
But what was all this, my dear _Toby_, to the injuries done us by my
child’s coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished, in this
general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket
unbroke, unrifled.------
With all my precautions, how was my system turned topside-turvy in the
womb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a
pressure of 470 pounds avoirdupois weight acting so perpendicularly upon
its apex--that at this hour ’tis ninety _per Cent._ insurance, that the
fine net-work of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a thousand
tatters.
----Still we could have done. ----Fool, coxcomb, puppy----give him but a
NOSE ----Cripple, Dwarf, Driveller, Goosecap------(shape him as you will)
the door of fortune stands open--_O Licetus!_ _Licetus!_ had I been
blest with a fœtus five inches long and a half, like thee --Fate might
have done her worst.
Still, brother _Toby_, there was one cast of the dye left for our child
after all--_O Tristram!_ _Tristram!_ _Tristram!_
We will send for Mr. _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_.
----You may send for whom you will, replied my father.
CHAPTER XX
What a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and frisking it away, two up
and two down for four volumes[4.8] together, without looking once
behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon! --I’ll tread
upon no one----quoth I to myself when I mounted ------I’ll take a good
rattling gallop; but I’ll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road.
----So off I set----up one lane------down another, through this
turnpike----over that, as if the arch-jockey of jockeys had got behind
me.
Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you
may----’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not
yourself ------He’s flung--he’s off--he’s lost his hat--he’s
down------he’ll break his neck----see! ----if he has not galloped full
among the scaffolding of the undertaking criticks! ----he’ll knock his
brains out against some of their posts--he’s bounced out! --look--he’s
now riding like a mad-cap full tilt through a whole crowd of painters,
fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players,
schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs,
prelates, popes, and engineers. --Don’t fear, said I --I’ll not hurt the
poorest jack-ass upon the king’s highway. --But your horse throws dirt;
see you’ve splash’d a bishop. ----I hope in God, ’twas only _Ernulphus_,
said I. ------But you have squirted full in the faces of Mess. _Le
Moyne_, _De Romigny_, and _De Marcilly_, doctors of the _Sorbonne_.
------That was last year, replied I. --But you have trod this moment
upon a king. ----Kings have bad times on’t, said I, to be trod upon by
such people as me.
You have done it, replied my accuser.
I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my
bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story.
------And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter.
[Footnote 4.8: According to the original Editions.]
CHAPTER XXI
As _Francis_ the first of _France_ was one winterly night warming
himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first
minister of sundry things for the good of the state[4.9] --It would not
be amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this
good understanding betwixt ourselves and _Switzerland_ was a little
strengthened. --There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving
money to these people--they would swallow up the treasury of _France_.
--Poo! poo! answered the king--there are more ways, Mons. _le Premier_,
of bribing states, besides that of giving money --I’ll pay _Switzerland_
the honour of standing godfather for my next child. ----Your majesty,
said the minister, in so doing, would have all the grammarians in
_Europe_ upon your back; ----_Switzerland_, as a republick, being a
female, can in no construction be godfather. --She may be godmother,
replied _Francis_ hastily--so announce my intentions by a courier
to-morrow morning.
I am astonished, said _Francis_ the First, (that day fortnight) speaking
to his minister as he entered the closet, that we have had no answer
from _Switzerland_. ----Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said Mons.
_le Premier_, to lay before you my dispatches upon that business. --They
take it kindly, said the king. --They do, Sire, replied the minister,
and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done
them----but the republick, as godmother, claims her right, in this case,
of naming the child.
In all reason, quoth the king----she will christen him _Francis_, or
_Henry_, or _Lewis_, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to
us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the minister ----I have this hour
received a dispatch from our resident, with the determination of the
republick on that point also. ----And what name has the republick fixed
upon for the Dauphin? ----_Shadrach_, _Meshech_, _Abed-nego_, replied
the minister. --By Saint _Peter’s_ girdle, I will have nothing to do
with the _Swiss_, cried _Francis_ the First, pulling up his breeches and
walking hastily across the floor.
Your majesty, replied the minister calmly, cannot bring yourself off.
We’ll pay them in money------said the king.
Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the
minister. ----I’ll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth _Francis_ the
First.
Your honour stands pawn’d already in this matter, answered Monsieur _le
Premier_.
Then, Mons. _le Premier_, said the king, by------we’ll go to war with
’em.
[Footnote 4.9: Vide Menagiana, Vol. I.]
CHAPTER XXII
Albeit, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavoured
carefully (according to the measure of such a slender skill as God has
vouchsafed me, and as convenient leisure from other occasions of needful
profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books
which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger
books--yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of
careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to intreat thy lenity
seriously------in beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in the story
of my father and his christian-names --I have no thoughts of treading
upon _Francis_ the First----nor in the affair of the nose--upon
_Francis_ the Ninth--nor in the character of my uncle _Toby_----of
characterizing the militiating spirits of my country--the wound upon his
groin, is a wound to every comparison of that kind--nor by _Trim_--that
I meant the duke of _Ormond_----or that my book is wrote against
predestination, or free-will, or taxes --If ’tis wrote against any thing,
----’tis wrote, an’ please your worships, against the spleen! in order,
by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the
diaphragm, and the succussations of the intercostal and abdominal
muscles in laughter, to drive the _gall_ and other _bitter juices_ from
the gallbladder, liver, and sweet-bread of his majesty’s subjects, with
all the inimicitious passions which belong to them, down into their
duodenums.
CHAPTER XXIII
--But can the thing be undone, _Yorick?_ said my father--for in my
opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a vile canonist, replied
_Yorick_--but of all evils, holding suspense to be the most tormenting,
we shall at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these great
dinners----said my father --The size of the dinner is not the point,
answered _Yorick_----we want, Mr. _Shandy_, to dive into the bottom of
this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not--and as the beards of
so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and of
the most eminent of our school-divines, and others, are all to meet in
the middle of one table, and _Didius_ has so pressingly invited you--who
in your distress would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite,
continued _Yorick_, is to apprize _Didius_, and let him manage a
conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject. --Then my
brother _Toby_, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall
go with us.
----Let my old tye-wig, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and my laced regimentals,
be hung to the fire all night, _Trim_.
CHAPTER XXV
--No doubt, Sir, --there is a whole chapter wanting here--and a chasm of
ten pages made in the book by it--but the bookbinder is neither a fool,
or a knave, or a puppy--nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least
upon that score)----but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and
complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate
to your reverences in this manner. --I question first, by the bye,
whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon
sundry other chapters------but there is no end, an’ please your
reverences, in trying experiments upon chapters------we have had enough
of it ----So there’s an end of that matter.
But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the
chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have
been reading just now, instead of this----was the description of my
father’s, my uncle _Toby’s_, _Trim’s_, and _Obadiah’s_ setting out and
journeying to the visitation at ****.
We’ll go in the coach, said my father --Prithee, have the arms been
altered, _Obadiah?_ --It would have made my story much better to have
begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to
the _Shandy’s_, when the coach was re-painted upon my father’s marriage,
it had so fallen out, that the coach-painter, whether by performing all
his works with the left-hand, like _Turpilius_ the _Roman_, or _Hans
Holbein_ of _Basil_----or whether ’twas more from the blunder of his
head than hand----or whether, lastly, it was from the sinister turn
which every thing relating to our family was apt to take----it so fell
out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the _bend-dexter_, which
since _Harry_ the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due------a
_bend-sinister_, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite
across the field of the _Shandy_ arms. ’Tis scarce credible that the
mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with
so small a matter. The word coach--let it be whose it would--or
coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the
family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of
illegitimacy upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step
into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to take a view of
the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time
he would ever set his foot in it again, till the _bend-sinister_ was
taken out--but like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many
things which the _Destinies_ had set down in their books ever to be
grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)----but never to be mended.
--Has the _bend-sinister_ been brush’d out, I say? said my father.
----There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered _Obadiah_, but the
lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to _Yorick_.
----Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know the
least of heraldry, said _Yorick_. --No matter for that, cried my
father ----I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon
before them. --Never mind the _bend-sinister_, said my uncle _Toby_,
putting on his tye-wig. ----No, indeed, said my father--you may go with
my aunt _Dinah_ to a visitation with a _bend-sinister_, if you think
fit --My poor uncle _Toby_ blush’d. My father was vexed at himself.
------No----my dear brother _Toby_, said my father, changing his
tone----but the damp of the coach-lining about my loins, may give me the
sciatica again, as it did _December_, _January_, and _February_ last
_winter_--so if you please you shall ride my wife’s pad----and as you
are to preach, _Yorick_, you had better make the best of your way
before----and leave me to take care of my brother _Toby_, and to follow
at our own rates.
Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this
cavalcade, in which Corporal _Trim_ and _Obadiah_, upon two coach-horses
a-breast, led the way as slow as a patrole----whilst my uncle _Toby_, in
his laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep
roads and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and
arms, as each could get the start.
--But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so
much above the stile and manner of anything else I have been able to
paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without
depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that
necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt
chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the
whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the
business, so know little about it--but, in my opinion, to write a book
is for all the world like humming a song--but in tune with yourself,
madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it.
--This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the
lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well----(as _Yorick_ told
my uncle _Toby_ one night) by siege. ----My uncle _Toby_ looked brisk at
the sound of the word _siege_, but could make neither head or tail of
it.
I’m to preach at court next Sunday, said _Homenas_----run over my
notes----so I humm’d over doctor _Homenas’s_ notes--the modulation’s
very well----’twill do, _Homenas_, if it holds on at this rate----so on
I humm’d----and a tolerable tune I thought it was; and to this hour, may
it please your reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how
spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an
air in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly, --it carried my
soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as _Montaigne_
complained in a parallel accident)--had I found the declivity easy, or
the ascent accessible------certes I had been outwitted. ------Your
notes, _Homenas_, I should have said, are good notes; ----but it was so
perpendicular a precipice------so wholly cut off from the rest of the
work, that by the first note I humm’d I found myself flying into the
other world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so
deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend
into it again.
[-->] A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own
size--take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one. --And so much
for tearing out of chapters.
CHAPTER XXVI
----See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to
light their pipes! ----’Tis abominable, answered _Didius_; it should not
go unnoticed, said doctor _Kysarcius_------ [-->] he was of the
_Kysarcii_ of the Low Countries.
Methinks, said _Didius_, half rising from his chair, in order to remove
a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him
and _Yorick_----you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have
hit upon a more proper place, Mr. _Yorick_--or at least upon a more
proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about:
If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with----’twas
certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body;
and if ’twas good enough to be preached before so learned a
body----’twas certainly, Sir, too good to light their pipes with
afterwards.
----I have got him fast hung up, quoth _Didius_ to himself, upon one of
the two horns of my dilemma----let him get off as he can.
I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this
sermon, quoth _Yorick_, upon this occasion------that I declare,
_Didius_, I would suffer martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with
me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such
another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me----it came from my
head instead of my heart------and it is for the pain it gave me, both in
the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this
manner --To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties
of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly
accounts of a little learning, tinsel’d over with a few words which
glitter, but convey little light and less warmth----is a dishonest use
of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands--’Tis
not preaching the gospel--but ourselves ----For my own part, continued
_Yorick_, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.--
As _Yorick_ pronounced the word _point-blank_, my uncle _Toby_ rose up
to say something upon projectiles----when a single word and no more
uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one’s ears
towards it--a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that
place to be expected--a word I am ashamed to write--yet must be
written----must be read--illegal--uncanonical--guess ten thousand
guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your invention for
ever, you’re where you was --------In short, I’ll tell it in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER XXVII
Zounds! -------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------
------------Z------ds! cried _Phutatorius_, partly to himself----and yet
high enough to be heard--and what seemed odd, ’twas uttered in a
construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a
man in amazement and one in bodily pain.
One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression
and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a _third_ or a _fifth_, or
any other chord in musick--were the most puzzled and perplexed with
it--the concord was good in itself--but then ’twas quite out of the key,
and no way applicable to the subject started; ----so that with all their
knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it.
Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their
ears to the plain import of the _word_, imagined that _Phutatorius_, who
was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels
out of _Didius’s_ hands, in order to bemaul _Yorick_ to some
purpose--and that the desperate monosyllable Z------ds was the exordium
to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a
rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle _Toby’s_ good-nature
felt a pang for what _Yorick_ was about to undergo. But seeing
_Phutatorius_ stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on--a
third party began to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary
respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny
oath--without the sin or substance of one.
Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on
the contrary as a real and substantial oath, propensly formed against
_Yorick_, to whom he was known to bear no good liking--which said oath,
as my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at
that very time in the upper regions of _Phutatorius’s_ purtenance; and
so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first
squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the
right ventricle of _Phutatorius’s_ heart, by the stroke of surprize
which so strange a theory of preaching had excited.
How finely we argue upon mistaken facts!
There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the
monosyllable which _Phutatorius_ uttered----who did not take this for
granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that
_Phutatorius’s_ mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was
arising between _Didius_ and _Yorick_; and indeed as he looked first
towards the one and then towards the other, with the air of a man
listening to what was going forwards--who would not have thought the
same? But the truth was, that _Phutatorius_ knew not one word or one
syllable of what was passing--but his whole thoughts and attention were
taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at that very
instant within the precincts of his own _Galligaskins_, and in a part of
them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch accidents:
So that notwithstanding he looked with all the attention in the world,
and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his face, to the
utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it was thought, to
give a sharp reply to _Yorick_, who sat over-against him----yet, I say,
was _Yorick_ never once in any one domicile of _Phutatorius’s_
brain----but the true cause of his exclamation lay at least a yard
below.
This I will endeavour to explain to you with all imaginable decency.
You must be informed then, that _Gastripheres_, who had taken a turn
into the kitchen a little before dinner, to see how things went
on--observing a wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the
dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and
sent in, as soon as dinner was over---- _Gastripheres_ inforcing his
orders about them, that _Didius_, but _Phutatorius_ especially, were
particularly fond of ’em.
About two minutes before the time that my uncle _Toby_ interrupted
_Yorick’s_ harangue--_Gastripheres’s_ chesnuts were brought in--and as
_Phutatorius’s_ fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he
laid them directly before _Phutatorius_, wrapt up hot in a clean damask
napkin.
Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all
thrust into the napkin at a time--but that some one chesnut, of more
life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion--it so fell out,
however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as
_Phutatorius_ sat straddling under----it fell perpendicularly into that
particular aperture of _Phutatorius’s_ breeches, for which, to the shame
and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word
throughout all _Johnson’s_ dictionary----let it suffice to say----it was
that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of
decorum do strictly require, like the temple of _Janus_ (in peace at
least) to be universally shut up.
The neglect of this punctilio in _Phutatorius_ (which by the bye should
be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.----
Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of
speaking------but in no opposition to the opinion either of _Acrites_ or
_Mythogeras_ in this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and
fully persuaded of it--and are so to this hour, That there was nothing
of accident in the whole event----but that the chesnut’s taking that
particular course and in a manner of its own accord--and then falling
with all its heat directly into that one particular place, and no
other----was a real judgment upon _Phutatorius_, for that filthy and
obscene treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_, which _Phutatorius_ had
published about twenty years ago----and was that identical week going to
give the world a second edition of.
It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy----much
undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of the question--all that
concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and
render it credible to the reader, that the hiatus in _Phutatorius’s_
breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut; ----and that the
chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly and piping hot into
it, without _Phutatorius’s_ perceiving it, or any one else at that time.
The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for
the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds----and did no more than
gently solicit _Phutatorius’s_ attention towards the part: ------But the
heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the
point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the
regions of pain, the soul of _Phutatorius_, together with all his ideas,
his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution,
deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of
animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles
and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as
you may imagine, as empty as my purse.
With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him
back, _Phutatorius_ was not able to dive into the secret of what was
going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the
devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true
cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was
in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the
help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly
accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter; ----but the sallies
of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind--a thought
instantly darted into his mind, that tho’ the anguish had the sensation
of glowing heat--it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a
burn; and if so, that possibly a _Newt_ or an _Asker_, or some such
detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth----the
horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant
from the chesnut, seized _Phutatorius_ with a sudden panick, and in the
first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done
the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard: ----the effect of
which was this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that
interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic
break after it, marked thus, Z------ds--which, though not strictly
canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the
occasion; ------and which, by the bye, whether canonical or not,
_Phutatorius_ could no more help than he could the cause of it.
Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little
more time in the transaction, than just to allow for _Phutatorius_ to
draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the
floor--and for _Yorick_ to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up.
It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:
----What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our
opinions, both of men and things----that trifles, light as air, shall
waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within
it----that _Euclid’s_ demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it
in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.
_Yorick_, I said, picked up the chesnut which _Phutatorius’s_ wrath had
flung down----the action was trifling ----I am ashamed to account for
it--he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot
worse for the adventure--and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping
for. ------But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in
_Phutatorius’s_ head: He considered this act of _Yorick’s_ in getting
off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in
him, that the chesnut was originally his--and in course, that it must
have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have
played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this
opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very
narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for _Yorick_, who sat directly
over against _Phutatorius_, of slipping the chesnut in----and
consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion,
which _Phutatorius_ cast full upon _Yorick_ as these thoughts arose, too
evidently spoke his opinion----and as _Phutatorius_ was naturally
supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion
at once became the general one; ----and for a reason very different from
any which have been yet given----in a little time it was put out of all
manner of dispute.
When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this
sublunary world----the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of
substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the
cause and first spring of them. --The search was not long in this
instance.
It was well known that _Yorick_ had never a good opinion of the treatise
which _Phutatorius_ had wrote _de Concubinis retinendis_, as a thing
which he feared had done hurt in the world----and ’twas easily found
out, that there was a mystical meaning in _Yorick’s_ prank--and that his
chucking the chesnut hot into _Phutatorius’s_ ***----*****, was a
sarcastical fling at his book--the doctrines of which, they said, had
enflamed many an honest man in the same place.
This conceit awaken’d _Somnolentus_----made _Agelastes_ smile----and if
you can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in
finding out a riddle------it threw _Gastripheres’s_ into that form--and
in short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.
This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as
groundless as the dreams of philosophy: _Yorick_, no doubt, as
_Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor------ “_was a man of jest_,” but it
was temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other
ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame; --but it
was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying
and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his
nature was incapable. All I blame him for----or rather, all I blame and
alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which
would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the
world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted
precisely as in the affair of his lean horse----he could have explained
it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and besides, he ever
looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal
report alike so injurious to him--he could not stoop to tell his story
to them--and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him.
This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects--in the
present it was followed by the fixed resentment of _Phutatorius_, who,
as _Yorick_ had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair
a second time, to let him know it--which indeed he did with a smile;
saying only--that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation.
But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two
things in your mind.
----The smile was for the company.
----The threat was for _Yorick_.
CHAPTER XXVIII
--Can you tell me, quoth _Phutatorius_, speaking to _Gastripheres_ who
sat next to him----for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an
affair----can you tell me, _Gastripheres_, what is best to take out the
fire? ----Ask _Eugenius_, said _Gastripheres_. ----That greatly depends,
said _Eugenius_, pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature
of the part ----If it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently
be wrapt up ------It is both the one and the other, replied
_Phutatorius_, laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod of
his head, upon the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the
same time to ease and ventilate it. ------If that is the case, said
_Eugenius_, I would advise you, _Phutatorius_, not to tamper with it by
any means; but if you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure
to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the
press--you need do nothing more than twist it round. --The damp paper,
quoth _Yorick_ (who sat next to his friend _Eugenius_) though I know it
has a refreshing coolness in it--yet I presume is no more than the
vehicle--and that the oil and lamp-black with which the paper is so
strongly impregnated, does the business. --Right, said _Eugenius_, and
is, of any outward application I would venture to recommend, the most
anodyne and safe.
Was it my case, said _Gastripheres_, as the main thing is the oil and
lamp-black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on
directly. ------That would make a very devil of it, replied _Yorick_.
----And besides, added _Eugenius_, it would not answer the intention,
which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription, which
the Faculty hold to be half in half; ----for consider, if the type is a
very small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come
into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so
infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs
and large capitals excepted) as no art or management of the spatula can
come up to. ------It falls out very luckily, replied _Phutatorius_, that
the second edition of my treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_ is at this
instant in the press. ------You may take any leaf of it, said
_Eugenius_------no matter which. ----Provided, quoth _Yorick_, there is
no bawdry in it.------
They are just now, replied _Phutatorius_, printing off the ninth
chapter----which is the last chapter but one in the book. ----Pray what
is the title of that chapter? said _Yorick_; making a respectful bow to
_Phutatorius_ as he spoke. ------I think, answered _Phutatorius_, ’tis
that _de re concubinariâ_.
For Heaven’s sake keep out of that chapter, quoth _Yorick_.
----By all means--added _Eugenius_.
CHAPTER XXIX
--Now, quoth _Didius_, rising up, and laying his right hand with his
fingers spread upon his breast----had such a blunder about a
christian-name happened before the Reformation ------[It happened the
day before yesterday, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself] and when baptism
was administer’d in _Latin_ --[’Twas all in _English_, said my
uncle]------ many things might have coincided with it, and upon the
authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null,
with a power of giving the child a new name --Had a priest, for instance,
which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the _Latin_ tongue,
baptized a child of Tom-o’Stiles, _in nomine patriæ & filia & spiritum
sanctos_--the baptism was held null. ----I beg your pardon, replied
_Kysarcius_----in that case, as the mistake was only the _terminations_,
the baptism was valid----and to have rendered it null, the blunder of
the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each
noun------and not, as in your case, upon the last.
My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with
infinite attention.
_Gastripheres_, for example, continued _Kysarcius_, baptizes a child of
_John Stradling’s_ in _Gomine_ gatris, &c., &c., instead of _in Nomine_
patris, &c. ----Is this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as
much as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and
meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for
_Gomine_ does not signify a name, nor _gatris_ a father. --What do they
signify? said my uncle _Toby_. --Nothing at all------quoth _Yorick_.
----Ergo, such a baptism is null, said _Kysarcius_.----
In course, answered _Yorick_, in a tone two parts jest and one part
earnest.----
But in the case cited, continued _Kysarcius_, where _patriæ_ is put for
_patris_, _filia_ for _filii_, and so on----as it is a fault only in the
declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch’d, the
inflections of their branches either this way or that, does not in any
sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the
words as before. ----But then, said _Didius_, the intention of the
priest’s pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have
gone along with it. ------------Right, answered _Kysarcius_; and of
this, brother _Didius_, we have an instance in a decree of the decretals
of Pope _Leo_ the IIId. ----But my brother’s child, cried my uncle
_Toby_, has nothing to do with the Pope------’tis the plain child of a
Protestant gentleman, christen’d _Tristram_ against the wills and wishes
both of his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.----
If the wills and wishes, said _Kysarcius_, interrupting my uncle _Toby_,
of those only who stand related to Mr. _Shandy’s_ child, were to have
weight in this matter, Mrs. _Shandy_, of all people, has the least to do
in it. ----My uncle _Toby_ lay’d down his pipe, and my father drew his
chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an
introduction.
----It has not only been a question, Captain _Shandy_, amongst the[4.10]
best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued _Kysarcius_,
“_Whether the mother be of kin to her child_,” --but, after much
dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides--it
has been abjudged for the negative--namely, “_That the mother is not of
kin to her child_.”[4.11] My father instantly clapp’d his hand upon my
uncle _Toby’s_ mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear; --the truth
was, he was alarmed for _Lillabullero_--and having a great desire to
hear more of so curious an argument--he begg’d my uncle _Toby_, for
Heaven’s sake, not to disappoint him in it. --My uncle _Toby_ gave a
nod--resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling
_Lillabullero_ inwardly----_Kysarcius_, _Didius_, and _Triptolemus_ went
on with the discourse as follows.
This determination, continued _Kysarcius_, how contrary soever it may
seem to run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on
its side; and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous
case, known commonly by the name of the Duke of _Suffolk’s_ case.
------It is cited in _Brook_, said _Triptolemus_ ------And taken notice
of by Lord _Coke_, added _Didius_. --And you may find it in _Swinburn_
on Testaments, said _Kysarcius_.
The case, Mr. _Shandy_, was this.
In the reign of _Edward_ the Sixth, _Charles_ duke of _Suffolk_ having
issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his
last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose
death the son died also----but without will, without wife, and without
child--his mother and his sister by the father’s side (for she was born
of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration of
her son’s goods, according to the statute of the 21st of _Harry_ the
Eighth, whereby it is enacted, That in case any person die intestate the
administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin.
The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother,
the sister by the father’s side commenced a suit before the
Ecclesiastical Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin;
and 2dly, That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased;
and therefore prayed the court, that the administration granted to the
mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to
the deceased, by force of the said statute.
Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its
issue--and many causes of great property likely to be decided in times
to come, by the precedent to be then made----the most learned, as well
in the laws of this realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together,
whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no. --Whereunto not only
the temporal lawyers----but the church lawyers--the juris-consulti--the
juris-prudentes--the civilians--the advocates--the commissaries--the
judges of the consistory and prerogative courts of _Canterbury_ and
_York_, with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of
opinion, That the mother was not of[4.12] kin to her child.----
And what said the duchess of _Suffolk_ to it? said my uncle _Toby_.
The unexpectedness of my uncle _Toby’s_ question, confounded _Kysarcius_
more than the ablest advocate ----He stopp’d a full minute, looking in
my uncle _Toby’s_ face without replying----and in that single minute
_Triptolemus_ put by him, and took the lead as follows.
’Tis a ground and principle in the law, said _Triptolemus_, that things
do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt ’tis for this
cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and
seed of its parents----that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the
blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the
child, but the child by the parents --For so they write, _Liberi sunt de
sanguine patris & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine
liberorum_.
----But this, _Triptolemus_, cried _Didius_, proves too much--for from
this authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on
all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child--but the father
likewise. ----It is held, said _Triptolemus_, the better opinion;
because the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three
persons, yet are they but (_una caro_[4.13]) one flesh; and consequently
no degree of kindred----or any method of acquiring one _in nature_.
----There you push the argument again too far, cried _Didius_----for
there is no prohibition _in nature_, though there is in the Levitical
law----but that a man may beget a child upon his grandmother----in which
case, supposing the issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both
of ----But who ever thought, cried _Kysarcius_, of lying with his
grandmother? ------The young gentleman, replied _Yorick_, whom _Selden_
speaks of----who not only thought of it, but justified his intention to
his father by the argument drawn from the law of retaliation. --“You
lay, Sir, with my mother,” said the lad-- “why may not I lie with
yours?” ----’Tis the _Argumentum commune_, added _Yorick_. ----’Tis as
good, replied _Eugenius_, taking down his hat, as they deserve.
The company broke up.
[Footnote 4.10: Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7, §8.]
[Footnote 4.11: Vide Brook, Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.]
[Footnote 4.12: Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald.
in ult. C. de Verb. signific.]
[Footnote 4.13: Vide Brook, Abridg. tit. Administr. N. 47.]
CHAPTER XXX
--And pray, said my uncle _Toby_, leaning upon _Yorick_, as he and my
father were helping him leisurely down the stairs----don’t be terrified,
madam, this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last ----And
pray, _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_, which way is this said affair of
_Tristram_ at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily,
replied _Yorick_; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it----for Mrs.
_Shandy_ the mother is nothing at all a-kin to him----and as the
mother’s is the surest side ----Mr. _Shandy_, in course, is still less
than nothing ------In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as I
am.----
----That may well be, said my father, shaking his head.
----Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my
uncle _Toby_, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess
of _Suffolk_ and her son.
The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth _Yorick_, to this hour.
CHAPTER XXXI
Though my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned
discourses------’twas still but like the anointing of a broken
bone ------The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned
upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we
lean on slips from under us. --He became pensive--walked frequently
forth to the fish-pond--let down one loop of his hat----sigh’d
often----forbore to snap--and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which
occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and digestion, as
_Hippocrates_ tells us--he had certainly fallen ill with the extinction
of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health
rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a
thousand pounds, by my aunt _Dinah_.
My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right
end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out
mostly to the honour of his family. --A hundred-and-fifty odd projects
took possession of his brains by turns--he would do this, and that, and
t’other --He would go to _Rome_----he would go to law----he would buy
stock----he would buy _John Hobson’s_ farm--he would new fore-front his
house, and add a new wing to make it even ----There was a fine water-mill
on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other side of the
river in full view to answer it --But above all things in the world, he
would inclose the great _Ox-moor_, and send out my brother _Bobby_
immediately upon his travels.
But as the sum was _finite_, and consequently could not do
everything----and in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the
projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last
seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have
determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at
above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour
either of the one or the other.
This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though ’tis certain my
father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my
brother’s education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to
carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the
second creation of actions in the _Missisippi_-scheme, in which he was
an adventurer----yet the _Ox-moor_, which was a fine, large, whinny,
undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the _Shandy_-estate, had
almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his
heart upon turning it likewise to some account.
But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of
things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of
their claims----like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice
or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every
other project at this crisis------the two old projects, the OX-MOOR and
my BROTHER, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each
other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old
gentleman’s mind--which of the two should be set o’going first.
----People may laugh as they will--but the case was this.
It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was
almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should
have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before
marriage--not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by
the benefit of exercise and change of so much air--but simply for the
mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of
having been abroad--_tantum valet_, my father would say, _quantum
sonat_.
Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian
indulgence----to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore----and
thereby make an example of him, as the first _Shandy_ unwhirl’d about
_Europe_ in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad----would
be using him ten times worse than a Turk.
On the other hand, the case of the _Ox-moor_ was full as hard.
Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred
pounds----it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit
about fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and
vexation.
It had been moreover in possession of the _Shandy_-family ever since the
middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the
house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by
the projected wind-mill, spoken of above--and for all these reasons
seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care
and protection of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common
to men, as well as the ground they tread on----it had all along most
shamefully been overlook’d; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered
so much by it, that it would have made any man’s heart have bled
(_Obadiah_ said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode over
it, and only seen the condition it was in.
However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground----nor indeed
the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking,
of my father’s doing----he had never thought himself any way concerned
in the affair------till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out
of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its
boundaries)------which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it
naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing
them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he
was bound to do something for it----and that now or never was the time.
I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, that
the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by
each other; for though my father weigh’d them in all humours and
conditions------spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and
abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done--reading books of
farming one day------books of travels another----laying aside all
passion whatever--viewing the arguments on both sides in all their
lights and circumstances--communing every day with my uncle
_Toby_--arguing with _Yorick_, and talking over the whole affair of the
_Ox-moor_ with _Obadiah_------yet nothing in all that time appeared so
strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable
to the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration
of equal weight, as to keep the scales even.
For to be sure, with proper helps, and in the hands of some people, tho’
the _Ox-moor_ would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the
world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay----yet
every tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother _Bobby_----let
_Obadiah_ say what he would.------
In point of interest----the contest, I own, at first sight, did not
appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and
ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and
burning, and fencing in the _Ox-moor_ &c. &c. --with the certain profit
it would bring him in return----the latter turned out so prodigiously in
his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the _Ox-moor_
would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a
hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first
year----besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following----and the
year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred----but in all
likelihood, a hundred and fifty------if not two hundred quarters of
pease and beans----besides potatoes without end. ----But then, to think
he was all this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat
them----knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old
gentleman in such a state of suspence----that, as he often declared to
my uncle _Toby_----he knew no more than his heels what to do.
No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it
is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength,
both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for
to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is
unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which
you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart
to the head, and so on----it is not to be told in what a degree such a
wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid parts,
wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time as it
goes backwards and forwards.
My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had
done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME----had he not been rescued out of
it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil------the misfortune of my
brother _Bobby’s_ death.
What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?
------from sorrow to sorrow? ------to button up one cause of
vexation------and unbutton another?
CHAPTER XXXII
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 which 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[4.14] four
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 chearfully
round.
Was I left, like _Sancho Panca_, 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 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 meantime) I’ll have
another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you
little dream of.
[Footnote 4.14: According to the original Editions.]
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis. ---- HOR.
--Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut
mordacius quam deceat Christianum--non Ego, sed Democritus dixit. --
ERASMUS.
Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia,
sciebat, anathema esto. -- SECOND COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
JOHN,
LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER
MY LORD,
I humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes;[D.1] they are the
best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce: --had
Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much
more proper present to your Lordship.
I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate
this work to you, I join Lady SPENCER, in the liberty I take of
inscribing the story of _Le Fever_ to her name; for which I have no
other motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a
humane one.
I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s most devoted
and most humble Servant,
LAUR. STERNE.
[Footnote D.1: Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition.]
BOOK V
CHAPTER I
If it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a
postillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had
never entered my head. He flew like lightning----there was a slope of
three miles and a half----we scarce touched the ground----the motion was
most rapid----most impetuous------’twas communicated to my brain--my
heart partook of it---- “By the great God of day,” said I, looking
towards the sun, and thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the
chaise, as I made my vow, “I will lock up my study-door the moment I get
home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the
earth, into the draw-well at the back of my house.”
The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon
the hill, scarce progressive, drag’d--drag’d up by eight _heavy
beasts_-- “by main strength! ----quoth I, nodding----but your betters
draw the same way----and something of everybody’s! ----O rare!”
Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the
_bulk_--so little to the _stock?_
Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by
pouring only out of one vessel into another?
Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever
in the same track--for ever at the same pace?
Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as
working-days, to be shewing the _relicks of learning_, as monks do the
relicks of their saints--without working one--one single miracle with
them?
Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a
moment--that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the
world--the _miracle_ of nature, as Zoroaster in his book περι φύσεως
called him--the SHEKINAH of the divine presence, as Chrysostom----the
_image_ of God, as Moses----the _ray_ of divinity, as Plato--the
_marvel_ of _marvels_, as Aristotle--to go sneaking on at this
pitiful--pimping--pettifogging rate?
I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion------but if there
is no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul,
that every imitator in _Great Britain_, _France_, and _Ireland_, had the
farcy for his pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large
enough to hold--aye--and sublimate them, _shag rag and bob-tail_, male
and female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of
_Whiskers_----but, by what chain of ideas --I leave as a legacy in
_mort-main_ to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of.
UPON WHISKERS
I’m sorry I made it----’twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered
a man’s head ----A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear
it--’tis a delicate world----but I knew not of what mettle it was
made--nor had I ever seen the underwritten fragment; otherwise, as
surely as noses are noses, and whiskers are whiskers still (let the
world say what it will to the contrary); so surely would I have steered
clear of this dangerous chapter.
THE FRAGMENT
* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * ------You are
half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking hold of the
old lady’s hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze, as he pronounced the
word _Whiskers_----shall we change the subject? By no means, replied the
old lady --I like your account of those matters; so throwing a thin gauze
handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back upon the chair with her
face turned towards him, and advancing her two feet as she reclined
herself ----I desire, continued she, you will go on.
The old gentleman went on as follows: ------Whiskers! cried the queen of
_Navarre_, dropping her knotting ball, as _La Fosseuse_ uttered the
word ----Whiskers, madam, said _La Fosseuse_, pinning the ball to the
queen’s apron, and making a courtesy as she repeated it.
_La Fosseuse’s_ voice was naturally soft and low, yet ’twas an
articulate voice: and every letter of the word _Whiskers_ fell
distinctly upon the queen of _Navarre’s_ ear --Whiskers! cried the
queen, laying a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still
distrusted her ears ----Whiskers! replied _La Fosseuse_, repeating the
word a third time ----There is not a cavalier, madam, of his age in
_Navarre_, continued the maid of honour, pressing the page’s interest
upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair ----Of what? cried _Margaret_,
smiling --Of whiskers, said _La Fosseuse_, with infinite modesty.
The word _Whiskers_ still stood its ground, and continued to be made use
of in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of
_Navarre_, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which _La Fosseuse_ had
made of it: the truth was, _La Fosseuse_ had pronounced the word, not
only before the queen, but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an
accent which always implied something of a mystery --And as the court of
_Margaret_, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of
gallantry and devotion----and whiskers being as applicable to the one,
as the other, the word naturally stood its ground----it gain’d full as
much as it lost; that is, the clergy were for it----the laity were
against it----and for the women, ----_they_ were divided.
The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur _De Croix_, was
at that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honour
towards the terrace before the palace gate, where the guard was mounted.
The lady _De Baussiere_ fell deeply in love with him, ----_La
Battarelle_ did the same--it was the finest weather for it, that ever
was remembered in _Navarre_----_La Guyol_, _La Maronette_, _La
Sabatiere_, fell in love with the Sieur _De Croix_ also----_La Rebours_
and _La Fosseuse_ knew better----_De Croix_ had failed in an attempt to
recommend himself to _La Rebours_; and _La Rebours_ and _La Fosseuse_
were inseparable.
The queen of _Navarre_ was sitting with her ladies in the painted
bow-window, facing the gate of the second court, as _De Croix_ passed
through it --He is handsome, said the Lady _Baussiere_. ----He has a
good mien, said _La Battarelle_ ----He is finely shaped, said _La Guyol_
--I never saw an officer of the horse-guards in my life, said _La
Maronette_, with two such legs ----Or who stood so well upon them, said
_La Sabatiere_ ------But he has no whiskers, cried _La Fosseuse_ ----Not
a pile, said _La Rebours_.
The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as she
walked through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it this way and
that way in her fancy--_Ave Maria!_------what can _La Fosseuse_ mean?
said she, kneeling down upon the cushion.
_La Guyol_, _La Battarelle_, _La Maronette_, _La Sabatiere_, retired
instantly to their chambers ------Whiskers! said all four of them to
themselves, as they bolted their doors on the inside.
The Lady _Carnavallette_ was counting her beads with both hands,
unsuspected, under her farthingal----from St. _Antony_ down to St.
_Ursula_ inclusive, not a saint passed through her fingers without
whiskers; St. _Francis_, St. _Dominick_, St. _Bennet_, St. _Basil_, St.
_Bridget_, had all whiskers.
The Lady _Baussiere_ had got into a wilderness of conceits, with
moralizing too intricately upon _La Fosseuse’s_ text ----She mounted her
palfrey, her page followed her----the host passed by--the Lady
_Baussiere_ rode on.
One denier, cried the order of mercy--one single denier, in behalf of a
thousand patient captives, whose eyes look towards heaven and you for
their redemption.
----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on.
Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly
holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered hands ----I beg for
the unfortunate--good my Lady, ’tis for a prison--for an hospital--’tis
for an old man--a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by
fire ----I call God and all his angels to witness----’tis to clothe the
naked----to feed the hungry----’tis to comfort the sick and the
broken-hearted.
The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on.
A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground.
----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on.
He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by
the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, etc.
----Cousin, aunt, sister, mother, ----for virtue’s sake, for your own,
for mine, for Christ’s sake, remember me----pity me.
----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on.
Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady _Baussiere_ ----The page took
hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace.
There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves
about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it,
somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the
stronger--we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary.
Ha, ha! he, hee! cried _La Guyol_ and _La Sabatiere_, looking close at
each other’s prints ----Ho, ho! cried _La Battarelle_ and _Maronette_,
doing the same: --Whist! cried one--st, st, --said a second--hush, quoth
a third--poo, poo, replied a fourth--gramercy! cried the Lady
_Carnavallette_; ----’twas she who bewhisker’d St. _Bridget_.
_La Fosseuse_ drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having
traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon
one side of her upper lip, put it into _La Rebours’_ hand--_La Rebours_
shook her head.
The Lady _Baussiere_ coughed thrice into the inside of her muff--_La
Guyol_ smiled --Fy, said the Lady _Baussiere_. The queen of _Navarre_
touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger--as much as to say,
I understand you all.
’Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: _La Fosseuse_ had
given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all
these defiles ----It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by
the expiration of which, the Sieur _De Croix_, finding it high time to
leave _Navarre_ for want of whiskers----the word in course became
indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.
The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have
suffered under such combinations. ------The curate of _d’Estella_ wrote
a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and
warning the _Navarois_ against them.
Does not all the world know, said the curate _d’Estella_ at the
conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate some centuries ago
in most parts of _Europe_, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom
of _Navarre?_ --The evil indeed spread no farther then--but have not
beds and bolsters, and nightcaps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink
of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and
pump-handles--and spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same
association? ----Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all
affections--give it but its head----’tis like a ramping and a roaring
lion.
The drift of the curate _d’Estella’s_ argument was not understood.
--They ran the scent the wrong way. --The world bridled his ass at the
tail. --And when the _extremes_ of DELICACY, and the _beginnings_ of
CONCUPISCENCE, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may
decree that bawdy also.
CHAPTER II
When my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy
account of my brother _Bobby’s_ death, he was busy calculating the
expence of his riding post from _Calais_ to _Paris_, and so on to
_Lyons_.
’Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it
to travel over again, and his calculation to begin afresh, when he had
almost got to the end of it, by _Obadiah’s_ opening the door to acquaint
him the family was out of yeast--and to ask whether he might not take
the great coach-horse early in the morning and ride in search of some.
--With all my heart, _Obadiah_, said my father (pursuing his
journey)--take the coach-horse, and welcome. ----But he wants a shoe,
poor creature! said _Obadiah_. ----Poor creature! said my uncle _Toby_,
vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison. Then ride the
_Scotch_ horse, quoth my father hastily. --He cannot bear a saddle upon
his back, quoth _Obadiah_, for the whole world. ----The devil’s in that
horse; then take PATRIOT, cried my father, and shut the door.
----PATRIOT is sold, said _Obadiah_. Here’s for you! cried my father,
making a pause, and looking in my uncle _Toby’s_ face, as if the thing
had not been a matter of fact. --Your worship ordered me to sell him
last _April_, said _Obadiah_. --Then go on foot for your pains, cried my
father ----I had much rather walk than ride, said _Obadiah_, shutting
the door.
What plagues, cried my father, going on with his calculation. ----But
the waters are out, said _Obadiah_, --opening the door again.
Till that moment, my father, who had a map of _Sanson’s_, and a book of
the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his
compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon _Nevers_, the last stage he
had paid for--purposing to go on from that point with his journey and
calculation, as soon as _Obadiah_ quitted the room: but this second
attack of _Obadiah’s_, in opening the door and laying the whole country
under water, was too much. ----He let go his compasses--or rather with a
mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table;
and then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to _Calais_
(like many others) as wise as he had set out.
When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news
of my brother’s death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey
to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of _Nevers_.
----By your leave, Mons. _Sanson_, cried my father, striking the point
of his compasses through _Nevers_ into the table--and nodding to my
uncle _Toby_ to see what was in the letter--twice of one night, is too
much for an _English_ gentleman and his son, Mons. _Sanson_, to be
turned back from so lousy a town as _Nevers_ --What think’st thou,
_Toby?_ added my father in a sprightly tone. ----Unless it be a garrison
town, said my uncle _Toby_----for then ----I shall be a fool, said my
father, smiling to himself, as long as I live. --So giving a second
nod--and keeping his compasses still upon _Nevers_ with one hand, and
holding his book of the post-roads in the other--half calculating and
half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as
my uncle _Toby_ hummed over the letter.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
---- ---- ---- --he’s gone! said my uncle _Toby_. ----Where ----Who?
cried my father. ----My nephew, said my uncle _Toby_. ----What--without
leave--without money--without governor? cried my father in amazement.
No: ----he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_. --Without
being ill? cried my father again. --I dare say not, said my uncle
_Toby_, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his
heart, he has been ill enough, poor lad! I’ll answer for him----for he
is dead.
When _Agrippina_ was told of her son’s death, _Tacitus_ informs us,
that, not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she
abruptly broke off her work. --My father stuck his compasses into
_Nevers_, but so much the faster. --What contrarieties! his, indeed, was
matter of calculation! --_Agrippina’s_ must have been quite a different
affair; who else could pretend to reason from history?
How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.--
CHAPTER III
---- ----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--nobody 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 everything. --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
anything 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, have 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-cards, 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 everything 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 staid 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
it 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 herses, 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.
CHAPTER IV
----And lastly--for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce
of this matter, continued my father, --this, like the gilded dome which
covers in the fabric--crowns all.--
’Tis of _Cornelius Gattus_, the prætor--which, I dare say, brother
_Toby_, you have read, --I dare say I have not, replied my uncle. ----He
died, said my father, as *************** --And if it was with his wife,
said my uncle _Toby_--there could be no hurt in it --That’s more than I
know--replied my father.
CHAPTER V
My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which
led to the parlour, as my uncle _Toby_ pronounced the word _wife_.
--’Tis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and _Obadiah_ had helped it
by leaving the door a little a-jar, so that my mother heard enough of it
to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge
of her finger across her two lips--holding in her breath, and bending
her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neck--(not towards the
door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink)--she
listened with all her powers: ----the listening slave, with the Goddess
of Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an
intaglio.
In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till
I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as _Rapin_ does those of the
church) to the same period.
CHAPTER VI
Though in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it
consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it,
that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and
acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and
impulses----that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour
and advantages of a complex one, ----and a number of as odd movements
within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a _Dutch_ silk-mill.
Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps,
it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this,
that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or
dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally
another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel
along with it in the kitchen.
Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter,
was delivered in the parlour--or a discourse suspended till a servant
went out--or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the
brows of my father or mother--or, in short, when anything was supposed
to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to
leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar--as it stands
just now, --which, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly
might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended), it was not
difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was
generally left, not indeed as wide as the _Dardanelles_, but wide
enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this wind-ward trade, as
was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;
--my mother at this moment stands profiting by it. --_Obadiah_ did the
same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which
brought the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had
well got over his surprise, and entered upon this harangue, --had _Trim_
got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.
A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all
Job’s stock--though by the by, _your curious observers are seldom worth
a groat_--would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal _Trim_
and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education,
haranguing over the same bier.
My father--a man of deep reading--prompt memory--with _Cato_, and
_Seneca_, and _Epictetus_, at his fingers ends.--
The corporal--with nothing--to remember--of no deeper reading than his
muster-roll--or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of
it.
The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and
striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with
the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.
The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or
that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other,
going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart.
O _Trim!_ would to heaven thou had’st a better historian! --would thy
historian had a better pair of breeches! ----O ye critics! will nothing
melt you?
CHAPTER VII
------My young master in _London_ is dead! said _Obadiah_.--
------A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s which had been twice
scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah’s_ exclamation brought into
_Susannah’s_ head. --Well might _Locke_ write a chapter upon the
imperfection of words. --Then, quoth _Susannah_, we must all go into
mourning. --But note a second time: the word _mourning_, notwithstanding
_Susannah_ made use of it herself--failed also of doing its office; it
excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black, --all was
green. ----The green sattin night-gown hung there still.
--O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah_. --My
mother’s whole wardrobe followed. --What a procession! her red damask,
--her orange tawney, --her white and yellow lutestrings, --her brown
taffata, --her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable
under-petticoats. --Not a rag was left behind. --“_No, --she will never
look up again_,” said _Susannah_.
We had a fat, foolish scullion--my father, I think, kept her for her
simplicity; --she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy. --He is
dead, said _Obadiah_, --he is certainly dead! --So am not I, said the
foolish scullion.
----Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as
_Trim_ stepp’d into the kitchen, --master _Bobby_ is dead and
_buried_--the funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah’s_--we shall
have all to go into mourning, said _Susannah_.
I hope not, said _Trim_. --You hope not! cried _Susannah_ earnestly.
--The mourning ran not in _Trim’s_ head, whatever it did in
_Susannah’s_. --I hope--said _Trim_, explaining himself, I hope in God
the news is not true. --I heard the letter read with my own ears,
answered _Obadiah_; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in
stubbing the Ox-moor. --Oh! he’s dead, said _Susannah_. --As sure, said
the scullion, as I’m alive.
I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said _Trim_, fetching a
sigh. --Poor creature! --poor boy! --poor gentleman.
--He was alive last _Whitsontide!_ said the coachman. --_Whitsontide!_
alas! cried _Trim_, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into
the same attitude in which he read the sermon, --what is _Whitsontide_,
_Jonathan_ (for that was the coachman’s name), or _Shrovetide_, or any
tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal
(striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to
give an idea of health and stability)--and are we not--(dropping his hat
upon the ground) gone! in a moment! --’Twas infinitely striking!
_Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears. --We are not stocks and stones.
--_Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, the cook-maid, all melted. --The foolish fat
scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was
rous’d with it. --The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal.
Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in
church and state, --and possibly the preservation of the whole world--or
what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and
power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding
of this stroke of the corporal’s eloquence --I do demand your
attention--your worships and reverences, for any ten pages together,
take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for
it at your ease.
I said, “we were not stocks and stones”--’tis very well. I should have
added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, --but men clothed with bodies,
and governed by our imaginations; --and what a junketing piece of work
of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of
them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice
to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the
touch, though most of your _Barbati_, I know, are for it) has the
quickest commerce with the soul, --gives a smarter stroke, and leaves
something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either
convey--or sometimes, get rid of.
--I’ve gone a little about--no matter, ’tis for health--let us only
carry it back in our mind to the mortality of _Trim’s_ hat. --“Are we
not here now, --and gone in a moment?” --There was nothing in the
sentence--’twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of
hearing every day; and if _Trim_ had not trusted more to his hat than
his head--he had made nothing at all of it.
------“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we
not”--(dropping his hat plump upon the ground--and pausing, before he
pronounced the word)-- “gone! in a moment?” The descent of the hat was
as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneeded into the crown of it.
----Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it
was the type and fore-runner, like it, --his hand seemed to vanish from
under it, --it fell dead, --the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a
corpse, --and _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears.
Now --Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and
motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the
ground, without any effect. ----Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast
it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any
possible direction under heaven, --or in the best direction that could
be given to it, --had he dropped it like a goose--like a puppy--like an
ass--or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a
fool--like a ninny--like a nincompoop--it had fail’d, and the effect
upon the heart had been lost.
Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the
_engines_ of eloquence, --who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and
mollify it, ----and then harden it again to _your purpose_----
Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having
done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet--
Ye, lastly, who drive----and why not, Ye also who are driven, like
turkeys to market with a stick and a red clout--meditate--meditate,
I beseech you, upon _Trim’s_ hat.
CHAPTER VIII
Stay ----I have a small account to settle with the reader before _Trim_
can go on with his harangue. --It shall be done in two minutes.
Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in due
time, --I own myself a debtor to the world for two items, --a chapter
upon _chamber-maids and button-holes_, which, in the former part of my
work, I promised and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of
your worships and reverences telling me, that the two subjects,
especially so connected together, might endanger the morals of the
world, --I pray the chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes may be
forgiven me, --and that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of
it; which is nothing, an’t please your reverences, but a chapter of
_chamber-maids, green gowns, and old hats_.
_Trim_ took his off the ground, --put it upon his head, --and then went
on with his oration upon death, in manner and form following.
CHAPTER IX
------To us, _Jonathan_, who know not what want or care is--who live
here in the service of two of the best of masters--(bating in my own
case his majesty King _William_ the Third, whom I had the honour to
serve both in _Ireland_ and _Flanders_) --I own it, that from
_Whitsontide_ to within three weeks of _Christmas_, --’tis not
long--’tis like nothing; --but to those, _Jonathan_, who know what death
is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can well
wheel about--’tis like a whole age. --O _Jonathan!_ ’twould make a
good-natured man’s heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal
(standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has
been laid since that time! --And trust me, _Susy_, added the corporal,
turning to _Susannah_, whose eyes were swimming in water, --before that
time comes round again, --many a bright eye will be dim. --_Susannah_
placed it to the right side of the page--she wept--but she court’sied
too. --Are we not, continued _Trim_, looking still at _Susannah_ --are
we not like a flower of the field--a tear of pride stole in betwixt
every two tears of humiliation--else no tongue could have described
_Susannah’s_ affliction--is not all flesh grass? --’Tis clay, --’tis
dirt. --They all looked directly at the scullion, --the scullion had
just been scouring a fish-kettle. --It was not fair.----
--What is the finest face that ever man looked at! --I could hear _Trim_
talk so for ever, cried _Susannah_, --what is it! (_Susannah_ laid her
hand upon _Trim’s_ shoulder)--but corruption? ----_Susannah_ took it
off.
Now I love you for this--and ’tis this delicious mixture within you
which makes you dear creatures what you are--and he who hates you for
it------all I can say of the matter is --That he has either a pumpkin
for his head--or a pippin for his heart, --and whenever he is dissected
’twill be found so.
CHAPTER X
Whether _Susannah_, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the
corporal’s shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions)----broke a
little the chain of his reflexions----
Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into the
doctor’s quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than
himself------
Or whether - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Or
whether----for in all such cases a man of invention and parts may with
pleasure fill a couple of pages with suppositions----which of all these
was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curious anybody
determine----’tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his
harangue.
For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at
all: --not this ... added the corporal, snapping his fingers, --but with
an air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.
--In battle, I value death not this . . . and let him not take me
cowardly, like poor _Joe Gibbins_, in scouring his gun --What is he?
A pull of a trigger--a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that--makes
the difference. --Look along the line--to the right--see! _Jack’s_ down!
well, --’tis worth a regiment of horse to him. --No--’tis _Dick_. Then
_Jack’s_ no worse. --Never mind which, --we pass on, --in hot pursuit
the wound itself which brings him is not felt, --the best way is to
stand up to him, --the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than
the man who marches up into his jaws. --I’ve look’d him, added the
corporal, an hundred times in the face, --and know what he is. --He’s
nothing, _Obadiah_, at all in the field. --But he’s very frightful in a
house, quoth _Obadiah_. ----I never mind it myself, said _Jonathan_,
upon a coach-box. --It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed,
replied _Susannah_. --And could I escape him by creeping into the worst
calf’s skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it
there--said _Trim_--but that is nature.
----Nature is nature, said _Jonathan_. --And that is the reason, cried
_Susannah_, I so much pity my mistress. --She will never get the better
of it. --Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family,
answered _Trim_. ----Madam will get ease of heart in weeping, --and the
Squire in talking about it, --but my poor master will keep it all in
silence to himself, --I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month
together, as he did for lieutenant _Le Fever_. --An’ please your honour,
do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him.
I cannot help it, _Trim_, my master would say, ----’tis so melancholy an
accident --I cannot get it off my heart. --Your honour fears not death
yourself. --I hope, _Trim_, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing
a wrong thing. ----Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take
care of _Le Fever’s_ boy. --And with that, like a quieting draught, his
honour would fall asleep.
I like to hear _Trim’s_ stories about the captain, said _Susannah_. --He
is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said _Obadiah_, as ever lived. --Aye, and
as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a platoon.
--There never was a better officer in the king’s army, --or a better man
in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though
he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole, --and yet, for all
that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people. ----He would
not hurt a chicken. ----I would sooner, quoth _Jonathan_, drive such a
gentleman for seven pounds a year--than some for eight. --Thank thee,
_Jonathan!_ for thy twenty shillings, --as much, _Jonathan_, said the
corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into
my own pocket. ----I would serve him to the day of my death out of love.
He is a friend and a brother to me, --and could I be sure my poor
brother _Tom_ was dead, --continued the corporal, taking out his
handkerchief, --was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every
shilling of it to the captain. ----_Trim_ could not refrain from tears
at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master.
----The whole kitchen was affected. --Do tell us the story of the poor
lieutenant, said _Susannah_. ----With all my heart, answered the
corporal.
_Susannah_, the cook, _Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, and corporal _Trim_, formed
a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the
kitchen door, --the corporal begun.
CHAPTER XI
I am a _Turk_ if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had
plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river
_Nile_, without one. ----Your most obedient servant, Madam --I’ve cost
you a great deal of trouble, --I wish it may answer; --but you have left
a crack in my back, --and here’s a great piece fallen off here before,
--and what must I do with this foot? ----I shall never reach _England_
with it.
For my own part, I never wonder at any thing; --and so often has my
judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or
wrong, --at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this,
I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a
man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as
for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without,
--I’ll go to the world’s end with him: ----But I hate disputes, --and
therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society) I would
almost subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first
passage, rather than be drawn into one. ----But I cannot bear
suffocation, ----and bad smells worst of all. ----For which reasons,
I resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to
be augmented, --or a new one raised, --I would have no hand in it, one
way or t’other.
CHAPTER XII
----But to return to my mother.
My uncle _Toby’s_ opinion, Madam, “that there could be no harm in
_Cornelius Gallus_, the _Roman_ prætor’s lying with his wife;” ----or
rather the last word of that opinion, --(for it was all my mother heard
of it) caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex: ----You
shall not mistake me, --I mean her curiosity, --she instantly concluded
herself the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession
upon her fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said, was
accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns.
----Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live, who would not have
done the same?
From the strange mode of _Cornelius’s_ death, my father had made a
transition to that of _Socrates_, and was giving my uncle _Toby_ an
abstract of his pleading before his judges; ----’twas irresistible:
----not the oration of _Socrates_, --but my father’s temptation to it.
----He had wrote the Life of _Socrates_[5.1] himself the year before he
left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it;
----so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so
swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was.
Not a period in _Socrates’s_ oration, which closed with a shorter word
than _transmigration_, or _annihilation_, --or a worse thought in the
middle of it than _to be--or not to be_, --the entering upon a new and
untried state of things, --or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful
sleep, without dreams, without disturbance? ----_That we and our
children were born to die, --but neither of us born to be slaves_.
----No--there I mistake; that was part of _Eleazer’s_ oration, as
recorded by _Josephus_ (_de Bell. Judaic._)----_Eleazer_ owns he had it
from the philosophers of _India_; in all likelihood _Alexander_ the
Great, in his irruption into _India_, after he had over-run _Persia_,
amongst the many things he stole, --stole that sentiment also; by which
means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he
died at _Babylon_), at least by some of his maroders, into _Greece_,
--from _Greece_ it got to _Rome_, --from _Rome_ to _France_, --and from
_France_ to _England_: ----So things come round.----
By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.----
By water the sentiment might easily have come down the _Ganges_ into the
_Sinus Gangeticus_, or _Bay of Bengal_, and so into the _Indian Sea_;
and following the course of trade (the way from _India_ by the _Cape of
Good Hope_ being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and
spices up the _Red Sea_ to _Joddah_, the port of _Mekka_, or else to
_Tor_ or _Sues_, towns at the bottom of the gulf; and from thence by
karrawans to _Coptos_, but three days’ journey distant, so down the
_Nile_ directly to _Alexandria_, where the SENTIMENT would be landed at
the very foot of the great stair-case of the _Alexandrian_ library,
----and from that store-house it would be fetched. ------Bless me! what
a trade was driven by the learned in those days!
[Footnote 5.1: This book my father would never consent to
publish; ’tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in
the family, all, or most of which will be printed in due time.]
CHAPTER XIII
----Now my father had a way, a little like that of _Job’s_ (in case
there ever was such a man----if not, there’s an end of the matter.----
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in
fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived; --whether, for
instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c. ----to vote, therefore,
that he never lived _at all_, is a little cruel, --’tis not doing as
they would be done by, --happen that as it may) ----My father, I say,
had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon
the first sally of his impatience, --of wondering why he was begot,
--wishing himself dead; --sometimes worse: ----And when the provocation
ran high, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary
powers --Sir, you scarce could have distinguished him from _Socrates_
himself. ----Every word would breathe the sentiments of a soul
disdaining life, and careless about all its issues; for which reason,
though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the abstract of
_Socrates’s_ oration, which my father was giving my uncle _Toby_, was
not altogether new to her. --She listened to it with composed
intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter, had not
my father plunged (which he had no occasion to have done) into that part
of the pleading where the great philosopher reckons up his connections,
his alliances, and children; but renounces a security to be so won by
working upon the passions of his judges. --“I have friends --I have
relations, --I have three desolate children,” --says _Socrates_.--
----Then, cried my mother, opening the door, ----you have one more, Mr.
_Shandy_, than I know of.
By heaven! I have one less, --said my father, getting up and walking out
of the room.
CHAPTER XIV
----They are _Socrates’s_ children, said my uncle _Toby_. He has been
dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother.
My uncle _Toby_ was no chronologer--so not caring to advance one step
but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the table,
and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without
saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out after my
father, that he might finish the ecclaircissement himself.
CHAPTER XV
Had this volume been a farce, which, unless every one’s life and
opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no
reason to suppose--the last chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of
it, and then this chapter must have set off thus.
Ptr..r..r..ing--twing--twang--prut--trut----’tis a cursed bad fiddle.
--Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or no? --trut..prut.. --They
should be _fifths_. ----’Tis wickedly strung--tr...a.e.i.o.u.-twang.
--The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down,
--else--trut . . prut--hark! ’tis not so bad a tone. --Diddle diddle,
diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before
good judges, --but there’s a man there--no--not him with the bundle
under his arm--the grave man in black. --’Sdeath! not the gentleman with
the sword on. --Sir, I had rather play a _Caprichio_ to _Calliope_
herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet
I’ll stake my _Cremona_ to a _Jew’s_ trump, which is the greatest
musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three
hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing
one single nerve that belongs to him --Twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle,
--twiddle diddle, ----twoddle diddle, --twuddle diddle, ----prut
trut--krish--krash--krush. --I’ve undone you, Sir, --but you see he’s no
worse, --and was _Apollo_ to take his fiddle after me, he can make him
no better.
Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle--hum--dum--drum.
--Your worships and your reverences love music--and God has made you all
with good ears--and some of you play delightfully yourselves--trut-prut,
--prut-trut.
O! there is--whom I could sit and hear whole days, --whose talents lie
in making what he fiddles to be felt, --who inspires me with his joys
and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion.
--If you would borrow five guineas of me, Sir, --which is generally ten
guineas more than I have to spare--or you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor,
want your bills paying, --that’s your time.
CHAPTER XVI
The first thing which entered my father’s head, after affairs were a
little settled in the family, and _Susannah_ had got possession of my
mother’s green sattin night-gown, --was to sit down coolly, after the
example of _Xenophon_, and write a TRISTRA-pædia, or system of education
for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts,
counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an
INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my
father’s last stake--he had lost my brother _Bobby_ entirely, --he had
lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me--that is, he had
been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me--my geniture,
nose, and name, --there was but this one left; and accordingly my father
gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle _Toby_ had
done to his doctrine of projectils. --The difference between them was,
that my uncle _Toby_ drew his whole knowledge of projectils from
_Nicholas Tartaglia_ --My father spun his, every thread of it, out of
his own brain, --or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and
spinsters had spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture
to him.
In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced
almost into the middle of his work. --Like all other writers, he met
with disappointments. --He imagined he should be able to bring whatever
he had to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and
bound, it might be rolled up in my mother’s hussive. --Matter grows
under our hands. --Let no man say, --“Come --I’ll write a duodecimo.”
My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful
diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of
caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious
a principle) as was used by _John de la Casse_, the lord archbishop of
_Benevento_, in compassing his _Galatea_; in which his Grace of
_Benevento_ spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came
out, it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a _Rider’s_
Almanack. --How the holy man managed the affair, unless he spent the
greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at
_primero_ with his chaplain, --would pose any mortal not let into the
true secret; --and therefore ’tis worth explaining to the world, was it
only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to
be fed--as to be famous.
I own had _John de la Casse_, the archbishop of _Benevento_, for whose
memory (notwithstanding his _Galatea_) I retain the highest veneration,
--had he been, Sir, a slender clerk--of dull wit--slow parts--costive
head, and so forth, --he and his _Galatea_ might have jogged on together
to the age of _Methuselah_ for me, --the phænomenon had not been worth a
parenthesis.--
But the reverse of this was the truth: _John de la Casse_ was a genius
of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these advantages of
nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his _Galatea_, he
lay under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and
a half in the compass of a whole summer’s day: this disability in his
Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted with, --which opinion was
this, --_viz._ that whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his
private amusement, but) where his intent and purpose was, _bonâ fide_,
to print and publish it to the world, his first thoughts were always the
temptations of the evil one. --This was the state of ordinary writers:
but when a personage of venerable character and high station, either in
church or state, once turned author, --he maintained, that from the very
moment he took pen in hand--all the devils in hell broke out of their
holes to cajole him. --’Twas Term-time with them, --every thought, first
and last, was captious; --how specious and good soever, --’twas all one;
--in whatever form or colour it presented itself to the imagination,
--’twas still a stroke of one or other of ’em levell’d at him, and was
to be fenced off. --So that the life of a writer, whatever he might
fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of _composition_, as a
state of _warfare_; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other
man militant upon earth, --both depending alike, not half so much upon
the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.
My father was hugely pleased with this theory of _John de la Casse_,
archbishop of _Benevento_; and (had it not cramped him a little in his
creed) I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the _Shandy_
estate, to have been the broacher of it. --How far my father actually
believed in the devil, will be seen, when I come to speak of my father’s
religious notions, in the progress of this work: ’tis enough to say
here, as he could not have the honour of it, in the literal sense of the
doctrine--he took up with the allegory of it; and would often say,
especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good
meaning, truth, and knowledge, couched under the veil of _John de la
Casse’s_ parabolical representation, --as was to be found in any one
poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity. --Prejudice of education,
he would say, _is the devil_, --and the multitudes of them which we suck
in with our mother’s milk--_are the devil and all_. ----We are haunted
with them, brother _Toby_, in all our lucubrations and researches; and
was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they obtruded upon him,
--what would his book be? Nothing, --he would add, throwing his pen away
with a vengeance, --nothing but a farrago of the clack of nurses, and of
the nonsense of the old women (of both sexes) throughout the kingdom.
This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my
father made in his _Tristra-pædia_; at which (as I said) he was three
years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, had
scarce completed, by his own reckoning, one half of his undertaking: the
misfortune was, that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned
to my mother: and what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first
part of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains,
was rendered entirely useless, ----every day a page or two became of no
consequence.----
----Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human
wisdom, That the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and
eternally forego our purposes, in the intemperate act of pursuing them.
In short, my father was so long in all his acts of resistance, --or in
other words, --he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to
live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened,
----which, when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not
be concealed a moment from the reader ----I verily believe, I had put by
my father, and left him drawing a sun-dial, for no better purpose than
to be buried underground.
CHAPTER XVII
----’Twas nothing, --I did not lose two drops of blood by it----
----’twas not worth calling in a surgeon, had he lived next door to
us----thousands suffer by choice, what I did by accident. ----Doctor
_Slop_ made ten times more of it, than there was occasion: ----some men
rise, by the art of hanging great weights upon small wires, --and I am
this day (_August_ the 10th, 1761) paying part of the price of this
man’s reputation. ----O ’twould provoke a stone, to see how things are
carried on in this world! ----The chamber-maid had left no ******* ***
under the bed: ----Cannot you contrive, master, quoth _Susannah_,
lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into
the window-seat with the other, --cannot you manage, my dear, for a
single time, to **** *** ** *** ******?
I was five years old. ----_Susannah_ did not consider that nothing was
well hung in our family, ----so slap came the sash down like lightning
upon us; --Nothing is left, --cried _Susannah_, --nothing is left--for
me, but to run my country.----
My uncle _Toby’s_ house was a much kinder sanctuary; and so _Susannah_
fled to it.
CHAPTER XVIII
When _Susannah_ told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all
the circumstances which attended the _murder_ of me, --(as she
called it)-- the blood forsook his cheeks, --all accessaries in murder
being principals, --_Trim’s_ conscience told him he was as much to blame
as _Susannah_, --and if the doctrine had been true, my uncle _Toby_ had
as much of the bloodshed to answer for to heaven, as either of ’em; --so
that neither reason or instinct, separate or together, could possibly
have guided _Susannah’s_ steps to so proper an asylum. It is in vain to
leave this to the Reader’s imagination: --to form any kind of hypothesis
that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains
sore, --and to do it without, --he must have such brains as no reader
ever had before him. ----Why should I put them either to trial or to
torture? ’Tis my own affair: I’ll explain it myself.
CHAPTER XIX
’Tis a pity, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, resting with his hand upon
the corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works,
--that we have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in the gorge of
that new redoubt; ----’twould secure the lines all along there, and make
the attack on that side quite complete: ----get me a couple cast,
_Trim_.
Your honour shall have them, replied _Trim_, before to-morrow morning.
It was the joy of _Trim’s_ heart, --nor was his fertile head ever at a
loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle _Toby_ in his
campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last
crown, he would have sate down and hammered it into a paderero, to have
prevented a single wish in his Master. The corporal had already, --what
with cutting off the ends of my uncle _Toby’s_ spouts--hacking and
chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters, --melting down his pewter
shaving-bason, --and going at last, like _Lewis_ the Fourteenth, on to
the top of the church, for spare ends, &c. ----he had that very campaign
brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three
demi-culverins, into the field; my uncle _Toby’s_ demand for two more
pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no
better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the
nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of
no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels
for one of their carriages.
He had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle _Toby’s_ house long
before, in the very same way, --though not always in the same order; for
sometimes the pullies have been wanted, and not the lead, --so then he
began with the pullies, --and the pullies being picked out, then the
lead became useless, --and so the lead went to pot too.
----A great MORAL might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not
time--’tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, ’twas equally
fatal to the sash window.
CHAPTER XX
The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of
artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to
himself, and left _Susannah_ to have sustained the whole weight of the
attack, as she could; --true courage is not content with coming off so.
----The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the train,
--’twas no matter, ----had done that, without which, as he imagined, the
misfortune could never have happened, --_at least in_ Susannah’s
_hands_; ----How would your honours have behaved? ----He determined at
once, not to take shelter behind _Susannah_, --but to give it; and with
this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to
lay the whole _manœuvre_ before my uncle _Toby_.
My uncle _Toby_ had just then been giving _Yorick_ an account of the
battle of _Steenkirk_, and of the strange conduct of count _Solmes_ in
ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not
act; which was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the
loss of the day.
There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is
going to follow, --they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a
dramatic writer; --I mean of ancient days.------
_Trim_, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the
edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a shift to
tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;
--and the story being told, --the dialogue went on as follows.
CHAPTER XXI
----I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded
_Susannah’s_ story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,
--’twas my fault, an’ please your honour, --not hers.
Corporal _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_, putting on his hat which lay
upon the table, ----if anything can be said to be a fault, when the
service absolutely requires it should be done, --’tis I certainly who
deserve the blame, ----you obeyed your orders.
Had count _Solmes_, _Trim_, done the same at the battle of _Steenkirk_,
said _Yorick_, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run
over by a dragoon in the retreat, ----he had saved thee; ----Saved!
cried _Trim_, interrupting _Yorick_, and finishing the sentence for him
after his own fashion, ----he had saved five battalions, an’ please your
reverence, every soul of them: ----there was _Cutts’s_--continued the
corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of
his left, and counting round his hand, ----there was _Cutts’s_,
----_Mackay’s_, ----_Angus’s_, ----_Graham’s_, ----and _Leven’s_, all
cut to pieces; ----and so had the _English_ life-guards too, had it not
been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their
relief, and received the enemy’s fire in their faces, before any one of
their own platoons discharged a musket, ----they’ll go to heaven for it,
--added _Trim_. --_Trim_ is right, said my uncle _Toby_, nodding to
_Yorick_, ----he’s perfectly right. What signified his marching the
horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so straight, that
the _French_ had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and
fell’d trees laid this way and that to cover them; (as they always
have). ----Count _Solmes_ should have sent us, ----we would have fired
muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives. ----There was nothing to be
done for the horse: ----he had his foot shot off however for his pains,
continued the corporal, the very next campaign at _Landen_. --Poor
_Trim_ got his wound there, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----’Twas owing, an’
please your honour, entirely to count _Solmes_, ----had he drubb’d them
soundly at _Steenkirk_, they would not have fought us at _Landen_.
----Possibly not, ----_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_; ----though if they
have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment’s time to
intrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever
at you. ----There is no way but to march coolly up to them, ----receive
their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell ----Ding dong, added _Trim_.
----Horse and foot, said my uncle _Toby_. ----Helter skelter, said
_Trim_. ----Right and left, cried my uncle _Toby_. ----Blood an’ ounds,
shouted the corporal; ----the battle raged, ----_Yorick_ drew his chair
a little to one side for safety, and after a moment’s pause, my uncle
_Toby_ sinking his voice a note, --resumed the discourse as follows.
CHAPTER XXII
King _William_, said my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to _Yorick_,
was so terribly provoked at count _Solmes_ for disobeying his orders,
that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months
after. ----I fear, answered _Yorick_, the squire will be as much
provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count. ----But ’twould be
singularly hard in this case, continued he, if corporal _Trim_, who has
behaved so diametrically opposite to count _Solmes_, should have the
fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace: ----too oft in this world,
do things take that train. ----I would spring a mine, cried my uncle
_Toby_, rising up, ----and blow up my fortifications, and my house with
them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and
see it. ----_Trim_ directed a slight, ----but a grateful bow towards his
master, ----and so the chapter ends.
CHAPTER XXIII
----Then, _Yorick_, replied my uncle _Toby_, you and I will lead the way
abreast, ----and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us. ----And
_Susannah_, an’ please your honour, said _Trim_, shall be put in the
rear. ----’Twas an excellent disposition, --and in this order, without
either drums beating, or colours flying, they marched slowly from my
uncle _Toby’s_ house to _Shandy-hall_.
----I wish, said _Trim_, as they entered the door, --instead of the sash
weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have done.
--You have cut off spouts enow, replied _Yorick_.----
CHAPTER XXIV
As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in
different airs and attitudes, --not one, or all of them, can ever help
the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think,
speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life. --There
was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by
which handle he would take a thing, --it baffled, Sir, all calculations.
----The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that
wherein most men travelled, --that every object before him presented a
face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the
plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind. --In other words,
’twas a different object, and in course was differently considered:
This is the true reason, that my dear _Jenny_ and I, as well as all the
world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing. --She looks
at her outside, --I, at her in--. How is it possible we should agree
about her value?
CHAPTER XXV
’Tis a point settled, --and I mention it for the comfort of
_Confucius_,[5.2] who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain
story--that provided he keeps along the line of his story, --he may go
backwards and forwards as he will, --’tis still held to be no
digression.
This being premised, I take the benefit of the _act of going backwards_
myself.
[Footnote 5.2: Mr. _Shandy_ is supposed to mean ******** ***
Esq.; member for ******, ----and not the _Chinese_ Legislator.]
CHAPTER XXVI
Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils--(not of the Archbishop of
_Benevento’s_, --I mean of _Rabelais’s_ devils) with their tails chopped
off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as
I did--when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly
into the nursery, --so that _Susannah_ had but just time to make her
escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.
Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself, --and young
enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet _Susannah_, in
passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in shorthand
with the cook--the cook had told it with a commentary to _Jonathan_, and
_Jonathan_ to _Obadiah_; so that by the time my father had rung the bell
half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above, --was _Obadiah_
enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.
--I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown; --and so
walked up stairs.
One would imagine from this----(though for my own part I somewhat
question it)--that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that
remarkable character in the _Tristra-pædia_, which to me is the most
original and entertaining one in the whole book; --and that is the
_chapter upon sash-windows_, with a bitter _Philippick_ at the end of
it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids. --I have but two reasons
for thinking otherwise.
First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event
happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for
good an’ all; --which, considering with what difficulty he composed
books, --he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could
have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his
writing a chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the
second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support
of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon
sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed, --and it is this.
----That, in order to render the _Tristra-pædia_ complete, --I wrote the
chapter myself.
CHAPTER XXVII
My father put on his spectacles--looked, --took them off, --put them
into the case--all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening
his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother
imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him
return with a couple of folios under his arm, and _Obadiah_ following
him with a large reading-desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal,
and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the
case at his ease.
----If it be but right done, --said my father, turning to the
_Section--de sede vel subjecto circumcisionis_, ----for he had brought
up _Spenser de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus_--and _Maimonides_, in order
to confront and examine us altogether.--
----If it be but right done, quoth he: --only tell us, cried my mother,
interrupting him, what herbs? ----For that, replied my father, you must
send for Dr. _Slop_.
My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as
follows,
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * ------Very well, --said my father,
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * --nay, if it has that convenience----and so without
stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the _Jews_ had
it from the _Egyptians_, or the _Egyptians_ from the _Jews_, --he rose
up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of
his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has
trod lighter upon us than we foreboded, --he shut the book, and walked
down stairs. --Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great
nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it--if the EGYPTIANS,
--the SYRIANS, --the PHOENICIANS, --the ARABIANS, --the CAPPADOCIANS,
----if the COLCHI, and TROGLODYTES did it----if SOLON and PYTHAGORAS
submitted, --what is TRISTRAM? ----Who am I, that I should fret or fume
one moment about the matter?
CHAPTER XXVIII
Dear _Yorick_, said my father, smiling (for _Yorick_ had broke his rank
with my uncle _Toby_ in coming through the narrow entry, and so had
stept first into the parlour)--this _Tristram_ of ours, I find, comes
very hardly by all his religious rites. --Never was the son of _Jew_,
_Christian_, _Turk_, or _Infidel_ initiated into them in so oblique and
slovenly a manner. --But he is no worse, I trust, said _Yorick_. --There
has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some
part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed.
--That, you are a better judge of than I, replied _Yorick_.
--Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both: --the trine
and sextil aspects have jumped awry, --or the opposite of their
ascendants have not hit it, as they should, --or the lords of the
genitures (as they call them) have been at _bo-peep_, --or something has
been wrong above, or below with us.
’Tis possible, answered _Yorick_. --But is the child, cried my uncle
_Toby_, the worse? --The _Troglodytes_ say not, replied my father. And
your theologists, _Yorick_, tell us --Theologically? said _Yorick_, --or
speaking after the manner of apothecaries?[5.3]--statesmen?[5.4]--or
washer-women?[5.5]
----I’m not sure, replied my father, --but they tell us, brother _Toby_,
he’s the better for it. ----Provided, said _Yorick_, you travel him into
_Egypt_. ----Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage,
when he sees the _Pyramids_.----
Now every word of this, quoth my uncle _Toby_, is _Arabick_ to me. ----I
wish, said _Yorick_, ’twas so, to half the world.
----ILUS,[5.6] continued my father, circumcised his whole army one
morning. --Not without a court martial? cried my uncle _Toby_.
----Though the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle
_Toby’s_ remark, but turning to _Yorick_, --are greatly divided still
who _Ilus_ was; --some say _Saturn_; --some the Supreme Being; --others,
no more than a brigadier general under _Pharaoh-neco_. ----Let him be
who he will, said my uncle _Toby_, I know not by what article of war he
could justify it.
The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different
reasons for it: --others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the
opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the
greatest part of them. --But then again, our best polemic divines --I
wish there was not a polemic divine, said _Yorick_, in the kingdom;
--one ounce of practical divinity--is worth a painted ship-load of all
their reverences have imported these fifty years. --Pray, Mr. _Yorick_,
quoth my uncle _Toby_, --do tell me what a polemic divine is? ----The
best description, captain _Shandy_, I have ever read, is of a couple of
’em, replied _Yorick_, in the account of the battle fought single hands
betwixt _Gymnast_ and captain _Tripet_; which I have in my pocket. ----I
beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle _Toby_ earnestly. --You shall, said
_Yorick_. --And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door, --and I
know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than
his supper, --I beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in. --With
all my soul, said my father. ----_Trim_ came in, erect and happy as an
emperor; and having shut the door, _Yorick_ took a book from his
right-hand coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows.
[Footnote 5.3: Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν, ἣν ἄνθρακα
καλοῦσιν. --PHILO.]
[Footnote 5.4: Τὰ τεμνόμενα τῶν ἐθνῶν τολυγονώτατα, καὶ
πολυανθρωπότατα εἶναι.]
[Footnote 5.5: Καθαριότητος εἵνεκεν. --BOCHART.]
[Footnote 5.6: Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ
τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμάχους καταναγκάσας. --SANCHUNIATHO.]
CHAPTER XXIX
----“which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there,
divers of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room
for the assailant: all this did _Gymnast_ very well remark and consider;
and therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse,
as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his
short sword by his thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and
performing the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his
body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and
placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with
his back turned towards his horse’s head, --Now (said he) my case goes
forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a
gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry
his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing
one jot. ----Ha! said _Tripet_, I will not do that at this time, --and
not without cause. Well, said _Gymnast_, I have failed, --I will undo
this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards
the right-hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which
done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised
himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole
weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and
whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body,
and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without _touching
anything_, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then
giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper----”
(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle _Toby_. ----The corporal shook
his head at it. ----Have patience, said _Yorick_.)
“Then (_Tripet_) pass’d his right leg over his saddle, and placed
himself _en croup_. --But, said he, ’twere better for me to get into the
saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before
him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his
body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait
found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then
springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a
wind-mill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.”
--Good God! cried _Trim_, losing all patience, --one home thrust of a
bayonet is worth it all. ----I think so too, replied _Yorick_.----
I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.
CHAPTER XXX
----No, --I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making
answer to a question which _Yorick_ had taken the liberty to put to him,
--I have advanced nothing in the _Tristra-pædia_, but what is as clear
as any one proposition in _Euclid_. --Reach me, _Trim_, that book from
off the scrutoir: ----it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my
father, to have read it over both to you, _Yorick_, and to my brother
_Toby_, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done
it long ago: ----shall we have a short chapter or two now, --and a
chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get
through the whole? My uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_ made the obeisance which
was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the
compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same
time. ----The company smiled. _Trim_, quoth my father, has paid the full
price for staying out the _entertainment_. ----He did not seem to relish
the play, replied _Yorick_. ----’Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your
reverence, of captain _Tripet’s_ and that other officer, making so many
summersets, as they advanced; ----the _French_ come on capering now and
then in that way, --but not quite so much.
My uncle _Toby_ never felt the consciousness of his existence with more
complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him
do at that moment; ----he lighted his pipe, ----_Yorick_ drew his chair
closer to the table, --_Trim_ snuff’d the candle, --my father stirr’d up
the fire, --took up the book, --cough’d twice, and begun.
CHAPTER XXXI
The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves, --are a
little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject,
----for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory introduction,
continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined
which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the
foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and
female, for procreation of the species ----I was insensibly led into it.
----’Twas natural, said _Yorick_.
The original of society, continued my father, I’m satisfied is, what
_Politian_ tells us, _i.e._, merely conjugal; and nothing more than the
getting together of one man and one woman; --to which, (according to
_Hesiod_) the philosopher adds a servant: ----but supposing in the first
beginning there were no men servants born----he lays the foundation of
it, in a man, --a woman--and a bull. ----I believe ’tis an ox, quoth
_Yorick_, quoting the passage (οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα, γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’
ἀροτῆρα). ----A bull must have given more trouble than his head was
worth. ----But there is a better reason still, said my father (dipping
his pen into his ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and
the most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,
--was the properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined
couple, that the creation could have associated with them. --And there
is a stronger reason, added my uncle _Toby_, than them all for the ox.
--My father had not power to take his pen out of his ink-horn, till he
had heard my uncle _Toby’s_ reason. --For when the ground was tilled,
said my uncle _Toby_, and made worth inclosing, then they began to
secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification.
----True, true, dear _Toby_, cried my father, striking out the bull, and
putting the ox in his place.
My father gave _Trim_ a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his
discourse.
----I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half
shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the
natural relation between a father and his child; the right and
jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways--
1st, by marriage.
2d, by adoption.
3d, by legitimation.
And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order.
I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied _Yorick_----the act,
especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation
upon the child, as it conveys power to the father. --You are wrong,
--said my father argutely, and for this plain reason * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * --I own, added my
father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power
and jurisdiction of the mother. --But the reason, replied _Yorick_,
equally holds good for her. ----She is under authority herself, said my
father: --and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying
his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason, --_she
is not the principal agent, _Yorick_._ --In what, quoth my uncle _Toby?_
stopping his pipe. --Though by all means, added my father (not attending
to my uncle _Toby_) “_The son ought to pay her respect_,” as you may
read, _Yorick_, at large in the first book of the Institutes of
_Justinian_, at the eleventh title and the tenth section, --I can read
it as well, replied _Yorick_, in the Catechism.
CHAPTER XXXII
Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby_.
--Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim’s_
saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby_.
--Ask him, Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.----
--The fifth Commandment, _Trim_--said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and
with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.
--You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his voice, and
giving it rapidly like the word of command: ----The fifth--------cried
my uncle _Toby_. --I must begin with the first, an’ please your honour,
said the corporal.----
--_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling. --Your reverence does not
consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and
marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position, --that
’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.--
“_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving
the word of command, and performing the motion.--
“_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both
of adjutant and private man.
“_Rest your firelock_;” --one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see
leads into another. --If his honour will begin but with the _first_--
THE FIRST--cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side--
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
THE SECOND--cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would
have done his sword at the head of a regiment. --The corporal went
through his _manual_ with exactness! and having _honoured his father and
mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.
Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest, --and has
wit in it, and instruction too, --if we can but find it out.
--Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly,
without the BUILDING behind it.
--Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors,
gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true
dimensions.--
Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning,
which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!
--SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE, BUT WISDOM NOT.
_Yorick_ thought my father inspired. --I will enter into obligations
this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah’s_ legacy in
charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion),
if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he
has repeated. --Prythee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to him,
--What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_”
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three half-pence a day out of my
pay, when they grow old. --And didst thou do that, _Trim?_ said
_Yorick_. --He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby_. --Then, _Trim_, said
_Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the
hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue_;
and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had a
hand in the _Talmud_ itself.
CHAPTER XXXIII
O blessed health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned
over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art above all gold and
treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul, --and openest all its powers
to receive instruction and to relish virtue. --He that has thee, has
little more to wish for; --and he that is so wretched as to want thee,
--wants everything with thee.
I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said
my father, into a very little room, therefore we’ll read the chapter
quite through.
My father read as follows:
“The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for
mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture” --You have
proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said _Yorick_.
Sufficiently, replied my father.
In saying this, my father shut the book, --not as if he resolved to read
no more of it, for he kept his forefinger in the chapter: ----nor
pettishly, --for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had
done it, upon the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers
supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive
violence.----
I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to
_Yorick_, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter.
Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote
a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health
depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the _radical heat_
and the _radical moisture_, --and that he had managed the point so well,
that there was not one single word wet or dry upon radical heat or
radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter, --or a single syllable
in it, _pro_ or _con_, directly or indirectly, upon the contention
betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal œconomy----
“O thou eternal Maker of all beings!” --he would cry, striking his
breast with his right hand (in case he had one)-- “Thou whose power and
goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite
degree of excellence and perfection, --What have we MOONITES done?”
CHAPTER XXXIV
With two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord _Verulam_,
did my father achieve it.
The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more
than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars longa_,
--and _Vita brevis_. ----Life short, cried my father, --and the art of
healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other,
but the ignorance of quacks themselves, --and the stage-loads of
chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they
have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it?
----O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_,
and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of
nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,
----What shall I say to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say
to thy internal spirit, --thy opium, --thy salt-petre, ----thy greasy
unctions, --thy daily purges, --thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums?
----My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any
subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man
breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion, ----you shall see;
----but when --I know not; ----we must first see what his lordship’s
opinion was.
CHAPTER XXXV
“The two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life,
says lord _Verulam_, are first----
“The internal spirit, which, like a gentle flame, wastes the body down
to death: --And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to
ashes: --which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies
together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry
on the functions of life.”
This being the state of the case, the road to Longevity was plain;
nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste
committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more
thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by
refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of
salt-petre every morning before you got up.----
Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of
the air without; --but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy
unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no
spicula could enter; ----nor could any one get out. ----This put a stop
to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of
so many scurvy distempers--a course of clysters was requisite to carry
off redundant humours, --and render the system complete.
What my father had to say to my lord of _Verulam’s_ opiates, his
salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read, --but not
to-day--or to-morrow: time presses upon me, --my reader is impatient --I
must get forwards. ----You shall read the chapter at your leisure
(if you chuse it), as soon as ever the _Tristra-pædia_ is
published.----
Sufficeth it at present, to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with
the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and
established his own.----
CHAPTER XXXVI
The whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence
again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical
heat and radical moisture within us; --the least imaginable skill had
been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the schoolmen confounded
the talk, merely (as _Van Helmont_, the famous chymist, has proved) by
all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of
animal bodies.
Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an
oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm
or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a
lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of
_Aristotle_, “_Quod omne animal post coitum est _triste_._”
Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture,
but whether _vice versâ_, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the
other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which
causes an unnatural dryness----or an unnatural moisture, which causes
dropsies. ----So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to
avoid running into fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his
destruction, ----’twill be all that is needful to be done upon that
head.----
CHAPTER XXXVII
The description of the siege of _Jericho_ itself, could not have engaged
the attention of my uncle _Toby_ more powerfully than the last chapter;
--his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it; --he never mentioned
radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle _Toby_ took his pipe out
of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was
finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair,
to ask him the following question, --_aside_. ---- * *
* * * * * * * It was at
the siege of _Limerick_, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal,
making a bow.
The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to my
father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the
siege of _Limerick_ was raised, upon the very account you mention.
----Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear
brother _Toby?_ cried my father, mentally. ----By Heaven! continued he,
communing still with himself, it would puzzle an _Œdipus_ to bring it in
point.----
I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had
not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the
claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off; --And the
geneva, _Trim_, added my uncle _Toby_, which did us more good than
all ----I verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an’ please
your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them
too. ----The noblest grave, corporal! cried my uncle _Toby_, his eyes
sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in. ----But
a pitiful death for him! an’ please your honour, replied the corporal.
All this was as much _Arabick_ to my father, as the rites of the
_Colchi_ and _Troglodites_ had been before to my uncle _Toby_; my father
could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile.----
My uncle _Toby_, turning to _Yorick_, resumed the case at _Limerick_,
more intelligibly than he had begun it, --and so settled the point for
my father at once.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
It was undoubtedly, said my uncle _Toby_, a great happiness for myself
and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a
most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was
upon us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical
moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better. ----My
father drew in his lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth
again, as slowly as he possibly could.----
------It was Heaven’s mercy to us, continued my uncle _Toby_, which put
it into the corporal’s head to maintain that due contention betwixt the
radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforcing the fever, as he
did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up
(as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its
ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the
moisture, terrible as it was. ----Upon my honour, added my uncle _Toby_,
you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother _Shandy_,
twenty toises. --If there was no firing, said _Yorick_.
Well--said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after
the word --Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one
permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided
they had had their clergy-------- ----_Yorick_, foreseeing the sentence
was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father’s
breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked
the corporal a question. ----Prithee, _Trim_, said _Yorick_, without
staying for my father’s leave, --tell us honestly--what is thy opinion
concerning this self-same radical heat and radical moisture?
With humble submission to his honour’s better judgment, quoth the
corporal, making a bow to my uncle _Toby_ --Speak thy opinion freely,
corporal, said my uncle _Toby_. --The poor fellow is my servant, --not
my slave, --added my uncle _Toby_, turning to my father.----
The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging
upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the
knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism;
then touching his under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right-hand
before he opened his mouth, ----he delivered his notion thus.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Just as the corporal was humming, to begin--in waddled Dr. _Slop_.
--’Tis not two-pence matter--the corporal shall go on in the next
chapter, let who will come in.----
Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of
his passions were unaccountably sudden, --and what has this whelp of
mine to say to the matter?
Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a
puppy-dog--he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system
which Dr. _Slop_ had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed
of such a mode of enquiry. --He sat down.
Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in a manner which could not go
unanswered, --in what condition is the boy? --’Twill end in a
_phimosis_, replied Dr. _Slop_.
I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle _Toby_--returning his pipe into
his mouth. ----Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his
medical lecture. --The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr.
_Slop_, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and
radical moisture, in the following words.
CHAPTER XL
The city of _Limerick_, the siege of which was begun under his majesty
king _William_ himself, the year after I went into the army--lies, an’
please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country.
--’Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle _Toby_, with the _Shannon_, and
is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in
_Ireland_.----
I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. _Slop_, of beginning a medical
lecture. --’Tis all true, answered _Trim_. --Then I wish the faculty
would follow the cut of it, said _Yorick_. --’Tis all cut through, an’
please your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and
besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the
whole country was like a puddle, --’twas that, and nothing else, which
brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour
and myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days,
continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without
cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water; --nor was that enough,
for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire
every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of
the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.------
And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal _Trim_, cried my father,
from all these premises?
I infer, an’ please your worship, replied _Trim_, that the radical
moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water--and that the radical
heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy, --the
radical heat and moisture of a private man, an’ please your honour, is
nothing but ditch-water--and a dram of geneva----and give us but enough
of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the
vapours--we know not what it is to fear death.
I am at a loss, Captain _Shandy_, quoth Dr. _Slop_, to determine in
which branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in physiology
or divinity. --_Slop_ had not forgot _Trim’s_ comment upon the
sermon.--
It is but an hour ago, replied _Yorick_, since the corporal was examined
in the latter, and pass’d muster with great honour.----
The radical heat and moisture, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my father,
you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being--as the root of
a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation. --It is inherent
in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but
principally in my opinion by _consubstantials_, _impriments_, and
_occludents_. ----Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. _Slop_, pointing
to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial
empiric discourse upon this nice point. ----That he has, --said my
father. ----Very likely, said my uncle. --I’m sure of it--quoth
_Yorick_.----
CHAPTER XLI
Doctor _Slop_ being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it
gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the
_Tristra-pædia_. ----Come! cheer up, my lads; I’ll shew you
land------for when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall
not be opened again this twelve-month. --Huzza!--
CHAPTER XLII
----Five years with a bib under his chin;
Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to _Malachi_;
A year and a half in learning to write his own name;
Seven long years and more τυπτω-ing it, at Greek and Latin;
Four years at his _probations_ and his _negations_--the fine statue
still lying in the middle of the marble block, --and nothing done, but
his tools sharpened to hew it out! --’Tis a piteous delay! --Was not the
great _Julius Scaliger_ within an ace of never getting his tools
sharpened at all? ------Forty-four years old was he before he could
manage his Greek; --and _Peter Damianus_, lord bishop of _Ostia_, as all
the world knows, could not so much as read, when he was of man’s estate.
--And _Baldus_ himself, as eminent as he turned out after, entered upon
the law so late in life, that everybody imagined he intended to be an
advocate in the other world: no wonder, when _Eudamidas_, the son of
_Archidamas_, heard _Xenocrates_ at seventy-five disputing about
_wisdom_, that he asked gravely, --_If the old man be yet disputing and
enquiring concerning wisdom, --what time will he have to make use of
it?_
_Yorick_ listened to my father with great attention; there was a
seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims, and
he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as
almost atoned for them: --be wary, Sir, when you imitate him.
I am convinced, _Yorick_, continued my father, half reading and half
discoursing, that there is a North-west passage to the intellectual
world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in
furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take
with it. ----But, alack! all fields have not a river or a spring running
besides them; --every child, _Yorick_, has not a parent to point it out.
----The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a low voice, upon
the _auxiliary verbs_, Mr. _Yorick_.
Had _Yorick_ trod upon _Virgil’s_ snake, he could not have looked more
surprised. --I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it, --and I
reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the
republic of letters, That those who have been entrusted with the
education of our children, and whose business it was to open their
minds, and stock them early with ideas, in order to set the imagination
loose upon them, have made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing
it, as they have done ----So that, except _Raymond Lullius_, and the
elder _Pelegrini_, the last of which arrived to such perfection in the
use of ’em, with his topics, that, in a few lessons, he could teach a
young gentleman to discourse with plausibility upon any subject, _pro_
and _con_, and to say and write all that could be spoken or written
concerning it, without blotting a word, to the admiration of all who
beheld him. --I should be glad, said _Yorick_, interrupting my father,
to be made to comprehend this matter. You shall, said my father.
The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of, is a
high metaphor, ----for which, in my opinion, the idea is generally the
worse, and not the better; ----but be that as it may, --when the mind
has done that with it--there is an end, --the mind and the idea are at
rest, --until a second idea enters; ----and so on.
Now the use of the _Auxiliaries_ is, at once to set the soul a-going by
herself upon the materials as they are brought her; and by the
versability of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open
new tracts of enquiry, and make every idea engender millions.
You excite my curiosity greatly, said _Yorick_.
For my own part, quoth my uncle _Toby_, I have given it up. ----The
_Danes_, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, who were on the
left at the siege of _Limerick_, were all auxiliaries. ----And very good
ones, said my uncle _Toby_. --But the auxiliaries, _Trim_, my brother is
talking about, --I conceive to be different things.----
----You do? said my father, rising up.
CHAPTER XLIII
My father took a single turn across the room, then sat down, and
finished the chapter.
The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my father, are,
_am_; _was_; _have_; _had_; _do_; _did_; _make_; _made_; _suffer_;
_shall_; _should_; _will_; _would_; _can_; _could_; _owe_; _ought_;
_used_; or _is wont_. --And these varied with tenses, _present_, _past_,
_future_, and conjugated with the verb _see_, --or with these questions
added to them; --_Is it?_ _Was it?_ _Will it be?_ _Would it be?_ _May it
be?_ _Might it be?_ And these again put negatively, _Is it not?_ _Was it
not?_ _Ought it not?_ --Or affirmatively, --_It is_; _It was_; _It ought
to be_. Or chronologically, --_Has it been always?_ _Lately?_ _How long
ago?_ --Or hypothetically, --_If it was?_ _If it was not?_ What would
follow? ----If the _French_ should beat the _English?_ If the _Sun_ go
out of the _Zodiac?_
Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in
which a child’s memory should be exercised, there is no one idea can
enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and
conclusions may be drawn forth from it. ----Didst thou ever see a white
bear? cried my father, turning his head round to _Trim_, who stood at
the back of his chair: --No, an’ please your honour, replied the
corporal. ----But thou couldst discourse about one, _Trim_, said my
father, in case of need? --How is it possible, brother, quoth my uncle
_Toby_, if the corporal never saw one? ----’Tis the fact I want, replied
my father, --and the possibility of it is as follows.
A WHITE BEAR! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen
one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever
see one?
Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)
If I should see a white bear, what would I say? If I should never see a
white bear, what then?
If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever
seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted? --described? Have I
never dreamed of one?
Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a
white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the
white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?
--Is the white bear worth seeing?--
--Is there no sin in it?--
Is it better than a BLACK ONE?
BOOK VI
CHAPTER I
----We’ll not stop two moments, my dear Sir, --only, as we have got
through these five volumes,[6.1] (do, Sir, sit down upon a set----they
are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have
pass’d through.----
----What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not
both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!
Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack
Asses? ----How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the rivulet
at the bottom of that little valley! ----and when we climbed over that
hill, and were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did
they all set up together!
----Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses? * * *
----Heaven be their comforter ----What! are they never curried? ----Are
they never taken in in winter? ----Bray bray--bray. Bray on, --the world
is deeply your debtor; ----louder still--that’s nothing: --in good
sooth, you are ill-used: ----Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare,
I would bray in G-fol-re-ut from morning, even unto night.
[Footnote 6.1: In the first edition, the sixth volume began with
this chapter.]
CHAPTER II
When my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through
half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good an’ all, --and in a kind
of triumph redelivered it into _Trim’s_ hand, with a nod to lay it upon
the ’scrutoire, where he found it. ----_Tristram_, said he, shall be
made to conjugate every word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards
the same way; ----every word, _Yorick_, by this means, you see, is
converted into a thesis or an hypothesis; --every thesis and hypothesis
have an offspring of propositions; --and each proposition has its own
consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on
again, into fresh tracks of enquiries and doubtings. ----The force of
this engine, added my father, is incredible in opening a child’s head.
----’Tis enough, brother _Shandy_, cried my uncle _Toby_, to burst it
into a thousand splinters.----
I presume, said _Yorick_, smiling, --it must be owing to this, ----(for
let logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted for
sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments) ----That the
famous _Vincent Quirino_, amongst the many other astonishing feats of
his childhood, of which the Cardinal _Bembo_ has given the world so
exact a story, --should be able to paste up in the public schools at
_Rome_, so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four
thousand five hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most abstruse
points of the most abstruse theology; --and to defend and maintain them
in such sort, as to cramp and dumbfound his opponents. ----What is that,
cried my father, to what is told us of _Alphonsus Tostatus_, who, almost
in his nurse’s arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts without
being taught any one of them? ----What shall we say of the great
_Piereskius?_ --That’s the very man, cried my uncle _Toby_, I once told
you of, brother _Shandy_, who walked a matter of five hundred miles,
reckoning from _Paris_ to _Shevling_, and from _Shevling_ back again,
merely to see _Stevinus’s_ flying chariot. ----He was a very great man!
added my uncle _Toby_ (meaning _Stevinus_) --He was so, brother _Toby_,
said my father (meaning _Piereskius_)----and had multiplied his ideas so
fast, and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if
we may give credit to an anecdote concerning him, which we cannot
withhold here, without shaking the authority of all anecdotes
whatever--at seven years of age, his father committed entirely to his
care the education of his younger brother, a boy of five years old,
--with the sole management of all his concerns. --Was the father as wise
as the son? quoth my uncle _Toby_: --I should think not, said _Yorick_:
--But what are these, continued my father--(breaking out in a kind of
enthusiasm)--what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in
_Grotius_, _Scioppius_, _Heinsius_, _Politian_, _Pascal_, _Joseph
Scaliger_, _Ferdinand de Cordouè_, and others--some of which left off
their _substantial forms_ at nine years old, or sooner, and went on
reasoning without them; --others went through their classics at seven;
--wrote tragedies at eight; --_Ferdinand de Cordouè_ was so wise at
nine, --’twas thought the Devil was in him; --and at _Venice_ gave such
proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he was
_Antichrist_, or nothing. ----Others were masters of fourteen languages
at ten, --finished the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic, and
ethics, at eleven, --put forth their commentaries upon _Servius_ and
_Martianus Capella_ at twelve, --and at thirteen received their degrees
in philosophy, laws, and divinity: ----But you forget the great
_Lipsius_, quoth _Yorick_, who composed a work[6.2] the day he was born:
----They should have wiped it up, said my uncle _Toby_, and said no more
about it.
[Footnote 6.2: Nous aurions quelque interêt, says _Baillet_, de
montrer qu’il n’a rien de ridicule s’il étoit veritable, au
moins dans le sens énigmatique que _Nicius Erythræus_ a tâché de
lui donner. Cet auteur dit que pour comprendre comme _Lipse_, il
a pû composer un ouvrage le premier jour de sa vie, il faut
s’imaginer, que ce premier jour n’est pas celui de sa naissance
charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commencé d’user de la raison;
il veut que ç’ait été à l’âge de _neuf_ ans; et il nous veut
persuader que ce fut en cet âge, que _Lipse_ fit un poëme. ----Le
tour est ingénieux, &c. &c.]
CHAPTER III
When the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of _decorum_ had unseasonably
rose up in _Susannah’s_ conscience about holding the candle, whilst
_Slop_ tied it on; _Slop_ had not treated _Susannah’s_ distemper with
anodynes, --and so a quarrel had ensued betwixt them.
----Oh! oh! ----said _Slop_, casting a glance of undue freedom in
_Susannah’s_ face, as she declined the office; ----then, I think I know
you, madam ----You know me, Sir! cried _Susannah_ fastidiously, and with
a toss of her head, levelled evidently, not at his profession, but at
the doctor himself, ----you know me! cried _Susannah_ again. ----Doctor
_Slop_ clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his nostrils;
----_Susannah’s_ spleen was ready to burst at it; ----’Tis false, said
_Susannah_. --Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said _Slop_, not a little elated
with the success of his last thrust, ----If you won’t hold the candle,
and look--you may hold it and shut your eyes: --That’s one of your
popish shifts, cried _Susannah_: --’Tis better, said _Slop_, with a nod,
than no shift at all, young woman; ----I defy you, Sir, cried
_Susannah_, pulling her shift sleeve below her elbow.
It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in a
surgical case with a more splenetic cordiality.
_Slop_ snatched up the cataplasm, ----_Susannah_ snatched up the candle;
----a little this way, said _Slop_; _Susannah_ looking one way, and
rowing another, instantly set fire to _Slop’s_ wig, which being somewhat
bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.
------You impudent whore! cried _Slop_, --(for what is passion, but a
wild beast?)--you impudent whore, cried _Slop_, getting upright, with
the cataplasm in his hand; ----I never was the destruction of anybody’s
nose, said _Susannah_, --which is more than you can say: ----Is it?
cried _Slop_, throwing the cataplasm in her face; ----Yes, it is, cried
_Susannah_, returning the compliment with what was left in the pan.
CHAPTER IV
Doctor _Slop_ and _Susannah_ filed cross-bills against each other in the
parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into the
kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me; --and whilst that was doing, my
father determined the point as you will read.
CHAPTER V
You see ’tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my
uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_, to take this young creature out of these
women’s hands, and put him into those of a private governor. _Marcus
Antoninus_ provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his
son _Commodus’s_ education, --and in six weeks he cashiered five of
them; --I know very well, continued my father, that _Commodus’s_ mother
was in love with a gladiator at the time of her conception, which
accounts for a great many of _Commodus’s_ cruelties when he became
emperor; --but still I am of opinion, that those five whom _Antoninus_
dismissed, did _Commodus’s_ temper, in that short time, more hurt than
the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long.
Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror in
which he is to view himself from morning to night, and by which he is to
adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the inmost sentiments of his
heart; --I would have one, _Yorick_, if possible, polished at all
points, fit for my child to look into. ----This is very good sense,
quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself.
----There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body
and all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man _well
within_; and I am not at all surprised that _Gregory_ of _Nazianzum_,
upon observing the hasty and untoward gestures of _Julian_, should
foretel he would one day become an apostate; ----or that St. _Ambrose_
should turn his _Amanuensis_ out of doors, because of an indecent motion
of his head, which went backwards and forwards like a flail; ----or that
_Democritus_ should conceive _Protagoras_ to be a scholar, from seeing
him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs
inwards. ----There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my
father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man’s soul; and I
maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in
coming into a room, --or take it up in going out of it, but something
escapes, which discovers him.
It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make
choice of shall neither[6.3] lisp, or squint, or wink, or talk loud, or
look fierce, or foolish; ----or bite his lips, or grind his teeth, or
speak through his nose, or pick it, or blow it with his fingers.----
He shall neither walk fast, --or slow, or fold his arms, --for that is
laziness; --or hang them down, --for that is folly; or hide them in his
pocket, for that is nonsense.----
He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle, --or bite, or cut his
nails, or hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his feet or fingers in
company; ----nor (according to _Erasmus_) shall he speak to any one in
making water, --nor shall he point to carrion or excrement. ----Now this
is all nonsense again, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself.----
I will have him, continued my father, chearful, faceté, jovial; at the
same time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, argute,
inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions; ----he
shall be wise, and judicious, and learned: ----And why not humble, and
moderate, and gentle-tempered, and good? said _Yorick_: ----And why not,
cried my uncle _Toby_, free, and generous, and bountiful, and brave?
----He shall, my dear _Toby_, replied my father, getting up and shaking
him by the hand. --Then, brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_,
raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of
my father’s other hand, --I humbly beg I may recommend poor _Le Fever’s_
son to you; ----a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in my uncle
_Toby’s_ eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal’s, as the
proposition was made; ----you will see why when you read _Le Fever’s_
story: ----fool that I was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you)
without turning back to the place, what it was that hindered me from
letting the corporal tell it in his own words; --but the occasion is
lost, --I must tell it now in my own.
[Footnote 6.3: Vid. _Pellegrina_.]
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF LE FEVER
It was some time in the summer of that year in which _Dendermond_ was
taken by the allies, --which was about seven years before my father came
into the country, --and about as many, after the time, that my uncle
_Toby_ and _Trim_ had privately decamped from my father’s house in town,
in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest
fortified cities in _Europe_----when my uncle _Toby_ was one evening
getting his supper, with _Trim_ sitting behind him at a small sideboard,
--I say, sitting--for in consideration of the corporal’s lame knee
(which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)--when my uncle _Toby_ dined or
supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand; and the poor
fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper
artillery, my uncle _Toby_ could have taken _Dendermond_ itself, with
less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a
time when my uncle _Toby_ supposed the corporal’s leg was at rest, he
would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most
dutiful respect: this bred more little squabbles betwixt them, than all
other causes for five-and-twenty years together --But this is neither
here nor there--why do I mention it? ----Ask my pen, --it governs me,
--I govern not it.
He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a
little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in
his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; ’Tis for a poor gentleman, --I
think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my
house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a
desire to taste anything, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass
of sack and a thin toast, ----_I think_, says he, taking his hand from
his forehead, _it would comfort me_.
----If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing--added the
landlord, --I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so
ill. ----I hope in God he will still mend, continued he, --we are all of
us concerned for him.
Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle
_Toby_; and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of
sack thyself, --and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell
him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do
him good.
Though I am persuaded, said my uncle _Toby_, as the landlord shut the
door, he is a very compassionate fellow--_Trim_, --yet I cannot help
entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something
more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon
the affections of his host; ----And of his whole family, added the
corporal, for they are all concerned for him. ----Step after him, said
my uncle _Toby_, --do, _Trim_, --and ask if he knows his name.
----I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into
the parlour with the corporal, --but I can ask his son again: ----Has he
a son with him then? said my uncle _Toby_. --A boy, replied the
landlord, of about eleven or twelve years of age; --but the poor
creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but
mourn and lament for him night and day: ----He has not stirred from the
bed-side these two days.
My uncle _Toby_ laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from
before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and _Trim_, without
being ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes
after brought him his pipe and tobacco.
----Stay in the room a little, said my uncle _Toby_.
_Trim!_----said my uncle _Toby_, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak’d
about a dozen whiffs. ----_Trim_ came in front of his master, and made
his bow; --my uncle _Toby_ smoak’d on, and said no more. ----Corporal!
said my uncle _Toby_----the corporal made his bow. ----My uncle _Toby_
proceeded no farther, but finished his pipe.
_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, I have a project in my head, as it is a
bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a
visit to this poor gentleman. ----Your honour’s roquelaure, replied the
corporal, has not once been had on, since the night before your honour
received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the
gate of St. _Nicolas_; ----and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night,
that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, ’twill be
enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your honour’s
torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle _Toby_; but I am not
at rest in my mind, _Trim_, since the account the landlord has given me.
----I wish I had not known so much of this affair, --added my uncle
_Toby_, --or that I had known more of it: ----How shall we manage it?
Leave it, an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the corporal; ----I’ll
take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act
accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour.
----Thou shalt go, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, and here’s a shilling
for thee to drink with his servant. ----I shall get it all out of him,
said the corporal, shutting the door.
My uncle _Toby_ filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now
and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not
full as well to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line, as a
crooked one, --he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor
_Le Fever_ and his boy the whole time he smoaked it.
CHAPTER VII
THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED
It was not till my uncle _Toby_ had knocked the ashes out of his third
pipe, that corporal _Trim_ returned from the inn, and gave him the
following account.
I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back
your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick
lieutenant --Is he in the army, then? said my uncle _Toby_ ----He is,
said the corporal ----And in what regiment? said my uncle _Toby_
----I’ll tell your honour, replied the corporal, everything straight
forwards, as I learnt it. --Then, _Trim_, I’ll fill another pipe, said
my uncle _Toby_, and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down
at thy ease, _Trim_, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The
corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could
speak it--_Your honour is good_: ----And having done that, he sat down,
as he was ordered, --and began the story to my uncle _Toby_ over again
in pretty near the same words.
I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any
intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his son; for when
I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing
everything which was proper to be asked, --That’s a right distinction,
_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_ --I was answered, an’ please your honour,
that he had no servant with him; ----that he had come to the inn with
hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join,
I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he came.
--If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to
pay the man, --we can hire horses from hence. ----But alas! the poor
gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to me, --for I
heard the death-watch all night long; ----and when he dies, the youth,
his son, will certainly die with him, for he is broken-hearted already.
I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came
into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of; ----but
I will do it for my father myself, said the youth. ----Pray let me save
you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the
purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst
I did it. ----I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him
best myself. ----I am sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast
the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. ----The youth took hold
of my hand, and instantly burst into tears. ----Poor youth! said my
uncle _Toby_, --he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the
name of a soldier, _Trim_, sounded in his ears like the name of a
friend; --I wish I had him here.
----I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a
mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company: --What could be
the matter with me, an’ please your honour? Nothing in the world,
_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, blowing his nose, --but that thou art a
good-natured fellow.
When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was
proper to tell him I was captain _Shandy’s_ servant, and that your
honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father; --and
that if there was any thing in your house or cellar----(And thou
might’st have added my purse too, said my uncle _Toby_)----he was
heartily welcome to it: ----He made a very low bow (which was meant to
your honour), but no answer--for his heart was full--so he went up
stairs with the toast; --I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the
kitchen-door, your father will be well again. ----Mr. _Yorick’s_ curate
was smoaking a pipe by the kitchen fire, --but said not a word good or
bad to comfort the youth. ----I thought it wrong; added the
corporal ----I think so too, said my uncle _Toby_.
When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt
himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to let me
know, that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up
stairs. ----I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his
prayers, ----for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bed-side,
and as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion.----
I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. _Trim_,
never said your prayers at all. ----I heard the poor gentleman say his
prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own
ears, or I could not have believed it. ----Are you sure of it? replied
the curate. ----A soldier, an’ please your reverence, said I, prays as
often (of his own accord) as a parson; ----and when he is fighting for
his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most
reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world----’Twas well said
of thee, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. ----But when a soldier, said I,
an’ please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together
in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water, --or engaged, said I,
for months together in long and dangerous marches; --harassed, perhaps,
in his rear to-day; --harassing others to-morrow; --detached here;
--countermanded there; --resting this night out upon his arms; --beat up
in his shirt the next; --benumbed in his joints; --perhaps without straw
in his tent to kneel on; --must say his prayers _how_ and _when_ he can.
--I believe, said I, --for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the
reputation of the army, --I believe, an’ please your reverence, said I,
that when a soldier gets time to pray, --he prays as heartily as a
parson, --though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. ----Thou shouldst
not have said that, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, --for God only knows
who is a hypocrite, and who is not: ----At the great and general review
of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then)--it will
be seen who has done their duties in this world, --and who has not; and
we shall be advanced, _Trim_, accordingly. ----I hope we shall, said
_Trim_. ----It is in the Scripture, said my uncle _Toby_; and I will
shew it thee to-morrow: --In the mean time we may depend upon it,
_Trim_, for our comfort, said my uncle _Toby_, that God Almighty is so
good and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our
duties in it, --it will never be enquired into, whether we have done
them in a red coat or a black one: ----I hope not, said the
corporal ----But go on, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, with thy story.
When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant’s room,
which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, --he was
lying in his bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon
the pillow, and a clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it: ----The
youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I
supposed he had been kneeling, --the book was laid upon the bed, --and,
as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his
other to take it away at the same time. ----Let it remain there, my
dear, said the lieutenant.
He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his
bed-side: --If you are captain _Shandy’s_ servant, said he, you must
present my thanks to your master, with my little boy’s thanks along with
them, for his courtesy to me; --if he was of _Leven’s_--said the
lieutenant. --I told him your honour was --Then, said he, I served three
campaigns with him in _Flanders_, and remember him, --but ’tis most
likely, as I had not the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he
knows nothing of me. ----You will tell him, however, that the person his
good-nature has laid under obligations to him, is one _Le Fever_, a
lieutenant in _Angus’s_----but he knows me not, --said he, a second
time, musing; ----possibly he may my story--added he--pray tell the
captain, I was the ensign at _Breda_, whose wife was most unfortunately
killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent. ----I
remember the story, an’t please your honour, said I, very well. ----Do
you so? said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, --then well may
I. --In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which
seemed tied with a black ribband about his neck, and kiss’d it
twice ----Here, _Billy_, said he, ----the boy flew across the room to the
bed-side, --and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand,
and kissed it too, --then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed
and wept.
I wish, said my uncle _Toby_, with a deep sigh, --I wish, _Trim_, I was
asleep.
Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned; --shall I pour
your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe? ----Do, _Trim_, said my
uncle _Toby_.
I remember, said my uncle _Toby_, sighing again, the story of the ensign
and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted; --and
particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other
(I forget what) was universally pitied by the whole regiment; --but
finish the story thou art upon: --’Tis finished already, said the
corporal, --for I could stay no longer, --so wished his honour a good
night; young _Le Fever_ rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom
of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come from
_Ireland_, and were on their route to join the regiment in _Flanders_.
----But alas! said the corporal, --the lieutenant’s last day’s march is
over. --Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle _Toby_.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED
It was to my uncle _Toby’s_ eternal honour, ----though I tell it only
for the sake of those, who, when coop’d in betwixt a natural and a
positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn
themselves ----That notwithstanding my uncle _Toby_ was warmly engaged
at that time in carrying on the siege of _Dendermond_, parallel with the
allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed
him time to get his dinner----that nevertheless he gave up _Dendermond_,
though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp; --and bent
his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except
that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be
said to have turned the siege of _Dendermond_ into a blockade, --he left
_Dendermond_ to itself--to be relieved or not by the _French_ king, as
the _French_ king thought good; and only considered how he himself
should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.
----That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence
thee for this.
Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle _Toby_ to the corporal,
as he was putting him to bed, ----and I will tell thee in what, _Trim_.
----In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to _Le
Fever_, ----as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou
knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as
himself out of his pay, --that thou didst not make an offer to him of my
purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, _Trim_, he had been
as welcome to it as myself. ----Your honour knows, said the corporal,
I had no orders; ----True, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --thou didst very
right, _Trim_, as a soldier, --but certainly very wrong as a man.
In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse,
continued my uncle _Toby_, ----when thou offeredst him whatever was in
my house, ----thou shouldst have offered him my house too: ----A sick
brother officer should have the best quarters, _Trim_, and if we had him
with us, --we could tend and look to him: ----Thou art an excellent
nurse thyself, _Trim_, --and what with thy care of him, and the old
woman’s, and his boy’s, and mine together, we might recruit him again at
once, and set him upon his legs.------
----In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle _Toby_, smiling,
----he might march. ----He will never march; an’ please your honour, in
this world, said the corporal: ----He will march; said my uncle _Toby_,
rising up, from the side of the bed, with one shoe off: ----An’ please
your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave:
----He shall march, cried my uncle _Toby_, marching the foot which had a
shoe on, though without advancing an inch, --he shall march to his
regiment. ----He cannot stand it, said the corporal; ----He shall be
supported, said my uncle _Toby_; ----He’ll drop at last, said the
corporal, and what will become of his boy? ----He shall not drop, said
my uncle _Toby_, firmly. ----A-well-o’-day, --do what we can for him,
said _Trim_, maintaining his point, --the poor soul will die: ----He
shall not die, by G--, cried my uncle _Toby_.
--The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath,
blush’d as he gave it in; --and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it
down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.
CHAPTER IX
----My uncle _Toby_ went to his bureau, --put his purse into his
breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the
morning for a physician, --he went to bed, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER X
THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED
The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but
_Le Fever’s_ and his afflicted son’s; the hand of death press’d heavy
upon his eye-lids, ----and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn
round its circle, --when my uncle _Toby_, who had rose up an hour before
his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, and without preface or
apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and,
independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner
an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how
he did, --how he had rested in the night, --what was his complaint,
--where was his pain, --and what he could do to help him: ----and
without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on, and
told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the
corporal the night before for him.----
----You shall go home directly, _Le Fever_, said my uncle _Toby_, to my
house, --and we’ll send for a doctor to see what’s the matter, --and
we’ll have an apothecary, --and the corporal shall be your nurse;
----and I’ll be your servant, _Le Fever_.
There was a frankness in my uncle _Toby_, --not the _effect_ of
familiarity, --but the _cause_ of it, --which let you at once into his
soul, and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was
something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which
eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under
him; so that before my uncle _Toby_ had half finished the kind offers he
was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his
knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it
towards him. ----The blood and spirits of _Le Fever_, which were waxing
cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the
heart--rallied back, --the film forsook his eyes for a moment, --he
looked up wishfully in my uncle _Toby’s_ face, --then cast a look upon
his boy, ----and that _ligament_, fine as it was, --was never
broken.------
Nature instantly ebb’d again, --the film returned to its place, ----the
pulse fluttered----stopp’d----went on----throbb’d----stopp’d
again----moved----stopp’d----shall I go on? ----No.
CHAPTER XI
I am so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young
_Le Fever’s_, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my
uncle _Toby_ recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very
few words in the next chapter. --All that is necessary to be added to
this chapter is as follows.--
That my uncle _Toby_, with young _Le Fever_ in his hand, attended the
poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave.
That the governor of _Dendermond_ paid his obsequies all military
honours, --and that _Yorick_, not to be behind-hand--paid him all
ecclesiastic--for he buried him in his chancel: --And it appears
likewise, he preached a funeral sermon over him ----I say it _appears_,
--for it was _Yorick’s_ custom, which I suppose a general one with those
of his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed,
to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being
preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short comment or
stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit:
--For instance, _This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation --I don’t like
it at all; --Though I own there is a world of WATER-LANDISH knowledge in
it, --but ’tis all tritical, and most tritically put together.
------This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my head
when I made it?_
----N. B. _The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any sermon,
--and of this sermon, ----that it will suit any text. ------_
_ ----For this sermon I shall be hanged, --for I have stolen the greatest
part of it. Doctor _Paidagunes_ found me out. [-->] Set a thief to catch
a thief. ------_
On the back of half a dozen I find written, _So, so_, and no more----and
upon a couple _Moderato_; by which, as far as one may gather from
_Altieri’s_ _Italian_ dictionary, --but mostly from the authority of a
piece of green whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of
_Yorick’s_ whip-lash, with which he has left us the two sermons marked
_Moderato_, and the half dozen of _So, so_, tied fast together in one
bundle by themselves, --one may safely suppose he meant pretty near the
same thing.
There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is
this, that the _moderato’s_ are five times better than the _so, so’s_;
--show ten times more knowledge of the human heart; --have seventy times
more wit and spirit in them; --(and, to rise properly in my
climax)--discovered a thousand times more genius; --and to crown all,
are infinitely more entertaining than those tied up with them: --for
which reason, whene’er _Yorick’s_ _dramatic_ sermons are offered to the
world, though I shall admit but one out of the whole number of the _so,
so’s_, I shall, nevertheless, adventure to print the two _moderato’s_
without any sort of scruple.
What _Yorick_ could mean by the words _lentamente_, --_tenutè_,
--_grave_, --and sometimes _adagio_, --as applied to _theological_
compositions, and with which he has characterised some of these sermons,
I dare not venture to guess. ----I am more puzzled still upon finding
_a l’octava alta!_ upon one; ----_Con strepito_ upon the back of
another; ----_Siciliana_ upon a third; ----_Alla capella_ upon a fourth;
----_Con l’arco_ upon this; ----_Senza l’arco_ upon that. ----All I know
is, that they are musical terms, and have a meaning; ----and as he was a
musical man, I will make no doubt, but that by some quaint application
of such metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impressed very
distinct ideas of their several characters upon his fancy, --whatever
they may do upon that of others.
Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably
led me into this digression ----The funeral sermon upon poor _Le Fever_,
wrote out very fairly, as if from a hasty copy. --I take notice of it
the more, because it seems to have been his favourite composition ----It
is upon mortality; and is tied lengthways and cross-ways with a yarn
thrum, and then rolled up and twisted round with a half-sheet of dirty
blue paper, which seems to have been once the cast cover of a general
review, which to this day smells horribly of horse drugs. ----Whether
these marks of humiliation were designed, --I something doubt;
----because at the end of the sermon (and not at the beginning
of it)--very different from his way of treating the rest, he had
wrote----
Bravo!
----Though not very offensively, ----for it is at two inches, at least,
and a half’s distance from, and below the concluding line of the sermon,
at the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it,
which, you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it
justice, it is wrote besides with a crow’s quill so faintly in a small
_Italian_ hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether
your thumb is there or not, --so that from the _manner of it_, it stands
half excused; and being wrote moreover with very pale ink, diluted
almost to nothing, --’tis more like a _ritratto_ of the shadow of
vanity, than of VANITY herself--of the two; resembling rather a faint
thought of transient applause, secretly stirring up in the heart of the
composer; than a gross mark of it, coarsely obtruded upon the world.
With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do
no service to _Yorick’s_ character as a modest man; --but all men have
their failings! and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes it
away, is this; that the word was struck through sometime afterwards
(as appears from a different tint of the ink) with a line quite across
it in this manner, [BRAVO]----as if he had retracted, or was ashamed of
the opinion he had once entertained of it.
These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in
this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon, which served as a
cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned towards
the text; --but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he had five
or six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a whole score to turn himself in,
--he took a large circuit, and, indeed, a much more mettlesome one; --as
if he had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more
frolicksome strokes at vice, than the straitness of the pulpit allowed.
--These, though hussar-like, they skirmish lightly and out of all order,
are still auxiliaries on the side of virtue; --tell me then, Mynheer
Vander Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not be printed
together?
CHAPTER XII
When my uncle _Toby_ had turned everything into money, and settled all
accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and _Le Fever_, and betwixt
_Le Fever_ and all mankind, ----there remained nothing more in my uncle
_Toby’s_ hands, than an old regimental coat and a sword; so that my
uncle _Toby_ found little or no opposition from the world in taking
administration. The coat my uncle _Toby_ gave the corporal; ----Wear it,
_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, as long as it will hold together, for the
sake of the poor lieutenant ----And this, ----said my uncle _Toby_,
taking up the sword in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as
he spoke----and this, _Le Fever_, I’ll save for thee, --’tis all the
fortune, continued my uncle _Toby_, hanging it up upon a crook, and
pointing to it, --’tis all the fortune, my dear _Le Fever_, which God
has left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way with it
in the world, --and thou doest it like a man of honour, --’tis enough
for us.
As soon as my uncle _Toby_ had laid a foundation, and taught him to
inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, he sent him to a public school,
where, excepting _Whitsontide_ and _Christmas_, at which times the
corporal was punctually dispatched for him, --he remained to the spring
of the year, seventeen; when the stories of the emperor’s sending his
army into _Hungary_ against the _Turks_, kindling a spark of fire in his
bosom, he left his _Greek_ and _Latin_ without leave, and throwing
himself upon his knees before my uncle _Toby_, begged his father’s
sword, and my uncle _Toby’s_ leave along with it, to go and try his
fortune under _Eugene_. --Twice did my uncle _Toby_ forget his wound and
cry out, _Le Fever!_ I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside
me ----And twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head
in sorrow and disconsolation.----
My uncle _Toby_ took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung
untouched ever since the lieutenant’s death, and delivered it to the
corporal to brighten up; ----and having detained _Le Fever_ a single
fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to _Leghorn_, --he
put the sword into his hand. ----If thou art brave, _Le Fever_, said my
uncle _Toby_, this will not fail thee, ----but Fortune, said he (musing
a little), ----Fortune may ----And if she does, --added my uncle _Toby_,
embracing him, come back again to me, _Le Fever_, and we will shape thee
another course.
The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of _Le Fever_
more than my uncle _Toby’s_ paternal kindness; ----he parted from my
uncle _Toby_, as the best of sons from the best of fathers----both
dropped tears----and as my uncle _Toby_ gave him his last kiss, he
slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his father’s, in which
was his mother’s ring, into his hand,---- and bid God bless him.
CHAPTER XIII
Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal
his sword was made of, at the defeat of the _Turks_ before _Belgrade_;
but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment,
and trod close upon his heels for four years together after; he had
withstood these buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at
_Marseilles_, from whence he wrote my uncle _Toby_ word, he had lost his
time, his services, his health, and, in short, everything but his sword;
----and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him.
As this letter came to hand about six weeks before _Susannah’s_
accident, _Le Fever_ was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle
_Toby’s_ mind all the time my father was giving him and _Yorick_ a
description of what kind of a person he would chuse for a preceptor to
me: but as my uncle _Toby_ thought my father at first somewhat fanciful
in the accomplishments he required, he forebore mentioning _Le Fever’s_
name, ----till the character, by _Yorick’s_ interposition, ending
unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle-tempered, and generous, and
good, it impressed the image of _Le Fever_, and his interest, upon my
uncle _Toby_ so forcibly, he rose instantly off his chair; and laying
down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father’s hands ----I beg,
brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, I may recommend poor _Le
Fever’s_ son to you ----I beseech you do, added _Yorick_ ----He has a
good heart, said my uncle _Toby_ ----And a brave one too, an’ please
your honour, said the corporal.
----The best hearts, _Trim_, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle
_Toby_. ----And the greatest cowards, an’ please your honour, in our
regiment, were the greatest rascals in it. ----There was serjeant
_Kumber_, and ensign------
----We’ll talk of them, said my father, another time.
CHAPTER XIV
What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your
worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes,
want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and
lies!
Doctor _Slop_, like a son of a w----, as my father called him for it,
--to exalt himself, --debased me to death, --and made ten thousand times
more of _Susannah’s_ accident, than there was any grounds for; so that
in a week’s time, or less, it was in everybody’s mouth, _That poor
Master Shandy_ * * * * * *
* * entirely. --And FAME, who loves to double everything, --in
three days more, had sworn, positively she saw it, --and all the world,
as usual, gave credit to her evidence---- “That the nursery window had
not only * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* ;----but that * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * ’s also.”
Could the world have been sued like a BODY-CORPORATE, --my father had
brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to
fall foul of individuals about it----as every soul who had mentioned the
affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable; ----’twas like flying
in the very face of his best friends: ----And yet to acquiesce under the
report, in silence--was to acknowledge it openly, --at least in the
opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in
contradicting it, --was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the
other half.------
----Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my
father.
I would shew him publickly, said my uncle _Toby_, at the market cross.
----’Twill have no effect, said my father.
CHAPTER XV
----I’ll put him, however, into breeches, said my father, --let the
world say what it will.
CHAPTER XVI
There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well
as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern; --which though they
have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and entered
upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were,
notwithstanding this (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or
stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so), weighed,
poized, and perpended----argued upon--canvassed through----entered into,
and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS of
COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could
neither have wished it, or done it better.
Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of putting me into
breeches; which, though determined at once, --in a kind of huff, and a
defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been _pro’d_ and _conn’d_,
and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month
before, in two several _beds of justice_, which my father had held for
that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my
next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with me,
Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my father
and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the breeches,
--from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser matters.
CHAPTER XVII
The ancient _Goths_ of _Germany_, who (the learned _Cluverius_ is
positive) were first seated in the country between the _Vistula_ and the
_Oder_, and who afterwards incorporated the _Herculi_, the _Bugians_,
and some other _Vandallick_ clans to ’em--had all of them a wise custom
of debating everything of importance to their state, twice; that is,
--once drunk, and once sober: ----Drunk, --that their councils might not
want vigour; ----and sober--that they might not want discretion.
Now my father being entirely a water-drinker, --was a long time
gravelled almost to death, in turning this as much to his advantage, as
he did every other thing which the ancients did or said; and it was not
till the seventh year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless
experiments and devices, that he hit upon an expedient which answered
the purpose; ----and that was, when any difficult and momentous point
was to be settled in the family, which required great sobriety, and
great spirit too, in its determination, ----he fixed and set apart the
first _Sunday_ night in the month, and the _Saturday_ night which
immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in bed, with my mother: By
which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself, * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * *
These my father, humorously enough, called his _beds of justice_;
----for from the two different counsels taken in these two different
humours, a middle one was generally found out which touched the point of
wisdom as well, as if he had got drunk and sober a hundred times.
It must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as
well in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it
is not every author that can try the experiment as the _Goths_ and
_Vandals_ did it----or, if he can, may it be always for his body’s
health; and to do it, as my father did it, --am I sure it would be
always for his soul’s.
My way is this:----
In all nice and ticklish discussions--(of which, heaven knows, there are
but too many in my book), --where I find I cannot take a step without
the danger of having either their worships or their reverences upon my
back ----I write one-half _full_, --and t’other _fasting_; ----or write
it all full, --and correct it fasting: ----or write it fasting, --and
correct it full, for they all come to the same thing: ----So that with a
less variation from my father’s plan, than my father’s from the
_Gothick_ ----I feel myself upon a par with him in his first bed of
justice, --and no way inferior to him in his second. ----These different
and almost irreconcileable effects, flow uniformly from the wise and
wonderful mechanism of nature, --of which, --be her’s the honour.
----All that we can do, is to turn and work the machine to the
improvement and better manufactory of the arts and sciences.----
Now, when I write full, --I write as if I was never to write fasting
again as long as I live; ----that is, I write free from the cares as
well as the terrors of the world. ----I count not the number of my
scars, --nor does my fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to
antedate my stabs. ----In a word, my pen takes its course; and I write
on as much from the fulness of my heart, as my stomach.----
But when, an’ please your honours, I indite fasting, ’tis a different
history. ----I pay the world all possible attention and respect, --and
have as great a share (whilst it lasts) of that under-strapping virtue
of discretion as the best of you. ----So that betwixt both, I write a
careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured _Shandean_ book,
which will do all your hearts good------
----And all your heads too, --provided you understand it.
CHAPTER XVIII
We should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and
shifting his pillow a little towards my mother’s, as he opened the
debate ----We should begin to think, Mrs. _Shandy_, of putting this boy
into breeches.----
We should so, --said my mother. ----We defer it, my dear, quoth my
father, shamefully.------
I think we do, Mr. _Shandy_, --said my mother.
----Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests
and tunicks.------
------He does look very well in them, --replied my mother.------
----And for that reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to
take him out of ’em.----
----It would so, --said my mother: ----But indeed he is growing a very
tall lad, --rejoined my father.
----He is very tall for his age, indeed, --said my mother.----
----I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who
the deuce he takes after.----
I cannot conceive, for my life, --said my mother.----
Humph! ----said my father.
(The dialogue ceased for a moment.)
----I am very short myself, --continued my father gravely.
You are very short, Mr. _Shandy_, --said my mother.
Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, he
plucked his pillow a little further from my mother’s--and turning about
again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half.
----When he gets these breeches made, cried my father in a higher tone,
he’ll look like a beast in ’em.
He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother.----
----And ’twill be lucky, if that’s the worst on’t, added my father.
It will be very lucky, answered my mother.
I suppose, replied my father, --making some pause first, --he’ll be
exactly like other people’s children.----
Exactly, said my mother.------
----Though I shall be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate
stopp’d again.
----They should be of leather, said my father, turning him about
again.--
They will last him, said my mother, the longest.
But he can have no linings to ’em, replied my father.------
He cannot, said my mother.
’Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my father.
Nothing can be better, quoth my mother.------
--Except dimity, --replied my father: ----’Tis best of all, --replied my
mother.
----One must not give him his death, however, --interrupted my father.
By no means, said my mother: ----and so the dialogue stood still again.
I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth
time, he shall have no pockets in them.--
----There is no occasion for any, said my mother.------
I mean in his coat and waistcoat, --cried my father.
----I mean so too, --replied my mother.
----Though if he gets a gig or top ----Poor souls! it is a crown and a
sceptre to them, --they should have where to secure it.------
Order it as you please, Mr. _Shandy_, replied my mother.------
----But don’t you think it right? added my father, pressing the point
home to her.
Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. _Shandy_.------
----There’s for you! cried my father, losing temper ----Pleases me!
----You never will distinguish, Mrs. _Shandy_, nor shall I ever teach
you to do it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience.
----This was on the _Sunday_ night: ----and further this chapter sayeth
not.
CHAPTER XIX
After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother,
--he consulted _Albertus Rubenius_ upon it; and _Albertus Rubenius_ used
my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my
father had used my mother: For as _Rubenius_ had wrote a quarto
_express_, _De re Vestiaria Veterum_, --it was _Rubenius’s_ business to
have given my father some lights. --On the contrary, my father might as
well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long
beard, --as of extracting a single word out of _Rubenius_ upon the
subject.
Upon every other article of ancient dress, _Rubenius_ was very
communicative to my father; --gave him a full and satisfactory account
of
The Toga, or loose gown.
The Chlamys.
The Ephod.
The Tunica, or Jacket.
The Synthesis.
The Pænula.
The Lacema, with its Cucullus.
The Paludamentum.
The Prætexta.
The Sagum, or soldier’s jerkin.
The Trabea: of which, according to _Suetonius_, there were three
kinds.--
----But what are all these to the breeches? said my father.
_Rubenius_ threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had
been in fashion with the _Romans_.------
There was,
The open shoe.
The close shoe.
The slip shoe.
The wooden shoe.
The soc.
The buskin.
And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which _Juvenal_
takes notice of.
There were, The clogs.
The pattins.
The pantoufles.
The brogues.
The sandals, with latchets to them.
There was, The felt shoe.
The linen shoe.
The laced shoe.
The braided shoe.
The calceus incisus.
And The calceus rostratus.
_Rubenius_ shewed my father how well they all fitted, --in what manner
they laced on, --with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands,
jaggs, and ends.------
----But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father.
_Albertus Rubenius_ informed my father that the _Romans_ manufactured
stuffs of various fabrics, ----some plain, --some striped, --others
diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and
gold ----That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the
declension of the empire, when the _Egyptians_ coming to settle amongst
them, brought it into vogue.
----That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the
fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple,
which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and
wore on their birthdays and public rejoicings. ----That it appeared from
the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their
clothes to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened: ----but that the
inferior people, to avoid that expence, generally wore brown clothes,
and of a something coarser texture, --till towards the beginning of
_Augustus’s_ reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost
every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the _Latus Clavus_.
And what was the _Latus Clavus?_ said my father.
_Rubenius_ told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the
learned: ----That _Egnatius_, _Sigonius_, _Bossius Ticinensis_,
_Bayfius_, _Budæus_, _Salmasius_, _Lipsius_, _Lazius_, _Isaac Casaubon_,
and _Joseph Scaliger_, all differed from each other, --and he from them:
That some took it to be the button, --some the coat itself, --others
only the colour of it: --That the great _Bayfius_, in his Wardrobe of
the Ancients, chap. 12--honestly said, he knew not what it was,
--whether a tibula, --a stud, --a button, --a loop, --a buckle, --or
clasps and keepers.------
----My father lost the horse, but not the saddle ----They are _hooks and
eyes_, said my father----and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches
to be made.
CHAPTER XX
We are now going to enter upon a new scene of events.------
----Leave we then the breeches in the taylor’s hands, with my father
standing over him with his cane, reading him as he sat at work a lecture
upon the _latus clavus_, and pointing to the precise part of the
waistband, where he was determined to have it sewed on.----
Leave we my mother--(truest of all the _Pococurantes_ of her
sex!)--careless about it, as about everything else in the world which
concerned her; --that is, --indifferent whether it was done this way or
that, --provided it was but done at all.----
Leave we _Slop_ likewise to the full profits of all my dishonours.------
Leave we poor _Le Fever_ to recover, and get home from _Marseilles_ as
he can. ----And last of all, --because the hardest of all----
Let us leave, if possible, _myself_: ----But ’tis impossible, --I must
go along with you to the end of the work.
CHAPTER XXI
If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of
ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle _Toby’s_ kitchen-garden, and
which was the scene of so many of his delicious hours, --the fault is
not in me, --but in his imagination; --for I am sure I gave him so
minute a description, I was almost ashamed of it.
When FATE was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great
transactions of future times, --and recollected for what purposes this
little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined,
---she gave a nod to NATURE, --’twas enough --Nature threw half a spade
full of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so _much_ clay in it,
as to retain the forms of angles and indentings, --and so _little_ of it
too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works of so much glory,
nasty in foul weather.
My uncle _Toby_ came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans
along with him, of almost every fortified town in _Italy_ and
_Flanders_; so let the Duke of _Marlborough_, or the allies, have set
down before what town they pleased, my uncle _Toby_ was prepared for
them.
His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as soon as
ever a town was invested--(but sooner when the design was known) to take
the plan of it (let it be what town it would), and enlarge it upon a
scale to the exact size of his bowling-green; upon the surface of which,
by means of a large role of packthread, and a number of small piquets
driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he transferred
the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the place, with its
works, to determine the depths and slopes of the ditches, --the talus of
the glacis, and the precise height of the several banquets, parapets,
&c. --he set the corporal to work----and sweetly went it on: ----The
nature of the soil, --the nature of the work itself, --and above all,
the good-nature of my uncle _Toby_ sitting by from morning to night, and
chatting kindly with the corporal upon past-done deeds, --left LABOUR
little else but the ceremony of the name.
When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper
posture of defence, --it was invested, --and my uncle _Toby_ and the
corporal began to run their first parallel. ----I beg I may not be
interrupted in my story, by being told, _That the first parallel should
be at least three hundred toises distant from the main body of the
place, --and that I have not left a single inch for it_; ------for my
uncle _Toby_ took the liberty of incroaching upon his kitchen-garden,
for the sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green, and for that
reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt two rows of
his cabbages and his cauliflowers; the conveniences and inconveniences
of which will be considered at large in the history of my uncle _Toby’s_
and the corporal’s campaigns, of which, this I’m now writing is but a
sketch, and will be finished, if I conjecture right, in three pages (but
there is no guessing) ----The campaigns themselves will take up as many
books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a weight
of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to rhapsodize
them, as I once intended, into the body of the work----surely they had
better be printed apart, ----we’ll consider the affair----so take the
following sketch of them in the meantime.
CHAPTER XXII
When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle _Toby_ and the
corporal began to run their first parallel----not at random, or any
how----but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to
run theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks, by the accounts
my uncle _Toby_ received from the daily papers, --they went on, during
the whole siege, step by step with the allies.
When the duke of _Marlborough_ made a lodgment, ----my uncle _Toby_ made
a lodgment too, ----And when the face of a bastion was battered down, or
a defence ruined, --the corporal took his mattock and did as much, --and
so on; ----gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works
one after another, till the town fell into their hands.
To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others, --there could not
have been a greater sight in the world, than, on a post-morning, in
which a practicable breach had been made by the duke of _Marlborough_,
in the main body of the place, --to have stood behind the horn-beam
hedge, and observed the spirit with which my uncle _Toby_, with _Trim_
behind him, sallied forth; ----the one with the _Gazette_ in his hand,
--the other with a spade on his shoulder to execute the contents.
----What an honest triumph in my uncle _Toby’s_ looks as he marched up
to the ramparts! What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood
over the corporal, reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as he
was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too
wide, --or leave it an inch too narrow. ----But when the _chamade_ was
beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed with the
colours in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts --Heaven! Earth! Sea!
----but what avails apostrophes? ----with all your elements, wet or dry,
ye never compounded so intoxicating a draught.
In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to
it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a
week or ten days together, which detained the _Flanders_ mail, and kept
them so long in torture, --but still ’twas the torture of the
happy ----In this track, I say, did my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ move for
many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the
invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new
conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened
fresh springs of delight in carrying them on.
The first year’s campaign was carried on from beginning to end, in the
plain and simple method I’ve related.
In the second year, in which my uncle _Toby_ took _Liege_ and
_Ruremond_, he thought he might afford the expence of four handsome
draw-bridges, of two of which I have given an exact description in the
former part of my work.
At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates with
portcullises: ----These last were converted afterwards into orgues, as
the better thing; and during the winter of the same year, my uncle
_Toby_, instead of a new suit of clothes, which he always had at
_Christmas_, treated himself with a handsome sentry-box, to stand at the
corner of the bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of the
glacis, there was left a little kind of an esplanade for him and the
corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon.
----The sentry-box was in case of rain.
All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which
enabled my uncle _Toby_ to take the field with great splendour.
My father would often say to _Yorick_, that if any mortal in the whole
universe had done such a thing, except his brother _Toby_, it would have
been looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires upon
the parade and prancing manner in which _Lewis_ XIV. from the beginning
of the war, but particularly that very year, had taken the field ----But
’tis not my brother _Toby’s_ nature, kind soul! my father would add, to
insult any one.
----But let us go on.
CHAPTER XXIII
I must observe, that although in the first year’s campaign, the word
_town_ is often mentioned, --yet there was no town at that time within
the polygon; that addition was not made till the summer following the
spring in which the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the
third year of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns, --when upon his taking
_Amberg_, _Bonn_, and _Rhinberg_, and _Huy_ and _Limbourg_, one after
another, a thought came into the corporal’s head, that to talk of taking
so many towns, _without one TOWN to shew for it_, --was a very
nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my uncle _Toby_,
that they should have a little model of a town built for them, --to be
run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within the
interior polygon to serve for all.
My uncle _Toby_ felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly
agreed to it, but with the addition of two singular improvements, of
which he was almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of
the project itself.
The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of
which it was most likely to be the representative: ----with grated
windows, and the gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c.
--as those in _Ghent_ and _Bruges_, and the rest of the towns in
_Brabant_ and _Flanders_.
The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal
proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off, so as
to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put
directly into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation
was exchanged between my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal, as the carpenter
did the work.
----It answered prodigiously the next summer----the town was a perfect
_Proteus_ ----It was _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Santvliet_, and
_Drusen_, and _Hagenau_, --and then it was _Ostend_ and _Menin_, and
_Aeth_ and _Dendermond_.
----Surely never did any TOWN act so many parts, since _Sodom_ and
_Gomorah_, as my uncle _Toby’s_ town did.
In the fourth year, my uncle _Toby_ thinking a town looked foolishly
without a church, added a very fine one with a steeple. ----_Trim_ was
for having bells in it; ----my uncle _Toby_ said, the metal had better
be cast into cannon.
This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass field-pieces,
to be planted three and three on each side of my uncle _Toby’s_
sentry-box; and in a short time, these led the way for a train of
somewhat larger, --and so on--(as must always be the case in
hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch bore, till it came
at last to my father’s jack boots.
The next year, which was that in which _Lisle_ was besieged, and at the
close of which both _Ghent_ and _Bruges_ fell into our hands, --my uncle
_Toby_ was sadly put to it for _proper_ ammunition; ----I say proper
ammunition----because his great artillery would not bear powder; and
’twas well for the _Shandy_ family they would not ----For so full were
the papers, from the beginning to the end of the siege, of the incessant
firings kept up by the besiegers, ----and so heated was my uncle
_Toby’s_ imagination with the accounts of them, that he had infallibly
shot away all his estate.
SOMETHING therefore was wanting as a _succedaneum_, especially in one or
two of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something
like a continual firing in the imagination, ----and this _something_,
the corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an
entire new system of battering of his own, --without which, this had
been objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of
the great _desiderata_ of my uncle _Toby’s_ apparatus.
This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally
do, at a little distance from the subject.
CHAPTER XXIV
With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great
regard, which poor _Tom_, the corporal’s unfortunate brother, had sent
him over, with the account of his marriage with the _Jew’s_
widow----there was
A _Montero_-cap and two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes.
The _Montero_-cap I shall describe by and bye. ----The _Turkish_
tobacco-pipes had nothing particular in them, they were fitted up and
ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of _Morocco_ leather and gold
wire, and mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory, --the other
with black ebony, tipp’d with silver.
My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the
world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two
presents more as tokens of his brother’s nicety, than his affection.
----_Tom_ did not care, _Trim_, he would say, to put on the cap, or to
smoke in the tobacco-pipe of a _Jew_. ----God bless your honour, the
corporal would say, (giving a strong reason to the contrary)--how can
that be?
The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine _Spanish_ cloth, dyed in
grain, and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the
front, which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered, --and
seemed to have been the property of a _Portuguese_ quartermaster, not of
foot, but of horse, as the word denotes.
The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as
the sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon GALA-days;
and yet never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all
controverted points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal
was sure he was in the right, --it was either his _oath_, --his _wager_,
--or his _gift_.
----’Twas his gift in the present case.
I’ll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to _give_ away my
Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door, if I do not
manage this matter to his honour’s satisfaction.
The completion was no further off than the very next morning; which was
that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the _Lower Deule_, to the
right, and the gate _St. Andrew_, --and on the left, between St.
_Magdalen’s_ and the river.
As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war, --the most
gallant and obstinate on both sides, --and I must add the most bloody
too, for it cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred
men, --my uncle _Toby_ prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary
solemnity.
The eve which preceded, as my uncle _Toby_ went to bed, he ordered his
ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years in the corner of
an old compaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out
and laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning; --and the very first
thing he did in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle
_Toby_, after he had turned the rough side outwards, --put it on:
----This done, he proceeded next to his breeches, and having buttoned
the waistband, he forthwith buckled on his sword-belt, and had got his
sword half way in, --when he considered he should want shaving, and that
it would be very inconvenient doing it with his sword on, --so took it
off: ----In assaying to put on his regimental coat and waistcoat, my
uncle _Toby_ found the same objection in his wig, --so that went off
too: --So that what with one thing and what with another, as always
falls out when a man is in the most haste, --’twas ten o’clock, which
was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle _Toby_
sallied out.
CHAPTER XXV
My uncle _Toby_ had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which
separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived
the corporal had begun the attack without him.------
Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal’s apparatus; and of
the corporal himself in the height of his attack, just as it struck my
uncle _Toby_, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal
was at work, ----for in nature there is not such another, ----nor can
any combination of all that is grotesque and whimsical in her works
produce its equal.
The corporal------
----Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, ----for he was your
kinsman:
Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness, --for he was your brother.
--Oh corporal! had I thee, but now, --now, that I am able to give thee a
dinner and protection, --how would I cherish thee! thou should’st wear
thy Montero-cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week, --and
when it was worn out, I would purchase thee a couple like it: ----But
alas! alas! alas! now that I can do this in spite of their
reverences--the occasion is lost--for thou art gone; --thy genius fled
up to the stars from whence it came; --and that warm heart of thine,
with all its generous and open vessels, compressed into a _clod of the
valley!_
----But what----what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I
look towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy
master--the first--the foremost of created beings; ----where, I shall
see thee, faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a
trembling hand across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to
the door, to take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his
hearse, as he directed thee; ----where--all my father’s systems shall be
baffled by his sorrows; and, in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold
him, as he inspects the lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from
off his nose, to wipe away the dew which nature has shed upon
them ----When I see him cast in the rosemary with an air of
disconsolation, which cries through my ears, ----O _Toby!_ in what
corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow?
----Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his
distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain----when I
shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a
stinted hand.
CHAPTER XXVI
The corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply
the grand _desideratum_, of keeping up something like an incessant
firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack, --had no further
idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco
against the town, out of one of my uncle _Toby’s_ six field-pieces,
which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of
effecting which occurring to his fancy at the time same, though he had
pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from the miscarriage of his
projects.
Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began
to find out, that by means of his two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes, with the
supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their lower
ends, to be tagg’d by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the
touch-holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied
hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the
_Morocco_ tube, --he should be able to fire the six field-pieces all
together, and with the same ease as to fire one.------
----Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out
for the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my
father’s first and second _beds of justice_, ever rise up and say again,
from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck
out, to carry the arts and sciences up to perfection. ----Heaven! thou
knowest how I love them; ----thou knowest the secrets of my heart, and
that I would this moment give my shirt ----Thou art a fool, _Shandy_,
says _Eugenius_, for thou hast but a dozen in the world, --and ’twill
break thy set.----
No matter for that, _Eugenius_; I would give the shirt off my back to be
burned into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer, how
many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into
the tail of it. ----Think ye not that in striking these _in_, --he
might, peradventure, strike something _out?_ as sure as a gun.----
----But this project, by the bye.
The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing _his_ to
perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with
charging them to the top with tobacco, --he went with contentment to
bed.
CHAPTER XXVII
The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle _Toby_,
in order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two
before my uncle _Toby_ came.
He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together in
front of my uncle _Toby’s_ sentry-box, leaving only an interval of about
a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the
convenience of charging, &c. --and the sake possibly of two batteries,
which he might think double the honour of one.
In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the
sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his
post: ----He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the
right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand, --and the ebony
pipe tipp’d with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left,
betwixt the finger and thumb of the other----and with his right knee
fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was
the corporal with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off
his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard,
which faced the counter-scarp, where the attack was to be made that
morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the
enemy a single puff or two; --but the pleasure of the _puffs_, as well
as the _puffing_, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him
on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time my
uncle _Toby_ joined him.
’Twas well for my father, that my uncle _Toby_ had not his will to make
that day.
CHAPTER XXVIII
My uncle _Toby_ took the ivory pipe out of the corporal’s hand, --looked
at it for half a minute, and returned it.
In less than two minutes, my uncle _Toby_ took the pipe from the
corporal again, and raised it half way to his mouth----then hastily gave
it back a second time.
The corporal redoubled the attack, ----my uncle _Toby_ smiled, ----then
looked grave, ----then smiled for a moment, ----then looked serious for
a long time; ----Give me hold of the ivory pipe, _Trim_, said my uncle
_Toby_----my uncle _Toby_ put it to his lips, ----drew it back directly,
--gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge; ----never did my uncle _Toby’s_
mouth water so much for a pipe in his life. ----My uncle _Toby_ retired
into the sentry-box with the pipe in his hand.------
----Dear uncle _Toby!_ don’t go into the sentry-box with the pipe,
--there’s no trusting a man’s self with such a thing in such a corner.
CHAPTER XXIX
I beg the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle _Toby’s_
ordnance behind the scenes, ----to remove his sentry-box, and clear the
theatre, _if possible_, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest
of his military apparatus out of the way; ----that done, my dear friend
_Garrick_, we’ll snuff the candles bright, --sweep the stage with a new
broom, --draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle _Toby_ dressed in a
new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will
act: and yet, if pity be a-kin to love, --and bravery no alien to it,
you have seen enough of my uncle _Toby_ in these, to trace these family
likenesses betwixt the two passions (in case there is one) to your
heart’s content.
Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kind--and thou
puzzlest us in every one.
There was, Madam, in my uncle _Toby_, a singleness of heart which misled
him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this
nature usually go on; you can--you can have no conception of it: with
this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an
unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman;
----and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you (when a siege
was out of his head), that you might have stood behind any one of your
serpentine walks, and shot my uncle _Toby_ ten times in a day, through
his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.
With all this, Madam, --and what confounded everything as much on the
other hand, my uncle _Toby_ had that unparalleled modesty of nature I
once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his
feelings, that you might as soon ----But where am I going? these
reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up
that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts.
CHAPTER XXX
Of the few legitimate sons of _Adam_ whose breasts never felt what the
sting of love was, --(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be
bastards)--the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried
off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their
sakes I had the key of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five
minutes, to tell you their names--recollect them I cannot--so be content
to accept of these, for the present, in their stead.------
There was the great king _Aldrovandus_, and _Bosphorus_, and
_Cappadocius_, and _Dardanus_, and _Pontus_, and _Asius_, ----to say
nothing of the iron-hearted _Charles_ the XIIth, whom the Countess of
K***** herself could make nothing of. ----There was _Babylonicus_, and
_Mediterraneus_, and _Polixenes_, and _Persicus_, and _Prusicus_, not
one of whom (except _Cappadocius_ and _Pontus_, who were both a little
suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess ----The truth
is, they had all of them something else to do--and so had my uncle
_Toby_--till Fate--till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being
handed down to posterity with _Aldrovandus’s_ and the rest, --she basely
patched up the peace of _Utrecht_.
----Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she did that year.
CHAPTER XXXI
Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of _Utrecht_, it was
within a point of giving my uncle _Toby_ a surfeit of sieges; and though
he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet _Calais_ itself left not a
deeper scar in _Mary’s_ heart, than _Utrecht_ upon my uncle _Toby’s_. To
the end of his life he never could hear _Utrecht_ mentioned upon any
account whatever, --or so much as read an article of news extracted out
of the _Utrecht Gazette_, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would
break in twain.
My father, who was a great MOTIVE-MONGER, and consequently a very
dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying, --for
he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew
it yourself--would always console my uncle _Toby_ upon these occasions,
in a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle _Toby_ grieved for
nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his _hobby-horse_.
----Never mind, brother _Toby_, he would say, --by God’s blessing we
shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it
does, --the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot
keep us out of play. ----I defy ’em, my dear _Toby_, he would add, to
take countries without taking towns, ----or towns without sieges.
My uncle _Toby_ never took this back-stroke of my father’s at his
hobby-horse kindly. ----He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more
so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most
dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he
always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend
himself than common.
I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle _Toby_ was not
eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:
----I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.
--He was not eloquent, --it was not easy to my uncle _Toby_ to make long
harangues, --and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where
the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course,
that in some parts my uncle _Toby_, for a time, was at least equal to
_Tertullus_----but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.
My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations
of my uncle _Toby’s_, which he had delivered one evening before him and
_Yorick_, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.
I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father’s papers,
with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus
[ ], and is endorsed,
MY BROTHER TOBY’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS OWN PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT IN
WISHING TO CONTINUE THE WAR
I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle
_Toby’s_ a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence, --and
shows so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him,
that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I
find it.
CHAPTER XXXII
MY UNCLE TOBY’S APOLOGETICAL ORATION
I am not insensible, brother _Shandy_, that when a man whose profession
is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war, --it has an ill aspect to the
world; ----and that, how just and right soever his motives and
intentions may be, --he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating
himself from private views in doing it.
For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without
being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the
hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe
him. ----He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend, --lest he may
suffer in his esteem: ----But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret
sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a
brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true
notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I _hope_, I
have been in all these, brother _Shandy_, would be unbecoming in me to
say: ----much worse, I know, have I been than I ought, --and something
worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother
_Shandy_, who have sucked the same breasts with me, --and with whom I
have been brought up from my cradle, --and from whose knowledge, from
the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed
no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it ----Such as I am,
brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all
my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my
understanding.
Tell me then, my dear brother _Shandy_, upon which of them it is, that
when I condemned the peace of _Utrecht_, and grieved the war was not
carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother
did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad
enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain, --more slaves made,
and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his
own pleasure: ----Tell me, brother _Shandy_, upon what one deed of mine
do you ground it? [_The devil a deed do I know of, dear _Toby_, but one
for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed
sieges._]
If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart
beat with it--was it my fault? Did I plant the propensity there? ----Did
I sound the alarm within, or Nature?
When _Guy_, Earl of _Warwick_, and _Parismus_ and _Parismenus_, and
_Valentine_ and _Orson_, and the _Seven Champions of England_, were
handed around the school, --were they not all purchased with my own
pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother _Shandy?_ When we read over the
siege of _Troy_, which lasted ten years and eight months, ----though
with such a train of artillery as we had at _Namur_, the town might have
been carried in a week--was I not as much concerned for the destruction
of the _Greeks_ and _Trojans_ as any boy of the whole school? Had I not
three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my
left, for calling _Helena_ a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more
tears for _Hector?_ And when king _Priam_ came to the camp to beg his
body, and returned weeping back to _Troy_ without it, --you know,
brother, I could not eat my dinner.------
----Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother _Shandy_, my blood
flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war, --was it a proof it
could not ache for the distresses of war too?
O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels, --and ’tis
another to scatter cypress. ----[_Who told thee, my dear _Toby_, that
cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_]
----’Tis one thing, brother _Shandy_, for a soldier to hazard his own
life--to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in
pieces: ----’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to
enter the breach the first man, --To stand in the foremost rank, and
march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his
ears: ----’Tis one thing, I say, brother _Shandy_, to do this, --and
’tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war; --to view the
desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues
and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them,
is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo.
Need I be told, dear _Yorick_, as I was by you, in _Le Fever’s_ funeral
sermon, _That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and
kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?_ ----But why did you not
add, _Yorick_, --if not by NATURE--that he is so by NECESSITY? ----For
what is war? what is it, _Yorick_, when fought as ours has been, upon
principles of _liberty_, and upon principles of _honour_----what is it,
but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords
in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds?
And heaven is my witness, brother _Shandy_, that the pleasure I have
taken in these things, --and that infinite delight, in particular, which
has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, and I
hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that in
carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our creation.
CHAPTER XXXIII
I told the Christian reader ----I say _Christian_----hoping he is
one----and if he is not, I am sorry for it----and only beg he will
consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon
this book----
I told him, Sir----for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in
the strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going
backwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader’s
fancy----which, for my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than
at first, there is so much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up,
with so many breaks and gaps in it, --and so little service do the stars
afford, which, nevertheless, I hang up in some of the darkest passages,
knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights the
sun itself at noon-day can give it----and now you see, I am lost
myself!------
----But ’tis my father’s fault; and whenever my brains come to be
dissected, you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a
large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of
cambrick, running along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly,
you cannot so much as cut out a * *, (here I hang up a couple of lights
again)----or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt.------
_Quanto id diligentius in liberis procreandis cavendum_, sayeth
_Cardan_. All which being considered, and that you see ’tis morally
impracticable for me to wind this round to where I set out------
I begin the chapter over again.
CHAPTER XXXIV
I told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which
preceded my uncle _Toby’s_ apologetical oration, --though in a different
trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace of _Utrecht_
was within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_
and his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the
confederating powers.
There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse,
which as good as says to him, “I’ll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my
life, before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.” Now my
uncle _Toby_ could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for
in strictness of language, he could not be said to dismount his horse at
all----his horse rather flung him----and somewhat _viciously_, which
made my uncle _Toby_ take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be
settled by state-jockies as they like. ----It created, I say, a sort of
shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_ and his hobby-horse. ----He had no
occasion for him from the month of _March_ to _November_, which was the
summer after the articles were signed, except it was now and then to
take a short ride out, just to see that the fortifications and harbour
of _Dunkirk_ were demolished, according to stipulation.
The _French_ were so backwards all that summer in setting about that
affair, and Monsieur _Tugghe_, the Deputy from the magistrates of
_Dunkirk_, presented so many affecting petitions to the queen,
--beseeching her majesty to cause only her thunder-bolts to fall upon
the martial works, which might have incurred her displeasure, --but to
spare--to spare the mole, for the mole’s sake; which, in its naked
situation, could be no more than an object of pity----and the queen (who
was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition, --and her ministers
also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for
these private reasons, * * * *
* * * * * * * ----
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * ; so that the whole went heavily on with my uncle
_Toby_; insomuch, that it was not within three full months, after he and
the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be
destroyed, that the several commandants, commissaries, deputies,
negociators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it. ----Fatal
interval of inactivity!
The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the
ramparts, or main fortifications of the town ----No, --that will never
do, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, for in going that way to work with
the town, the _English_ garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because
if the _French_ are treacherous ----They are as treacherous as devils,
an’ please your honour, said the corporal ----It gives me concern always
when I hear it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, --for they don’t want
personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may
enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please:
----Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s spade
in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it, --let
them enter, an’ please your honour, if they dare. ----In cases like
this, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, slipping his right hand down to
the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with
his forefinger extended, ----’tis no part of the consideration of a
commandant, what the enemy dare, --or what they dare not do; he must act
with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and
the land, and particularly with fort _Louis_, the most distant of them
all, and demolish it first, --and the rest, one by one, both on our
right and left, as we retreat towards the town; ----then we’ll demolish
the mole, --next fill up the harbour, --then retire into the citadel,
and blow it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we’ll
embark for _England_. ----We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting
himself ----Very true, said my uncle _Toby_--looking at the church.
CHAPTER XXXV
A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle
_Toby_ and _Trim_, upon the demolition of _Dunkirk_, --for a moment
rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from
under him: ----still--still all went on heavily----the magic left the
mind the weaker --STILLNESS, with SILENCE at her back, entered the
solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle _Toby’s_
head; ----and LISTLESSNESS, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat
quietly down beside him in his arm-chair. ----No longer _Amberg_ and
_Rhinberg_, and _Limbourg_, and _Huy_, and _Bonn_, in one year, --and
the prospect of _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Drusen_, and
_Dendermond_, the next, --hurried on the blood: --No longer did saps,
and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair
enemy of man’s repose: ----No more could my uncle _Toby_, after passing
the _French_ lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into
the heart of _France_, --cross over the _Oyes_, and with all _Picardie_
open behind him, march up to the gates of _Paris_, and fall asleep with
nothing but ideas of glory: ----No more was he to dream he had fixed the
royal standard upon the tower of the _Bastile_, and awake with it
streaming in his head.
----Softer visions, --gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his
slumbers; --the trumpet of war fell out of his hands, --he took up the
lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most
difficult! ----how wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle _Toby?_
CHAPTER XXXVI
Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of
talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle _Toby’s_
courtship of widow _Wadman_, whenever I got time to write them, would
turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and
practical part of love and love-making, that ever was addressed to the
world----are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a
description of _what love is?_ whether part God and part Devil, as
_Plotinus_ will have it----
----Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to
be as ten----to determine with _Ficinus_, “_How many parts of it--the
one, --and how many the other_;” --or whether it is _all of it one great
Devil_, from head to tail, as _Plato_ has taken upon him to pronounce;
concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion: --but my
opinion of _Plato_ is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have
been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with doctor
_Baynyard_, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half
a dozen of ’em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a
herse and six--rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in
the world, but one great bouncing _Canthari[di]s_.------
I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous
liberty in arguing, but what _Nazianzen_ cried out (_that is,
polemically_) to _Philagrius_----
“Εὖγε!” _O rare! ’tis fine reasoning, Sir, indeed!_-- “ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν
Πάθεσι”--_and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize
about it in your moods and passions._
Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire,
whether love is a disease, ----or embroil myself with _Rhasis_ and
_Dioscorides_, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver;
--because this would lead me on, to an examination of the two very
opposite manners, in which patients have been treated----the one, of
_Aætius_, who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and
bruised cucumbers; --and followed on with thin potations of
water-lillies and purslane--to which he added a pinch of snuff of the
herb _Hanea_; --and where _Aætius_ durst venture it, --his topaz-ring.
----The other, that of _Gordonius_, who (in his cap. 15. _de Amore_)
directs they should be thrashed, “_ad putorem usque_,” ----till they
stink again.
These are disquisitions, which my father, who had laid in a great stock
of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my
uncle _Toby’s_ affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his
theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my
uncle _Toby’s_ mind, almost as much as his amours themselves)--he took a
single step into practice; --and by means of a camphorated cerecloth,
which he found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he
was making my uncle _Toby_ a new pair of breeches, he produced
_Gordonius’s_ effect upon my uncle _Toby_ without the disgrace.
What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that
is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this ----That whatever effect
it had upon my uncle _Toby_, ----it had a vile effect upon the house;
----and if my uncle _Toby_ had not smoaked it down as he did, it might
have had a vile effect upon my father too.
CHAPTER XXXVII
----’Twill come out of itself by and bye. ----All I contend for is, that
I am not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is; and so
long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the
word itself, without any other idea to it, than what I have in common
with the rest of the world, why should I differ from it a moment before
the time? ----When I can get on no further, ----and find myself
entangled on all sides of this mystic labyrinth, --my Opinion will then
come in, in course, --and lead me out.
At present, I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in telling the
reader, my uncle _Toby_ _fell in love_:
--Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is
_fallen_ in love, --or that he is _deeply_ in love, --or up to the ears
in love, --and sometimes even _over head and ears in it_, --carries an
idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing _below_ a man:
--this is recurring again to _Plato’s_ opinion, which, with all his
divinityship, --I hold to be damnable and heretical: --and so much for
that.
Let love therefore be what it will, --my uncle _Toby_ fell into it.
----And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation--so wouldst
thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet anything
in this world, more concupiscible than widow _Wadman_.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
To conceive this right, --call for pen and ink--here’s paper ready to
your hand. ----Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind----as like your
mistress as you can----as unlike your wife as your conscience will let
you--’tis all one to me----please but your own fancy in it.
*
*
*
*
*
*
------Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet! --so exquisite!
----Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle _Toby_ resist it?
Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers,
which MALICE will not blacken, and which IGNORANCE cannot misrepresent.
CHAPTER XXXIX
As _Susannah_ was informed by an express from Mrs. _Bridget_, of my
uncle _Toby’s_ falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it
happened, --the contents of which express, _Susannah_ communicated to my
mother the next day, --it has just given me an opportunity of entering
upon my uncle _Toby’s_ amours a fortnight before their existence.
I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother,
which will surprise you greatly.----
Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and
was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother
broke silence.------
“----My brother _Toby_, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs.
_Wadman_.”
----Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie _diagonally_ in
his bed again as long as he lives.
It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the
meaning of a thing she did not understand.
----That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her
misfortune--but she might ask a question.--
My mother never did. ----In short, she went out of the world at last
without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still_. ----My
father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,
--but she always forgot.
For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them,
than a proposition, --a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it
generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the
breeches), and then went on again.
If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us, --quoth my mother.
Not a cherry-stone, said my father, --he may as well batter away his
means upon that, as any thing else.
----To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition, --the
reply, --and the rejoinder, I told you of.
It will be some amusement to him, too, ----said my father.
A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.----
----Lord have mercy upon me, --said my father to himself----
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * *
CHAPTER XL
I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a
vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I
shall be able to go on with my uncle _Toby’s_ story, and my own, in a
tolerable strait line. Now,
[Illustration:
_Inv. T. S._ _Scul. T. S._]
These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third,
and fourth volumes.[6.4] --In the fifth volume I have been very good,
----the precise line I have described in it being this:
[Illustration]
By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A, where I took a
trip to _Navarre_, --and the indented curve _B_, which is the short
airing when I was there with the Lady _Baussiere_ and her page, --I have
not taken the least frisk of a digression, till _John de la Casse’s_
devils led me the round you see marked D. --for as for _c c c c c_ they
are nothing but parentheses, and the common _ins_ and _outs_ incident to
the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with
what men have done, --or with my own transgressions at the letters
A B D--they vanish into nothing.
In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of _Le
Fever’s_ episode, to the beginning of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns, --I
have scarce stepped a yard out of my way.
If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible----by the good leave of his
grace of _Benevento’s_ devils----but I may arrive hereafter at the
excellency of going on even thus:
[Illustration (full-width line)]
which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a
writing-master’s ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to
the right hand or to the left.
This _right line_, --the path-way for Christians to walk in! say
divines----
----The emblem of moral rectitude! says _Cicero_----
----The _best line!_ say cabbage planters----is the shortest line, says
_Archimedes_, which can be drawn from one given point to another.----
I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next
birth-day suits!
----What a journey!
Pray can you tell me, --that is, without anger, before I write my
chapter upon straight lines----by what mistake----who told them so----or
how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along
confounded this line, with the line of GRAVITATION?
[Footnote 6.4: Alluding to the first edition.]
BOOK VII
CHAPTER I
No ----I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided
the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread
worse than the devil, would but give me leave--and in another
place--(but where, I can’t recollect now) speaking of my book as a
_machine_, and laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table,
in order to gain the greater credit to it --I swore it should be kept a
going at that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of
life to bless me so long with health and good spirits.
Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge--nay so very
little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool
with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on
the contrary, I have much--much to thank ’em for: cheerily have ye made
me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares)
upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye
once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either
with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with
hope, and when DEATH himself knocked at my door--ye bad him come again;
and in so gay a tone of careless indifference did ye do it, that he
doubted of his commission----
“--There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,” quoth he.
Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be
interrupted in a story----and I was that moment telling _Eugenius_ a
most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish,
and of a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the
grounds and justice of the procedure----
“--Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth
Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_,
taking hold of my hand as I finished my story----
But there is no _living_, _Eugenius_, replied I, at this rate; for as
this _son of a whore_ has found out my lodgings----
--You call him rightly, said _Eugenius_, --for by sin, we are told, he
enter’d the world ----I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided
he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him--for I have forty
volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body
in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest
he has got me by the throat (for _Eugenius_ could scarce hear me speak
across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had
I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these two
spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support
me--had I not better, _Eugenius_, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my
dear _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_ --Then by heaven! I will lead him a
dance he little thinks of----for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking
once behind me, to the banks of the _Garonne_; and if I hear him
clattering at my heels ----I’ll scamper away to mount _Vesuvius_----from
thence to _Joppa_, and from _Joppa_ to the world’s end; where, if he
follows me, I pray God he may break his neck----
--He runs more risk _there_, said _Eugenius_, than thou.
_Eugenius’s_ wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence
it had been some months banish’d----’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in;
he led me to my chaise----_Allons!_ said I; the postboy gave a crack
with his whip----off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds
got into _Dover_.