“’Tis a pity,” cried my father, one winter’s night, after reading the
account of the Shakespeare Memorial meeting—“’tis a pity,” cried my
father, putting my mother’s thread-paper into the newspaper for a mark
as he spoke,—“that truth, brother Toby, should shut herself up in such
impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as to surrender herself up
sometimes only upon the closest siege.”
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
opened his ears.
“And there was nothing to shame them in the truth, neither,” said my
father, “seeing that they had many thousands of pounds to their credit.
How could a bishop think there was danger in telling it?”
“Lord bless us! Mr. Shandy,” cried my mother, “what is all this story
about?”
“About Shakespeare, my dear,” said my father.
“He has been dead a hundred years ago,” replied my mother.
My uncle Toby, who was no chronologer, whistled “Lillibullero.”
“By all that’s good and great! ma’am,” cried my father, taking the oath
out of Ernulphus’s digest, “of course. 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. He is as dead as a doornail, and they are thinking of
building a theatre to honour his memory.”
“And why should they not, Mr. Shandy?” said my mother.
“To be sure, there’s no reason why,” replied my father, “save that they
haven’t enough money left over after buying a plot of land in Gower
Street to build upon.”
Corporal Trim touched his Montero-cap and looked hard at my uncle Toby.
“If I durst presume,” said he, “to give your honour my advice, and
speak my opinion in this matter.” “Thou art welcome, Trim,” said my
uncle Toby. “Why then,” replied Trim, “I think, with humble submission
to your honour’s better judgment, I think that had we but a rood or a
rood and a half of this ground to do what we pleased with, I would 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.”
“Then thou wouldst have, Trim,” said my father, “to palisado the Y.M.C.A.”
“I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,” said my Uncle
Toby, “and I am sure nothing of that name was known to our armies in
Flanders.”
“’Tis an association of Christian young men,” replied my father, “who for
the present hold the Shakespeare Memorialists’ ground in Gower Street.”
’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 “Lillibullero” with more zeal (though more
out of tune) than usual.
“And the money these Christian youths pay for rents,” continued my
father, “is to be used to maintain a company of strolling players” [Here
my uncle Toby, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous, long, loud
whew-w-w.], “who are to go up and down the country showing the plays of
Shakespeare. Up and down, and that, by the way, is how their curtain went
on twenty-two occasions in _Romeo and Juliet_.”
“Who says so?” asked my uncle Toby.
“A parson,” replied my father.
“Had he been a soldier,” said my uncle, “he would never have told such a
taradiddle. He would have known that the curtain is that part of the wall
or rampart which lies between the two bastions, and joins them.”
“By the mother who bore us! brother Toby,” quoth my father, “you would
provoke a saint. Here have you got us, I know not how, souse into the
middle of the old subject again. We are speaking of Shakespeare and not
of fortifications.”
“Was Shakespeare a soldier, Mr. Shandy, or a young men’s Christian?” said
my mother, who had lost her way in the argument.
“Neither one nor t’other, my dear,” replied my father (my uncle Toby
softly whistled “Lillibullero”); “he was a writer of plays.”
“They are foolish things,” said my mother.
“Sometimes,” replied my father, “but you have not seen Shakespeare’s,
Mrs. Shandy. And it is for the like of you, I tell you point-blank——”
As my father pronounced the word point-blank my uncle Toby rose up to say
something upon projectiles, but my father continued:—
“It is for the like of you that these Shakespeare Memorialists are
sending their strolling players around the country, to set the goodwives
wondering about Shakespeare, as they wondered about Diego’s nose in the
tale of the learned Hafen Slawkenbergius.”
“Surely the wonderful nose was Cyrano’s?” said my mother. “Cyrano’s or
Diego’s, ’tis all one,” cried my father in a passion. “Zooks! Cannot a
man use a plain analogy but his wife must interrupt him with her foolish
questions about it? May the eternal curse of all the devils in——”
“Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,” cried my uncle Toby, “but
nothing to this.”
“As you please, Mr. Shandy,” said my mother.
“Where was I?” said my father, in some confusion, and letting his hand
fall upon my uncle Toby’s shoulder in sign of repentance for his violent
cursing.
“You was at Slawkenbergius,” replied my uncle Toby.
“No, no, brother, Shakespeare, I was speaking of Shakespeare, and how
they were going to carry him round the country because they had not money
enough to build a theatre for him in London.”
“But could they not hire one?” said my uncle Toby.
“No, for my Lord Lytton said that would be too speculative a venture.”
“’Tis a mighty strange business,” said my uncle, in much perplexity.
“They buy their land, as I understand it, brother, to build a house for
Shakespeare in London, but lease it for a house for young Christians
instead, and spend their money on sending Shakespeare packing out of
London.”
“’Tis all the fault of the Londoners,” replied my father. “They have no
soul for Shakespeare, and for that matter, as I believe, no soul at all.”
“A Londoner has no soul, an’ please your honour,” whispered Corporal Trim
doubtingly, and touching his Montero-cap to my uncle.
“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.”