days----
And whence, cried _Slop_, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of
woman, friend?
By falling in love with a popish clergywoman; said _Trim_.
’Twas a _Beguine_, said my uncle _Toby_.
Doctor _Slop_ was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my
father taking that very crisis to fall in helter-skelter upon the whole
order of Nuns and _Beguines_, a set of silly, fusty, baggages----_Slop_
could not stand it----and my uncle _Toby_ having some measures to take
about his breeches--and _Yorick_ about his fourth general division--in
order for their several attacks next day--the company broke up: and my
father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt
that and bed-time; he called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote my uncle
_Toby_ the following letter of instructions:
MY DEAR BROTHER _Toby_,
What I am going to say to thee is upon the nature of women, and of
love-making to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee--tho’ not so
well for me--that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon
that head, and that I am able to write it to thee.
Had it been the good pleasure of him who disposes of our lots--and thou
no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou
should’st have dipp’d the pen this moment into the ink, instead of
myself; but that not being the case ------------Mrs. _Shandy_ being now
close beside me, preparing for bed ----I have thrown together without
order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and documents
as I deem may be of use to thee; intending, in this, to give thee a
token of my love; not doubting, my dear _Toby_, of the manner in which
it will be accepted.
In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the
affair----though I perceive from a glow in my cheek, that I blush as I
begin to speak to thee upon the subject, as well knowing,
notwithstanding thy unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou
neglectest--yet I would remind thee of one (during the continuance of
thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted;
and that is, never to go forth upon the enterprize, whether it be in the
morning or the afternoon, without first recommending thyself to the
protection of Almighty God, that he may defend thee from the evil one.
Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once at least every four or five
days, but oftener if convenient; lest in taking off thy wig before her,
thro’ absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been
cut away by Time----how much by _Trim_.
--’Twere better to keep ideas of baldness out of her fancy.
Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it as a sure maxim, _Toby_----
“_That women are timid:_” And ’tis well they are----else there would be
no dealing with them.
Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs,
like the trunk-hose of our ancestors.
----A just medium prevents all conclusions.
Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in
a low soft tone of voice. Silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves
dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: For this cause, if thou canst
help it, never throw down the tongs and poker.
Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with
her, and do whatever lies in thy power at the same time, to keep from
her all books and writings which tend thereto: there are some devotional
tracts, which if thou canst entice her to read over--it will be well:
but suffer her not to look into _Rabelais_, or _Scarron_, or _Don
Quixote_----
----They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear
_Toby_, that there is no passion so serious as lust.
Stick a pin in the bosom of thy shirt, before thou enterest her parlour.
And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sopha with her, and she
gives thee occasion to lay thy hand upon hers--beware of taking
it----thou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper
of thine. Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite
undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her curiosity on thy side; and
if she is not conquered by that, and thy ASSE continues still kicking,
which there is great reason to suppose ----Thou must begin, with first
losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according to the practice
of the ancient _Scythians_, who cured the most intemperate fits of the
appetite by that means.
_Avicenna_, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup
of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges----and I believe
rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat’s flesh, nor red
deer----nor even foal’s flesh by any means; and carefully
abstain----that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots,
didappers, and water-hens----
As for thy drink --I need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of
VERVAIN and the herb HANEA, of which _Ælian_ relates such effects--but
if thy stomach palls with it--discontinue it from time to time, taking
cucumbers, melons, purslane, water-lillies, woodbine, and lettice, in
the stead of them.
There is nothing further for thee, which occurs to me at present----
----Unless the breaking out of a fresh war ----So wishing everything,
dear _Toby_, for the best,
I rest thy affectionate brother,
WALTER SHANDY.
CHAPTER XXXV
Whilst my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle _Toby_
and the corporal were busy in preparing everything for the attack. As
the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for
the present), there was nothing which should put it off beyond the next
morning; so accordingly it was resolved upon, for eleven o’clock.
Come, my dear, said my father to my mother--’twill be but like a brother
and sister, if you and I take a walk down to my brother _Toby’s_----to
countenance him in this attack of his.
My uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had been accoutred both some time, when
my father and mother enter’d, and the clock striking eleven, were that
moment in motion to sally forth--but the account of this is worth more
than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth[8.7] volume of such a
work as this. ----My father had no time but to put the letter of
instructions into my uncle _Toby’s_ coat-pocket----and join with my
mother in wishing his attack prosperous.
I could like, said my mother, to look through the key-hole out of
curiosity ----Call it by its right name, my dear, quoth my father--
_And look through the key-hole_ as long as you will.
[Footnote 8.7: Alluding to the first edition.]
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est.
PLIN. Lib. v. Epist. 6.
Si quid urbaniusculè lusum a nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium
poëtarum Numina, Oro te, ne me malè capias.
A DEDICATION
TO A GREAT MAN
Having, _a priori_, intended to dedicate _The Amours of my Uncle
Toby_ to Mr. *** ----I see more reasons, _a posteriori_, for doing it
to Lord *******.
I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of
their Reverences; because _a posteriori_, in Court-latin, signifies
the kissing hands for preferment--or anything else--in order to get
it.
My opinion of Lord ******* is neither better nor worse, than it was
of Mr. ***. Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal
and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will
pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their
own weight.
The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour’s
amusement to Mr. *** when out of place--operates more forcibly at
present, as half an hour’s amusement will be more serviceable and
refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical
repast.
Nothing is so perfectly _amusement_ as a total change of ideas; no
ideas are so totally different as those of Ministers, and innocent
Lovers: for which reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and
Patriots, and set such marks upon them as will prevent confusion and
mistakes concerning them for the future --I propose to dedicate that
Volume to some gentle Shepherd,
Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray,
Far as the Statesman’s walk or Patriot-way;
Yet _simple Nature_ to his hopes had given
Out of a cloud-capp’d head a humbler heaven;
Some _untam’d_ World in depths of wood embraced--
Some happier Island in the watry-waste--
And where admitted to that equal sky,
His _faithful Dog_ should bear him company.
In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his
Imagination, I shall unavoidably give a _Diversion_ to his
passionate and love-sick Contemplations. In the meantime,
I am
THE AUTHOR.
BOOK IX
CHAPTER I
I call all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in
our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet
get fairly to my uncle _Toby’s_ amours, till this very moment, that my
mother’s _curiosity_, as she stated the affair, ----or a different
impulse in her, as my father would have it----wished her to take a peep
at them through the key-hole.
“Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through
the key-hole as long as you will.”
Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have
often spoken of, in my father’s habit, could have vented such an
insinuation----he was however frank and generous in his nature, and at
all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word
of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him.
My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under
his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the
back of his--she raised her fingers, and let them fall--it could scarce
be call’d a tap; or if it was a tap---- ’twould have puzzled a casuist
to say, whether ’twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession:
my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class’d it
right --Conscience redoubled her blow--he turn’d his face suddenly the
other way, and my mother supposing his body was about to turn with it in
order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping
her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he
turned his head, he met her eye ------Confusion again! he saw a thousand
reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself----a
thin, blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest,
the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom of
it, had it existed----it did not----and how I happen to be so lewd
myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal
equinoxes ----Heaven above knows ----My mother----madam----was so at no
time, either by nature, by institution, or example.
A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months
of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night
alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the
manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no
meaning in them, nature is oft-times obliged to find one ----And as for
my father’s example! ’twas so far from being either aiding or abetting
thereunto, that ’twas the whole business of his life to keep all fancies
of that kind out of her head ----Nature had done her part, to have spared
him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew
it ----And here am I sitting, this 12th day of _August_ 1766, in a purple
jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most
tragicomical completion of his prediction, “That I should neither think,
nor act like any other man’s child, upon that very account.”
The mistake in my father, was in attacking my mother’s motive, instead
of the act itself; for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes;
and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true
proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it was------it became a
violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal.
It is for this reason, an’ please your Reverences, That key-holes are
the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this
world put together.
------which leads me to my uncle _Toby’s_ amours.
CHAPTER II
Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle
_Toby’s_ great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to
produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in
the corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy
to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well
understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished.
The corporal with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back
perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a
better air----had SPLEEN given a look at it, ’twould have cost her
ladyship a smile----it curl’d everywhere but where the corporal would
have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it
honour, he could as soon have raised the dead.
Such it was----or rather such would it have seem’d upon any other brow;
but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle _Toby’s_,
assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature
had moreover wrote GENTLEMAN with so fair a hand in every line of his
countenance, that even his tarnish’d gold-laced hat and huge cockade of
flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves,
yet the moment my uncle _Toby_ put them on, they became serious objects,
and altogether seem’d to have been picked up by the hand of Science to
set him off to advantage.
Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards
this, than my uncle _Toby’s_ blue and gold----_had not Quantity in some
measure been necessary to Grace_: in a period of fifteen or sixteen
years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle
_Toby’s_ life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-green--his
blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was
with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them;
the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage. ----They were
laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the
mode of King _William’s_ reign; and to shorten all description, they
shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and
doughty an air with them, that had my uncle _Toby_ thought of attacking
in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination.
As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp’d by the taylor
between the legs, and left at _sixes and sevens_----
----Yes, Madam, ----but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they
were held impracticable the night before, and as there was no
alternative in my uncle _Toby’s_ wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red
plush.
The corporal had array’d himself in poor _Le Fever’s_ regimental coat;
and with his hair tuck’d up under his _Montero_-cap, which he had
furbish’d up for the occasion, march’d three paces distant from his
master: a whiff of military pride had puff’d out his shirt at the wrist;
and upon that in a black leather thong clipp’d into a tassel beyond the
knot, hung the corporal’s stick ----My uncle _Toby_ carried his cane
like a pike.
----It looks well at least; quoth my father to himself.
CHAPTER III
My uncle _Toby_ turn’d his head more than once behind him, to see how he
was supported by the corporal; and the corporal as oft as he did it,
gave a slight flourish with his stick--but not vapouringly; and with the
sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour “never
fear.”
Now my uncle _Toby_ did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my
father had reproach’d him) so much as the right end of a Woman from the
wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of
them----unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor
would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least
upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman’s eye; and yet
excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. _Wadman_, he had
never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father in the
simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as
talking bawdy.----
----And suppose it is? my father would say.
CHAPTER IV
She cannot, quoth my uncle _Toby_, halting, when they had march’d up to
within twenty paces of Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door--she cannot, corporal, take
it amiss.----
----She will take it, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, just as
the _Jew’s_ widow at _Lisbon_ took it of my brother _Tom_.----
----And how was that? quoth my uncle _Toby_, facing quite about to the
corporal.
Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of _Tom’s_ misfortunes; but
this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if
_Tom_ had not married the widow----or had it pleased God after their
marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest
soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg’d to the
inquisition----’Tis a cursed place--added the corporal, shaking his
head, --when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an’ please your
honour, for ever.
’Tis very true; said my uncle _Toby_, looking gravely at Mrs. _Wadman’s_
house, as he spoke.
Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for
life--or so sweet, an’ please your honour, as liberty.
Nothing, _Trim_----said my uncle _Toby_, musing----
Whilst a man is free, --cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his
stick thus----
[Illustration]
A thousand of my father’s most subtle syllogisms could not have said
more for celibacy.
My uncle _Toby_ look’d earnestly towards his cottage and his
bowling-green.
The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his
wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his
story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the
corporal do it.
CHAPTER V
As _Tom’s_ place, an’ please your honour, was easy--and the weather
warm--it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the
world; and as it fell out about that time, that a _Jew_ who kept a
sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury,
and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade----_Tom_ thought
(as everybody in _Lisbon_ was doing the best he could devise for
himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it
on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a
pound of sausages at her shop--_Tom_ set out--counting the matter thus
within himself, as he walk’d along; that let the worst come of it that
could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worth--but,
if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not
only a pound of sausages--but a wife and--a sausage shop, an’ please
your honour, into the bargain.
Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish’d _Tom_ success; and
I can fancy, an’ please your honour, I see him this moment with his
white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o’ one side,
passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a
chearful word for everybody he met: ----But alas! _Tom!_ thou smilest no
more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as
if he apostrophised him in his dungeon.
Poor fellow! said my uncle _Toby_, feelingly.
He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an’ please your honour, as ever
blood warm’d----
----Then he resembled thee, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, rapidly.
The corporal blush’d down to his fingers ends--a tear of sentimental
bashfulness--another of gratitude to my uncle _Toby_--and a tear of
sorrow for his brother’s misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran
sweetly down his cheek together; my uncle _Toby’s_ kindled as one lamp
does at another; and taking hold of the breast of _Trim’s_ coat (which
had been that of _Le Fever’s_) as if to ease his lame leg, but in
reality to gratify a finer feeling----he stood silent for a minute and a
half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal making
a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the _Jew’s_ widow.
CHAPTER VI
When _Tom_, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in
it, but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied
to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies--not killing them.
----’Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle _Toby_--she had suffered
persecution, _Trim_, and had learnt mercy----
----She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature, as well as from
hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor
friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said _Trim_; and some
dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall
be told you with the rest of _Tom’s_ story, for it makes a part of
it----
Then do not forget, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_.
A negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the corporal
(doubtingly).
I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in things of that
kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than
thee or me----
----It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the
corporal.
It would so; said my uncle _Toby_. Why then, an’ please your honour, is
a black wench to be used worse than a white one?
I can give no reason, said my uncle _Toby_------
----Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one
to stand up for her----
----’Tis that very thing, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, ----which
recommends her to protection----and her brethren with her; ’tis the
fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands _now_----where it
may be hereafter, heaven knows! ----but be it where it will, the brave,
_Trim!_ will not use it unkindly.
----God forbid, said the corporal.
Amen, responded my uncle _Toby_, laying his hand upon his heart.
The corporal returned to his story, and went on----but with an
embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world
will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all
along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far
on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave sense
and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not
please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating
spirits, and aiding nature at the same time with his left arm a-kimbo on
one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the
other--the corporal got as near the note as he could; and in that
attitude, continued his story.
CHAPTER VII
As _Tom_, an’ please your honour, had no business at that time with the
_Moorish_ girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the
_Jew’s_ widow about love----and this pound of sausages; and being, as I
have told your honour, an open cheary-hearted lad, with his character
wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much
apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to
her at the table, and sat down.
There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your
honour, whilst she is making sausages ----So _Tom_ began a discourse
upon them; first, gravely, ----“as how they were made----with what meats,
herbs, and spices” --Then a little gayly, --as, “With what skins----and
if they never burst ----Whether the largest were not the best?” ----and
so on--taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say
upon sausages, rather under than over; ----that he might have room to
act in----
It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle
_Toby_, laying his hand upon _Trim’s_ shoulder, that Count _De la Motte_
lost the battle of _Wynendale_: he pressed too speedily into the wood;
which if he had not done, _Lisle_ had not fallen into our hands, nor
_Ghent_ and _Bruges_, which both followed her example; it was so late in
the year, continued my uncle _Toby_, and so terrible a season came on,
that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have
perish’d in the open field.----
----Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as
marriages, be made in heaven? --My uncle _Toby_ mused----
Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military
skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply
exactly to his mind----my uncle _Toby_ said nothing at all; and the
corporal finished his story.
As _Tom_ perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and
that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he
went on to help her a little in making them. ----First, by taking hold
of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with
her hand----then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding
them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one----then, by
putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she
wanted them----and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured
to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.----
----Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband
as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled
in her mind before _Tom_ mentioned it.
She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a
sausage: ----_Tom_ instantly laid hold of another------
But seeing _Tom’s_ had more gristle in it------
She signed the capitulation----and _Tom_ sealed it; and there was an end
of the matter.
CHAPTER VIII
All womankind, continued _Trim_, (commenting upon his story) from the
highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the
difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no
knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field,
by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.----
----I like the comparison, said my uncle _Toby_, better than the thing
itself----
----Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than
pleasure.
I hope, _Trim_, answered my uncle _Toby_, I love mankind more than
either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and
quiet of the world----and particularly that branch of it which we have
practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten
the strides of AMBITION, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the
_few_, from the plunderings of the _many_----whenever that drum beats in
our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much
humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march.
In pronouncing this, my uncle _Toby_ faced about, and march’d firmly as
at the head of his company----and the faithful corporal, shouldering his
stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first
step----march’d close behind him down the avenue.
----Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my
mother----by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. _Wadman_ in
form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of
circumvallation.
I dare say, quoth my mother ------------But stop, dear Sir----for what
my mother dared to say upon the occasion----and what my father did say
upon it----with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused,
paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon--or to say it all in a word,
shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart ----I say, by
Posterity--and care not, if I repeat the word again--for what has this
book done more than the Legation of _Moses_, or the Tale of a Tub, that
it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?
I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace
tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of
it, more precious, my dear _Jenny!_ than the rubies about thy neck, are
flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return
more----everything presses on----whilst thou art twisting that lock,
----see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and
every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation
which we are shortly to make.----
----Heaven have mercy upon us both!
CHAPTER IX
Now, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation ----I would not give
a groat.
CHAPTER X
My mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till
they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor
_Slop_ was overthrown by _Obadiah_ on the coach-horse: as this was
directly opposite to the front of Mrs. _Wadman’s_ house, when my father
came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle _Toby_ and the
corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about---- “Let us just
stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother
_Toby_ and his man _Trim_ make their first entry----it will not detain
us, added my father, a single minute:” ----No matter, if it be ten
minutes, quoth my mother.
----It will not detain us half one; said my father.
The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother
_Tom_ and the _Jew’s_ widow: the story went on--and on----it had
episodes in it----it came back, and went on----and on again; there was
no end of it----the reader found it very long----
----G-- help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and
gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and dangling, to as
many devils as chose to accept of them.
When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging
in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the
principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have
power to see it out.
Curiosity governs the _first moment_; and the second moment is all
œconomy to justify the expence of the first----and for the third,
fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment--’tis
a point of HONOUR.
I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to
Patience; but that VIRTUE, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient
of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled
castles which HONOUR has left him upon the earth.
My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries
to the end of _Trim’s_ story; and from thence to the end of my uncle
_Toby’s_ panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing,
that instead of marching up to Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door, they both faced
about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his
expectation--he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of
humour which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from
that of all other men.
CHAPTER XI
----“Now what can their two noddles be about?” cried my father - - &c.
- - - -
I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications----
------Not on Mrs. _Wadman’s_ premises! cried my father, stepping
back----
I suppose not: quoth my mother.
I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of
fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines,
blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts------
----They are foolish things----said my mother.
Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my
purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your
reverences would imitate--and that was, never to refuse her assent and
consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she
did not understand it, or had no ideas of the principal word or term of
art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself
with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her--but
no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together--and
replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses,
without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it.
This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck,
at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than
could have done the most petulant contradiction----the few which
survived were the better for the _cuvetts_----
--“They are foolish things;” said my mother.
----Particularly the _cuvetts_; replied my father.
’Tis enough--he tasted the sweet of triumph--and went on.
--Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. _Wadman’s_ premises, said
my father, partly correcting himself--because she is but tenant for
life----
----That makes a great difference--said my mother----
--In a fool’s head, replied my father----
Unless she should happen to have a child--said my mother--
----But she must persuade my brother _Toby_ first to get her one--
----To be sure, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother.
----Though if it comes to persuasion--said my father --Lord have mercy
upon them.
Amen: said my mother, _piano_.
Amen: cried my father, _fortissimè_.
Amen: said my mother again----but with such a sighing cadence of
personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my
father--he instantly took out his almanack; but before he could untie
it, _Yorick’s_ congregation coming out of church, became a full answer
to one half of his business with it--and my mother telling him it was a
sacrament day--left him as little in doubt, as to the other part --He
put his almanack into his pocket.
The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of _ways and means_, could not
have returned home with a more embarrassed look.
CHAPTER XII
Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the
texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and
the three following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted
to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a
book would not hold together a single year: nor is it a poor creeping
digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as well
going on in the king’s highway) which will do the business----no; if it
is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a frisky
subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be caught, but
by rebound.
The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the
service: FANCY is capricious --WIT must not be searched for--and
PLEASANTRY (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was
an empire to be laid at her feet.
----The best way for a man is to say his prayers----
Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well
ghostly as bodily--for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse
after he has said them than before--for other purposes, better.
For my own part, there is not a way either moral or mechanical under
heaven that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in this
case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself, and
arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of her
own faculties----
----I never could make them an inch the wider----
Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the
body, by temperance, soberness, and chastity: These are good, quoth I,
in themselves--they are good, absolutely; --they are good, relatively;
--they are good for health--they are good for happiness in this
world--they are good for happiness in the next----
In short, they were good for everything but the thing wanted; and there
they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven made
it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it
courage; but then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would
always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you
started.
Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have
found to answer so well as this----
----Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not
blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me,
merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for
never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the
furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing
that all mankind should write as well as myself.
----Which they certainly will, when they think as little.
CHAPTER XIII
Now in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts
rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen----
Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of
infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it _for my soul_;
so must be obliged to go on writing like a _Dutch_ commentator to the
end of the chapter, unless something be done----
----I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch
of snuff, or a stride or two across the room will not do the business
for me --I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon
the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first
lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a
hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt--put on a
better coat--send for my last wig--put my topaz ring upon my finger; and
in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best
fashion.
Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider,
Sir, as every man chuses to be present at the shaving of his own beard
(though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits
over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand
in it--the Situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put
into the brain.----
----I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man, are seven years
more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not
run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual
shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity --How _Homer_ could write
with so long a beard, I don’t know----and as it makes against my
hypothesis, I as little care ----But let us return to the Toilet.
_Ludovicus Sorbonensis_ makes this entirely an affair of the body
(ἐξωτερικὴ πρᾶξις) as he calls it----but he is deceived: the soul and
body are joint-sharers in everything they get: A man cannot dress, but
his ideas get cloath’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a
gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination,
genteelized along with him--so that he has nothing to do, but take his
pen, and write like himself.
For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I
writ clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by
looking into my Laundress’s bill, as my book: there was one single month
in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty shirts with
clean writing; and after all, was more abus’d, cursed, criticis’d, and
confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote
in that one month, than in all the other months of that year put
together.
----But their honours and reverences had not seen my bills.
CHAPTER XIV
As I never had any intention of beginning the Digression I am making all
this preparation for, till I come to the 15th chapter ----I have this
chapter to put to whatever use I think proper ----I have twenty this
moment ready for it ----I could write my chapter of Button-holes in
it----
Or my chapter of _Pishes_, which should follow them----
Or my chapter of _Knots_, in case their reverences have done with
them----they might lead me into mischief: the safest way is to follow
the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been
writing, tho’ I declare beforehand, I know no more than my heels how to
answer them.
And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of _thersitical_
satire, as black as the very ink ’tis wrote with----(and by the bye,
whoever says so, is indebted to the muster-master general of the
_Grecian_ army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouth’d a man
as _Thersites_ to continue upon his roll----for it has furnish’d him
with an epithet)----in these productions he will urge, all the personal
washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of
good----but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is,
the better generally he succeeds in it.
To this, I have no other answer----at least ready----but that the
Archbishop of _Benevento_ wrote his _nasty_ Romance of the _Galatea_, as
all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of
breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the
book of the _Revelations_, as severe as it was look’d upon by one part
of the world, was far from being deem’d so by the other, upon the single
account of that _Investment_.
Another objection, to all this remedy, is its want of universality;
forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid,
by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species
entirely from its use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether of
_England_, or of _France_, must e’en go without it------
As for the _Spanish_ ladies ----I am in no sort of distress----
CHAPTER XV
The fifteenth chapter is come at last; and brings nothing with it but a
sad signature of “How our pleasures slip from under us in this world!”
For in talking of my digression ----I declare before heaven I have made
it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.
’Tis very true, said I----but ’twere better to get all these things out
of our heads, and return to my uncle _Toby_.
CHAPTER XVI
When my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had marched down to the bottom of
the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they
faced about and marched up straight to Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door.
I warrant your honour; said the corporal, touching his _Montero_-cap
with his hand, as he passed him in order to give a knock at the
door ----My uncle _Toby_, contrary to his invariable way of treating his
faithful servant, said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not
altogether marshal’d his ideas; he wish’d for another conference, and as
the corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door--he hem’d
twice--a portion of my uncle _Toby’s_ most modest spirits fled, at each
expulsion, towards the corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door
suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. _Bridget_
stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch,
benumb’d with expectation; and Mrs. _Wadman_, with an eye ready to be
deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her
bed-chamber, watching their approach.
_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_----but as he articulated the word, the
minute expired, and _Trim_ let fall the rapper.
My uncle _Toby_ perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knock’d
on the head by it------whistled Lillabullero.
CHAPTER XVII
As Mrs. _Bridget’s_ finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal
did not knock as oft as perchance your honour’s taylor ----I might have
taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine, some five and
twenty pounds at least, and wonder at the man’s patience----
----But this is nothing at all to the world: only ’tis a cursed thing to
be in debt, and there seems to be a fatality in the exchequers of some
poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no Economy can bind
down in irons: for my own part, I’m persuaded there is not any one
prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small upon earth, more
desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I am----
or who takes more likely means for it. I never give above half a
guinea----or walk with boots----or cheapen tooth-picks----or lay out a
shilling upon a band-box the year round; and for the six months I’m in
the country, I’m upon so small a scale, that with all the good temper in
the world, I outdo _Rousseau_, a bar length------for I keep neither man
or boy, or horse, or cow, or dog, or cat, or anything that can eat or
drink, except a thin poor piece of a Vestal (to keep my fire in), and
who has generally as bad an appetite as myself----but if you think this
makes a philosopher of me ----I would not my good people! give a rush
for your judgments.
True philosophy----but there is no treating the subject whilst my uncle
is whistling Lillabullero.
----Let us go into the house.
CHAPTER XVIII
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CHAPTER XIX
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CHAPTER XX
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* * * * * * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * *.------
----You shall see the very place, Madam; said my uncle _Toby_.
Mrs. _Wadman_ blush’d----look’d towards the door----turn’d
pale----blush’d slightly again----recover’d her natural
colour----blush’d worse than ever; which, for the sake of the unlearned
reader, I translate thus----
“_L--d! I cannot look at it----
What would the world say if I look’d at it?
I should drop down, if I look’d at it--
I wish I could look at it----
There can be no sin in looking at it.
----I will look at it._”
Whilst all this was running through Mrs. _Wadman’s_ imagination, my
uncle _Toby_ had risen from the sopha, and got to the other side of the
parlour door, to give _Trim_ an order about it in the passage----
* * * * * * * * *
* * ----I believe it is in the garret, said my uncle _Toby_
----I saw it there, an’ please your honour, this morning, answered
_Trim_ ----Then prithee, step directly for it, _Trim_, said my uncle
_Toby_, and bring it into the parlour.
The corporal did not approve of the orders, but most chearfully obeyed
them. The first was not an act of his will--the second was; so he put on
his _Montero_-cap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My
uncle _Toby_ returned into the parlour, and sat himself down again upon
the sopha.
----You shall lay your finger upon the place--said my uncle _Toby_.
----I will not touch it, however, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_ to herself.
This requires a second translation: --it shews what little knowledge is
got by mere words--we must go up to the first springs.
Now in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages,
I must endeavour to be as clear as possible myself.
Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads--blow your noses--cleanse
your emunctories--sneeze, my good people! ----God bless you----
Now give me all the help you can.
CHAPTER XXI
As there are fifty different ends (counting all ends in----as well civil
as religious) for which a woman takes a husband, she first sets about
and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes in her mind,
which of all that number of ends is hers: then by discourse, enquiry,
argumentation, and inference, she investigates and finds out whether she
has got hold of the right one----and if she has----then, by pulling it
gently this way and that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it
will not break in the drawing.
The imagery under which _Slawkenbergius_ impresses this upon the
reader’s fancy, in the beginning of his third Decad, is so ludicrous,
that the honour I bear the sex, will not suffer me to quote
it----otherwise it is not destitute of humour.
“She first, saith _Slawkenbergius_, stops the asse, and holding his
halter in her left hand (lest he should get away) she thrusts her right
hand into the very bottom of his pannier to search for it --For what?
--you’ll not know the sooner, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, for interrupting
me----
“I have nothing, good Lady, but empty bottles;” says the asse.
“I’m loaded with tripes;” says the second.
----And thou art little better, quoth she to the third; for nothing is
there in thy panniers but trunk-hose and pantofles--and so to the fourth
and fifth, going on one by one through the whole string, till coming to
the asse which carries it, she turns the pannier upside down, looks at
it--considers it--samples it--measures it--stretches it--wets it--dries
it--then takes her teeth both to the warp and weft of it.
----Of what? for the love of Christ!
I am determined, answered _Slawkenbergius_, that all the powers upon
earth shall never wring that secret from my breast.
CHAPTER XXII
We live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles--and so
’tis no matter----else it seems strange, that Nature, who makes
everything so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs,
unless for pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes to whatever
passes through her hands, that whether she designs for the plough, the
caravan, the cart--or whatever other creature she models, be it but an
asse’s foal, you are sure to have the thing you wanted; and yet at the
same time should so eternally bungle it as she does, in making so simple
a thing as a married man.
Whether it is in the choice of the clay----or that it is frequently
spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too
crusty (you know) on one hand----or not enough so, through defect of
heat, on the other----or whether this great Artificer is not so
attentive to the little Platonic exigences _of that part_ of the
species, for whose use she is fabricating _this_----or that her Ladyship
sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do ----I know not: we
will discourse about it after supper.
It is enough, that neither the observation itself, or the reasoning upon
it, are at all to the purpose----but rather against it; since with
regard to my uncle _Toby’s_ fitness for the marriage state, nothing was
ever better: she had formed him of the best and kindliest clay----had
temper’d it with her own milk, and breathed into it the sweetest
spirit----she had made him all gentle, generous, and humane----she had
filled his heart with trust and confidence, and disposed every passage
which led to it, for the communication of the tenderest offices----she
had moreover considered the other causes for which matrimony was
ordained----
And accordingly * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * *.
The DONATION was not defeated by my uncle _Toby’s_ wound.
Now this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is the
great disturber of our faiths in this world, had raised scruples in Mrs.
_Wadman’s_ brain about it; and like a true devil as he was, had done his
own work at the same time, by turning my uncle _Toby’s_ Virtue thereupon
into nothing but _empty bottles_, _tripes_, _trunk-hose_, and
_pantofles_.
CHAPTER XXIII
Mrs. _Bridget_ had pawn’d all the little stock of honour a poor
chambermaid was worth in the world, that she would get to the bottom of
the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most
concessible _postulata_ in nature: namely, that whilst my uncle _Toby_
was making love to her mistress, the corporal could find nothing better
to do, than make love to her---- “_And I’ll let him as much as he will_,
said _Bridget_, _to get it out of him_.”
Friendship has two garments; an outer and an under one. _Bridget_ was
serving her mistress’s interests in the one--and doing the thing which
most pleased herself in the other; so had as many stakes depending upon
my uncle _Toby’s_ wound, as the Devil himself ----Mrs. _Wadman_ had but
one--and as it possibly might be her last (without discouraging Mrs.
_Bridget_, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her cards
herself.
She wanted not encouragement: a child might have look’d into his
hand----there was such a plainness and simplicity in his playing out
what trumps he had----with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the
_ten-ace_----and so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sopha
with widow _Wadman_, that a generous heart would have wept to have won
the game of him.
Let us drop the metaphor.
CHAPTER XXIV
----And the story too--if you please: for though I have all along been
hastening towards this part of it, with so much earnest desire, as well
knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the
world, yet now that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen,
and go on with the story for me that will --I see the difficulties of
the descriptions I’m going to give--and feel my want of powers.
It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of
blood this week in a most uncritical fever which attacked me at the
beginning of this chapter; so that I have still some hopes remaining, it
may be more in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the
subtile _aura_ of the brain----be it which it will--an Invocation can do
no hurt----and I leave the affair entirely to the _invoked_, to inspire
or to inject me according as he sees good.
THE INVOCATION
Gentle Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of
my beloved CERVANTES; Thou who glided’st daily through his lattice, and
turned’st the twilight of his prison into noonday brightness by thy
presence----tinged’st his little urn of water with heaven-sent nectar,
and all the time he wrote of _Sancho_ and his master, didst cast thy
mystic mantle o’er his wither’d stump,[9.1] and wide extended it to all
the evils of his life------
----Turn in hither, I beseech thee! ----behold these breeches! ----they
are all I have in the world----that piteous rent was given them at
_Lyons_------
My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen’d amongst ’em--for the
laps are in _Lombardy_, and the rest of ’em here --I never had but six,
and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at _Milan_ cut me off the
_fore_-laps of five --To do her justice, she did it with some
consideration--for I was returning out of _Italy_.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinderbox which was
moreover filch’d from me at _Sienna_, and twice that I pay’d five Pauls
for two hard eggs, once at _Raddicoffini_, and a second time at
_Capua_ --I do not think a journey through _France_ and _Italy_, provided
a man keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some people would
make you believe: there must be _ups_ and _downs_, or how the duce
should we get into vallies where Nature spreads so many tables of
entertainment. --’Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their
voitures to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve
sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to
his bread? --We really expect too much--and for the livre or two above
par for your suppers and bed--at the most they are but one shilling and
ninepence halfpenny----who would embroil their philosophy for it? for
heaven’s and for your own sake, pay it----pay it with both hands open,
rather than leave _Disappointment_ sitting drooping upon the eye of your
fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gateway, at your departure----and
besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of ’em worth a
pound----at least I did----
----For my uncle _Toby’s_ amours running all the way in my head, they
had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own ----I was in the
most perfect state of bounty and good-will; and felt the kindliest
harmony vibrating within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike;
so that whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference;
everything I saw or had to do with, touch’d upon some secret spring
either of sentiment or rapture.
----They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down
the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly----’Tis _Maria_; said the
postillion, observing I was listening ----Poor _Maria_, continued he
(leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line
betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe,
with her little goat beside her.
The young fellow utter’d this with an accent and a look so perfectly in
tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a
four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to _Moulins_----
------And who is _poor Maria?_ said I.
The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the
postillion----it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon
so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did _Maria_
deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate
of the parish who published them----
He was going on, when _Maria_, who had made a short pause, put the pipe
to her mouth, and began the air again----they were the same notes;
----yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin,
said the young man----but who has taught her to play it--or how she came
by her pipe, no one knows; we think that heaven has assisted her in
both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her
only consolation----she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but
plays that _service_ upon it almost night and day.
The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural
eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above
his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor
_Maria_ taken such full possession of me.
We had got up by this time almost to the bank where _Maria_ was sitting:
she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses,
drawn up into a silk-net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little
fantastically on one side----she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the
full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her----
----God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the
postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents
around, for her, ----but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is
sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her
to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that
score, and think her senses are lost for ever.
As the postillion spoke this, MARIA made a cadence so melancholy, so
tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and
found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my
enthusiasm.
MARIA look’d wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat----and
then at me----and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately----
----Well, _Maria_, said I softly ----What resemblance do you find?
I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the
humblest conviction of what a _Beast_ man is, ----that I asked the
question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable
pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all
the wit that ever _Rabelais_ scatter’d----and yet I own my heart smote
me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would
set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days----and
never----never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child,
the longest day I had to live.
As for writing nonsense to them ----I believe, there was a reserve--but
that I leave to the world.
Adieu, _Maria!_--adieu, poor hapless damsel! ----some time, but not
_now_, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips----but I was deceived;
for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with
it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk’d softly to
my chaise.
------What an excellent inn at _Moulins!_
[Footnote 9.1: He lost his hand at the battle of _Lepanto_.]
CHAPTER XXV
When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all
turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour
has lain bleeding this half hour ----I stop it, by pulling off one of my
yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite
side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it----
----That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are
written in the world, or for aught I know may be now writing in it--that
it was as casual as the foam of _Zeuxis_ his horse; besides, I look upon
a chapter which has _only nothing in it_, with respect; and considering
what worse things there are in the world ----That it is no way a proper
subject for satire------
----Why then was it left so? And here without staying for my reply,
shall I be called as many blockheads, numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads,
ninny-hammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoops, and sh- -t-a-beds----
and other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of _Lernè_
cast in the teeth of King _Garangantan’s_ shepherds ----And I’ll let
them do it, as _Bridget_ said, as much as they please; for how was it
possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the
25th chapter of my book, before the 18th, &c.?
------So I don’t take it amiss ----All I wish is, that it may be a lesson
to the world, “_to let people tell their stories their own way_.”
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
As Mrs. _Bridget_ opened the door before the corporal had well given the
rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle _Toby’s_ introduction into
the parlour, was so short, that Mrs. _Wadman_ had but just time to get
from behind the curtain----lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a
step or two towards the door to receive him.
My uncle _Toby_ saluted Mrs. _Wadman_, after the manner in which women
were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven
hundred and thirteen----then facing about, he march’d up abreast with
her to the sopha, and in three plain words----though not before he was
sat down----nor after he was sat down----but as he was sitting down,
told her, “_he was in love_”----so that my uncle _Toby_ strained himself
more in the declaration than he needed.
Mrs. _Wadman_ naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up
in her apron, in expectation every moment, that my uncle _Toby_ would go
on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love moreover of all
others being a subject of which he was the least a master ----When he
had told Mrs. _Wadman_ once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left
the matter to work after its own way.
My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle _Toby’s_,
as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother
_Toby_ to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco----he had
wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a _Spanish_
proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe.
My uncle _Toby_ never understood what my father meant; nor will I
presume to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which
the bulk of the world lie under----but the _French_ every one of ’em to
a man, who believe in it, almost, as much as the REAL PRESENCE, “_That
talking of love, is making it_.”
------I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same
receipt.
Let us go on: Mrs. _Wadman_ sat in expectation my uncle _Toby_ would do
so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one
side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a
little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she
did it----she took up the gauntlet----or the discourse (if you like it
better) and communed with my uncle _Toby_, thus:
The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_,
are very great. I suppose so--said my uncle _Toby_: and therefore when a
person, continued Mrs. _Wadman_, is so much at his ease as you are--so
happy, captain _Shandy_, in yourself, your friends and your
amusements --I wonder, what reasons can incline you to the state------
----They are written, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in the Common-Prayer Book.
Thus far my uncle _Toby_ went on warily, and kept within his depth,
leaving Mrs. _Wadman_ to sail upon the gulph as she pleased.
----As for children--said Mrs. _Wadman_--though a principal end perhaps
of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every
parent--yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very
uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the
heart-aches--what compensation for the many tender and disquieting
apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother who brings them into
life? I declare, said my uncle _Toby_, smit with pity, I know of none;
unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God----
A fiddlestick! quoth she.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs,
looks, and accents with which the word _fiddlestick_ may be pronounced
in all such causes as this, every one of ’em impressing a sense and
meaning as different from the other, as _dirt_ from _cleanliness_ --That
Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no
less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong.
Mrs. _Wadman_ hit upon the _fiddlestick_, which summoned up all my uncle
_Toby’s_ modest blood into his cheeks--so feeling within himself that he
had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short; and without
entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he
laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they
were, and share them along with her.
When my uncle _Toby_ had said this, he did not care to say it again; so
casting his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. _Wadman_ had laid upon the
table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of
all others the most interesting to him--which was the siege of
_Jericho_--he set himself to read it over--leaving his proposal of
marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after
its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor
like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug which
nature had bestowed upon the world--in short, it work’d not at all in
her; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there
before ----Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen
times; but there is fire still in the subject----allons.
CHAPTER XXVI
It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from _London_ to
_Edinburgh_, to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to _York_;
which is about the half way----nor does anybody wonder, if he goes on
and asks about the corporation, &c.--
It was just as natural for Mrs. _Wadman_, whose first husband was all
his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip
to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her
feelings, in the one case than in the other.
She had accordingly read _Drake’s_ anatomy from one end to the other.
She had peeped into _Wharton_ upon the brain, and borrowed[9.2] _Graaf_
upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it.
She had reason’d likewise from her own powers----laid down
theorems----drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion.
To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor _Slop_, “if poor captain
_Shandy_ was ever likely to recover of his wound----?”
----He is recovered, Doctor _Slop_ would say----
What! quite?
Quite: madam----
But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. _Wadman_ would say.
Doctor _Slop_ was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs.
_Wadman_ could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract
it, but from my uncle _Toby_ himself.
There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls
SUSPICION to rest----and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near
it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the sex to be
deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold
chat with the devil, without it ----But there is an accent of
humanity----how shall I describe it? --’tis an accent which covers the
part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular
with it, as your body-surgeon.
“----Was it without remission?--
“----Was it more tolerable in bed?
“----Could he lie on both sides alike with it?
“--Was he able to mount a horse?
“--Was motion bad for it?” _et cætera_, were so tenderly spoke to, and
so directed towards my uncle _Toby’s_ heart, that every item of them
sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves----but when Mrs.
_Wadman_ went round about by _Namur_ to get at my uncle _Toby’s_ groin;
and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and
_pêle mêle_ with the _Dutch_ to take the counterguard of St. _Roch_
sword in hand--and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him
all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was
carried to his tent ----Heaven! Earth! Sea! --all was lifted up--the
springs of nature rose above their levels--an angel of mercy sat besides
him on the sopha--his heart glow’d with fire--and had he been worth a
thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. _Wadman_.
--And whereabouts, dear Sir, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_, a little
categorically, did you receive this sad blow? ----In asking this
question, Mrs. _Wadman_ gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my
uncle _Toby’s_ red plush breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest
reply to it, that my uncle _Toby_ would lay his forefinger upon the
place ----It fell out otherwise----for my uncle _Toby_ having got his
wound before the gate of St. _Nicolas_, in one of the traverses of the
trench opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. _Roch_;
he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where
he was standing when the stone struck him: this struck instantly upon my
uncle _Toby’s_ sensorium----and with it, struck his large map of the
town and citadel of _Namur_ and its environs, which he had purchased and
pasted down upon a board, by the corporal’s aid, during his long
illness----it had lain with other military lumber in the garret ever
since, and accordingly the corporal was detached into the garret to
fetch it.
My uncle _Toby_ measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. _Wadman’s_
scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. _Nicolas_; and
with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the
goddess of Decency, if then in being--if not, ’twas her shade--shook her
head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes--forbid her to explain
the mistake.
Unhappy Mrs. _Wadman!_
----For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an
apostrophe to thee----but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an
apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a
woman in distress--let the chapter go to the devil; provided any damn’d
critic _in keeping_ will be but at the trouble to take it with him.
[Footnote 9.2: This must be a mistake in Mr. _Shandy_; for
_Graaf_ wrote upon the pancreatick juice, and the parts of
generation.]
CHAPTER XXVII
My uncle _Toby’s_ Map is carried down into the kitchen.
CHAPTER XXVIII
----And here is the _Maes_--and this is the _Sambre_; said the corporal,
pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map and his
left upon Mrs. _Bridget’s_ shoulder----but not the shoulder next
him--and this, said he, is the town of _Namur_--and this the
citadel--and there lay the _French_--and here lay his honour and
myself----and in this cursed trench, Mrs. _Bridget_, quoth the corporal,
taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush’d him so
miserably _here_. ----In pronouncing which, he slightly press’d the back
of her hand towards the part he felt for----and let it fall.
We thought, Mr. _Trim_, it had been more in the middle, ----said Mrs.
_Bridget_----
That would have undone us for ever--said the corporal.
----And left my poor mistress undone too, said _Bridget_.
The corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. _Bridget_
a kiss.
Come--come--said _Bridget_--holding the palm of her left hand parallel
to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over
it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least
wart or protuberance----’Tis every syllable of it false, cried the
corporal, before she had half finished the sentence----
--I know it to be fact, said _Bridget_, from credible witnesses.
------Upon my honour, said the corporal, laying his hand upon his heart
and blushing, as he spoke, with honest resentment--’tis a story, Mrs.
_Bridget_, as false as hell ----Not, said _Bridget_, interrupting him,
that either I or my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether ’tis so
or no------only that when one is married, one would chuse to have such a
thing by one at least----
It was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. _Bridget_, that she had begun the
attack with her manual exercise; for the corporal instantly *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * *.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was like the momentary contest in the moist eye-lids of an _April_
morning, “Whether _Bridget_ should laugh or cry.”
She snatched up a rolling-pin----’twas ten to one, she had laugh’d----
She laid it down----she cried; and had one single tear of ’em but tasted
of bitterness, full sorrowful would the corporal’s heart have been that
he had used the argument; but the corporal understood the sex, a _quart
major to a terce_ at least, better than my uncle _Toby_, and accordingly
he assailed Mrs. _Bridget_ after this manner.
I know, Mrs. _Bridget_, said the corporal, giving her a most respectful
kiss, that thou art good and modest by nature, and art withal so
generous a girl in thyself, that, if I know thee rightly, thou would’st
not wound an insect, much less the honour of so gallant and worthy a
soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a countess of----but thou
hast been set on, and deluded, dear _Bridget_, as is often a woman’s
case, “to please others more than themselves----”
_Bridget’s_ eyes poured down at the sensations the corporal excited.
----Tell me----tell me, then, my dear _Bridget_, continued the corporal,
taking hold of her hand, which hung down dead by her side, ----and,
giving a second kiss----whose suspicion has misled thee?
_Bridget_ sobb’d a sob or two----then open’d her eyes----the corporal
wiped ’em with the bottom of her apron----she then open’d her heart and
told him all.
CHAPTER XXX
My uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had gone on separately with their
operations the greatest part of the campaign, and as effectually cut off
from all communication of what either the one or the other had been
doing, as if they had been separated from each other by the _Maes_ or
the _Sambre_.
My uncle _Toby_, on his side, had presented himself every afternoon in
his red and silver, and blue and gold alternately, and sustained an
infinity of attacks in them, without knowing them to be attacks--and so
had nothing to communicate----
The corporal, on his side, in taking _Bridget_, by it had gain’d
considerable advantages----and consequently had much to
communicate----but what were the advantages----as well as what was the
manner by which he had seiz’d them, required so nice an historian, that
the corporal durst not venture upon it; and as sensible as he was of
glory, would rather have been contented to have gone bareheaded and
without laurels for ever, than torture his master’s modesty for a single
moment----
----Best of honest and gallant servants! ----But I have apostrophiz’d
thee, _Trim!_ once before----and could I apotheosize thee also (that is
to say) with good company ----I would do it _without ceremony_ in the
very next page.
CHAPTER XXXI
Now my uncle _Toby_ had one evening laid down his pipe upon the table,
and was counting over to himself upon his finger ends (beginning at his
thumb) all Mrs. _Wadman’s_ perfections one by one; and happening two or
three times together, either by omitting some, or counting others twice
over, to puzzle himself sadly before he could get beyond his middle
finger ----Prithee, _Trim!_ said he, taking up his pipe again, ----bring
me a pen and ink: _Trim_ brought paper also.
Take a full sheet----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, making a sign with
his pipe at the same time to take a chair and sit down close by him at
the table. The corporal obeyed----placed the paper directly before
him----took a pen, and dipp’d it in the ink.
--She has a thousand virtues, _Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_----
Am I to set them down, an’ please your honour? quoth the corporal.
----But they must be taken in their ranks, replied my uncle _Toby_; for
of them all, _Trim_, that which wins me most, and which is a security
for all the rest, is the compassionate turn and singular humanity of her
character --I protest, added my uncle _Toby_, looking up, as he protested
it, towards the top of the ceiling ----That was I her brother, _Trim_, a
thousand fold, she could not make more constant or more tender enquiries
after my sufferings----though now no more.
The corporal made no reply to my uncle _Toby’s_ protestation, but by a
short cough--he dipp’d the pen a second time into the inkhorn; and my
uncle _Toby_, pointing with the end of his pipe as close to the top of
the sheet at the left hand corner of it, as he could get it----the
corporal wrote down the word HUMANITY - - - - thus.
Prithee, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, as soon as _Trim_ had done
it------how often does Mrs. _Bridget_ enquire after the wound on the cap
of thy knee, which thou received’st at the battle of _Landen?_
She never, an’ please your honour, enquires after it at all.
That, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, with all the triumph the goodness
of his nature would permit ----That shews the difference in the character
of the mistress and maid----had the fortune of war allotted the same
mischance to me, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have enquired into every
circumstance relating to it a hundred times ----She would have enquired,
an’ please your honour, ten times as often about your honour’s
groin ----The pain, _Trim_, is equally excruciating, ----and Compassion
has as much to do with the one as the other----
----God bless your honour! cried the corporal----what has a woman’s
compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your
honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of
_Landen_, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have troubled her head as little about it
as _Bridget_; because, added the corporal, lowering his voice, and
speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason----
“The knee is such a distance from the main body----whereas the groin,
your honour knows, is upon the very _curtain_ of the _place_.”
My uncle _Toby_ gave a long whistle----but in a note which could scarce
be heard across the table.
The corporal had advanced too far to retire----in three words he told
the rest----
My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe as gently upon the fender, as if it
had been spun from the unravellings of a spider’s web----
------Let us go to my brother _Shandy’s_, said he.
CHAPTER XXXII
There will be just time, whilst my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ are walking
to my father’s, to inform you that Mrs. _Wadman_ had, some moons before
this, made a confident of my mother; and that Mrs. _Bridget_, who had
the burden of her own, as well as her mistress’s secret to carry, had
got happily delivered of both to _Susannah_ behind the garden-wall.
As for my mother, she saw nothing at all in it, to make the least bustle
about----but _Susannah_ was sufficient by herself for all the ends and
purposes you could possibly have, in exporting a family secret; for she
instantly imparted it by signs to _Jonathan_----and _Jonathan_ by tokens
to the cook as she was basting a loin of mutton; the cook sold it with
some kitchen-fat to the postillion for a groat, who truck’d it with the
dairy maid for something of about the same value----and though whisper’d
in the hay-loft, FAME caught the notes with her brazen trumpet, and
sounded them upon the house-top --In a word, not an old woman in the
village or five miles round, who did not understand the difficulties of
my uncle _Toby’s_ siege, and what were the secret articles which had
delayed the surrender.----
My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an
hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he
did----had but just heard of the report as my uncle _Toby_ set out; and
catching fire suddenly at the trespass done his brother by it, was
demonstrating to _Yorick_, notwithstanding my mother was sitting
by----not only, “That the devil was in women, and that the whole of the
affair was lust;” but that every evil and disorder in the world, of what
kind or nature soever, from the first fall of _Adam_, down to my uncle
_Toby’s_ (inclusive), was owing one way or other to the same unruly
appetite.
_Yorick_ was just bringing my father’s hypothesis to some temper, when
my uncle _Toby_ entering the room with marks of infinite benevolence and
forgiveness in his looks, my father’s eloquence rekindled against the
passion----and as he was not very nice in the choice of his words when
he was wroth----as soon as my uncle _Toby_ was seated by the fire, and
had filled his pipe, my father broke out in this manner.
CHAPTER XXXIII
----That provision should be made for continuing the race of so great,
so exalted and godlike a Being as man --I am far from denying--but
philosophy speaks freely of everything; and therefore I still think and
do maintain it to be a pity, that it should be done by means of a
passion which bends down the faculties, and turns all the wisdom,
contemplations, and operations of the soul backwards----a passion, my
dear, continued my father, addressing himself to my mother, which
couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us come out of our
caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts than
men.
I know it will be said, continued my father (availing himself of the
_Prolepsis_), that in itself, and simply taken----like hunger, or
thirst, or sleep----’tis an affair neither good or bad--or shameful or
otherwise. ----Why then did the delicacy of _Diogenes_ and _Plato_ so
recalcitrate against it? and wherefore, when we go about to make and
plant a man, do we put out the candle? and for what reason is it, that
all the parts thereof--the congredients--the preparations--the
instruments, and whatever serves thereto, are so held as to be conveyed
to a cleanly mind by no language, translation, or periphrasis whatever?
----The act of killing and destroying a man, continued my father,
raising his voice--and turning to my uncle _Toby_--you see, is
glorious--and the weapons by which we do it are honourable ----We
march with them upon our shoulders ----We strut with them by our
sides ----We gild them ----We carve them ----We in-lay them ----We
enrich them ----Nay, if it be but a _scoundrel_ cannon, we cast an
ornament upon the breach of it.--
----My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to intercede for a better
epithet----and _Yorick_ was rising up to batter the whole hypothesis to
pieces----
----When _Obadiah_ broke into the middle of the room with a complaint,
which cried out for an immediate hearing.
The case was this:
My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor, or as impropriator of
the great tythes, was obliged to keep a Bull for the service of the
Parish, and _Obadiah_ had led his cow upon a _pop-visit_ to him one day
or other the preceding summer ----I say, one day or other--because as
chance would have it, it was the day on which he was married to my
father’s housemaid----so one was a reckoning to the other. Therefore
when _Obadiah’s_ wife was brought to bed--_Obadiah_ thanked God----
----Now, said _Obadiah_, I shall have a calf: so _Obadiah_ went daily to
visit his cow.
She’ll calve on _Monday_--on _Tuesday_--on _Wednesday_ at the
farthest----
The cow did not calve----no--she’ll not calve till next week----the cow
put it off terribly----till at the end of the sixth week _Obadiah’s_
suspicions (like a good man’s) fell upon the Bull.
Now the parish being very large, my father’s Bull, to speak the truth of
him, was no way equal to the department; he had, however, got himself,
somehow or other, thrust into employment--and as he went through the
business with a grave face, my father had a high opinion of him.
----Most of the townsmen, an’ please your worship, quoth _Obadiah_,
believe that ’tis all the Bull’s fault----
----But may not a cow be barren? replied my father, turning to Doctor
_Slop_.
It never happens: said Dr. _Slop_, but the man’s wife may have come
before her time naturally enough ----Prithee has the child hair upon his
head? --added Dr. _Slop_------
----It is as hairy as I am; said _Obadiah_. ----_Obadiah_ had not been
shaved for three weeks ----Wheu - - u - - - - u - - - - - - - - cried my
father; beginning the sentence with an exclamatory whistle----and so,
brother _Toby_, this poor Bull of mine, who is as good a Bull as ever
p--ss’d, and might have done for _Europa_ herself in purer times----had
he but two legs less, might have been driven into Doctors Commons and
lost his character----which to a Town Bull, brother _Toby_, is the very
same thing as his life------
L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?----
A COCK and a BULL, said _Yorick_ ----And one of the best of its kind,
I ever heard.
[Decorative Text:
The
Temple Press
LETCHWORTH
ENGLAND]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
Errors and Inconsistencies
Inconsistent capitalization of “Christian” or “christian” is unchanged.
Intentional anomalies:
BOOK IV: CHAPTER XXV:
--No doubt, Sir, --there is a whole chapter wanting here ...
[the text skips 10 pages (from 146 to 156 in this edition, with
a corresponding skip in signature numbers) and one chapter]
in this manner, [BRAVO]
[printed with a line through the word, as described]
please but your own fancy in it. // ------Was ever any thing
[these lines are separated by a blank page]
I leave this void space [printed with ⅓ line left blank]
BOOK IX: CHAPTER XVIII, CHAPTER XVIII
[each chapter heading is at the top of a blank page]
Typographical Errors corrected by transcriber:
this amiable turn of mind [or mind]
with what good intention and resolution you may [you way]
and a tolerable tune I thought it was [I though]
a dwarf in more articles than one. [drawf]
EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! [N O SUCH]
the sun in its meridian [meridan]
for doing it to Lord *******. [too]
towards the top of the ceiling [cieling; _the word occurs elsewhere
with “ei”_]
Unchanged Forms:
[Editor’s Introduction]
All but a quarter of a century had passed
[“all but” appears to mean “almost”, i.e. from 1736 to 1759]
[Primary Text]
If thou art not too busy with CANDID [error for Candide?]
[Illustration (full-page black tombstone)]
[some editions have two consecutive black pages, positioned
immediately after the first “Alas, poor Yorick!”]
Footnote 1.3: Pentagraph, an instrument to copy ...
[expected form is Pantagraph]
between the scarp and counter-scarp
[anomalous hyphen may be intentional]
fee-farms, knights fees [may be error for “knights’ fees”]
470 pounds averdupois [expected spelling is “avoirdupois”]
griping them hard together with one hand [expected “gripping”]
May he be cursed in his reins [not an error: _renibus_ = kidneys]
_ad ixcitandum focum_ (to stir up the fire)
[error for “excitandum”]
_Trim_ took his off the ground [missing “hat” may be intentional]
and many and many a look of mutual congratulation
[probably not an error]
in the corner of an old compaigning trunk [expected “campaigning”]
the one, of _Aætius_, [error for Æetius]
from _Tartary_ to _Terra del Fuogo_, [spelling unchanged]
Hyphens and Spaces:
Inconsistent hyphenization or spacing has not been regularized. Words
found only at line break were handled on a “best guess” basis.
anywhere and any where [both forms occur]
beforehand and before-hand [both forms occur at mid-line]
hornworks and horn-works
[both forms occur at mid-line; line-end occurrences have hyphen]
christian (Christian) name and christian-name
[both forms occur more than once]
be-virtu’d [the only occurrence of this word is at line-break]
shall not be opened again this twelve-/month
[all other occurrences of this word are at mid-line: the three
preceding have a hyphen; the one following does not]
Punctuation and Typography:
[Editor’s Introduction]
for about five years. [years,]
[Primary Text]
for a stage or two together, [the comma is intentional]
(quoth St. _Thomas!_) [. missing]
’yclept logomachies [apostrophe in original]
rise up against him, [invisible , at line-end]
Because, continued Dr. _Slop_ [, missing]
for Mrs. _Shandy_ the mother is
[“Shandy” printed in Roman (non-italic) type]
’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one: therefore
[missing paragraph-final punctuation is intentional]
_Gordonius_, who (in his cap. 15. _de Amore_)
[closing parenthesis missing at line-end]
resumed the case at _Limerick_
[“Limerick” printed in Roman (non-italic) type]
the child looks extremely well, said my father,
[final , invisible at line-end]
if the _French_ are treacherous
[“French” printed in Roman (non-italic) type]
--or up to the ears in love [expected italics missing]
I shall never, an’ please your honour, [first , missing at line-end]
which _Plato_, I am persuaded, never [second , missing at line-end]
I’ll see the rest of these good gentry to-morrow, [missing comma]
the abbess of _Andoüillets’_ itself-- [apostrophe in original]
and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven [prayers.]
greater than the pain of a wound in the knee----or
[the lack of paragraph-final punctuation is intentional]
Greek:
οὐσία [ούσία]
Περιζώματα [Περιζώμαυτὲ]
περι φύσεως [accent missing in original]
Footnote 5.3: Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν [ἀπαλλαγὴ]
Footnote 5.6: Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ
τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμάχους καταναγκάσας.
[diacritics as printed: Ὁ Ιλος, τὰ ἀιδοῖα περιτέμνεται, τἀυτὸ
ποῖησαι καὶ τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμὰχους καταναγκάσας.]
γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα [γυνᾶικα ... ἀροτὴρα]
Εὖγε! ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν Πάθεσι [῏Ευγε! ... φιλοσοφεἶς]