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If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman + +Author: Laurence Sterne + +Release Date: October 25, 1997 [eBook #1079] +[Most recently updated: October 27, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Sue Asscher, Stephen Radcliffe and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM SHANDY *** + + + + +THE +LIFE AND OPINIONS +OF +TRISTRAM SHANDY, +GENTLEMAN + +by Laurence Sterne + +Contents + + Volume I. + Volume II. + Volume III. + Volume IV. + +Laurence Sterne + +Ταράσσει τοὺς Ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα, +Ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν Πραγμάτων Δόγματα. + + + +TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE +M r. P I T T. + +S I R, + +NEVER poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication, +than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the +kingdom, and in a retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in a constant +endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other +evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man +smiles,——but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this +Fragment of Life. + +I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it—(not +under your Protection,—it must protect itself, but)—into the country +with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or can +conceive it has beguiled you of one moment’s pain—I shall think myself +as happy as a minister of state;——perhaps much happier than any one +(one only excepted) that I have read or heard of. + +_I am, GREAT SIR, +(and, what is more to your Honour) +I am, GOOD SIR, +Your Well-wisher, and +most humble Fellow-subject_, + +T H E A U T H O R. + + + + +THE +LIFE and OPINIONS +OF +TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gent. + +C H A P. I + +I WISH either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they +were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about +when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon +what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational +Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and +temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his +mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of +his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions +which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all +this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have +made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the +reader is likely to see me.—Believe me, good folks, this is not so +inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;—you have all, I +dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from +father to son, &c. &c.—and a great deal to that purpose:—Well, you may +take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, +his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions +and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so +that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a +half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by +treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road +of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are +once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive +them off it. + +_Pray my Dear_, quoth my mother, _have you not forgot to wind up the +clock?—Good G—!_ cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking +care to moderate his voice at the same time,——_Did ever woman, since +the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?_ +Pray, what was your father saying?————Nothing. + +C H A P. II + +———Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see, +either good or bad.——Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very +unseasonable question at least,—because it scattered and dispersed the +animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in +hand with the _HOMUNCULUS_, and conducted him safe to the place +destined for his reception. + +The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may +appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;—to the +eye of reason in scientific research, he stands confess’d—a BEING +guarded and circumscribed with rights.——The minutest philosophers, who +by the bye, have the most enlarged understandings, (their souls being +inversely as their enquiries) shew us incontestably, that the +HOMUNCULUS is created by the same hand,—engender’d in the same course +of nature,—endow’d with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with +us:—That he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, +arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, +genitals, humours, and articulations;—is a Being of as much +activity,—and in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our +fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of _England._—He may be +benefitted,—he may be injured,—he may obtain redress; in a word, he has +all the claims and rights of humanity, which _Tully, Puffendorf_, or +the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation. + +Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way +alone!—or that through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, +my little Gentleman had got to his journey’s end miserably spent;—his +muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;—his own animal +spirits ruffled beyond description,—and that in this sad disorder’d +state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series +of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months +together.—I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a +thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the +physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly +to rights. + +C H A P. III + +TO my uncle Mr. _Toby Shandy_ do I stand indebted for the preceding +anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, +and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, +and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my +uncle _Toby_ well remember’d, upon his observing a most unaccountable +obliquity, (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting up my top, and +justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old gentleman +shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than +reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified +in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me, +That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s child:—_But +alas!_ continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a +tear which was trickling down his cheeks, _My Tristram’s misfortunes +began nine months before ever he came into the world._ + +—My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up, but she knew no more than +her backside what my father meant,—but my uncle, Mr. _Toby Shandy_, who +had been often informed of the affair,—understood him very well. + +C H A P. IV + +I KNOW there are readers in the world, as well as many other good +people in it, who are no readers at all,—who find themselves ill at +ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of +every thing which concerns you. + +It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a +backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I +have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are +likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, +will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men +whatever,—be no less read than the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ itself—and in +the end, prove the very thing which _Montaigne_ dreaded his Essays +should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window;—I find it +necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must +beg pardon for going on a little farther in the same way: For which +cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in the +way I have done; and that I am able to go on, tracing every thing in +it, as _Horace_ says, _ab Ovo._ + +_Horace_, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that +gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;—(I forget +which,) besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. _Horace’s_ +pardon;—for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself +neither to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived. + +To such however as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I +can give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part +of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the +curious and inquisitive. + +——————Shut the door.—————— I was begot in the night betwixt the first +_Sunday_ and the first _Monday_ in the month of _March_, in the year of +our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I +was.—But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing +which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote +known only in our own family, but now made publick for the better +clearing up this point. + +My father, you must know, who was originally a _Turkey_ merchant, but +had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die +upon, his paternal estate in the county of ——, was, I believe, one of +the most regular men in every thing he did, whether ’twas matter of +business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen +of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he +had made it a rule for many years of his life,—on the first +_Sunday-night_ of every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as +ever the _Sunday-night_ came,—to wind up a large house-clock, which we +had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands:—And being +somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been +speaking of,—he had likewise gradually brought some other little family +concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my +uncle _Toby_, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no +more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month. + +It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, +fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me +to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which +have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor +mother could never hear the said clock wound up,——but the thoughts of +some other things unavoidably popped into her head—_& vice +versa:_——Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious _Locke_, who +certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, +affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of +prejudice whatsoever. + +But this by the bye. + +Now it appears by a memorandum in my father’s pocket-book, which now +lies upon the table, “That on _Lady-day_, which was on the 25th of the +same month in which I date my geniture,——my father set upon his journey +to _London_, with my eldest brother _Bobby_, to fix him at +_Westminster_ school;” and, as it appears from the same authority, +“That he did not get down to his wife and family till the _second week_ +in _May_ following,”—it brings the thing almost to a certainty. +However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it +beyond all possibility of a doubt. + +———But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all _December, January_, +and _February?_——Why, Madam,—he was all that time afflicted with a +Sciatica. + +C H A P. V + +ON the fifth day of _November_, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as +near nine kalendar months as any husband could in reason have +expected,—was I _Tristram Shandy_, Gentleman, brought forth into this +scurvy and disastrous world of ours.—I wish I had been born in the +Moon, or in any of the planets, (except _Jupiter_ or _Saturn_, because +I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse +with me in any of them (though I will not answer for _Venus_) than it +has in this vile, dirty planet of ours,—which, o’ my conscience, with +reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and +clippings of the rest;——not but the planet is well enough, provided a +man could be born in it to a great title or to a great estate; or could +any how contrive to be called up to public charges, and employments of +dignity or power;——but that is not my case;——and therefore every man +will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it;———for which +cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever +was made;—for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my +breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an +asthma I got in scating against the wind in _Flanders;_—I have been the +continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not +wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great +or signal evil;——yet with all the good temper in the world I affirm it +of her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner +where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me +with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever +small HERO sustained. + +C H A P. VI + +IN the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly _when_ I +was born; but I did not inform you _how. No_, that particular was +reserved entirely for a chapter by itself;—besides, Sir, as you and I +are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been +proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself +all at once. + +—You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write +not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your +knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the +one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed +farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning +betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that unless one of us is in +fault, will terminate in friendship.—_O diem praeclarum!_—then nothing +which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious +in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should +think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out—bear +with me,—and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:—Or, if I +should seem now and then to trifle upon the road,—or should sometimes +put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass +along,—don’t fly off,—but rather courteously give me credit for a +little more wisdom than appears upon my outside;—and as we jog on, +either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do any thing,—only keep +your temper. + +C H A P. VII + +IN the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a +thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with +the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment +in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own +efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature,—had acquired, in her +way, no small degree of reputation in the world:—by which word _world_, +need I in this place inform your worship, that I would be understood to +mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the circle of +the great world, of four _English_ miles diameter, or thereabouts, of +which the cottage where the good old woman lived is supposed to be the +centre?—She had been left it seems a widow in great distress, with +three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year; and as she was +at that time a person of decent carriage,—grave deportment,—a woman +moreover of few words and withal an object of compassion, whose +distress, and silence under it, called out the louder for a friendly +lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity; and +having often lamented an inconvenience to which her husband’s flock had +for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a +midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case have been +never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles riding; which +said seven long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the country +thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to +fourteen; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at +all; it came into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a +kindness to the whole parish, as to the poor creature herself, to get +her a little instructed in some of the plain principles of the +business, in order to set her up in it. As no woman thereabouts was +better qualified to execute the plan she had formed than herself, the +gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great influence +over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in +effecting it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson join’d +his interest with his wife’s in the whole affair, and in order to do +things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law +to practise, as his wife had given by institution,—he cheerfully paid +the fees for the ordinary’s licence himself, amounting in the whole, to +the sum of eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them +both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal +possession of her office, together with all its _rights, members, and +appurtenances whatsoever._ + +These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in +which such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like +cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was +according to a neat _Formula_ of _Didius_ his own devising, who having +a particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over again all +kind of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty +amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the +neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this +wham-wham of his inserted. + +I own I never could envy _Didius_ in these kinds of fancies of his:—But +every man to his own taste.—Did not Dr. _Kunastrokius_, that great man, +at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing +of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though +he had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, Sir, +have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting _Solomon_ +himself,—have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES;—their running +horses,—their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their +trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets,—their maggots and their +butterflies?—and so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and +quietly along the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get +up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? + +C H A P. VIII + +—_De gustibus non est disputandum;_—that is, there is no disputing +against HOBBY-HORSES; and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with +any sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for +happening, at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both +fiddler and painter, according as the fly stings:—Be it known to you, +that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor +do I care who knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air;—though +sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies +than what a wise man would think altogether right.—But the truth is,—I +am not a wise man;—and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in +the world, it is not much matter what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at +all about it: Nor does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great +Lords and tall Personages as hereafter follow;—such, for instance, as +my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all +of a row, mounted upon their several horses,—some with large stirrups, +getting on in a more grave and sober pace;——others on the contrary, +tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring +and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils +astride a mortgage,—and as if some of them were resolved to break their +necks.——So much the better—say I to myself;—for in case the worst +should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well +without them; and for the rest,——why——God speed them——e’en let them +ride on without opposition from me; for were their lordships unhorsed +this very night—’tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse +mounted by one half before tomorrow morning. + +Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my +rest.——But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard, and +that is, when I see one born for great actions, and what is still more +for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones;—when I +behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and conduct +are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that reason, a +corrupt world cannot spare one moment;—when I see such a one, my Lord, +mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my love to +my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his glory +wishes,—then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the first +transport of an honest impatience, I wish the HOBBY-HORSE, with all his +fraternity, at the Devil. + + “My Lord, +I MAINTAIN this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in +the three great essentials of matter, form and place: I beg, therefore, +you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with +the most respectful humility, at your Lordship’s feet—when you are upon +them,—which you can be when you please;—and that is, my Lord, whenever +there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes too. I +have the honour to be, + +_My Lord, +Your Lordship’s most obedient, +and most devoted_, +_and most humble servant_, +TRISTRAM SHANDY.” + +C H A P. IX + +I SOLEMNLY declare to all mankind, that the above dedication was made +for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate,—Duke, Marquis, Earl, +Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other Realm in Christendom;——nor +has it yet been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately, +directly or indirectly, to any one person or personage, great or small; +but is honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul +living. + +I labour this point so particularly, merely to remove any offence or +objection which might arise against it from the manner in which I +propose to make the most of it;—which is the putting it up fairly to +public sale; which I now do. + +——Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear;—for +my own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas in a +dark entry;—I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal +squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try +whether I should not come off the better by it. + +If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, +in these his Majesty’s dominions, who stands in need of a tight, +genteel dedication, and whom the above will suit, (for by the bye, +unless it suits in some degree, I will not part with it)——it is much at +his service for fifty guineas;——which I am positive is twenty guineas +less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius. + +My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross +piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship +sees, is good,—the colouring transparent,—the drawing not amiss;—or to +speak more like a man of science,—and measure my piece in the painter’s +scale, divided into 20,—I believe, my Lord, the outlines will turn out +as 12,—the composition as 9,—the colouring as 6,—the expression 13 and +a half,—and the design,—if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my +own _design_, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be as +20,—I think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all this,—there is +keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the HOBBY-HORSE, (which is a +secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to the whole) give great +force to the principal lights in your own figure, and make it come off +wonderfully;—and besides, there is an air of originality in the _tout +ensemble._ + +Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of +Mr. _Dodsley_, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition +care shall be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship’s +titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of +the preceding chapter: All which, from the words, _De gustibus non est +disputandum_, and whatever else in this book relates to HOBBY-HORSES, +but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship.—The rest I +dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all the PATRONS or MATRONS I +can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world +run mad after it. + +_Bright Goddess_, +If thou art not too busy with CANDID and Miss CUNEGUND’S affairs,—take +_Tristram Shandy’s_ under thy protection also. + +C H A P. X + +WHATEVER degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the +midwife might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested,—at +first sight seems not very material to this history;——certain however +it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson’s wife, did run away at that +time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking +but that the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit +upon the design first,—yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment +it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry +it into execution, had a claim to some share of it,—if not to a full +half of whatever honour was due to it. + +The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise. + +Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable +guess at the grounds of this procedure. + +Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the +midwife’s licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an +account,—the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk +by a breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his +station, and his office;—and that was in never appearing better, or +otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jackass of a horse, value +about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of +him, was full brother to _Rosinante_, as far as similitude congenial +could make him; for he answered his description to a hair-breadth in +every thing,—except that I do not remember ’tis any where said, that +_Rosinante_ was broken-winded; and that, moreover, _Rosinante_, as is +the happiness of most _Spanish_ horses, fat or lean,—was undoubtedly a +horse at all points. + +I know very well that the HERO’S horse was a horse of chaste +deportment, which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But +it is as certain at the same time that _Rosinante’_s continency (as may +be demonstrated from the adventure of the _Yanguesian_ carriers) +proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the +temperance and orderly current of his blood.—And let me tell you, +Madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in +behalf of which you could not say more for your life. + +Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do exact justice to every +creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work,—I could not +stifle this distinction in favour of Don _Quixote’_s horse;——in all +other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another, for he +was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as HUMILITY herself +could have bestrided. + +In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was +greatly in the parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse +of his,—for he was master of a very handsome demi-peaked saddle, +quilted on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of +silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a +housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of +black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, _poudré +d’or_,—all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, +together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it +should be.——But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these +up behind his study door: and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted +him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the figure and value +of such a steed might well and truly deserve. + +In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits +to the gentry who lived around him,—you will easily comprehend, that +the parson, so appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his +philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a +village, but he caught the attention of both old and young.——Labour +stood still as he pass’d——the bucket hung suspended in the middle of +the well,—the spinning-wheel forgot its round,——even chuck-farthing and +shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight; and +as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough +upon his hands to make his observations,—to hear the groans of the +serious,—and the laughter of the light-hearted; all which he bore with +excellent tranquillity.—His character was,—he loved a jest in his +heart—and as he saw himself in the true point of ridicule, he would say +he could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light, in which +he so strongly saw himself: So that to his friends, who knew his foible +was not the love of money, and who therefore made the less scruple in +bantering the extravagance of his humour,—instead of giving the true +cause,—he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and as he +never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being +altogether as spare a figure as his beast,—he would sometimes insist +upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;—that they +were, centaur-like,—both of a piece. At other times, and in other +moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,—he +would say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with +great gravity, would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat +horse, without a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in his +pulse; and that he had made choice of the lean one he rode upon, not +only to keep himself in countenance, but in spirits. + +At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons +for riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to +one of mettle;—for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and +meditate as delightfully _de vanitate mundi et fugâ sæculi_, as with +the advantage of a death’s-head before him;—that, in all other +exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along,—to as +much account as in his study;—that he could draw up an argument in his +sermon,—or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the +other;—that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and +judgment, were two incompatible movements.—But that upon his steed—he +could unite and reconcile every thing,—he could compose his sermon—he +could compose his cough,——and, in case nature gave a call that way, he +could likewise compose himself to sleep.—In short, the parson upon such +encounters would assign any cause but the true cause,—and he with-held +the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it did +honour to him. + +But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this +gentleman’s life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle +were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it +what you will,—to run into the opposite extreme.—In the language of the +county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and +generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his +stable always ready for saddling: and as the nearest midwife, as I told +you, did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile +country,—it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week +together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he was +not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more +distressful than the last;—as much as he loved his beast, he had never +a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this; that his +horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d;—or he was +twitter-bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had +befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh;—so that he had every +nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of,—and a good horse to +purchase in his stead. + +What the loss in such a balance might amount to, _communibus annis_, I +would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to +determine;—but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it +for many years without a murmur, till at length, by repeated ill +accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under +consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his +mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but +withal so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other +act of generosity in his parish: Besides this, he considered that with +half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much +good;—and what still weighed more with him than all other +considerations put together, was this, that it confined all his charity +into one particular channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least +wanted, namely, to the child-bearing and child-getting part of his +parish; reserving nothing for the impotent,—nothing for the +aged,—nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was hourly called +forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness and affliction dwelt +together. + +For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there +appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it;—and +these were, either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his +steed upon any application whatever,—or else be content to ride the +last poor devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and +infirmities, to the very end of the chapter. + +As he dreaded his own constancy in the first—he very chearfully betook +himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it, +as I said, to his honour,—yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit +above it; choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the +laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story, +which might seem a panegyrick upon himself. + +I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this +reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I +think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight +of _La Mancha_, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, +and would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the +greatest hero of antiquity. + +But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to +shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair.—For you must +know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson +credit,—the devil a soul could find it out,—I suppose his enemies would +not, and that his friends could not.——But no sooner did he bestir +himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the +ordinary’s licence to set her up,—but the whole secret came out; every +horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all +the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly +remembered.—The story ran like wild-fire.—“The parson had a returning +fit of pride which had just seized him; and he was going to be well +mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, ’twas plain as the +sun at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the licence ten times +told, the very first year:—So that every body was left to judge what +were his views in this act of charity.” + +What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life,—or +rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other +people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, +and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound +asleep. + +About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made +entirely easy upon that score,—it being just so long since he left his +parish,—and the whole world at the same time behind him,—and stands +accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain. + +But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men: Order them as +they will, they pass thro’ a certain medium, which so twists and +refracts them from their true directions——that, with all the titles to +praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are +nevertheless forced to live and die without it. + +Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example.——But to +know by what means this came to pass,—and to make that knowledge of use +to you, I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters, +which contain such a sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry +its moral along with it.—When this is done, if nothing stops us in our +way, we will go on with the midwife. + +C H A P. XI + +Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable in it, (as +appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong +vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt +for near,—I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years;——but I +would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however +indisputable in itself,——and therefore I shall content myself with only +saying——It had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or +transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which is +more than I would venture to say of one half of the best surnames in +the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as +many chops and changes as their owners.—Has this been owing to the +pride, or to the shame of the respective proprietors?—In honest truth, +I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other, just as the +temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day +so blend and confound us all together, that no one shall be able to +stand up and swear, “That his own great grandfather was the man who did +either this or that.” + +This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of +the _Yorick’_s family, and their religious preservation of these +records I quote, which do farther inform us, That the family was +originally of _Danish_ extraction, and had been transplanted into +England as early as in the reign of _Horwendillus_, king of _Denmark_, +in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. _Yorick_’s, and from +whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of +his death. Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith +not;—it only adds, That, for near two centuries, it had been totally +abolished, as altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in +every other court of the Christian world. + +It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than +that of the king’s chief Jester;—and that _Hamlet_’s _Yorick_, in our +_Shakespeare_, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon +authenticated facts, was certainly the very man. + +I have not the time to look into _Saxo-Grammaticus_’s _Danish_ history, +to know the certainty of this;—but if you have leisure, and can easily +get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself. + +I had just time, in my travels through _Denmark_ with Mr. _Noddy_’s +eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding +along with him at a prodigious rate thro’ most parts of Europe, and of +which original journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative +will be given in the progress of this work. I had just time, I say, and +that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long +sojourner in that country;——namely, “That nature was neither very +lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to +its inhabitants;—but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to +them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her +favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with +each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of +refined parts; but a great deal of good plain houshold understanding +amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;” which +is, I think, very right. + +With us, you see, the case is quite different:—we are all ups and downs +in this matter;—you are a great genius;—or ’tis fifty to one, Sir, you +are a great dunce and a blockhead;—not that there is a total want of +intermediate steps,—no,—we are not so irregular as that comes to;—but +the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this +unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and dispositions of this +kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself not being more +so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she. + +This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to _Yorick_’s +extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts +I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of +_Danish_ blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might +possibly have all run out:——I will not philosophize one moment with you +about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:—That instead of +that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would +have looked for, in one so extracted;—he was, on the contrary, as +mercurial and sublimated a composition,—as heteroclite a creature in +all his declensions;—with as much life and whim, and _gaité de cœur_ +about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put +together. With all this sail, poor _Yorick_ carried not one ounce of +ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and at the age of +twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a +romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting +out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul +ten times in a day of somebody’s tackling; and as the grave and more +slow-paced were oftenest in his way,——you may likewise imagine, ’twas +with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For +aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom +of such _Fracas:_——For, to speak the truth, _Yorick_ had an invincible +dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;—not to gravity as +such;—for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or +serious of mortal men for days and weeks together;—but he was an enemy +to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it +appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it +fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it +much quarter. + +Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that Gravity was +an errant scoundrel, and he would add,—of the most dangerous kind +too,—because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest, +well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in +one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In +the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was +no danger,—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of gravity was +design, and consequently deceit;—’twas a taught trick to gain credit of +the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, +with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what +a _French_ wit had long ago defined it,—_viz. A mysterious carriage of +the body to cover the defects of the mind;_—which definition of +gravity, _Yorick_, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be +wrote in letters of gold. + +But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the +world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other +subject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint. +_Yorick_ had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the +nature of the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually +translate into plain _English_ without any periphrasis;—and too oft +without much distinction of either person, time, or place;—so that when +mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding——he never +gave himself a moment’s time to reflect who was the hero of the +piece,——what his station,——or how far he had power to hurt him +hereafter;—but if it was a dirty action,—without more ado,—The man was +a dirty fellow,—and so on.—And as his comments had usually the ill fate +to be terminated either in a _bon mot_, or to be enlivened throughout +with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to _Yorick_’s +indiscretion. In a word, tho’ he never sought, yet, at the same time, +as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and +without much ceremony;——he had but too many temptations in life, of +scattering his wit and his humour,—his gibes and his jests about +him.——They were not lost for want of gathering. + +What were the consequences, and what was _Yorick_’s catastrophe +thereupon, you will read in the next chapter. + +C H A P. XII + +THE _Mortgager_ and _Mortgagee_ differ the one from the other, not more +in length of purse, than the _Jester_ and _Jestee_ do, in that of +memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts +call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more +than some of the best of _Homer_’s can pretend to;—namely, That the one +raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and thinks no more +about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases;—the +periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the +memory of the affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour, pop +comes the creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot, +together with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the +full extent of their obligations. + +As the reader (for I hate your _ifs_) has a thorough knowledge of human +nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my HERO could not go +on at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental +mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a +multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding +_Eugenius_’s frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that +as not one of them was contracted thro’ any malignancy;—but, on the +contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they +would all of them be cross’d out in course. + +_Eugenius_ would never admit this; and would often tell him, that one +day or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often +add, in an accent of sorrowful apprehension,—to the uttermost mite. To +which _Yorick_, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often +answer with a pshaw!—and if the subject was started in the fields,—with +a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent up in the +social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado’d in, with a +table and a couple of arm-chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a +tangent,—_Eugenius_ would then go on with his lecture upon discretion +in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put together. + +Trust me, dear _Yorick_, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or +later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can +extricate thee out of.——In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, +that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person +injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and +when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, +his family, his kindred and allies,——and musters up with them the many +recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;—’tis +no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast +got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm +of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou +wilt never be convinced it is so. + +I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least +spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies—I believe +and know them to be truly honest and sportive:—But consider, my dear +lad, that fools cannot distinguish this,—and that knaves will not: and +thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make +merry with the other:——whenever they associate for mutual defence, +depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against +thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy +life too. + +Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at +thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set +right.——The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which +led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith +questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled +on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and COWARDICE, +twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike +together at all thy infirmities and mistakes:——The best of us, my dear +lad, lie open there,——and trust me,——trust me, _Yorick, when to gratify +a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an +helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to pick up +sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to +offer it up with._ + +_Yorick_ scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read +over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory +look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride +his tit with more sobriety.—But, alas, too late!—a grand confederacy +with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before the first +prediction of it.—The whole plan of the attack, just as _Eugenius_ had +foreboded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on +the side of the allies,—and so little suspicion in _Yorick_, of what +was carrying on against him,—that when he thought, good easy man! full +surely preferment was o’ripening,—they had smote his root, and then he +fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him. + +_Yorick_, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some +time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the +calamities of the war,—but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which +it was carried on,—he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his +spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was +generally thought, quite broken-hearted. + +What inclined _Eugenius_ to the same opinion was as follows: + +A few hours before _Yorick_ breathed his last, _Eugenius_ stept in with +an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his +drawing _Yorick_’s curtain, and asking how he felt himself, _Yorick_ +looking up in his face took hold of his hand,—and after thanking him +for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it +was their fate to meet hereafter,—he would thank him again and +again,—he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the +slip for ever.—I hope not, answered _Eugenius_, with tears trickling +down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke.—I +hope not, _Yorick_, said he.——_Yorick_ replied, with a look up, and a +gentle squeeze of _Eugenius_’s hand, and that was all,—but it cut +_Eugenius_ to his heart.—Come,—come, _Yorick_, quoth _Eugenius_, wiping +his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad, be +comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this +crisis when thou most wants them;——who knows what resources are in +store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee!——_Yorick_ laid +his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;—For my part, +continued _Eugenius_, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—I +declare I know not, _Yorick_, how to part with thee, and would gladly +flatter my hopes, added _Eugenius_, chearing up his voice, that there +is still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to +see it.—I beseech thee, _Eugenius_, quoth _Yorick_, taking off his +night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,—his right being still +grasped close in that of _Eugenius_,—I beseech thee to take a view of +my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied _Eugenius._ Then, alas! my +friend, said _Yorick_, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised and +mis-shapened with the blows which ***** and *****, and some others have +so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with _Sancho +Pança_, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered to +rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit +it.”——_Yorick_’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready +to depart as he uttered this:——yet still it was uttered with something +of a _Cervantick_ tone;——and as he spoke it, _Eugenius_ could perceive +a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes;——faint +picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as _Shakespeare_ said of +his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar! + +_Eugenius_ was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was +broke: he squeezed his hand,——and then walked softly out of the room, +weeping as he walked. _Yorick_ followed _Eugenius_ with his eyes to the +door,—he then closed them, and never opened them more. + +tombstone + +He lies buried in the corner of his church-yard, in the parish of ———, +under a plain marble slab, which his friend _Eugenius_, by leave of his +executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of +inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy. + +Alas, poor YORICK! + +Ten times a day has _Yorick_’s ghost the consolation to hear his +monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive +tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him;——a foot-way +crossing the church-yard close by the side of his grave,—not a +passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it,—and sighing +as he walks on, + +Alas, poor YORICK! + +C H A P. XIII + +IT is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted +from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, +merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world, +and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at +present, I am going to introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh +matter may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt +the reader and myself, which may require immediate dispatch;——’twas +right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the mean +time;—because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her. + +I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note +and consequence throughout our whole village and township;—that her +fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that +circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a +shirt to his back or no,——has one surrounding him;—which said circle, +by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a one is of great weight and +importance in the _world_,——I desire may be enlarged or contracted in +your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station, profession, +knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways) of the +personage brought before you. + +In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five +miles, which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended +itself to two or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the +next parish; which made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That +she was, moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-house, and +some other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said, +from the smoke of her own chimney:——But I must here, once for all, +inform you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d +in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with many other +pieces and developements of this work, will be added to the end of the +twentieth volume,—not to swell the work,—I detest the thought of such a +thing;—but by way of commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to +such passages, incidents, or innuendos as shall be thought to be either +of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my +life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don’t forget the +meaning of the word) by all the _world_;——which, betwixt you and me, +and in spite of all the gentlemen-reviewers in _Great Britain_, and of +all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the +contrary,—I am determined shall be the case.—I need not tell your +worship, that all this is spoke in confidence. + +C H A P. XIV + +UPON looking into my mother’s marriage settlement, in order to satisfy +myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we +could proceed any farther in this history;—I had the good fortune to +pop upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half +straight forwards,—it might have taken me up a month;—which shews +plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history,—tho’ it be but +the history of _Jack Hickathrift_ or _Tom Thumb_, he knows no more than +his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his +way,—or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before +all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a +muleteer drives on his mule,—straight forward;——for instance, from +_Rome_ all the way to _Loretto_, without ever once turning his head +aside, either to the right hand or to the left,——he might venture to +foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end;——but +the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the +least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to +make with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways +avoid. He will have views and prospects to himself perpetually +soliciting his eye, which he can no more help standing still to look at +than he can fly; he will moreover have various + Accounts to reconcile: + Anecdotes to pick up: + Inscriptions to make out: + Stories to weave in: + Traditions to sift: + Personages to call upon: + Panegyricks to paste up at this door; + +Pasquinades at that:——All which both the man and his mule are quite +exempt from. To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be +look’d into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies, +which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of:——In +short there is no end of it;——for my own part, I declare I have been at +it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could,—and am not +yet born:—I have just been able, and that’s all, to tell you _when_ it +happen’d, but not _how_;—so that you see the thing is yet far from +being accomplished. + +These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I +first set out;—but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase than +diminish as I advance,—have struck out a hint which I am resolved to +follow;——and that is,—not to be in a hurry;—but to go on leisurely, +writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year;——which, if I +am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my +bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live. + +C H A P. XV + +THE article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader +I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it, +I think proper to lay before him,—is so much more fully express’d in +the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be +barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand:—It is as follows. + +“And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said _Walter Shandy_, +merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had, +and, by God’s blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consummated +between the said _Walter Shandy_ and _Elizabeth Mollineux_ aforesaid, +and divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him +thereunto specially moving,—doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent, +conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with _John Dixon_, and _James +Turner_, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, &c. &c.—to wit,—That in case +it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come to +pass,—That the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, shall have left off +business before the time or times, that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ +shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off +bearing and bringing forth children;—and that, in consequence of the +said _Walter Shandy_ having so left off business, he shall in despight, +and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said +_Elizabeth Mollineux_,—make a departure from the city of _London_, in +order to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at _Shandy Hall_, in the +county of ——, or at any other country-seat, castle, hall, +mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now purchased, or hereafter +to be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof:—That then, and as +often as the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall happen to be enceint with +child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon +the body of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, during her said +coverture,—he the said _Walter Shandy_ shall, at his own proper cost +and charges, and out of his own proper monies, upon good and reasonable +notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six weeks of her the said +_Elizabeth Mollineux_’s full reckoning, or time of supposed and +computed delivery,—pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and +twenty pounds of good and lawful money, to _John Dixon_, and _James +Turner_, Esqrs. or assigns,—upon TRUST and confidence, and for and unto +the use and uses, intent, end, and purpose following:—That is to +say,—That the said sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid +into the hands of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, or to be otherwise +applied by them the said Trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one +coach, with able and sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of +the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, and the child or children which she +shall be then and there enceint and pregnant with,—unto the city of +_London_; and for the further paying and defraying of all other +incidental costs, charges, and expences whatsoever,—in and about, and +for, and relating to, her said intended delivery and lying-in, in the +said city or suburbs thereof. And that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ +shall and may, from time to time, and at all such time and times as are +here covenanted and agreed upon,—peaceably and quietly hire the said +coach and horses, and have free ingress, egress, and regress throughout +her journey, in and from the said coach, according to the tenor, true +intent, and meaning of these presents, without any let, suit, trouble, +disturbance, molestation, discharge, hinderance, forfeiture, eviction, +vexation, interruption, or incumbrance whatsoever.—And that it shall +moreover be lawful to and for the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, from time +to time, and as oft or often as she shall well and truly be advanced in +her said pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and agreed +upon,—to live and reside in such place or places, and in such family or +families, and with such relations, friends, and other persons within +the said city of _London_, as she at her own will and pleasure, +notwithstanding her present coverture, and as if she was a _femme sole_ +and unmarried,—shall think fit.—And this Indenture further witnesseth, +That for the more effectually carrying of the said covenant into +execution, the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, doth hereby grant, +bargain, sell, release, and confirm unto the said _John Dixon_, and +_James Turner_, Esqrs. their heirs, executors, and assigns, in their +actual possession now being, by virtue of an indenture of bargain and +sale for a year to them the said _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_, +Esqrs. by him the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, thereof made; which +said bargain and sale for a year, bears date the day next before the +date of these presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for +transferring of uses into possession,—All that the manor and lordship +of _Shandy_, in the county of ——, with all the rights, members, and +appurtenances thereof; and all and every the messuages, houses, +buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts, +garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, commons, +woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and +water-courses;—together with all rents, reversions, services, +annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of frankpledge, escheats, +reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives, +felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, free warrens, and +all other royalties and seigniories, rights and jurisdictions, +privileges and hereditaments whatsoever.—And also the advowson, +donation, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or +parsonage of _Shandy_ aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tythes, +glebe-lands.”——In three words,——“My mother was to lay in, (if she chose +it) in _London._” + +But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the +part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too +manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of +at all, but for my uncle _Toby Shandy_;—a clause was added in security +of my father which was this:—“That in case my mother hereafter should, +at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a _London_ +journey, upon false cries and tokens;——that for every such instance, +she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant gave her +to the next turn;——but to no more,—and so on, _toties quoties_, in as +effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them had not been +made.”—This, by the way, was no more than what was reasonable;—and yet, +as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it hard that the whole +weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon +myself. + +But I was begot and born to misfortunes;—for my poor mother, whether it +was wind or water—or a compound of both,—or neither;—or whether it was +simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her;—or how far a +strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment;—in +short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way +becomes me to decide. The fact was this, That in the latter end of +September 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having +carried my father up to town much against the grain,—he peremptorily +insisted upon the clause;—so that I was doom’d, by marriage-articles, +to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had +actually spun me without one. + +How this event came about,—and what a train of vexatious +disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from +the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member,—shall +be laid before the reader all in due time. + +C H A P. XVI + +MY father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother +into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty +or five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze +himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he +said might every shilling of it have been saved;—then what vexed him +more than every thing else was, the provoking time of the year,—which, +as I told you, was towards the end of _September_, when his wall-fruit +and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just +ready for pulling:——“Had he been whistled up to _London_, upon a _Tom +Fool_’s errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not +have said three words about it.” + +For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy +blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had +fully reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his +pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should +fail him. “The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a +wise man, than all the money which the journey, &c. had cost him, put +together,—rot the hundred and twenty pounds,——he did not mind it a +rush.” + +From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair +provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish +figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_;——of which, +in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by +vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking +descriptions,—and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights +and attitudes in the face of the whole congregation;—that my mother +declared, these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did +nothing but laugh and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of +them all the way. + +From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out +of all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he +fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair—“Certainly,” he would +say to himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived +herself——if she could,——“what weakness!”—tormenting word!—which led his +imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the duce +and all with him;——for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was uttered, +and struck full upon his brain—so sure it set him upon running +divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were;——that there was +such a thing as weakness of the body,——as well as weakness of the +mind,—and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a +stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might, +or might not, have arisen out of himself. + +In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out +of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose +up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an +uneasy journey of it down.——In a word, as she complained to my uncle +_Toby_, he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive. + +C H A P. XVII + +THOUGH my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the +best of moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the +complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to +himself;—which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the +justice, which my uncle _Toby_’s clause in the marriage-settlement +empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, +which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of +his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little +chagrin’d and out of temper,——took occasion as they lay chatting +gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to come,——to let her +know that she must accommodate herself as well as she could to the +bargain made between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in +of her next child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey. + +My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of +that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.—’Tis +known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,—and of obstinacy in +a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas +to no purpose to make any remonstrance,—so she e’en resolved to sit +down quietly, and make the most of it. + +C H A P. XVIII + +AS the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my +mother should lye-in of me in the country, she took her measures +accordingly; for which purpose, when she was three days, or +thereabouts, gone with child, she began to cast her eyes upon the +midwife, whom you have so often heard me mention; and before the week +was well got round, as the famous Dr. _Manningham_ was not to be had, +she had come to a final determination in her mind,——notwithstanding +there was a scientific operator within so near a call as eight miles of +us, and who, moreover, had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon +the subject of midwifery, in which he had exposed, not only the +blunders of the sisterhood itself,——but had likewise super-added many +curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the fœtus in cross +births, and some other cases of danger, which belay us in getting into +the world; notwithstanding all this, my mother, I say, was absolutely +determined to trust her life, and mine with it, into no soul’s hand but +this old woman’s only.—Now this I like;——when we cannot get at the very +thing we wish——never to take up with the next best in degree to it:—no; +that’s pitiful beyond description;—it is no more than a week from this +very day, in which I am now writing this book for the edification of +the world;—which is _March_ 9, 1759,——that my dear, dear _Jenny_, +observing I looked a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of +five-and-twenty shillings a yard,—told the mercer, she was sorry she +had given him so much trouble;—and immediately went and bought herself +a yard-wide stuff of ten-pence a yard.—’Tis the duplication of one and +the same greatness of soul; only what lessened the honour of it, +somewhat, in my mother’s case, was, that she could not heroine it into +so violent and hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation might have +wished, because the old midwife had really some little claim to be +depended upon,—as much, at least, as success could give her; having, in +the course of her practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought +every mother’s son of them into the world without any one slip or +accident which could fairly be laid to her account. + +These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy +some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father’s spirits +in relation to this choice.—To say nothing of the natural workings of +humanity and justice—or of the yearnings of parental and connubial +love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible +in a case of this kind;——he felt himself concerned in a particular +manner, that all should go right in the present case;—from the +accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and +child in lying-in at _Shandy-Hall_.——He knew the world judged by +events, and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by +loading him with the whole blame of it.——“Alas o’day;—had Mrs. +_Shandy_, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in going up to town just +to lye-in and come down again;—which they say, she begged and prayed +for upon her bare knees,——and which, in my opinion, considering the +fortune which Mr. _Shandy_ got with her,—was no such mighty matter to +have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been +alive at this hour.” + +This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable;—and yet, it was not +merely to shelter himself,—nor was it altogether for the care of his +offspring and wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this +point;—my father had extensive views of things,——and stood moreover, as +he thought, deeply concerned in it for the publick good, from the dread +he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance might be put to. + +He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had +unanimously agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen +_Elizabeth_’s reign down to his own time, that the current of men and +money towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or another,—set +in so strong,—as to become dangerous to our civil rights,—though, by +the bye,——a _current_ was not the image he took most delight in,—a +_distemper_ was here his favourite metaphor, and he would run it down +into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was identically the same in +the body national as in the body natural, where the blood and spirits +were driven up into the head faster than they could find their ways +down;——a stoppage of circulation must ensue, which was death in both +cases. + +There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by +_French_ politicks or _French_ invasions;——nor was he so much in pain +of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated +humours in our constitution, which he hoped was not so bad as it was +imagined;—but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go +off, all at once, in a state-apoplexy;—and then he would say, _The Lord +have mercy upon us all._ + +My father was never able to give the history of this distemper,—without +the remedy along with it. + +“Was I an absolute prince,” he would say, pulling up his breeches with +both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, “I would appoint able +judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of +every fool’s business who came there;—and if, upon a fair and candid +hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, +and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer’s +sons, &c. &c. at his backside, they should be all sent back, from +constable to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of +their legal settlements. By this means I shall take care, that my +metropolis totter’d not thro’ its own weight;—that the head be no +longer too big for the body;—that the extremes, now wasted and pinn’d +in, be restored to their due share of nourishment, and regain with it +their natural strength and beauty:—I would effectually provide, That +the meadows and corn fields of my dominions, should laugh and +sing;—that good chear and hospitality flourish once more;—and that such +weight and influence be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of +my kingdom, as should counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now +taking from them.” + +“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s seats,” he would ask, +with some emotion, as he walked across the room, “throughout so many +delicious provinces in _France_? Whence is it that the few remaining +_Chateaus_ amongst them are so dismantled,—so unfurnished, and in so +ruinous and desolate a condition?——Because, Sir” (he would say) “in +that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support;—the little +interest of any kind which any man has any where in it, is concentrated +in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of +whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every _French_ +man lives or dies.” + +Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard +against the least evil accident in my mother’s lying-in in the +country,——was, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance +of power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in +his own, or higher stations;——which, with the many other usurped rights +which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing,—would, in +the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestick government +established in the first creation of things by God. + +In this point he was entirely of Sir _Robert Filmer_’s opinion, That +the plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern +parts of the world, were, originally, all stolen from that admirable +pattern and prototype of this houshold and paternal power;—which, for a +century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a +mix’d government;——the form of which, however desirable in great +combinations of the species,——was very troublesome in small ones,—and +seldom produced any thing, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion. + +For all these reasons, private and publick, put together,—my father was +for having the man-midwife by all means,—my mother, by no means. My +father begg’d and intreated, she would for once recede from her +prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her;—my +mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privilege in this matter, to +choose for herself,—and have no mortal’s help but the old woman’s.—What +could my father do? He was almost at his wit’s end;——talked it over +with her in all moods;—placed his arguments in all lights;—argued the +matter with her like a christian,—like a heathen,—like a husband,—like +a father,—like a patriot,—like a man:—My mother answered every thing +only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her;—for as she could +not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of characters,—’twas +no fair match:—’twas seven to one.—What could my mother do?—She had the +advantage (otherwise she had been certainly overpowered) of a small +reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom, which bore her up, and +enabled her to dispute the affair with my father with so equal an +advantage,——that both sides sung _Te Deum._ In a word, my mother was to +have the old woman,—and the operator was to have licence to drink a +bottle of wine with my father and my uncle _Toby Shandy_ in the back +parlour,—for which he was to be paid five guineas. + +I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in +the breast of my fair reader;—and it is this,——Not to take it +absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have +dropp’d in it,——“That I am a married man.”—I own, the tender +appellation of my dear, dear _Jenny_,—with some other strokes of +conjugal knowledge, interspersed here and there, might, naturally +enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a +determination against me.—All I plead for, in this case, Madam, is +strict justice, and that you do so much of it, to me as well as to +yourself,—as not to prejudge, or receive such an impression of me, till +you have better evidence, than, I am positive, at present can be +produced against me.—Not that I can be so vain or unreasonable, Madam, +as to desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear _Jenny_ is +my kept mistress;—no,—that would be flattering my character in the +other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has +no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the utter impossibility, for +some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth, +should know how this matter really stands.—It is not impossible, but +that my dear, dear _Jenny!_ tender as the appellation is, may be my +child.—Consider,—I was born in the year eighteen.—Nor is there any +thing unnatural or extravagant in the supposition, that my dear _Jenny_ +may be my friend.—Friend!—My friend.—Surely, Madam, a friendship +between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported without———Fy! Mr. +_Shandy:_—Without any thing, Madam, but that tender and delicious +sentiment which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference +of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of +the best _French_ Romances;—it will really, Madam, astonish you to see +with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment, +which I have the honour to speak of, is dress’d out. + +C H A P. XIX + +I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry, +than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great +good sense,——knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious +too in philosophy,—wise also in political reasoning,—and in polemical +(as he will find) no way ignorant,—could be capable of entertaining a +notion in his head, so out of the common track,—that I fear the reader, +when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick +temper, will immediatly throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh +most heartily at it;—and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he +will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant; +and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of christian +names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what +superficial minds were capable of conceiving. + +His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of +magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly +impressed upon our characters and conduct. + +The hero of _Cervantes_ argued not the point with more +seriousness,——nor had he more faith,——or more to say on the powers of +necromancy in dishonouring his deeds,—or on DULCINEA’s name, in +shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS +or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand—or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How +many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the +names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add, +are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not +their characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICODEMUS’D +into nothing? + +I see plainly, Sir, by your looks, (or as the case happened) my father +would say—that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of +mine,—which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it +to the bottom,—I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning +in it;——and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, +I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you, +not as a party in the dispute,—but as a judge, and trusting my appeal +upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this +matter;——you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of +education as most men;—and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into +you,—of a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely +because it wants friends. Your son,—your dear son,—from whose sweet and +open temper you have so much to expect.—Your BILLY, Sir!—would you, for +the world, have called him JUDAS?—Would you, my dear Sir, he would say, +laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,—and in +that soft and irresistible _piano_ of voice, which the nature of the +_argumentum ad hominem_ absolutely requires,—Would you, Sir, if a _Jew_ +of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered you +his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration +of him?——O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know your temper +right, Sir,—you are incapable of it;——you would have trampled upon the +offer;—you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter’s head with +abhorrence. + +Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that +generous contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction, +is really noble;—and what renders it more so, is the principle of +it;—the workings of a parent’s love upon the truth and conviction of +this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS,—the +forbid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have +accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a +miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example. + +I never knew a man able to answer this argument.—But, indeed, to speak +of my father as he was;—he was certainly irresistible;—both in his +orations and disputations;—he was born an +orator;—Θεοδίδακτος.—Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of +Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,—and, withal, he had so +shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent,——that +NATURE might have stood up and said,—“This man is eloquent.”—In short, +whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas +hazardous in either case to attack him.—And yet, ’tis strange, he had +never read _Cicero_, nor _Quintilian de Oratore_, nor _Isocrates_, nor +_Aristotle_, nor _Longinus_, amongst the antients;—nor _Vossius_, nor +_Skioppius_, nor _Ramus_, nor _Farnaby_, amongst the moderns;—and what +is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or +spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon +_Crackenthorp_ or _Burgersdicius_ or any _Dutch_ logician or +commentator;—he knew not so much as in what the difference of an +argument _ad ignorantiam_, and an argument _ad hominem_ consisted; so +that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at +_Jesus College_ in ****,—it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy +tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,—that a man who +knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work +after that fashion with them. + +To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was, +however, perpetually forced upon;——for he had a thousand little +sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend——most of which notions, +I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and +of a _vive la Bagatelle_; and as such he would make merry with them for +half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss +them till another day. + +I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the +progress and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions,—but as a +warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such +guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance, for some years, +into our brains,—at length claim a kind of settlement there,——working +sometimes like yeast;—but more generally after the manner of the gentle +passion, beginning in jest,—but ending in downright earnest. + +Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions—or +that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;—or how far, +in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;—the +reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here, +is, that in this one, of the influence of christian names, however it +gained footing, he was serious;—he was all uniformity;—he was +systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both +heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to +support his hypothesis. In a word I repeat it over again;—he was +serious;—and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience +whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known +better,——as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed +upon their child,—or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_ +for their puppy-dog. + +This, he would say, look’d ill;—and had, moreover, this particular +aggravation in it, viz. That when once a vile name was wrongfully or +injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character, +which, when wrong’d, might hereafter be cleared;——and, possibly, some +time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least after his death,—be, +somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this, +he would say, could never be undone;—nay, he doubted even whether an +act of parliament could reach it:——He knew as well as you, that the +legislature assumed a power over surnames;—but for very strong reasons, +which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, to go a +step farther. + +It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion, +had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards +certain names;—that there were still numbers of names which hung so +equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely +indifferent to him. _Jack, Dick_, and _Tom_ were of this class: These +my father called neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satire, +That there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and +good men, since the world began, who had indifferently borne them;—so +that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary +directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each other’s effects; +for which reason, he would often declare, He would not give a +cherry-stone to choose amongst them. _Bob_, which was my brother’s +name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which +operated very little either way; and as my father happen’d to be at +_Epsom_, when it was given him,—he would oft-times thank Heaven it was +no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a negative quantity in Algebra +with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.—_William_ stood pretty +high:——_Numps_ again was low with him:—and _Nick_, he said, was the +DEVIL. + +But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion +for TRISTRAM;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of +any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in +_rerum natura_, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the +midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was +frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and +spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and sometimes +a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it +categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, +he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,—or even whether he +had ever heard tell of a man, called _Tristram_, performing any thing +great or worth recording?—No,—he would say,—TRISTRAM!—The thing is +impossible. + +What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish +this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle +speculatist to stand single in his opinions,—unless he gives them +proper vent:—It was the identical thing which my father did:—for in the +year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the +pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word +_Tristram_,—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the +grounds of his great abhorrence to the name. + +When this story is compared with the title-page,—Will not the gentle +reader pity my father from his soul?—to see an orderly and +well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular,—yet inoffensive in his +notions,—so played upon in them by cross purposes;——to look down upon +the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little systems +and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out against +him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had purposedly been +plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.——In +a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles, +ten times in a day suffering sorrow;—ten times in a day calling the +child of his prayers TRISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which, +to his ears, was unison to _Nincompoop_, and every name vituperative +under heaven.——By his ashes! I swear it,—if ever malignant spirit took +pleasure, or busied itself in traversing the purposes of mortal man,—it +must have been here;—and if it was not necessary I should be born +before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account +of it. + +C H A P. XX + +——How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? +I told you in it, _That my mother was not a papist._——Papist! You told +me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that +I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could +tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, I must have miss’d a page.—No, Madam, +you have not miss’d a word.—Then I was asleep, Sir.—My pride, Madam, +cannot allow you that refuge.—Then, I declare, I know nothing at all +about the matter.—That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge; +and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately +turn back, that is as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read +the whole chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the +lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of +motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she +returns back:—’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into +thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest +of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a +book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly +impart with them——The mind should be accustomed to make wise +reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the +habitude of which made _Pliny_ the younger affirm, “That he never read +a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of +_Greece_ and _Rome_, run over without this turn and application,—do +less service, I affirm it, than the history of _Parismus_ and +_Parismenus_, or of the Seven Champions of _England_, read with it. + +———But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter, +Madam, as I desired you?—You have: And did you not observe the passage, +upon the second reading, which admits the inference?—Not a word like +it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the +chapter, where I take upon me to say, “It was _necessary_ I should be +born before I was christen’d.” Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, +that consequence did not follow.[1] + +It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to +the Republick of letters;—so that my own is quite swallowed up in the +consideration of it,—that this self-same vile pruriency for fresh +adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and +humour,—and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of +our concupiscence that way,—that nothing but the gross and more carnal +parts of a composition will go down:—The subtle hints and sly +communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,—the heavy +moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much +lost to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the +ink-horn. + +I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and +curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I +wish it may have its effects;—and that all good people, both male and +female, from example, may be taught to think as well as read. + +MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les +Docteurs de SORBONNE[2] + +_UN Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de_ +SORBONNE, _qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne +sçauroit accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le +sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce +qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous +condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le +moyen d’une_ petite canulle, _de pouvoir baptiser immediatement +l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere.——Il demand si ce moyen, +qu’il vient de proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir +dans les cas qu’il vient d’exposer._ + +R E P O N S E + +_LE Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes +difficultés. Les Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le +baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere +naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour renaître en_ Jesus +Christ, _comme ils l’enseignent. S._ Thomas, 3 part. quæst. 88 artic. +11. _suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit +ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renférmes dans le sein de +leurs meres, & S._ Thomas _est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont +point nés, & ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il +conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet d’une action extérieure, pour +reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens nécessaires au salut:_ Pueri +in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis +hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanæ, ut per +eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. _Les rituels +ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les +mêmes matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de +baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, +s’ils ne sont paroître quelque partie de leurs corps. Le concours des +théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des diocéses, paroit +former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le +conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des +théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la +deffense des rituels suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement +les enfans ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est +contre la supposition presente; & d’un autre côté, considerant que lés +mêmes théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les sacremens que_ +Jesus Christ _a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour +sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés +dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut, +parcequ’ils sont capables de damnation;—pour ces considerations, & en +egard à l’expose, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen +certain de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans faire aucun tort à +la mere, le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen +proposé, dans la confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces +sortes d’enfans sans aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé, +que le moyen dont il s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême; +cependant comme il s’agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposée, de +changer une regle universellement établie, le Conseil croit que celui +qui consulte doit s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il appartient de +juger de l’utilité, & du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le bon +plaisir de l’evêque, le Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape, +qui a le droit d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans +le cas, ou la loi ne sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que +paroisse la maniére de baptiser dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit +l’approver sans le concours de ces deux autorités. On conseile au moins +à celui qui consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque, & de lui faire part +de la presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les raisons +sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être +autorisé dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que +la permission fût demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose +si avantageux au salut de l’enfant. Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant +que l’on pourroit s’en servir, croit cependant, que si les enfans dont +il s’agit, venoient au monde, contre l’esperance de ceux qui se +seroient servis du méme moyen, il seroit nécessaire de les baptiser_ +sous condition; _& en cela le Conseil se conforme à tous les rituels, +qui en autorisant le baptême d’un enfant qui fait paroître quelque +partie de son corps, enjoignent néantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser_ +sous condition, _s’il vient heureusement au monde._ + +Déliberé en _Sorbonne_, le 10 _Avril_, 1733. + +A. LE MOYNE. +L. DE ROMIGNY. +DE MARCILLY. + +Mr. _Tristram Shandy_’s compliments to Messrs. _Le Moyne, De Romigny_, +and _De Marcilly_; hopes they all rested well the night after so +tiresome a consultation.—He begs to know, whether after the ceremony of +marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the +HOMUNCULI at once, slapdash, by _injection_, would not be a shorter and +safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the HOMUNCULI do well, +and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of them +shall be baptized again (_sous condition_)——And provided, in the second +place, That the thing can be done, which Mr. _Shandy_ apprehends it +may, _par le moyen d’une_ petite canulle, and _sans faire aucune tort +au pere._ + + [1] The _Romish_ Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases + of danger, _before_ it is born;—but upon this proviso, That some part + or other of the child’s body be seen by the baptizer:——But the Doctors + of the _Sorbonne_, by a deliberation held amongst them, _April_ 10, + 1733,—have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That + though no part of the child’s body should appear,—that baptism shall, + nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,—_par le moyen d’une + petite canulle_,—Anglicè _a squirt._—’Tis very strange that St. + _Thomas Aquinas_, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying + and untying the knots of school-divinity,—should, after so much pains + bestowed upon this,—give up the point at last, as a second _La chose + impossible_,—“Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. + _Thomas!_) baptizari possunt _nullo modo._”—O _Thomas! Thomas!_ + + If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism + _by injection_, as presented to the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, with + their consultation thereupon, it is as follows. + + [2] Vide Deventer. Paris Edit. 4to, 1734, p. 366. + +C H A P. XXI + +——I WONDER what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards +for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour +and a half’s silence, to my uncle _Toby_,——who, you must know, was +sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoaking his social pipe all +the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches +which he had got on:—What can they be doing, brother?—quoth my +father,—we can scarce hear ourselves talk. + +I think, replied my uncle _Toby_, taking his pipe from his mouth, and +striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left +thumb, as he began his sentence,——I think, says he:——But to enter +rightly into my uncle _Toby_’s sentiments upon this matter, you must be +made to enter first a little into his character, the out-lines of which +I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father +will go on as well again. + +Pray what was that man’s name,—for I write in such a hurry, I have no +time to recollect or look for it,——who first made the observation, +“That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?” Whoever he +was, ’twas a just and good observation in him.—But the corollary drawn +from it, namely, “That it is this which has furnished us with such a +variety of odd and whimsical characters;”—that was not his;—it was +found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then +again,—that this copious store-house of original materials, is the true +and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of +_France_, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the +Continent:——that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of +King _William_’s reign,—when the great _Dryden_, in writing one of his +long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed +toward the latter end of queen _Anne_, the great _Addison_ began to +patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in one +or two of his Spectators;—but the discovery was not his.—Then, fourthly +and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so +strange an irregularity in our characters,——doth thereby, in some sort, +make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the +weather will not suffer us to go out of doors,—that observation is my +own;—and was struck out by me this very rainy day, _March_ 26, 1759, +and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning. + +Thus—thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of +our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps +of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, +physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical, +technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with +fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending as these do, in _ical_) +have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping +upwards towards that Ἀκμὴ of their perfections, from which, if we may +form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we +cannot possibly be far off. + +When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of +writings whatsoever;—the want of all kind of writing will put an end to +all kind of reading;—and that in time, _As war begets poverty; poverty +peace_,——must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge,—and +then——we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be +exactly where we started. + +———Happy! Thrice happy times! I only wish that the æra of my begetting, +as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter’d,—or +that it could have been put off, with any convenience to my father or +mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in +the literary world might have stood some chance.—— + +But I forget my uncle _Toby_, whom all this while we have left knocking +the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe. + +His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our +atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst +one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too +many strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he +derived the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind +or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I +have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho’ I believe he +had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity, +in my course, when I was a boy,—should never once endeavour to account +for them in this way: for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original +character throughout:——I mean the males,—the females had no character +at all,—except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about sixty years +ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my +father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would often +say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers. + +It will seem strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle +in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon +guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many +years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of +the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my +father and my uncle _Toby._ One would have thought, that the whole +force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the +family at first,—as is generally the case.—But nothing ever wrought +with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this +happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as +afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done +the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times +and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its +office.——Observe, I determine nothing upon this.——My way is ever to +point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at +the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic +_Fescue_,—or in the decisive manner or _Tacitus_, who outwits himself +and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to +the assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,——and by them +I shall be read,——if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold +out so long,—to the very end of the world. + +Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father +and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it +exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between +them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with +great exactness, and is as follows: + +My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues +which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and +rectitude,—possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or +never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and +unparallel’d modesty of nature;——though I correct the word nature, for +this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to +a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or +acquir’d.——Whichever way my uncle _Toby_ came by it, ’twas nevertheless +modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to +words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,—but +to things;——and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to +such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, +even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward +cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the +awe of ours. + +You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle _Toby_ had contracted all this +from this very source;—that he had spent a great part of his time in +converse with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and +the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he +had acquired this amiable turn of mind. + +I wish I could say so,—for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my +father’s wife and my mother——my uncle _Toby_ scarce exchanged three +words with the sex in as many years;——no, he got it, Madam, by a +blow.——A blow!—Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke +off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur, +which struck full upon my uncle _Toby_’s groin.—Which way could that +effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;—but it +would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.——’Tis +for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its +proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you:—’Till then, it is +not in my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more +than what I have said already,——That my uncle _Toby_ was a gentleman of +unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and +rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,——they both so +wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the +affair of my aunt DINAH touch’d upon, but with the greatest +emotion.——The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into +his face;—but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed +companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged +him to do,—the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the +family, would set my uncle _Toby_’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and +he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern +imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him any thing in +the world, only to let the story rest. + +My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle +_Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done +any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of +another, to have made my uncle _Toby_’s heart easy in this, or any +other point. But this lay out of his power. + +——My father, as I told you was a philosopher in +grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt _Dinah_’s affair was a +matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the +planets to _Copernicus_:—The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit +fortified the _Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the +backslidings of my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in +establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever +hereafter be called the _Shandean System_, after his. + +In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a +sense of shame as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say, +_Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have +taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they +owed, as they thought, to truth.—_Amicus Plato_, my father would say, +construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus +Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt;—_sed magis amica veritas_—but TRUTH +is my sister. + +This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the +source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the +tale of family disgrace recorded,——and the other would scarce ever let +a day pass to an end without some hint at it. + +For God’s sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry,——and for my sake, and for +all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_,—do let this story of our +aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;——how can you,——how can you have so +little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?——What is +the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would +reply.——Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family?——The +life of a family!—my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself back in +his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg——Yes, +the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many +thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all +civilized countries at least)——and considered as nothing but common +air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my +uncle _Toby_ would answer,—every such instance is downright MURDER, let +who will commit it.——There lies your mistake, my father would +reply;——for, in _Foro Scientiæ_ there is no such thing as MURDER,——’tis +only DEATH, brother. + +My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of +argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of +_Lillebullero._——You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his +passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him:——but +especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offered. + +As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon +them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this +particular species of argument.—I here take the liberty to do it +myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion +in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every +other species of argument———as the _Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex +Absurdo, ex Fortiori_, or any other argument whatsoever:——And, +secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head +is laid to rest,——that their learn’d grandfather’s head had been busied +to as much purpose once, as other people’s;—That he had invented a +name, and generously thrown it into the TREASURY of the _Ars Logica_, +for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And, +if the end of disputation is more to silence than convince,—they may +add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too. + +I do, therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it +be known and distinguished by the name and title of the _Argumentum +Fistulatorium_, and no other;—and that it rank hereafter with the +_Argumentum Baculinum_ and the _Argumentum ad Crumenam_, and for ever +hereafter be treated of in the same chapter. + +As for the _Argumentum Tripodium_, which is never used but by the woman +against the man;—and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is +made use of by the man only against the woman;—As these two are enough +in conscience for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best +answer to the other,—let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of +in a place by themselves. + +C H A P. XXII + +THE learned Bishop _Hall_, I mean the famous Dr. _Joseph Hall_, who was +Bishop of _Exeter_ in King _James_ the First’s reign, tells us in one +of _Decads_, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at +_London_, in the year 1610, by _John Beal_, dwelling in +_Aldersgate-street_, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to +commend himself;”——and I really think it is so. + +And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind +of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;—I think it is +full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out +of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head. + +This is precisely my situation. + +For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in +all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of +digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been +over-looked by my reader,—not for want of penetration in him,—but +because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a +digression;—and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as +you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as +often too, as any writer in _Great Britain_; yet I constantly take care +to order affairs so that my main business does not stand still in my +absence. + +I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of +my uncle _Toby_’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt _Dinah_ and +the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles +into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this, +you perceive that the drawing of my uncle _Toby_’s character went on +gently all the time;—not the great contours of it,—that was +impossible,—but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, +were here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much +better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before. + +By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; +two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were +thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is +digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time. + +This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving +round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her +elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that +variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though I own it suggested +the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and +discoveries have come from such trifling hints. + +Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the +soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as +well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign +in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a +bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite +to fail. + +All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as +to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, +whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a +digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock +still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—then there is an end of +his digression. + +——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you +see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it +with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the +digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that +the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what’s more, +it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain +of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits. + +C H A P. XXIII + +I HAVE a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very +nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.—Accordingly I set off +thus: + +If the fixture of _Momus_’s glass in the human breast, according to the +proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,——first, This +foolish consequence would certainly have followed,—That the very wisest +and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid +window-money every day of our lives. + +And, secondly, that had the said glass been there set up, nothing more +would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but +to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical +bee-hive, and look’d in,—view’d the soul stark naked;—observed all her +motions,—her machinations;—traced all her maggots from their first +engendering to their crawling forth;—watched her loose in her frisks, +her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn +deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.——then taken your pen and +ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn +to:—But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this +planet;—in the planet _Mercury_ (belike) it may be so, if not better +still for him;——for there the intense heat of the country, which is +proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than +equal to that of red-hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified +the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them +for the climate (which is the final cause;) so that betwixt them both, +all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing +else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the contrary, but +one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot)—so +that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the +rays of light, in passing through them, become so monstrously +refracted,——or return reflected from their surfaces in such transverse +lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through;—his soul might as +well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the +umbilical point gave her,—might, upon all other accounts, I say, as +well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house. + +But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this +earth;—our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in a +dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would +come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to +work. + +Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to +take, to do this thing with exactness. + +Some, for instance, draw all their characters with +wind-instruments.—_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of +_Dido_ and _Æneas_;—but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame;—and, +moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the +_Italians_ pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of +one particular sort of character among them, from the _forte_ or +_piano_ of a certain wind-instrument they use,—which they say is +infallible.—I dare not mention the name of the instrument in this +place;—’tis sufficient we have it amongst us,—but never think of making +a drawing by it;—this is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at least +_ad populum_:—And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you +read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about +it. + +There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other +helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations;—but this often +gives a very incorrect outline,—unless, indeed, you take a sketch of +his repletions too; and by correcting one drawing from the other, +compound one good figure out of them both. + +I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must +smell too strong of the lamp,—and be render’d still more operose, by +forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his _Non-naturals._—Why the +most natural actions of a man’s life should be called his +Non-naturals,—is another question. + +There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these +expedients;—not from any fertility of their own, but from the various +ways of doing it, which they have borrowed from the honourable devices +which the Pentagraphic Brethren[3] of the brush have shewn in taking +copies.—These, you must know, are your great historians. + +One of these you will see drawing a full length character _against the +light_;—that’s illiberal,—dishonest,—and hard upon the character of the +man who sits. + +Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the +_Camera_;—that is most unfair of all, because, _there_ you are sure to +be represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes. + +To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle +_Toby_’s character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help +whatever;—nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument +which ever was blown upon, either on this, or on the other side of the +_Alps_;—nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges,—or +touch upon his Non-naturals; but, in a word, I will draw my uncle +_Toby_’s character from his HOBBY-HORSE. + + [3] Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures + mechanically, and in any proportion. + +C H A P. XXIV + +IF I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience +for my uncle _Toby_’s character,——I would here previously have +convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing +with, as that which I have pitch’d upon. + +A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act +exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each +other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some +kind; and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of +the manner of electrified bodies,—and that, by means of the heated +parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back +of the HOBBY-HORSE,—by long journies and much friction, it so happens, +that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of +HOBBY-HORSICAL matter as it can hold;—so that if you are able to give +but a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty +exact notion of the genius and character of the other. + +Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my +opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was +only upon the score of his great singularity;—for you might have +travelled from _York_ to _Dover_,—from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in +_Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen +such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever +haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a +view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so +utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the +whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of +dispute,——whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: But as the +Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed +with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his +legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle _Toby_ use no +other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but +by getting upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after +that, to determine the point as it thought fit. + +In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and +he carried my uncle _Toby_ so well,——that he troubled his head very +little with what the world either said or thought about it. + +It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:—But +to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you +first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him. + +C H A P. XXV + +THE wound in my uncle _Toby_’s groin, which he received at the siege of +_Namur_, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient +he should return to _England_, in order, if possible, to be set to +rights. + +He was four years totally confined,—part of it to his bed, and all of +it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time +in hand, suffer’d unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of +exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of +the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_,——both which bones were dismally +crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was +broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho’ it was pretty large) which +inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it +had done my uncle _Toby_’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the +stone itself, than to the projectile force of it,—which he would often +tell him was a great happiness. + +My father at that time was just beginning business in _London_, and had +taken a house;—and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted +between the two brothers,—and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_ +could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own +house,——he assign’d him the very best apartment in it.—And what was a +much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a +friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but +he would take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his +brother _Toby_, and chat an hour by his bed-side. + +The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it;—my uncle’s +visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from +the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the +discourse to that subject,—and from that subject the discourse would +generally roll on to the siege itself. + +These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle _Toby_ received +great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that +they brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three +months together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon +an expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they +would have laid him in his grave. + +What these perplexities of my uncle _Toby_ were,——’tis impossible for +you to guess;—if you could,—I should blush; not as a relation,—not as a +man,—nor even as a woman,—but I should blush as an author; inasmuch as +I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader +has never yet been able to guess at any thing. And in this, Sir, I am +of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to +form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was +to come in the next page,—I would tear it out of my book. + +C H A P. XXVI + +I HAVE begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to +explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle _Toby_ was +involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege +of _Namur_, where he received his wound. + +I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King +_William_’s wars,—but if he has not,—I then inform him, that one of the +most memorable attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the +_English_ and _Dutch_ upon the point of the advanced counterscarp, +between the gate of _St. Nicolas_, which inclosed the great sluice or +water-stop, where the _English_ were terribly exposed to the shot of +the counter-guard and demi-bastion of _St. Roch_: The issue of which +hot dispute, in three words, was this; That the _Dutch_ lodged +themselves upon the counter-guard,—and that the _English_ made +themselves masters of the covered-way before _St. Nicolas_-gate, +notwithstanding the gallantry of the _French_ officers, who exposed +themselves upon the glacis sword in hand. + +As this was the principal attack of which my uncle _Toby_ was an +eye-witness at _Namur_,——the army of the besiegers being cut off, by +the confluence of the _Maes_ and _Sambre_, from seeing much of each +other’s operations,——my uncle _Toby_ was generally more eloquent and +particular in his account of it; and the many perplexities he was in, +arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling +his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences +and distinctions between the scarp and counterscarp,—the glacis and +covered-way,—the half-moon and ravelin,—as to make his company fully +comprehend where and what he was about. + +Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you +will the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in +opposition to many misconceptions, that my uncle _Toby_ did oft-times +puzzle his visitors, and sometimes himself too. + +To speak the truth, unless the company my father led up stairs were +tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle _Toby_ was in one of his +explanatory moods, ’twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep +the discourse free from obscurity. + +What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle +_Toby_, was this,—that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the +gate of _St. Nicolas_, extending itself from the bank of the _Maes_, +quite up to the great water-stop,—the ground was cut and cross cut with +such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all +sides,—and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst them, +that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his +life; and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very +account only. + +These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle _Toby Shandy_ more perturbations +than you would imagine; and as my father’s kindness to him was +continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers,——he had but +a very uneasy task of it. + +No doubt my uncle _Toby_ had great command of himself,—and could guard +appearances, I believe, as well as most men;—yet any one may imagine, +that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into +the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the +counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the +ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly:—He did so;—and +the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no +account to the man who has not read _Hippocrates_, yet, whoever has +read _Hippocrates_, or Dr. _James Mackenzie_, and has considered well +the effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the +digestion—(Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner?)—may easily +conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle +_Toby_ must have undergone upon that score only. + +—My uncle _Toby_ could not philosophize upon it;—’twas enough he felt +it was so,—and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three +months together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate +himself. + +He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and +nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other +position, when a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase +such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of +the fortification of the town and citadel of _Namur_, with its +environs, it might be a means of giving him ease.—I take notice of his +desire to have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this +reason,—because my uncle _Toby_’s wound was got in one of the +traverses, about thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench, +opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of _St. Roch_:——so +that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical +spot of ground where he was standing on when the stone struck him. + +All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world +of sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you +will read, of procuring my uncle _Toby_ his HOBBY-HORSE. + +C H A P. XXVII + +THERE is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an +entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your +criticks and gentry of refined taste run it down: Nor is there any +thing so likely to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the +party, or, what is full as offensive, of bestowing your attention upon +the rest of your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such +thing as a critick (by occupation) at table. + +——I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a +dozen places purposely open for them;—and in the next place, I pay them +all court.—Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company could +give me half the pleasure,—by my soul I am glad to see you———I beg only +you will make no strangers of yourselves, but sit down without any +ceremony, and fall on heartily. + +I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my +complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them,—and in +this very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho’ not by +occupation,—but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, I +shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the mean time, that I shall be +able to make a great deal of more room next year. + +———How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle _Toby_, who, it seems, +was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,—be at the +same time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, fellow, as—Go +look. + +So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it.—’Tis language +unurbane,—and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and +satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first +causes of human ignorance and confusion. It is moreover the reply +valiant—and therefore I reject it; for tho’ it might have suited my +uncle _Toby_’s character as a soldier excellently well,—and had he not +accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle the _Lillabullero_, as +he wanted no courage, ’tis the very answer he would have given; yet it +would by no means have done for me. You see as plain as can be, that I +write as a man of erudition;—that even my similies, my allusions, my +illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite,—and that I must sustain my +character properly, and contrast it properly too,—else what would +become of me? Why, Sir, I should be undone;—at this very moment that I +am going here to fill up one place against a critick,—I should have +made an opening for a couple. + +——Therefore I answer thus: + +Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever +read such a book as _Locke_’s Essay upon the Human +Understanding?——Don’t answer me rashly—because many, I know, quote the +book, who have not read it—and many have read it who understand it +not:—If either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will +tell you in three words what the book is.—It is a history.—A history! +of who? what? where? when? Don’t hurry yourself—It is a history-book, +Sir, (which may possibly recommend it to the world) of what passes in a +man’s own mind; and if you will say so much of the book, and no more, +believe me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysick +circle. + +But this by the way. + +Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the +bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and +confusion, in the mind of a man, is threefold. + +Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and +transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not +dull. And thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what +it has received.—Call down _Dolly_ your chamber-maid, and I will give +you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain +that _Dolly_ herself should understand it as well as _Malbranch._——When +_Dolly_ has indited her epistle to _Robin_, and has thrust her arm into +the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side;—take that +opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception +can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by +that one thing which _Dolly_’s hand is in search of.—Your organs are +not so dull that I should inform you—’tis an inch, Sir, of red +seal-wax. + +When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if _Dolly_ fumbles too +long for her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not +receive the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont +to imprint it. Very well. If _Dolly_’s wax, for want of better, is +bees-wax, or of a temper too soft,—tho’ it may receive,—it will not +hold the impression, how hard soever _Dolly_ thrusts against it; and +last of all, supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied +thereto in careless haste, as her Mistress rings the bell;——in any one +of these three cases the print left by the thimble will be as unlike +the prototype as a brass-jack. + +Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the +confusion in my uncle _Toby_’s discourse; and it is for that very +reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great +physiologists—to shew the world, what it did _not_ arise from. + +What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of +obscurity it is,—and ever will be,—and that is the unsteady uses of +words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted +understandings. + +It is ten to one (at _Arthur_’s) whether you have ever read the +literary histories of past ages;—if you have, what terrible battles, +’yclept logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much +gall and ink-shed,—that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of +them without tears in his eyes. + +Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within +thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has +been pestered and disordered, at one time or other, by this, and this +only:—What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about χδια and υωοςασις; and +in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit;—about +essences, and about quintessences;——about substances, and about +space.——What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little +meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this, thou +wilt not wonder at my uncle _Toby_’s perplexities,—thou wilt drop a +tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp;—his glacis and his +covered way;—his ravelin and his half- moon: ’Twas not by ideas,—by +Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words. + +C H A P. XXVIII + +WHEN my uncle _Toby_ got his map of _Namur_ to his mind, he began +immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the +study of it; for nothing being of more importance to him than his +recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the +passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest +care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to +talk upon it without emotion. + +In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did +my uncle _Toby_’s wound, upon his groin, no good,—he was enabled, by +the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, +together with _Gobesius_’s military architecture and pyroballogy, +translated from the _Flemish_, to form his discourse with passable +perspicuity; and before he was two full months gone,—he was right +eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced +counterscarp with great order;—but having, by that time, gone much +deeper into the art, than what his first motive made necessary, my +uncle _Toby_ was able to cross the _Maes_ and _Sambre_; make diversions +as far as _Vauban_’s line, the abbey of _Salsines_, &c. and give his +visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of +the gate of _St. Nicolas_, where he had the honour to receive his +wound. + +But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with +the acquisition of it. The more my uncle _Toby_ pored over his map, the +more he took a liking to it!—by the same process and electrical +assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of +connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the +happiness, at length, to get all +be-virtu’d—be-pictured,—be-butterflied, and be-fiddled. + +The more my uncle _Toby_ drank of this sweet fountain of science, the +greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the +first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a +fortified town in _Italy_ or _Flanders_, of which, by one means or +other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and +carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their +demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read +with that intense application and delight, that he would forget +himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner. + +In the second year my uncle _Toby_ purchased _Ramelli_ and _Cataneo_, +translated from the _Italian_;—likewise _Stevinus, Moralis_, the +Chevalier _de Ville, Lorini, Cochorn, Sheeter_, the Count _de Pagan_, +the Marshal _Vauban_, Mons. _Blondel_, with almost as many more books +of military architecture, as Don _Quixote_ was found to have of +chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library. + +Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in _August_, +ninety-nine, my uncle _Toby_ found it necessary to understand a little +of projectiles:—and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from +the fountain-head, he began with _N. Tartaglia_, who it seems was the +first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball’s doing all that +mischief under the notion of a right line—This _N. Tartaglia_ proved to +my uncle _Toby_ to be an impossible thing. + +——Endless is the search of Truth. + +No sooner was my uncle _Toby_ satisfied which road the cannon-ball did +not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to +enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he +was obliged to set off afresh with old _Maltus_, and studied him +devoutly.—He proceeded next to _Galileo_ and _Torricellius_, wherein, +by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the +precise path to be a PARABOLA—or else an HYPERBOLA,—and that the +parameter, or _latus rectum_, of the conic section of the said path, +was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct _ratio_, as the whole +line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breech +upon an horizontal plane;—and that the semiparameter,——stop! my dear +uncle _Toby_——stop!—go not one foot farther into this thorny and +bewildered track,—intricate are the steps! intricate are the mazes of +this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this +bewitching phantom KNOWLEDGE will bring upon thee.—O my +uncle;—fly—fly,—fly from it as from a serpent.——Is it fit——goodnatured +man! thou should’st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights +baking thy blood with hectic watchings?——Alas! ’twill exasperate thy +symptoms,—check thy perspirations—evaporate thy spirits—waste thy +animal strength, dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive +habit of body,——impair thy health,——and hasten all the infirmities of +thy old age.—O my uncle! my uncle _Toby._ + +C H A P. XXIX + +I WOULD not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pen-craft, who +does not understand this,——That the best plain narrative in the world, +tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle +_Toby_——would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s +palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was +in the middle of my story. + +——Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where +an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less +evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than +beauty. This is to be understood _cum grano salis_; but be it as it +will,—as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the +apostrophe cool, than any thing else,—’tis not very material whether +upon any other score the reader approves of it or not. + +In the latter end of the third year, my uncle _Toby_ perceiving that +the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his +wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and +betook himself to the practical part of fortification only; the +pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with +redoubled force. + +It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily +regularity of a clean shirt,——to dismiss his barber unshaven,——and to +allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning +himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times +dressing, how it went on: when, lo!—all of a sudden, for the change was +quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his +recovery,——complained to my father, grew impatient with the +surgeon:——and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he +shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to +expostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told +him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time:—He +dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his +four years melancholy imprisonment;——adding, that had it not been for +the kind looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,—he had +long since sunk under his misfortunes.——My father was by. My uncle +_Toby_’s eloquence brought tears into his eyes;——’twas unexpected:——My +uncle _Toby_, by nature was not eloquent;—it had the greater +effect:——The surgeon was confounded;——not that there wanted grounds for +such, or greater marks of impatience,—but ’twas unexpected too; in the +four years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in +my uncle _Toby_’s carriage; he had never once dropped one fretful or +discontented word;——he had been all patience,—all submission. + +—We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;—but we +often treble the force:—The surgeon was astonished; but much more so, +when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his +healing up the wound directly,—or sending for Monsieur _Ronjat_, the +king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him. + +The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature;——the love +of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle +_Toby_ had in common with his species—and either of them had been +sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of +doors;——but I have told you before, that nothing wrought with our +family after the common way;——and from the time and manner in which +this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating +reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my +uncle _Toby_’s head:——There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next +chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when +that’s done, ’twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, +where we left my uncle _Toby_ in the middle of his sentence. + +C H A P. XXX + +WHEN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or, +in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong,——farewell cool +reason and fair discretion! + +My uncle _Toby_’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon +recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much——he told +him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh +exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of,—it would be dried up +in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours +before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle +_Toby_’s mind.——The succession of his ideas was now rapid,—he broiled +with impatience to put his design in execution;——and so, without +consulting farther with any soul living,—which, by the bye, I think is +right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice,——he +privately ordered _Trim_, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and +dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by +twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon +’Change.——So leaving a bank-note upon the table for the surgeon’s care +of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s—he packed up +his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c. and by the +help of a crutch on one side, and _Trim_ on the other,——my uncle _Toby_ +embarked for _Shandy-Hall._ + +The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as +follows: + +The table in my uncle _Toby_’s room, and at which, the night before +this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c. about him—being +somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small +instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it—he had the +accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his +compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he +threw down his case of instruments and snuffers;—and as the dice took a +run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in +falling,——he thrust Monsieur _Blondel_ off the table, and Count _de +Pagon_ o’top of him. + +’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle _Toby_ was, to think of +redressing these evils by himself,—he rung his bell for his man +_Trim_;——_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, prithee see what confusion I +have here been making—I must have some better contrivance, +_Trim._—Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and +breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big +again?——Yes, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim_, making a bow; but +I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your +country-seat, where,—as your Honour takes so much pleasure in +fortification, we could manage this matter to a T. + +I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle _Toby_’s, who +went by the name of _Trim_, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own +company,—his real name was _James Butler_,—but having got the nick-name +of _Trim_, in the regiment, my uncle _Toby_, unless when he happened to +be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name. + +The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his +left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of _Landen_, which was two +years before the affair of _Namur_;—and as the fellow was well-beloved +in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle _Toby_ +took him for his servant; and of an excellent use was he, attending my +uncle _Toby_ in the camp and in his quarters as a valet, groom, barber, +cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon +him and served him with great fidelity and affection. + +My uncle _Toby_ loved the man in return, and what attached him more to +him still, was the similitude of their knowledge.——For Corporal _Trim_, +(for so, for the future, I shall call him) by four years occasional +attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and the +advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans, +&c. exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a +body-servant, _Non Hobby Horsical per se_;——had become no mean +proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and +chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strong-holds as my uncle +_Toby_ himself. + +I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal _Trim_’s +character,——and it is the only dark line in it.—The fellow loved to +advise,—or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so +perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him +so; but set his tongue a-going,—you had no hold of him—he was +voluble;—the eternal interlardings of _your Honour_, with the +respectfulness of Corporal _Trim_’s manner, interceding so strong in +behalf of his elocution,—that though you might have been +incommoded,——you could not well be angry. My uncle _Toby_ was seldom +either the one or the other with him,—or, at least, this fault, in +_Trim_, broke no squares with them. My uncle _Toby_, as I said, loved +the man;——and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant,—but +as an humble friend,—he could not bear to stop his mouth.——Such was +Corporal _Trim._ + +If I durst presume, continued _Trim_, to give your Honour my advice, +and speak my opinion in this matter.—Thou art welcome, _Trim_, quoth my +uncle _Toby_—speak,——speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, +without fear.—Why then, replied _Trim_, (not hanging his ears and +scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back +from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division,—I think, +quoth _Trim_, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little +forwards,—and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of +_Dunkirk_, which was pinned against the hangings,——I think, quoth +Corporal _Trim_, with humble submission to your Honour’s better +judgment,——that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make +but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon +paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in +the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of +ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued +_Trim_, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the +nography—(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle,)——of the town or +citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before,—and I will be shot +by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your +Honour’s mind.——I dare say thou would’st, _Trim_, quoth my uncle.—For +if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the polygon, +with its exact lines and angles—That I could do very well, quoth my +uncle.—I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me +the proper depth and breadth—I can to a hair’s breadth, _Trim_, replied +my uncle.—I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town +for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the +counterscarp.—Very right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_:—And when I had +sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the +glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in _Flanders_, with +sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the +walls and parapets with sods too.—The best engineers call them gazons, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby._—Whether they are gazons or sods, is not +much matter, replied _Trim_; your Honour knows they are ten times +beyond a facing either of brick or stone.——I know they are, _Trim_ in +some respects,——quoth my uncle _Toby_, nodding his head;—for a +cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any +rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at +_St. Nicolas_’s gate) and facilitate the passage over it. + +Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal _Trim_, better +than any officer in his Majesty’s service;——but would your Honour +please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into +the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse, +and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their +batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all +the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it. + +My uncle _Toby_ blushed as red as scarlet as _Trim_ went on;—but it was +not a blush of guilt,—of modesty,—or of anger,—it was a blush of +joy;—he was fired with Corporal _Trim_’s project and +description.—_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, thou hast said enough.—We +might begin the campaign, continued _Trim_, on the very day that his +Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town +as fast as—_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, say no more. Your Honour, +continued _Trim_, might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this +fine weather, giving me your orders, and I would——Say no more, _Trim_, +quoth my uncle _Toby_——Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure +and good pastime—but good air, and good exercise, and good health,—and +your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, +_Trim_,—quoth my uncle _Toby_ (putting his hand into his +breeches-pocket)——I like thy project mightily.—And if your Honour +pleases, I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down +with us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of——Say +no more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaping up upon one leg, quite +overcome with rapture,—and thrusting a guinea into _Trim_’s +hand,—_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, say no more;—but go down, _Trim_, +this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant. + +_Trim_ ran down and brought up his master’s supper,—to no +purpose:—_Trim_’s plan of operation ran so in my uncle _Toby_’s head, +he could not taste it.—_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get me to +bed.—’Twas all one.—Corporal _Trim_’s description had fired his +imagination,—my uncle _Toby_ could not shut his eyes.—The more he +considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him;—so that, +two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination +and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal _Trim_’s +decampment. + +My uncle _Toby_ had a little neat country-house of his own, in the +village where my father’s estate lay at _Shandy_, which had been left +him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds +a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden +of about half an acre, and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off +from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about +as much ground as Corporal _Trim_ wished for;—so that as _Trim_ uttered +the words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would +with,”—this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and +became curiously painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle +_Toby_’s fancy;—which was the physical cause of making him change +colour, or at least of heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree +I spoke of. + +Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and +expectation, than my uncle _Toby_ did, to enjoy this self-same thing in +private;—I say in private;—for it was sheltered from the house, as I +told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three +sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowering +shrubs:—so that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute +to the idea of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle _Toby_’s mind.—Vain +thought! however thick it was planted about,——or private soever it +might seem,—to think, dear uncle _Toby_, of enjoying a thing which took +up a whole rood and a half of ground,—and not have it known! + +How my uncle _Toby_ and Corporal _Trim_ managed this matter,—with the +history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,——may +make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this +drama.—At present the scene must drop,—and change for the parlour +fire-side. + +C H A P. XXXI + +——WHAT can they be doing? brother, said my father.—I think, replied my +uncle _Toby_,—taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and +striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence;——I think, +replied he,—it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. + +Pray, what’s all that racket over our heads, _Obadiah?_——quoth my +father;——my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak. + +Sir, answered _Obadiah_, making a bow towards his left shoulder,—my +Mistress is taken very badly.—And where’s _Susannah_ running down the +garden there, as if they were going to ravish her?——Sir, she is running +the shortest cut into the town, replied _Obadiah_, to fetch the old +midwife.—Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go directly +for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife, with all our services,——and let him +know your mistress is fallen into labour——and that I desire he will +return with you with all speed. + +It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle +_Toby_, as _Obadiah_ shut the door,——as there is so expert an operator +as Dr. _Slop_ so near,—that my wife should persist to the very last in +this obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of my child, who +has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old woman;——and +not only the life of my child, brother,——but her own life, and with it +the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have begot out of +her hereafter. + +Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, my sister does it to save the +expence:—A pudding’s end,—replied my father,——the Doctor must be paid +the same for inaction as action,—if not better,—to keep him in temper. + +——Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, in the simplicity of his heart,—but MODESTY.—My sister, I dare +say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her ****. I will +not say whether my uncle _Toby_ had completed the sentence or not;—’tis +for his advantage to suppose he had,——as, I think, he could have added +no ONE WORD which would have improved it. + +If, on the contrary, my uncle _Toby_ had not fully arrived at the +period’s end—then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of +my father’s tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that +ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the +_Aposiopesis._——Just Heaven! how does the _Poco piu_ and the _Poco +meno_ of the _Italian_ artists;—the insensible MORE OR LESS, determine +the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! +How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the +fiddle-stick, _et cætera_,—give the true swell, which gives the true +pleasure!—O my countrymen:—be nice; be cautious of your language; and +never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your +eloquence and your fame depend. + +——“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “does not choose to let a +man come so near her ****” Make this dash,—’tis an Aposiopesis,—Take +the dash away, and write _Backside_,—’tis Bawdy.—Scratch Backside out, +and put _Cover’d way_ in, ’tis a Metaphor;—and, I dare say, as +fortification ran so much in my uncle _Toby_’s head, that if he had +been left to have added one word to the sentence,——that word was it. + +But whether that was the case or not the case;—or whether the snapping +of my father’s tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident +or anger, will be seen in due time. + +C H A P. XXXII + +THO’ my father was a good natural philosopher,—yet he was something of +a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe +snapp’d short in the middle,—he had nothing to do, as such, but to have +taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of +the fire.——He did no such thing;——he threw them with all the violence +in the world;—and, to give the action still more emphasis,—he started +upon both his legs to do it. + +This looked something like heat;—and the manner of his reply to what my +uncle _Toby_ was saying, proved it was so. + +—“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle _Toby_’s words) “to +let a man come so near her!”——By Heaven, brother _Toby!_ you would try +the patience of _Job_;—and I think I have the plagues of one already +without it.——Why?——Where?——Wherein?——Wherefore?——Upon what account? +replied my uncle _Toby_: in the utmost astonishment.—To think, said my +father, of a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little +about women!——I know nothing at all about them,—replied my uncle +_Toby_: And I think, continued he, that the shock I received the year +after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in my affair with widow +_Wadman_;—which shock you know I should not have received, but from my +total ignorance of the sex,—has given me just cause to say, That I +neither know nor do pretend to know any thing about ’em or their +concerns either.—Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at +least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong. + +It is said in _Aristotle’s Master Piece_, “That when a man doth think +of any thing which is past,—he looketh down upon the ground;——but that +when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards +the heavens.” + +My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d +horizontally.—Right end! quoth my uncle _Toby_, muttering the two words +low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered them, +upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the chimney-piece——Right +end of a woman!——I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is +than the man in the moon;——and if I was to think, continued my uncle +_Toby_ (keeping his eyes still fixed upon the bad joint) this month +together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out. + +Then, brother _Toby_, replied my father, I will tell you. + +Every thing in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh +pipe)—every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two +handles.——Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby._——At least, replied my +father, every one has two hands,——which comes to the same thing.——Now, +if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make, +the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all +the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and +compare them analogically—I never understood rightly the meaning of +that word,—quoth my uncle _Toby._— + +ANALOGY, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which +different——Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s +definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two,—and, at the same time, +crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was +engendered in the womb of speculation;—it was some months before my +father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it:—And, at +this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the +dissertation itself,—(considering the confusion and distresses of our +domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back +of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third +volume or not. + +C H A P. XXXIII + +IT is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle +_Toby_ rung the bell, when _Obadiah_ was ordered to saddle a horse, and +go for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife;—so that no one can say, with +reason, that I have not allowed _Obadiah_ time enough, poetically +speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and +come;——though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce +had time to get on his boots. + +If the hypercritick will go upon this; and is resolved after all to +take a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of +the bell, and the rap at the door;—and, after finding it to be no more +than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three-fifths,—should take upon +him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather +probability of time;—I would remind him, that the idea of duration, and +of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of our +ideas——and is the true scholastic pendulum,——and by which, as a +scholar, I will be tried in this matter,—abjuring and detesting the +jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever. + +I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight +miles from _Shandy-Hall_ to Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife’s house:—and +that whilst _Obadiah_ has been going those said miles and back, I have +brought my uncle _Toby_ from _Namur_, quite across all _Flanders_, into +_England_:—That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years;—and +have since travelled him and Corporal _Trim_ in a chariot-and-four, a +journey of near two hundred miles down into _Yorkshire._—all which put +together, must have prepared the reader’s imagination for the entrance +of Dr. _Slop_ upon the stage,—as much, at least (I hope) as a dance, a +song, or a concerto between the acts. + +If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and +thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen +seconds,—when I have said all I can about them; and that this plea, +though it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, +rendering my book from this very moment, a professed ROMANCE, which, +before, was a book apocryphal:——If I am thus pressed—I then put an end +to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once,——by +acquainting him, that _Obadiah_ had not got above threescore yards from +the stable-yard, before he met with Dr. _Slop_;—and indeed he gave a +dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a +tragical one too. + +Imagine to yourself;—but this had better begin a new chapter. + +C H A P. XXXIV + +IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor +_Slop_, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a +breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done +honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards. + +Such were the out-lines of Dr. _Slop_’s figure, which—if you have read +_Hogarth_’s analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you +would;——you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to +the mind by three strokes as three hundred. + +Imagine such a one,—for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. _Slop_’s +figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the dirt upon +the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour——but of +strength,——alack!——scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such +a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition.——They were +not.——Imagine to yourself, _Obadiah_ mounted upon a strong monster of a +coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable +speed the adverse way. + +Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description. + +Had Dr. _Slop_ beheld _Obadiah_ a mile off, posting in a narrow lane +directly towards him, at that monstrous rate,—splashing and plunging +like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a +phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, +round its axis,—have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. +_Slop_ in his situation, than the _worst_ of _Whiston_’s comets?—To say +nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of _Obadiah_ and the coach-horse.—In +my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved and +carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with +it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. +_Slop_ have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that +he was advancing thus warily along towards _Shandy-Hall_, and had +approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a +sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden-wall,—and in the +dirtiest part of a dirty lane,—when _Obadiah_ and his coach-horse +turned the corner, rapid, furious,—pop,—full upon him!—Nothing, I +think, in nature, can be supposed more terrible than such a +rencounter,—so imprompt! so ill prepared to stand the shock of it as +Dr. _Slop_ was. + +What could Dr. _Slop_ do?——he crossed himself +—Pugh!—but the doctor, +Sir, was a Papist.—No matter; he had better have kept hold of the +pummel.—He had so;—nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing +at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip,——and in attempting +to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it +slipped, he lost his stirrup,——in losing which he lost his seat;——and +in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews what +little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his +presence of mind. So that without waiting for _Obadiah_’s onset, he +left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in +the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other +consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have +been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in +the mire. + +_Obadiah_ pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. _Slop_;—once as he was +falling,—and then again when he saw him seated.——Ill-timed +complaisance;—had not the fellow better have stopped his horse, and got +off and help’d him?—Sir, he did all that his situation would allow;—but +the MOMENTUM of the coach-horse was so great, that _Obadiah_ could not +do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times round Dr. _Slop_, +before he could fully accomplish it any how;—and at the last, when he +did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion of mud, that +_Obadiah_ had better have been a league off. In short, never was a Dr. +_Slop_ so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came +into fashion. + +C H A P. XXXV + +WHEN Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle +_Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women,——it was hard to +determine whether Dr. _Slop_’s figure, or Dr. _Slop_’s presence, +occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near +the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount +him,——_Obadiah_ had led him in as he was, _unwiped, unappointed, +unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him.—He stood like +_Hamlet_’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a +half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all +the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his +fall, totally besmeared,——and in every other part of him, blotched over +in such a manner with _Obadiah_’s explosion, that you would have sworn +(without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect. + +Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over +my father in his turn;—for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in that +pickle, could have dissented from so much, at least, of my uncle +_Toby_’s opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a +Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****” But it was the _Argumentum ad +hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may +think, he might not care to use it.——No; the reason was,—’twas not his +nature to insult. + +Dr. _Slop_’s presence at that time, was no less problematical than the +mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father +might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week +before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had +heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to +have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how +matters went on. + +But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the +investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the +ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,—measuring their +distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have +power to think of nothing else,——common-place infirmity of the greatest +mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and +so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them +to draw the corollary, to do good with. + +The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise +strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_,—but it excited a very +different train of thoughts;—the two irreconcileable pulsations +instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into +my uncle _Toby_’s mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair,—is +the greatest problem of all:——It shall be solved,—but not in the next +chapter. + +C H A P. XXXVI + +WRITING, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is +but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is +about in good company, would venture to talk all;——so no author, who +understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would +presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the +reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him +something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself. + +For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, +and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my +own. + +’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. _Slop_’s +sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour;—his +imagination must now go on with it for a while. + +Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. _Slop_ has told his tale—and in +what words, and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses;—Let him +suppose, that _Obadiah_ has told his tale also, and with such rueful +looks of affected concern, as he thinks best will contrast the two +figures as they stand by each other.—Let him imagine, that my father +has stepped up stairs to see my mother.—And, to conclude this work of +imagination,—let him imagine the doctor washed,—rubbed down, and +condoled,—felicitated,—got into a pair of _Obadiah_’s pumps, stepping +forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action. + +Truce!—truce, good Dr. _Slop!_—stay thy obstetrick hand;——return it +safe into thy bosom to keep it warm;——little dost thou know what +obstacles,——little dost thou think what hidden causes, retard its +operation!——Hast thou, Dr. _Slop_,—hast thou been entrusted with the +secret articles of the solemn treaty which has brought thee into this +place?—Art thou aware that at this instant, a daughter of _Lucina_ is +put obstetrically over thy head? Alas!—’tis too true.—Besides, great +son of _Pilumnus!_ what canst thou do? Thou hast come forth +unarm’d;—thou hast left thy _tire-téte_,—thy new-invented +_forceps_,—thy _crotchet_,—thy _squirt_, and all thy instruments of +salvation and deliverance, behind thee,—By Heaven! at this moment they +are hanging up in a green bays bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the +bed’s head!—Ring;—call;—send _Obadiah_ back upon the coach-horse to +bring them with all speed. + +——Make great haste, _Obadiah_, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a +crown! and quoth my uncle _Toby_, I’ll give him another. + +C H A P. XXXVII + +YOUR sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing +himself to Dr. _Slop_, (all three of them sitting down to the fire +together, as my uncle _Toby_ began to speak)—instantly brought the +great _Stevinus_ into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite +author with me.—Then, added my father, making use of the argument _Ad +Crumenam_,—I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece (which +will serve to give away to _Obadiah_ when he gets back) that this same +_Stevinus_ was some engineer or other—or has wrote something or other, +either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification. + +He has so,—replied my uncle _Toby._—I knew it, said my father, though, +for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be +betwixt Dr. _Slop_’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon +fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what we will, brother,——or let +the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,—you are sure +to bring it in. I would not, brother _Toby_, continued my father,——I +declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and +horn-works.—That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun. + +_Dennis_ the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the +insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow +testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious +discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;——he saw +no difference. + +Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_,—the +curtins my brother _Shandy_ mentions here, have nothing to do with +beadsteads;—tho’, I know _Du Cange_ says, “That bed-curtains, in all +probability, have taken their name from them;”—nor have the horn-works +he speaks of, any thing in the world to do with the horn-works of +cuckoldom: But the _Curtin_, Sir, is the word we use in fortification, +for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two +bastions and joins them—Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their +attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are +so well _flanked._ ( ’Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +laughing.) However, continued my uncle _Toby_, to make them sure, we +generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to +extend them beyond the fossé or ditch:——The common men, who know very +little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon +together,—tho’ they are very different things;—not in their figure or +construction, for we make them exactly alike, in all points; for they +always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges, +not straight, but in form of a crescent;——Where then lies the +difference? (quoth my father, a little testily.)—In their situations, +answered my uncle _Toby:_—For when a ravelin, brother, stands before +the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a +bastion, then the ravelin is not a ravelin;—it is a half-moon;—a +half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands +before its bastion;——but was it to change place, and get before the +curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is +not a half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.——I think, quoth my +father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides——as well +as others. + +—As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my +uncle _Toby_, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable +part of an outwork;——they are called by the _French_ engineers, +_Ouvrage à corne_, and we generally make them to cover such places as +we suspect to be weaker than the rest;—’tis formed by two epaulments or +demi-bastions—they are very pretty,—and if you will take a walk, I’ll +engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.—I own, continued my +uncle _Toby_, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then they +are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in my +opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; +otherwise the double tenaille—By the mother who bore us!——brother +_Toby_, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,——you would +provoke a saint;——here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse +into the middle of the old subject again:—But so full is your head of +these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in the pains +of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to +carry off the man-midwife.——_Accoucheur_,—if you please, quoth Dr. +_Slop._—With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they +call you,—but I wish the whole science of fortification, with all its +inventors, at the devil;—it has been the death of thousands,—and it +will be mine in the end.—I would not, I would not, brother _Toby_, have +my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, pallisadoes, +ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of _Namur_, +and of all the towns in _Flanders_ with it. + +My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of +courage,—I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of +courage:”—And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or +called it forth,—I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner +taken shelter;——nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness +of his intellectual parts;—for he felt this insult of my father’s as +feelingly as a man could do;—but he was of a peaceful, placid +nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up so kindly within +him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. + +—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed +about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which +after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I’ll +not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going +across the room, with the fly in his hand,—I’ll not hurt a hair of thy +head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he +spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I +hurt thee?——This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me. + +I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that +the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, +which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most +pleasurable sensation;—or how far the manner and expression of it might +go towards it;—or in what degree, or by what secret magick,—a tone of +voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage +to my heart, I know not;—this I know, that the lesson of universal +good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_, has never since +been worn out of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the +study of the _Literæ humaniores_, at the university, have done for me +in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education +bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;—yet I often think that +I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression. + +This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume +upon the subject. + +I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle _Toby_’s picture, +by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,—that taking +in no more than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness:—this is a part of his +moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which +I mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; +he had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with +a little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him to any +thing which looked like malignancy:—yet in the little rubs and +vexations of life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty +kind of peevishness:——He was, however, frank and generous in his +nature;——at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions +of this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my +uncle _Toby_, whom he truly loved:——he would feel more pain, ten times +told (except in the affair of my aunt _Dinah_, or where an hypothesis +was concerned) than what he ever gave. + +The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected +light upon each other, and appeared with great advantage in this affair +which arose about _Stevinus._ + +I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HOBBY-HORSE,—that a man’s +HOBBY-HORSE is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these +unprovoked strokes at my uncle _Toby_’s could not be unfelt by +him.——No:——as I said above, my uncle _Toby_ did feel them, and very +sensibly too. + +Pray, Sir, what said he?—How did he behave?—O, Sir!—it was great: For +as soon as my father had done insulting his HOBBY-HORSE,——he turned his +head without the least emotion, from Dr. _Slop_, to whom he was +addressing his discourse, and looking up into my father’s face, with a +countenance spread over with so much good-nature;——so placid;——so +fraternal;——so inexpressibly tender towards him:—it penetrated my +father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair, and seizing +hold of both my uncle _Toby_’s hands as he spoke:—Brother _Toby_, said +he:—I beg thy pardon;——forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour which my +mother gave me.——My dear, dear brother, answered my uncle _Toby_, +rising up by my father’s help, say no more about it;—you are heartily +welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis ungenerous, +replied my father, to hurt any man;——a brother worse;——but to hurt a +brother of such gentle manners,—so unprovoking,—and so +unresenting;——’tis base:——By Heaven, ’tis cowardly.—You are heartily +welcome, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_,——had it been fifty times as +much.——Besides, what have I to do, my dear _Toby_, cried my father, +either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless it was in my +power (which it is not) to increase their measure? + +——Brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_, looking wistfully in his +face,——you are much mistaken in this point:—for you do increase my +pleasure very much, in begetting children for the _Shandy_ family at +your time of life.—But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, Mr. _Shandy_ +increases his own.—Not a jot, quoth my father. + +C H A P. XXXVIII + +MY brother does it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, out of _principle._——In a +family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. _Slop._——Pshaw!—said my father,—’tis +not worth talking of. + +C H A P. XXXIX + +AT the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle _Toby_ were left +both standing, like _Brutus_ and _Cassius_, at the close of the scene, +making up their accounts. + +As my father spoke the three last words,——he sat down;—my uncle _Toby_ +exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he +rung the bell, to order Corporal _Trim_, who was in waiting, to step +home for _Stevinus_:—my uncle _Toby_’s house being no farther off than +the opposite side of the way. + +Some men would have dropped the subject of _Stevinus_;—but my uncle +_Toby_ had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, +to shew my father that he had none. + +Your sudden appearance, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my uncle, resuming the +discourse, instantly brought _Stevinus_ into my head. (My father, you +may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon _Stevinus_’s +head.)——Because, continued my uncle _Toby_, the celebrated sailing +chariot, which belonged to Prince _Maurice_, and was of such wonderful +contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty +_German_ miles, in I don’t know how few minutes,——was invented by +_Stevinus_, that great mathematician and engineer. + +You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (as +the fellow is lame) of going for _Stevinus_’s account of it, because in +my return from _Leyden_ thro’ the _Hague_, I walked as far as +_Schevling_, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it. + +That’s nothing, replied my uncle _Toby_, to what the learned +_Peireskius_ did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning +from _Paris_ to _Schevling_, and from _Schevling_ to _Paris_ back +again, in order to see it,—and nothing else. + +Some men cannot bear to be out-gone. + +The more fool _Peireskius_, replied Dr. _Slop._ But mark, ’twas out of +no contempt of _Peireskius_ at all;——but that _Peireskius_’s +indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the +sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. _Slop_, in that affair, to +nothing:—the more fool _Peireskius_, said he again.—Why so?—replied my +father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast +as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my +father’s mind;——but partly, that my father began really to interest +himself in the discourse.——Why so?——said he. Why is _Peireskius_, or +any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other +morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the +chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a +very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of +philosophy he has atchieved it;—yet certainly his machine has been +constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not +have answered at the rate my brother mentions. + +It answered, replied my uncle _Toby_, as well, if not better; for, as +_Peireskius_ elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its +motion, _Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus_; which, unless I have forgot +my Latin, is, _that it was as swift as the wind itself._ + +But pray, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho’ not +without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles +was this self-same chariot set a-going?—Upon very pretty principles to +be sure, replied Dr. _Slop_:—And I have often wondered, continued he, +evading the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large +plains like this of ours,—(especially they whose wives are not past +child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be +infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is +subject,—if the wind only served,—but would be excellent good husbandry +to make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, +rather than horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a +great deal. + +For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing, +and because they eat nothing,”—the scheme is bad;—it is the consumption +of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread +to the hungry, circulates trade,—brings in money, and supports the +value of our lands;—and tho’, I own, if I was a Prince, I would +generously recompense the scientifick head which brought forth such +contrivances;—yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them. + +My father here had got into his element,—and was going on as +prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle _Toby_ had +before, upon his of fortification;—but to the loss of much sound +knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no +dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father that day,——for as +he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence, + +C H A P. XL + +IN popped Corporal _Trim_ with _Stevinus_:—But ’twas too late,—all the +discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new +channel. + +—You may take the book home again, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, +nodding to him. + +But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,—look first into it, +and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it. + +Corporal _Trim_, by being in the service, had learned to obey,—and not +to remonstrate,—so taking the book to a side-table, and running over +the leaves; An’ please your Honour, said _Trim_, I can see no such +thing;—however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, +I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your Honour;—so taking hold of +the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves +fall down as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound +shake. + +There is something falling out, however, said _Trim_, an’ please your +Honour;—but it is not a chariot, or any thing like one:—Prithee, +Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?—I think, answered +_Trim_, stooping to take it up,——’tis more like a sermon,——for it +begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;—and then +goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly. + +The company smiled. + +I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle _Toby_, for such a +thing as a sermon to have got into my _Stevinus._ + +I think ’tis a sermon, replied _Trim_:—but if it please your Honours, +as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page;—for _Trim_, you must +know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk. + +I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things +which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these;—and as we have +nothing better to do, at least till _Obadiah_ gets back, I shall be +obliged to you, brother, if Dr. _Slop_ has no objection to it, to order +the Corporal to give us a page or two of it,—if he is as able to do it, +as he seems willing. An’ please your honour, quoth _Trim_, I officiated +two whole campaigns, in _Flanders_, as clerk to the chaplain of the +regiment.——He can read it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, as well as I +can.——_Trim_, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and +should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s misfortune. +Corporal _Trim_ laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to +his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the +sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,—he +advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could +best see, and be best seen by his audience. + +C H A P. XLI + +—IF you have any objection,—said my father, addressing himself to Dr. +_Slop._ Not in the least, replied Dr. _Slop_;—for it does not appear on +which side of the question it is wrote,—it may be a composition of a +divine of our church, as well as yours,—so that we run equal +risques.——’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth _Trim_, for ’tis only +upon _Conscience_, an’ please your Honours. + +_Trim_’s reason put his audience into good humour,—all but Dr. _Slop_, +who turning his head about towards _Trim_, looked a little angry. + +Begin, _Trim_,—and read distinctly, quoth my father.—I will, an’ please +your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking +attention with a slight movement of his right hand. + +C H A P. XLII + +——BUT before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description +of his attitude;——otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by +your imagination, in an uneasy posture,—stiff,—perpendicular,—dividing +the weight of his body equally upon both legs;——his eye fixed, as if on +duty;—his look determined,—clenching the sermon in his left hand, like +his firelock.——In a word, you would be apt to paint _Trim_, as if he +was standing in his platoon ready for action,—His attitude was as +unlike all this as you can conceive. + +He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so +far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the +horizon;—which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to +be the true persuasive angle of incidence;—in any other angle you may +talk and preach;—’tis certain;—and it is done every day;—but with what +effect,—I leave the world to judge! + +The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a +mathematical exactness,——does it not shew us, by the way, how the arts +and sciences mutually befriend each other? + +How the duce Corporal _Trim_, who knew not so much as an acute angle +from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;——or whether it was +chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c. shall be commented +upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the +instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the +bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under +consideration. + +He stood,——for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, +with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,—his right leg from +under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,——the foot of +his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, +advanced a little,—not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt +them;—his knee bent, but that not violently,—but so as to fall within +the limits of the line of beauty;—and I add, of the line of science +too;—for consider, it had one eighth part of his body to bear up;—so +that in this case the position of the leg is determined,—because the +foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what +would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth part of his whole +weight under it, and to carry it too. + +=> This I recommend to painters;—need I add,—to orators!—I think not; +for unless they practise it,——they must fall upon their noses. + +So much for Corporal _Trim_’s body and legs.——He held the sermon +loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his +stomach, and detached a little from his breast;——his right arm falling +negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered +it,——but with the palm of it open and turned towards his audience, +ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need. + +Corporal _Trim_’s eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony +with the other parts of him;—he looked frank,—unconstrained,—something +assured,—but not bordering upon assurance. + +Let not the critic ask how Corporal _Trim_ could come by all +this.——I’ve told him it should be explained;—but so he stood before my +father, my uncle _Toby_, and Dr. _Slop_,—so swayed his body, so +contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the +whole figure,——a statuary might have modelled from it;——nay, I doubt +whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the _Hebrew_ Professor +himself, could have much mended it. + +_Trim_ made a bow, and read as follows: + +The S E R M O N. + +HEBREWS xiii. 18. + +———_For we_ trust _we have a +good Conscience._ + +“TRUST!——Trust we have a good conscience!” + +[Certainly, _Trim_, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that +sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and +read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse +the Apostle. + +He is, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim._ Pugh! said my father, +smiling. + +Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop, Trim_ is certainly in the right; for the writer +(who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he +takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him;—if this +treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my +father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. _Slop_, that the writer is of +our church?—for aught I can see yet,—he may be of any church.——Because, +answered Dr. _Slop_, if he was of ours,—he durst no more take such a +licence,—than a bear by his beard:—If, in our communion, Sir, a man was +to insult an apostle,——a saint,——or even the paring of a saint’s +nail,—he would have his eyes scratched out.—What, by the saint? quoth +my uncle _Toby._ No, replied Dr. _Slop_, he would have an old house +over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building, answered my +uncle _Toby_, or is it a modern one?—I know nothing of architecture, +replied Dr. _Slop._—An’ please your Honours, quoth _Trim_, the +Inquisition is the vilest——Prithee spare thy description, _Trim_, I +hate the very name of it, said my father.—No matter for that, answered +Dr. _Slop_,—it has its uses; for tho’ I’m no great advocate for it, +yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught better manners; +and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be flung into the +Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my uncle _Toby._ +Amen, added _Trim_; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor brother who +has been fourteen years a captive in it.—I never heard one word of it +before, said my uncle _Toby_, hastily:—How came he there, _Trim_?——O, +Sir, the story will make your heart bleed,—as it has made mine a +thousand times;—but it is too long to be told now;—your Honour shall +hear it from first to last some day when I am working beside you in our +fortifications;—but the short of the story is this;—That my brother +_Tom_ went over a servant to _Lisbon_,—and then married a Jew’s widow, +who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was +the cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, +where he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried +directly to the Inquisition, where, God help him, continued _Trim_, +fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart,—the poor honest lad lies +confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, added _Trim_, (pulling +out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.—— + +—The tears trickled down _Trim_’s cheeks faster than he could well wipe +them away.—A dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.—Certain +proof of pity! + +Come _Trim_, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow’s grief had +got a little vent,—read on,—and put this melancholy story out of thy +head:—I grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon +again;—for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou +sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the +apostle has given. + +Corporal _Trim_ wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his +pocket, and, making a bow as he did it,—he began again.] + +The S E R M O N. + +HEBREWS xiii. 18. + +——_For we_ trust _we have a good +Conscience.—_ + +“TRUST! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing +in this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which +he is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must +be this very thing,—whether he has a good conscience or no.” + +[I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. _Slop._] + +“If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state +of this account:——he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;—he +must remember his past pursuits, and know “certainly the true springs +and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.” + +[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. _Slop._] + +“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the +wise man complains, _hardly do we guess aright at the things that are +upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before +us._ But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within +herself;——is conscious of the web she has wove;——knows its texture and +fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working +upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.” + +[The language is good, and I declare _Trim_ reads very well, quoth my +father.] + +“Now,—as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind +has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or +censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our +lives; ’tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the +proposition,—whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he +stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man.—And, on +the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart +condemns him not:—that it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle +intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is +good, and that the man must be good also.” + +[Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. +_Slop_, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, +replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. _Paul_ +and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.—As nearly so, quoth +Dr. _Slop_, as east is to west;—but this, continued he, lifting both +hands, comes from the liberty of the press. + +It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle _Toby_, than the liberty +of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or +ever likely to be. + +Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father.] + +“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I +make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly +impressed upon the mind of man,—that did no such thing ever happen, as +that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the +scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;—and, like some tender +parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by +degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature +endowed it:—Did this never happen;—or was it certain that self-love +could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;—or that the little +interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper +regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick +darkness:——Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this +sacred Court—Did WIT disdain “to take a bribe in it;—or was ashamed to +shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, +lastly, were we assured that INTEREST stood always unconcerned whilst +the cause was hearing—and that Passion never got into the +judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is +supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:—Was this truly +so, as the objection must suppose;—no doubt then the religious and +moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it:—and +the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general, +by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and +censure. + +“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it +seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty;—and unless in melancholy +and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is +always sufficient grounds for the accusation. + +“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;—namely, that +whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does +not, that a man is therefore innocent.——This is not fact——So that the +common consolation which some good christian or other is hourly +administering to himself,—that he thanks God his mind does not misgive +him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he hath +a quiet one,—is fallacious;—and as current as the inference is, and as +infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer +to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,——you see it +liable to so much error from a false application;——the principle upon +which it goes so often perverted;——the whole force of it lost, and +sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common +examples from human life, which confirm the account. + +“A man shall be vicious and utterly “debauched in his +principles;—exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live +shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence +can justify,——a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, +he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob her of her +best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour;—but involve +a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you +will think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can +have no rest night and day from its reproaches. + +“Alas! Conscience had something else to do all this time, than break in +upon him; as _Elijah_ reproached the god _Baal_,——this domestic god +_was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure +he slept and could not be awoke._ + +“Perhaps HE was gone out in company with HONOUR to fight a duel: to pay +off some debt at play;——or “dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust; +Perhaps CONSCIENCE all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud +against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny +crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all +temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily;”——[If he was of +our church, tho’, quoth Dr. _Slop_, he could not]—“sleeps as soundly in +his bed;—and at last meets death unconcernedly;—perhaps much more so, +than a much better man.” + +[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my +father,—the case could not happen in our church.—It happens in ours, +however, replied my father, but too often.——I own, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +(struck a little with my father’s frank acknowledgment)—that a man in +the _Romish_ church may live as badly;—but then he cannot easily die +so.——’Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of +indifference,—how a rascal dies.—I mean, answered Dr. _Slop_, he would +be denied the benefits of the last sacraments.—Pray how many have you +in all, said my uncle _Toby_,——for I always forget?——Seven, answered +Dr. _Slop._——Humph!—said my uncle _Toby_; tho’ not accented as a note +of acquiescence,—but as an interjection of that particular species of +surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer, finds more of a thing +than he expected.——Humph! replied my uncle _Toby._ Dr. _Slop_, who had +an ear, understood my uncle _Toby_ as well as if he had wrote a whole +volume against the seven sacraments.——Humph! replied Dr. _Slop_, +(stating my uncle _Toby_’s argument over again to him)——Why, Sir, are +there not seven cardinal virtues?——Seven mortal sins?——Seven golden +candlesticks?——Seven heavens?—’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle +_Toby._——Are there not seven wonders of the world?——Seven days of the +creation?——Seven planets?——Seven plagues?——That there are, quoth my +father with a most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on +with the rest of thy characters, _Trim._] + +“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here _Trim_ waved his right hand) “a +strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship +or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in +their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human life +without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your honours, cried _Trim_, I +think this a viler man than the other.] + +“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?——No; +thank God there is no occasion, _I pay every man his own;—I have no +fornication to answer to my conscience;—no faithless vows or promises +to make up;—I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am +not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who +stands before me._ + +“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole +life;—’tis nothing but a cunning contexture “of dark arts and +unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all +laws,——plain dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several +properties.——You will see such a one working out a frame of little +designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy +man;—shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the +unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his +life. + +“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this +black account, and state it over again with his conscience—CONSCIENCE +looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE;—finds no express law broken by what +he has done;—perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels +incurred;—sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his +gates upon him:—What is there to affright his conscience?—Conscience +has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits “there +invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all +sides;—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.” + +[Here Corporal _Trim_ and my uncle _Toby_ exchanged looks with each +other.—Aye, Aye, _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, shaking his +head,——these are but sorry fortifications, _Trim._———O! very poor work, +answered _Trim_, to what your Honour and I make of it.——The character +of this last man, said Dr. _Slop_, interrupting _Trim_, is more +detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some +pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us, a man’s conscience could +not possibly continue so long _blinded_,——three times in a year, at +least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth +my uncle _Toby_,——Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father, or _Obadiah_ will +have got back before thou has got to the end of thy sermon.——’Tis a +very short one, replied _Trim._—I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, for I like it hugely.—_Trim_ went on.] + +“A fourth man shall want even this refuge;—shall break through all +their ceremony of slow chicane;—scorns the doubtful workings of secret +plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:——See the +bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, +murders!—Horrid!—But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the +present case—the poor man was in the dark!——his priest had got the +keeping of his conscience;——and all he would let him know of it, was, +That he must believe in the Pope;—go to Mass;—cross himself;—tell his +beads;—be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough +to carry him to heaven. What;—if he perjures?—Why;—he had a mental +reservation in it.—But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you +represent him;—if he robs,—if he stabs, will not conscience, “on every +such act, receive a wound itself?—Aye,—but the man has carried it to +confession;—the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a +short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou +to answer for!——when not content with the too many natural and fatal +ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to +itself above all things;—thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of +deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to +go astray of himself, and confidently speak peace to himself, when +there is no peace. + +“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too +notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of +them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to +himself,—I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will +then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart. + +“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of +wicked actions stand _there_, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own +natures;—he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and +custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and +painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand +can give them;—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, +appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true +circumstances of folly and dishonour. + +“When _David_ surprized _Saul_ sleeping in the cave, and cut off the +skirt of his robe—we read his heart smote him for what he had +done:——But in the matter of _Uriah_, where a faithful and gallant +servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for +his lust,—where conscience had so much greater reason to take the +alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed “from +first commission of that crime, to the time _Nathan_ was sent to +reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of +heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had done. + +“Thus conscience, this once able monitor,——placed on high as a judge +within us, and intended by our maker as a just and equitable one +too,—by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such +imperfect cognizance of what passes,——does its office so +negligently,——sometimes so corruptly,—that it is not to be trusted +alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute +necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, +its determinations. + +“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite +importance to you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real +merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful +subject to your king, “or a good servant to your God,——call in religion +and morality.—Look, What is written in the law of God?——How readest +thou?—Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice +and truth;——what say they? + +“Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports;——and then if +thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle +supposes,——the rule will be infallible;”—[Here Dr. _Slop_ fell +asleep]—“_thou wilt have confidence towards God_;——that is, have just +grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the +judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous +sentence which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to +whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions. + +“_Blessed is the man_, indeed, then, as the author of the book of +_Ecclesiasticus_ expresses it, _who is not pricked with the multitude +of his sins: Blessed is the man_ “_whose heart hath not condemned him; +whether he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart_ (a +heart thus guided and informed) _he shall at all times rejoice in a +chearful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men +that sit above upon a tower on high.”_—[A tower has no strength, quoth +my uncle _Toby_, unless ’tis flank’d.]—“in the darkest doubts it shall +conduct him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives +in, a better security for his behaviour than all the causes and +restrictions put together, which law-makers are forced to +multiply:—_Forced_, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a +matter of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence +against the mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law +unto themselves; well intending, by the many provisions made,—that in +all such corrupt and misguided cases, where principles and the checks +of conscience will not make us upright,—to supply their “force, and, by +the terrors of gaols and halters, oblige us to it.” + +[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to +be preached at the Temple,——or at some Assize.—I like the +reasoning,—and am sorry that Dr. _Slop_ has fallen asleep before the +time of his conviction:—for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I +thought at first, never insulted St. _Paul_ in the least;—nor has there +been, brother, the least difference between them.——A great matter, if +they had differed, replied my uncle _Toby_,—the best friends in the +world may differ sometimes.——True,—brother _Toby_ quoth my father, +shaking hands with him,—we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then _Trim_ +shall go on. + +Well,——what dost thou think of it? said my father, speaking to Corporal +_Trim_, as he reached his tobacco-box. + +I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the +tower, who, I suppose, are all centinels there,—are more, an’ please +your Honour, than were necessary;—and, to go on at that rate, would +harrass a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves +his men, will never do, if he can help it, because two centinels, added +the Corporal, are as good as twenty.—I have been a commanding officer +myself in the _Corps de Garde_ a hundred times, continued _Trim_, +rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,—and all the time I +had the honour to serve his Majesty King _William_, in relieving the +most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life.——Very +right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—but you do not consider, _Trim_, +that the towers, in _Solomon_’s days, were not such things as our +bastions, flanked and defended by other works;—this, _Trim_, was an +invention since _Solomon_’s death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins +before the curtin, in his time;——or such a fossé as we make with a +cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps +pallisadoed along it, to guard against a _Coup de main_:—So that the +seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the _Corps de +Garde_, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.—They could +be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s Guard.—My father +smiled inwardly, but not outwardly—the subject being rather too +serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.—So putting +his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,—he contented +himself with ordering _Trim_ to read on. He read on as follows: + +“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings +with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right +and wrong:——The first of these will comprehend the duties of +religion;—the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably +connected together, that you cannot divide these two _tables_, even in +imagination, (tho’ the attempt is often made in practice) without +breaking and mutually destroying them both. + +“I said the attempt is often made; and so it is;——there being nothing +“more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and +indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as +the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral +character,——or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous +to the uttermost mite. + +“When there is some appearance that it is so,—tho’ one is unwilling +even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, +yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am +persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of +his motive. + +“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will +be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, +his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will +give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great +distress. + +“I will illustrate this by an example. + +“I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call +in,”—[There is no need, cried Dr. _Slop_, (waking) to call in any +physician in this case]—“to be neither of them men of much religion: I +hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with +so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well;—notwithstanding +this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one:—and what is dearer +still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other. + +“Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, +in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of +them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage;—I +consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life:—I know their +success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters.—In +a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting +themselves more. + +“But put it otherwise, namely, “that interest lay, for once, on the +other side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain +to his reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the +world;—or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate +by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art:—In this case, +what hold have I of either of them?—Religion, the strongest of all +motives, is out of the question;—Interest, the next most powerful +motive in the world, is strongly against me:——What have I left to cast +into the opposite scale to balance this temptation?——Alas! I have +nothing,——nothing but what is lighter than a bubble——I must lie at the +mercy of HONOUR, or some such capricious principle—Strait security for +two of the most valuable blessings!—my property and myself. + +“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without +religion;—so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected +from “religion without morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy to see a +man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the +highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man. + +“He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,—but even +wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud +against the infidelity of the age,——is zealous for some points of +religion,——goes twice a day to church,—attends the sacraments,—and +amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion,—shall cheat +his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a religious man, +and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find that such a +man, through force of this delusion, generally looks down with +spiritual pride upon every other man who has less affectation of +piety,—though, perhaps, ten times more real honesty than himself. + +“_This likewise is a sore evil under the sun_; and I believe, there +is no one mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more +serious mischiefs.——For a general proof of this,—examine the history of +the _Romish_ church;”—[Well what can you make of that? cried Dr. +_Slop_]—“see what scenes of cruelty, murder, rapine, bloodshed,”——[They +may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr. _Slop_]——have all been +sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality. + +“In how many kingdoms of the world”—[Here _Trim_ kept waving his +right-hand from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it +backwards and forwards to the conclusion of the paragraph.] + +“In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this +misguided saint-errant, spared neither age or merit, or sex, or +condition?—and, as he fought under the banners of a religion which set +him loose from justice and humanity, he shewed none; mercilessly +trampled upon both,—“heard neither the cries of the unfortunate, nor +pitied their distresses.” + +[I have been in many a battle, an’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_, +sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this,—I would not have +drawn a tricker in it against these poor souls,——to have been made a +general officer.——Why? what do you understand of the affair? said Dr. +_Slop_, looking towards _Trim_, with something more of contempt than +the Corporal’s honest heart deserved.——What do you know, friend, about +this battle you talk of?—I know, replied _Trim_, that I never refused +quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it;——but to a woman or +a child, continued _Trim_, before I would level my musket at them, I +would lose my life a thousand times.——Here’s a crown for thee, _Trim_, +to drink with _Obadiah_ to-night, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and I’ll give +_Obadiah_ another too.—God bless your Honour, replied _Trim_,——I had +rather these poor women and children had it.——thou art an honest +fellow, quoth my uncle _Toby._——My father nodded his head, as much as +to say—and so he is.—— + +But prithee, _Trim_, said my father, make an end,—for I see thou hast +but a leaf or two left. + +Corporal _Trim_ read on.] + +“If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not +sufficient,—consider at this instant, how the votaries of that religion +are every day thinking to do service and honour to God, by actions +which are a dishonour and scandal to themselves. + +“To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of +the Inquisition.”—[God help my poor brother _Tom._]—“Behold _Religion_, +with _Mercy_ and _Justice_ chained down under her feet,——there sitting +ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks and instruments of +torment. Hark!—hark! what a piteous groan!”—[Here _Trim_’s face turned +as pale as ashes.]——“See the melancholy wretch who uttered it”—[Here +the tears began to trickle down]——“just brought forth to undergo the +anguish of a mock trial, and endure the utmost pains that a studied +system of cruelty has been able to invent.”—[D—n them all, quoth +_Trim_, his colour returning into his face as red as blood.]—“Behold +this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted +with sorrow and confinement.”—[Oh! ’tis my brother, cried poor _Trim_ +in a most passionate exclamation, dropping the sermon upon the ground, +and clapping his hands together—I fear ’tis poor _Tom._ My father’s and +my uncle _Toby_’s heart yearned with sympathy for the poor fellow’s +distress; even _Slop_ himself acknowledged pity for him.——Why, _Trim_, +said my father, this is not a history,——’tis a sermon thou art reading; +prithee begin the sentence again.]——“Behold this helpless victim +delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted with sorrow and +confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. + +“Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!”—[I would rather face +a cannon, quoth _Trim_, stamping.)—“See what convulsions it has thrown +him into!——Consider the nature of the posture in which he how lies +stretched,—what exquisite tortures he endures by it!”—[I hope ’tis not +in _Portugal._]—“’Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how it keeps +his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!” [I would not read +another line of it, quoth _Trim_ for all this _world_;—I fear, an’ +please your Honours, all this is in _Portugal_, where my poor brother +_Tom_ is. I tell thee, _Trim_, again, quoth my father, ’tis not an +historical account,—’tis a description.—’Tis only a description, honest +man, quoth _Slop_, there’s not a word of truth in it.——That’s another +story, replied my father.—However, as _Trim_ reads it with so much +concern,—’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.—Give me hold of +the sermon, _Trim_,—I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st go. I must +stay and hear it too, replied _Trim_, if your Honour will allow +me;—tho’ I would not read it myself for a Colonel’s pay.——Poor Trim! +quoth my uncle _Toby._ My father went on.] + +“——Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies +stretched,—what exquisite torture he endures by it!—’Tis all nature can +bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his +trembling lips,—willing to take its leave,——but not suffered to +depart!—Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!”——[Then, thank +God, however, quoth _Trim_, they have not killed him.]—“See him dragged +out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last +agonies, which this principle,—this principle, that there can be +religion without mercy, has prepared for him.”——[Then, thank God,——he +is dead, quoth _Trim_,—he is out of his pain,—and they have done their +worst at him.—O Sirs!—Hold your peace, _Trim_, said my father, going on +with the sermon, lest _Trim_ should incense Dr. _Slop_,—we shall never +have done at this rate.] + +“The surest way to try the merit of “any disputed notion is, to trace +down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with +the spirit of Christianity;——’tis the short and decisive rule which our +Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth a +thousand arguments——_By their fruits ye shall know them._ + +“I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or +three short and independent rules deducible from it. + +“_First_, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect +that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better +of his CREED. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and +troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, ’tis +for no other cause but quietness sake. + +“_Secondly_, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular +instance,——That such a thing goes “against his conscience,——always +believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a +thing goes _against_ his stomach;—a present want of appetite being +generally the true cause of both. + +“In a word,—trust that man in nothing, who has not a CONSCIENCE in +every thing. + +“And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in +which has ruined thousands,—that your conscience is not a law;—No, God +and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to +determine;——not, like an _Asiatic_ Cadi, according to the ebbs and +flows of his own passions,—but like a _British_ judge in this land of +liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares +that law which he knows already written.” + +_F I N I S._ + +Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, _Trim_, quoth my father.—If +he had spared his comments, replied Dr. _Slop_,——he would have read it +much better. + +I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered _Trim_, but that +my heart was so full.—That was the very reason, _Trim_, replied my +father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done; +and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing +himself to Dr. _Slop_, would take part in what they deliver as deeply +as this poor fellow has done,—as their compositions are fine;—[I deny +it, quoth Dr. _Slop_]—I maintain it,—that the eloquence of our pulpits, +with such subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole +world:——But alas! continued my father, and I own it, Sir, with sorrow, +that, like _French_ politicians in this respect, what they gain in the +cabinet they lose in the field.——’Twere a pity, quoth my uncle, that +this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father,——’tis +dramatick,—and there is something in that way of writing, when +skilfully managed, which catches the attention.——We preach much in that +way with us, said Dr. _Slop._—I know that very well, said my +father,—but in a tone and manner which disgusted Dr. _Slop_, full as +much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.——But in this, added +Dr. _Slop_, a little piqued,—our sermons have greatly the advantage, +that we never introduce any character into them below a patriarch or a +patriarch’s wife, or a martyr or a saint.—There are some very bad +characters in this, however, said my father, and I do not think the +sermon a jot the worse for ’em.——But pray, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—who’s +can this be?—How could it get into my _Stevinus_? A man must be as +great a conjurer as _Stevinus_, said my father, to resolve the second +question:—The first, I think, is not so difficult;—for unless my +judgment greatly deceives me,——I know the author, for ’tis wrote, +certainly, by the parson of the parish. + +The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father +constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of +his conjecture,—proving it as strongly, as an argument _à priori_ could +prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was _Yorick_’s and no +one’s else:—It was proved to be so, _à posteriori_, the day after, when +_Yorick_ sent a servant to my uncle _Toby_’s house to enquire after it. + +It seems that _Yorick_, who was inquisitive after all kinds of +knowledge, had borrowed _Stevinus_ of my uncle _Toby_, and had +carelesly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle +of _Stevinus_; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever +subject, he had sent _Stevinus_ home, and his sermon to keep him +company. + +Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second +time, dropped thru’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down +into a treacherous and a tattered lining,—trod deep into the dirt by +the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as +thou falledst;—buried ten days in the mire,——raised up out of it by a +beggar,—sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,——transferred to his +parson,——lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,—nor +restored to his restless MANES till this very moment, that I tell the +world the story. + +Can the reader believe, that this sermon of _Yorick_’s was preached at +an assize, in the cathedral of _York_, before a thousand witnesses, +ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and +actually printed by him when he had done,——and within so short a space +as two years and three months after _Yorick_’s death?—_Yorick_ indeed, +was never better served in his life;——but it was a little hard to +maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave. + +However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with +_Yorick_,—and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give +away;—and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one +himself, had he thought fit,—I declare I would not have published this +anecdote to the world;——nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his +character and advancement in the church;—I leave that to others;——but I +find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand. + +The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to _Yorick_’s +ghost;——which—as the country-people, and some others believe,——_still +walks._ + +The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I +gain an opportunity of informing it,—That in case the character of +parson _Yorick_, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,——there are +now in the possession of the _Shandy_ family, as many as will make a +handsome volume, at the world’s service,——and much good may they do it. + +C H A P. XLIII + +OBADIAH gained the two crowns without dispute;—for he came in jingling, +with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, flung +across his body, just as Corporal _Trim_ went out of the room. + +It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. _Slop_, (clearing up his looks) as +we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. _Shandy_, to send +up stairs to know how she goes on. + +I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us +upon the least difficulty;—for you must know, Dr. _Slop_, continued my +father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by +express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no +more than an auxiliary in this affair,—and not so much as that,—unless +the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without +you.—Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, +continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so +much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the +species,—they claim a right of deciding, _en Souveraines_, in whose +hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it. + +They are in the right of it,——quoth my uncle _Toby._ But Sir, replied +Dr. _Slop_, not taking notice of my uncle _Toby_’s opinion, but turning +to my father,—they had better govern in other points;——and a father of +a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange +this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of +it.——I know not, quoth my father, answering a letter too testily, to be +quite dispassionate in what he said,—I know not, quoth he, what we have +left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the +world, unless that,—of who shall beget them.——One would almost give up +any thing, replied Dr. _Slop._—I beg your pardon,——answered my uncle +_Toby._—Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, it would astonish you to know what +improvements we have made of late years in all branches of obstetrical +knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and +expeditious extraction of the _fœtus_,——which has received such lights, +that, for my part (holding up his hand) I declare I wonder how the +world has——I wish, quoth my uncle _Toby_, you had seen what prodigious +armies we had in _Flanders._ + +C H A P. XLIV + +I HAVE dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,——to remind you +of one thing,——and to inform you of another. + +What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due +course;——for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, +but that I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more +advantage here than elsewhere.——Writers had need look before them, to +keep up the spirit and connection of what they have in hand. + +When these two things are done,—the curtain shall be drawn up again, +and my uncle _Toby_, my father, and Dr. _Slop_, shall go on with their +discourse, without any more interruption. + +First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this;——that +from the specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point +of Christian-names, and that other previous point thereto,—you was led, +I think, into an opinion,—(and I am sure I said as much) that my father +was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other +opinions. In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the +very first act of his begetting,——down to the lean and slippered +pantaloon in his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion +to himself, springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the +high-way of thinking, as these two which have been explained. + +—Mr. _Shandy_, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which +others placed it;—he placed things in his own light;—he would weigh +nothing in common scales;—no, he was too refined a researcher to lie +open to so gross an imposition.—To come at the exact weight of things +in the scientific steel-yard, the fulcrum, he would say, should be +almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets;—without +this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn the balance, +will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm, +was divisible _in infinitum_;——that the grains and scruples were as +much a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world.—In a word, he +would say, error was error,—no matter where it fell,——whether in a +fraction,——or a pound,—’twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept +down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust +of a butterfly’s wing,——as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all +the stars of heaven put together. + +He would often lament that it was for want of considering this +properly, and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to +speculative truths, that so many things in this world were out of +joint;——that the political arch was giving way;——and that the very +foundations of our excellent constitution in church and state, were so +sapped as estimators had reported. + +You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he +would ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of _Zeno_ and +_Chrysippus_, without knowing it belonged to them.—Why? why are we a +ruined people?—Because we are corrupted.—Whence is it, dear Sir, that +we are corrupted?——Because we are needy;——our poverty, and not our +wills, consent.——And wherefore, he would add, are we needy?—From the +neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence:—Our bank +notes, Sir, our guineas,—nay our shillings take care of themselves. + +’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the +sciences;—the great, the established points of them, are not to be +broke in upon.—The laws of nature will defend themselves;—but +error——(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)——error, Sir, +creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices which human nature +leaves unguarded. + +This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:—The +point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for this +place, is as follows. + +Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged +my mother to accept of Dr. _Slop_’s assistance preferably to that of +the old woman,——there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he +had done arguing the matter with her as a Christian, and came to argue +it over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength +to, depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor.——It failed him, tho’ +from no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could, he +was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of +it.——Cursed luck!——said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out +of the room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to +her, to no manner of purpose;—cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as +he shut the door,——for a man to be master of one of the finest chains +of reasoning in nature,——and have a wife at the same time with such a +head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of +it, to save his soul from destruction. + +This argument, though it was entirely lost upon my mother,——had more +weight with him, than all his other arguments joined together:—I will +therefore endeavour to do it justice,—and set it forth with all the +perspicuity I am master of. + +My father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms: + +_First_, That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other +people’s; and, + +_Secondly_, (Which by the bye, was the ground-work of the first +axiom,——tho’ it comes last) That every man’s wit must come from every +man’s own soul,——and no other body’s. + +Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature +equal,——and that the great difference between the most acute and the +most obtuse understanding——was from no original sharpness or bluntness +of one thinking substance above or below another,——but arose merely +from the lucky or unlucky organization of the body, in that part where +the soul principally took up her residence,——he had made it the subject +of his enquiry to find out the identical place. + +Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he +was satisfied it could not be where _Des Cartes_ had fixed it, upon the +top of the _pineal_ gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized, +formed a cushion for her about the size of a marrow pea; tho’ to speak +the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all in that one place,—’twas +no bad conjecture;——and my father had certainly fallen with that great +philosopher plumb into the centre of the mistake, had it not been for +my uncle _Toby_, who rescued him out of it, by a story he told him of a +_Walloon_ officer at the battle of _Landen_, who had one part of his +brain shot away by a musket-ball,—and another part of it taken out +after by a _French_ surgeon; and after all, recovered, and did his duty +very well without it. + +If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the +separation of the soul from the body;—and if it is true that people can +walk about and do their business without brains,—then certes the soul +does not inhabit there. Q.E.D. + +As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which +_Coglionissimo Borri_, the great _Milaneze_ physician affirms, in a +letter to _Bartholine_, to have discovered in the cellulæ of the +occipital parts of the cerebellum, and which he likewise affirms to be +the principal seat of the reasonable soul, (for, you must know, in +these latter and more enlightened ages, there are two souls in every +man living,—the one, according to the great _Metheglingius_, being +called the _Animus_, the other, the _Anima_;)—as for the opinion, I say +of _Borri_,—my father could never subscribe to it by any means; the +very idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial, and so exalted a +being as the _Anima_, or even the _Animus_, taking up her residence, +and sitting dabbling, like a tad-pole all day long, both summer and +winter, in a puddle,——or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin +soever, he would say, shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the +doctrine a hearing. + +What, therefore, seemed the least liable to objections of any, was that +the chief sensorium, or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place +all intelligences were referred, and from whence all her mandates were +issued,—was in, or near, the cerebellum,—or rather somewhere about the +_medulla oblongata_, wherein it was generally agreed by _Dutch_ +anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the organs of the seven +senses concentered, like streets and winding alleys, into a square. + +So far there was nothing singular in my father’s opinion,—he had the +best of philosophers, of all ages and climates, to go along with +him.——But here he took a road of his own, setting up another _Shandean_ +hypothesis upon these corner-stones they had laid for him;——and which +said hypothesis equally stood its ground; whether the subtilty and +fineness of the soul depended upon the temperature and clearness of the +said liquor, or of the finer net-work and texture in the cerebellum +itself; which opinion he favoured. + +He maintained, that next to the due care to be taken in the act of +propagation of each individual, which required all the thought in the +world, as it laid the foundation of this incomprehensible contexture, +in which wit, memory, fancy, eloquence, and what is usually meant by +the name of good natural parts, do consist;—that next to this and his +Christian-name, which were the two original and most efficacious causes +of all;——that the third cause, or rather what logicians call the _Causa +sina qua non_, and without which all that was done was of no manner of +significance,——was the preservation of this delicate and fine-spun web, +from the havock which was generally made in it by the violent +compression and crush which the head was made to undergo, by the +nonsensical method of bringing us into the world by that foremost. + +——This requires explanation. + +My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into +_Lithopædus Senonesis de Portu difficili_,[4] published by _Adrianus +Smelvgot_, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child’s +head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that +time, was such,——that by force of the woman’s efforts, which, in strong +labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 pounds +avoirdupois acting perpendicularly upon it;—it so happened, that in 49 +instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into the +shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook +generally rolls up in order to make a pye of.—Good God! cried my +father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely +fine and tender texture of the cerebellum!—Or if there is such a juice +as _Borri_ pretends—is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in the +world both seculent and mothery? + +But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that +this force acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured +the brain itself, or cerebrum,—but that it necessarily squeezed and +propelled the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate +seat of the understanding!——Angels and ministers of grace defend us! +cried my father,——can any soul withstand this shock?—No wonder the +intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and that so many +of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk,——all +perplexity,——all confusion within-side. + +But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a +child was turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and +was extracted by the feet;—that instead of the cerebrum being propelled +towards the cerebellum, the cerebellum, on the contrary, was propelled +simply towards the cerebrum, where it could do no manner of hurt:——By +heavens! cried he, the world is in conspiracy to drive out what little +wit God has given us,——and the professors of the obstetric art are +listed into the same conspiracy.—What is it to me which end of my son +comes foremost into the world, provided all goes right after, and his +cerebellum escapes uncrushed? + +It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, +that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, +from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the +stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand. This is of +great use. + +When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a +phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve +by it;—it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in +the family.——Poor devil, he would say,—he made way for the capacity of +his younger brothers.——It unriddled the observations of drivellers and +monstrous heads,——shewing _à priori_, it could not be +otherwise,——unless **** I don’t know what. It wonderfully explained and +accounted for the acumen of the _Asiatic_ genius, and that sprightlier +turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; +not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a +more perpetual sunshine, &c.—which for aught he knew, might as well +rarefy and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one +extreme,—as they are condensed in colder climates by the other;——but he +traced the affair up to its spring-head;—shewed that, in warmer +climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the +creation;—their pleasures more;—the necessity of their pains less, +insomuch that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so +slight, that the whole organization of the cerebellum was +preserved;——nay, he did not believe, in natural births, that so much as +a single thread of the network was broke or displaced,——so that the +soul might just act as she liked. + +When my father had got so far,——what a blaze of light did the accounts +of the _Caesarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had come +safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he +would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium;—no pressure of +the head against the pelvis;——no propulsion of the cerebrum towards the +cerebellum, either by the _os pubis_ on this side, or _os coxygis_ on +that;——and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your +_Julius Caesar_, who gave the operation a name;—and your _Hermes +Trismegistus_, who was born so before ever the operation had a +name;——your _Scipio Africanus_; your _Manlius Torquatus_; our _Edward_ +the Sixth,—who, had he lived, would have done the same honour to the +hypothesis:——These, and many more who figured high in the annals of +fame,—all came _side-way_, Sir, into the world. + +The incision of the _abdomen_ and _uterus_ ran for six weeks together +in my father’s head;——he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in +the _epigastrium_, and those in the _matrix_, were not mortal;—so that +the belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a +passage to the child.—He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my +mother,——merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as +ashes at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his +hopes,—he thought it as well to say no more of it,——contenting himself +with admiring,—what he thought was to no purpose to propose. + +This was my father Mr. _Shandy_’s hypothesis; concerning which I have +only to add, that my brother _Bobby_ did as great honour to it +(whatever he did to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke +of: For happening not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be +born too, when my father was at _Epsom_,——being moreover my mother’s +first child,—coming into the world with his head _foremost_,—and +turning out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts,——my father spelt +all these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one +end,—he was determined to try the other. + +This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not +easily to be put out of their way,——and was therefore one of my +father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could +better deal with. + +Of all men in the world, Dr. _Slop_ was the fittest for my father’s +purpose;——for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had +proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of +deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book, +in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy;——tho’ not +with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my +father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical. + +This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_, +in the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle +_Toby._——In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, +could bear up against two such allies in science,—is hard to +conceive.—You may conjecture upon it, if you please,——and whilst your +imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover +by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my +uncle _Toby_ got his modesty by the wound he received upon his +groin.—You may raise a system to account for the loss of my nose by +marriage-articles,—and shew the world how it could happen, that I +should have the misfortune to be called TRISTRAM, in opposition to my +father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family, Godfathers and +Godmothers not excepted.—These, with fifty other points left yet +unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time;——but I tell +you beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage _Alquise_, the +magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor the no less famous +_Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive) could pretend to +come within a league of the truth. + +The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these +matters till the next year,——when a series of things will be laid open +which he little expects. + + [4] The author is here twice mistaken; for _Lithopædus_ should be + wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon._ The second mistake is, that + this _Lithopædus_ is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified + child. The account of this, published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen + at the end of _Cordæus_’s works in _Spachius._ Mr. _Tristram Shandy_ + has been led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus_’s name + of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ——, or by mistaking + _Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_,—from the too great similitude of + the names. + +C H A P. XLV + +——“I _WISH_, Dr. _Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish +for Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and +earnestness in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at +first[5])——“_I wish, Dr. Slop,”_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen +what prodigious armies we had in_ Flanders.” + +My uncle _Toby_’s wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart +never intended any man,—Sir, it confounded him——and thereby putting his +ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them +again for the soul of him. + +In all disputes,——male or female, —whether for honour, for profit, or +for love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more +dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner +upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the +wish, is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs—and +wish the _wisher_ something in return, of pretty near the same +value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you +were—nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it. + +This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.— + +Dr. _Slop_ did not understand the nature of this defence;—he was +puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four +minutes and a half;—five had been fatal to it:—my father saw the +danger—the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the +world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born +without a head or with one:”—he waited to the last moment, to allow Dr. +_Slop_, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning it; +but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking +with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare +with—first in my uncle _Toby_’s face—then in his—then up—then down—then +east—east and by east, and so on,——coasting it along by the plinth of +the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the compass,——and +that he had actually begun to count the brass nails upon the arm of his +chair,—my father thought there was no time to be lost with my uncle +_Toby_, so took up the discourse as follows. + + [5] Vide page 260. + +C H A P. XLVI + +“—WHAT prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”— + +Brother _Toby_, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head +with his right hand, and with his _left_ pulling out a striped _India_ +handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as +he argued the point with my uncle _Toby._—— + +——Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give you +my reasons for it. + +Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “_Whether my +father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his +left_,”—have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of the +monarchs who governed them, to totter upon their heads.——But need I +tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which every thing in this +world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape!—and +by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to +be, what it is—great—little—good—bad—indifferent or not indifferent, +just as the case happens? + +As my father’s _India_ handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he +should by no means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on +the contrary, instead of taking off his wig with it, as he did, he +ought to have committed that entirely to the left; and then, when the +natural exigency my father was under of rubbing his head, called out +for his handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have +done, but to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and +taken it out;——which he might have done without any violence, or the +least ungraceful twist in any one tendon or muscle of his whole body. + +In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a +fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand——or by making +some nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or armpit)—his +whole attitude had been easy—natural—unforced: _Reynolds_ himself, as +great and gracefully as he paints, might have painted him as he sat. + +Now as my father managed this matter,—consider what a devil of a figure +my father made of himself. + +In the latter end of Queen _Anne_’s reign, and in the beginning of the +reign of King _George_ the first—“_Coat pockets were cut very low down +in the skirt._”—I need say no more—the father of mischief, had he been +hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion for +one in my father’s situation. + +C H A P. XLVII + +IT was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean +a subject as myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across +your whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat +pocket.——In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this +happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle _Toby_ +discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s approaches towards +it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, +before the gate of _St. Nicolas_;—the idea of which drew off his +attention so intirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his +right hand to the bell to ring up _Trim_ to go and fetch his map of +_Namur_, and his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the +returning angles of the traverses of that attack,—but particularly of +that one, where he received his wound upon his groin. + +My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his +body seemed to rush up into his face——my uncle _Toby_ dismounted +immediately. + +——I did not apprehend your uncle _Toby_ was o’horseback.—— + +C H A P. XLVIII + +A MAN’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak +it, are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining;—rumple the +one,—you rumple the other. There is one certain exception however in +this case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have +had your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a +sarcenet, or thin persian. + +_Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes Babylonius, Dionysius, Heracleotes, +Antipater, Panætius_, and _Possidonius_ amongst the _Greeks_;——_Cato_ +and _Varro_ and _Seneca_ amongst the _Romans_;——_Pantenus_ and _Clemens +Alexandrinus_ and _Montaigne_ amongst the Christians; and a score and a +half of good, honest, unthinking _Shandean_ people as ever lived, whose +names I can’t recollect,—all pretended that their jerkins were made +after this fashion,—you might have rumpled and crumpled, and doubled +and creased, and fretted and fridged the outside of them all to +pieces;——in short, you might have played the very devil with them, and +at the same time, not one of the insides of them would have been one +button the worse, for all you had done to them. + +I believe in my conscience that mine is made up somewhat after this +sort:——for never poor jerkin has been tickled off at such a rate as it +has been these last nine months together,——and yet I declare, the +lining to it,——as far as I am a judge of the matter,——is not a +three-penny piece the worse;—pell-mell, helter-skelter, ding-dong, cut +and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long-way, have +they been trimming it for me:—had there been the least gumminess in my +lining,—by heaven! it had all of it long ago been frayed and fretted to +a thread. + +——You Messrs. the Monthly Reviewers!——how could you cut and slash my +jerkin as you did?——how did you know but you would cut my lining too? + +Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will +injure none of us, do I recommend you and your affairs,—so God bless +you;—only next month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and +storm and rage at me, as some of you did last MAY (in which I remember +the weather was very hot)—don’t be exasperated, if I pass it by again +with good temper,—being determined as long as I live or write) which in +my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a +worse word or a worse wish than my uncle _Toby_ gave the fly which +buzz’d about his nose all _dinner-time_,——“Go,—go, poor devil,” quoth +he,—“get thee gone,—why should I hurt thee! This world is surely wide +enough to hold both thee and me.” + +C H A P. XLIX + +ANY man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious +suffusion of blood in my father’s countenance,—by means of which (as +all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his face, as I told you) +he must have reddened, pictorically and scientifically speaking, six +whole tints and a half, if not a full octave above his natural +colour:—any man, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, who had observed this, +together with the violent knitting of my father’s brows, and the +extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair,—would have +concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted,—had he been +a lover of such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments +being put in exact tune,—he would instantly have skrew’d up his, to the +same pitch;—and then the devil and all had broke loose—the whole piece, +Madam, must have been played off like the sixth of Avison +Scarlatti—_con furia_,—like mad.—Grant me patience!——What has _con +furia_,——_con strepito_,——or any other hurly burly whatever to do with +harmony? + +Any man, I say, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, the benignity of whose +heart interpreted every motion of the body in the kindest sense the +motion would admit of, would have concluded my father angry, and blamed +him too. My uncle _Toby_ blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the +pocket-hole;——so sitting still till my father had got his handkerchief +out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with inexpressible +good-will——my father, at length, went on as follows. + +C H A P. L + +“WHAT prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_” + +——Brother _Toby_, quoth my father, I do believe thee to be as honest a +man, and with as good and as upright a heart as ever God created;—nor +is it thy fault, if all the children which have been, may, can, shall, +will, or ought to be begotten, come with their heads foremost into the +world:——but believe me, dear _Toby_, the accidents which unavoidably +way-lay them, not only in the article of our begetting ’em——though +these, in my opinion, are well worth considering,——but the dangers and +difficulties our children are beset with, after they are got forth into +the world, are enow—little need is there to expose them to unnecessary +ones in their passage to it.——Are these dangers, quoth my uncle _Toby_, +laying his hand upon my father’s knee, and looking up seriously in his +face for an answer,——are these dangers greater now o’days, brother, +than in times past? Brother _Toby_, answered my father, if a child was +but fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the mother did well +after it,—our forefathers never looked farther.——My uncle _Toby_ +instantly withdrew his hand from off my father’s knee, reclined his +body gently back in his chair, raised his head till he could just see +the cornice of the room, and then directing the buccinatory muscles +along his cheeks, and the orbicular muscles around his lips to do their +duty—he whistled _Lillabullero._ + +C H A P. LI + +WHILST my uncle _Toby_ was whistling _Lillabullero_ to my father,—Dr. +_Slop_ was stamping, and cursing and damning at _Obadiah_ at a most +dreadful rate,——it would have done your heart good, and cured you, Sir, +for ever of the vile sin of swearing, to have heard him, I am +determined therefore to relate the whole affair to you. + +When Dr. _Slop_’s maid delivered the green baize bag with her master’s +instruments in it, to _Obadiah_, she very sensibly exhorted him to put +his head and one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across +his body: so undoing the bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him, +without any more ado, she helped him on with it. However, as this, in +some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag, lest any thing should +bolt out in galloping back, at the speed _Obadiah_ threatened, they +consulted to take it off again: and in the great care and caution of +their hearts, they had taken the two strings and tied them close +(pursing up the mouth of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, +each of which _Obadiah_, to make all safe, had twitched and drawn +together with all the strength of his body. + +This answered all that _Obadiah_ and the maid intended; but was no +remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The +instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much +room to play in it, towards the bottom (the shape of the bag being +conical) that _Obadiah_ could not make a trot of it, but with such a +terrible jingle, what with the _tire téte, forceps_, and _squirt_, as +would have been enough, had _Hymen_ been taking a jaunt that way, to +have frightened him out of the country; but when _Obadiah_ accelerated +his motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coach-horse into +a full gallop——by Heaven! Sir, the jingle was incredible. + +As _Obadiah_ had a wife and three children——the turpitude of +fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this +jingling, never once entered his brain,——he had however his objection, +which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has oft-times +done with the greatest patriots.——“_The poor fellow, Sir, was not able +to hear himself whistle._” + +C H A P. LII + +AS _Obadiah_ loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music +he carried with him,—he very considerately set his imagination to work, +to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a +condition of enjoying it. + +In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, +nothing is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band:——the +philosophy of this is so near the surface——I scorn to enter into it. + +As _Obadiah_’s was a mixed case——mark, Sirs,——I say, a mixed case; for +it was obstetrical,——_scrip_-tical, squirtical, papistical——and as far +as the coach-horse was concerned in it,——caballistical——and only partly +musical;—_Obadiah_ made no scruple of availing himself of the first +expedient which offered; so taking hold of the bag and instruments, and +griping them hard together with one hand, and with the finger and thumb +of the other putting the end of the hat-band betwixt his teeth, and +then slipping his hand down to the middle of it,—he tied and cross-tied +them all fast together from one end to the other (as you would cord a +trunk) with such a multiplicity of round-abouts and intricate cross +turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point where the +strings met,—that Dr. _Slop_ must have had three fifths of _Job_’s +patience at least to have unloosed them.—I think in my conscience, that +had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in humour for such a +contest——and she and Dr. _Slop_ both fairly started together——there is +no man living which had seen the bag with all that _Obadiah_ had done +to it,——and known likewise the great speed the Goddess can make when +she thinks proper, who would have had the least doubt remaining in his +mind—which of the two would have carried off the prize. My mother, +Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag infallibly——at +least by twenty _knots._——Sport of small accidents, _Tristram Shandy!_ +that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been for thee, and it +was fifty to one but it had,——thy affairs had not been so depress’d—(at +least by the depression of thy nose) as they have been; nor had the +fortunes of thy house and the occasions of making them, which have so +often presented themselves in the course of thy life, to thee, been so +often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so irrecoverably abandoned—as thou +hast been forced to leave them;——but ’tis over,——all but the account of +’em, which cannot be given to the curious till I am got out into the +world. + +END OF THE FIRST VOLUME + +Tristram Shandy + +_Tristram Shandy_ + + + + +THE +LIFE AND OPINIONS +OF +TRISTRAM SHANDY, +GENTLEMAN + +Volume the Second + +Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia, meis tamen, rogo, parcant +opusculis——in quibus fuit propositi semper, a jocis ad seria, in seriis +vicissim ad jocos transire. + +JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS, +_Episcopus Lugdun._ + +C H A P. I + +GREAT wits jump: for the moment Dr. _Slop_ cast his eyes upon his bag +(which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle _Toby_ about +mid-wifery put him in mind of it)—the very same thought occurred.—’Tis +God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. _Shandy_ has had so bad a +time of it,——else she might have been brought to bed seven times told, +before one half of these knots could have got untied.——But here you +must distinguish—the thought floated only in Dr. _Slop_’s mind, without +sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as +your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the +thin juice of a man’s understanding, without being carried backwards or +forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest drive them to +one side. + +A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother’s bed, did the +proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that’s +unfortunate, quoth Dr. _Slop_, unless I make haste, the thing will +actually befall me as it is. + +C H A P. II + +IN the case of _knots_,—by which, in the first place, I would not be +understood to mean slip-knots—because in the course of my life and +opinions—my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I +mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. _Hammond Shandy_,—a +little man,—but of high fancy:—he rushed into the duke of _Monmouth_’s +affair:——nor, secondly, in this place, do I mean that particular +species of knots called bow-knots;—there is so little address, or +skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below +my giving any opinion at all about them.—But by the knots I am speaking +of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, +devilish tight, hard knots, made _bona fide_, as _Obadiah_ made +his;——in which there is no quibbling provision made by the duplication +and return of the two ends of the strings thro’ the annulus or noose +made by the second _implication_ of them—to get them slipp’d and undone +by.——I hope you apprehend me. + +In the case of these _knots_ then, and of the several obstructions, +which, may it please your reverences, such knots cast in our way in +getting through life——every hasty man can whip out his pen-knife and +cut through them.——’Tis wrong. Believe me, Sirs, the most virtuous way, +and which both reason and conscience dictate——is to take our teeth or +our fingers to them.——Dr. _Slop_ had lost his teeth—his favourite +instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some +misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a +hard labour, knock’d out three of the best of them with the handle of +it:——he tried his fingers—alas; the nails of his fingers and thumbs +were cut close.—The duce take it! I can make nothing of it either way, +cried Dr. _Slop._——The trampling over head near my mother’s bed-side +increased.—Pox take the fellow! I shall never get the knots untied as +long as I live.——My mother gave a groan.——Lend me your penknife—I must +e’en cut the knots at last——pugh!——psha!—Lord! I have cut my thumb +quite across to the very bone——curse the fellow—if there was not +another man-midwife within fifty miles——I am undone for this bout—I +wish the scoundrel hang’d—I wish he was shot——I wish all the devils in +hell had him for a blockhead!—— + +My father had a great respect for _Obadiah_, and could not bear to hear +him disposed of in such a manner—he had moreover some little respect +for himself—and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself +in it. + +Had Dr. _Slop_ cut any part about him, but his thumb——my father had +pass’d it by—his prudence had triumphed: as it was, he was determined +to have his revenge. + +Small curses, Dr. _Slop_, upon great occasions, quoth my father +(condoling with him first upon the accident) are but so much waste of +our strength and soul’s health to no manner of purpose.—I own it, +replied Dr. _Slop._—They are like sparrow-shot, quoth my uncle _Toby_ +(suspending his whistling) fired against a bastion.——They serve, +continued my father, to stir the humours——but carry off none of their +acrimony:—for my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all—I hold it +bad——but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much +presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle _Toby_) as to make it answer my +purpose——that is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wife and a just +man however would always endeavour to proportion the vent given to +these humours, not only to the degree of them stirring within +himself—but to the size and ill intent of the offence upon which they +are to fall.—“_Injuries come only from the heart_,”—quoth my uncle +_Toby._ For this reason, continued my father, with the most +_Cervantick_ gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world for +that gentleman, who, in distrust of his own discretion in this point, +sat down and composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of swearing +suitable to all cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which +could possibly happen to him——which forms being well considered by him, +and such moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the +chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use.—I never apprehended, +replied Dr. _Slop_, that such a thing was ever thought of——much less +executed. I beg your pardon, answered my father; I was reading, though +not using, one of them to my brother _Toby_ this morning, whilst he +pour’d out the tea—’tis here upon the shelf over my head;—but if I +remember right, ’tis too violent for a cut of the thumb.—Not at all, +quoth Dr. _Slop_—the devil take the fellow.——Then, answered my father, +’Tis much at your service, Dr. _Slop_—on condition you will read it +aloud;——so rising up and reaching down a form of excommunication of the +church of _Rome_, a copy of which, my father (who was curious in his +collections) had procured out of the leger-book of the church of +_Rochester_, writ by ERNULPHUS the bishop——with a most affected +seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled ERNULPHUS +himself—he put it into Dr. _Slop_’s hands.——Dr. _Slop_ wrapt his thumb +up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with a wry face, though +without any suspicion, read aloud, as follows——my uncle _Toby_ +whistling _Lillabullero_ as loud as he could all the time. + +Textus de Ecclesiâ Roffensi, per Ernulfum Episcopum. + +C A P. III +EXCOMMUNICATIO.[6] + +EX auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus Sancti, +et sanctorum canonum, sanctæque et entemeratæ Virginis Dei genetricis +Mariae,— + +——Atque omnium cœlestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum, thronorum, +dominationum, potestatuum, cherubin ac seraphin, & sanctorum +patriarchum, prophetarum, & omnium apolstolorum & evangelistarum, & +sanctorum innocentum, qui in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt +canticum cantare novum, et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum confessorum, +et sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et electorum +Dei,——Excommunicamus, et + _vel_ os s _vel_ os +anathematizamus hunc furem, vel hunc + s +malefactorem, N.N. et a liminibus sanctæ Dei ecclesiæ sequestramus, et +æternis + _vel_ i n +suppliciis excruciandus, mancipetur, cum Dathan et Abiram, et cum his +qui dixerunt Domino Deo, Recede à nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum +nolumus: et ficut aquâ ignis extinguatur lu- + _vel_ eorum +cerna ejus in secula seculorum nisi resque- + n n +rit, et ad satisfactionem venerit. Amen. + os +Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui homi- + os + +nem creavit. Maledicat illum Dei Filius qui pro homine passus est. +Maledicat + os +illum Spiritus Sanctus qui in baptismo ef- + os + +fusus est. Maledicat illum sancta crux, quam Christus pro nostrâ salute +hostem triumphans ascendit. + os + +Maledicat illum sancta Dei genetrix et + os +perpetua Virgo Maria. Maledicat illum sanctus Michael, animarum +susceptor sa- + os + +crarum. Maledicant illum omnes angeli et archangeli, principatus et +potestates, omnisque militia cœlestis. + + os + +Maledicat illum patriarcharum et prophetarum laudabilis numerus. +Maledicat + os +illum sanctus Johannes Præcursor et Baptista Christi, et sanctus +Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi +apostoli, simul et cæteri discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistæ, qui +sua prædicatione mundum universum converte- + os + +runt. Maledicat illum cuneus martyrum et confessorum mirificus, qui Deo +bonis operibus placitus inventus est. + + os + +Maledicant illum sacrarum virginum chori, quæ mundi vana causa honoris +Christi respuenda contempserunt. Male- + os +dicant illum omnes sancti qui ab initio mundi usque in finem seculi Deo +dilecti inveniuntur. + + os + +Maledicant illum cœli et terra, et omnia sancta in eis manentia. + + i n n + +Maledictus sit ubicunque, fuerit, sive in domo, sive in agro, sive in +viâ, sive in semitâ, sive in silvâ, sive in aquâ, sive in ecclesiâ. + + i n + +Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo,—— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +——— ——— ——— +manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, +dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, +quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, flebotomando. + + i n + +Maledictus sit in totis viribus corporis. + i n + +Maledictus sit intus et exterius. + i n i + +Maledictus sit in capillis; maledictus +n i n +sit in cerebro. Maledictus sit in vertice, in temporibus, in fronte, in +auriculis, in superciliis, in oculis, in genis, in maxillis, in +naribus, in dentibus, mordacibus, in labris sive molibus, in labiis, in +guttere, in humeris, in harnis, in brachiis, in manubus, in digitis, in +pectore, in corde, et in omnibus interioribus stomacho tenus, in +renibus, in inguinibus, in femore, in genitalibus, in coxis, in +genubus, in cruribus, in pedibus, et in unguibus. + +Maledictus sit in totis compagibus membrorum, a vertice capitis, usque +ad plantam pedis—non sit in eo sanitas. + +Maledicat illum Christus Filius Dei vivi toto suæ majestatis imperio—— + +—et insurgat adversus illum cœlum cum omnibus virtutibus quæ in eo +moventur ad _damnandum_ eum, nisi penituerit et ad satisfactionem +venerit. Amen. + +Fiat, fiat. Amen. + + [6] As the geniuneness of the consultation of the Sorbonne upon the + question of baptism, was doubted by some, and denied by others——’twas + thought proper to print the original of this excommunication; for the + copy of which Mr. _Shandy_ returns thanks to the chapter clerk of the + dean and chapter of _Rochester._ + +C H A P. IV + +“BY the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and +of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and +patroness of our Saviour.” I think there is no necessity, quoth Dr. +_Slop_, dropping the paper down to his knee, and addressing himself to +my father——as you have read it over, Sir, so lately, to read it +aloud——and as Captain _Shandy_ seems to have no great inclination to +hear it——I may as well read it to myself. That’s contrary to treaty, +replied my father:——besides, there is something so whimsical, +especially in the latter part of it, I should grieve to lose the +pleasure of a second reading. Dr. _Slop_ did not altogether like +it,——but my uncle _Toby_ offering at that instant to give over +whistling, and read it himself to them;——Dr. _Slop_ thought he might as +well read it under the cover of my uncle _Toby_’s whistling——as suffer +my uncle _Toby_ to read it alone;——so raising up the paper to his face, +and holding it quite parallel to it, in order to hide his chagrin——he +read it aloud as follows——my uncle _Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_, +though not quite so loud as before. + +“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and +of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and patroness of our Saviour, +and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, +dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy +patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of +the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy +to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of +the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and +elect of God,—May he” (_Obadiah_) “be damn’d” (for tying these +knots)——“We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the +thresholds of the holy “church of God Almighty we sequester him, that +he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with _Dathan_ and +_Abiram_, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we +desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the +light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him” +(_Obadiah_, of the knots which he has tied) “and make satisfaction” +(for them) “Amen.” + +“May the Father who created man, curse him.——May the Son who suffered +for us curse him.——May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, +curse him” (_Obadiah_)——“May the holy cross which Christ, for our +salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. + +“May the holy and eternal Virgin _Mary_, mother of God, curse him.——May +St. _Michael_, the advocate of holy souls, curse him.——May all the +angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly +armies, curse him.” [Our armies swore terribly in _Flanders_, cried my +uncle _Toby_,——but nothing to this.——For my own part I could not have a +heart to curse my dog so.] + +“May St. John, the Præcursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter +and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ’s apostles, together +curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who +by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and +wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are +found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him’ (_Obadiah_.) + +“May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ +have despised the things of the world, damn him——May all the saints, +who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be +beloved of God, damn him— + +“May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, +damn him,” (_Obadiah_) “or her,” (or whoever else had a hand in tying +these knots.) + +“May he (_Obadiah_) be damn’d wherever he be——whether in the house or +the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, +or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.——May he be cursed in +living, in dying.” [Here my uncle _Toby_, taking the advantage of a +_minim_ in the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued +note to the end of the sentence.——Dr. _Slop_, with his division of +curses moving under him, like a running bass all the way.] “May he be +cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in +fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in +sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and +in blood-letting! + +“May he” (_Obadiah_) “be cursed in all the faculties of his body! + +“May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly!——May he be cursed in the hair +of his head!——May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex,” (that +is a sad curse, quoth my father) “in his temples, in his forehead, in +his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his +nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, +in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his +fingers! + +“May he be damn’d in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and +purtenance, down to the very stomach! + +“May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin,” (God in heaven +forbid! quoth my uncle _Toby_) “in his thighs, in his genitals,” (my +father shook his head) “and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, +and feet, and toe- nails! + +“May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, +from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no +soundness in him! + +“May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his +Majesty”——(Here my uncle _Toby_, throwing back his head, gave a +monstrous, long, loud Whew—w—w———something betwixt the interjectional +whistle of _Hay-day!_ and the word itself.—— + +——By the golden beard of _Jupiter_—and of _Juno_ (if her majesty wore +one) and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by +the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your +celestial gods, and gods aerial and aquatick—to say nothing of the +beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses +your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines +(that is in case they wore them)——all which beards, as _Varro_ tells +me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less +than thirty thousand effective beards upon the Pagan +establishment;——every beard of which claimed the rights and privileges +of being stroken and sworn by—by all these beards together then——I vow +and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I +would have given the better of them, as freely as ever _Cid Hamet_ +offered his——to have stood by, and heard my uncle _Toby_’s +accompanyment. + +——“curse him!”—continued Dr. _Slop_,—“and may heaven, with all the +powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him” +(_Obadiah_) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,—so +be it. Amen.” + +I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, my heart would not let me curse the +devil himself with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, +replied Dr. _Slop_.——So am not I, replied my uncle.——But he is cursed, +and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. _Slop_. + +I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle _Toby_. + +Dr. _Slop_ drew up his mouth, and wasjust beginning to return my uncle +_Toby_ the compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle——when +the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one——put an end to the +affair. + +C H A P. V + +NOW don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the +oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; +and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had +the wit to invent them too. + +I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except +to a connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in +swearing,——as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the +whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and +trinkets of criticism,——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a +pity——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;—their +heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that +eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of +genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and +tortured to death by ’em. + +—And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all +rule, my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the +adjective, which should agree together in _number, case_, and _gender_, +he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and +betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern +the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three +seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.—Admirable +grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended +likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the +chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?——I look’d only at +the stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer! + +And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh! +’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of +the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and +compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critick! + +——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the +length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon +an exact scale of _Bossu_’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its +dimensions.—Admirable connoisseur! + +——And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way +back?—’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid +in any one group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the +colouring of _Titian_—the expression of _Rubens_—the grace of +_Raphael_—the purity of _Dominichino_—the _corregiescity_ of +_Corregio_—the learning of _Poussin_—the airs of _Guido_—the taste of +the _Carrachis_—or the grand contour of _Angelo._—Grant me patience, +just Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting +world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst——the cant of +criticism is the most tormenting! + +I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, +to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the +reins of his imagination into his author’s hands——be pleased he knows +not why, and cares not wherefore. + +Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour—give me—I ask no more, +but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire +along with it——and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if +he can be spared, with my compliments to—no matter. + +Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and +imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these +two hundred and fifty years last past as originals——except _St. Paul’s +thumb_——_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical, +and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, +’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;—else I say, there +is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been +copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times: but, +like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of +the original!—it is thought to be no bad oath——and by itself passes +very well—“_G—d damn you._”—Set it beside _Ernulphus_’s——“God almighty +the Father damn you—God the Son damn you—God the Holy Ghost damn +you”—you see ’tis nothing.—There is an orientality in his, we cannot +rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention—possess’d more +of the excellencies of a swearer——had such a thorough knowledge of the +human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, +and articulations,—that when _Ernulphus_ cursed—no part escaped +him.—’Tis true there is something of a _hardness_ in his manner——and, +as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of grace——but then there is such a +greatness of _gusto!_ + +My father, who generally look’d upon every thing in a light very +different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an +original.——He considered rather _Ernulphus_’s anathema, as an institute +of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of _swearing_ +in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the succeeding +pope, had with great learning and diligence collected together all the +laws of it;—for the same reason that _Justinian_, in the decline of the +empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to collect the _Roman_ +or civil laws all together into one code or digest——lest, through the +rust of time——and the fatality of all things committed to oral +tradition—they should be lost to the world for ever. + +For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath +from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the conqueror (_By the +splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your +eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus._—In short, he would +add—I defy a man to swear _out_ of it. + +The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious +too;——nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own. + +C H A P. VI + +——BLESS my soul!—my poor mistress is ready to faint——and her pains are +gone—and the drops are done—and the bottle of julap is broke——and the +nurse has cut her arm—(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. _Slop_,) and the +child is where it was, continued _Susannah_,—and the midwife has fallen +backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip as black as +your hat.—I’ll look at it, quoth Dr _Slop_.—There is no need of that, +replied _Susannah_,—you had better look at my mistress—but the midwife +would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you +would go up stairs and speak to her this moment. + +Human nature is the same in all professions. + +The midwife had just before been put over Dr. _Slop_’s head—He had not +digested it.—No, replied Dr. _Slop_, ’twould be full as proper if the +midwife came down to me.—I like subordination, quoth my uncle +_Toby_,—and but for it, after the reduction of _Lisle_, I know not what +might have become of the garrison of _Ghent_, in the mutiny for bread, +in the year Ten.—Nor, replied Dr. _Slop_, (parodying my uncle _Toby_’s +hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical himself)——do I +know, Captain _Shandy_, what might have become of the garrison above +stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at +present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to ******——the +application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so _à +propos_, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by +the _Shandy_ family, as long as the _Shandy_ family had a name. + +C H A P. VII + +LET us go back to the ******——in the last chapter. + +It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when +eloquence flourished at _Athens_ and _Rome_, and would be so now, did +orators wear mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had +the thing about you _in petto_, ready to produce, pop, in the place you +want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a +pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle +pot—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.—Tho’ if it was +too young, and the oration as long as _Tully_’s second _Philippick_—it +must certainly have beshit the orator’s mantle.—And then again, if too +old,—it must have been unwieldly and incommodious to his action—so as +to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by +it.—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the precise age to a +minute——hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could +smell it——and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it +came in by head and shoulders—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders—It has +open’d the sluices, and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, +and unhinged the politicks of half a nation. + +These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and +times, I say, where orators wore mantles——and pretty large ones too, my +brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple, +superfine, marketable cloth in them—with large flowing folds and +doubles, and in a great style of design.—All which plainly shews, may +it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little +good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is +owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of +_trunk-hose._—We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing. + +C H A P. VIII + +DR. _Slop_ was within an ace of being an exception to all this +argumentation: for happening to have his green baize bag upon his +knees, when he began to parody my uncle _Toby_—’twas as good as the +best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the +sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into +the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, when your reverences +took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed——my uncle _Toby_ +had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the argument in that +case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the +salient angle of a ravelin,——Dr. _Slop_ would never have given them +up;—and my uncle _Toby_ would as soon have thought of flying, as taking +them by force: but Dr. _Slop_ fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it +took off the whole effect, and what was a ten times worse evil (for +they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his _forceps_, his +_forceps_ unfortunately drew out the _squirt_ along with it. + +When a proposition can be taken in two senses—’tis a law in +disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he +pleases, or finds most convenient for him.——This threw the advantage of +the argument quite on my uncle _Toby_’s side.—“Good God!” cried my +uncle _Toby_, “_are children brought into the world with a squirt?_” + +C H A P. IX + +—UPON my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the +back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle _Toby_—and you +have crush’d all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly. +’Tis your own fault, said Dr. _Slop_——you should have clinch’d your two +fists together into the form of a child’s head as I told you, and sat +firm.—I did so, answered my uncle _Toby_.——Then the points of my +forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing—or +else the cut on my thumb has made me a little aukward—or possibly—’Tis +well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities—that +the experiment was not first made upon my child’s head-piece.——It would +not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. _Slop_.—I maintain +it, said my uncle _Toby_, it would have broke the cerebellum (unless +indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turn’d it all into +a perfect posset.——Pshaw! replied Dr. _Slop_, a child’s head is +naturally as soft as the pap of an apple;—the sutures give way—and +besides, I could have extracted by the feet after.—Not you, said +she.——I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father. + +Pray do, added my uncle _Toby_. + +C H A P. X + +——AND pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it +may not be the child’s hip, as well as the child’s head?——’Tis most +certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. _Slop_ +(turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally +are—’tis a point very difficult to know—and yet of the greatest +consequence to be known;——because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for the +head—there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * + +——What the possibility was, Dr. _Slop_ whispered very low to my father, +and then to my uncle _Toby_.——There is no such danger, continued he, +with the head.—No, in truth quoth my father—but when your possibility +has taken place at the hip—you may as well take off the head too. + +——It is morally impossible the reader should understand this——’tis +enough Dr. _Slop_ understood it;——so taking the green baize bag in his +hand, with the help of _Obadiah_’s pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for +a man of his size, across the room to the door——and from the door was +shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother’s apartments. + +C H A P. XI + +IT is two hours, and ten minutes—and no more—cried my father, looking +at his watch, since Dr. _Slop_ and _Obadiah_ arrived—and I know not how +it happens, Brother _Toby_—but to my imagination it seems almost an +age. + +——Here—pray, Sir, take hold of my cap—nay, take the bell along with it, +and my pantoufles too. + +Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present +of ’em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter. + +Though my father said, “_he knew not how it happen’d_,”—yet he knew +very well how it happen’d;——and at the instant he spoke it, was +pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle _Toby_ a clear account of +the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of _duration +and its simple modes_, in order to shew my uncle _Toby_ by what +mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid +succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse +from one thing to another, since Dr. _Slop_ had come into the room, had +lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent.——“I +know not how it happens—cried my father,—but it seems an age.” + +——’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to the succession of our +ideas. + +My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of +reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it +too—proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of +ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of +his hands by my uncle _Toby_, who (honest man!) generally took every +thing as it happened;——and who, of all things in the world, troubled +his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and +space—or how we came by those ideas—or of what stuff they were made——or +whether they were born with us—or we picked them up afterwards as we +went along—or whether we did it in frocks——or not till we had got into +breeches—with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about INFINITY +PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth, upon whose desperate and +unconquerable theories so many fine heads have been turned and +cracked——never did my uncle _Toby_’s the least injury at all; my father +knew it—and was no less surprized than he was disappointed, with my +uncle’s fortuitous solution. + +Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father. + +Not I, quoth my uncle. + +—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about? + +No more than my horse, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two +hands together——there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother +_Toby_——’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll +tell thee.—— + +To understand what time is aright, without which we never can +comprehend _infinity_, insomuch as one is a portion of the other——we +ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of +_duration_, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by +it.——What is that to any body? quoth my uncle _Toby_.[7] _For if you +will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind_, continued my father, _and +observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I +are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we +receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and +so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of +ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succession of any +ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing +co-existing with our thinking——and so according to that +preconceived_——You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle _Toby_. + +——’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of +time, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months——and of +clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out +their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us——that +’twill be well, if in time to come, the _succession of our ideas_ be of +any use or service to us at all. + +Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound +man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or +other, which follow each other in train just like——A train of +artillery? said my uncle _Toby_——A train of a fiddle-stick!—quoth my +father—which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain +distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned +round by the heat of a candle.—I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, mine +are more like a smoke-jack.——Then, brother _Toby_, I have nothing more +to say to you upon that subject, said my father. + + [7] Vide Locke. + +C H A P. XII + +——WHAT a conjuncture was here lost!——My father in one of his best +explanatory moods—in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the +very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have +encompassed it about;—my uncle _Toby_ in one of the finest dispositions +for it in the world;—his head like a smoke-jack;——the funnel unswept, +and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and +darkened over with fuliginous matter!—By the tomb-stone of _Lucian_——if +it is in being——if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear +_Rabelais_, and dearer _Cervantes!_——my father and my uncle _Toby_’s +discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY——was a discourse devoutly to be wished +for! and the petulancy of my father’s humour, in putting a stop to it +as he did, was a robbery of the _Ontologic Treasury_ of such a jewel, +as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to +restore to it again. + +C H A P. XIII + +THO’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse—yet he +could not get my uncle _Toby_’s smoke-jack out of his head—piqued as he +was at first with it;—there was something in the comparison at the +bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon +the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of +his hand——but looking first stedfastly in the fire——he began to commune +with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out +with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant +exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken +their turn in the discourse——the idea of the smoke jack soon turned all +his ideas upside down—so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what +he was about. + +As for my uncle _Toby_, his smoke-jack had not made a dozen +revolutions, before he fell asleep also.——Peace be with them both!——Dr. +_Slop_ is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs.——_Trim_ +is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars, +to be employed in the siege of _Messina_ next summer—and is this +instant boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker.——All my +heroes are off my hands;—’tis the first time I have had a moment to +spare—and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface. + +The A U T H O R ’s P R E F A C E + +NO, I’ll not say a word about it——here it is;—in publishing it—I have +appealed to the world——and to the world I leave it;—it must speak for +itself. + +All I know of the matter is—when I sat down, my intent was to write a +good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold +out—a wise, aye, and a discreet—taking care only, as I went along, to +put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the +great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give +me——so that, as your worships see—’tis just as God pleases. + +Now, _Agalastes_ (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be +some wit in it, for aught he knows——but no judgment at all. And +_Triptolemus_ and _Phutatorius_ agreeing thereto, ask, How is it +possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go +together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other +as wide as east from west——So, says _Locke_——so are farting and +hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, _Didius_ the great church +lawyer, in his code _de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis_, doth +maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no +argument——nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean to be a +syllogism;—but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for +it——so that the main good these things do is only to clarify the +understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in +order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular matter, +which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil +all. + +Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and +fellow-labourers (for to you I write this Preface)——and to you, most +subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do—pull off your beards) +renowned for gravity and wisdom;——_Monopolus_, my politician—_Didius_, +my counsel; _Kysarcius_, my friend;—_Phutatorius_, my +guide;——_Gastripheres_, the preserver of my life; _Somnolentius_, the +balm and repose of it——not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as +waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no +resentment to you, I lump all together.——Believe me, right worthy, + +My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own +too, in case the thing is not done already for us——is, that the great +gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with every thing which +usually goes along with them——such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, +quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without stint or +measure, let or hindrance, be poured down warm as each of us could bear +it—scum and sediment and all (for I would not have a drop lost) into +the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, +refectories, and spare places of our brains——in such sort, that they +might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according to the true +intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great +and small, be so replenish’d, saturated, and filled up therewith, that +no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be got either in or +out. + +Bless us!—what noble work we should make!——how should I tickle it +off!——and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for +such readers!——and you—just heaven!——with what raptures would you sit +and read—but oh!—’tis too much——I am sick——I faint away deliciously at +the thoughts of it—’tis more than nature can bear!—lay hold of me——I am +giddy—I am stone blind—I’m dying—I am gone.—Help! Help! Help!—But +hold—I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when +this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits—we +should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an end:——there would +be so much satire and sarcasm——scoffing and flouting, with raillying +and reparteeing of it—thrusting and parrying in one corner or +another——there would be nothing but mischief among us——Chaste stars! +what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should +make, what with breaking of heads, rapping of knuckles, and hitting of +sore places—there would be no such thing as living for us. + +But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we +should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we +should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or +devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy +and kindness, milk and honey—’twould be a second land of promise—a +paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had—so that upon +the whole we should have done well enough. + +All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at +present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships +well know, that of these heavenly emanations of _wit_ and _judgment_, +which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and +myself—there is but a certain _quantum_ stored up for us all, for the +use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of +’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and +there in one bye corner or another—and in such narrow streams, and at +such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it +holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so +many great estates, and populous empires. + +Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in _Nova Zembla, North +Lapland_, and in all those cold and dreary tracks of the globe, which +lie more directly under the arctick and antartick circles, where the +whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months +together within the narrow compass of his cave—where the spirits are +compressed almost to nothing—and where the passions of a man, with +every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone +itself—there the least quantity of _judgment_ imaginable does the +business——and of _wit_——there is a total and an absolute saving—for as +not one spark is wanted—so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers +of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have been to have +governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a +match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter +there, with so _plentiful a lack_ of wit and judgment about us! For +mercy’s sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as +we can southwards into _Norway_—crossing over _Swedeland_, if you +please, through the small triangular province of _Angermania_ to the +lake of _Bothmia_; coasting along it through east and west _Bothnia_, +down to _Carelia_, and so on, through all those states and provinces +which border upon the far side of the _Gulf_ of _Finland_, and the +north-east of the _Baltick_, up to _Petersbourg_, and just stepping +into _Ingria_;—then stretching over directly from thence through the +north parts of the _Russian_ empire—leaving _Siberia_ a little upon the +left hand, till we got into the very heart of _Russian_ and _Asiatick +Tartary._ + +Now through this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good +people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have +just left:—for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very +attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of +wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain houshold judgment, +which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very +good shift with——and had they more of either the one or the other, it +would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied +moreover they would want occasions to put them to use. + +Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more +luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and +humours runs high——where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, +and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and +subject to reason——the _height_ of our wit, and the _depth_ of our +judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the _length_ and +_breadth_ of our necessities——and accordingly we have them sent down +amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and creditable plenty, that +no one thinks he has any cause to complain. + +It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot +and cold—wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular +and settled way;—so that sometimes for near half a century together, +there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard +of amongst us:——the small channels of them shall seem quite dried +up——then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of +running again like fury——you would think they would never stop:——and +then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant +things, we drive all the world before us. + +It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that +kind of argumentative process, which _Suidas_ calls _dialectick +induction_——that I draw and set up this position as most true and +veritable; + +That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered +from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom +which dispenses every thing in exact weight and measure, knows will +just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so +that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment +longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in +your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first +insinuating _How d’ye_ of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as +a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could +this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium +wished it—I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted +travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and +blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives——running their +heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting +to their journies end;——some falling with their noses perpendicularly +into sinks——others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one +half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of +it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like +hogs.—Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in +opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild +geese, all in a row the same way.—What confusion!—what +mistakes!——fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and +ears—admirable!—trusting to the passions excited—in an air sung, or a +story painted to the heart——instead of measuring them by a quadrant. + +In the fore-ground of this picture, a _statesman_ turning the political +wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round——_against_ the stream of +corruption—by Heaven!——instead of _with_ it. + +In this corner, a son of the divine _Esculapius_, writing a book +against predestination; perhaps worse—feeling his patient’s pulse, +instead of his apothecary’s——a brother of the Faculty in the +back-ground upon his knees in tears—drawing the curtains of a mangled +victim to beg his forgiveness;—offering a fee—instead of taking one. + +In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of +it, driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all +their might and main, the wrong way!——kicking it _out_ of the great +doors, instead of, _in_——and with such fury in their looks, and such a +degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had +been originally made for the peace and preservation of +mankind:——perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still——a +litigated point fairly hung up;——for instance, Whether _John o’Nokes_ +his nose could stand in _Tom o’Stiles_ his face, without a trespass, or +not—rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with +the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might +have taken up as many months——and if carried on upon a military plan, +as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems +practicable therein,——such as feints,—forced +marches,—surprizes—ambuscades—mask-batteries, and a thousand other +strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on +both sides——might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding +food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession. + +As for the Clergy——No——if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.——I +have no desire; and besides, if I had—I durst not for my soul touch +upon the subject——with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the +condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth, +to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account—and +therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as +fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to +clear up——and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least +_wit_ are reported to be men of most _judgment._——But mark—I say, +_reported to be_—for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and +which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to +be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain. + +This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope +already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall +forthwith make appear. + +I hate set dissertations——and above all things in the world, ’tis one +of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by +placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right +line, betwixt your own and your reader’s conception—when in all +likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something +standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at +once—“for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of +knowledge bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, +a winter-mittain, a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s +crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair?”—I am this +moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustrate this +affair of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top of the back of +it?—they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into +two gimlet-holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a +light, as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole +preface, as plainly as if every point and particle of it was made up of +sun-beams. + +I enter now directly upon the point. + +—Here stands _wit_—and there stands _judgment_, close beside it, just +like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same +chair on which I am sitting. + +—You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its +_frame_—as wit and judgment are of _ours_—and like them too, +indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in +all such cases of duplicated embellishments——_to answer one another._ + +Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating +this matter—let us for a moment take off one of these two curious +ornaments (I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it +now stands on—nay, don’t laugh at it,—but did you ever see, in the +whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made +of it?—Why, ’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there +is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the +other:——do——pray, get off your seats only to take a view of it,——Now +would any man who valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of +work out of his hand in such a condition?——nay, lay your hands upon +your hearts, and answer this plain question, Whether this one single +knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any +purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the +other?—and let me farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you +would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it +would be ten times better without any knob at all? + +Now these two knobs——or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown +the whole entablature——being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all +others, as I have proved it, are the most needful——the most priz’d—the +most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest to come +at—for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal among us, +so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding——or so ignorant of what +will do him good therein—who does not wish and stedfastly resolve in +his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of the one or +the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems any way +feasible, or likely to be brought to pass. + +Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at +the one—unless they laid hold of the other,——pray what do you think +would become of them?——Why, Sirs, in spite of all their _gravities_, +they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides +naked——this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to +be supposed in the case we are upon——so that no one could well have +been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they +could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great +perriwigs, had they not raised a _hue_ and _cry_ at the same time +against the lawful owners. + +I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning +and artifice——that the great _Locke_, who was seldom outwitted by false +sounds——was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep +and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces, +and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one against +the _poor wits_ in this matter, that the philosopher himself was +deceived by it—it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a +thousand vulgar errors;——but this was not of the number; so that +instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done, +to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it—on +the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the +cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest. + +This has been made the _Magna Charta_ of stupidity ever since——but your +reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that the +title to it is not worth a groat:——which by-the-bye is one of the many +and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer for +hereafter. + +As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind +too freely——I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said +to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration —That I +have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great +wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and +let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture—for any +purpose——peace be with them!— =>mark only——I write not for them. + +C H A P. XIV + +EVERY day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have +it mended—’tis not mended yet;—no family but ours would have borne with +it an hour——and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in +the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of +door-hinges.——And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the +greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his +rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs.—Never did the +parlour-door open—but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to +it;——three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer, +had saved his honour for ever. + +——Inconsistent soul that man is!——languishing under wounds, which he +has the power to heal!—his whole life a contradiction to his +knowledge!—his reason, that precious gift of God to him—(instead of +pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities—to multiply +his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them!—Poor +unhappy creature, that he should do so!——Are not the necessary causes +of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his +stock of sorrow;—struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and +submit to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him +would remove from his heart for ever? + +By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be +got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of _Shandy Hall_——the +parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign. + +C H A P. XV + +WHEN Corporal _Trim_ had brought his two mortars to bear, he was +delighted with his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a +pleasure it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to +resist the desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour. + +Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of +_hinges_, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it +is this. + +Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door +should do— + +Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its +hinges——(that is, in case things have all along gone well with your +worship,—otherwise I give up my simile)—in this case, I say, there had +been no danger either to master or man, in corporal _Trim_’s peeping +in: the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle _Toby_ fast +asleep—the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have +retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs, +dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally +speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this +hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly +grievances my father submitted to upon its account—this was one; that +he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts +of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the +door, was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly +stepp’d in betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to +rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets of it. + +“_When things move upon bad hinges_, an’ please your lordships, _how +can it be otherwise?”_ + +Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the +moment the door began to creak.——I wish the smith would give a peep at +that confounded hinge.——’Tis nothing, an please your honour, said +_Trim_, but two mortars I am bringing in.—They shan’t make a clatter +with them here, cried my father hastily.—If Dr. _Slop_ has any drugs to +pound, let him do it in the kitchen.—May it please your honour, cried +_Trim_, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which I +have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which _Obadiah_ told me +your honour had left off wearing.—By Heaven! cried my father, springing +out of his chair, as he swore——I have not one appointment belonging to +me, which I set so much store by as I do by these jack-boots——they were +our great grandfather’s brother _Toby_—they were _hereditary._ Then I +fear, quoth my uncle _Toby, Trim_ has cut off the entail.—I have only +cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried _Trim_——I hate +perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father——but these +jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time) +have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil wars;——Sir +_Roger Shandy_ wore them at the battle of _Marston-Moor._—I declare I +would not have taken ten pounds for them.——I’ll pay you the money, +brother _Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking at the two mortars +with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches pocket +as he viewed them——I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment with all my +heart and soul.—— + +Brother _Toby_, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what +money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but +upon a SIEGE.——Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides +my half pay? cried my uncle _Toby_.—What is that—replied my father +hastily—to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots?—twelve guineas for your +_pontoons_?—half as much for your _Dutch_ draw-bridge?—to say nothing +of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last week, with +twenty other preparations for the siege of _Messina_: believe me, dear +brother _Toby_, continued my father, taking him kindly by the +hand—these military operations of yours are above your strength;—you +mean well brother——but they carry you into greater expences than you +were first aware of;—and take my word, dear _Toby_, they will in the +end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you.—What signifies +it if they do, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, so long as we know +’tis for the good of the nation?—— + +My father could not help smiling for his soul—his anger at the worst +was never more than a spark;—and the zeal and simplicity of _Trim_—and +the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle _Toby_, +brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant. + +Generous souls!—God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth +my father to himself. + +C H A P. XVI + +ALL is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs—I hear +not one foot stirring.—Prithee _Trim_, who’s in the kitchen? There is +no one soul in the kitchen, answered _Trim_, making a low bow as he +spoke, except Dr. _Slop_.—Confusion! cried my father (getting upon his +legs a second time)—not one single thing has gone right this day! had I +faith in astrology, brother, (which, by the bye, my father had) I would +have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate +house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its +place.——Why, I thought Dr. _Slop_ had been above stairs with my wife, +and so said you.——What can the fellow be puzzling about in the +kitchen!—He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied _Trim_, in making +a bridge.——’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle _Toby_:——pray, +give my humble service to Dr. _Slop, Trim_, and tell him I thank him +heartily. + +You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge—as widely as my +father mistook the mortars:——but to understand how my uncle _Toby_ +could mistake the bridge—I fear I must give you an exact account of the +road which led to it;—or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more +dishonest in an historian than the use of one)——in order to conceive +the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must give +you some account of an adventure of _Trim_’s, though much against my +will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense, +is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in, +either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby_’s amours with widow +_Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor—or else in the +middle of his and my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns on the bowling-green—for +it will do very well in either place;—but then if I reserve it for +either of those parts of my story——I ruin the story I’m upon;——and if I +tell it here——I anticipate matters, and ruin it there. + +—What would your worship have me to do in this case? + +—Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means.—You are a fool, _Tristram_, if +you do. + +O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)—which enable +mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing——that kindly shew him, +where he is to begin it—and where he is to end it——what he is to put +into it——and what he is to leave out—how much of it he is to cast into +a shade—and whereabouts he is to throw his light!—Ye, who preside over +this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes +and plunges your subjects hourly fall into;——will you do one thing? + +I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that +wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three +several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here——that at +least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, +to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take. + +C H A P. XVII + +THO’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition +of _Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a +resolution never more to think of the sex—or of aught which belonged to +it;—yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed +in my uncle _Toby_’s case there was a strange and unaccountable +concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay +siege to that fair and strong citadel.——In _Trim_’s case there was a +concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the +kitchen;—though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master +was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had +my uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points——I am +persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and +followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat +down before the mistress—corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground +before the maid. + +Now, my dear friend _Garrick_, whom I have so much cause to esteem and +honour—(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)—can it escape your +penetration—I defy it—that so many play-wrights, and opificers of +chit-chat have ever since been working upon _Trim_’s and my uncle +_Toby_’s pattern.——I care not what _Aristotle_, or _Pacuvius_, or +_Bossu_, or _Ricaboni_ say—(though I never read one of them)——there is +not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam +_Pompadour_’s _vis-a-vis;_ than betwixt a single amour, and an amour +thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a +grand drama——Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind—is quite +lost in five acts—but that is neither here nor there. + +After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my +uncle _Toby_’s quarter, a most minute account of every particular of +which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle _Toby_, honest man! +found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat +indignantly. + +Corporal _Trim_, as I said, had made no such bargain either with +himself——or with any one else——the fidelity however of his heart not +suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with +disgust——he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a +blockade;—that is, he kept others off;—for though he never after went +to the house, yet he never met _Bridget_ in the village, but he would +either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her—or (as +circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand—or ask her +lovingly how she did—or would give her a ribbon—and now-and-then, +though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give +_Bridget_ a— + +Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; +that is from the demolition of _Dunkirk_ in the year 13, to the latter +end of my uncle _Toby_’s campaign in the year 18, which was about six +or seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of.——When _Trim_, as his +custom was, after he had put my uncle _Toby_ to bed, going down one +moon-shiny night to see that every thing was right at his +fortifications——in the lane separated from the bowling-green with +flowering shrubs and holly—he espied his _Bridget._ + +As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth +shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle _Toby_ had made, +_Trim_ courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: +this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of +Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s, +with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle _Toby_’s +curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the _Dutch_ fashion, +and which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and somehow or +other crushed all to pieces that very night. + +My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle +_Toby_’s hobby-horse; he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever +gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle _Toby_ vexed him about +it, could never think of it once, without smiling at it——so that it +could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my +father’s imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much +more to his humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an +inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him——Well——but dear _Toby!_ my +father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge +happened.——How can you teaze me so much about it? my uncle _Toby_ would +reply—I have told it you twenty times, word for word as _Trim_ told it +me.—Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, turning to +_Trim._—It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour;——I was +shewing Mrs. _Bridget_ our fortifications, and in going too near the +edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in——Very well, _Trim!_ my +father would cry——(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod—but without +interrupting him)——and being link’d fast, an’ please your honour, arm +in arm with Mrs. _Bridget_, I dragg’d her after me, by means of which +she fell backwards soss against the bridge——and _Trim_’s foot (my uncle +_Toby_ would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the +cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.—It was a thousand to +one, my uncle _Toby_ would add, that the poor fellow did not break his +leg.——Ay truly, my father would say——a limb is soon broke, brother +_Toby_, in such encounters.——And so, an’ please your honour, the +bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down +betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces. + +At other times, but especially when my uncle _Toby_ was so unfortunate +as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards—my father would +exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) +in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients—the VINEA which +_Alexander_ made use of at the siege of Troy.—He would tell my uncle +_Toby_ of the CATAPULTÆ of the _Syrians_, which threw such monstrous +stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from +their very foundation:—he would go on and describe the wonderful +mechanism of the BALLISTA which _Marcellinus_ makes so much rout +about!—the terrible effects of the PYRABOLI, which cast fire;—the +danger of the TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins.——But what are +these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal +_Trim_?—Believe me, brother _Toby_, no bridge, or bastion, or +sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out +against such artillery. + +My uncle _Toby_ would never attempt any defence against the force of +this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his +pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after +supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a +suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle _Toby_ leap’d up without +feeling the pain upon his groin—and, with infinite pity, stood beside +his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his +head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean +cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket.——The +affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle _Toby_ did these +little offices—cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just +been giving him.——May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram or +a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself—if ever I +insult this worthy soul more! + +C H A P. XVIII + +THE draw-bridge being held irreparable, _Trim_ was ordered directly to +set about another——but not upon the same model: for cardinal +_Alberoni_’s intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle +_Toby_ rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out +betwixt _Spain_ and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing +campaign must in all likelihood be either in _Naples_ or _Sicily_——he +determined upon an _Italian_ bridge—(my uncle _Toby_, by-the-bye, was +not far out of his conjectures)——but my father, who was infinitely the +better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle _Toby_ in the +cabinet, as my uncle _Toby_ took it of him in the field——convinced him, +that if the king of _Spain_ and the Emperor went together by the ears, +_England_ and _France_ and _Holland_ must, by force of their +pre-engagements, all enter the lists too;——and if so, he would say, the +combatants, brother _Toby_, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it +again, pell-mell, upon the old prize-fighting stage of _Flanders;_—then +what will you do with your _Italian_ bridge? + +—We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle _Toby_. + +When corporal _Trim_ had about half finished it in that style——my uncle +_Toby_ found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly +considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it, +opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the +fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was this, +that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it +impowered my uncle _Toby_ to raise it up or let it down with the end of +his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as +much as he could well spare—but the disadvantages of such a +construction were insurmountable;——for by this means, he would say, I +leave one half of my bridge in my enemy’s possession——and pray of what +use is the other? + +The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only +at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together, +and stand bolt upright——but that was rejected for the reason given +above. + +For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of +that particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, +to hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage—of +which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at _Spires_ +before its destruction—and one now at _Brisac_, if I mistake not;—but +my father advising my uncle _Toby_, with great earnestness, to have +nothing more to do with thrusting bridges—and my uncle foreseeing +moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal’s +misfortune—he changed his mind for that of the marquis _d’Hôpital_ ’s +invention, which the younger _Bernouilli_ has so well and learnedly +described, as your worships may see——_Act. Erud. Lips._ an. 1695—to +these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a +couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve +line approximating to a cycloid——if not a cycloid itself. + +My uncle _Toby_ understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man +in _England_—but was not quite such a master of the cycloid;——he talked +however about it every day——the bridge went not forwards.——We’ll ask +somebody about it, cried my uncle _Toby_ to _Trim._ + +C H A P. XIX + +WHEN _Trim_ came in and told my father, that Dr. _Slop_ was in the +kitchen, and busy in making a bridge—my uncle _Toby_——the affair of the +jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his +brain——took it instantly for granted that Dr. _Slop_ was making a model +of the marquis _d’Hôpital_ ’s bridge.——’tis very obliging in him, quoth +my uncle _Toby_;—pray give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_, and +tell him I thank him heartily. + +Had my uncle _Toby_’s head been a _Savoyard_ ’s box, and my father +peeping in all the time at one end of it——it could not have given him a +more distinct conception of the operations of my uncle _Toby_’s +imagination, than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and +battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just +beginning to triumph—— + +When _Trim_’s answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, +and twisted it to pieces. + +C H A P. XX + +——THIS unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father——God bless +your honour, cried _Trim_, ’tis a bridge for master’s nose.——In +bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed +his nose, _Susannah_ says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is +making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of +whalebone out of _Susannah_ ’s stays, to raise it up. + +——Lead me, brother _Toby_, cried my father, to my room this instant. + +C H A P. XXI + +FROM the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of +the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly +been gathering over my father.——A tide of little evils and distresses +has been setting in against him.—Not one thing, as he observed himself, +has gone right: and now is the storm thicken’d and going to break, and +pour down full upon his head. + +I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy +frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with.——My nerves +relax as I tell it.——Every line I write, I feel an abatement of the +quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, which +every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things I +should not——And this moment that I last dipp’d my pen into my ink, I +could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and +solemnity there appear’d in my manner of doing it.——Lord! how different +from the rash jerks and hair-brain’d squirts thou art wont, _Tristram_, +to transact it with in other humours—dropping thy pen——spurting thy ink +about thy table and thy books—as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and +furniture cost thee nothing! + +C H A P. XXII + +——I WON’T go about to argue the point with you—’tis so——and I am +persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman +bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a +horizontal position.” + +The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself +prostrate across his bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the +same time in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with +sorrows, that ever the eye of pity dropp’d a tear for.——The palm of his +right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and +covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his +head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the +quilt;——his left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his +knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out +beyond the valance—his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his +body) hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon +his shin bone—He felt it not. A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took +possession of every line of his face.—He sigh’d once——heaved his breast +often—but uttered not a word. + +An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with party +coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the side +where my father’s head reclined.—My uncle _Toby_ sat him down in it. + +Before an affliction is digested—consolation ever comes too soon;—and +after it is digested—it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there +is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a +comforter to take aim at:—my uncle _Toby_ was always either on this +side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart +he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down +in the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear +at every one’s service——he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief——gave a +low sigh——but held his peace. + +C H A P. XXIII + +——“_ALL is not gain that is got into the purse._”—So that +notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books +in the universe, and had moreover, in himself, the oddest way of +thinking that ever man in it was bless’d with, yet it had this drawback +upon him after all——that it laid him open to some of the oddest and +most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk +under at present, is as strong an example as can be given. + +No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child’s nose, by the +edge of a pair of forceps—however scientifically applied—would vex any +man in the world, who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as my +father was—yet it will not account for the extravagance of his +affliction, nor will it justify the un-christian manner he abandoned +and surrendered himself up to. + +To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour—and my +uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair sitting beside him. + +C H A P. XXIV + +——I THINK it a very unreasonable demand—cried my great-grandfather, +twisting up the paper, and throwing it upon the table.——By this +account, madam, you have but two thousand pounds fortune, and not a +shilling more—and you insist upon having three hundred pounds a year +jointure for it.— + +—“Because,” replied my great-grandmother, “you have little or no nose, +Sir.”— + +Now before I venture to make use of the word _Nose_ a second time—to +avoid all confusion in what will be said upon it, in this interesting +part of my story, it may not be amiss to explain my own meaning, and +define, with all possible exactness and precision, what I would +willingly be understood to mean by the term: being of opinion, that +’tis owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising +this precaution, and to nothing else——that all the polemical writings +in divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon _a Will o’ +the Wisp_, or any other sound part of philosophy, and natural pursuit; +in order to which, what have you to do, before you set out, unless you +intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment——but to give the world +a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most +occasion for——changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small +coin?—which done—let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can; or +put a different idea either into your head, or your reader’s head, if +he knows how. + +In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as I am engaged +in—the neglect is inexcusable; and Heaven is witness, how the world has +revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings to equivocal +strictures—and for depending so much as I have done, all along, upon +the cleanliness of my readers imaginations. + +——Here are two senses, cried _Eugenius_, as we walk’d along, pointing +with the fore finger of his right hand to the word _Crevice_, in the +one hundred and seventy-eighth page of the first volume of this book of +books,——here are two senses—quoth he.—And here are two roads, replied +I, turning short upon him——a dirty and a clean one——which shall we +take?—The clean, by all means, replied _Eugenius. Eugenius_, said I, +stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his breast——to define—is +to distrust.——Thus I triumph’d over _Eugenius;_ but I triumph’d over +him as I always do, like a fool.——’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an +obstinate one: therefore + +I define a nose as follows—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching +my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and +condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard +against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by +no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put +into my definition—For by the word _Nose_, throughout all this long +chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word +_Nose_ occurs—I declare, by that word I mean a nose, and nothing more, +or less. + +C H A P. XXV + +——“BECAUSE,” quoth my great grandmother, repeating the words again—“you +have little or no nose, Sir.”—— + +S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his +nose,—’tis not so small as that comes to;——’tis a full inch longer than +my father’s.—Now, my great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world +like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom +_Pantagruel_ found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN.——By the way, if +you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so flat-nosed a +people——you must read the book;——find it out yourself, you never can.—— + +—’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs. + +—’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of +his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion——’tis a +full inch longer, madam, than my father’s——You must mean your uncle’s, +replied my great-grandmother. + +——My great-grandfather was convinced.—He untwisted the paper, and +signed the article. + +C H A P. XXVI + +——WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small +estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather. + +My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving +the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand. + +—Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather +twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and +fifty pounds half-yearly—(on _Michaelmas_ and _Lady-day_,)—during all +that time. + +No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my +father.——And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon +the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest +welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to +fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he +generally gave a loud _Hem!_ rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with +the flat part of his fore finger——inserted his hand cautiously betwixt +his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea +as he parted with it——and seldom could get to the end of the fifty +pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples. + +Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no +allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down +in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the +force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from +ancestors! + +For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had +gradually been taking root in our family.——TRADITION was all along on +its side, and INTEREST was every half-year stepping in to strengthen +it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having +the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange +notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this in +with his mother’s milk. He did his part however.——If education planted +the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it +to perfection. + +He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that +he did not conceive how the greatest family in _England_ could stand it +out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short +noses.—And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it +must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same +number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line, +did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the +kingdom.——He would often boast that the _Shandy_ family rank’d very +high in king _Harry_ the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state +engine—he would say—but to that only;——but that, like other families, +he would add——it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never +recovered the blow of my great-grandfather’s nose.——It was an ace of +clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head—and as vile a one for an +unfortunate family as ever turn’d up trumps. + +——Fair and softly, gentle reader!——where is thy fancy carrying +thee!——If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather’s nose, I mean +the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands +prominent in his face——and which painters say, in good jolly noses and +well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third——that is, +measured downwards from the setting on of the hair. + +——What a life of it has an author, at this pass! + +C H A P. XXVII + +IT is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with +the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is +observed in old dogs—“of not learning new tricks.” + +What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever +existed be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe +such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him +change sides! + +Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this—He pick’d up +an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple.—It +becomes his own—and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life +rather than give it up. + +I am aware that _Didius_, the great civilian, will contest this point; +and cry out against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple? +_ex confesso_, he will say—things were in a state of nature—The apple, +is as much _Frank_’s apple as _John_’s. Pray, Mr. _Shandy_, what patent +has he to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it, when he +set his heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he chew’d it? or +when he roasted it? or when he peel’d, or when he brought it home? or +when he digested?——or when he——?——For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first +picking up of the apple, made it not his—that no subsequent act could. + +Brother _Didius_, _Tribonius_ will answer—(now _Tribonius_ the civilian +and church lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three +eighths longer than _Didius_ his beard—I’m glad he takes up the cudgels +for me, so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer.)—Brother +_Didius, Tribonius_ will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it +in the fragments of _Gregorius_ and _Hermogines_’s codes, and in all +the codes from _Justinian_’s down to the codes of _Louis_ and _Des +Eaux_—That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations of a man’s +brains, are as much a man’s own property as the breeches upon his +backside;—which said exsudations, &c. being dropp’d upon the said apple +by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover +indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annex’d, by the picker up, to +the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d, eaten, digested, +and so on;——’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing, +has mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not +his own, by which means he has acquired a property;—or, in other words, +the apple is _John_’s apple. + +By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his +opinions; he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they +lay out of the common way, the better still was his title.——No mortal +claimed them; they had cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and +digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truly be +said to be of his own goods and chattels.—Accordingly he held fast by +’em, both by teeth and claws—would fly to whatever he could lay his +hands on—and, in a word, would intrench and fortify them round with as +many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle _Toby_ would a +citadel. + +There was one plaguy rub in the way of this——the scarcity of materials +to make any thing of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; +inasmuch as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in +writing books upon the subject of great noses: by the trotting of my +lean horse, the thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my +understanding, when I am considering what a treasure of precious time +and talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects—and how many +millions of books in all languages and in all possible types and +bindings, have been fabricated upon points not half so much tending to +the unity and peace-making of the world. What was to be had, however, +he set the greater store by; and though my father would oft-times sport +with my uncle _Toby_’s library—which, by-the-bye, was ridiculous +enough—yet at the very same time he did it, he collected every book and +treatise which had been systematically wrote upon noses, with as much +care as my honest uncle _Toby_ had done those upon military +architecture.——’Tis true, a much less table would have held them—but +that was not thy transgression, my dear uncle.—— + +Here——but why here——rather than in any other part of my story——I am not +able to tell:——but here it is——my heart stops me to pay to thee, my +dear uncle _Toby_, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness.—Here +let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the ground, whilst I +am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for thee, and veneration +for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and nature +kindled in a nephew’s bosom.——Peace and comfort rest for evermore upon +thy head!—Thou enviedst no man’s comforts——insultedst no man’s +opinions——Thou blackenedst no man’s character—devouredst no man’s +bread: gently, with faithful _Trim_ behind thee, didst thou amble round +the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy +way:—for each one’s sorrows, thou hadst a tear,—for each man’s need, +thou hadst a shilling. + +Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder—thy path from thy door to thy +bowling-green shall never be grown up.——Whilst there is a rood and a +half of land in the _Shandy_ family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle +_Toby_, shall never be demolish’d. + +C H A P. XXVIII + +MY father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was +curious; and consequently he was some time in making it; he had the +great good fortune hewever, to set off well, in getting +_Bruscambille_’s prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing—for he +gave no more for _Bruscambille_ than three half-crowns; owing indeed to +the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the +moment he laid his hands upon it.——There are not three _Bruscambilles_ +in _Christendom_—said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the +libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as +lightning——took _Bruscambille_ into his bosom——hied home from +_Piccadilly_ to _Coleman_-street with it, as he would have hied home +with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from _Bruscambille_ +all the way. + +To those who do not yet know of which gender _Bruscambille_ +is——inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by +either——’twill be no objection against the simile—to say, That when my +father got home, he solaced himself with _Bruscambille_ after the +manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with +your first mistress——that is, from morning even unto night: which, +by-the-bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato—is of +little or no entertainment at all to by-standers.——Take notice, I go no +farther with the simile—my father’s eye was greater than his +appetite—his zeal greater than his knowledge—he cool’d—his affections +became divided——he got hold of _Prignitz_—purchased _Scroderus, Andrea +Paraeus, Bouchet_’s Evening Conferences, and above all, the great and +learned _Hafen Slawkenbergius_; of which, as I shall have much to say +by-and-bye—I will say nothing now. + +C H A P. XXIX + +OF all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in +support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more +cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between +_Pamphagus_ and _Cocles_, written by the chaste pen of the great and +venerable _Erasmus_, upon the various uses and seasonable applications +of long noses.——Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, +take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your +imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to +slip on—let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, _to frisk it, to +squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it—and to kick it, with +long kicks and short kicks_, till like _Tickletoby_’s mare, you break a +strap or a crupper, and throw his worship into the dirt.—You need not +kill him.— + +—And pray who was _Tickletoby_’s mare?—’tis just as discreditable and +unscholar-like a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (_ab. urb. +con._) the second Punic war broke out.—Who was _Tickletoby_’s +mare!—Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read—or by the +knowledge of the great saint _Paraleipomenon_—I tell you before-hand, +you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, +by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more +be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem +of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to +unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie +mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one. + + +Marble image + + +Marble image + +C H A P. XXX + +“_NIHIL me paenitet hujus nasi_,” quoth _Pamphagus_;——that is—“My nose +has been the making of me.”——“_Nec est cur poeniteat_,” replies +_Cocles_; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?” + +The doctrine, you see, was laid down by _Erasmus_, as my father wished +it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in +finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; +without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of +argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to +investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.——My father pish’d +and pugh’d at first most terribly——’tis worth something to have a good +name. As the dialogue was of _Erasmus_, my father soon came to himself, +and read it over and over again with great application, studying every +word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and +literal interpretation—he could still make nothing of it, that way. +Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my +father.——Learned men, brother _Toby_, don’t write dialogues upon long +noses for nothing.——I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick +sense——here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother. + +My father read on.—— + +Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that +besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by _Erasmus_, +the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic +conveniences also; for that in a case of distress—and for want of a +pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to +stir up the fire.) + +Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and +had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had +done the seeds of all other knowledge——so that he had got out his +penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he +could not scratch some better sense into it.——I’ve got within a single +letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic +meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all +conscience.——Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on——I might as well be +seven miles off.—I’ve done it—said my father, snapping his fingers—See, +my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense.——But you have +marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_.—My father put on his +spectacles——bit his lip——and tore out the leaf in a passion. + +C H A P. XXXI + +O _SLAWKENBERGIUS!_ thou faithful analyzer of my _Disgrazias_—thou sad +foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which on one stage +or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my +nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.—Tell me, +_Slawkenbergius!_ what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? +whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?——art thou sure thou +heard’st it?——which first cried out to thee——go——go, _Slawkenbergius!_ +dedicate the labours of thy life—neglect thy pastimes——call forth all +the powers and faculties of thy nature——macerate thyself in the service +of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject of their +noses. + +How the communication was conveyed into _Slawkenbergius_’s +sensorium——so that _Slawkenbergius_ should know whose finger touch’d +the key—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows—as _Hafen +Slawkenbergius_ has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and +ten years——we can only raise conjectures. + +_Slawkenbergius_ was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of +_Whitefield_’s disciples——that is, with such a distinct intelligence, +Sir, of which of the two masters it was that had been practising upon +his _instrument_——as to make all reasoning upon it needless. + +——For in the account which _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ gives the world of +his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of +his life upon this one work—towards the end of his prolegomena, which +by-the-bye should have come first——but the bookbinder has most +injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book, +and the book itself—he informs his reader, that ever since he had +arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down cooly, and +consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and +distinguish the main end and design of his being;——or—to shorten my +translation, for _Slawkenbergius_’s book is in _Latin_, and not a +little prolix in this passage—ever since I understood, quoth +_Slawkenbergius_, any thing—or rather _what was what_——and could +perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by +all who had gone before;——have I _Slawkenbergius_, felt a strong +impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird up +myself to this undertaking. + +And to do justice to _Slawkenbergius_, he has entered the list with a +stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man +who had ever entered it before him——and indeed, in many respects, +deserves to be _en-nich’d_ as a prototype for all writers, of +voluminous works at least, to model their books by——for he has taken +in, Sir, the whole subject—examined every part of it +_dialectically_——then brought it into full day; dilucidating it with +all the light which either the collision of his own natural parts could +strike—or the profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him +to cast upon it—collating, collecting, and compiling——begging, +borrowing, and stealing, as he went along, all that had been wrote or +wrangled thereupon in the schools and porticos of the learned: so that +_Slawkenbergius_ his book may properly be considered, not only as a +model—but as a thorough-stitched DIGEST and regular institute of +_noses_, comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known +about them. + +For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise) +valuable books and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either, +plump upon noses——or collaterally touching them;——such for instance as +_Prignitz_, now lying upon the table before me, who with infinite +learning, and from the most candid and scholar-like examination of +above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty +charnel-houses in _Silesia_, which he had rummaged——has informed us, +that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of +human noses, in any _given_ tract of country, except _Crim Tartary_, +where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can +be formed upon them—are much nearer alike, than the world imagines;—the +difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking +notice of;——but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and +by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is +owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts +and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by +the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it +(bating the case of idiots, whom _Prignitz_, who had lived many years +in _Turky_, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)—it so +happens, and ever must, says _Prignitz_, that the excellency of the +nose is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the +wearer’s fancy. + +It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in +_Slawkenbergius_, that I say nothing likewise of _Scroderus (Andrea)_ +who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn _Prignitz_ with great +violence—proving it in his own way, first _logically_, and then by a +series of stubborn facts, “That so far was _Prignitz_ from the truth, +in affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary—the +nose begat the fancy.” + +—The learned suspected _Scroderus_ of an indecent sophism in this—and +_Prignitz_ cried out aloud in the dispute, that _Scroderus_ had shifted +the idea upon him——but _Scroderus_ went on, maintaining his thesis. + +My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he +should take in this affair; when _Ambrose Paræus_ decided it in a +moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of _Prignitz_ and +_Scroderus_, drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at +once. + +Be witness—— + +I don’t acquaint the learned reader—in saying it, I mention it only to +shew the learned, I know the fact myself—— + +That this _Ambrose Paræus_ was chief surgeon and nose-mender to +_Francis_ the ninth of _France_, and in high credit with him and the +two preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)—and that, except +in the slip he made in his story of _Taliacotius_’s noses, and his +manner of setting them on—he was esteemed by the whole college of +physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any +one who had ever taken them in hand. + +Now _Ambrose Paræus_ convinced my father, that the true and efficient +cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon +which _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_ had wasted so much learning and fine +parts——was neither this nor that——but that the length and goodness of +the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse’s +breast——as the flatness and shortness of _puisne_ noses was to the +firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the +hale and lively—which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of the +child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated, +and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive _ad mensuram suam +legitimam_;——but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the +nurse or mother’s breast—by sinking into it, quoth _Paraeus_, as into +so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up, +refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing for ever. + +I have but two things to observe of _Paraeus_; first, That he proves +and explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of +expression:—for which may his soul for ever rest in peace! + +And, secondly, that besides the systems of _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_, +which _Ambrose Paræus_ his hypothesis effectually overthrew—it +overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our +family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between +my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and every +thing in it, except my uncle _Toby_, quite upside down. + +Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never +surely in any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a +street-door. + +My mother, you must know———but I have fifty things more necessary to +let you know first—I have a hundred difficulties which I have promised +to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick misadventures +crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck of another. +A cow broke in (tomorrow morning) to my uncle _Toby_’s fortifications, +and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up the sods +with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.——_Trim_ insists +upon being tried by a court-martial—the cow to be shot—_Slop_ to be +_crucifix’d_—myself to be _tristram’d_ and at my very baptism made a +martyr of;——poor unhappy devils that we all are!——I want swaddling——but +there is no time to be lost in exclamations——I have left my father +lying across his bed, and my uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair, +sitting beside him, and promised I would go back to them in half an +hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are laps’d already.——Of all the +perplexities a mortal author was ever seen in—this certainly is the +greatest, for I have _Hafen Slawkenbergius_’s folio, Sir, to finish——a +dialogue between my father and my uncle _Toby_, upon the solution of +_Prignitz, Scroderus, Ambrose Paræus, Panocrates_, and _Grangousier_ to +relate—a tale out of _Slawkenbergius_ to translate, and all this in +five minutes less than no time at all;——such a head!—would to Heaven my +enemies only saw the inside of it! + +C H A P. XXXII + +THERE was not any one scene more entertaining in our family—and to do +it justice in this point;——and I here put off my cap and lay it upon +the table close beside my ink-horn, on purpose to make my declaration +to the world concerning this one article the more solemn——that I +believe in my soul (unless my love and partiality to my understanding +blinds me) the hand of the supreme Maker and first Designer of all +things never made or put a family together (in that period at least of +it which I have sat down to write the story of)——where the characters +of it were cast or contrasted with so dramatick a felicity as ours was, +for this end; or in which the capacities of affording such exquisite +scenes, and the powers of shifting them perpetually from morning to +night, were lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a confidence, as in +the SHANDY FAMILY. + +Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical +theatre of ours——than what frequently arose out of this self-same +chapter of long noses——especially when my father’s imagination was +heated with the enquiry, and nothing would serve him but to heat my +uncle _Toby_’s too. + +My uncle _Toby_ would give my father all possible fair play in this +attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoking his pipe for +whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, +and trying every accessible avenue to drive _Prignitz_ and +_Scroderus_’s solutions into it. + +Whether they were above my uncle _Toby_’s reason——or contrary to it——or +that his brain was like _damp_ timber, and no spark could possibly take +hold——or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such +military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into _Prignitz_ and +_Scroderus_’s doctrines——I say not—let schoolmen—scullions, anatomists, +and engineers, fight for it among themselves—— + +’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father +had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle _Toby_, +and render out of _Slawkenbergius_’s _Latin_, of which, as he was no +great master, his translation was not always of the purest——and +generally least so where ’twas most wanted.—This naturally open’d a +door to a second misfortune;——that in the warmer paroxysms of his zeal +to open my uncle _Toby_’s eyes——my father’s ideas ran on as much faster +than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle +_Toby_’s——neither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of +my father’s lecture. + +C H A P. XXXIII + +THE gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms——I mean in man—for in +superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits——’tis all done, +may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION;—and beings +inferior, as your worships all know——syllogize by their noses: though +there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its +ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so +wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and +oft-times to make very well out too:——but that’s neither here nor +there—— + +The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or—the great and +principal act of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the +finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with +another, by the intervention of a third (called the _medius terminus_); +just as a man, as _Locke_ well observes, by a yard, finds two mens +nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought +together, to measure their equality, by _juxta-position._ + +Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his +systems of noses, and observed my uncle _Toby_’s deportment—what great +attention he gave to every word—and as oft as he took his pipe from his +mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of +it——surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his +thumb——then fore-right——then this way, and then that, in all its +possible directions and fore-shortenings——he would have concluded my +uncle _Toby_ had got hold of the _medius terminus_, and was syllogizing +and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in +order, as my father laid them before him. This, by-the-bye, was more +than my father wanted——his aim in all the pains he was at in these +philosophick lectures—was to enable my uncle _Toby_ not to +_discuss_——but _comprehend_—to _hold_ the grains and scruples of +learning——not to _weigh_ them.——My uncle _Toby_, as you will read in +the next chapter, did neither the one or the other. + +C H A P. XXXIV + +’TIS a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours +painful translation of _Slawkenbergius_——’tis a pity, cried my father, +putting my mother’s threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he +spoke——that truth, brother _Toby_, should shut herself up in such +impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself +sometimes up upon the closest siege.—— + +Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle +_Toby_’s fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of +_Prignitz_ to him——having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short +flight to the bowling-green;——his body might as well have taken a turn +there too—so that with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent +upon the _medius terminus_——my uncle _Toby_ was in fact as ignorant of +the whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been +translating _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ from the _Latin_ tongue into the +_Cherokee._ But the word _siege_, like a talismanic power, in my +father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle _Toby_’s fancy, quick as a +note could follow the touch—he open’d his ears——and my father observing +that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer +the table, as with a desire to profit—my father with great pleasure +began his sentence again——changing only the plan, and dropping the +metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father +apprehended from it. + +’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, +brother _Toby_——considering what ingenuity these learned men have all +shewn in their solutions of noses.——Can noses be dissolved? replied my +uncle _Toby_. + +——My father thrust back his chair——rose up—put on his hat——took four +long strides to the door——jerked it open——thrust his head half way +out——shut the door again——took no notice of the bad hinge—returned to +the table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius_’s +book——went hastily to his bureau—walked slowly back—twisted my mother’s +thread-paper about his thumb—unbutton’d his waistcoat—threw my mother’s +thread-paper into the fire——bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d +his mouth with bran—confounded it;—but mark!—the oath of confusion was +levell’d at my uncle _Toby_’s brain—which was e’en confused enough +already——the curse came charged only with the bran—the bran, may it +please your honours, was no more than powder to the ball. + +’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they +did last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most +unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human +nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make +his passions go off so like gun-powder, as the unexpected strokes his +science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby_’s +questions.——Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many +different places all at one time—he could not have exerted more +mechanical functions in fewer seconds——or started half so much, as with +one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him +in his hobby-horsical career. + +’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_——he smoked his pipe on with unvaried +composure——his heart never intended offence to his brother—and as his +head could seldom find out where the sting of it lay——he always gave my +father the credit of cooling by himself.——He was five minutes and +thirty-five seconds about it in the present case. + +By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself, +and taking the oath out of _Ernulphus_’s digest of curses——(though to +do my father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. _Slop_ in the +affair of _Ernulphus_) which he as seldom committed as any man upon +earth)——By all that’s good and great! brother _Toby_, said my father, +if it was not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as +they do—you would put a man beside all temper.——Why, by the _solutions_ +of noses, of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known, +had you favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts +which learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world +of the causes of short and long noses.——There is no cause but one, +replied my uncle _Toby_——why one man’s nose is longer than another’s, +but because that God pleases to have it so.——That is _Grangousier_’s +solution, said my father.—’Tis he, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking +up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us all, and +frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such +ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom,.——’Tis a pious account, +cried my father, but not philosophical—there is more religion in it +than sound science. ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle _Toby_’s +character——that he feared God, and reverenced religion.——So the moment +my father finished his remark——my uncle _Toby_ fell a whistling +_Lillabullero_ with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.— + +What is become of my wife’s thread-paper? + +C H A P. XXXV + +NO matter—as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of +some consequence to my mother—of none to my father, as a mark in +_Slawkenbergius. Slawkenbergius_ in every page of him was a rich +treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father—he could not open him +amiss; and he would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts +and sciences in the world, with the books which treated of them, were +lost—should the wisdom and policies of governments, he would say, +through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had +wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of +courts and kingdoms, should they be forgot also—and _Slawkenbergius_ +only left——there would be enough in him in all conscience, he would +say, to set the world a-going again. A treasure therefore was he +indeed! an institute of all that was necessary to be known of noses, +and every thing else—at _matin_, noon, and vespers was _Hafen +Slawkenbergius_ his recreation and delight: ’twas for ever in his +hands——you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s prayer-book—so +worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with +thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the other. + +I am not such a bigot to _Slawkenbergius_ as my father;——there is a +fund in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the +most profitable, but the most amusing part of _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, +is his tales——and, considering he was a _German_, many of them told not +without fancy:——these take up his second book, containing nearly one +half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad +containing ten tales——Philosophy is not built upon tales; and therefore +’twas certainly wrong in _Slawkenbergius_ to send them into the world +by that name!——there are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth +decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive, than +speculative—but in general they are to be looked upon by the learned as +a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning round +somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject, and added to his +work as so many illustrations upon the doctrines of noses. + +As we have leisure enough upon our hands——if you give me leave, madam, +I’ll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad. + +S L A W K E N B E R G I I + +F A B E L L A[8] + +_VESPERA quâdam frigidula, posteriori in parte mensis_ Augusti, +_peregrinus, mulo fusco colore incidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis +indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta_, +Argentoratum _ingressus est._ + +_Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum +promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu +ad fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo, reversurum._ + +_Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit——Di boni, nova forma nasi!_ + +_At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, e +quo pependit acinaces: Loculo manum inseruit; et magna cum urbanitate, +pilei parte anteriore tactâ manu sinistrâ, ut extendit dextram, militi +florinum dedit et processit._ + +_Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum +adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse: itinerari haud poterit nudâ acinaci; +neque vaginam toto_ Argentorato, _habilem inveniet.——Nullam unquam +habui, respondit peregrinus respiciens——seque comiter inclinans—hoc +more gesto, nudam acinacem elevans, mulo lentò progrediente, ut nasum +tueri possim._ + +_Non immerito, benigne peregrine, respondit miles._ + +_Nihili aestimo, ait ille tympanista, e pergamenâ factitius est._ + +_Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major fit, +meo esset conformis._ + +_Crepitare audivi ait tympanista._ + +_Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, respondit miles._ + +_Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui non ambo tetigimus!_ + +_Eodem temporis puncto, quo hæc res argumentata fuit inter militem et +tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem tubicine et uxore suâ qui tunc +accesserunt, et peregrino prætereunte, restiterunt._ + +_Quantus nasus! æque longus est, ait tubicina, ac tuba._ + +_Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, velut sternutamento audias._ + +_Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod fistulam dulcedine vincit._ + +_Æneus est, ait tubicen._ + +_Nequaquam, respondit uxor._ + +_Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod æneus est._ + +_Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim digito tangam, ait uxor, quam +dormivero._ + +_Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum +controversiæ, non tantum inter militem et tympanistam, verum etiam +inter tubicinem et uxorum ejus, audiret._ + +_Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fræna demittens, et manibus +ambabus in pectus positis, (mulo lentè progrediente) nequaquam, ait +ille respiciens, non necesse est ut res isthæc dilucidata foret. Minime +gentium! meus nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget artus—Ad +quid agendum? air uxor burgomagistri._ + +_Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto +Nicolao; quo facto, sinum dextrum inserens, e quâ negligenter pependit +acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati latam quæ ad +diversorium templo ex adversum ducit._ + +_Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri +jussit: quâ apertâ et coccineis sericis femoralibus extractis cum +argento laciniato_ Περιζομαυτε, _his sese induit, statimque, acinaci in +manu, ad forum deambulavit._ + +_Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem +aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur, +atque ad diversorium regressus est—exuit se vestibus; braccas coccineas +sericas manticæ imposuit mulumque educi jussit._ + +_Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc +hebdomadis revertar._ + +_Bene curasti hoc jumentam? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcens—me, +manticamque meam, plus sexcentis mille passibus portavit._ + +_Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset negoti.—Enimvero, +ait peregrinus, a Nasorum promontorio redii, et nasum speciosissimum, +egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam sortitus est, acquisivi?_ + +_Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor +ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini nasum contemplantur——Per sanctos +sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto +Argentorato major est!—estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans, +nonne est nasus prægrandis?_ + +_Dolus inest, anime mi, ait hospes—nasus est falsus._ + +_Verus est, respondit uxor——_ + +_Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet—_ + +_Carbunculus inest, ait uxor._ + +_Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes._ + +_Vivus est ait illa,—et si ipsa vivam tangam._ + +_Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore +usque ad—Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa._ + +_Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque ad +illam horam——Quam horam? ait illa——Nullam, respondit peregrinus, donec +pervenio ad—Quem locum,—obsecro? ait illa——Peregrinus nil respondens +mulo conscenso discessit._ + +S L A W K E N B E R G I U S’s + +T A L E + +IT was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day, +in the latter end of the month of _August_, when a stranger, mounted +upon a dark mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few +shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered +the town of _Strasburg._ + +He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that +he had been at the Promontory of NOSES—was going on to _Frankfort_——and +should be back again at _Strasburg_ that day month, in his way to the +borders of _Crim Tartary._ + +The centinel looked up into the stranger’s face——he never saw such a +Nose in his life! + +—I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the stranger—so slipping +his wrist out of the loop of a black ribbon, to which a short scymetar +was hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy +touching the fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended +his right——he put a florin into the centinel’s hand, and passed on. + +It grieves, me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish bandy- +legg’d drummer, that so courteous a soul should have lost his +scabbard——he cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not be +able to get a scabbard to fit it in all _Strasburg._——I never had one, +replied the stranger, looking back to the centinel, and putting his +hand up to his cap as he spoke——I carry it, continued he, thus——holding +up his naked scymetar, his mule moving on slowly all the time—on +purpose to defend my nose. + +It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the centinel. + +——’Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg’d drummer——’tis a +nose of parchment. + +As I am a true catholic—except that it is six times as big—’tis a nose, +said the centinel, like my own. + +—I heard it crackle, said the drummer. + +By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it bleed. + +What a pity, cried the bandy-legg’d drummer, we did not both touch it! + +At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and +the drummer—was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a +trumpeter’s wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see +the stranger pass by. + +_Benedicity!_——What a nose! ’tis as long, said the trumpeter’s wife, as +a trumpet. + +And of the same metal said the trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing. + +’Tis as soft as a flute, said she. + +—’Tis brass, said the trumpeter. + +—’Tis a pudding’s end, said his wife. + +I tell thee again, said the trumpeter, ’tis a brazen nose, + +I’ll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter’s wife, for I will touch +it with my finger before I sleep. + +The stranger’s mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every +word of the dispute, not only betwixt the centinel and the drummer, but +betwixt the trumpeter and trumpeter’s wife. + +No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule’s neck, and laying both +his hands upon his breast, the one over the other in a saint-like +position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking +up—I am not such a debtor to the world——slandered and disappointed as I +have been—as to give it that conviction——no! said he, my nose shall +never be touched whilst Heaven gives me strength——To do what? said a +burgomaster’s wife. + +The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster’s wife——he was making a +vow to _Saint Nicolas_; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the +same solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his +bridle with his left-hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom, +with the scymetar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as +slowly as one foot of the mule could follow another, thro’ the +principal streets of _Strasburg_, till chance brought him to the great +inn in the market-place over-against the church. + +The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into +the stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought in; then opening, and +taking out of it his crimson-sattin breeches, with a +silver-fringed—(appendage to them, which I dare not translate)—he put +his breeches, with his fringed cod-piece on, and forth-with, with his +short scymetar in his hand, walked out to the grand parade. + +The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he +perceived the trumpeter’s wife at the opposite side of it—so turning +short, in pain lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went +back to his inn—undressed himself, packed up his crimson-sattin +breeches, &c. in his cloak- bag, and called for his mule. + +I am going forwards, said the stranger, for _Frankfort_——and shall be +back at _Strasburg_ this day month. + +I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with +his left hand as he was going to mount it, that you have been kind to +this faithful slave of mine—it has carried me and my cloak-bag, +continued he, tapping the mule’s back, above six hundred leagues. + +——’Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn——unless a man +has great business.——Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the +promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank +Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot. + +Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master +of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the +stranger’s nose——By saint _Radagunda_, said the inn-keeper’s wife to +herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put +together in all _Strasburg!_ is it not, said she, whispering her +husband in his ear, is it not a noble nose? + +’Tis an imposture, my dear, said the master of the inn——’tis a false +nose. + +’Tis a true nose, said his wife. + +’Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell the turpentine.—— + +There’s a pimple on it, said she. + +’Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-keeper. + +’Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the inn-keeper’s, +wife, I will touch it. + +I have made a vow to saint _Nicolas_ this day, said the stranger, that +my nose shall not be touched till—Here the stranger suspending his +voice, looked up.——Till when? said she hastily. + +It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing +them close to his breast, till that hour—What hour? cried the inn +keeper’s wife.—Never!—never! said the stranger, never till I am got—For +Heaven’s sake, into what place? said she——The stranger rode away +without saying a word. + +The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards _Frankfort_ +before all the city of _Strasburg_ was in an uproar about his nose. The +_Compline_ bells were just ringing to call the _Strasburgers_ to their +devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer:—no soul in all +_Strasburg_ heard ’em—the city was like a swarm of bees——men, women, +and children, (the _Compline_ bells tinkling all the time) flying here +and there—in at one door, out at another——this way and that way—long +ways and cross ways—up one street, down another street——in at this +alley, out of that——did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! +did you see it?——who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw +it? + +Alack o’day! I was at vespers!—I was washing, I was starching, I was +scouring, I was quilting——God help me! I never saw it——I never touch’d +it!——would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter, +a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street +and corner of _Strasburg._ + +Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great +city of _Strasburg_, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon +his mule in his way to _Frankfort_, as if he had no concern at all in +the affair——talking all the way he rode in broken sentences, sometimes +to his mule—sometimes to himself—sometimes to his Julia. + +O Julia, my lovely Julia!—nay I cannot stop to let thee bite that +thistle——that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed +me of enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.—— + +——Pugh!—’tis nothing but a thistle—never mind it—thou shalt have a +better supper at night. + +——Banish’d from my country——my friends——from thee.—— + +Poor devil, thou’rt sadly tired with thy journey!——come—get on a little +faster—there’s nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts——a crimson-sattin +pair of breeches, and a fringed——Dear Julia! + +——But why to _Frankfort?_—is it that there is a hand unfelt, which +secretly is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected +tracts? + +——Stumbling! by saint _Nicolas!_ every step—why at this rate we shall +be all night in getting in—— + +——To happiness——or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander—destined +to be driven forth unconvicted——unheard——untouch’d——if so, why did I +not stay at _Strasburg_, where justice—but I had sworn! Come, thou +shalt drink—to _St. Nicolas_—O Julia!——What dost thou prick up thy ears +at?——’tis nothing but a man, &c. + +The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and +Julia—till he arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he +alighted——saw his mule, as he had promised it, taken good care of——took +off his cloak-bag, with his crimson-sattin breeches, &c. in it—called +for an omelet to his supper, went to his bed about twelve o’clock, and +in five minutes fell fast asleep. + +It was about the same hour when the tumult in _Strasburg_ being abated +for that night,—the _Strasburgers_ had all got quietly into their +beds—but not like the stranger, for the rest either of their minds or +bodies; queen _Mab_, like an elf as she was, had taken the stranger’s +nose, and without reduction of its bulk, had that night been at the +pains of slitting and dividing it into as many noses of different cuts +and fashions, as there were heads in _Strasburg_ to hold them. The +abbess of _Quedlingberg_, who with the four great dignitaries of her +chapter, the prioress, the deaness, the sub-chantress, and senior +canonness, had that week come to _Strasburg_ to consult the university +upon a case of conscience relating to their placket- holes——was ill all +the night. + +The courteous stranger’s nose had got perched upon the top of the +pineal gland of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of +the four great dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of +sleep the whole night thro’ for it——there was no keeping a limb still +amongst them——in short, they got up like so many ghosts. + +The penitentiaries of the third order of saint _Francis_——the nuns of +mount _Calvary_——the _Præmonstratenses_——the _Clunienses_[9]——the +_Carthusians_, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that night +in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than the +abbess of _Quedlingberg_—by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and +tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night +long——the several sisterhoods had scratch’d and maul’d themselves all +to death——they got out of their beds almost flay’d alive—every body +thought saint _Antony_ had visited them for probation with his +fire——they had never once, in short, shut their eyes the whole night +long from vespers to matins. + +The nuns of saint _Ursula_ acted the wisest—they never attempted to go +to bed at all. + +The dean of _Strasburg_, the prebendaries, the capitulars and +domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case +of butter’d buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint +_Ursula_’s example.—— + +In the hurry and confusion every thing had been in the night before, +the bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven—there were no butter’d +buns to be had for breakfast in all _Strasburg_—the whole close of the +cathedral was in one eternal commotion——such a cause of restlessness +and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into that cause of the +restlessness, had never happened in _Strasburg_, since _Martin Luther_, +with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down. + +If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into +the dishes[10] of religious orders, &c. what a carnival did his nose +make of it, in those of the laity!—’tis more than my pen, worn to the +stump as it is, has power to describe; tho’, I acknowledge, (_cries_ +Slawkenbergius _with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected +from him_) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world +which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of +such a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent +the greatest part of my life——tho’ I own to them the simile is in +being, yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have +either time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say, +that the riot and disorder it occasioned in the _Strasburgers_ +fantasies was so general—such an overpowering mastership had it got of +all the faculties of the _Strasburgers_ minds—so many strange things, +with equal confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all +places, were spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole +stream of all discourse and wonder towards it—every soul, good and +bad—rich and poor—learned and unlearned——doctor and student——mistress +and maid——gentle and simple——nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in +_Strasburg_ spent their time in hearing tidings about it—every eye in +_Strasburg_ languished to see it——every finger——every thumb in +_Strasburg_ burned to touch it. + +Now what might add, if any thing may be thought necessary to add, to so +vehement a desire—was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d +drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgomaster’s widow, +the master of the inn, and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely +soever they all differed every one from another in their testimonies +and description of the stranger’s nose—they all agreed together in two +points—namely, that he was gone to _Frankfort_, and would not return to +_Strasburg_ till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was +true or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect +paragons of beauty—the finest-made man—the most genteel!—the most +generous of his purse—the most courteous in his carriage, that had ever +entered the gates of _Strasburg_—that as he rode, with scymetar slung +loosely to his wrist, thro’ the streets—and walked with his +crimson-sattin breeches across the parade—’twas with so sweet an air of +careless modesty, and so manly withal——as would have put the heart in +jeopardy (had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had +cast her eyes upon him. + +I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and +yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of +_Quedlingberg_, the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for +sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the +streets of _Strasburg_ with her husband’s trumpet in her hand,——the +best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the +illustration of her theory—she staid no longer than three days. + +The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer!——nothing on this side of old +_Athens_ could equal them! they read their lectures under the +city-gates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a _Chrysippus_ and +a _Crantor_ in their porticos. + +The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also +in the same stile—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard—his +wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their +lectures; not promiscuously—but to this or that, as is ever the way, as +faith and credulity marshal’d them——in a word, each _Strasburger_ came +crouding for intelligence—and every _Strasburger_ had the intelligence +he wanted. + +’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural +philosophy, &c. that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the +abbess of _Quedlingberg_’s private lecture, and had begun to read in +public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great +parade,——she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining +incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of _Strasburg_ for +her auditory—But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries +_Slawkenbergius_) has a _trumpet_ for an apparatus, pray what rival in +science can pretend to be heard besides him? + +Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all +busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRUTH keeps her +little court——were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up +thro’ the conduits of dialect induction——they concerned themselves not +with facts——they reasoned—— + +Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the +Faculty—had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of +_Wens_ and œdematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for +their bloods and souls——the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either +with wens or œdematous swellings. + +It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous +mass of heterogenous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to +the nose, whilst the infant was _in Utera_, without destroying the +statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine +months before the time.—— + +——The opponents granted the theory——they denied the consequences. + +And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c. said they, was not +laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first +stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world +(bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained +afterwards. + +This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect +which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and +prolongation of the muscular parts to the greatest growth and expansion +imaginable—In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to +affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to +the size of the man himself. + +The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to +them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs——For +the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception +of food, and turning it into chyle—and the lungs the only engine of +sanguification—it could possibly work off no more, than what the +appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s +overloading his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs—the +engine was of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a +certain quantity in a given time——that is, it could produce just as +much blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that, +if there was as much nose as man——they proved a mortification must +necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for +both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man +inevitably fall off from his nose. + +Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the +opponents—else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach—a whole +pair of lungs, and but half a man, when both his legs have been +unfortunately shot off? + +He dies of a plethora, said they—or must spit blood, and in a fortnight +or three weeks go off in a consumption.—— + +——It happens otherwise—replied the opponents.—— + +It ought not, said they. + +The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings, +though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided +about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself. + +They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical +arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to +its several destinations, offices, and functions, which could not be +transgressed but within certain limits—that nature, though she +sported——she sported within a certain circle;—and they could not agree +about the diameter of it. + +The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of +the classes of the literati;——they began and ended with the word Nose; +and had it not been for a _petitio principii_, which one of the ablest +of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole +controversy had been settled at once. + +A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood—and not only +blood—but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a +succession of drops—(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops, +that is included, said he.)——Now death, continued the logician, being +nothing but the stagnation of the blood—— + +I deny the definition——Death is the separation of the soul from the +body, said his antagonist——Then we don’t agree about our weapons, said +the logician—Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the +antagonist. + +The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in +the nature of a decree——than a dispute. + +Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not +possibly have been suffered in civil society——and if false—to impose +upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater +violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shewn it. + +The only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved +the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false. + +This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the +advocates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit +a decree, since the stranger _ex mero motu_ had confessed he had been +at the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, &c. +&c.——To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a +place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it +lay. The commissary of the bishop of _Strasburg_ undertook the +advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases, +shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick +expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long +nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten +authorities,[11] which had decided the point incontestably, had it not +appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands +had been determined by it nineteen years before. + +It happened——I must say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving +her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of +_Strasburg_——the _Lutheran_, founded in the year 1538 by _Jacobus +Surmis_, counsellor of the senate,——and the _Popish_, founded by +_Leopold_, arch-duke of _Austria_, were, during all this time, +employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the +affair of the abbess of _Quedlingberg_’s placket-holes required)——in +determining the point of _Martin Luther_’s damnation. + +The _Popish_ doctors had undertaken to demonstrate _à priori_, that +from the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of +_October_ 1483——when the moon was in the twelfth house, _Jupiter, +Mars_, and _Venus_ in the third, the _Sun, Saturn_, and _Mercury_, all +got together in the fourth—that he must in course, and unavoidably, be +a damn’d man—and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be +damn’d doctrines too. + +By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition +all at once with Scorpio[12] (in reading this my father would always +shake his head) in the ninth house, with the _Arabians_ allotted to +religion—it appeared that _Martin Luther_ did not care one stiver about +the matter——and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of +_Mars_—they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and +blaspheming——with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) +sailed before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire. + +The little objection of the _Lutheran_ doctors to this, was, that it +must certainly be the soul of another man, born _Oct._ 22, 83. which +was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner—inasmuch as it +appeared from the register of _Islaben_ in the county of _Mansfelt_, +that _Luther_ was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the +22d day of _October_, but on the 10th of _November_, the eve of +_Martinmas_ day, from whence he had the name of _Martin._ + +[——I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I +know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess +of _Quedlingberg_——It is to tell the reader; that my father never read +this passage of _Slawkenbergius_ to my uncle _Toby_, but with +triumph——not over my uncle _Toby_, for he never opposed him in it——but +over the whole world. + +—Now you see, brother _Toby_, he would say, looking up, “that christian +names are not such indifferent things;”——had _Luther_ here been called +by any other name but _Martin_, he would have been damn’d to all +eternity——Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good +name——far from it——’tis something better than a neutral, and but a +little——yet little as it is you see it was of some service to him. + +My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as +the best logician could shew him——yet so strange is the weakness of man +at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but +make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there +are many stories in _Hafen Slawkenbergius_’s Decades full as +entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst +them which my father read over with half the delight——it flattered two +of his strangest hypotheses together——his NAMES and his NOSES.——I will +be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the _Alexandrian_ +Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a +book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head +at one stroke.] + +The two universities of _Strasburg_ were hard tugging at this affair of +_Luther_’s navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he +had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had +pretended; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth +of it—they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points +he was off; whether _Martin_ had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a +lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at +least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on +with it in spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size +of the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world from what +they were about—it was their business to follow. + +The abbess of _Quedlingberg_ and her four dignitaries was no stop; for +the enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their +fancies as their case of conscience——the affair of their placket-holes +kept cold—in a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their +types——all controversies dropp’d. + +’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it—to a +nut-shell—to have guessed on which side of the nose the two +universities would split. + +’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side. + +’Tis below reason, cried the others. + +’Tis faith, cried one. + +’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other. + +’Tis possible, cried the one. + +’Tis impossible, said the other. + +God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do any thing. + +He can do nothing, replied the Anti-nosarians, which implies +contradictions. + +He can make matter think, said the Nosarians. + +As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied +the Anti-nosarians. + +He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors.——’Tis +false, said their other opponents.—— + +Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the +_reality_ of the nose.—It extends only to all possible things, replied +the _Lutherans._ + +By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he +thinks fit, as big as the steeple of _Strasburg._ + +Now the steeple of _Strasburg_ being the biggest and the tallest +church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Anti-nosarians denied +that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least +by a middle-siz’d man——The Popish doctors swore it could—The _Lutheran_ +doctors said No;—it could not. + +This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, +upon the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of +God—That controversy led them naturally into _Thomas Aquinas_, and +_Thomas Aquinas_ to the devil. + +The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute—it just served +as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity——and then +they all sailed before the wind. + +Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge. + +The controversy about the attributes, &c. instead of cooling, on the +contrary had inflamed the _Strasburgers_ imaginations to a most +inordinate degree——The less they understood of the matter the greater +was their wonder about it—they were left in all the distresses of +desire unsatisfied——saw their doctors, the _Parchmentarians_, the +_Brassarians_, the _Turpentarians_, on one side—the Popish doctors on +the other, like _Pantagruel_ and his companions in quest of the oracle +of the bottle, all embarked out of sight. + +——The poor _Strasburgers_ left upon the beach! + +——What was to be done?—No delay—the uproar increased——every one in +disorder——the city gates set open.—— + +Unfortunate _Strasbergers!_ was there in the store-house of nature——was +there in the lumber-rooms of learning——was there in the great arsenal +of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to torture your +curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not pointed by the +hand of Fate to play upon your hearts?——I dip not my pen into my ink to +excuse the surrender of yourselves—’tis to write your panegyrick. Shew +me a city so macerated with expectation——who neither eat, or drank, or +slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or +nature, for seven-and-twenty days together, who could have held out one +day longer. + +On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to +_Strasburg._ + +Seven thousand coaches (_Slawkenbergius_ must certainly have made some +mistake in his numeral characters) 7000 coaches——15000 single-horse +chairs—20000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with +senators, counsellors, syndicks—beguines, widows, wives, virgins, +canons, concubines, all in their coaches—The abbess of _Quedlingberg_, +with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress, leading the +procession in one coach, and the dean of _Strasburg_, with the four +great dignitaries of his chapter, on her left-hand—the rest following +higglety-pigglety as they could; some on horseback——some on foot——some +led——some driven——some down the _Rhine_——some this way——some that——all +set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous stranger on the road. + +Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale——I say _Catastrophe_ +(cries _Slawkenbergius_) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly +disposed, not only rejoiceth (_gaudet_) in the _Catastrophe_ and +_Peripeitia_ of a DRAMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential +and integrant parts of it——it has its _Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis_, +its _Catastrophe_ or _Peripeitia_ growing one out of the other in it, +in the order _Aristotle_ first planted them——without which a tale had +better never be told at all, says _Slawkenbergius_, but be kept to a +man’s self. + +In all my ten tales, in all my ten decades, have I _Slawkenbergius_ +tied down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done +this of the stranger and his nose. + +——From his first parley with the centinel, to his leaving the city of +_Strasburg_, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is +the _Protasis_ or first entrance——where the characters of the _Personæ +Dramatis_ are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun. + +The _Epitasis_, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and +heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the +_Catastasis_, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included +within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night’s uproar +about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures +upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking +of the learned in the dispute—to the doctors finally sailing away, and +leaving the _Strasburgers_ upon the beach in distress, is the +_Catastasis_ or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their +bursting forth in the fifth act. + +This commences with the setting out of the _Strasburgers_ in the +_Frankfort_ road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and +bringing the hero out of a state of agitation (as _Aristotle_ calls it) +to a state of rest and quietness. + +This, says _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, constitutes the _Catastrophe_ or +_Peripeitia_ of my tale—and that is the part of it I am going to +relate. + +We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep——he enters now upon the +stage. + +—What dost thou prick up thy ears at?—’tis nothing but a man upon a +horse——was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not +proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master’s word +for it; and without any more _ifs_ or _ands_, let the traveller and his +horse pass by. + +The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to _Strasburg_ +that night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he +had rode about a league farther, to think of getting into _Strasburg_ +this night.—_Strasburg!_——the great _Strasburg!_——_Strasburg_, the +capital of all _Alsatia!_ _Strasburg_, an imperial city! _Strasburg_, a +sovereign state! _Strasburg_, garrisoned with five thousand of the best +troops in all the world!—Alas! if I was at the gates of _Strasburg_ +this moment, I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat—nay a +ducat and half—’tis too much—better go back to the last inn I have +passed——than lie I know not where——or give I know not what. The +traveller, as he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse’s +head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted +into his chamber, he arrived at the same inn. + +——We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread——and till eleven +o’clock this night had three eggs in it——but a stranger, who arrived an +hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have nothing.—— + +Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a +bed.——I have one as soft as is in _Alsatia_, said the host. + +——The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for ’tis my best +bed, but upon the score of his nose.——He has got a defluxion, said the +traveller.——Not that I know, cried the host.——But ’tis a camp-bed, and +_Jacinta_, said he, looking towards the maid, imagined there was not +room in it to turn his nose in.——Why so? cried the traveller, starting +back.—It is so long a nose, replied the host.——The traveller fixed his +eyes upon _Jacinta_, then upon the ground—kneeled upon his right +knee—had just got his hand laid upon his breast——Trifle not with my +anxiety, said he rising up again.——’Tis no trifle, said _Jacinta_, ’tis +the most glorious nose!——The traveller fell upon his knee again—laid +his hand upon his breast—then, said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast +conducted me to the end of my pilgrimage—’Tis _Diego._ + +The traveller was the brother of the _Julia_, so often invoked that +night by the stranger as he rode from _Strasburg_ upon his mule; and +was come, on her part, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister +from _Valadolid_ across the _Pyrenean_ mountains through _France_, and +had many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit of him through the +many meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover’s thorny tracks. + +——_Julia_ had sunk under it——and had not been able to go a step farther +than to _Lyons_, where, with the many disquietudes of a tender heart, +which all talk of——but few feel—she sicken’d, but had just strength to +write a letter to _Diego_; and having conjured her brother never to see +her face till he had found him out, and put the letter into his hands, +_Julia_ took to her bed. + +_Fernandez_ (for that was her brother’s name)——tho’ the camp-bed was as +soft as any one in _Alsace_, yet he could not shut his eyes in it.——As +soon as it was day he rose, and hearing _Diego_ was risen too, he +entered his chamber, and discharged his sister’s commission. + +The letter was as follows: + +“Seig. DIEGO, + +“Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not——’tis +not now to inquire—it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to +farther tryal. + +“How could I know so little of myself, when I sent my _Duenna_ to +forbid your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little +of you, _Diego_, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in +_Valadolid_ to have given ease to my doubts?—Was I to be abandoned, +_Diego_, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, +whether my suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey +to much uncertainty and sorrow? + +“In what manner _Julia_ has resented this——my brother, when he puts +this letter into your hands, will tell you; He will tell you in how few +moments she repented of the rash message she had sent you——in what +frantic haste she flew to her lattice, and how many days and nights +together she leaned immoveably upon her elbow, looking through it +towards the way which _Diego_ was wont to come. + +“He will tell you, when she heard of your departure—how her spirits +deserted her——how her heart sicken’d——how piteously she mourned——how +low she hung her head. O _Diego!_ how many weary steps has my brother’s +pity led me by the hand languishing to trace out yours; how far has +desire carried me beyond strength——and how oft have I fainted by the +way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry out—O my _Diego!_ + +“If the gentleness of your carriage has not belied your heart, you will +fly to me, almost as fast as you fled from me—haste as you will——you +will arrive but to see me expire.——’Tis a bitter draught, _Diego_, but +oh! ’tis embittered still more by dying _un_———” + +She could proceed no farther. + +_Slawkenbergius_ supposes the word intended was unconvinced, but her +strength would not enable her to finish her letter. + +The heart of the courteous _Diego_ over-flowed as he read the +letter——he ordered his mule forthwith and _Fernandez_’s horse to be +saddled; and as no vent in prose is equal to that of poetry in such +conflicts——chance, which as often directs us to remedies as to +_diseases_, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the window——_Diego_ +availed himself of it, and whilst the hostler was getting ready his +mule, he eased his mind against the wall as follows. + +O D E. + +_Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love_, + +_Unless my_ Julia _strikes the key_, + +_Her hand alone can touch the part_, + +_Whose dulcet movement charms the heart_, + +_And governs all the man with sympathetick sway._ + + 2d. + +_O_ Julia! + +The lines were very natural——for they were nothing at all to the +purpose, says _Slawkenbergius_, and ’tis a pity there were no more of +them; but whether it was that Seig. _Diego_ was slow in composing +verses—or the hostler quick in saddling mules——is not averred; certain +it was, that _Diego_’s mule and _Fernandez_’s horse were ready at the +door of the inn, before _Diego_ was ready for his second stanza; so +without staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth, +passed the _Rhine_, traversed _Alsace_, shaped their course towards +_Lyons_, and before the _Strasburgers_ and the abbess of _Quedlingberg_ +had set out on their cavalcade, had _Fernandez, Diego_, and his +_Julia_, crossed the _Pyrenean_ mountains, and got safe to _Valadolid._ + +’Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that when _Diego_ was +in _Spain_, it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the +_Frankfort_ road; it is enough to say, that of all restless desires, +curiosity being the strongest——the _Strasburgers_ felt the full force +of it; and that for three days and nights they were tossed to and fro +in the _Frankfort_ road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion, +before they could submit to return home.——When alas! an event was +prepared for them, of all other, the most grievous that could befal a +free people. + +As this revolution of the _Strasburgers_ affairs is often spoken of, +and little understood, I will, in ten words, says _Slawkenbergius_, +give the world an explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale. + +Every body knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by +order of Mons. _Colbert_, and put in manuscript into the hands of +_Lewis_ the fourteenth, in the year 1664. + +’Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system, was the +getting possession of _Strasburg_, to favour an entrance at all times +into _Suabia_, in order to disturb the quiet of _Germany_——and that in +consequence of this plan, _Strasburg_ unhappily fell at length into +their hands. + +It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such +like revolutions—The vulgar look too high for them—Statesmen look too +low——Truth (for once) lies in the middle. + +What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one +historian—The _Strasburgers_ deemed it a diminution of their freedom to +receive an imperial garrison——so fell a prey to a _French_ one. + +The fate, says another, of the _Strasburgers_, may be a warning to all +free people to save their money.——They anticipated their +revenues——brought themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength, and +in the end became so weak a people, they had not strength to keep their +gates shut, and so the _French_ pushed them open. + +Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, ’twas not the _French_,——’twas +CURIOSITY pushed them open——The _French_ indeed, who are ever upon the +catch, when they saw the _Strasburgers_, men, women and children, all +marched out to follow the stranger’s nose——each man followed his own, +and marched in. + +Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever +since—but not from any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for +it is owing to this only, that Noses have ever so run in their heads, +that the _Strasburgers_ could not follow their business. + +Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, making an exclamation—it is not the +first——and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either +won——or lost by NOSES. + +The E N D of +_Slawkenbergius_’s TALE. + + [8] As _Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis_ is extremely scarce, it may not + be unacceptable to the learned reader to see the specimen of a few + pages of his original; I will make no reflection upon it, but that his + story-telling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic—and, I + think, has more of Latinity in it. + + [9] _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ means the Benedictine nuns of _Cluny_, + founded in the year 940, by _Odo_, abbé de _Cluny._ + + [10] Mr. _Shandy_’s compliments to orators——is very sensible that + _Slawkenbergius_ has here changed his metaphor——which he is very + guilty of:——that as a translator, Mr. _Shandy_ has all along done what + he could to make him stick to it—but that here ’twas impossible. + + [11] Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formulâ utun. Quinimo & + Logistæ & Canonistæ——Vid. Parce Barne Jas in d. L. Provincial. + Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. I. n. 7 quâ etiam in re + conspir. Om de Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. + passim. Vid. Glos. de contrahend. empt. &c. necnon J. Scrudr. in cap. + § refut. per totum. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. + cap. 9. ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras. + Belg. ad finem, cum comment. N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentotarens. + de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc Archiv. fid coll. per Von Jacobum Koinshoven + Folio Argent. 1583. præcip. ad finem. Quibus add. Rebuff in L. + obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. + aliena feud. per federa, test. Joha. Luxius in prolegom. quem velim + videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2, 3. Vid. Idea. + + [12] Haec mira, satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio + Asterismo in nona cœli statione, quam Arabes religioni deputabant + efficit _Martinum Lutherum_ sacrilegum hereticum, Christianæ + religionis hostem acerrimum atque prophanum, ex horoscopi directione + ad Martis coitum, religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad + infernos navigavit—ab Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara flagellis igneis + cruciata perenniter. + +——Lucas Gaurieus in Tractatu astrologico de præteritis multorum hominum +accidentibus per genituras examinatis. + +C H A P. XXXVI + +WITH all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s +fancy——with so many family prejudices—and ten decades of such tales +running on for ever along with them——how was it possible with such +exquisite——was it a true nose?——That a man with such exquisite feelings +as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs——or indeed +above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have +described? + +——Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times——taking care only to +place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do +it—But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one? + +To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the +best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth +decade, which immediately follows this. + +This tale, cried _Slawkenbergius_, somewhat exultingly, has been +reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right +well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it +thro’—’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book; +inasmuch, continues _Slawkenbergius_, as I know of no tale which could +possibly ever go down after it. + +’Tis a tale indeed! + +This sets out with the first interview in the inn at _Lyons_, when +_Fernandez_ left the courteous stranger and his sister _Julia_ alone in +her chamber, and is over-written. + +The I N T R I C A C I E S + +O F +_Diego_ and _Julia._ + +Heavens! thou art a strange creature, _Slawkenbergius!_ what a +whimsical view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou +opened! how this can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of +_Slawkenbergius_’s tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should +please the world—translated shall a couple of volumes be.——Else, how +this can ever be translated into good _English_, I have no sort of +conception—There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do it +rightly.——What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, +dry chat, five notes below the natural tone——which you know, madam, is +little more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could +perceive an attempt towards a vibration in the strings, about the +region of the heart.——The brain made no acknowledgment.——There’s often +no good understanding betwixt ’em—I felt as if I understood it.——I had +no ideas.——The movement could not be without cause.—I’m lost. I can +make nothing of it—unless, may it please your worships, the voice, in +that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes +to approach not only within six inches of each other—but to look into +the pupils—is not that dangerous?——But it can’t be avoided—for to look +up to the cieling, in that case the two chins unavoidably meet——and to +look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to immediate +contact, which at once puts an end to the conference——I mean to the +sentimental part of it.——What is left, madam, is not worth stooping +for. + +C H A P. XXXVII + +MY father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death +had pushed him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play +upon the floor with the toe of that foot which hung over the bed-side; +my uncle _Toby_’s heart was a pound lighter for it.——In a few moments, +his left-hand, the knuckles of which had all the time reclined upon the +handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling—he thrust it a little +more within the valance—drew up his hand, when he had done, into his +bosom—gave a hem! My good uncle _Toby_, with infinite pleasure, +answered it; and full gladly would have ingrafted a sentence of +consolation upon the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I +said, that way, and fearing moreover that he might set out with +something which might make a bad matter worse, he contented himself +with resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his crutch. + +Now whether the compression shortened my uncle _Toby_’s face into a +more pleasurable oval—or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing +his brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had +braced up his muscles——so that the compression upon his chin only +doubled the benignity which was there before, is not hard to +decide.——My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam +of sun-shine in his face, as melted down the sullenness of his grief in +a moment. + +He broke silence as follows: + +C H A P. XXXVIII + +DID ever man, brother _Toby_, cried my father, raising himself upon his +elbow, and turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where +my uncle _Toby_ was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin +resting upon his crutch——did ever a poor unfortunate man, brother +_Toby_, cried my father, receive so many lashes?——The most I ever saw +given, quoth my uncle _Toby_ (ringing the bell at the bed’s head for +_Trim_) was to a grenadier, I think in _Mackay_’s regiment. + +——Had my uncle _Toby_ shot a bullet through my father’s heart, he could +not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly. + +Bless me! said my uncle _Toby_. + +C H A P. XXXIX + +WAS it _Mackay_’s regiment, quoth my uncle _Toby_, where the poor +grenadier was so unmercifully whipp’d at _Bruges_ about the ducats?—O +Christ! he was innocent! cried _Trim_, with a deep sigh.—And he was +whipp’d, may it please your honour, almost to death’s door.—They had +better have shot him outright, as he begg’d, and he had gone directly +to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour.——I thank thee, +_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_.——I never think of his, continued _Trim_, +and my poor brother _Tom_’s misfortunes, for we were all three +school-fellows, but I cry like a coward.——Tears are no proof of +cowardice, _Trim._—I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle +_Toby_.——I know your honour does, replied _Trim_, and so am not ashamed +of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour, continued +_Trim_, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think +of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest +as God could make them—the children of honest people, going forth with +gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the world—and fall into such +evils!—poor _Tom!_ to be tortured upon a rack for nothing—but marrying +a Jew’s widow who sold sausages—honest _Dick Johnson_’s soul to be +scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put into his +knapsack!—O!—these are misfortunes, cried _Trim_,—pulling out his +handkerchief—these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth +lying down and crying over. + +—My father could not help blushing. + +’Twould be a pity, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, thou shouldst ever +feel sorrow of thy own—thou feelest it so tenderly for +others.—Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his +face——your honour knows I have neither wife or child——I can have no +sorrows in this world.——My father could not help smiling.—As few as any +man, _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_; nor can I see how a fellow of thy +light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old +age—when thou art passed all services, _Trim_—and hast outlived thy +friends.——An’ please your honour, never fear, replied _Trim_, +chearily.——But I would have thee never fear, _Trim_, replied my uncle +_Toby_, and therefore, continued my uncle _Toby_, throwing down his +crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word +_therefore_—in recompence, _Trim_, of thy long fidelity to me, and that +goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of—whilst thy master is +worth a shilling——thou shalt never ask elsewhere, _Trim_, for a penny. +_Trim_ attempted to thank my uncle _Toby_—but had not power——tears +trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off—He laid his +hands upon his breast——made a bow to the ground, and shut the door. + +——I have left _Trim_ my bowling-green, cried my uncle _Toby_——My father +smiled.——I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle +_Toby_.——My father looked grave. + +C H A P. XL + +IS this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and +GRENADIERS? + +C H A P. XLI + +WHEN my uncle _Toby_ first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, +fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my +uncle _Toby_ had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb +and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same +precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal +_Trim_ left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off +the bed—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, +before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam——’tis the +transition from one attitude to another——like the preparation and +resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all. + +For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe +upon the floor——pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within +the valance—gave a hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just +beginning to address himself to my uncle _Toby_—when recollecting the +unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude——he got upon his +legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short +before my uncle _Toby_; and laying the three first fingers of his +right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed +himself to my uncle _Toby_ as follows: + +C H A P. XLII + +WHEN I reflect, brother _Toby_, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark +side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of +trouble—when I consider, brother _Toby_, how oft we eat the bread of +affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our +inheritance——I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle _Toby_, interrupting +my father—but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle +leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?——What could I have done +without it? replied my uncle _Toby_——That’s another concern, said my +father testily—But I say _Toby_, when one runs over the catalogue of +all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful _Items_ with which the heart of +man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is +enabled to stand out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the +impositions laid upon our nature.——’Tis by the assistance of Almighty +God, cried my uncle _Toby_, looking up, and pressing the palms of his +hands close together——’tis not from our own strength, brother +_Shandy_——a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to +stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.——We are upheld by the +grace and the assistance of the best of Beings. + +——That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it,——But +give me leave to lead you, brother _Toby_, a little deeper into the +mystery. + +With all my heart, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which +_Socrates_ is so finely painted by _Raffael_ in his school of _Athens_; +which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even +the particular manner of the reasoning of _Socrates_ is expressed by +it—for he holds the fore-finger of his left-hand between the +fore-finger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying +to the libertine he is reclaiming——“_You grant me_ this——and this: and +this, and this, I don’t ask of you—they follow of themselves in +course.” + +So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and +his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle _Toby_ as he sat in his old +fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs——O +_Garrick!_——what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! +and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy +immortality, and secure my own behind it. + +C H A P. XLIII + +THOUGH man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, +yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put +together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets +with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a +dozen times a day——was it not, brother _Toby_, that there is a secret +spring within us.—Which spring, said my uncle _Toby_, I take to be +Religion.—Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go +his finger, and striking one hand against the other.——It makes every +thing straight for us, answered my uncle _Toby_.——Figuratively +speaking, dear _Toby_, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but +the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us +of counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered +machine, though it can’t prevent the shock——at least it imposes upon +our sense of it. + +Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger, as he +was coming closer to the point——had my child arrived safe into the +world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him—fanciful and extravagant +as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of +that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our +characters and conducts—Heaven is witness! that in the warmest +transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once +wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what GEORGE or +EDWARD would have spread around it. + +But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him——I +must counteract and undo it with the greatest good. + +He shall be christened _Trismegistus_, brother. + +I wish it may answer——replied my uncle _Toby_, rising up. + +C H A P. XLIV + +WHAT a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon +the first landing, as he and my uncle _Toby_ were going down stairs, +what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to +us! Take pen and ink in hand, brother _Toby_, and calculate it +fairly——I know no more of calculation than this balluster, said my +uncle _Toby_ (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my +father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)——’Twas a hundred to +one—cried my uncle _Toby_—I thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his +shin) you had known nothing of calculations, brother _Toby_. + +a mere chance, said my uncle _Toby_.——Then it adds one to the +chapter——replied my father. + +The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his +shin at once—it was well it so fell out—(chance! again)—or the world to +this day had never known the subject of my father’s calculation——to +guess it—there was no chance——What a lucky chapter of chances has this +turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and +in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it.—Have not I +promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and +the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon +wishes?——a chapter of noses?—No, I have done that—a chapter upon my +uncle _Toby_’s modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, +which I will finish before I sleep—by my great grandfather’s whiskers, +I shall never get half of ’em through this year. + +Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother _Toby_, said +my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts +of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to +fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the +fortunes of our house with it. + +It might have been worse, replied my uncle _Toby_.——I don’t comprehend, +said my father.——Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle +_Toby_, as Dr. _Slop_ foreboded. + +My father reflected half a minute—looked down——touched the middle of +his forehead slightly with his finger—— + +—True, said he. + +C H A P. XLV + +IS it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one +pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first +landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for +aught I know, as my father and my uncle _Toby_ are in a talking humour, +there may be as many chapters as steps:——let that be as it will, Sir, I +can no more help it than my destiny:—A sudden impulse comes across +me——drop the curtain, _Shandy_——I drop it—Strike a line here across the +paper, _Tristram_—I strike it—and hey for a new chapter. + +The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this +affair—and if I had one—as I do all things out of all rule—I would +twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had +done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it——a pretty story! is a +man to follow rules——or rules to follow him? + +Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I +promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my +conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew +about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out +dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world +a story of a roasted horse——that chapters relieve the mind—that they +assist—or impose upon the imagination—and that in a work of this +dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes——with +fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted +him?—O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of +_Diana_’s temple—you must read _Longinus_—read away—if you are not a +jot the wiser by reading him the first time over—never fear—read him +again—_Avicenna_ and _Licetus_ read _Aristotle_’s metaphysicks forty +times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.—But mark the +consequence—_Avicenna_ turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of +writing—for he wrote books _de omni scribili_; and for _Licetus +(Fortunio)_ though all the world knows he was born a fœtus,[13] of no +more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that +astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as +long as himself——the learned know I mean his _Gonopsychanthropologia_, +upon the origin of the human soul. + +So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best +chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full +as well employed, as in picking straws. + + [13] _Ce Fœtus_ n’étoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais + son pere l’ayant éxaminé en qualité de Médecin, & ayant trouvé que + c’etoit quelque chose de plus qu’un Embryon, le fit transporter tout + vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à Jerôme Bardi & à d’autres + Médecins du lieu. On trouva qu’il ne lui manquoit rien d’essentiel à + la vie; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience, + entreprit d’achever l’ouvrage de la Nature, & de travailler à la + formation de l’Enfant avec le même artifice que celui dont on se sert + pour faire écclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse + de tout ce qu’elle avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un + pour proprement accommodé, il reussit à l’elever & a lui faire prendre + ses accroissemens necessaires, par l’uniformité d’une chaleur + étrangere mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d’un Thermométre, ou d’un + autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. + Liguri à Cart. 223. 488.) + +On auroit toujours été très satisfait de l’industrie d’un pere si +experimenté dans l’Art de la Generation, quand il n’auroit pû prolonger +la vie à son fils que pour Puelques mois, ou pour peu d’années. + +Mais quand on se represente que l’Enfant a vecu près de quatre-vingts +ans, & qu’il a composé quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits +d’une longue lecture—il faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable +n’est pas toujours faux, & que la _Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du +côté la Verité._ + +Il n’avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu’il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de +Origine Animæ humanæ. + +(Les Enfans celebres, revûs & corrigés par M. de la Monnoye de +l’Academie Françoise. + +C H A P. XLVI + +WE shall bring all things to rights, said my father, setting his foot +upon the first step from the landing.—This _Trismegistus_, continued my +father, drawing his leg back and turning to my uncle _Toby_——was the +greatest (_Toby_) of all earthly beings—he was the greatest king——the +greatest lawgiver——the greatest philosopher——and the greatest +priest——and engineer—said my uncle _Toby_. + +——In course, said my father. + +C H A P. XLVII + +—AND how does your mistress? cried my father, taking the same step over +again from the landing, and calling to _Susannah_, whom he saw passing +by the foot of the stairs with a huge pin-cushion in her hand—how does +your mistress? As well, said _Susannah_, tripping by, but without +looking up, as can be expected.—What a fool am I! said my father, +drawing his leg back again—let things be as they will, brother _Toby_, +’tis ever the precise answer——And how is the child, pray?——No answer. +And where is Dr. _Slop_? added my father, raising his voice aloud, and +looking over the ballusters—_Susannah_ was out of hearing. + +Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, crossing the +landing in order to set his back against the wall, whilst he propounded +it to my uncle _Toby_——of all the puzzling riddles, said he, in a +marriage state,——of which you may trust me, brother _Toby_, there are +more asses loads than all _Job_’s stock of asses could have +carried——there is not one that has more intricacies in it than +this—that from the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to +bed, every female in it, from my lady’s gentlewoman down to the +cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for it; and give themselves more +airs upon that single inch, than all their other inches put together. + +I think rather, replied my uncle _Toby_, that ’tis we who sink an inch +lower.—If I meet but a woman with child—I do it.—’Tis a heavy tax upon +that half of our fellow-creatures, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle +_Toby_—’Tis a piteous burden upon ’em, continued he, shaking his +head—Yes, yes, ’tis a painful thing—said my father, shaking his head +too——but certainly since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did +two heads shake together, in concert, from two such different springs. + +God bless / Deuce take ’em all—said my uncle _Toby_ and my father, each +to himself. + +C H A P. XVLIII + +HOLLA!——you, chairman!——here’s sixpence——do step into that bookseller’s +shop, and call me a day-tall critick. I am very willing to give any one +of ’em a crown to help me with his tackling, to get my father and my +uncle _Toby_ off the stairs, and to put them to bed. + +—’Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got +whilst _Trim_ was boring the jack-boots—and which, by-the-bye, did my +father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hinge—they have not +else shut their eyes, since nine hours before the time that doctor +_Slop_ was led into the back parlour in that dirty pickle by _Obadiah_. + +Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this—and to take +up—Truce. + +I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon +the strange state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as +things stand at present—an observation never applicable before to any +one biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to +myself—and I believe, will never hold good to any other, until its +final destruction—and therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it +must be worth your worships attending to. + +I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; +and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my third +volume[14]—and no farther than to my first day’s life—’tis +demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life +to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of +advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing +at it—on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back—was every +day of my life to be as busy a day as this—And why not?——and the +transactions and opinions of it to take up as much description—And for +what reason should they be cut short? as at this rate I should just +live 364 times faster than I should write—It must follow, an’ please +your worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have to +write—and consequently, the more your worships read, the more your +worships will have to read. + +Will this be good for your worships eyes? + +It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my OPINIONS will be the +death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this +self-same life of mine; or, in other words, shall lead a couple of fine +lives together. + +As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it +no way alters my prospect—write as I will, and rush as I may into the +middle of things, as _Horace_ advises—I shall never overtake myself +whipp’d and driven to the last pinch; at the worst I shall have one day +the start of my pen—and one day is enough for two volumes——and two +volumes will be enough for one year.— + +Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, +which is now opened to us——as I trust its providence will prosper every +thing else in it that is taken in hand. + +As for the propagation of Geese—I give myself no concern—Nature is +all-bountiful—I shall never want tools to work with. + +—So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle _Toby_ off the +stairs, and seen them to bed?——And how did you manage it?——You dropp’d +a curtain at the stair-foot—I thought you had no other way for +it——Here’s a crown for your trouble. + + [14] According to the preceding Editions. + +C H A P. XLIX + +—THEN reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to +_Susannah._—There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried +_Susannah_—the child is as black in the face as my——As your what? said +my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into +comparisons.—Bless, me, Sir, said _Susannah_, the child’s in a fit.—And +where’s Mr. _Yorick?_—Never where he should be, said _Susannah_, but +his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting +for the name—and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as +captain _Shandy_ is the godfather, whether it should not be called +after him. + +Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eye-brow, that +the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother _Toby_ +as not—and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a +name as _Trismegistus_ upon him——but he may recover. + +No, no,——said my father to _Susannah_, I’ll get up——There is no time, +cried _Susannah_, the child’s as black as my shoe. _Trismegistus_, said +my father——But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, _Susannah_, added my +father; canst thou carry _Trismegistus_ in thy head, the length of the +gallery without scattering?——Can I? cried _Susannah_, shutting the door +in a huff.——If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of +bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches. + +_Susannah_ ran with all speed along the gallery. + +My father made all possible speed to find his breeches. + +_Susannah_ got the start, and kept it—’Tis _Tris_—something, cried +_Susannah_—There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, +beginning with _Tris_—but _Tristram._ Then ’tis _Tristram-gistus_, +quoth _Susannah._ + +——There is no _gistus_ to it, noodle!—’tis my own name, replied the +curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason—_Tristram!_ said +he, &c. &c. &c. &c.—so _Tristram_ was I called, and _Tristram_ shall I +be to the day of my death. + +My father followed _Susannah_, with his night-gown across his arm, with +nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a +single button, and that button through haste thrust only half into the +button-hole. + +——She has not forgot the name, cried my father, half opening the +door?——No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence.——And the +child is better, cried _Susannah._——And how does your mistress? As +well, said _Susannah_, as can be expected.—Pish! said my father, the +button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole—So that whether +the interjection was levelled at _Susannah_, or the button-hole—whether +Pish was an interjection of contempt or an interjection of modesty, is +a doubt, and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three +following favourite chapters, that is, my chapter of _chamber-maids_, +my chapter of _pishes_, and my chapter of _button-holes._ + +All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, that the +moment my father cried Pish! he whisk’d himself about—and with his +breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm +of the other, he turned along the gallery to bed, something slower than +he came. + +C H A P. L + +I WISH I could write a chapter upon sleep. + +A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this +moment offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn—the +candles put out—and no creature’s eyes are open but a single one, for +the other has been shut these twenty years, of my mother’s nurse. + +It is a fine subject. + +And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters +upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single +chapter upon this. + +Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of ’em——and +trust me, when I get amongst ’em——You gentry with great beards——look as +grave as you will——I’ll make merry work with my button-holes—I shall +have ’em all to myself—’tis a maiden subject—I shall run foul of no +man’s wisdom or fine sayings in it. + +But for sleep—I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin—I am no +dab at your fine sayings in the first place—and in the next, I cannot +for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world—’tis +the refuge of the unfortunate—the enfranchisement of the prisoner—the +downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the broken-hearted; nor could +I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft +and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, +in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith +his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us——that this is the +chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it); or what a happiness it is +to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he +lies down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, +that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and +sweet above her—no desire—or fear—or doubt that troubles the air, nor +any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not +pass over without offence, in that sweet secession. + +“God’s blessing,” said _Sancho Pança_, “be upon the man who first +invented this self-same thing called sleep—it covers a man all over +like a cloak.” + +Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and +affections, than all the dissertations squeez’d out of the heads of the +learned together upon the subject. + +—Not that I altogether disapprove of what _Montaigne_ advances upon +it—’tis admirable in its way—(I quote by memory.) + +The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep, +without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by.—We should +study and ruminate upon it, in order to render proper thanks to him who +grants it to us.—For this end I cause myself to be disturbed in my +sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it.——And yet I +see few, says he again, who live with less sleep, when need requires; +my body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and sudden +agitation—I evade of late all violent exercises——I am never weary with +walking——but from my youth, I never looked to ride upon pavements. I +love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife——This last word +may stagger the faith of the world——but remember, “La Vraisemblance’ +(as _Bayle_ says in the affair of _Liceti_) ’est pas toujours du Côté +de la Verité.” And so much for sleep. + +C H A P. LI + +IF my wife will but venture him—brother _Toby, Trismegistus_ shall be +dress’d and brought down to us, whilst you and I are getting our +breakfasts together.—— + +——Go, tell _Susannah, Obadiah_, to step here. + +She is run up stairs, answered _Obadiah_, this very instant, sobbing +and crying, and wringing her hands as if her heart would break. + +We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from +_Obadiah_, and looking wistfully in my uncle _Toby_’s face for some +time—we shall have a devilish month of it, brother _Toby_, said my +father, setting his arms a’kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, +women, wind—brother _Toby_!—’Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle +_Toby_.——That it is, cried my father—to have so many jarring elements +breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a gentleman’s +house—Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother _Toby_, that +you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmoved——whilst +such a storm is whistling over our heads.—— + +And what’s the matter, _Susannah?_ They have called the child +_Tristram_——and my mistress is just got out of an hysterick fit about +it——No!——’tis not my fault, said _Susannah_—I told him it was +_Tristram-gistus._ + +——Make tea for yourself, brother _Toby_, said my father, taking down +his hat——but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice and +members which a common reader would imagine! + +—For he spake in the sweetest modulation—and took down his hat with the +genteelest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and +attuned together. + +——Go to the bowling-green for corporal _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, +speaking to _Obadiah_, as soon as my father left the room. + +C H A P. LII + +WHEN the misfortune of my Nose fell so heavily upon my father’s +head;—the reader remembers that he walked instantly up stairs, and cast +himself down upon his bed; and from hence, unless he has a great +insight into human nature, he will be apt to expect a rotation of the +same ascending and descending movements from him, upon this misfortune +of my NAME;—no. + +The different weight, dear Sir——nay even the different package of two +vexations of the same weight——makes a very wide difference in our +manner of bearing and getting through with them.——It is not half an +hour ago, when (in the great hurry and precipitation of a poor devil’s +writing for daily bread) I threw a fair sheet, which I had just +finished, and carefully wrote out, slap into the fire, instead of the +foul one. + +Instantly I snatch’d off my wig, and threw it perpendicularly, with all +imaginable violence, up to the top of the room—indeed I caught it as it +fell——but there was an end of the matter; nor do I think any think else +in _Nature_ would have given such immediate ease: She, dear Goddess, by +an instantaneous impulse, in all _provoking cases_, determines us to a +sally of this or that member—or else she thrusts us into this or that +place, or posture of body, we know not why——But mark, madam, we live +amongst riddles and mysteries——the most obvious things, which come in +our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate +into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us +find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature’s +works: so that this, like a thousand other things, falls out for us in +a way, which tho’ we cannot reason upon it—yet we find the good of it, +may it please your reverences and your worships——and that’s enough for +us. + +Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction for his +life——nor could he carry it up stairs like the other—he walked +composedly out with it to the fish-pond. + +Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which +way to have gone——reason, with all her force, could not have directed +him to any think like it: there is something, Sir, in fish-ponds——but +what it is, I leave to system-builders and fish-pond-diggers betwixt +’em to find out—but there is something, under the first disorderly +transport of the humours, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly and +a sober walk towards one of them, that I have often wondered that +neither _Pythagoras_, nor _Plato_, nor _Solon_, nor _Lycurgus_, nor +_Mahomet_, nor any one of your noted lawgivers, ever gave order about +them. + +C H A P. LIII + +YOUR honour, said _Trim_, shutting the parlour-door before he began to +speak, has heard, I imagine, of this unlucky accident——O yes, _Trim_, +said my uncle _Toby_, and it gives me great concern.—I am heartily +concerned too, but I hope your honour, replied _Trim_, will do me the +justice to believe, that it was not in the least owing to me.——To +thee—_Trim?_—cried my uncle _Toby_, looking kindly in his face——’twas +_Susannah_’s and the curate’s folly betwixt them.——What business could +they have together, an’ please your honour, in the garden?——In the +gallery thou meanest, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low +bow——Two misfortunes, quoth the corporal to himself, are twice as many +at least as are needful to be talked over at one time;——the mischief +the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his +honour hereafter.——_Trim_’s casuistry and address, under the cover of +his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle _Toby_, so he went on +with what he had to say to _Trim_ as follows: + +——For my own part, _Trim_, though I can see little or no difference +betwixt my nephew’s being called _Tristram_ or _Trismegistus_—yet as +the thing sits so near my brother’s heart, _Trim_——I would freely have +given a hundred pounds rather than it should have happened.——A hundred +pounds, an’ please your honour! replied _Trim_,—I would not give a +cherry-stone to boot.——Nor would I, _Trim_, upon my own account, quoth +my uncle _Toby_——but my brother, whom there is no arguing with in this +case—maintains that a great deal more depends, _Trim_, upon +christian-names, than what ignorant people imagine——for he says there +never was a great or heroic action performed since the world began by +one called _Tristram_—nay, he will have it, _Trim_, that a man can +neither be learned, or wise, or brave.——’Tis all fancy, an’ please your +honour—I fought just as well, replied the corporal, when the regiment +called me _Trim_, as when they called me _James Butler._——And for my +own part, said my uncle _Toby_, though I should blush to boast of +myself, _Trim_——yet had my name been _Alexander_, I could have done no +more at _Namur_ than my duty.—Bless your honour! cried _Trim_, +advancing three steps as he spoke, does a man think of his +christian-name when he goes upon the attack?——Or when he stands in the +trench, _Trim?_ cried my uncle _Toby_, looking firm.——Or when he enters +a breach? said _Trim_, pushing in between two chairs.——Or forces the +lines? cried my uncle, rising up, and pushing his crutch like a +pike.——Or facing a platoon? cried _Trim_, presenting his stick like a +firelock.——Or when he marches up the glacis? cried my uncle _Toby_, +looking warm and setting his foot upon his stool.—— + +C H A P. LIV + +MY father was returned from his walk to the fish-pond——and opened the +parlour-door in the very height of the attack, just as my uncle _Toby_ +was marching up the glacis——_Trim_ recovered his arms——never was my +uncle _Toby_ caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life! +Alas! my uncle _Toby!_ had not a weightier matter called forth all the +ready eloquence of my father—how hadst thou then and thy poor +HOBBY-HORSE too been insulted! + +My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and after +giving a slight look at the disorder of the room, he took hold of one +of the chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and placing it +over-against my uncle _Toby_, he sat down in it, and as soon as the +tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out in a +lamentation as follows: + +MY FATHER'S LAMENTATION + +IT is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to +_Ernulphus_’s curse, which was laid upon the corner of the +chimney-piece——as to my uncle _Toby_ who sat under it——it is in vain +longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to +struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human +persuasions——I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother +_Toby_, or the sins and follies of the _Shandy_ family, Heaven has +thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and +that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force +of it is directed to play.——Such a thing would batter the whole +universe about our ears, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_—if it +was so—Unhappy _Tristram!_ child of wrath! child of decrepitude! +interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or disaster +in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or +entangle thy filaments! which has not fallen upon thy head, or ever +thou camest into the world——what evils in thy passage into it!——what +evils since!——produced into being, in the decline of thy father’s +days——when the powers of his imagination and of his body were waxing +feeble——when radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which +should have temper’d thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found +thy stamina in, but negations—’tis pitiful——brother _Toby_, at the +best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention +on both sides could give it. But how were we defeated! You know the +event, brother _Toby_——’tis too melancholy a one to be repeated +now——when the few animal spirits I was worth in the world, and with +which memory, fancy, and quick parts should have been convey’d——were +all dispersed, confused, confounded, scattered, and sent to the +devil.—— + +Here then was the time to have put a stop to this persecution against +him;——and tried an experiment at least——whether calmness and serenity +of mind in your sister, with a due attention, brother _Toby_, to her +evacuations and repletions——and the rest of her non-naturals, might +not, in a course of nine months gestation, have set all things to +rights.——My child was bereft of these!——What a teazing life did she +lead herself, and consequently her fœtus too, with that nonsensical +anxiety of hers about lying-in in town? I thought my sister submitted +with the greatest patience, replied my uncle _Toby_——I never heard her +utter one fretful word about it.——She fumed inwardly, cried my father; +and that, let me tell you, brother, was ten times worse for the +child—and then! what battles did she fight with me, and what perpetual +storms about the midwife.——There she gave vent, said my uncle +_Toby_.——Vent! cried my father, looking up. + +But what was all this, my dear _Toby_, to the injuries done us by my +child’s coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished, in this +general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket +unbroke, unrifled.—— + +With all my precautions, how was my system turned topside-turvy in the +womb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a +pressure of 470 pounds avoirdupois weight acting so perpendicularly +upon its apex—that at this hour ’tis ninety _per Cent._ insurance, that +the fine net-work of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a +thousand tatters. + +——Still we could have done.——Fool, coxcomb, puppy——give him but a +NOSE——Cripple, Dwarf, Driveller, Goosecap——shape him as you will) the +door of fortune stands open—_O Licetus! Licetus!_ had I been blest with +a fœtus five inches long and a half, like thee—Fate might have done her +worst. + +Still, brother _Toby_, there was one cast of the dye left for our child +after all—_O Tristram! Tristram! Tristram!_ + +We will send for Mr. _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_. + +——You may send for whom you will, replied my father. + +C H A P. LV + +WHAT a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and striking it away, two up +and two down for three volumes[15] together, without looking once +behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon!—I’ll tread +upon no one——quoth I to myself when I mounted——I’ll take a good +rattling gallop; but I’ll not hurt the poorest jack-ass upon the +road.——So off I set——up one lane——down another, through this +turnpike——over that, as if the arch-jockey of jockeys had got behind +me. + +Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you +may——’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not +yourself——He’s flung—he’s off—he’s lost his hat—he’s down——he’ll break +his neck——see!——if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of +the undertaking criticks!——he’ll knock his brains out against some of +their posts—he’s bounced out!—look—he’s now riding like a mad-cap full +tilt through a whole crowd of painters, fiddlers, poets, biographers, +physicians, lawyers, logicians, players, school-men, churchmen, +statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, prelates, popes, and +engineers.—Don’t fear, said I—I’ll not hurt the poorest jack-ass upon +the king’s highway.—But your horse throws dirt; see you’ve splash’d a +bishop——I hope in God, ’twas only _Ernulphus_, said I.——But you have +squirted full in the faces of Mess. _Le Moyne, De Romigny_, and _De +Marcilly_, doctors of the _Sorbonne._——That was last year, replied +I.—But you have trod this moment upon a king.——Kings have bad times +on’t, said I, to be trod upon by such people as me. + +You have done it, replied my accuser. + +I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my +bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my +story.——And what in it? You shall hear in the next chapter. + + [15] According to the preceding Editions. + +C H A P. LVI + +AS _Francis_ the first of _France_ was one winterly night warming +himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first +minister of sundry things for the good of the state[16]—It would not be +amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this +good understanding betwixt ourselves and _Switzerland_ was a little +strengthened.—There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving +money to these people—they would swallow up the treasury of +_France._—Poo! poo! answered the king—there are more ways, Mons. _le +Premier_, of bribing states, besides that of giving money—I’ll pay +_Switzerland_ the honour of standing godfather for my next child.——Your +majesty, said the minister, in so doing, would have all the grammarians +in _Europe_ upon your back;——_Switzerland_, as a republic, being a +female, can in no construction be godfather.—She may be godmother, +replied _Francis_ hastily—so announce my intentions by a courier +to-morrow morning. + +I am astonished, said _Francis_ the First, (that day fortnight) +speaking to his minister as he entered the closet, that we have had no +answer from _Switzerland._——Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said +Mons. _le Premier_, to lay before you my dispatches upon that +business.—They take it kindly, said the king.—They do, Sire, replied +the minister, and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has +done them——but the republick, as godmother, claims her right, in this +case, of naming the child. + +In all reason, quoth the king—she will christen him _Francis_, or +_Henry_, or _Lewis_, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to +us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the minister——I have this hour +received a dispatch from our resident, with the determination of the +republic on that point also.——And what name has the republick fixed +upon for the Dauphin?——_Shadrach, Mesech, Abed-nego_, replied the +minister.—By Saint _Peter_’s girdle, I will have nothing to do with the +_Swiss_, cried _Francis_ the First, pulling up his breeches and walking +hastily across the floor. + +Your majesty, replied the minister calmly, cannot bring yourself off. + +We’ll pay them in money——said the king. + +Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the +minister.——I’ll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth _Francis_ the +First. + +Your honour stands pawn’d already in this matter, answered Monsieur _le +Premier._ + +Then, Mons. _le Premier_, said the king, by——we’ll go to war with ’em. + + [16] Vide Menagiana, Vol. I. + +C H A P. LVII + +ALBEIT, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavoured +carefully (according to the measure of such a slender skill as God has +vouchsafed me, and as convenient leisure from other occasions of +needful profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little +books which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many +bigger books—yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful +guise of careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to intreat +thy lenity seriously——in beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in +the story of my father and his christian-names—I have no thoughts of +treading upon _Francis_ the First——nor in the affair of the nose—upon +_Francis_ the Ninth—nor in the character of my uncle _Toby_——of +characterizing the militiating spirits of my country—the wound upon his +groin, is a wound to every comparison of that kind—nor by _Trim_—that I +meant the duke of _Ormond_—or that my book is wrote against +predestination, or free-will, or taxes—If ’tis wrote against any +thing,——’tis wrote, an’ please your worships, against the spleen! in +order, by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and +depression of the diaphragm, and the succussations of the intercostal +and abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the _gall_ and other +_bitter juices_ from the gall-bladder, liver, and sweet-bread of his +majesty’s subjects, with all the inimicitious passions which belong to +them, down into their duodenums. + +C H A P. LVIII + +—BUT can the thing be undone, _Yorick?_ said my father—for in my +opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a vile canonist, replied +_Yorick_—but of all evils, holding suspence to be the most tormenting, +we shall at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these great +dinners——said my father—The size of the dinner is not the point, +answered _Yorick_——we want, Mr. _Shandy_, to dive into the bottom of +this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not—and as the beards of +so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and of +the most eminent of our school-divines, and others, are all to meet in +the middle of one table, and _Didius_ has so pressingly invited you—who +in your distress would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite, +continued _Yorick_, is to apprize _Didius_, and let him manage a +conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject.—Then my +brother _Toby_, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall +go with us. + +——Let my old tye-wig, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and my laced regimentals, +be hung to the fire all night, _Trim._ + +C H A P. LX + +—NO doubt, Sir,—there is a whole chapter wanting here—and a chasm of +ten pages made in the book by it—but the book-binder is neither a fool, +or a knave, or a puppy—nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least +upon that score)——but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and +complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate +to your reverences in this manner.—I question first, by-the-bye, +whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon +sundry other chapters——but there is no end, an’ please your reverences, +in trying experiments upon chapters——we have had enough of it——So +there’s an end of that matter. + +But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the +chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have +been reading just now, instead of this——was the description of my +father’s, my uncle _Toby_’s, _Trim_’s, and _Obadiah_’s setting out and +journeying to the visitation at **** + +We’ll go in the coach, said my father—Prithee, have the arms been +altered, _Obadiah_?—It would have made my story much better to have +begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to +the _Shandy_’s, when the coach was re-painted upon my father’s +marriage, it had so fallen out that the coach-painter, whether by +performing all his works with the left hand, like _Turpilius_ the +_Roman_, or _Hans Holbein_ of _Basil_——or whether ’twas more from the +blunder of his head than hand——or whether, lastly, it was from the +sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt to +take——it so fell out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the +_bend-dexter_, which since _Harry_ the Eighth’s reign was honestly our +due——a _bend-sinister_, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn +quite across the field of the _Shandy_ arms. ’Tis scarce credible that +the mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded +with so small a matter. The word coach—let it be whose it would—or +coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the +family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of +illegitimacy upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step +into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to take a view of +the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time +he would ever set his foot in it again, till the _bend-sinister_ was +taken out—but like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many +things which the _Destinies_ had set down in their books ever to be +grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)—but never to be mended. + +—Has the _bend-sinister_ been brush’d out, I say? said my +father.——There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered _Obadiah_, +but the lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to +_Yorick_—Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know +the least of heraldry, said _Yorick._—No matter for that, cried my +father——I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before +them.—Never mind the _bend-sinister_, said my uncle _Toby_, putting on +his tye-wig.——No, indeed, said my father—you may go with my aunt +_Dinah_ to a visitation with a _bend-sinister_, if you think fit—My +poor uncle _Toby_ blush’d. My father was vexed at himself.——No——my dear +brother _Toby_, said my father, changing his tone——but the damp of the +coach-lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did +_December, January_, and _February_ last winter—so if you please you +shall ride my wife’s pad——and as you are to preach, _Yorick_, you had +better make the best of your way before——and leave me to take care of +my brother _Toby_, and to follow at our own rates. + +Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this +cavalcade, in which Corporal _Trim_ and _Obadiah_, upon two +coach-horses a-breast, led the way as slow as a patrole——whilst my +uncle _Toby_, in his laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with +my father, in deep roads and dissertations alternately upon the +advantage of learning and arms, as each could get the start. + +—But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so +much above the stile and manner of any thing else I have been able to +paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without +depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that +necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt +chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of +the whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the +business, so know little about it—but, in my opinion, to write a book +is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, +madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it. + +—This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the +lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well——(as _Yorick_ told +my uncle _Toby_ one night) by siege.——My uncle _Toby_ looked brisk at +the sound of the word siege, but could make neither head or tail of it. + +I’m to preach at court next Sunday, said _Homenas_——run over my +notes——so I humm’d over doctor _Homenas_’s notes—the modulation’s very +well—’twill do, _Homenas_, if it holds on at this rate——so on I +humm’d——and a tolerable tune I thought it was; and to this hour, may it +please your reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how +spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an +air in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly,—it carried my +soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as _Montaigne_ +complained in a parallel accident)—had I found the declivity easy, or +the ascent accessible——certes I had been outwitted.——Your notes, +_Homenas_, I should have said, are good notes;——but it was so +perpendicular a precipice——so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, +that by the first note I humm’d I found myself flying into the other +world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so deep, +so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into +it again. + +=>A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own +size—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.—And so much +for tearing out of chapters. + +C H A P. LXI + +——SEE if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to +light their pipes!——’Tis abominable, answered _Didius;_ it should not +go unnoticed, said doctor _Kysarcius_—— => he was of the _Kysarcii_ of +the Low Countries. + +Methinks, said _Didius_, half rising from his chair, in order to remove +a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him +and _Yorick_——you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit +upon a more proper place, Mr. _Yorick_—or at least upon a more proper +occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: If the +sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with——’twas certainly, +Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if +’twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body——’twas +certainly Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards. + +——I have got him fast hung up, quoth _Didius_ to himself, upon one of +the two horns of my dilemma——let him get off as he can. + +I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this +sermon, quoth _Yorick_, upon this occasion——that I declare, _Didius_, I +would suffer martyrdom—and if it was possible my horse with me, a +thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I +was delivered of it at the wrong end of me——it came from my head +instead of my heart——and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the +writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this +manner—To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties +of our wit—to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly +accounts of a little learning, tinsel’d over with a few words which +glitter, but convey little light and less warmth——is a dishonest use of +the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands—’Tis +not preaching the gospel—but ourselves——For my own part, continued +_Yorick_, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.— + +As _Yorick_ pronounced the word _point-blank_, my uncle _Toby_ rose up +to say something upon projectiles——when a single word and no more +uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one’s ears +towards it—a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that +place to be expected—a word I am ashamed to write—yet must be +written——must be read—illegal—uncanonical—guess ten thousand guesses, +multiplied into themselves—rack—torture your invention for ever, you’re +where you was——In short, I’ll tell it in the next chapter. + +C H A P. LXII + +ZOUNDS!————————————————————————Z——ds! cried _Phutatorius_, partly to +himself——and yet high enough to be heard—and what seemed odd, ’twas +uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat +between that of a man in amazement and one in bodily pain. + +One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression +and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a _third_ or a _fifth_, or +any other chord in musick—were the most puzzled and perplexed with +it—the concord was good in itself—but then ’twas quite out of the key, +and no way applicable to the subject started;——so that with all their +knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it. + +Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their +ears to the plain import of the _word_, imagined that _Phutatorius_, +who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the +cudgels out of _Didius_’s hands, in order to bemaul _Yorick_ to some +purpose—and that the desperate monosyllable Z——ds was the exordium to +an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough +kind of handling of him; so that my uncle _Toby_’s good-nature felt a +pang for what _Yorick_ was about to undergo. But seeing _Phutatorius_ +stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on—a third party began +to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary respiration, +casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny oath—without +the sin or substance of one. + +Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on +the contrary as a real and substantial oath, propensly formed against +_Yorick_, to whom he was known to bear no good liking—which said oath, +as my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at +that very time in the upper regions of _Phutatorius_’s purtenance; and +so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first +squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the +right ventricle of _Phutatorius_’s heart, by the stroke of surprize +which so strange a theory of preaching had excited. + +How finely we argue upon mistaken facts! + +There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the +monosyllable which _Phutatorius_ uttered—who did not take this for +granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that +_Phutatorius_’s mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was +arising between _Didius_ and _Yorick;_ and indeed as he looked first +towards the one and then towards the other, with the air of a man +listening to what was going forwards—who would not have thought the +same? But the truth was, that _Phutatorius_ knew not one word or one +syllable of what was passing—but his whole thoughts and attention were +taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at that very +instant within the precincts of his own _Galligaskins_, and in a part +of them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch +accidents: So that notwithstanding he looked with all the attention in +the world, and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his +face, to the utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it +was thought, to give a sharp reply to _Yorick_, who sat over-against +him——yet, I say, was _Yorick_ never once in any one domicile of +_Phutatorius_’s brain——but the true cause of his exclamation lay at +least a yard below. + +This I will endeavour to explain to you with all imaginable decency. + +You must be informed then, that _Gastripheres_, who had taken a turn +into the kitchen a little before dinner, to see how things went +on—observing a wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the +dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and +sent in, as soon as dinner was over— _Gastripheres_ inforcing his +orders about them, that _Didius_, but _Phutatorius_ especially, were +particularly fond of ’em. + +About two minutes before the time that my uncle _Toby_ interrupted +_Yorick_’s harangue—_Gastripheres_’s chesnuts were brought in—and as +_Phutatorius_’s fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he +laid them directly before _Phutatorius_, wrapt up hot in a clean damask +napkin. + +Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all +thrust into the napkin at a time—but that some one chesnut, of more +life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion—it so fell out, +however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as +_Phutatorius_ sat straddling under——it fell perpendicularly into that +particular aperture of _Phutatorius_’s breeches, for which, to the +shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste +word throughout all _Johnson_’s dictionary——let it suffice to say——it +was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of +decorum do strictly require, like the temple of _Janus_ (in peace at +least) to be universally shut up. + +The neglect of this punctilio in _Phutatorius_ (which by-the-bye should +be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.—— + +Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speaking——but +in no opposition to the opinion either of _Acrites_ or _Mythogeras_ in +this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of +it—and are so to this hour, That there was nothing of accident in the +whole event——but that the chesnut’s taking that particular course, and +in a manner of its own accord—and then falling with all its heat +directly into that one particular place, and no other——was a real +judgment upon _Phutatorius_ for that filthy and obscene treatise _de +Concubinis retinendis_, which _Phutatorius_ had published about twenty +years ago——and was that identical week going to give the world a second +edition of. + +It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy——much +undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of the question—all that +concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and +render it credible to the reader, that the hiatus in _Phutatorius_’s +breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut;——and that the +chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly, and piping hot +into it, without _Phutatorius_’s perceiving it, or any one else at that +time. + +The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for +the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds——and did no more than +gently solicit _Phutatorius_’s attention towards the part:——But the +heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the +point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the +regions of pain, the soul of _Phutatorius_, together with all his +ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, +resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten +battalions of animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through +different defiles and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his +upper regions, as you may imagine, as empty as my purse. + +With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him +back, _Phutatorius_ was not able to dive into the secret of what was +going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what +the devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true +cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent in the situation he was +in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the +help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly +accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter;——but the sallies of +the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind—a thought +instantly darted into his mind, that tho’ the anguish had the sensation +of glowing heat—it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a +burn; and if so, that possibly a _Newt_ or an _Asker_, or some such +detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth——the horrid +idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the +chesnut, seized _Phutatorius_ with a sudden panick, and in the first +terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done the +best generals upon earth, quite off his guard:——the effect of which was +this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that +interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic +break after it, marked thus, Z——ds—which, though not strictly +canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the +occasion;——and which, by-the-bye, whether canonical or not, +_Phutatorius_ could no more help than he could the cause of it. + +Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little +more time in the transaction, than just to allow time for _Phutatorius_ +to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the +floor—and for _Yorick_ to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up. + +It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the +mind:——What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our +opinions, both of men and things——that trifles, light as air, shall +waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it——that +_Euclid_’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in +breach, should not all have power to overthrow it. + +_Yorick_, I said, picked up the chesnut which _Phutatorius_’s wrath had +flung down——the action was trifling——I am ashamed to account for it—he +did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse +for the adventure—and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping +for.——But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in +_Phutatorius_’s head: He considered this act of _Yorick_’s in getting +off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in +him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must +have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have +played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this +opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very +narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for _Yorick_, who sat directly +over against _Phutatorius_, of slipping the chesnut in——and +consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, +which _Phutatorius_ cast full upon _Yorick_ as these thoughts arose, +too evidently spoke his opinion——and as _Phutatorius_ was naturally +supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his +opinion at once became the general one;——and for a reason very +different from any which have been yet given——in a little time it was +put out of all manner of dispute. + +When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this +sublunary world——the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a +substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is +the cause and first spring of them.—The search was not long in this +instance. + +It was well known that _Yorick_ had never a good opinion of the +treatise which _Phutatorius_ had wrote _de Concubinis retinendis_, as a +thing which he feared had done hurt in the world——and ’twas easily +found out, that there was a mystical meaning in _Yorick_’s prank—and +that his chucking the chesnut hot into _Phutatorius_’s ***——***, was a +sarcastical fling at his book—the doctrines of which, they said, had +enflamed many an honest man in the same place. + +This conceit awaken’d _Somnolentus_——made _Agelastes_ smile——and if you +can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in +finding out a riddle——it threw _Gastripheres_’s into that form—and in +short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit. + +This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as +groundless as the dreams of philosophy: _Yorick_, no doubt, as +_Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor——“_was a man of jest_,” but it was +temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other +ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame;—but it +was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying +and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his +nature was incapable. All I blame him for——or rather, all I blame and +alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which +would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the +world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted +precisely as in the affair of his lean horse——he could have explained +it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and besides, he ever +looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal +report alike so injurious to him—he could not stoop to tell his story +to them——and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him. + +This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects—in the +present it was followed by the fixed resentment of _Phutatorius_, who, +as _Yorick_ had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair +a second time, to let him know it—which indeed he did with a smile; +saying only—that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation. + +But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two +things in your mind. + +——The smile was for the company. + +——The threat was for _Yorick._ + +C H A P. LXIII + +—CAN you tell me, quoth _Phutatorius_, speaking _to Gastripheres_ who +sat next to him——for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an +affair——can you tell me, _Gastripheres_, what is best to take out the +fire?——Ask _Eugenius_, said _Gastripheres._——That greatly depends, said +_Eugenius_, pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature of +the part——If it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be +wrapt up——It is both the one and the other, replied _Phutatorius_, +laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod of his head, upon +the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the same time to +ease and ventilate it.——If that is the case, said _Eugenius_, I would +advise you, _Phutatorius_, not to tamper with it by any means; but if +you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure to such a simple +thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the press—you need do +nothing more than twist it round.—The damp paper, quoth _Yorick_ (who +sat next to his friend _Eugenius_) though I know it has a refreshing +coolness in it—yet I presume is no more than the vehicle—and that the +oil and lamp-black with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, +does the business.—Right, said _Eugenius_, and is, of any outward +application I would venture to recommend, the most anodyne and safe. + +Was it my case, said _Gastripheres_, as the main thing is the oil and +lamp-black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on +directly.——That would make a very devil of it, replied _Yorick._——And +besides, added _Eugenius_, it would not answer the intention, which is +the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription, which the +Faculty hold to be half in half;——for consider, if the type is a very +small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come into +contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so infinitely +thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs and large +capitals excepted) as no art or management of the spatula can come up +to.——It falls out very luckily, replied _Phutatorius_, that the second +edition of my treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_ is at this instant in +the press.——You may take any leaf of it, said _Eugenius_——no matter +which.——Provided, quoth _Yorick_, there is no bawdry in it.—— + +They are just now, replied _Phutatorius_, printing off the ninth +chapter——which is the last chapter but one in the book.——Pray what is +the title of that chapter? said _Yorick;_ making a respectful bow to +_Phutatorius_ as he spoke.——I think, answered _Phutatorius_, ’tis that +_de re concubinaria._ + +For Heaven’s sake keep out of that chapter, quoth _Yorick._ + +——By all means—added _Eugenius._ + +C H A P. LXIV + +—NOW, quoth _Didius_, rising up, and laying his right hand with his +fingers spread upon his breast——had such a blunder about a +christian-name happened before the Reformation——[It happened the day +before yesterday, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself]—and when baptism +was administer’d in _Latin_—[’Twas all in _English_, said my +uncle]——many things might have coincided with it, and upon the +authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, +with a power of giving the child a new name—Had a priest, for instance, +which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the _Latin_ tongue, +baptized a child of Tom-o’stiles, _in nomine patriæ & filia & spiritum +sanctos_—the baptism was held null.——I beg your pardon, replied +_Kysarcius_——in that case, as the mistake was only the _terminations_, +the baptism was valid——and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the +priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun——and +not, as in your case, upon the last. + +My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with +infinite attention. + +_Gastripheres_, for example, continued _Kysarcius_, baptizes a child of +_John Stradling_’s in _Gomine_ gatris, &c. &c. instead of _in Nomine +patris_, &c.——Is this a baptism? No—say the ablest canonists; in as +much as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and +meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for +_Gomine_ does not signify a name, nor _gatris_ a father.—What do they +signify? said my uncle _Toby_.—Nothing at all——quoth _Yorick._——Ergo, +such a baptism is null, said _Kysarcius._—— + +In course, answered _Yorick_, in a tone two parts jest and one part +earnest.—— + +But in the case cited, continued _Kysarcius_, where _patriæ_ is put for +_patris, filia_ for _filii_, and so on——as it is a fault only in the +declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch’d, the +inflections of their branches either this way or that, does not in any +sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the +words as before.——But then, said _Didius_, the intention of the +priest’s pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have +gone along with it.——————Right, answered _Kysarcius;_ and of this, +brother _Didius_, we have an instance in a decree of the decretals of +Pope _Leo_ the IIId.——But my brother’s child, cried my uncle _Toby_, +has nothing to do with the Pope——’tis the plain child of a Protestant +gentleman, christen’d _Tristram_ against the wills and wishes both of +his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.—— + +If the wills and wishes, said _Kysarcius_, interrupting my uncle +_Toby_, of those only who stand related to Mr. _Shandy_’s child, were +to have weight in this matter, Mrs. _Shandy_, of all people, has the +least to do in it.——My uncle _Toby_ lay’d down his pipe, and my father +drew his chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so +strange an introduction. + +——It has not only been a question, Captain _Shandy_, amongst the[17] +best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued _Kysarcius, “Whether +the mother be of kin to her child,”_—but, after much dispassionate +enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides—it has been +adjudged for the negative—namely, _“That the mother is not of kin to +her child.”_[18] My father instantly clapp’d his hand upon my uncle +_Toby_’s mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear;—the truth was, +he was alarmed for _Lillabullero_—and having a great desire to hear +more of so curious an argument—he begg’d my uncle _Toby_, for heaven’s +sake, not to disappoint him in it.—My uncle _Toby_ gave a nod—resumed +his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling _Lillabullero_ +inwardly——_Kysarcius, Didius_, and _Triptolemus_ went on with the +discourse as follows: + +This determination, continued _Kysarcius_, how contrary soever it may +seem to run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on +its side; and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous +case, known commonly by the name of the Duke of _Suffolk_’s case.——It +is cited in _Brook_, said _Triptolemus_——And taken notice of by Lord +_Coke_, added _Didius._—And you may find it in _Swinburn_ on +Testaments, said _Kysarcius._ + +The case, Mr. _Shandy_, was this: + +In the reign of _Edward_ the Sixth, _Charles_ duke of _Suffolk_ having +issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his +last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose +death the son died also——but without will, without wife, and without +child—his mother and his sister by the father’s side (for she was born +of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration +of her son’s goods, according to the statute of the 21st of _Harry_ the +Eighth, whereby it is enacted, That in case any person die intestate +the administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin. + +The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, +the sister by the father’s side commenced a suit before the +Ecclesiastical Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; +and 2dly, That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; +and therefore prayed the court, that the administration granted to the +mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to +the deceased, by force of the said statute. + +Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its +issue—and many causes of great property likely to be decided in times +to come, by the precedent to be then made——the most learned, as well in +the laws of this realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, +whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no.—Whereunto not only the +temporal lawyers——but the church lawyers—the juris-consulti—the +jurisprudentes—the civilians—the advocates—the commissaries—the judges +of the consistory and prerogative courts of _Canterbury_ and _York_, +with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, That +the mother was not of[19] kin to her child.—— + +And what said the duchess of _Suffolk_ to it? said my uncle _Toby_. + +The unexpectedness of my uncle _Toby_’s question, confounded +_Kysarcius_ more than the ablest advocate——He stopp’d a full minute, +looking in my uncle _Toby_’s face without replying——and in that single +minute _Triptolemus_ put by him, and took the lead as follows. + +’Tis a ground and principle in the law, said _Triptolemus_, that things +do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt ’tis for this +cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and +seed of its parents——that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the +blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the +child, but the child by the parents—For so they write, _Liberi sunt de +sanguine patris & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine +liberorum._ + +——But this, _Triptolemus_, cried Didius, proves too much—for from this +authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all +sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child—but the father +likewise.——It is held, said _Triptolemus_, the better opinion; because +the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, +yet are they but (_una caro_[20]) one flesh; and consequently no degree +of kindred——or any method of acquiring one _in nature._——There you push +the argument again too far, cried _Didius_——for there is no prohibition +_in nature_, though there is in the Levitical law——but that a man may +beget a child upon his grandmother——in which case, supposing the issue +a daughter, she would stand in relation both of——But who ever thought, +cried _Kysarcius_, of laying with his grandmother?——The young +gentleman, replied _Yorick_, whom _Selden_ speaks of——who not only +thought of it, but justified his intention to his father by the +argument drawn from the law of retaliation.—“You laid, Sir, with my +mother,” said the lad—“why may not I lay with yours?”——’Tis the +_Argumentum commune_, added _Yorick._——’Tis as good, replied +_Eugenius_, taking down his hat, as they deserve. + +The company broke up. + + [17] Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. §8. + + [18] Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47. + + [19] Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de + Verb. signific. + + [20] Vide Brook Abridg. tit. Administr. N .47. + +C H A P. LXV + +—AND pray, said my uncle _Toby_, leaning upon _Yorick_, as he and my +father were helping him leisurely down the stairs——don’t be terrified, +madam, this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last——And +pray, _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_, which way is this said affair of +_Tristram_ at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, +replied _Yorick;_ no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it——for Mrs. +_Shandy_ the mother is nothing at all a-kin to him——and as the mother’s +is the surest side——Mr. _Shandy_, in course is still less than +nothing——In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as I am.—— + +——That may well be, said my father, shaking his head. + +——Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my +uncle _Toby_, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess +of _Suffolk_ and her son. + +The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth _Yorick_, to this hour. + +C H A P. LXVI + +THOUGH my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these +learned discourses——’twas still but like the anointing of a broken +bone——The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned +upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we +lean on slips from under us.—He became pensive—walked frequently forth +to the fish-pond—let down one loop of his hat——sigh’d often——forbore to +snap—and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so +much assist perspiration and digestion, as _Hippocrates_ tells us—he +had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his +thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health rescued by a fresh +train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a thousand pounds, by +my aunt _Dinah._ + +My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the +right end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay +it out mostly to the honour of his family.—A hundred-and-fifty odd +projects took possession of his brains by turns—he would do this, and +that and t’other—He would go to _Rome_——he would go to law——he would +buy stock——he would buy _John Hobson_’s farm—he would new fore front +his house, and add a new wing to make it even——There was a fine +water-mill on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other +side of the river in full view to answer it—But above all things in the +world, he would inclose the great _Ox-moor_, and send out my brother +_Bobby_ immediately upon his travels. + +But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every +thing——and in truth very few of these to any purpose—of all the +projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last +seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have +determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at +above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour +either of the one or the other. + +This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though ’tis certain my +father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my +brother’s education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to +carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the +second creation of actions in the _Missisippi_-scheme, in which he was +an adventurer——yet the _Ox-moor_, which was a fine, large, whinny, +undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the _Shandy_-estate, had +almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his +heart upon turning it likewise to some account. + +But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of +things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice +of their claims——like a wise man he had refrained entering into any +nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of +every other project at this crisis——the two old projects, the OX-MOOR +and my BROTHER, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for +each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old +gentleman’s mind—which of the two should be set o’going first. + +——People may laugh as they will—but the case was this. + +It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was +almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it +should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before +marriage—not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by +the benefit of exercise and change of so much air—but simply for the +mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of +having been abroad—_tantum valet_, my father would say, _quantum +sonat._ + +Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian +indulgence——to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore——and thereby +make an example of him, as the first _Shandy_ unwhirl’d about _Europe_ +in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad——would be using +him ten times worse than a _Turk._ + +On the other hand, the case of the _Ox-moor_ was full as hard. + +Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred +pounds——it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit +about fifteen years before—besides the Lord knows what trouble and +vexation. + +It had been moreover in possession of the _Shandy_-family ever since +the middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before +the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other +by the projected wind-mill spoken of above—and for all these reasons +seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care +and protection of the family—yet by an unaccountable fatality, common +to men, as well as the ground they tread on——it had all along most +shamefully been overlook’d; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered +so much by it, that it would have made any man’s heart have bled +(_Obadiah_ said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode +over it, and only seen the condition it was in. + +However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground—nor indeed the +placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of +my father’s doing——he had never thought himself any way concerned in +the affair——till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of +that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its +boundaries)——which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it +naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing +them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he +was bound to do something for it——and that now or never was the time. + +I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, +that the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced +by each other; for though my father weigh’d them in all humours and +conditions——spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and +abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done—reading books of +farming one day——books of travels another——laying aside all passion +whatever—viewing the arguments on both sides in all their lights and +circumstances—communing every day with my uncle _Toby_—arguing with +_Yorick_, and talking over the whole affair of the _Ox-moor_ with +_Obadiah_——yet nothing in all that time appeared so strongly in behalf +of the one, which was not either strictly applicable to the other, or +at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of equal weight, +as to keep the scales even. + +For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho’ +the _Ox-moor_ would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the +world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay——yet +every tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother _Bobby_——let +_Obadiah_ say what he would.—— + +In point of interest——the contest, I own, at first sight, did not +appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and +ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and +burning, and fencing in the _Ox-moor_, &c. &c.—with the certain profit +it would bring him in return——the latter turned out so prodigiously in +his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the _Ox-moor_ +would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a +hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first +year——besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following——and the +year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred——but in all +likelihood, a hundred and fifty——if not two hundred quarters of pease +and beans——besides potatoes without end.——But then, to think he was all +this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat them——knocked all +on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state +of suspense——that, as he often declared to my uncle _Toby_——he knew no +more than his heels what to do. + +No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it +is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, +both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for +to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is +unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which +you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the +heart to the head, and so on——it is not to be told in what a degree +such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid +parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time +as it goes backwards and forwards. + +My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had +done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME——had he not been rescued out of +it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil——the misfortune of my +brother _Bobby_’s death. + +What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?——from +sorrow to sorrow?——to button up one cause of vexation——and unbutton +another? + +C H A P. LXVII + +FROM this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the _Shandy_ +family——and it is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE +and my OPINIONS sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have +but been clearing the ground to raise the building——and such a building +do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was +executed since _Adam._ In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my +pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left +remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it—I have but half a +score things to do in the time——I have a thing to name——a thing to +lament——a thing to hope——a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten—I +have a thing to suppose—a thing to declare——a thing to conceal——a thing +to choose, and a thing to pray for——This chapter, therefore, I _name_ +the chapter of THINGS——and my next chapter to it, that is, the first +chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon +WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my works. + +The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, +that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards +which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; +and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle +_Toby_, the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so +Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the +same impressions to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves +excite in my own—I will answer for it the book shall make its way in +the world, much better than its master has done before it.——Oh +_Tristram! Tristram!_ can this but be once brought about——the credit, +which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many +evils will have befallen thee as a man——thou wilt feast upon the +one——when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!—— + +No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours—They are the +choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em——assure +yourselves, good folks—(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes +offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my +words!——and that’s the thing I have to _declare._——I shall never get +all through in five minutes, that I fear——and the thing I _hope_ is, +that your worships and reverences are not offended—if you are, depend +upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be +offended at——that’s my dear _Jenny_’s way—but who my _Jenny_ is—and +which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to +be _concealed_—it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my +chapter of Button-holes——and not one chapter before. + +And now that you have just got to the end of these[21] three +volumes——the thing I have to _ask_ is, how you feel your heads? my own +akes dismally!——as for your healths, I know, they are much better.—True +_Shandeism_, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, +and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces +the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its +channels, makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round. + +Was I left, like _Sancho Pança_, to choose my kingdom, it should not be +maritime—or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of;—no, it should be a +kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more +saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, +have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politick as body +natural——and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those +passions, and subject them to reason——I should add to my prayer—that +God would give my subjects grace to be as WISE as they were MERRY; and +then should I be the happiest monarch, and they are the happiest people +under heaven. + +And so with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and +your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, +when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the mean time) I’ll have +another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you +little dream of. + + [21] According to the preceding Editions. + +END OF THE SECOND VOLUME + +Tristram Shandy + +_Tristram Shandy_ + + + + +THE +LIFE AND OPINIONS +OF +TRISTRAM SHANDY, +GENTLEMAN +——— +Volume the Third +——— + +Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris +Cum venia dabis.—— HOR. + +—Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut mordacius +quam deceat Christianum—non Ego, sed Democritus dixit.— + ERASMUS. + +Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, +sciebat, anathema esto. Second Council of CARTHAGE. + +TO THE +RIGHT HONOURABLE +J O H N, +LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER + +MY LORD, + +I HUMBLY beg leave to offer you these two Volumes[22]; they are the +best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce:—had +Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much +more proper present to your Lordship. + +I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate +this work to you, I join Lady SPENCER, in the liberty I take of +inscribing the story of _Le Fever_ to her name; for which I have no +other motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is +a humane one. + + I am, + +MY LORD, +Your Lordship’s most devoted +and most humble Servant, + +LAUR. STERNE. + + [22] Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition. + +C H A P. I + +IF it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a +postillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had +never entered my head. He flew like lightning——there was a slope of +three miles and a half——we scarce touched the ground——the motion was +most rapid——most impetuous——’twas communicated to my brain—my heart +partook of it——“By the great God of day,” said I, looking towards the +sun, and thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the chaise, as I +made my vow, “I will lock up my study-door the moment I get home, and +throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the earth, into +the draw-well at the back of my house.” + +The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon +the hill, scarce progressive, drag’d—drag’d up by eight _heavy +beasts_—“by main strength!——quoth I, nodding——but your betters draw the +same way——and something of every body’s!——O rare!” + +Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the +_bulk_—so little to the _stock?_ + +Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by +pouring only out of one vessel into another? + +Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever +in the same track—for ever at the same pace? + +Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as +working-days, to be shewing the _relicks of learning_, as monks do the +relicks of their saints—without working one—one single miracle with +them? + +Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a +moment—that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the +world—the _miracle_ of nature, as Zoroaster in his book ωεσι φυσεως +called him—the SHEKINAH of the divine presence, as Chrysostom——the +_image_ of God, as Moses——the _ray_ of divinity, as Plato—the _marvel_ +of _marvels_, as Aristotle—to go sneaking on at this +pitiful—pimping——pettifogging rate? + +I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion——but if there is +no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that +every imitator in _Great Britain, France_, and _Ireland_, had the farcy +for his pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large enough +to hold—aye—and sublimate them, _shag rag and bob-tail_, male and +female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of +_Whiskers_——but, by what chain of ideas—I leave as a legacy in +_mort-main_ to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of. + +UPON WHISKERS. + +I’m sorry I made it——’twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a +man’s head——A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear +it—’tis a delicate world——but I knew not of what mettle it was made—nor +had I ever seen the under-written fragment; otherwise, as surely as +noses are noses, and whiskers are whiskers still (let the world say +what it will to the contrary); so surely would I have steered clear of +this dangerous chapter. + +THE FRAGMENT. + +* * * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * +——You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking +hold of the old lady’s hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze, as he +pronounced the word _Whiskers_——shall we change the subject? By no +means, replied the old lady—I like your account of those matters; so +throwing a thin gauze handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back +upon the chair with her face turned towards him, and advancing her two +feet as she reclined herself——I desire, continued she, you will go on. + +The old gentleman went on as follows:——Whiskers! cried the queen of +_Navarre_, dropping her knotting ball, as _La Fosseuse_ uttered the +word——Whiskers, madam, said _La Fosseuse_, pinning the ball to the +queen’s apron, and making a courtesy as she repeated it. + +_La Fosseuse_’s voice was naturally soft and low, yet ’twas an +articulate voice: and every letter of the word _Whiskers_ fell +distinctly upon the queen of _Navarre_’s ear—Whiskers! cried the queen, +laying a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still +distrusted her ears——Whiskers! replied _La Fosseuse_, repeating the +word a third time——There is not a cavalier, madam, of his age in +_Navarre_, continued the maid of honour, pressing the page’s interest +upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair——Of what? cried _Margaret_, +smiling—Of whiskers, said _La Fosseuse_, with infinite modesty. + +The word _Whiskers_ still stood its ground, and continued to be made +use of in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of +_Navarre_, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which _La Fosseuse_ had +made of it: the truth was, _La Fosseuse_ had pronounced the word, not +only before the queen, but upon sundry other occasions at court, with +an accent which always implied something of a mystery—And as the court +of _Margaret_, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of +gallantry and devotion——and whiskers being as applicable to the one, as +the other, the word naturally stood its ground——it gained full as much +as it lost; that is, the clergy were for it——the laity were against +it——and for the women,——_they_ were divided. + +The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur _De Croix_, +was at that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honour +towards the terrace before the palace gate, where the guard was +mounted. The lady _De Baussiere_ fell deeply in love with him,——_La +Battarelle_ did the same—it was the finest weather for it, that ever +was remembered in _Navarre——La Guyol, La Maronette, La Sabatiere_, fell +in love with the Sieur _De Croix_ also——_La Rebours_ and _La Fosseuse_ +knew better——_De Croix_ had failed in an attempt to recommend himself +to _La Rebours;_ and _La Rebours_ and _La Fosseuse_ were inseparable. + +The queen of _Navarre_ was sitting with her ladies in the painted +bow-window, facing the gate of the second court, as _De Croix_ passed +through it—He is handsome, said the Lady _Baussiere_——He has a good +mien, said _La Battarelle_——He is finely shaped, said _La Guyol_—I +never saw an officer of the horse-guards in my life, said _La +Maronette_, with two such legs——Or who stood so well upon them, said +_La Sabatiere_——But he has no whiskers, cried _La Fosseuse_——Not a +pile, said _La Rebours._ + +The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as she +walked through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it this way and +that way in her fancy—_Ave Maria!_——what can _La-Fosseuse_ mean? said +she, kneeling down upon the cushion. + +_La Guyol, La Battarelle, La Maronette, La Sabatiere_, retired +instantly to their chambers——Whiskers! said all four of them to +themselves, as they bolted their doors on the inside. + +The Lady _Carnavallette_ was counting her beads with both hands, +unsuspected, under her farthingal——from St. _Antony_ down to St. +_Ursula_ inclusive, not a saint passed through her fingers without +whiskers; St. _Francis_, St. _Dominick_, St. _Bennet_, St. _Basil_, St. +_Bridget_, had all whiskers. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ had got into a wilderness of conceits, with +moralizing too intricately upon _La Fosseuse_’s text——She mounted her +palfrey, her page followed her——the host passed by—the Lady _Baussiere_ +rode on. + +One denier, cried the order of mercy—one single denier, in behalf of a +thousand patient captives, whose eyes look towards heaven and you for +their redemption. + +——The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly +holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered hands——I beg for +the unfortunate—good my Lady, ’tis for a prison—for an hospital—’tis +for an old man—a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by +fire——I call God and all his angels to witness——’tis to clothe the +naked——to feed the hungry——’tis to comfort the sick and the +broken-hearted. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground. + +——The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by +the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, &c.——Cousin, +aunt, sister, mother,——for virtue’s sake, for your own, for mine, for +Christ’s sake, remember me——pity me. + +——The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady _Baussiere_—The page took hold +of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace. + +There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves +about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it, +somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the +stronger—we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary. + +Ha, ha! he, hee! cried _La Guyol_ and _La Sabatiere_, looking close at +each other’s prints——Ho, ho! cried _La Battarelle_ and _Maronette_, +doing the same:—Whist! cried one—ft, ft,—said a second—hush, quoth a +third—poo, poo, replied a fourth—gramercy! cried the Lady +_Carnavallette;_——’twas she who bewhisker’d St. _Bridget._ + +_La Fosseuse_ drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having +traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon +one side of her upper lip, put in into _La Rebours_’ hand—_La Rebours_ +shook her head. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ coughed thrice into the inside of her muff—_La +Guyol_ smiled—Fy, said the Lady _Baussiere._ The queen of _Navarre_ +touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger—as much as to say, I +understand you all. + +’Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: _La Fosseuse_ had +given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all +these defiles——It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by the +expiration of which, the Sieur _De Croix_, finding it high time to +leave _Navarre_ for want of whiskers——the word in course became +indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use. + +The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have +suffered under such combinations.——The curate of _d’Estella_ wrote a +book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and +warning the _Navarois_ against them. + +Does not all the world know, said the curate _d’Estella_ at the +conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate some centuries ago +in most parts of _Europe_, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom +of _Navarre?_—The evil indeed spread no farther then—but have not beds +and bolsters, and night-caps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink of +destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and +pump-handles—and spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same +association?—Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all affections—give +it but its head——’tis like a ramping and a roaring lion. + +The drift of the curate _d’Estella_’s argument was not understood.—They +ran the scent the wrong way.—The world bridled his ass at the tail.—And +when the _extremes_ of DELICACY, and the _beginnings_ of CONCUPISCENCE, +hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy +also. + +C H A P. II + +WHEN my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy +account of my brother _Bobby_’s death, he was busy calculating the +expence of his riding post from _Calais_ to _Paris_, and so on to +_Lyons._ + +’Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of +it to travel over again, and his calculation to begin afresh, when he +had almost got to the end of it, by _Obadiah_’s opening the door to +acquaint him the family was out of yeast—and to ask whether he might +not take the great coach-horse early in the morning and ride in search +of some.—With all my heart, _Obadiah_, said my father (pursuing his +journey)—take the coach-horse, and welcome.——But he wants a shoe, poor +creature! said _Obadiah._——Poor creature! said my uncle _Toby_, +vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison. Then ride the +_Scotch_ horse, quoth my father hastily.—He cannot bear a saddle upon +his back, quoth _Obadiah_, for the whole world.——The devil’s in that +horse; then take PATRIOT, cried my father, and shut the door.——PATRIOT +is sold, said _Obadiah._ Here’s for you! cried my father, making a +pause, and looking in my uncle _Toby_’s face, as if the thing had not +been a matter of fact.—Your worship ordered me to sell him last +_April_, said _Obadiah._—Then go on foot for your pains, cried my +father——I had much rather walk than ride, said _Obadiah_, shutting the +door. + +What plagues, cried my father, going on with his calculation.——But the +waters are out, said _Obadiah_,—opening the door again. + +Till that moment, my father, who had a map of _Sanson_’s, and a book of +the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his +compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon _Nevers_, the last stage he +had paid for—purposing to go on from that point with his journey and +calculation, as soon as _Obadiah_ quitted the room: but this second +attack of _Obadiah_’s, in opening the door and laying the whole country +under water, was too much.——He let go his compasses—or rather with a +mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table; +and then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to +_Calais_ (like many others) as wise as he had set out. + +When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news +of my brother’s death, my father had got forwards again upon his +journey to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of +_Nevers._——By your leave, Mons. _Sanson_, cried my father, striking the +point of his compasses through _Nevers_ into the table—and nodding to +my uncle _Toby_ to see what was in the letter—twice of one night, is +too much for an English gentleman and his son, Mons. _Sanson_, to be +turned back from so lousy a town as _Nevers_—What think’st thou, +_Toby_? added my father in a sprightly tone.——Unless it be a garrison +town, said my uncle _Toby_——for then—I shall be a fool, said my father, +smiling to himself, as long as I live.—So giving a second nod—and +keeping his compasses still upon _Nevers_ with one hand, and holding +his book of the post-roads in the other—half calculating and half +listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my +uncle _Toby_ hummed over the letter. + +—— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —he’s gone! +said my uncle _Toby_——Where——Who? cried my father.——My nephew, said my +uncle _Toby._——What—without leave—without money—without governor? cried +my father in amazement. No:——he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my +uncle _Toby._—Without being ill? cried my father again.—I dare say not, +said my uncle _Toby_, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the +bottom of his heart, he has been ill enough, poor lad! I’ll answer for +him——for he is dead. + +When _Agrippina_ was told of her son’s death, _Tacitus_ informs us, +that, not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she +abruptly broke off her work—My father stuck his compasses into +_Nevers_, but so much the faster.—What contrarieties! his, indeed, was +matter of calculation!—_Agrippina_’s must have been quite a different +affair; who else could pretend to reason from history? + +How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.— + +C H A P. III + +————And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too—so look to +yourselves. + +’Tis either _Plato_, or _Plutarch_, or _Seneca_, or _Xenophon_, or +_Epictetus_, or _Theophrastus_, or _Lucian_—or some one perhaps of +later date—either _Cardan_, or _Budæus_, or _Petrarch_, or _Stella_—or +possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. _Austin_, +or St. _Cyprian_, or _Barnard_, who affirms that it is an irresistible +and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children—and +_Seneca_ (I’m positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate +themselves best by that particular channel—And accordingly we find, +that _David_ wept for his son _Absalom_—_Adrian_ for his +_Antinous_—_Niobe_ for her children, and that _Apollodorus_ and _Crito_ +both shed tears for _Socrates_ before his death. + +My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from +most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the +_Hebrews_ and the _Romans_—or slept it off, as the _Laplanders_—or +hanged it, as the _English_, or drowned it, as the _Germans_,—nor did +he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or +lillabullero it.—— + +——He got rid of it, however. + +Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these +two pages? + +When _Tully_ was bereft of his dear daughter _Tullia_, at first he laid +it to his heart,—he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his +own unto it.—O my _Tullia!_ my daughter! my child!—still, still, +still,—’twas O my _Tullia!_—my _Tullia!_ Methinks I see my _Tullia_, I +hear my _Tullia_, I talk with my _Tullia._—But as soon as he began to +look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent +things might be said upon the occasion—no body upon earth can conceive, +says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me. + +My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could +be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at +present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength—and his +weakness too.——His strength—for he was by nature eloquent; and his +weakness—for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in +life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise +thing, a witty, or a shrewd one—(bating the case of a systematic +misfortune)—he had all he wanted.—A blessing which tied up my father’s +tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were +pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the +two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as _ten_, and +the pain of the misfortune but as _five_—my father gained half in half, +and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen +him. + +This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in +my father’s domestic character; and it is this, that, in the +provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or +other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the +duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture. + +My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a +most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his +own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his +pad every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, +broke,—and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some +neglect or other in _Obadiah_, it so fell out, that my father’s +expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly +a beast of the kind as ever was produced. + +My mother and my uncle _Toby_ expected my father would be the death of +_Obadiah_—and that there never would be an end of the disaster——See +here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have +done!——It was not me, said _Obadiah._——How do I know that? replied my +father. + +Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee—the _Attic_ salt +brought water into them—and so _Obadiah_ heard no more about it. + +Now let us go back to my brother’s death. + +Philosophy has a fine saying for every thing.—For _Death_ it has an +entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father’s +head, that ’twas difficult to string them together, so as to make any +thing of a consistent show out of them.—He took them as they came. + +“’Tis an inevitable chance—the first statute in _Magna Charta_—it is an +everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother,—_All must die._ + +“If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder,—not that +he is dead. + +“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us. + +“—_To die_, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and +monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and +the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have +erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller’s +horizon.” (My father found he got great ease, and went on)—“Kingdoms +and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and +when those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them +together, performed their several evolutions, they fall back.”—Brother +_Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, laying down his pipe at the word +_evolutions_—Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father,—by heaven! I meant +revolutions, brother _Toby_—evolutions is nonsense.——’Tis not +nonsense—said my uncle _Toby._——But is it not nonsense to break the +thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my father—do +not—dear _Toby_, continued he, taking him by the hand, do not—do not, I +beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.——My uncle _Toby_ put his +pipe into his mouth. + +“Where is _Troy_ and _Mycenæ_, and _Thebes_ and _Delos_, and +_Persepolis_ and _Agrigentum?_”—continued my father, taking up his book +of post-roads, which he had laid down.—“What is become, brother _Toby_, +of _Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, of _Cizicum_ and _Mitylenæ?_ The fairest +towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are +left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling +themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be +forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night: the +world itself, brother _Toby_, must—must come to an end. + +“Returning out of _Asia_, when I sailed from _Ægina_ towards _Megara_,” +(_when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby_,) “I began to view +the country round about. _Ægina_ was behind me, _Megara_ was before, +_Pyræus_ on the right hand, _Corinth_ on the left.—What flourishing +towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that +man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as +this lies awfully buried in his presence——Remember, said I to myself +again—remember thou art a man.”— + +Now my uncle _Toby_ knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of +_Servius Sulpicius_’s consolatory letter to Tully.—He had as little +skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of +antiquity.—And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the _Turkey_ +trade, had been three or four different times in the _Levant_, in one +of which he had stayed a whole year and an half at _Zant_, my uncle +_Toby_ naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had +taken a trip across the _Archipelago_ into _Asia;_ and that all this +sailing affair with _Ægina_ behind, and _Megara_ before, and _Pyræus_ +on the right hand, &c. &c. was nothing more than the true course of my +father’s voyage and reflections.—’Twas certainly in his _manner_, and +many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon +worse foundations.—And pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying the +end of his pipe upon my father’s hand in a kindly way of +interruption—but waiting till he finished the account—what year of our +Lord was this?—’Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father.—That’s +impossible, cried my uncle _Toby._—Simpleton! said my father,—’twas +forty years before Christ was born. + +My uncle _Toby_ had but two things for it; either to suppose his +brother to be the wandering _Jew_, or that his misfortunes had +disordered his brain.—“May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him +and restore him!” said my uncle _Toby_, praying silently for my father, +and with tears in his eyes. + +—My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his +harangue with great spirit. + +“There is not such great odds, brother _Toby_, betwixt good and evil, +as the world imagines”——(this way of setting off, by the bye, was not +likely to cure my uncle _Toby_’s suspicions).——“Labour, sorrow, grief, +sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life.”—Much good may do +them—said my uncle _Toby_ to himself.—— + +“My son is dead!—so much the better;—’tis a shame in such a tempest to +have but one anchor. + +“But he is gone for ever from us!—be it so. He is got from under the +hands of his barber before he was bald—he is but risen from a feast +before he was surfeited—from a banquet before he had got drunken. + +“The _Thracians_ wept when a child was born,”—(and we were very near +it, quoth my uncle _Toby_,)—“and feasted and made merry when a man went +out of the world; and with reason.——Death opens the gate of fame, and +shuts the gate of envy after it,—it unlooses the chain of the captive, +and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands. + +“Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll shew +thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.” + +Is it not better, my dear brother _Toby_, (for mark—our appetites are +but diseases,)—is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not +to thirst, than to take physic to cure it? + +Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and +melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a +galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his +journey afresh? + +There is no terrour, brother _Toby_, in its looks, but what it borrows +from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of noses and the wiping +away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s +room.—Strip it of these, what is it?—’Tis better in battle than in bed, +said my uncle _Toby._—Take away its hearses, its mutes, and its +mourning,—its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aids—What is +it?—_Better in battle!_ continued my father, smiling, for he had +absolutely forgot my brother _Bobby_—’tis terrible no way—for consider, +brother _Toby_,—when we _are_—death is _not;_—and when death _is_—we +are _not._ My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to consider the +proposition; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for any +man—away it went,—and hurried my uncle _Toby_’s ideas along with it.—— + +For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to recollect, how +little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have +made.—_Vespasian_ died in a jest upon his close-stool—_Galba_ with a +sentence—_Septimus Severus_ in a dispatch—_Tiberius_ in dissimulation, +and _Cæsar Augustus_ in a compliment.—I hope ’twas a sincere one—quoth +my uncle _Toby._ + +—’Twas to his wife,—said my father. + +C H A P. IV + +——And lastly—for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of +this matter, continued my father,—this, like the gilded dome which +covers in the fabric—crowns all.— + +’Tis of _Cornelius Gallus_, the prætor—which, I dare say, brother +_Toby_, you have read.—I dare say I have not, replied my uncle.—He +died, said my father as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * —And if it was +with his wife, said my uncle _Toby_—there could be no hurt in +it.—That’s more than I know—replied my father. + +C H A P. V + +MY mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which +led to the parlour, as my uncle _Toby_ pronounced the word _wife._—’Tis +a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and _Obadiah_ had helped it by +leaving the door a little a-jar, so that my mother heard enough of it +to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge +of her finger across her two lips—holding in her breath, and bending +her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neck—(not towards the +door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink)—she +listened with all her powers:——the listening slave, with the Goddess of +Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an +intaglio. + +In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: +till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as _Rapin_ does those of +the church) to the same period. + +C H A P. VI + +THOUGH in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it +consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it, +that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and +acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and +impulses——that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour +and advantages of a complex one,——and a number of as odd movements +within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a _Dutch_ silk-mill. + +Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, +it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this, +that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or +dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally +another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel +along with it in the kitchen. + +Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, +was delivered in the parlour—or a discourse suspended till a servant +went out—or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the +brows of my father or mother—or, in short, when any thing was supposed +to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to +leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar—as it stands +just now,—which, under covert of the bad hinge, (and that possibly +might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended,) it was not +difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was +generally left, not indeed as wide as the _Dardanelles_, but wide +enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this windward trade, as +was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;—my +mother at this moment stands profiting by it.—_Obadiah_ did the same +thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought +the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had well got +over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue,—had _Trim_ got upon +his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject. + +A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all +_Job_’s stock—though by the bye, _your curious observers are seldom +worth a groat_—would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal +_Trim_ and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and +education, haranguing over the same bier. + +My father—a man of deep reading—prompt memory—with _Cato_, and +_Seneca_, and _Epictetus_, at his fingers ends.— + +The corporal—with nothing—to remember—of no deeper reading than his +muster-roll—or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of +it. + +The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and +striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with +the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images. + +The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or +that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, +going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O +_Trim!_ would to heaven thou had’st a better historian!—would!—thy +historian had a better pair of breeches!——O ye critics! will nothing +melt you? + +C H A P. VII + +——My young master in London is dead? said _Obadiah._— + +——A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s, which had been twice +scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah_’s exclamation brought into +_Susannah_’s head. + +—Well might _Locke_ write a chapter upon the imperfections of +words.—Then, quoth _Susannah_, we must all go into mourning.—But note a +second time: the word _mourning_, notwithstanding _Susannah_ made use +of it herself—failed also of doing its office; it excited not one +single idea, tinged either with grey or black,—all was green.——The +green sattin night-gown hung there still. + +—O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah._—My +mother’s whole wardrobe followed.—What a procession! her red +damask,—her orange tawney,—her white and yellow lutestrings,—her brown +taffata,—her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable +under-petticoats.—Not a rag was left behind.—“_No,—she will never look +up again_,” said _Susannah._ + +We had a fat, foolish scullion—my father, I think, kept her for her +simplicity;—she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.—He is +dead, said _Obadiah_,—he is certainly dead!—So am not I, said the +foolish scullion. + +——Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as _Trim_ +stepp’d into the kitchen,—master _Bobby_ is dead and _buried_—the +funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah_’s—we shall have all to go +into mourning, said _Susannah._ + +I hope not, said _Trim._—You hope not! cried _Susannah_ earnestly.—The +mourning ran not in _Trim_’s head, whatever it did in _Susannah_’s.—I +hope—said _Trim_, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not +true. I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered _Obadiah;_ and +we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the +ox-moor.—Oh! he’s dead, said _Susannah._—As sure, said the scullion, as +I’m alive. + +I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said _Trim_, fetching a +sigh.—Poor creature!—poor boy!—poor gentleman! + +—He was alive last _Whitsontide!_ said the coachman.—_Whitsontide!_ +alas! cried _Trim_, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into +the same attitude in which he read the sermon,—what is _Whitsontide, +Jonathan_ (for that was the coachman’s name), or _Shrovetide_, or any +tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal +(striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to +give an idea of health and stability)—and are we not—(dropping his hat +upon the ground) gone! in a moment!—’Twas infinitely striking! +_Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears.—We are not stocks and +stones.—_Jonathan, Obadiah_, the cook-maid, all melted.—The foolish fat +scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was +rous’d with it.—The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. + +Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution +in church and state,—and possibly the preservation of the whole +world—or what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its +property and power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right +understanding of this stroke of the corporal’s eloquence—I do demand +your attention—your worships and reverences, for any ten pages +together, take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall +sleep for it at your ease. + +I said, “we were not stocks and stones”—’tis very well. I should have +added, nor are we angels, I wish we were,—but men clothed with bodies, +and governed by our imaginations;—and what a junketing piece of work of +it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of +them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it +suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely +deny the touch, though most of your _Barbati_, I know, are for it) has +the quickest commerce with the soul,—gives a smarter stroke, and leaves +something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either +convey—or sometimes get rid of. + +—I’ve gone a little about—no matter, ’tis for health—let us only carry +it back in our mind to the mortality of _Trim_’s hat—“Are we not here +now,—and gone in a moment?”—There was nothing in the sentence—’twas one +of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; +and if _Trim_ had not trusted more to his hat than his head—he made +nothing at all of it. + +——“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we +not”—(dropping his hat plumb upon the ground—and pausing, before he +pronounced the word)—“gone! in a moment?” The descent of the hat was as +if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.——Nothing +could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the +type and fore-runner, like it,—his hand seemed to vanish from under +it,—it fell dead,—the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a +corpse,—and _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears. + +Now—Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and +motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon +the ground, without any effect.——Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast +it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any +possible direction under heaven,—or in the best direction that could be +given to it,—had he dropped it like a goose—like a puppy—like an ass—or +in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool—like +a ninny—like a nincompoop—it had fail’d, and the effect upon the heart +had been lost. + +Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the +engines of eloquence,—who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and +mollify it,——and then harden it again to _your purpose_—— + +Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having +done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet. + +Ye, lastly, who drive——and why not, Ye also who are driven, like +turkeys to market with a stick and a red clout—meditate—meditate, I +beseech you, upon _Trim_’s hat. + +C H A P. VIII + +STAY—I have a small account to settle with the reader before _Trim_ can +go on with his harangue.—It shall be done in two minutes. + +Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in due +time,—I own myself a debtor to the world for two items,—a chapter upon +_chamber-maids and button-holes_, which, in the former part of my work, +I promised and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of your +worships and reverences telling me, that the two subjects, especially +so connected together, might endanger the morals of the world,—I pray +the chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes may be forgiven me,—and +that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is +nothing, an’t please your reverences, but a chapter of _chamber-maids, +green gowns, and old hats._ + +_Trim_ took his hat off the ground,—put it upon his head,—and then went +on with his oration upon death, in manner and form following. + +C H A P. IX + +——To us, _Jonathan_, who know not what want or care is—who live here in +the service of two of the best of masters—(bating in my own case his +majesty King _William_ the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both +in _Ireland_ and _Flanders_)—I own it, that from _Whitsontide_ to +within three weeks of _Christmas_,—’tis not long—’tis like nothing;—but +to those, _Jonathan_, who know what death is, and what havock and +destruction he can make, before a man can well wheel about—’tis like a +whole age.—O _Jonathan!_ ’twould make a good-natured man’s heart bleed, +to consider, continued the corporal (standing perpendicularly), how low +many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time!—And +trust me, _Susy_, added the corporal, turning to _Susannah_, whose eyes +were swimming in water,—before that time comes round again,—many a +bright eye will be dim.—_Susannah_ placed it to the right side of the +page—she wept—but she court’sied too.—Are we not, continued _Trim_, +looking still at _Susannah_—are we not like a flower of the field—a +tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation—else no +tongue could have described _Susannah_’s affliction—is not all flesh +grass?—Tis clay,—’tis dirt.—They all looked directly at the +scullion,—the scullion had just been scouring a fish-kettle.—It was not +fair.— + +—What is the finest face that ever man looked at!—I could hear _Trim_ +talk so for ever, cried _Susannah_,—what is it! (_Susannah_ laid her +hand upon _Trim_’s shoulder)—but corruption?——_Susannah_ took it off. + +Now I love you for this—and ’tis this delicious mixture within you +which makes you dear creatures what you are—and he who hates you for +it——all I can say of the matter is—That he has either a pumpkin for his +head—or a pippin for his heart,—and whenever he is dissected ’twill be +found so. + +C H A P. X + +WHETHER _Susannah_, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the +corporal’s shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions)——broke a +little the chain of his reflexions—— + +Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into the +doctor’s quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than +himself—— + +Or whether - - - - - - - - Or whether——for in all such cases a +man of invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages +with suppositions——which of all these was the cause, let the curious +physiologist, or the curious any body determine——’tis certain, at +least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue. + +For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at +all:—not this . . added the corporal, snapping his fingers,—but with an +air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.—In +battle, I value death not this . . . and let him not take me cowardly, +like poor _Joe Gibbins_, in scouring his gun.—What is he? A pull of a +trigger—a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that—makes the +difference.—Look along the line—to the right—see! _Jack_’s down! +well,—’tis worth a regiment of horse to him.—No—’tis _Dick._ Then +_Jack_’s no worse.—Never mind which,—we pass on,—in hot pursuit the +wound itself which brings him is not felt,—the best way is to stand up +to him,—the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than the man who +marches up into his jaws.—I’ve look’d him, added the corporal, an +hundred times in the face,—and know what he is.—He’s nothing, +_Obadiah_, at all in the field.—But he’s very frightful in a house, +quoth _Obadiah._——I never mind it myself, said _Jonathan_, upon a +coach-box.—It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, replied +_Susannah._—And could I escape him by creeping into the worst calf’s +skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it there—said +_Trim_—but that is nature. + +——Nature is nature, said _Jonathan._—And that is the reason, cried +_Susannah_, I so much pity my mistress.—She will never get the better +of it.—Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family, +answered _Trim._——Madam will get ease of heart in weeping,—and the +Squire in talking about it,—but my poor master will keep it all in +silence to himself.—I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month +together, as he did for lieutenant _Le Fever._ An’ please your honour, +do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him. I +cannot help it, _Trim_, my master would say,—’tis so melancholy an +accident—I cannot get it off my heart.—Your honour fears not death +yourself.—I hope, _Trim_, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a +wrong thing.——Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of +_Le Fever_’s boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour +would fall asleep. + +I like to hear _Trim_’s stories about the captain, said _Susannah._—He +is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said _Obadiah_, as ever lived.—Aye, and +as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a +platoon.—There never was a better officer in the king’s army,—or a +better man in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth of a +cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole,—and +yet, for all that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other +people.——He would not hurt a chicken.——I would sooner, quoth +_Jonathan_, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year—than some +for eight.—Thank thee, _Jonathan!_ for thy twenty shillings,—as much, +_Jonathan_, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou +hadst put the money into my own pocket.——I would serve him to the day +of my death out of love. He is a friend and a brother to me,—and could +I be sure my poor brother _Tom_ was dead,—continued the corporal, +taking out his handkerchief,—was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would +leave every shilling of it to the captain.——_Trim_ could not refrain +from tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his +master.——The whole kitchen was affected.—Do tell us the story of the +poor lieutenant, said _Susannah._——With all my heart, answered the +corporal. + +_Susannah_, the cook, _Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, and corporal _Trim_, +formed a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut +the kitchen door,—the corporal begun. + +C H A P. XI + +I AM a _Turk_ if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had +plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river +_Nile_, without one.——Your most obedient servant, Madam—I’ve cost you a +great deal of trouble,—I wish it may answer;—but you have left a crack +in my back,—and here’s a great piece fallen off here before,—and what +must I do with this foot?——I shall never reach _England_ with it. + +For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;—and so often has my +judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or +wrong,—at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I +reverence truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a +man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as +for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well +without,—I’ll go to the world’s end with him:——But I hate disputes,—and +therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society) I would +almost subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first +passage, rather than be drawn into one——But I cannot bear +suffocation,——and bad smells worst of all.——For which reasons, I +resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to be +augmented,—or a new-one raised,—I would have no hand in it, one way or +t’other. + +C H A P. XII + +——BUT to return to my mother. + +My uncle _Toby_’s opinion, Madam, “that there could be no harm in +_Cornelius Gallus_, the _Roman_ prætor’s lying with his wife;”——or +rather the last word of that opinion,—(for it was all my mother heard +of it) caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex:——You shall +not mistake me,—I mean her curiosity,—she instantly concluded herself +the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession upon her +fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said, was +accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns. + +——Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live, who would not have +done the same? + +From the strange mode of _Cornelius_’s death, my father had made a +transition to that of _Socrates_, and was giving my uncle _Toby_ an +abstract of his pleading before his judges;——’twas irresistible:——not +the oration of _Socrates_,—but my father’s temptation to it.——He had +wrote the Life of _Socrates_[23] himself the year before he left off +trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it;——so +that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling +a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a +period in _Socrates_’s oration, which closed with a shorter word than +_transmigration_, or _annihilation_,—or a worse thought in the middle +of it than _to be—or not to be_,—the entering upon a new and untried +state of things,—or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep, +without dreams, without disturbance?——_That we and our children were +born to die,—but neither of us born to be slaves._——No—there I mistake; +that was part of _Eleazer_’s oration, as recorded by _Josephus (de +Bell. Judaic)_——_Eleazer_ owns he had it from the philosophers of +_India;_ in all likelihood _Alexander_ the Great, in his irruption into +_India_, after he had over-run _Persia_, amongst the many things he +stole,—stole that sentiment also; by which means it was carried, if not +all the way by himself (for we all know he died at _Babylon_), at least +by some of his maroders, into _Greece_,—from _Greece_ it got to +_Rome_,—from _Rome_ to _France_,—and from _France_ to _England:_——So +things come round.—— + +By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.—— + +By water the sentiment might easily have come down the _Ganges_ into +the _Sinus Gangeticus_, or _Bay of Bengal_, and so into the _Indian +Sea;_ and following the course of trade (the way from _India_ by the +_Cape of Good Hope_ being then unknown), might be carried with other +drugs and spices up the _Red Sea_ to _Joddah_, the port of _Mekka_, or +else to _Tor_ or _Sues_, towns at the bottom of the gulf; and from +thence by karrawans to _Coptos_, but three days journey distant, so +down the _Nile_ directly to _Alexandria_, where the SENTIMENT would be +landed at the very foot of the great stair-case of the _Alexandrian_ +library,——and from that store-house it would be fetched.——Bless me! +what a trade was driven by the learned in those days! + + [23] This book my father would never consent to publish; ’tis in + manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family, all, or most + of which will be printed in due time. + +C H A P. XIII + +——NOW my father had a way, a little like that of _Job_’s (in case there +ever was such a man——if not, there’s an end of the matter.—— + +Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in +fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived;—whether, for +instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c.——to vote, therefore, that +he never lived at all, is a little cruel,—’tis not doing as they would +be done by,—happen that as it may)——My father, I say, had a way, when +things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally +of his impatience,—of wondering why he was begot,—wishing himself +dead;—sometimes worse:——And when the provocation ran high, and grief +touched his lips with more than ordinary powers—Sir, you scarce could +have distinguished him from _Socrates_ himself.——Every word would +breathe the sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about +all its issues; for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no +deep reading, yet the abstract of _Socrates_’s oration, which my father +was giving my uncle _Toby_, was not altogether new to her.—She listened +to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so to the end of +the chapter, had not my father plunged (which he had no occasion to +have done) into that part of the pleading where the great philosopher +reckons up his connections, his alliances, and children; but renounces +a security to be so won by working upon the passions of his judges.—“I +have friends—I have relations,—I have three desolate children,”—says +_Socrates._— + +——Then, cried my mother, opening the door,——you have one more, Mr. +_Shandy_, than I know of. + +By heaven! I have one less,—said my father, getting up and walking out +of the room. + +C H A P. XIV + +——THEY are _Socrates_’s children, said my uncle _Toby._ He has been +dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother. + +My uncle _Toby_ was no chronologer—so not caring to advance one step +but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the +table, and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, +without saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out +after my father, that he might finish the ecclaircissement himself. + +C H A P. XV + +HAD this volume been a farce, which, unless every one’s life and +opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no +reason to suppose—the last chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of +it, and then this chapter must have set off thus. + +Pt . . . r . . . r . . . ing—twing—twang—prut—trut——’tis a cursed bad +fiddle.—Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or no?—trut . . . prut. + . — They should be _fifths._——’Tis wickedly strung—tr . . . a . e . i +. o . u .-twang.—The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post +absolutely down,—else—trut . . prut—hark! tis not so bad a tone.—Diddle +diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing +before good judges,—but there’s a man there—no—not him with the bundle +under his arm—the grave man in black.—’Sdeath! not the gentleman with +the sword on.—Sir, I had rather play a _Caprichio_ to _Calliope_ +herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and +yet I’ll stake my _Cremona_ to a _Jew_’s trump, which is the greatest +musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three +hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing +one single nerve that belongs to him—Twaddle diddle, tweddle +diddle,—twiddle diddle,—twoddle diddle,—twuddle diddle,——prut +trut—krish—krash—krush.—I’ve undone you, Sir,—but you see he’s no +worse,—and was _Apollo_ to take his fiddle after me, he can make him no +better. + +Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle—hum—dum—drum. + +—Your worships and your reverences love music—and God has made you all +with good ears—and some of you play delightfully +yourselves—trut-prut,—prut-trut. + +O! there is—whom I could sit and hear whole days,—whose talents lie in +making what he fiddles to be felt,—who inspires me with his joys and +hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion.—If you +would borrow five guineas of me, Sir,—which is generally ten guineas +more than I have to spare—or you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, want +your bills paying,—that’s your time. + +C H A P. XVI + +THE first thing which entered my father’s head, after affairs were a +little settled in the family, and _Susanna_ had got possession of my +mother’s green sattin night-gown,—was to sit down coolly, after the +example of _Xenophon_, and write a TRISTRA-_pædia_, or system of +education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered +thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to +form an INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I +was my father’s last stake—he had lost my brother _Bobby_ entirely,—he +had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me—that is, he +had been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me—my geniture, +nose, and name,—there was but this one left; and accordingly my father +gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle _Toby_ had +done to his doctrine of projectils.—The difference between them was, +that my uncle _Toby_ drew his whole knowledge of projectils from +_Nicholas Tartaglia_—My father spun his, every thread of it, out of his +own brain,—or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and +spinsters had spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture +to him. + +In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced +almost into the middle of his work.—Like all other writers, he met with +disappointments.—He imagined he should be able to bring whatever he had +to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and bound, +it might be rolled up in my mother’s hussive.—Matter grows under our +hands.—Let no man say,—“Come—I’ll write a duodecimo.” + +My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful +diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of +caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious +a principle) as was used by _John de la Casse_, the lord archbishop of +_Benevento_, in compassing his _Galatea;_ in which his Grace of +_Benevento_ spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came +out, it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a _Rider_’s +Almanack.—How the holy man managed the affair, unless he spent the +greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at +_primero_ with his chaplain,—would pose any mortal not let into the +true secret;—and therefore ’tis worth explaining to the world, was it +only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to +be fed—as to be famous. + +I own had _John de la Casse_, the archbishop of _Benevento_, for whose +memory (notwithstanding his _Galatea_,) I retain the highest +veneration,—had he been, Sir, a slender clerk—of dull wit—slow +parts—costive head, and so forth,—he and his _Galatea_ might have +jogged on together to the age of _Methuselah_ for me,—the phænomenon +had not been worth a parenthesis.— + +But the reverse of this was the truth: _John de la Casse_ was a genius +of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these great +advantages of nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his +_Galatea_, he lay under an impuissance at the same time of advancing +above a line and a half in the compass of a whole summer’s day: this +disability in his Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted +with,—which opinion was this,—_viz._ that whenever a Christian was +writing a book (not for his private amusement, but) where his intent +and purpose was, _bonâ fide_, to print and publish it to the world, his +first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil one.—This was +the state of ordinary writers: but when a personage of venerable +character and high station, either in church or state, once turned +author,—he maintained, that from the very moment he took pen in +hand—all the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole +him.—’Twas Term-time with them,—every thought, first and last, was +captious;—how specious and good soever,—’twas all one;—in whatever form +or colour it presented itself to the imagination,—’twas still a stroke +of one or other of ’em levell’d at him, and was to be fenced off.—So +that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was +not so much a state of _composition_, as a state of _warfare;_ and his +probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon +earth,—both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his +wit—as his RESISTANCE. + +My father was hugely pleased with this theory of _John de la Casse_, +archbishop of _Benevento;_ and (had it not cramped him a little in his +creed) I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the _Shandy_ +estate, to have been the broacher of it.—How far my father actually +believed in the devil, will be seen, when I come to speak of my +father’s religious notions, in the progress of this work: ’tis enough +to say here, as he could not have the honour of it, in the literal +sense of the doctrine—he took up with the allegory of it; and would +often say, especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was +as much good meaning, truth, and knowledge, couched under the veil of +_John de la Casse_’s parabolical representation,—as was to be found in +any one poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity.—Prejudice of +education, he would say, _is the devil_,—and the multitudes of them +which we suck in with our mother’s milk—_are the devil and all._——We +are haunted with them, brother _Toby_, in all our lucubrations and +researches; and was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they +obtruded upon him,—what would his book be? Nothing,—he would add, +throwing his pen away with a vengeance,—nothing but a farrago of the +clack of nurses, and of the nonsense of the old women (of both sexes) +throughout the kingdom. + +This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress +my father made in his _Tristra-pædia;_ at which (as I said) he was +three years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, +had scarce completed, by this own reckoning, one half of his +undertaking: the misfortune was, that I was all that time totally +neglected and abandoned to my mother; and what was almost as bad, by +the very delay, the first part of the work, upon which my father had +spent the most of his pains, was rendered entirely useless,——every day +a page or two became of no consequence.—— + +——Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human +wisdom, That the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and +eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them. + +In short my father was so long in all his acts of resistance,—or in +other words,—he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to +live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not +happened,——which, when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, +shall not be concealed a moment from the reader——I verily believe, I +had put by my father, and left him drawing a sundial, for no better +purpose than to be buried under ground. + +C H A P. XVII + +——’TWAS nothing,—I did not lose two drops of blood by it——’twas not +worth calling in a surgeon, had he lived next door to us——thousands +suffer by choice, what I did by accident.——Doctor _Slop_ made ten times +more of it, than there was occasion:——some men rise, by the art of +hanging great weights upon small wires,—and I am this day (_August_ the +10th, 1761) paying part of the price of this man’s reputation.——O +’twould provoke a stone, to see how things are carried on in this +world!——The chamber-maid had left no ******* *** under the bed:——Cannot +you contrive, master, quoth _Susannah_, lifting up the sash with one +hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the window-seat with the +other,—cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time, to **** *** ** +*** ****** ? + +I was five years old.——_Susannah_ did not consider that nothing was +well hung in our family,——so slap came the sash down like lightning +upon us;—Nothing is left,—cried _Susannah_,—nothing is left—for me, but +to run my country.—— + +My uncle _Toby_’s house was a much kinder sanctuary; and so _Susannah_ +fled to it. + +C H A P. XVIII + +WHEN _Susannah_ told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with +all the circumstances which attended the _murder_ of me,—(as she called +it,)—the blood forsook his cheeks,—all accessaries in murder being +principals,—_Trim_’s conscience told him he was as much to blame as +_Susannah_,—and if the doctrine had been true, my uncle _Toby_ had as +much of the bloodshed to answer for to heaven, as either of ’em;—so +that neither reason or instinct, separate or together, could possibly +have guided _Susannah_’s steps to so proper an asylum. It is in vain to +leave this to the Reader’s imagination:——to form any kind of hypothesis +that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains +sore,—and to do it without,—he must have such brains as no reader ever +had before him.—Why should I put them either to trial or to torture? +’Tis my own affair: I’ll explain it myself. + +C H A P. XIX + +’TIS a pity, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, resting with his hand upon +the corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works,—that +we have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in the gorge of that new +redoubt;—’twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack +on that side quite complete:——get me a couple cast, _Trim._ + +Your honour shall have them, replied _Trim_, before tomorrow morning. + +It was the joy of _Trim_’s heart, nor was his fertile head ever at a +loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle _Toby_ in his +campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last +crown, he would have sate down and hammered it into a paderero, to have +prevented a single wish in his master. The corporal had already,—what +with cutting off the ends of my uncle _Toby_’s spouts—hacking and +chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters,—melting down his pewter +shaving-bason,—and going at last, like _Lewis_ the Fourteenth, on to +the top of the church, for spare ends, &c.——he had that very campaign +brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three +demi-culverins, into the field; my uncle _Toby_’s demand for two more +pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no +better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the +nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were +of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of +wheels for one of their carriages. + +He had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle _Toby_’s house long +before, in the very same way,—though not always in the same order; for +sometimes the pullies have been wanted, and not the lead,—so then he +began with the pullies,—and the pullies being picked out, then the lead +became useless,—and so the lead went to pot too. + +——A great MORAL might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not +time—’tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, ’twas equally +fatal to the sash window. + +C H A P. XX + +THE corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of +artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to +himself, and left _Susannah_ to have sustained the whole weight of the +attack, as she could;—true courage is not content with coming off +so.——The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the +train,—’twas no matter,——had done that, without which, as he imagined, +the misfortune could never have happened,—_at least in_ Susannah_’s +hands;_——How would your honours have behaved?——He determined at once, +not to take shelter behind _Susannah_,—but to give it; and with this +resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to lay +the whole _manœuvre_ before my uncle _Toby._ + +My uncle _Toby_ had just then been giving _Yorick_ an account of the +Battle of _Steenkirk_, and of the strange conduct of count _Solmes_ in +ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not +act; which was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the +loss of the day. + +There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is +going to follow,—they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a +dramatic writer;—I mean of ancient days.—— + +_Trim_, by the help of his fore-finger, laid flat upon the table, and +the edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a shift +to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to +it;—and the story being told,—the dialogue went on as follows. + +C H A P. XXI + +——I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded +_Susannah_’s story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any +harm,—’twas my fault, an’ please your honour,—not her’s. + +Corporal _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_, putting on his hat which lay +upon the table,——if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the +service absolutely requires it should be done,—’tis I certainly who +deserve the blame,—you obeyed your orders. + +Had count _Solmes_, _Trim_, done the same at the battle of _Steenkirk_, +said _Yorick_, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run +over by a dragoon in the retreat,——he had saved thee;——Saved! cried +_Trim_, interrupting _Yorick_, and finishing the sentence for him after +his own fashion,——he had saved five battalions, an’ please your +reverence, every soul of them:——there was _Cutt_ ’s,—continued the +corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of +his left, and counting round his hand,——there was _Cutt _’s,——_Mackay +_’s,——_Angus _’s,——_Graham _’s,——and _Leven _’s, all cut to +pieces;——and so had the _English_ life-guards too, had it not been for +some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, +and received the enemy’s fire in their faces, before any one of their +own platoons discharged a musket,——they’ll go to heaven for it,—added +_Trim._—_Trim_ is right, said my uncle _Toby_, nodding to +_Yorick_,——he’s perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, +continued the corporal, where the ground was so strait, that the +_French_ had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and +fell’d trees laid this way and that to cover them (as they always +have).——Count _Solmes_ should have sent us,——we would have fired muzzle +to muzzle with them for their lives.——There was nothing to be done for +the horse:——he had his foot shot off however for his pains, continued +the corporal, the very next campaign at _Landen._—Poor _Trim_ got his +wound there, quoth my uncle _Toby._——’Twas owing, an’ please your +honour, entirely to count _Solmes_,——had he drubbed them soundly at +_Steenkirk_, they would not have fought us at _Landen._——Possibly +not,——_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby;_——though if they have the advantage +of a wood, or you give them a moment’s time to intrench themselves, +they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever at you.——There is no +way but to march coolly up to them,——receive their fire, and fall in +upon them, pell-mell——Ding dong, added _Trim._——Horse and foot, said my +uncle _Toby._——Helter Skelter, said _Trim._——Right and left, cried my +uncle _Toby._——Blood an’ ounds, shouted the corporal;——the battle +raged,——_Yorick_ drew his chair a little to one side for safety, and +after a moment’s pause, my uncle _Toby_ sinking his voice a +note,—resumed the discourse as follows. + +C H A P. XXII + +KING _William_, said my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to _Yorick_, +was so terribly provoked at count _Solmes_ for disobeying his orders, +that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months +after.——I fear, answered _Yorick_, the squire will be as much provoked +at the corporal, as the King at the count.——But ’twould be singularly +hard in this case, continued be, if corporal _Trim_, who has behaved so +diametrically opposite to count _Solmes_, should have the fate to be +rewarded with the same disgrace:——too oft in this world, do things take +that train.——I would spring a mine, cried my uncle _Toby_, rising +up,——and blow up my fortifications, and my house with them, and we +would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see +it.——_Trim_ directed a slight,——but a grateful bow towards his +master,——and so the chapter ends. + +C H A P. XXIII + +——Then, _Yorick_, replied my uncle _Toby_, you and I will lead the way +abreast,——and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us.——And +_Susannah_, an’ please your honour, said _Trim_, shall be put in the +rear.——’Twas an excellent disposition,—and in this order, without +either drums beating, or colours flying, they marched slowly from my +uncle _Toby_’s house to _Shandy-hall._ + +——I wish, said _Trim_, as they entered the door,—instead of the sash +weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have +done.—You have cut off spouts enow, replied _Yorick._ + +C H A P. XXIV + +As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever +in different airs and attitudes,—not one, or all of them, can ever help +the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, +speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.—There +was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, +by which handle he would take a thing,—it baffled, Sir, all +calculations.——The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, +from that wherein most men travelled,—that every object before him +presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different +from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.—In other +words, ’twas a different object, and in course was differently +considered: + +This is the true reason, that my dear _Jenny_ and I, as well as all the +world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.—She looks +at her outside,—I, at her in—. How is it possible we should agree about +her value? + +C H A P. XXV + +’TIS a point settled,—and I mention it for the comfort of +_Confucius_,[24] who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain +story—that provided he keeps along the line of his story,—he may go +backwards and forwards as he will,—’tis still held to be no digression. + +This being premised, I take the benefit of the _act of going backwards_ +myself. + + [24] Mr _Shandy_ is supposed to mean * * * * * * * * * * *, Esq; + member for * * * * * *,——and not the _Chinese_ Legislator. + +C H A P. XXVI + +FIFTY thousand pannier loads of devils—(not of the Archbishop of +_Benevento_’s—I mean of _Rabelais_’s devils), with their tails chopped +off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, +as I did—when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly +into the nursery,—so that _Susannah_ had but just time to make her +escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore. + +Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,—and young +enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet _Susannah_, in +passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in +short-hand with the cook—the cook had told it with a commentary to +_Jonathan_, and _Jonathan_ to _Obadiah;_ so that by the time my father +had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter +above,—was _Obadiah_ enabled to give him a particular account of it, +just as it had happened.—I thought as much, said my father, tucking up +his night-gown;—and so walked up stairs. + +One would imagine from this——(though for my own part I somewhat +question it)—that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that +remarkable character in the _Tristra-pædia_, which to me is the most +original and entertaining one in the whole book;—and that is the +_chapter upon sash-windows_, with a bitter _Philippick_ at the end of +it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.—I have but two reasons for +thinking otherwise. + +First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event +happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for +good an’ all;—which, considering with what difficulty he composed +books,—he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could +have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his +writing a chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the +second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support +of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon +sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,—and it is this. + +——That, in order to render the _Tristra-pædia_ complete,—I wrote the +chapter myself. + +C H A P. XXVII + +MY father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into +the case—all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his +lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother +imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him +return with a couple of folios under his arm, and _Obadiah_ following +him with a large reading-desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, +and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the +case at his ease. + +——If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the _Section—de +sede vel subjecto circumcisionis_,—for he had brought up _Spenser de +Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus_—and _Maimonides_, in order to confront +and examine us altogether.—— + +——If it be but right done, quoth he:—only tell us, cried my mother, +interrupting him, what herbs?——For that, replied my father, you must +send for Dr. _Slop._ + +My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as +follows, + +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * *—Very well,—said my father, * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *—nay, if +it has that convenience——and so without stopping a moment to settle it +first in his mind, whether the _Jews_ had it from the _Egyptians_, or +the _Egyptians_ from the _Jews_,—he rose up, and rubbing his forehead +two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we +rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than +we foreboded,—he shut the book, and walked down stairs.—Nay, said he, +mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step as he +set his foot upon it—if the EGYPTIANS,—the SYRIANS,—the +PHOENICIANS,—the ARABIANS,—the CAPPADOCIANS,——if the COLCHI, and +TROGLODYTES did it——if SOLON and PYTHAGORAS submitted,—what is +TRISTRAM?——Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the +matter? + +C H A P. XXVIII + +DEAR _Yorick_, said my father smiling (for _Yorick_ had broke his rank +with my uncle _Toby_ in coming through the narrow entry, and so had +stept first into the parlour)—this _Tristram_ of ours, I find, comes +very hardly by all his religious rites.—Never was the son of _Jew, +Christian, Turk_, or _Infidel_ initiated into them in so oblique and +slovenly a manner.—But he is no worse, I trust, said _Yorick._—There +has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in +some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was +formed.—That, you are a better judge of than I, replied +_Yorick._—Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both:—the +trine and sextil aspects have jumped awry,—or the opposite of their +ascendents have not hit it, as they should,—or the lords of the +genitures (as they call them) have been at _bo-peep_,—or something has +been wrong above, or below with us. + +’Tis possible, answered _Yorick._—But is the child, cried my uncle +_Toby_, the worse?—The _Troglodytes_ say not, replied my father. And +your theologists, _Yorick_, tell us—Theologically? said _Yorick_,—or +speaking after the manner of apothecaries?[25]—statesmen?[26]—or +washer-women?[27] + +——I’m not sure, replied my father,—but they tell us, brother _Toby_, +he’s the better for it.——Provided, said _Yorick_, you travel him into +_Egypt._—Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when +he sees the _Pyramids._—— + +Now every word of this, quoth my uncle _Toby_, is _Arabic_ to me.——I +wish, said _Yorick_, ’twas so, to half the world. + +—ILUS,[28] continued my father, circumcised his whole army one +morning.—Not without a court martial? cried my uncle _Toby._——Though +the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle _Toby_’s +remark, but turning to _Yorick_,—are greatly divided still who _Ilus_ +was;—some say _Saturn;_—some the Supreme Being;—others, no more than a +brigadier general under _Pharaoh-neco._——Let him be who he will, said +my uncle _Toby_, I know not by what article of war he could justify it. + +The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different +reasons for it:—others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the +opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the +greatest part of them.—But then again, our best polemic divines—I wish +there was not a polemic divine, said _Yorick_, in the kingdom;—one +ounce of practical divinity—is worth a painted ship-load of all their +reverences have imported these fifty years.—Pray, Mr. _Yorick_, quoth +my uncle _Toby_,—do tell me what a polemic divine is?——The best +description, captain _Shandy_, I have ever read, is of a couple of ’em, +replied _Yorick_, in the account of the battle fought single hands +betwixt _Gymnast_ and captain _Tripet;_ which I have in my pocket.——I +beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle _Toby_ earnestly.—You shall, said +_Yorick._—And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door,—and I know +the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than his +supper,—I beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in.—With all my +soul, said my father.——_Trim_ came in, erect and happy as an emperor; +and having shut the door, _Yorick_ took a book from his right-hand +coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows. + + [25] Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν, ἣν ἄνθρακα καλοῦσιν.—PHILO + + [26] Τὰ τεμνόμενα τῶν ἐθνῶν τολυγονώτατα, καὶ πολυανθρωπότατα εἶναι. + + [27] Καθαριότητος εἵνεκεν.—BOCHART. + + [28] Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ + συμμάχους καταναγκάσας.—SANCHUNIATHO. + +C H A P. XXIX + +——“which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers +of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the +assailant: all this did _Gymnast_ very well remark and consider; and +therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as +he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his +short sword by this thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and +performing the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of +his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, +and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, +with his back turned towards his horse’s head,—Now, (said he) my case +goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he +fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed +not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, +without missing one jot.——Ha! said _Tripet_, I will not do that at this +time,—and not without cause. Well, said _Gymnast_, I have failed,—I +will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, +turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another striking gambol as +before; which done, he set his right hand thumb upon the bow of the +saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and +upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, +and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, +reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, +without _touching any thing_, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s +two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself +upon the crupper—” + +(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle _Toby._——The corporal shook his +head at it.——Have patience, said _Yorick._) + +“Then (_Tripet_) pass’d his right leg over his saddle, and placed +himself _en croup._—But, said he, ’twere better for me to get into the +saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before +him, and there-upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his +body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait +found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then +springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a +wind-mill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and +demi-pommadas.”—Good God! cried _Trim_, losing all patience,—one home +thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.——I think so too, replied +_Yorick._—— + +I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father. + +C H A P. XXX + +——No,—I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer +to a question which _Yorick_ had taken the liberty to put to him,—I +have advanced nothing in the _Tristra-pædia_, but what is as clear as +any one proposition in _Euclid._—Reach me, _Trim_, that book from off +the scrutoir:—it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to +have read it over both to you, _Yorick_, and to my brother _Toby_, and +I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long +ago:——shall we have a short chapter or two now,—and a chapter or two +hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the +whole? My uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_ made the obeisance which was +proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, +laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time.——The +company smiled. _Trim_, quoth my father, has paid the full price for +staying out the _entertainment._——He did not seem to relish the play, +replied _Yorick._——’Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your reverence, +of captain _Tripet_ ’s and that other officer, making so many +summersets, as they advanced;——the _French_ come on capering now and +then in that way,—but not quite so much. + +My uncle _Toby_ never felt the consciousness of his existence with more +complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him +do at that moment;——he lighted his pipe,——_Yorick_ drew his chair +closer to the table,—_Trim_ snuff’d the candle,—my father stirr’d up +the fire,—took up the book,—cough’d twice, and begun. + +C H A P. XXXI + +THE first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves,—are a +little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the +subject,——for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory +introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am +not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil +government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction +betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species——I was +insensibly led into it.——’Twas natural, said _Yorick._ + +The original of society, continued my father, I’m satisfied is, what +_Politian_ tells us, _i.e._ merely conjugal; and nothing more than the +getting together of one man and one woman;—to which, (according to +_Hesiod_) the philosopher adds a servant:—but supposing in the first +beginning there were no men servants born——he lays the foundation of +it, in a man,—a woman—and a bull.——I believe ’tis an ox, quoth +_Yorick_, quoting the passage ([Greek text])——A bull must have given +more trouble than his head was worth.—But there is a better reason +still, said my father (dipping his pen into his ink); for the ox being +the most patient of animals, and the most useful withal in tilling the +ground for their nourishment,—was the properest instrument, and emblem +too, for the new joined couple, that the creation could have associated +with them.—And there is a stronger reason, added my uncle _Toby_, than +them all for the ox.—My father had not power to take his pen out of his +ink-horn, till he had heard my uncle _Toby_’s reason.—For when the +ground was tilled, said my uncle _Toby_, and made worth inclosing, then +they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of +fortification.——True, true, dear _Toby_, cried my father, striking out +the bull, and putting the ox in his place. + +My father gave _Trim_ a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his +discourse. + +——I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half +shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the +natural relation between a father and his child; the right and +jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways— + +1st, by marriage. + +2d, by adoption. + +3d, by legitimation. + +And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order. + +I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied _Yorick_——the act, +especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation +upon the child, as it conveys power to the father.—You are wrong,—said +my father argutely, and for this plain reason * * * * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.—I own, added my +father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the +power and jurisdiction of the mother.—But the reason, replied _Yorick_, +equally holds good for her.—She is under authority herself, said my +father:—and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying +his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason,—_she +is not the principal agent_, Yorick.—In what, quoth my uncle _Toby?_ +stopping his pipe.—Though by all means, added my father (not attending +to my uncle _Toby_), “The son ought to pay her respect,” as you may +read, _Yorick_, at large in the first book of the Institutes of +_Justinian_, at the eleventh title and the tenth section.—I can read it +as well, replied _Yorick_, in the Catechism. + +C H A P. XXXII + +TRIM can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby._—Pugh! +said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim_’s saying his +Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby._—Ask him, +Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.—— + +—The fifth Commandment, _Trim_,—said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and +with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood +silent.—You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his +voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command:——The +fifth———cried my uncle _Toby._—I must begin with the first, an’ please +your honour, said the corporal.—— + +—_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling.—Your reverence does not consider, +said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching +into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,—that ’tis +exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.— + +“_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving +the word of command, and performing the motion.— + +“_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both +of adjutant and private man. + +“_Rest your firelock;_”—one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see +leads into another.—If his honour will begin but with the _first_— + +THE FIRST—cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side—* * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. + +THE SECOND—cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would +have done his sword at the head of a regiment.—The corporal went +through his _manual_ with exactness; and having _honoured his father +and mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room. + +Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and has +wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out. + +—Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, +without the BUILDING behind it. + +—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, +gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true +dimensions.— + +Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning, +which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away! + +—SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE BUT WISDOM NOT. + +_Yorick_ thought my father inspired.—I will enter into obligations this +moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah_’s legacy in +charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), +if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he +has repeated.—Prithee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to +him,—What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_” + +Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my +pay, when they grow old.—And didst thou do that, _Trim_? said +_Yorick._—He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby._—Then, _Trim_, said +_Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the +hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue;_ +and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had +a hand in the _Talmud_ itself. + +C H A P. XXXIIIV + +O BLESSED health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned +over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art before all gold and +treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul,—and openest all its powers +to receive instruction and to relish virtue.—He that has thee, has +little more to wish for;—and he that is so wretched as to want +thee,—wants every thing with thee. + +I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said +my father, into a very little room, therefore we’ll read the chapter +quite through. + +My father read as follows: + +“The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for +mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture”—You have +proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said _Yorick._ +Sufficiently, replied my father. + +In saying this, my father shut the book,—not as if he resolved to read +no more of it, for he kept his fore-finger in the chapter:——nor +pettishly,—for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had +done it, upon the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers +supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive +violence.—— + +I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding +to _Yorick_, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter. + +Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had +wrote a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all +health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the +_radical heat_ and the _radical moisture_,—and that he had managed the +point so well, that there was not one single word wet or dry upon +radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter,—or a +single syllable in it, _pro_ or _con_, directly or indirectly, upon the +contention betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal œconomy—— + +“O thou eternal Maker of all beings!”—he would cry, striking his breast +with his right hand (in case he had one)—“Thou whose power and goodness +can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of +excellence and perfection,—What have we MOONITES done?” + +C H A P. XXXIV + +WITH two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord +_Verulam_, did my father achieve it. + +The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no +more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars +longa_,—and _Vita brevis._——Life short, cried my father,—and the art of +healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the +other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves,—and the stage-loads of +chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, +they have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it? + +——O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_, and +making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, +and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,—What shall I say +to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say to thy internal +spirit,—thy opium, thy salt-petre,——thy greasy unctions,—thy daily +purges,—thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums? + +——My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any +subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man +breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion,——you shall +see;——but when—I know not:——we must first see what his lordship’s +opinion was. + +C H A P. XXXV + +“THE two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, +says lord _Verulam_, are first—— + +“The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame wastes the body down to +death:—And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to +ashes:—which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies +together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry +on the functions of life.” + +This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; +nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste +committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more +thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by +refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half +of salt-petre every morning before you got up.—— + +Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of +the air without;—but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy +unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no +spicula could enter;——nor could any one get out.——This put a stop to +all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so +many scurvy distempers—a course of clysters was requisite to carry off +redundant humours,—and render the system complete. + +What my father had to say to my lord of _Verulam_’s opiates, his +salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read,—but not +to-day—or to-morrow: time presses upon me,—my reader is impatient—I +must get forwards——You shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you +chuse it), as soon as ever the _Tristra-pædia_ is published.—— + +Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with +the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and +established his own.—— + +C H A P. XXXVI + +THE whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence +again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical +heat and radical moisture within us;—the least imaginable skill had +been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the school-men +confounded the task, merely (as _Van Helmont_, the famous chymist, has +proved) by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and +fat of animal bodies. + +Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an +oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the +phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts +are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of +_Aristotle_, “_Quod omne animal post coitum est_ triste.” + +Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, +but whether _vice versa_, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the +other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, +which causes an unnatural dryness——or an unnatural moisture, which +causes dropsies.——So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught +to avoid running into fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his +destruction,——’twill be all that is needful to be done upon that +head.—— + +C H A P. XXXVII + +THE description of the siege of _Jericho_ itself, could not have +engaged the attention of my uncle _Toby_ more powerfully than the last +chapter;—his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;—he never +mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle _Toby_ took +his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the +chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his +chair, to ask him the following question,—_aside._— * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * *. It was at the siege of _Limerick_, an’ please +your honour, replied the corporal, making a bow. + +The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to my +father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the +siege of _Limerick_ was raised, upon the very account you mention.——Now +what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother +_Toby?_ cried my father, mentally.——By Heaven! continued he, communing +still with himself, it would puzzle an _Œdipus_ to bring it in point.—— + +I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had +not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the +claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off;—And the geneva, +_Trim_, added my uncle _Toby_, which did us more good than all——I +verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an’ please your +honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them +too.——The noblest grave, corporal! cried my uncle _Toby_, his eyes +sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in.——But a +pitiful death for him! an’ please your honour, replied the corporal. + +All this was as much _Arabick_ to my father, as the rites of the +_Colchi_ and _Troglodites_ had been before to my uncle _Toby;_ my +father could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile. + +My uncle _Toby_, turning to _Yorick_, resumed the case at _Limerick_, +more intelligibly than he had begun it,—and so settled the point for my +father at once. + +C H A P. XXXVIII + +IT was undoubtedly, said my uncle _Toby_, a great happiness for myself +and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with +a most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux +was upon us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical +moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better.——My +father drew in his lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth +again, as slowly as he possibly could.—— + +——It was Heaven’s mercy to us, continued my uncle _Toby_, which put it +into the corporal’s head to maintain that due contention betwixt the +radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he +did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up +(as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its +ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the +moisture, terrible as it was.——Upon my honour, added my uncle _Toby_, +you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother +_Shandy_, twenty toises.—If there was no firing, said _Yorick._ + +Well—said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after +the word——Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one +permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided +they had had their clergy—————————————_Yorick_, foreseeing the sentence +was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father’s +breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked +the corporal a question.——Prithee, _Trim_, said _Yorick_, without +staying for my father’s leave,—tell us honestly—what is thy opinion +concerning this self-same radical heat and radical moisture? + +With humble submission to his honour’s better judgment, quoth the +corporal, making a bow to my uncle _Toby_—Speak thy opinion freely, +corporal, said my uncle _Toby._—The poor fellow is my servant,—not my +slave,—added my uncle _Toby_, turning to my father.—— + +The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging +upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the +knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; +then touching his under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right +hand before he opened his mouth,——he delivered his notion thus. + +C H A P. XXXIX + +JUST as the corporal was humming, to begin—in waddled Dr. _Slop._—’Tis +not two-pence matter—the corporal shall go on in the next chapter, let +who will come in.—— + +Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions +of his passions were unaccountably sudden,—and what has this whelp of +mine to say to the matter? + +Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a +puppy-dog—he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system +which Dr. _Slop_ had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way +allowed of such a mode of enquiry.—He sat down. + +Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in a manner which could not go +unanswered,—in what condition is the boy?—’Twill end in a _phimosis_, +replied Dr. _Slop._ + +I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle _Toby_—returning his pipe into +his mouth.——Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his +medical lecture.—The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. _Slop_, +and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical +moisture, in the following words. + +C H A P. XL + +THE city of _Limerick_, the siege of which was begun under his majesty +king _William_ himself, the year after I went into the army—lies, an’ +please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy +country.—’Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle _Toby_, with the +_Shannon_, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified +places in _Ireland._—— + +I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. _Slop_, of beginning a medical +lecture.—’Tis all true, answered _Trim._—Then I wish the faculty would +follow the cut of it, said _Yorick._—’Tis all cut through, an’ please +your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and besides, +there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole +country was like a puddle,—’twas that, and nothing else, which brought +on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour and +myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, +continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without +cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water;—nor was that enough, +for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting +fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the +damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.—— + +And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal _Trim_, cried my father, +from all these premises? + +I infer, an’ please your worship, replied _Trim_, that the radical +moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water—and that the radical +heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy,—the +radical heat and moisture of a private man, an’ please your honour, is +nothing but ditch-water—and a dram of geneva——and give us but enough of +it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the +vapours—we know not what it is to fear death. + +I am at a loss, Captain _Shandy_, quoth Doctor _Slop_, to determine in +which branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in +physiology or divinity.—_Slop_ had not forgot _Trim_’s comment upon the +sermon.— + +It is but an hour ago, replied _Yorick_, since the corporal was +examined in the latter, and passed muster with great honour.—— + +The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor _Slop_, turning to my +father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being—as the +root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation.—It is +inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, +but principally in my opinion by _consubstantials, impriments_, and +_occludents._——Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. _Slop_, pointing to +the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial +empiric discourse upon this nice point.——That he has,—said my +father.——Very likely, said my uncle.—I’m sure of it—quoth _Yorick._—— + +C H A P. XLI + +DOCTOR _Slop_ being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, +it gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in +the _Tristra-pædia._——Come! cheer up, my lads; I’ll shew you land——for +when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened +again this twelve-month.—Huzza!— + +C H A P. XLII + +——FIVE years with a bib under his chin; + +Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to _Malachi;_ + +A year and a half in learning to write his own name; + +Seven long years and more τυπιω-ing it, at Greek and Latin; + +Four years at his _probations_ and his _negations_—the fine statue +still lying in the middle of the marble block,—and nothing done, but +his tools sharpened to hew it out!—’Tis a piteous delay!—Was not the +great _Julius Scaliger_ within an ace of never getting his tools +sharpened at all?——Forty-four years old was he before he could manage +his Greek;—and _Peter Damianus_, lord bishop of _Ostia_, as all the +world knows, could not so much as read, when he was of man’s +estate.—And _Baldus_ himself, as eminent as he turned out after, +entered upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined he +intended to be an advocate in the other world: no wonder, when +_Eudamidas_, the son of _Archidamas_, heard _Xenocrates_ at +seventy-five disputing about _wisdom_, that he asked gravely,—_If the +old man be yet disputing and enquiring concerning wisdom,—what time +will he have to make use of it?_ + +_Yorick_ listened to my father with great attention; there was a +seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims, +and he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, +as almost atoned for them:—be wary, Sir, when you imitate him. + +I am convinced, _Yorick_, continued my father, half reading and half +discoursing, that there is a North-west passage to the intellectual +world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in +furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally +take with it.——But, alack! all fields have not a river or a spring +running besides them;—every child, _Yorick_, has not a parent to point +it out. + +——The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a low voice, upon the +_auxiliary verbs_, Mr. _Yorick._ + +Had _Yorick_ trod upon _Virgil_ ’s snake, he could not have looked more +surprised.—I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it,—and I +reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the +republic of letters, That those who have been entrusted with the +education of our children, and whose business it was to open their +minds, and stock them early with ideas, in order to set the imagination +loose upon them, have made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in +doing it, as they have done——So that, except _Raymond Lullius_, and the +elder _Pelegrini_, the last of which arrived to such perfection in the +use of ’em, with his topics, that, in a few lessons, he could teach a +young gentleman to discourse with plausibility upon any subject, _pro_ +and _con_, and to say and write all that could be spoken or written +concerning it, without blotting a word, to the admiration of all who +beheld him.—I should be glad, said _Yorick_, interrupting my father, to +be made to comprehend this matter. You shall, said my father. + +The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of, is a +high metaphor,——for which, in my opinion, the idea is generally the +worse, and not the better;——but be that as it may,—when the mind has +done that with it—there is an end,—the mind and the idea are at +rest,—until a second idea enters;—and so on. + +Now the use of the _Auxiliaries_ is, at once to set the soul a-going by +herself upon the materials as they are brought her; and by the +versability of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open +new tracts of enquiry, and make every idea engender millions. + +You excite my curiosity greatly, said _Yorick._ + +For my own part, quoth my uncle _Toby_, I have given it up.——The +_Danes_, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, who were on the +left at the siege of _Limerick_, were all auxiliaries.——And very good +ones, said my uncle _Toby._—But the auxiliaries, _Trim_, my brother is +talking about,—I conceive to be different things.—— + +——You do? said my father, rising up. + +C H A P. XLIII + +MY father took a single turn across the room, then sat down, and +finished the chapter. + +The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my father, are, +_am; was; have; had; do; did; make; made; suffer; shall; should; will; +would; can; could; owe; ought; used;_ or _is wont._—And these varied +with tenses, _present, past, future_, and _conjugated_ with the verb +_see_,—or with these questions added to them;—_Is it? Was it? Will it +be? Would it be? May it be? Might it be?_ And these again put +negatively, _Is it not? Was it not? Ought it not?_—Or +affirmatively,—_It is; It was; It ought to be._ Or +chronologically,—_Has it been always? Lately? How long ago?_—Or +hypothetically,—_If it was? If it was not?_ What would follow?—If the +_French_ should beat the _English?_ If the _Sun_ go out of the +_Zodiac?_ + +Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in +which a child’s memory should be exercised, there is no one idea can +enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and +conclusions may be drawn forth from it.——Didst thou ever see a white +bear? cried my father, turning his head round to _Trim_, who stood at +the back of his chair:—No, an’ please your honour, replied the +corporal.——But thou couldst discourse about one, _Trim_, said my +father, in case of need?——How is it possible, brother, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, if the corporal never saw one?——’Tis the fact I want, replied +my father,—and the possibility of it is as follows. + +A WHITE BEAR! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen +one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever +see one? + +Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?) + +If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see +a white bear, what then? + +If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I +ever seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted?—described? Have +I never dreamed of one? + +Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a +white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the +white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth? + +—Is the white bear worth seeing?— + +—Is there no sin in it?— + +Is it better than a BLACK ONE? + +C H A P. XLIV + +——WE’LL not stop two moments, my dear Sir,—only, as we have got through +these five volumes[29], (do, Sir, sit down upon a set——they are better +than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have pass’d +through.—— + +——What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both +of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it! + +Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of +Jack Asses?——How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the +rivulet at the bottom of that little valley!——and when we climbed over +that hill, and were just getting out of sight—good God! what a braying +did they all set up together! + +——Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses? * * * + +——Heaven be their comforter——What! are they never curried?——Are they +never taken in in winter?——Bray bray—bray. Bray on,—the world is deeply +your debtor;——louder still—that’s nothing:—in good sooth, you are +ill-used:——Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in +G-sol-re-ut from morning, even unto night. + + [29] In the first edition, the sixth volume began with this chapter. + +C H A P. XLV + +WHEN my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through +half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good an’ all,—and in a kind +of triumph redelivered it into _Trim_’s hand, with a nod to lay it upon +the ’scrutoire, where he found it.——_Tristram_, said he, shall be made +to conjugate every word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards the +same way;——every word, _Yorick_, by this means, you see, is converted +into a thesis or an hypothesis;—every thesis and hypothesis have an +off-spring of propositions;—and each proposition has its own +consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on +again, into fresh tracks of enquiries and doubtings.——The force of this +engine, added my father, is incredible in opening a child’s head.——’Tis +enough, brother _Shandy_, cried my uncle _Toby_, to burst it into a +thousand splinters.—— + +I presume, said _Yorick_, smiling,—it must be owing to this,—(for let +logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted for +sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments)——That the +famous _Vincent Quirino_, amongst the many other astonishing feats of +his childhood, of which the Cardinal _Bembo_ has given the world so +exact a story,—should be able to paste up in the public schools at +_Rome_, so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four +thousand five hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most +abstruse points of the most abstruse theology;—and to defend and +maintain them in such sort, as to cramp and dumbfound his +opponents.——What is that, cried my father, to what is told us of +_Alphonsus Tostatus_, who, almost in his nurse’s arms, learned all the +sciences and liberal arts without being taught any one of them?——What +shall we say of the great _Piereskius?_—That’s the very man, cried my +uncle _Toby_, I once told you of, brother _Shandy_, who walked a matter +of five hundred miles, reckoning from _Paris_ to _Shevling_, and from +_Shevling_ back again, merely to see _Stevinus_’s flying chariot.——He +was a very great man! added my uncle _Toby_ (meaning _Stevinus_)—He was +so, brother _Toby_, said my father (meaning _Piereskius_)——and had +multiplied his ideas so fast, and increased his knowledge to such a +prodigious stock, that, if we may give credit to an anecdote concerning +him, which we cannot withhold here, without shaking the authority of +all anecdotes whatever—at seven years of age, his father committed +entirely to his care the education of his younger brother, a boy of +five years old,—with the sole management of all his concerns.—Was the +father as wise as the son? quoth my uncle _Toby:_—I should think not, +said _Yorick:_—But what are these, continued my father—(breaking out in +a kind of enthusiasm)—what are these, to those prodigies of childhood +in _Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius, Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, +Ferdinand de Cordouè_, and others—some of which left off their +_substantial forms_ at nine years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning +without them;—others went through their classics at seven;—wrote +tragedies at eight;—_Ferdinand de Cordouè_ was so wise at nine,—’twas +thought the Devil was in him;—and at _Venice_ gave such proofs of his +knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he was _Antichrist_, or +nothing.——Others were masters of fourteen languages at ten,—finished +the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic, and ethics, at eleven,—put +forth their commentaries upon _Servius_ and _Martianus Capella_ at +twelve,—and at thirteen received their degrees in philosophy, laws, and +divinity:——but you forget the great _Lipsius_, quoth _Yorick_, who +composed a work[30] the day he was born:——They should have wiped it up, +said my uncle _Toby_, and said no more about it. + + [30] Nous aurions quelque interêt, says _Baillet_, de montrer qu’il + n’a rien de ridicule s’il étoit veritable, au moins dans le sens + énigmatique que _Nicius Erythræus_ a tâ hé de lui donner. Cet auteur + dit que pour comprendre comme _Lipse_, il a pû composer un ouvrage le + premier jour de sa vie, il faut s’imaginer, que ce premier jour n’est + pas celui de sa naissance charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commencé + d’user de la raison; il veut que ç’ait été à l’âge de _neuf_ ans; et + il nous veut persuader que ce fut en cet âge, que _Lipse_ fit un + poëme.——Le tour est ingénieux, &c. &c. + +C H A P. XLVI + +WHEN the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of _decorum_ had unseasonably +rose up in _Susannah_’s conscience, about holding the candle, whilst +_Slop_ tied it on; _Slop_ had not treated _Susannah_’s distemper with +anodynes,—and so a quarrel had ensued betwixt them. + +——Oh! oh!——said _Slop_, casting a glance of undue freedom in +_Susannah_’s face, as she declined the office;——then, I think I know +you, madam——You know me, Sir! cried _Susannah_ fastidiously, and with a +toss of her head, levelled evidently, not at his profession, but at the +doctor himself,——you know me! cried _Susannah_ again.——Doctor _Slop_ +clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his +nostrils;——_Susannah_’s spleen was ready to burst at it;——’Tis false, +said _Susannah._—Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said _Slop_, not a little +elated with the success of his last thrust,——If you won’t hold the +candle, and look—you may hold it and shut your eyes:—That’s one of your +popish shifts, cried _Susannah:_—’Tis better, said _Slop_, with a nod, +than no shift at all, young woman;——I defy you, Sir, cried _Susannah_, +pulling her shift sleeve below her elbow. + +It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in a +surgical case with a more splenetic cordiality. + +_Slop_ snatched up the cataplasm——_Susannah_ snatched up the candle;——A +little this way, said _Slop;_ _Susannah_ looking one way, and rowing +another, instantly set fire to _Slop_’s wig, which being somewhat bushy +and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.——You +impudent whore! cried _Slop_,—(for what is passion, but a wild +beast?)—you impudent whore, cried _Slop_, getting upright, with the +cataplasm in his hand;——I never was the destruction of any body’s nose, +said _Susannah_,—which is more than you can say:——Is it? cried _Slop_, +throwing the cataplasm in her face;——Yes, it is, cried _Susannah_, +returning the compliment with what was left in the pan. + +C H A P. XLVII + +DOCTOR _Slop_ and _Susannah_ filed cross-bills against each other in +the parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into +the kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me;—and whilst that was doing, +my father determined the point as you will read. + +C H A P. XLVIII + +YOU see ’tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to +my uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_, to take this young creature out of these +women’s hands, and put him into those of a private governor. _Marcus +Antoninus_ provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his +son _Commodus_’s education,—and in six weeks he cashiered five of +them;—I know very well, continued my father, that _Commodus_’s mother +was in love with a gladiator at the time of her conception, which +accounts for a great many of _Commodus_’s cruelties when he became +emperor;—but still I am of opinion, that those five whom _Antoninus_ +dismissed, did _Commodus_’s temper, in that short time, more hurt than +the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long. + +Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror +in which he is to view himself from morning to night, by which he is to +adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the inmost sentiments of +his heart;—I would have one, _Yorick_, if possible, polished at all +points, fit for my child to look into.——This is very good sense, quoth +my uncle _Toby_ to himself. + +——There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body +and all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man +_well within;_ and I am not at all surprised that _Gregory_ of +_Nazianzum_, upon observing the hasty and untoward gestures of +_Julian_, should foretel he would one day become an apostate;——or that +St. _Ambrose_ should turn his _Amanuensis_ out of doors, because of an +indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and forwards like a +flail;——or that _Democritus_ should conceive _Protagoras_ to be a +scholar, from seeing him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, +the small twigs inwards.——There are a thousand unnoticed openings, +continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man’s +soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay +down his hat in coming into a room,—or take it up in going out of it, +but something escapes, which discovers him. + +It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make +choice of shall neither[31] lisp, or squint, or wink, or talk loud, or +look fierce, or foolish;——or bite his lips, or grind his teeth, or +speak through his nose, or pick it, or blow it with his fingers.—— + +He shall neither walk fast,—or slow, or fold his arms,—for that is +laziness;—or hang them down,—for that is folly; or hide them in his +pocket, for that is nonsense.—— + +He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle—or bite, or cut his nails, +or hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his feet or fingers in +company;——nor (according to _Erasmus_) shall he speak to any one in +making water,—nor shall he point to carrion or excrement.——Now this is +all nonsense again, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself.—— + +I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, faceté, jovial; at the +same time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, argute, +inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions;——he +shall be wise, and judicious, and learned:——And why not humble, and +moderate, and gentle-tempered, and good? said _Yorick:_——And why not, +cried my uncle _Toby_, free, and generous, and bountiful, and +brave?——He shall, my dear _Toby_, replied my father, getting up and +shaking him by his hand.—Then, brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle +_Toby_, raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take +hold of my father’s other hand,—I humbly beg I may recommend poor _Le +Fever_’s son to you;——a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in my +uncle _Toby_’s eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal’s, +as the proposition was made;——you will see why when you read _Le +Fever_’s story:——fool that I was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you) +without turning back to the place, what it was that hindered me from +letting the corporal tell it in his own words;—but the occasion is +lost,—I must tell it now in my own. + + [31] Vid. _Pellegrina._ + +C H A P. XLIX + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER + +IT was some time in the summer of that year in which _Dendermond_ was +taken by the allies,—which was about seven years before my father came +into the country,—and about as many, after the time, that my uncle +_Toby_ and _Trim_ had privately decamped from my father’s house in +town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest +fortified cities in _Europe_——when my uncle _Toby_ was one evening +getting his supper, with _Trim_ sitting behind him at a small +sideboard,—I say, sitting—for in consideration of the corporal’s lame +knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)—when my uncle _Toby_ +dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand; and +the poor fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with a +proper artillery, my uncle _Toby_ could have taken _Dendermond_ itself, +with less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for +many a time when my uncle _Toby_ supposed the corporal’s leg was at +rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the +most dutiful respect: this bred more little squabbles betwixt them, +than all other causes for five-and-twenty years together—But this is +neither here nor there—why do I mention it?——Ask my pen,—it governs +me,—I govern not it. + +He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a +little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in +his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; ’Tis for a poor gentleman,—I +think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my +house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a +desire to taste any thing, till just now, that he has a fancy for a +glass of sack and a thin toast,——_I think_, says he, taking his hand +from his forehead, _it would comfort me._—— + +——If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing—added the +landlord,—I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so +ill.——I hope in God he will still mend, continued he,—we are all of us +concerned for him. + +Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle +_Toby;_ and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of +sack thyself,—and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell +him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do +him good. + +Though I am persuaded, said my uncle _Toby_, as the landlord shut the +door, he is a very compassionate fellow—_Trim_,—yet I cannot help +entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something +more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much +upon the affections of his host;——And of his whole family, added the +corporal, for they are all concerned for him.——Step after him, said my +uncle _Toby_,—do _Trim_,—and ask if he knows his name. + +——I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into the +parlour with the corporal,—but I can ask his son again:——Has he a son +with him then? said my uncle _Toby._—A boy, replied the landlord, of +about eleven or twelve years of age;—but the poor creature has tasted +almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament +for him night and day:——He has not stirred from the bed-side these two +days. + +My uncle _Toby_ laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from +before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and _Trim_, without +being ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes +after brought him his pipe and tobacco. + +——Stay in the room a little, said my uncle _Toby._ + +_Trim!_——said my uncle _Toby_, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak’d +about a dozen whiffs.——_Trim_ came in front of his master, and made his +bow;—my uncle _Toby_ smoak’d on, and said no more.——Corporal! said my +uncle _Toby_—the corporal made his bow.——My uncle _Toby_ proceeded no +farther, but finished his pipe. + +_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, I have a project in my head, as it is a +bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a +visit to this poor gentleman.——Your honour’s roquelaure, replied the +corporal, has not once been had on, since the night before your honour +received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the +gate of St. _Nicholas;_—and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, +that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, ’twill be +enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your honour’s +torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle _Toby;_ but I am not +at rest in my mind, _Trim_, since the account the landlord has given +me.——I wish I had not known so much of this affair,—added my uncle +_Toby_,—or that I had known more of it:——How shall we manage it? Leave +it, an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the corporal;——I’ll take my +hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; +and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour.——Thou shalt go, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, and here’s a shilling for thee to drink +with his servant.——I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, +shutting the door. + +My uncle _Toby_ filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he +now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was +not full as well to have the curtain of the tennaile a straight line, +as a crooked one,—he might be said to have thought of nothing else but +poor _Le Fever_ and his boy the whole time he smoaked it. + +C H A P. L + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + +IT was not till my uncle _Toby_ had knocked the ashes out of his third +pipe, that corporal _Trim_ returned from the inn, and gave him the +following account. + +I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back +your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick +lieutenant—Is he in the army, then? said my uncle _Toby_——He is, said +the corporal——And in what regiment? said my uncle _Toby_——I’ll tell +your honour, replied the corporal, every thing straight forwards, as I +learnt it.—Then, _Trim_, I’ll fill another pipe, said my uncle _Toby_, +and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, +_Trim_, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The corporal +made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could speak +it—_Your honour is good:_—And having done that, he sat down, as he was +ordered,—and begun the story to my uncle _Toby_ over again in pretty +near the same words. + +I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back +any intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his son; for +when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of +knowing every thing which was proper to be asked,—That’s a right +distinction, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_—I was answered, an’ please +your honour, that he had no servant with him;——that he had come to the +inn with hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed +(to join, I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after +he came.—If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his +son to pay the man,—we can hire horses from hence.——But alas! the poor +gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to me,—for I +heard the death-watch all night long;——and when he dies, the youth, his +son, will certainly die with him; for he is broken- hearted already. + +I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came +into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of;——but I +will do it for my father myself, said the youth.——Pray let my save you +the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, +and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst I did +it.——I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best +myself.——I am sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast the +worse for being toasted by an old soldier.——The youth took hold of my +hand, and instantly burst into tears.——Poor youth! said my uncle +_Toby_,—he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the name of +a soldier, _Trim_, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend;—I +wish I had him here. + +——I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a mind +to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company:—What could be the +matter with me, an’ please your honour? Nothing in the world, _Trim_, +said my uncle _Toby_, blowing his nose,—but that thou art a +good-natured fellow. + +When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was +proper to tell him I was captain _Shandy_’s servant, and that your +honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father;—and +that if there was any thing in your house or cellar——(And thou might’st +have added my purse too, said my uncle _Toby_),——he was heartily +welcome to it:——He made a very low bow (which was meant to your +honour), but no answer—for his heart was full—so he went up stairs with +the toast;—I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the +kitchen-door, your father will be well again.——Mr. _Yorick_’s curate +was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire,—but said not a word good or bad +to comfort the youth.——I thought it wrong; added the corporal——I think +so too, said my uncle _Toby._ + +When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt +himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to let me +know, that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up +stairs.——I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his +prayers,——for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bed-side, and +as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion.—— + +I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. _Trim_, +never said your prayers at all.——I heard the poor gentleman say his +prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own +ears, or I could not have believed it.——Are you sure of it? replied the +curate.——A soldier, an’ please your reverence, said I, prays as often +(of his own accord) as a parson;——and when he is fighting for his king, +and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to +pray to God of any one in the whole world——’Twas well said of thee, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby._——But when a soldier, said I, an’ please +your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the +trenches, up to his knees in cold water,—or engaged, said I, for months +together in long and dangerous marches;—harassed, perhaps, in his rear +to-day;—harassing others to-morrow;—detached here;—countermanded +there;—resting this night out upon his arms;—beat up in his shirt the +next;—benumbed in his joints;—perhaps without straw in his tent to +kneel on;—must say his prayers _how_ and _when_ he can.—I believe, said +I,—for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the reputation of the +army,—I believe, an’ please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier +gets time to pray,—he prays as heartily as a parson,—though not with +all his fuss and hypocrisy.——Thou shouldst not have said that, _Trim_, +said my uncle _Toby_,—for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is +not:——At the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day +of judgment (and not till then)—it will be seen who has done their +duties in this world,—and who has not; and we shall be advanced, +_Trim_, accordingly.——I hope we shall, said _Trim._——It is in the +Scripture, said my uncle _Toby;_ and I will shew it thee to-morrow:—In +the mean time we may depend upon it, _Trim_, for our comfort, said my +uncle _Toby_, that God Almighty is so good and just a governor of the +world, that if we have but done our duties in it,—it will never be +enquired into, whether we have done them in a red coat or a black +one:——I hope not, said the corporal——But go on, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_, with thy story. + +When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant’s room, +which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes,—he was lying +in his bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the +pillow, and a clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it:——The youth +was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he +had been kneeling,—the book was laid upon the bed,—and, as he rose, in +taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take +it away at the same time.——Let it remain there, my dear, said the +lieutenant. + +He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed- +side:—If you are captain _Shandy_’s servant, said he, you must present +my thanks to your master, with my little boy’s thanks along with them, +for his courtesy to me;—if he was of _Levens_’s—said the lieutenant.—I +told him your honour was—Then, said he, I served three campaigns with +him in _Flanders_, and remember him,—but ’tis most likely, as I had not +the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of +me.——You will tell him, however, that the person his good-nature has +laid under obligations to him, is one _Le Fever_, a lieutenant in +_Angus_’s——but he knows me not,—said he, a second time, +musing;——possibly he may my story—added he—pray tell the captain, I was +the ensign at _Breda_, whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a +musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent.——I remember the story, +an’t please your honour, said I, very well.——Do you so? said he, wiping +his eyes with his handkerchief—then well may I.—In saying this, he drew +a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribband +about his neck, and kiss’d it twice——Here, _Billy_, said he,—the boy +flew across the room to the bed-side,—and falling down upon his knee, +took the ring in his hand, and kissed it too,—then kissed his father, +and sat down upon the bed and wept. + +I wish, said my uncle _Toby_, with a deep sigh,—I wish, _Trim_, I was +asleep. + +Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned;—shall I pour +your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe?——Do, _Trim_, said my +uncle _Toby._ + +I remember, said my uncle _Toby_, sighing again, the story of the +ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted;—and +particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other +(I forget what) was universally pitied by the whole regiment;—but +finish the story thou art upon:—’Tis finished already, said the +corporal,—for I could stay no longer,—so wished his honour a good +night; young _Le Fever_ rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom +of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come +from _Ireland_, and were on their route to join the regiment in +_Flanders._——But alas! said the corporal,—the lieutenant’s last day’s +march is over.—Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle +_Toby._ + +C H A P. LI + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + +IT was to my uncle _Toby_’s eternal honour,——though I tell it only for +the sake of those, who, when coop’d in betwixt a natural and a positive +law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn +themselves——That notwithstanding my uncle _Toby_ was warmly engaged at +that time in carrying on the siege of _Dendermond_, parallel with the +allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed +him time to get his dinner——that nevertheless he gave up _Dendermond_, +though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp;—and bent +his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and +except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he +might be said to have turned the siege of _Dendermond_ into a +blockade,—he left _Dendermond_ to itself—to be relieved or not by the +_French_ king, as the _French_ king thought good; and only considered +how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son. + +——That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence +thee for this. + +Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle _Toby_ to the corporal, +as he was putting him to bed,——and I will tell thee in what, +_Trim._——In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services +to _Le Fever_,——as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou +knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as +himself out of his pay,—that thou didst not make an offer to him of my +purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, _Trim_, he had been +as welcome to it as myself.——Your honour knows, said the corporal, I +had no orders;——True, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—thou didst very right, +_Trim_, as a soldier,—but certainly very wrong as a man. + +In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, +continued my uncle _Toby_,——when thou offeredst him whatever was in my +house,——thou shouldst have offered him my house too:——A sick brother +officer should have the best quarters, _Trim_, and if we had him with +us,—we could tend and look to him:——Thou art an excellent nurse +thyself, _Trim_,—and what with thy care of him, and the old woman’s and +his boy’s, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and +set him upon his legs.—— + +——In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle _Toby_, smiling,——he +might march.——He will never march; an’ please your honour, in this +world, said the corporal:——He will march; said my uncle _Toby_, rising +up from the side of the bed, with one shoe off:——An’ please your +honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave:——He +shall march, cried my uncle _Toby_, marching the foot which had a shoe +on, though without advancing an inch,—he shall march to his +regiment.——He cannot stand it, said the corporal;——He shall be +supported, said my uncle _Toby;_——He’ll drop at last, said the +corporal, and what will become of his boy?——He shall not drop, said my +uncle _Toby_, firmly.——A-well-o’day,—do what we can for him, said +_Trim_, maintaining his point,—the poor soul will die:——He shall not +die, by G—, cried my uncle _Toby._ + +—The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, +blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, +dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever. + +C H A P. LII + +——MY uncle _Toby_ went to his bureau,—put his purse into his breeches +pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for +a physician,—he went to bed, and fell asleep. + +C H A P. LIII + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + +THE sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village +but _Le Fever_’s and his afflicted son’s; the hand of death pressed +heavy upon his eye-lids,——and hardly could the wheel at the cistern +turn round its circle,—when my uncle _Toby_, who had rose up an hour +before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, and without +preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, +and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the +manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked +him how he did,—how he had rested in the night,—what was his +complaint,—where was his pain,—and what he could do to help him:——and +without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on, +and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the +corporal the night before for him.—— + +——You shall go home directly, _Le Fever_, said my uncle _Toby_, to my +house,—and we’ll send for a doctor to see what’s the matter,—and we’ll +have an apothecary,—and the corporal shall be your nurse;——and I’ll be +your servant, _Le Fever._ + +There was a frankness in my uncle _Toby_,—not the _effect_ of +familiarity,—but the cause of it,—which let you at once into his soul, +and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something +in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally +beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him, so that +before my uncle _Toby_ had half finished the kind offers he was making +to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, +and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it +towards him.——The blood and spirits of _Le Fever_, which were waxing +cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, +the heart—rallied back,—the film forsook his eyes for a moment,—he +looked up wishfully in my uncle _Toby_’s face,—then cast a look upon +his boy,——and that _ligament_, fine as it was,—was never broken.—— + +Nature instantly ebb’d again,—the film returned to its place,——the +pulse fluttered——stopp’d——went on——throbb’d———stopp’d +again——moved——stopp’d——shall I go on?——No. + +C H A P. LIV + +I AM so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young +_Le Fever_’s, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my +uncle _Toby_ recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very +few words in the next chapter.—All that is necessary to be added to +this chapter is as follows.— + +That my uncle _Toby_, with young _Le Fever_ in his hand, attended the +poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave. + +That the governor of _Dendermond_ paid his obsequies all military +honours,—and that _Yorick_, not to be behind-hand—paid him all +ecclesiastic—for he buried him in his chancel:—And it appears likewise, +he preached a funeral sermon over him——I say it _appears_,—for it was +_Yorick_’s custom, which I suppose a general one with those of his +profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed, to +chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being +preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short comment or +stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its +credit:—For instance, _This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation—I don’t +like it at all;—Though I own there is a world of_ WATER-LANDISH +_knowledge in it;—but ’tis all tritical, and most tritically put +together.—This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my +head when I made it?_ + +——N.B. _The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any +sermon,—and of this sermon,——that it will suit any text.——_ + +——_For this sermon I shall be hanged,—for I have stolen the greatest +part of it. Doctor_ Paidagunes _found me out. => Set a thief to catch a +thief.——_ + +On the back of half a dozen I find written, So, so, and no more——and +upon a couple _Moderato;_ by which, as far as one may gather from +_Altieri’s Italian_ dictionary,—but mostly from the authority of a +piece of green whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of +_Yorick_’s whip-lash, with which he has left us the two sermons marked +_Moderato_, and the half dozen of _So, so_, tied fast together in one +bundle by themselves,—one may safely suppose he meant pretty near the +same thing. + +There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is +this, that the _moderato_’s are five times better than the _so, +so_’s;—show ten times more knowledge of the human heart;—have seventy +times more wit and spirit in them;—(and, to rise properly in my +climax)—discovered a thousand times more genius;—and to crown all, are +infinitely more entertaining than those tied up with them:—for which +reason, whene’er _Yorick’s dramatic_ sermons are offered to the world, +though I shall admit but one out of the whole number of the _so, so_’s, +I shall, nevertheless, adventure to print the two _moderato_’s without +any sort of scruple. + +What _Yorick_ could mean by the words _lentamente,—tenutè,—grave_,—and +sometimes _adagio_,—as applied to _theological_ compositions, and with +which he has characterised some of these sermons, I dare not venture to +guess.——I am more puzzled still upon finding _a l’octava alta!_ upon +one;——_Con strepito_ upon the back of another;——_Scicilliana_ upon a +third;——_Alla capella_ upon a fourth;——_Con l’arco_ upon this;——_Senza +l’arco_ upon that.——All I know is, that they are musical terms, and +have a meaning;——and as he was a musical man, I will make no doubt, but +that by some quaint application of such metaphors to the compositions +in hand, they impressed very distinct ideas of their several characters +upon his fancy,—whatever they may do upon that of others. + +Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably +led me into this digression——The funeral sermon upon poor _Le Fever_, +wrote out very fairly, as if from a hasty copy.—I take notice of it the +more, because it seems to have been his favourite composition——It is +upon mortality; and is tied length-ways and cross-ways with a yarn +thrum, and then rolled up and twisted round with a half-sheet of dirty +blue paper, which seems to have been once the cast cover of a general +review, which to this day smells horribly of horse drugs.——Whether +these marks of humiliation were designed,—I something doubt;——because +at the end of the sermon (and not at the beginning of it)—very +different from his way of treating the rest, he had wrote—— + +Bravo! + +——Though not very offensively,——for it is at two inches, at least, and +a half’s distance from, and below the concluding line of the sermon, at +the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it, +which, you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it +justice, it is wrote besides with a crow’s quill so faintly in a small +_Italian_ hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether +your thumb is there or not,—so that from the _manner of it_, it stands +half excused; and being wrote moreover with very pale ink, diluted +almost to nothing,—’tis more like a _ritratto_ of the shadow of vanity, +than of VANITY herself—of the two; resembling rather a faint thought of +transient applause, secretly stirring up in the heart of the composer; +than a gross mark of it, coarsely obtruded upon the world. + +With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do +no service to _Yorick_’s character as a modest man;—but all men have +their failings! and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes +it away, is this; that the word was struck through sometime afterwards +(as appears from a different tint of the ink) with a line quite across +it in this manner, BRAVO——as if he had retracted, or was ashamed of the +opinion he had once entertained of it. + +These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in +this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon, which served as a +cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned +towards the text;—but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he +had five or six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a whole score to turn +himself in,—he took a large circuit, and, indeed, a much more +mettlesome one;—as if he had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself +with a few more frolicksome strokes at vice, than the straitness of the +pulpit allowed.—These, though hussar-like, they skirmish lightly and +out of all order, are still auxiliaries on the side of virtue;—tell me +then, Mynheer Vander Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not +be printed together? + +C H A P. lV + +When my uncle _Toby_ had turned every thing into money, and settled all +accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and _Le Fever_, and betwixt +_Le Fever_ and all mankind,——there remained nothing more in my uncle +_Toby_’s hands, than an old regimental coat and a sword; so that my +uncle _Toby_ found little or no opposition from the world in taking +administration. The coat my uncle _Toby_ gave the corporal;——Wear it, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, as long as it will hold together, for the +sake of the poor lieutenant——And this,——said my uncle _Toby_, taking up +the sword in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as he +spoke——and this, _Le Fever_, I’ll save for thee,—’tis all the fortune, +continued my uncle _Toby_, hanging it up upon a crook, and pointing to +it,—’tis all the fortune, my dear _Le Fever_, which God has left thee; +but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way with it in the +world,—and thou doest it like a man of honour,—’tis enough for us. + +As soon as my uncle _Toby_ had laid a foundation, and taught him to +inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, he sent him to a public school, +where, excepting _Whitsontide_ and _Christmas_, at which times the +corporal was punctually dispatched for him,—he remained to the spring +of the year, seventeen; when the stories of the emperor’s sending his +army into _Hungary_ against the _Turks_, kindling a spark of fire in +his bosom, he left his _Greek_ and _Latin_ without leave, and throwing +himself upon his knees before my uncle _Toby_, begged his father’s +sword, and my uncle _Toby_’s leave along with it, to go and try his +fortune under _Eugene._—Twice did my uncle _Toby_ forget his wound and +cry out, _Le Fever!_ I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside +me——And twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head +in sorrow and disconsolation.—— + +My uncle _Toby_ took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung +untouched ever since the lieutenant’s death, and delivered it to the +corporal to brighten up;——and having detained _Le Fever_ a single +fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to _Leghorn_,—he +put the sword into his hand.——If thou art brave, _Le Fever_, said my +uncle _Toby_, this will not fail thee,——but Fortune, said he (musing a +little),——Fortune may——And if she does,—added my uncle _Toby_, +embracing him, come back again to me, _Le Fever_, and we will shape +thee another course. + +The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of _Le Fever_ +more than my uncle _Toby_’s paternal kindness;——he parted from my uncle +_Toby_, as the best of sons from the best of fathers——both dropped +tears——and as my uncle _Toby_ gave him his last kiss, he slipped sixty +guineas, tied up in an old purse of his father’s, in which was his +mother’s ring, into his hand,—and bid God bless him. + +C H A P. LVI + +LE FEVER got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal +his sword was made of, at the defeat of the _Turks_ before _Belgrade;_ +but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, +and trod close upon his heels for four years together after; he had +withstood these buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at +_Marseilles_, from whence he wrote my uncle _Toby_ word, he had lost +his time, his services, his health, and, in short, every thing but his +sword;——and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him. + +As this letter came to hand about six weeks before _Susannah_’s +accident, _Le Fever_ was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle +_Toby_’s mind all the time my father was giving him and _Yorick_ a +description of what kind of a person he would chuse for a preceptor to +me: but as my uncle _Toby_ thought my father at first somewhat fanciful +in the accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning _Le Fever_’s +name,——till the character, by _Yorick_’s inter-position, ending +unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle-tempered, and generous, and +good, it impressed the image of _Le Fever_, and his interest, upon my +uncle _Toby_ so forcibly, he rose instantly off his chair; and laying +down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father’s hands——I beg, +brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, I may recommend poor _Le +Fever_’s son to you—I beseech you do, added _Yorick_——He has a good +heart, said my uncle _Toby_——And a brave one too, an’ please your +honour, said the corporal. + +——The best hearts, _Trim_, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle +_Toby._——And the greatest cowards, an’ please your honour, in our +regiment, were the greatest rascals in it.—There was serjeant _Kumber_, +and ensign—— + +——We’ll talk of them, said my father, another time. + +C H A P. LVII + +WHAT a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your +worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, +want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and +lies! + +Doctor _Slop_, like a son of a w——, as my father called him for it,—to +exalt himself,—debased me to death,—and made ten thousand times more of +_Susannah_’s accident, than there was any grounds for; so that in a +week’s time, or less, it was in every body’s mouth, _That poor Master +Shandy_ * * * * * * * * * * * * entirely.—And FAME, who loves to double +every thing,—in three days more, had sworn, positively she saw it,—and +all the world, as usual, gave credit to her evidence——“That the nursery +window had not only * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * +;—but that * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ’s also.” + +Could the world have been sued like a BODY-CORPORATE,—my father had +brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to +fall foul of individuals about it——as every soul who had mentioned the +affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable;——’twas like flying in +the very face of his best friends:——And yet to acquiesce under the +report, in silence—was to acknowledge it openly,—at least in the +opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in +contradicting it,—was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the +other half.—— + +——Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my +father. + +I would shew him publickly, said my uncle _Toby_, at the market cross. + +——’Twill have no effect, said my father. + +C H A P. LVIII + +——I’ll put him, however, into breeches, said my father,—let the world +say what it will. + +C H A P. LIX + +THERE are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as +well as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern;—which, though +they have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and +entered upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, +notwithstanding this, (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or +stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed, +poized, and perpended——argued upon——canvassed through——entered into, +and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS OF +COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could +neither have wished it, or done it better. + +Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of putting me into +breeches; which, though determined at once,—in a kind of huff, and a +defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been _pro’d_ and _conn’d_, +and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month +before, in two several _beds of justice_, which my father had held for +that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my +next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with +me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my +father and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the +breeches,—from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser +matters. + +C H A P. LX + +THE ancient _Goths_ of _Germany_, who (the learned _Cluverius_ is +positive) were first seated in the country between the _Vistula_ and +the _Oder_, and who afterwards incorporated the _Herculi_, the +_Bugians_, and some other _Vandallick_ clans to ’em—had all of them a +wise custom of debating every thing of importance to their state, +twice, that is,—once drunk, and once sober:——Drunk—that their councils +might not want vigour;——and sober—that they might not want discretion. + +Now my father being entirely a water-drinker,—was a long time gravelled +almost to death, in turning this as much to his advantage, as he did +every other thing which the ancients did or said; and it was not till +the seventh year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless +experiments and devices, that he hit upon an expedient which answered +the purpose;——and that was, when any difficult and momentous point was +to be settled in the family, which required great sobriety, and great +spirit too, in its determination,——he fixed and set apart the first +_Sunday_ night in the month, and the _Saturday_ night which immediately +preceded it, to argue it over, in bed with my mother: By which +contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself, * * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * +* * + +These my father, humorously enough, called his _beds of justice;_——for +from the two different counsels taken in these two different humours, a +middle one was generally found out which touched the point of wisdom as +well, as if he had got drunk and sober a hundred times. + +I must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as +well in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it +is not every author that can try the experiment as the _Goths_ and +_Vandals_ did it——or, if he can, may it be always for his body’s +health; and to do it, as my father did it,—am I sure it would be always +for his soul’s. + +My way is this:—— + +In all nice and ticklish discussions,—(of which, heaven knows, there +are but too many in my book)—where I find I cannot take a step without +the danger of having either their worships or their reverences upon my +back——I write one-half _full_,—and t’other _fasting;_——or write it all +full,—and correct it fasting;——or write it fasting,—and correct it +full, for they all come to the same thing:——So that with a less +variation from my father’s plan, than my father’s from the _Gothick_—I +feel myself upon a par with him in his first bed of justice,—and no way +inferior to him in his second.——These different and almost +irreconcileable effects, flow uniformly from the wise and wonderful +mechanism of nature,—of which,—be her’s the honour.——All that we can +do, is to turn and work the machine to the improvement and better +manufactory of the arts and sciences.—— + +Now, when I write full,—I write as if I was never to write fasting +again as long as I live;——that is, I write free from the cares as well +as the terrors of the world.——I count not the number of my scars,—nor +does my fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to ante-date +my stabs.——In a word, my pen takes its course; and I write on as much +from the fulness of my heart, as my stomach.—— + +But when, an’ please your honours, I indite fasting, ’tis a different +history.——I pay the world all possible attention and respect,—and have +as great a share (whilst it lasts) of that under strapping virtue of +discretion as the best of you.——So that betwixt both, I write a +careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured _Shandean_ book, +which will do all your hearts good—— + +——And all your heads too,—provided you understand it. + +C H A P. LXI + +WE should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and +shifting his pillow a little towards my mother’s, as he opened the +debate——We should begin to think, Mrs. _Shandy_, of putting this boy +into breeches.—— + +We should so,—said my mother.——We defer it, my dear, quoth my father, +shamefully.—— + +I think we do, Mr. _Shandy_,—said my mother. + +——Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests +and tunicks.—— + +——He does look very well in them,—replied my mother.—— + +——And for that reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to +take him out of ’em.—— + +——It would so,—said my mother:——But indeed he is growing a very tall +lad,—rejoined my father. + +——He is very tall for his age, indeed,—said my mother.—— + +——I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who +the deuce he takes after.—— + +I cannot conceive, for my life, said my mother.—— + +Humph!——said my father. + +(The dialogue ceased for a moment.) + +——(I am very short myself,—continued my father gravely. + +You are very short, Mr _Shandy_,—said my mother. + +Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, +he plucked his pillow a little further from my mother’s,—and turning +about again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a +half. + +——When he gets these breeches made, cried my father in a higher tone, +he’ll look like a beast in ’em. + +He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother. + +——And ’twill be lucky, if that’s the worst on’t, added my father. + +It will be very lucky, answered my mother. + +I suppose, replied my father,—making some pause first,—he’ll be exactly +like other people’s children.—— + +Exactly, said my mother.—— + +——Though I shall be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate +stopp’d again. + +——They should be of leather, said my father, turning him about again.— + +They will last him, said my mother, the longest. + +But he can have no linings to ’em, replied my father.—— + +He cannot, said my mother. + +’Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my father. + +Nothing can be better, quoth my mother.—— + +——Except dimity,—replied my father:——’Tis best of all,—replied my +mother. + +——One must not give him his death, however,—interrupted my father. + +By no means, said my mother:——and so the dialogue stood still again. + +I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth +time, he shall have no pockets in them.—— + +——There is no occasion for any, said my mother.—— + +I mean in his coat and waistcoat,—cried my father. + +——I mean so too,—replied my mother. + +——Though if he gets a gig or top——Poor souls! it is a crown and a +sceptre to them,—they should have where to secure it.—— + +Order it as you please, Mr. _Shandy_, replied my mother.—— + +——But don’t you think it right? added my father, pressing the point +home to her. + +Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. _Shandy._—— + +——There’s for you! cried my father, losing his temper——Pleases me!——You +never will distinguish, Mrs. _Shandy_, nor shall I ever teach you to do +it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience.——This was +on the _Sunday_ night:——and further this chapter sayeth not. + +C H A P. LXII + +AFTER my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my +mother,—he consulted _Albertus Rubenius_ upon it; and _Albertus +Rubenius_ used my father ten times worse in the consultation (if +possible) than even my father had used my mother: For as _Rubenius_ had +wrote a quarto _express, De re Vestiaria Veterum_,—it was _Rubenius_’s +business to have given my father some lights.—On the contrary, my +father might as well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal +virtues out of a long beard,—as of extracting a single word out of +_Rubenius_ upon the subject. + +Upon every other article of ancient dress, _Rubenius_ was very +communicative to my father;—gave him a full satisfactory account of + +The Toga, or loose gown. + +The Chlamys. + +The Ephod. + +The Tunica, or Jacket. + +The Synthesis. + +The Pænula. + +The Lacema, with its Cucullus. + +The Paludamentum. + +The Prætexta. + +The Sagum, or soldier’s jerkin. + +The Trabea: of which, according to _Suetonius_, there was three kinds.— + +——But what are all these to the breeches? said my father. + +_Rubenius_ threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had +been in fashion with the _Romans._—— + +There was, + +The open shoe. + +The close shoe. + +The slip shoe. + +The wooden shoe. + +The soc. + +The buskin. + +And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which _Juvenal_ takes notice +of. + +There were, The clogs. + +The pattins. + +The pantoufles. + +The brogues. + +The sandals, with latchets to them. + +There was, The felt shoe. + +The linen shoe. + +The laced shoe. + +The braided shoe. + +The calceus incisus. + +And The calceus rostratus. + +_Rubenius_ shewed my father how well they all fitted,—in what manner +they laced on,—with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands, +jaggs, and ends.—— + +——But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father. + +_Albertus Rubenius_ informed my father that the _Romans_ manufactured +stuffs of various fabrics,——some plain,—some striped,—others diapered +throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and gold——That +linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of +the empire, when the _Egyptians_ coming to settle amongst them, brought +it into vogue. + +——That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the +fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple, +which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and +wore on their birth-days and public rejoicings.——That it appeared from +the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their +clothes to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened:——but that the +inferior people, to avoid that expence, generally wore brown clothes, +and of a something coarser texture,—till towards the beginning of +_Augustus_’s reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost +every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the _Latus Clavus._ + +And what was the _Latus Clavus?_ said my father. + +_Rubenius_ told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the +learned:——That _Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius Ticinensis, Bayfius Budæus, +Salmasius, Lipsius, Lazius, Isaac Casaubon_, and _Joseph Scaliger_, all +differed from each other,—and he from them: That some took it to be the +button,—some the coat itself,—others only the colour of it;—That the +great _Bayfuis_ in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12—honestly +said, he knew not what it was,—whether a tibula,—a stud,—a button,—a +loop,—a buckle,—or clasps and keepers.—— + +——My father lost the horse, but not the saddle——They are _hooks and +eyes_, said my father——and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches +to be made. + +C H A P. LXIII + +WE are now going to enter upon a new scene of events.—— + +——Leave we then the breeches in the taylor’s hands, with my father +standing over him with his cane, reading him as he sat at work a +lecture upon the _latus clavus_, and pointing to the precise part of +the waistband, where he was determined to have it sewed on.—— + +Leave we my mother—(truest of all the _Poco-curante_’s of her +sex!)—careless about it, as about every thing else in the world which +concerned her;—that is,—indifferent whether it was done this way or +that,——provided it was but done at all.—— + +Leave we _Slop_ likewise to the full profits of all my dishonours.—— + +Leave we poor _Le Fever_ to recover, and get home from _Marseilles_ as +he can.——And last of all,—because the hardest of all—— + +Let us leave, if possible, _myself:_——But ’tis impossible,—I must go +along with you to the end of the work. + +C H A P. LXIV + +IF the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of +ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle _Toby_’s kitchen-garden, and +which was the scene of so many of his delicious hours,—the fault is not +in me,—but in his imagination;—for I am sure I gave him so minute a +description, I was almost ashamed of it. + +When FATE was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great +transactions of future times,—and recollected for what purposes this +little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been +destined,—she gave a nod to NATURE,—’twas enough—Nature threw half a +spade full of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so _much_ clay +in it, as to retain the forms of angles and indentings,—and so _little_ +of it too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works of so much +glory, nasty in foul weather. + +My uncle _Toby_ came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans +along with him, of almost every fortified town in _Italy_ and +_Flanders;_ so let the duke of _Marlborough_, or the allies, have set +down before what town they pleased, my uncle _Toby_ was prepared for +them. + +His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as soon as +ever a town was invested—(but sooner when the design was known) to take +the plan of it (let it be what town it would), and enlarge it upon a +scale to the exact size of his bowling-green; upon the surface of +which, by means of a large role of packthread, and a number of small +piquets driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he +transferred the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the +place, with its works, to determine the depths and slopes of the +ditches,—the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of the several +banquets, parapets, &c.—he set the corporal to work——and sweetly went +it on:——The nature of the soil,—the nature of the work itself,—and +above all, the good-nature of my uncle _Toby_ sitting by from morning +to night, and chatting kindly with the corporal upon past- done +deeds,—left LABOUR little else but the ceremony of the name. + +When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper +posture of defence,—it was invested,—and my uncle _Toby_ and the +corporal began to run their first parallel.—I beg I may not be +interrupted in my story, by being told, _That the first parallel should +be at least three hundred toises distant from the main body of the +place,—and that I have not left a single inch for it;_——for my uncle +_Toby_ took the liberty of incroaching upon his kitchen-garden, for the +sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green, and for that reason +generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt two rows of his +cabbages and his cauliflowers; the conveniences and inconveniences of +which will be considered at large in the history of my uncle _Toby_’s +and the corporal’s campaigns, of which, this I’m now writing is but a +sketch, and will be finished, if I conjecture right, in three pages +(but there is no guessing)——The campaigns themselves will take up as +many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a +weight of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to +rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the work——surely +they had better be printed apart,——we’ll consider the affair——so take +the following sketch of them in the mean time. + +C H A P. LXV + +WHEN the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle _Toby_ and the +corporal began to run their first parallel——not at random, or any +how——but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to run +theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks, by the accounts my +uncle _Toby_ received from the daily papers,—they went on, during the +whole siege, step by step with the allies. + +When the duke of _Marlborough_ made a lodgment,——my uncle _Toby_ made a +lodgment too.——And when the face of a bastion was battered down, or a +defence ruined,—the corporal took his mattock and did as much,—and so +on;——gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works one +after another, till the town fell into their hands. + +To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others,—there could not +have been a greater sight in world, than on a post morning, in which a +practicable breach had been made by the duke of _Marlborough_, in the +main body of the place,—to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and +observed the spirit with which my uncle _Toby_, with _Trim_ behind him, +sallied forth;——the one with the _Gazette_ in his hand,—the other with +a spade on his shoulder to execute the contents.——What an honest +triumph in my uncle _Toby_’s looks as he marched up to the ramparts! +What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood over the +corporal, reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as he was at +work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too +wide,—or leave it an inch too narrow.——But when the _chamade_ was beat, +and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed with the colours +in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts—Heaven! Earth! Sea!——but +what avails apostrophes?——with all your elements, wet or dry, ye never +compounded so intoxicating a draught. + +In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to +it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a +week or ten days together, which detained the _Flanders_ mail, and kept +them so long in torture,—but still ’twas the torture of the happy——In +this track, I say, did my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ move for many years, +every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the invention of +either the one or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk +of improvement to their operations, which always opened fresh springs +of delight in carrying them on. + +The first year’s campaign was carried on from beginning to end, in the +plain and simple method I’ve related. + +In the second year, in which my uncle _Toby_ took _Liege_ and +_Ruremond_, he thought he might afford the expence of four handsome +draw-bridges; of two of which I have given an exact description in the +former part of my work. + +At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates with +port-cullises:——These last were converted afterwards into orgues, as +the better thing; and during the winter of the same year, my uncle +_Toby_, instead of a new suit of clothes, which he always had at +_Christmas_, treated himself with a handsome sentry-box, to stand at +the corner of the bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of +the glacis, there was left a little kind of an esplanade for him and +the corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon. + +——The sentry-box was in case of rain. + +All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which +enabled my uncle _Toby_ to take the field with great splendour. + +My father would often say to _Yorick_, that if any mortal in the whole +universe had done such a thing except his brother _Toby_, it would have +been looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires upon +the parade and prancing manner in which _Lewis_ XIV. from the beginning +of the war, but particularly that very year, had taken the field——But +’tis not my brother _Toby_’s nature, kind soul! my father would add, to +insult any one. + +——But let us go on. + +C H A P. LXVI + +I MUST observe, that although in the first year’s campaign, the word +town is often mentioned,—yet there was no town at that time within the +polygon; that addition was not made till the summer following the +spring in which the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the +third year of my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns,—when upon his taking +_Amberg, Bonn_, and _Rhinberg_, and _Huy_ and _Limbourg_, one after +another, a thought came into the corporal’s head, that to talk of +taking so many towns, _without one_ TOWN _to shew for it_,—was a very +nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my uncle _Toby_, +that they should have a little model of a town built for them,—to be +run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within the +interior polygon to serve for all. + +My uncle _Toby_ felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly +agreed to it, but with the addition of two singular improvements, of +which he was almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of +the project itself. + +The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of +which it was most likely to be the representative:——with grated +windows, and the gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. +&c.—as those in _Ghent_ and _Bruges_, and the rest of the towns in +_Brabant_ and _Flanders._ + +The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal +proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off, so +as to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put +directly into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation +was exchanged between my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal, as the +carpenter did the work. + +——It answered prodigiously the next summer——the town was a perfect +_Proteus_——It was _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Santvliet_, and +_Drusen_, and _Hagenau_,—and then it was _Ostend_ and _Menin_, and +_Aeth_ and _Dendermond._ + +——Surely never did any TOWN act so many parts, since _Sodom_ and +_Gomorrah_, as my uncle _Toby_’s town did. + +In the fourth year, my uncle _Toby_ thinking a town looked foolishly +without a church, added a very fine one with a steeple.——_Trim_ was for +having bells in it;——my uncle _Toby_ said, the metal had better be cast +into cannon. + +This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass field-pieces, +to be planted three and three on each side of my uncle _Toby_’s +sentry-box; and in a short time, these led the way for a train of +somewhat larger,—and so on—(as must always be the case in +hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch bore, till it came +at last to my father’s jack boots. + +The next year, which was that in which _Lisle_ was besieged, and at the +close of which both _Ghent_ and _Bruges_ fell into our hands,—my uncle +_Toby_ was sadly put to it for _proper_ ammunition;——I say proper +ammunition——because his great artillery would not bear powder; and +’twas well for the _Shandy_ family they would not——For so full were the +papers, from the beginning to the end of the siege, of the incessant +firings kept up by the besiegers,——and so heated was my uncle _Toby_’s +imagination with the accounts of them, that he had infallibly shot away +all his estate. + +SOMETHING therefore was wanting as a _succedaneum_, especially in one +or two of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something +like a continual firing in the imagination,——and this something, the +corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an +entire new system of battering of his own,—without which, this had been +objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the +great _desiderata_ of my uncle _Toby_’s apparatus. + +This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally +do, at a little distance from the subject. + +C H A P. LXVII + +WITH two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great +regard, which poor _Tom_, the corporal’s unfortunate brother, had sent +him over, with the account of his marriage with the _Jew_’s +widow——there was + +A _Montero_-cap and two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes. + +The _Montero_-cap I shall describe by and bye.—The _Turkish_ +tobacco-pipes had nothing particular in them, they were fitted up and +ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of _Morocco_ leather and gold +wire, and mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory,—the other +with black ebony, tipp’d with silver. + +My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the +world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two +presents more as tokens of his brother’s nicety, than his +affection.——Tom did not care, _Trim_, he would say, to put on the cap, +or to smoke in the tobacco-pipe of a _Jew._——God bless your honour, the +corporal would say (giving a strong reason to the contrary)—how can +that be? + +The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine _Spanish_ cloth, dyed in +grain, and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the +front, which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered,—and +seemed to have been the property of a _Portuguese_ quarter-master, not +of foot, but of horse, as the word denotes. + +The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as +the sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon GALA-days; +and yet never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all +controverted points, whether military or culinary, provided the +corporal was sure he was in the right,—it was either his _oath_,—his +_wager_,—or his _gift._ + +——’Twas his gift in the present case. + +I’ll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to give away my +Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door, if I do not +manage this matter to his honour’s satisfaction. + +The completion was no further off, than the very next morning; which +was that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the _Lower Deule_, to +the right, and the gate St. _Andrew_,—and on the left, between St. +_Magdalen_’s and the river. + +As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war,—the most +gallant and obstinate on both sides,—and I must add the most bloody +too, for it cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven +hundred men,—my uncle _Toby_ prepared himself for it with a more than +ordinary solemnity. + +The eve which preceded, as my uncle _Toby_ went to bed, he ordered his +ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years in the corner of +an old campaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out +and laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning;—and the very first +thing he did in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle +_Toby_, after he had turned the rough side outwards,—put it on:——This +done, he proceeded next to his breeches, and having buttoned the +waist-band, he forthwith buckled on his sword-belt, and had got his +sword half way in,—when he considered he should want shaving, and that +it would be very inconvenient doing it with his sword on,—so took it +off:——In essaying to put on his regimental coat and waistcoat, my uncle +_Toby_ found the same objection in his wig,—so that went off too:—So +that what with one thing and what with another, as always falls out +when a man is in the most haste,—’twas ten o’clock, which was half an +hour later than his usual time, before my uncle _Toby_ sallied out. + +C H A P. LXVIII + +MY uncle _Toby_ had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which +separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived +the corporal had begun the attack without him.—— + +Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal’s apparatus; and of +the corporal himself in the height of his attack, just as it struck my +uncle _Toby_, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal +was at work,——for in nature there is not such another,——nor can any +combination of all that is grotesque and whimsical in her works produce +its equal. + +The corporal——— + +——Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius,——for he was your +kinsman: + +Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness,—for he was your brother.—Oh +corporal! had I thee, but now,—now, that I am able to give thee a +dinner and protection,—how would I cherish thee! thou should’st wear +thy Montero-cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week.—and +when it was worn out, I would purchase thee a couple like it:——But +alas! alas! alas! now that I can do this in spite of their +reverences—the occasion is lost—for thou art gone;—thy genius fled up +to the stars from whence it came;—and that warm heart of thine, with +all its generous and open vessels, compressed into a _clod of the +valley!_ + +——But what——what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I look +towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy +master—the first—the foremost of created beings;——where, I shall see +thee, faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a trembling +hand across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to the door, +to take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as he +directed thee;——where—all my father’s systems shall be baffled by his +sorrows; and, in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold him, as he +inspects the lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his +nose, to wipe away the dew which nature has shed upon them——When I see +him cast in the rosemary with an air of disconsolation, which cries +through my ears,——O _Toby!_ in what corner of the world shall I seek +thy fellow? + +——Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his +distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain—when I shall +arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted +hand. + +C H A P. LXIX + +THE corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply +the grand _desideratum_, of keeping up something like an incessant +firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,—had no further +idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco +against the town, out of one of my uncle _Toby_’s six field-pieces, +which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of +effecting which occurring to his fancy at the same time, though he had +pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from the miscarriage of his +projects. + +Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began +to find out, that by means of his two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes, with the +supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their +lower ends, to be tagg’d by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the +touch-holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied +hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the +_Morocco_ tube,—he should be able to fire the six field-pieces all +together, and with the same ease as to fire one.——— + +——Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for +the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my +father’s first and second _beds of justice_, ever rise up and say +again, from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be +struck out, to carry the arts and sciences up to perfection.——Heaven! +thou knowest how I love them;——thou knowest the secrets of my heart, +and that I would this moment give my shirt——Thou art a fool, _Shandy_, +says _Eugenius_, for thou hast but a dozen in the world,—and ’twill +break thy set.—— + +No matter for that, _Eugenius;_ I would give the shirt off my back to +be burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer, +how many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike +into the tail of it.——Think ye not that in striking these _in_,—he +might, per-adventure, strike something _out?_ as sure as a gun.—— + +——But this project, by the bye. + +The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing _his_ to +perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with +charging them to the top with tobacco,—he went with contentment to bed. + +C H A P. LXX + +THE corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle _Toby_, +in order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two +before my uncle _Toby_ came. + +He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together +in front of my uncle _Toby_’s sentry-box, leaving only an interval of +about a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for +the convenience of charging, &c.—and the sake possibly of two +batteries, which he might think double the honour of one. + +In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the +sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken +his post:——He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the +right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand,—and the ebony +pipe tipp’d with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, +betwixt the finger and thumb of the other——and with his right knee +fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was +the corporal, with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off +his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard, +which faced the counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that +morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the +enemy a single puff or two;—but the pleasure of the _puffs_, as well as +the _puffing_, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him +on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time +my uncle _Toby_ joined him. + +’Twas well for my father, that my uncle _Toby_ had not his will to make +that day. + +C H A P. LXXI + +MY uncle _Toby_ took the ivory pipe out of the corporal’s hand,—looked +at it for half a minute, and returned it. + +In less than two minutes, my uncle _Toby_ took the pipe from the +corporal again, and raised it half way to his mouth——then hastily gave +it back a second time. + +The corporal redoubled the attack,——my uncle _Toby_ smiled,——then +looked grave,——then smiled for a moment,——then looked serious for a +long time;——Give me hold of the ivory pipe, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_——my uncle _Toby_ put it to his lips,——drew it back +directly,——gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge;——never did my uncle +_Toby_’s mouth water so much for a pipe in his life.——My uncle _Toby_ +retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his hand.——— + +——Dear uncle _Toby_! don’t go into the sentry-box with the +pipe,—there’s no trusting a man’s self with such a thing in such a +corner. + +C H A P. LXXII + +I BEG the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle _Toby_’s +ordnance behind the scenes,——to remove his sentry-box, and clear the +theatre, if possible, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest of +his military apparatus out of the way;——that done, my dear friend +_Garrick_, we’ll snuff the candles bright,—sweep the stage with a new +broom,—draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle _Toby_ dressed in a +new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will +act: and yet, if pity be a-kin to love,—and bravery no alien to it, you +have seen enough of my uncle _Toby_ in these, to trace these family +likenesses, betwixt the two passions (in case there is one) to your +heart’s content. + +Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kind—and thou +puzzlest us in every one. + +There was, Madam, in my uncle _Toby_, a singleness of heart which +misled him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things +of this nature usually go on; you can—you can have no conception of it: +with this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such +an unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of +woman;——and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a +siege was out of his head,) that you might have stood behind any one of +your serpentine walks, and shot my uncle _Toby_ ten times in a day, +through his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your +purpose. + +With all this, Madam,—and what confounded every thing as much on the +other hand, my uncle _Toby_ had that unparalleled modesty of nature I +once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his +feelings, that you might as soon——But where am I going? these +reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up +that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts. + +C H A P. LXXIII + +OF the few legitimate sons of _Adam_ whose breasts never felt what the +sting of love was,—(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be +bastards,)—the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried +off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their +sakes I had the key of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five +minutes, to tell you their names—recollect them I cannot—so be content +to accept of these, for the present, in their stead. + +There was the great king _Aldrovandus_, and _Bosphorus_, and +_Cappadocius_, and _Dardanus_, and _Pontus_, and _Asius_,——to say +nothing of the iron-hearted _Charles_ the XIIth, whom the Countess of +K***** herself could make nothing of.——There was _Babylonicus_, and +_Mediterraneus_, and _Polixenes_, and _Persicus_, and _Prusicus_, not +one of whom (except _Cappadocius_ and _Pontus_, who were both a little +suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess——The truth +is, they had all of them something else to do—and so had my uncle +_Toby_—till Fate—till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being +handed down to posterity with _Aldrovandus_’s and the rest,—she basely +patched up the peace of _Utrecht._ + +——Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she did that year. + +C H A P. LXXIV + +AMONGST the many ill consequences of the treaty of _Utrecht_, it was +within a point of giving my uncle _Toby_ a surfeit of sieges; and +though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet _Calais_ itself left +not a deeper scar in _Mary_’s heart, than _Utrecht_ upon my uncle +_Toby_’s. To the end of his life he never could hear _Utrecht_ +mentioned upon any account whatever,—or so much as read an article of +news extracted out of the _Utrecht Gazette_, without fetching a sigh, +as if his heart would break in twain. + +My father, who was a great MOTIVE-MONGER, and consequently a very +dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,—for he +generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it +yourself—would always console my uncle _Toby_ upon these occasions, in +a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle _Toby_ grieved for +nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his +_hobby-horse._——Never mind, brother _Toby_, he would say,—by God’s +blessing we shall have another war break out again some of these days; +and when it does,—the belligerent powers, if they would hang +themselves, cannot keep us out of play.——I defy ’em, my dear _Toby_, he +would add, to take countries without taking towns,——or towns without +sieges. + +My uncle _Toby_ never took this back-stroke of my father’s at his +hobby-horse kindly.——He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, +because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most +dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he +always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend +himself than common. + +I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle _Toby_ was not +eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the +contrary:——I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it +again.—He was not eloquent,—it was not easy to my uncle _Toby_ to make +long harangues,—and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions +where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual +course, that in some parts my uncle _Toby_, for a time, was at least +equal to _Tertullus_——but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely +above him. + +My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations +of my uncle _Toby_’s, which he had delivered one evening before him and +_Yorick_, that he wrote it down before he went to bed. + +I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father’s papers, +with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus +[ ], and is endorsed, +MY BROTHER TOBY’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS OWN PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT IN +WISHING TO CONTINUE THE WAR. + +I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my +uncle _Toby_’s a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of +defence,—and shews so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good +principles in him, that I give it the world, word for word +(interlineations and all), as I find it. + +C H A P. LXXV + +MY UNCLE TOBY’S APOLOGETICAL ORATION + +I AM not insensible, brother _Shandy_, that when a man whose profession +is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,—it has an ill aspect to the +world;——and that, how just and right soever his motives the intentions +may be,—he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from +private views in doing it. + +For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without +being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in +the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not +believe him.——He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,—lest he +may suffer in his esteem:——But if his heart is overcharged, and a +secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear +of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true +notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I _hope_, I +have been in all these, brother _Shandy_, would be unbecoming in me to +say:——much worse, I know, have I been than I ought,—and something +worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother +_Shandy_, who have sucked the same breasts with me,—and with whom I +have been brought up from my cradle,—and from whose knowledge, from the +first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no +one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it——Such as I am, +brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all +my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my +understanding. + +Tell me then, my dear brother _Shandy_, upon which of them it is, that +when I condemned the peace of _Utrecht_, and grieved the war was not +carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother +did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be +bad enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain,—more slaves +made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely +for his own pleasure:——Tell me, brother _Shandy_, upon what one deed of +mine do you ground it? [_The devil a deed do I know of, dear_ Toby, +_but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these +cursed sieges._] + +If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart +beat with it—was it my fault?——Did I plant the propensity there?——Did I +sound the alarm within, or Nature? + +When _Guy_, Earl of _Warwick_, and _Parismus_ and _Parismenus_, and +_Valentine_ and _Orson_, and the _Seven Champions of England_, were +handed around the school,—were they not all purchased with my own +pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother _Shandy_? When we read over the +siege of _Troy_, which lasted ten years and eight months,——though with +such a train of artillery as we had at _Namur_, the town might have +been carried in a week—was I not as much concerned for the destruction +of the _Greeks_ and _Trojans_ as any boy of the whole school? Had I not +three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my +left, for calling _Helena_ a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more +tears for _Hector?_ And when king _Priam_ came to the camp to beg his +body, and returned weeping back to _Troy_ without it,—you know, +brother, I could not eat my dinner.—— + +——Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother _Shandy_, my blood +flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war,—was it a proof it +could not ache for the distresses of war too? + +O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,—and ’tis +another to scatter cypress.——[_Who told thee, my dear Toby, that +cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_ ] + +——’Tis one thing, brother _Shandy_, for a soldier to hazard his own +life—to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in +pieces:——’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to +enter the breach the first man,—to stand in the foremost rank, and +march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his +ears:——’Tis one thing, I say, brother _Shandy_, to do this,—and ’tis +another thing to reflect on the miseries of war;—to view the +desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues +and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, +is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo. + +Need I be told, dear _Yorick_, as I was by you, in _Le Fever_’s funeral +sermon, _That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, +and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?_——But why did you not +add, _Yorick_,—if not by NATURE—that he is so by NECESSITY?——For what +is war? what is it, _Yorick_, when fought as ours has been, upon +principles of _liberty_, and upon principles of _honour_—what is it, +but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their +swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within +bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother _Shandy_, that the pleasure I +have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular, +which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, +and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, +that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our +creation. + +C H A P. LXXVI + +I TOLD the Christian reader—I say _Christian_——hoping he is one——and if +he is not, I am sorry for it——and only beg he will consider the matter +with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book—— + +I told him, Sir——for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in +the strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going +backwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader’s +fancy——which, for my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than +at first, there is so much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, +with so many breaks and gaps in it,—and so little service do the stars +afford, which, nevertheless, I hang up in some of the darkest passages, +knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights the +sun itself at noon-day can give it——and now you see, I am lost +myself!—— + +——But ’tis my father’s fault; and whenever my brains come to be +dissected, you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a +large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of +cambrick, running along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly, +you cannot so much as cut out a * *, (here I hang up a couple of lights +again)——or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt.—— + +_Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum_, sayeth +_Cardan._ All which being considered, and that you see ’tis morally +impracticable for me to wind this round to where I set out—— + +I begin the chapter over again. + +C H A P. LXXVII + +I TOLD the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which +preceded my uncle _Toby_’s apologetical oration,—though in a different +trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace of _Utrecht_ +was within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_ +and his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the +confederating powers. + +There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse, +which, as good as says to him, “I’ll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my +life before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.” Now my +uncle _Toby_ could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; +for in strictness of language, he could not be said to dismount his +horse at all——his horse rather flung him——and somewhat _viciously_, +which made my uncle _Toby_ take it ten times more unkindly. Let this +matter be settled by state-jockies as they like.——It created, I say, a +sort of shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_ and his hobby-horse.——He had no +occasion for him from the month of _March_ to _November_, which was the +summer after the articles were signed, except it was now and then to +take a short ride out, just to see that the fortifications and harbour +of _Dunkirk_ were demolished, according to stipulation. + +The _French_ were so backwards all that summer in setting about that +affair, and Monsieur _Tugghe_, the deputy from the magistrates of +_Dunkirk_, presented so many affecting petitions to the +queen,—beseeching her majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall +upon the martial works, which might have incurred her displeasure,—but +to spare—to spare the mole, for the mole’s sake; which, in its naked +situation, could be no more than an object of pity——and the queen (who +was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition,—and her ministers +also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for +these private reasons, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *—— + +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ; so that the whole +went heavily on with my uncle _Toby;_ insomuch, that it was not within +three full months, after he and the corporal had constructed the town, +and put it in a condition to be destroyed, that the several +commandants, commissaries, deputies, negociators, and intendants, would +permit him to set about it.——Fatal interval of inactivity! + +The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in +the ramparts, or main fortifications of the town——No,—that will never +do, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, for in going that way to work with +the town, the _English_ garrison will not be safe in it an hour; +because if the French are treacherous——They are as treacherous as +devils, an’ please your honour, said the corporal——It gives me concern +always when I hear it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby;_—for they don’t +want personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they +may enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they +please:—Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s +spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with +it,—let them enter, an’ please your honour, if they dare.——In cases +like this, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, slipping his right hand down +to the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise +with his fore-finger extended,——’tis no part of the consideration of a +commandant, what the enemy dare,—or what they dare not do; he must act +with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and +the land, and particularly with fort _Louis_, the most distant of them +all, and demolish it first,—and the rest, one by one, both on our right +and left, as we retreat towards the town;——then we’ll demolish the +mole,—next fill up the harbour,—then retire into the citadel, and blow +it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we’ll embark for +_England._——We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting +himself——Very true, said my uncle _Toby_—looking at the church. + +C H A P. LXXVIII + +A DELUSIVE, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my +uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_, upon the demolition of _Dunkirk_,—for a moment +rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from +under him:——still—still all went on heavily——the magic left the mind +the weaker—STILLNESS, with SILENCE at her back, entered the solitary +parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle _Toby_’s head;—and +LISTLESSNESS, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down +beside him in his arm-chair.——No longer _Amberg_ and _Rhinberg_, and +_Limbourg_, and _Huy_, and _Bonn_, in one year,—and the prospect of +_Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Drusen_, and _Dendermond_, the +next,—hurried on the blood:—No longer did saps, and mines, and blinds, +and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man’s +repose:——No more could my uncle _Toby_, after passing the _French_ +lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of +_France_,—cross over the _Oyes_, and with all _Picardie_ open behind +him, march up to the gates of _Paris_, and fall asleep with nothing but +ideas of glory:——No more was he to dream, he had fixed the royal +standard upon the tower of the _Bastile_, and awake with it streaming +in his head. + +——Softer visions,—gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his +slumbers;—the trumpet of war fell out of his hands,—he took up the +lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most +difficult!——how wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle _Toby_? + +C H A P. LXXIX + +NOW, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of +talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle +_Toby_’s courtship of widow _Wadman_, whenever I got time to write +them, would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the +elementary and practical part of love and love-making, that ever was +addressed to the world——are you to imagine from thence, that I shall +set out with a description of _what love is?_ whether part God and part +Devil, as _Plotinus_ will have it—— + +——Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be +as ten——to determine with _Ficinus_, “_How many parts of it—the +one,—and how many the other;_”—or whether it is _all of it one great +Devil_, from head to tail, as _Plato_ has taken upon him to pronounce; +concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion:—but my +opinion of _Plato_ is this; that he appears, from this instance, to +have been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with +doctor _Baynyard_, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining +that half a dozen of ’em at once, would draw a man as surely to his +grave, as a herse and six—rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was +nothing in the world, but one great bouncing _Cantharidis._—— + +I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous +liberty in arguing, but what _Nazianzen_ cried out (_that is, +polemically_) to _Philagrius_—— + +“’Ευγε!” _O rare! ’tis fine reasoning, Sir indeed!_—“οτι φιλοσοφεισ ευ +Παθεσ.” _and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize +about it in your moods and passions._ + +Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to +inquire, whether love is a disease,——or embroil myself with _Rhasis_ +and _Dioscorides_, whether the seat of it is in the brain or +liver;—because this would lead me on, to an examination of the two very +opposite manners, in which patients have been treated——the one, of +_Aœtius_, who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and +bruised cucumbers;—and followed on with thin potations of water-lilies +and purslane—to which he added a pinch of snuff, of the herb +_Hanea;_—and where _Aœtius_ durst venture it,—his topaz-ring. + +——The other, that of _Gordonius_, who (in his cap. 15. _de Amore_) +directs they should be thrashed, “_ad putorem usque_,”——till they stink +again. + +These are disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great stock +of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my +uncle _Toby_’s affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his +theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my +uncle _Toby_’s mind, almost as much as his amours themselves,)—he took +a single step into practice;—and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, +which he found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he +was making my uncle _Toby_ a new pair of breeches, he produced +_Gordonius_’s effect upon my uncle _Toby_ without the disgrace. + +What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that +is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this——That whatever effect +it had upon my uncle _Toby_,——it had a vile effect upon the house;——and +if my uncle _Toby_ had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had +a vile effect upon my father too. + +C H A P. LXXX + +——’TWILL come out of itself by and bye.——All I contend for is, that I +am not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is; and so +long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the +word itself, without any other idea to it, than what I have in common +with the rest of the world, why should I differ from it a moment before +the time?——When I can get on no further,—and find myself entangled on +all sides of this mystic labyrinth,—my Opinion will then come in, in +course,—and lead me out. + +At present, I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in telling the +reader, my uncle _Toby fell in love:_ + +—Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is +_fallen_ in love,—or that he is _deeply_ in love,—or up to the ears in +love,—and sometimes even _over head and ears in it_,—carries an +idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing _below_ a +man:—this is recurring again to _Plato_’s opinion, which, with all his +divinityship,—I hold to be damnable and heretical:—and so much for +that. + +Let love therefore be what it will,—my uncle _Toby_ fell into it. + +——And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation—so wouldst thou: +For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet any thing in +this world, more concupiscible than widow _Wadman._ + +C H A P. LXXXI + +TO conceive this right,—call for pen and ink—here’s paper ready to your +hand.——Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind——as like your mistress +as you can——as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you—’tis +all one to me——please but your own fancy in it. + +——Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet!—so exquisite! + +——Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle _Toby_ resist it? + +Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy +covers, which MALICE will not blacken, and which IGNORANCE cannot +misrepresent. + +C H A P. LXXXII + +AS _Susannah_ was informed by an express from Mrs. _Bridget_, of my +uncle _Toby_’s falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it +happened,—the contents of which express, _Susannah_ communicated to my +mother the next day,—it has just given me an opportunity of entering +upon my uncle _Toby_’s amours a fortnight before their existence. + +I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother, +which will surprise you greatly.—— + +Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and +was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my +mother broke silence.—— + +“—My brother _Toby_, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. +_Wadman._” + +——Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his +bed again as long as he lives. + +It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked +the meaning of a thing she did not understand. + +——That she is not a woman of science, my father would say—is her +misfortune—but she might ask a question.— + +My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the world at last +without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still._——My father +had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,—but +she always forgot. + +For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt +them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of +which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of +the breeches), and then went on again. + +If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my mother. + +Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter away his +means upon that, as any thing else, + +——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition—the +reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you of. + +It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my father. + +A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.—— + +——Lord have mercy upon me,—said my father to himself——* * * * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * + +C H A P. LXXXIII + +I AM now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a +vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I +shall be able to go on with my uncle _Toby_’s story, and my own, in a +tolerable straight line. Now, + +four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S + +These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, +and fourth volumes[32]——In the fifth volume I have been very good,——the +precise line I have described in it being this: + +One very squiggly line across the page with loops marked +A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D. + +By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a +trip to _Navarre_,—and the indented curve B. which is the short airing +when I was there with the Lady _Baussiere_ and her page,—I have not +taken the least frisk of a digression, till _John de la Casse_’s devils +led me the round you see marked D.—for as for _c c c c c_ they are +nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the +lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what +men have done,—or with my own transgressions at the letters A B D—they +vanish into nothing. + +In this last volume I have done better still—for from the end of Le +Fever’s episode, to the beginning of my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns,—I +have scarce stepped a yard out of my way. + +If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible——by the good leave of his +grace of _Benevento_’s devils——but I may arrive hereafter at the +excellency of going on even thus: + +which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a +writing-master’s ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to +the right hand or to the left. + +This _right line_,—the path-way for Christians to walk in! say +divines—— + +——The emblem of moral rectitude! says _Cicero_—— + +——_The best line!_ say cabbage planters——is the shortest line, says +_Archimedes_, which can be drawn from one given point to another.—— + +I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next +birth- day suits! + +——What a journey! + +Pray can you tell me,—that is, without anger, before I write my chapter +upon straight lines——by what mistake——who told them so——or how it has +come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded +this line, with the line of GRAVITATION? + + [32] Alluding to the first edition. + +C H A P. LXXXIV + +NO——I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the +vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread +worse than the devil, would but give me leave—and in another place—(but +where, I can’t recollect now) speaking of my book as a _machine_, and +laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, in order to +gain the greater credit to it—I swore it should be kept a going at that +rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless +me so long with health and good spirits. + +Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge—nay so very +little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool +with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on +the contrary, I have much—much to thank ’em for: cheerily have ye made +me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its +cares) upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, +have ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, +either with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my +horizon with hope, and when DEATH himself knocked at my door—ye bad him +come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do +it, that he doubted of his commission—— + +“—There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,” quoth he. + +Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be +interrupted in a story——and I was that moment telling _Eugenius_ a most +tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of +a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and +justice of the procedure—— + +“—Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth +Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_, +taking hold of my hand as I finished my story—— + +But there is no living, _Eugenius_, replied I, at this rate; for as +this _son of a whore_ has found out my lodgings—— + +—You call him rightly, said _Eugenius_,—for by sin, we are told, he +enter’d the world——I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided +he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him—for I have forty +volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body +in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest +he has got me by the throat (for _Eugenius_ could scarce hear me speak +across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, +had I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these +two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to +support me—had I not better, _Eugenius_, fly for my life? ’Tis my +advice, my dear _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_—Then by heaven! I will lead +him a dance he little thinks of——for I will gallop, quoth I, without +looking once behind me, to the banks of the _Garonne;_ and if I hear +him clattering at my heels——I’ll scamper away to mount _Vesuvius_——from +thence to _Joppa_, and from _Joppa_ to the world’s end; where, if he +follows me, I pray God he may break his neck—— + +—He runs more risk _there_, said _Eugenius_, than thou. + +_Eugenius_’s wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence +it had been some months banish’d——’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; +he led me to my chaise——_Allons!_ said I; the post-boy gave a crack +with his whip——off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got +into _Dover._ + +C H A P. LXXXV + +NOW hang it! quoth I, as I look’d towards the _French_ coast—a man +should know something of his own country too, before he goes +abroad——and I never gave a peep into _Rochester_ church, or took notice +of the dock of _Chatham_, or visited St. _Thomas_ at _Canterbury_, +though they all three laid in my way—— + +—But mine, indeed, is a particular case—— + +So without arguing the matter further with _Thomas o’Becket_, or any +one else—I skip’d into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, +and scudded away like the wind. + +Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man +never overtaken by _Death_ in this passage? + +Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he——What a +cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already——what a +brain!——upside down!——hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into +another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the +fix’d and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass——good G—! every +thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools——I’d give a shilling +to know if I shan’t write the clearer for it—— + +Sick! sick! sick! sick!—— + +—When shall we get to land? captain—they have hearts like stones——O I +am deadly sick!——reach me that thing, boy——’tis the most discomfiting +sickness——I wish I was at the bottom—Madam! how is it with you? Undone! +undone! un——O! undone! sir——What the first time?——No, ’tis the second, +third, sixth, tenth time, sir,——hey-day!—what a trampling over +head!—hollo! cabin boy! what’s the matter? + +The wind chopp’d about! s’Death—then I shall meet him full in the face. + +What luck!—’tis chopp’d about again, master——O the devil chop it—— + +Captain, quoth she, for heaven’s sake, let us get ashore. + +C H A P. LXXXVI + +IT is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three +distinct roads between _Calais_ and _Paris_, in behalf of which there +is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie +along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll +take. + +First, the road by _Lisle_ and _Arras_, which is the most about——but +most interesting, and instructing. + +The second, that by _Amiens_, which you may go, if you would see +_Chantilly_—— + +And that by _Beauvais_, which you may go, if you will. + +For this reason a great many chuse to go by _Beauvais._ + +C H A P. LXXXVII + +“NOW before I quit _Calais_,” a travel-writer would say, “it would not +be amiss to give some account of “it.”—Now I think it very much +amiss—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, +when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and +drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely o’ my +conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from +what has been wrote of these things, by all who have _wrote and +gallop’d_—or who have _gallop’d and wrote_, which is a different way +still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, have _wrote +galloping_, which is the way I do at present——from the great _Addison_, +who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a—, and +galling his beast’s crupper at every stroke—there is not a gallopper of +us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in +case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as well +as not. + +For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make +my last appeal—I know no more of _Calais_ (except the little my barber +told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of +_Grand Cairo_; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark +as pitch in the morning when I set out, and yet by merely knowing what +is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by +spelling and putting this and that together in another—I would lay any +travelling odds, that I this moment write a chapter upon _Calais_ as +long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every +item, which is worth a stranger’s curiosity in the town—that you would +take me for the town-clerk of _Calais_ itself—and where, sir, would be +the wonder? was not _Democritus_, who laughed ten times more than +I—town-clerk of _Abdera?_ and was not (I forget his name) who had more +discretion than us both, town-clerk of _Ephesus?_——it should be penn’d +moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and +precision—— + +—Nay—if you don’t believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains. + +C H A P. LXXXVIII + +CALAIS, _Calatium, Calusium, Calesium._ + +This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see +no reason to call in question in this place—was _once_ no more than a +small village belonging to one of the first Counts de _Guignes;_ and as +it boasts at present of no less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, +exclusive of four hundred and twenty distinct families in the _basse +ville_, or suburbs——it must have grown up by little and little, I +suppose, to its present size. + +Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial church in +the whole town; I had not an opportunity of taking its exact +dimensions, but it is pretty easy to make a tolerable conjecture of +’em—for as there are fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the +church holds them all it must be considerably large—and if it will +not—’tis a very great pity they have not another—it is built in form of +a cross, and dedicated to the Virgin _Mary;_ the steeple, which has a +spire to it, is placed in the middle of the church, and stands upon +four pillars elegant and light enough, but sufficiently strong at the +same time—it is decorated with eleven altars, most of which are rather +fine than beautiful. The great altar is a master- piece in its kind; +’tis of white marble, and, as I was told, near sixty feet high—had it +been much higher, it had been as high as mount _Calvary_ +itself—therefore, I suppose it must be high enough in all conscience. + +There was nothing struck me more than the great _Square;_ tho’ I cannot +say ’tis either well paved or well built; but ’tis in the heart of the +town, and most of the streets, especially those in that quarter, all +terminate in it; could there have been a fountain in all _Calais_, +which it seems there cannot, as such an object would have been a great +ornament, it is not to be doubted, but that the inhabitants would have +had it in the very centre of this square,—not that it is properly a +square,—because ’tis forty feet longer from east to west, than from +north to south; so that the _French_ in general have more reason on +their side in calling them _Places_ than _Squares_, which, strictly +speaking, to be sure, they are not. + +The town-house seems to be but a sorry building, and not to be kept in +the best repair; otherwise it had been a second great ornament to this +place; it answers however its destination, and serves very well for the +reception of the magistrates, who assemble in it from time to time; so +that ’tis presumable, justice is regularly distributed. + +I have heard much of it, but there is nothing at all curious in the +_Courgain;_ ’tis a distinct quarter of the town, inhabited solely by +sailors and fishermen; it consists of a number of small streets, neatly +built and mostly of brick; ’tis extremely populous, but as that may be +accounted for, from the principles of their diet,—there is nothing +curious in that neither.——A traveller may see it to satisfy himself—he +must not omit however taking notice of _La Tour de Guet_, upon any +account; ’tis so called from its particular destination, because in war +it serves to discover and give notice of the enemies which approach the +place, either by sea or land;——but ’tis monstrous high, and catches the +eye so continually, you cannot avoid taking notice of it if you would. + +It was a singular disappointment to me, that I could not have +permission to take an exact survey of the fortifications, which are the +strongest in the world, and which, from first to last, that is, for the +time they were set about by _Philip_ of _France_, Count of _Bologne_, +to the present war, wherein many reparations were made, have cost (as I +learned afterwards from an engineer in _Gascony_)—above a hundred +millions of livres. It is very remarkable, that at the _Tête de +Gravelenes_, and where the town is naturally the weakest, they have +expended the most money; so that the outworks stretch a great way into +the campaign, and consequently occupy a large tract of ground—However, +after all that is _said_ and _done_, it must be acknowledged that +_Calais_ was never upon any account so considerable from itself, as +from its situation, and that easy entrance which it gave our ancestors, +upon all occasions, into _France:_ it was not without its +inconveniences also; being no less troublesome to the _English_ in +those times, than _Dunkirk_ has been to us, in ours; so that it was +deservedly looked upon as the key to both kingdoms, which no doubt is +the reason that there have arisen so many contentions who should keep +it: of these, the siege of _Calais_, or rather the blockade (for it was +shut up both by land and sea), was the most memorable, as it with-stood +the efforts of _Edward_ the Third a whole year, and was not terminated +at last but by famine and extreme misery; the gallantry of _Eustace de +St. Pierre_, who first offered himself a victim for his +fellow-citizens, has rank’d his name with heroes. As it will not take +up above fifty pages, it would be injustice to the reader, not to give +him a minute account of that romantic transaction, as well as of the +siege itself, in _Rapin_’s own words: + +C H A P. LXXXIX + +——BUT courage! gentle reader!——I scorn it——’tis enough to have thee in +my power——but to make use of the advantage which the fortune of the pen +has now gained over thee, would be too much——No——! by that all-powerful +fire which warms the visionary brain, and lights the spirits through +unworldly tracts! ere I would force a helpless creature upon this hard +service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages, which I have no +right to sell thee,——naked as I am, I would browse upon the mountains, +and smile that the north wind brought me neither my tent or my supper. + +—So put on, my brave boy! and make the best of thy way to _Boulogne._ + +C H A P. XC + +——BOULOGNE!——hah!——so we are all got together——debtors and sinners +before heaven; a jolly set of us—but I can’t stay and quaff it off with +you—I’m pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken, +before I can well change horses:——for heaven’s sake, make haste——’Tis +for high-treason, quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he +could to a very tall man, that stood next him——Or else for murder; +quoth the tall man——Well thrown, _Size-ace!_ quoth I. No; quoth a +third, the gentleman has been committing——— + +_Ah! ma chere fille!_ said I, as she tripp’d by from her matins—you +look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the +compliment the more gracious)—No; it can’t be that, quoth a +fourth——(she made a curt’sy to me—I kiss’d my hand) ’tis debt, +continued he: ’Tis certainly for debt; quoth a fifth; I would not pay +that gentleman’s debts, quoth _Ace_, for a thousand pounds; nor would +I, quoth _Size_, for six times the sum—Well thrown, _Size-ace_, again! +quoth I;—but I have no debt but the debt of NATURE, and I want but +patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe her——How can +you be so hard-hearted, Madam, to arrest a poor traveller going along +without molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do stop that +death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is +posting after me——he never would have followed me but for you——if it be +but for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you, +madam——do, dear lady—— + +——Now, in troth, ’tis a great pity, quoth mine _Irish_ host, that all +this good courtship should be lost; for the young gentlewoman has been +after going out of hearing of it all along.—— + +——Simpleton! quoth I. + +——So you have nothing _else_ in _Boulogne_ worth seeing? + +—By Jasus! there is the finest SEMINARY for the HUMANITIES—— + +—There cannot be a finer; quoth I. + +C H A P. XCI + +WHEN the precipitancy of a man’s wishes hurries on his ideas ninety +times faster than the vehicle he rides in—woe be to truth! and woe be +to the vehicle and its tackling (let ’em be made of what stuff you +will) upon which he breathes forth the disappointment of his soul! + +As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, +“_the most haste the worse speed_,” was all the reflection I made upon +the affair, the first time it happen’d;—the second, third, fourth, and +fifth time, I confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly +blamed only the second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, +without carrying my reflections further; but the event continuing to +befal me from the fifth, to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and +tenth time, and without one exception, I then could not avoid making a +national reflection of it, which I do in these words; + +_That something is always wrong in a French post-chaise, upon first +setting out._ + +Or the proposition may stand thus: + +_A French postilion has always to alight before he has got three +hundred yards out of town._ + +What’s wrong now?——Diable!——a rope’s broke!——a knot has slipt!——a +staple’s drawn!——a bolt’s to whittle!——a tag, a rag, a jag, a strap, a +buckle, or a buckle’s tongue, want altering. + +Now true as all this is, I never think myself impowered to +excommunicate thereupon either the post-chaise, or its driver——nor do I +take it into my head to swear by the living G—, I would rather go +a-foot ten thousand times——or that I will be damn’d, if ever I get into +another——but I take the matter coolly before me, and consider, that +some tag, or rag, or jag, or bolt, or buckle, or buckle’s tongue, will +ever be a wanting or want altering, travel where I will—so I never +chaff, but take the good and the bad as they fall in my road, and get +on:——Do so, my lad! said I; he had lost five minutes already, in +alighting in order to get at a luncheon of black bread, which he had +cramm’d into the chaise-pocket, and was remounted, and going leisurely +on, to relish it the better.——Get on, my lad, said I, briskly—but in +the most persuasive tone imaginable, for I jingled a four-and-twenty +sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold the flat side towards +him, as he look’d back: the dog grinn’d intelligence from his right ear +to his left, and behind his sooty muzzle discovered such a pearly row +of teeth, that _Sovereignty_ would have pawn’d her jewels for them. +Just heaven! {What masticators!—/What bread!— + +and so as he finished the last mouthful of it, we entered the town of +_Montreuil._ + +C H A P. XCII + +THERE is not a town in all _France_ which, in my opinion, looks better +in the map, than MONTREUIL;——I own, it does not look so well in the +book of post-roads; but when you come to see it—to be sure it looks +most pitifully. + +There is one thing, however, in it at present very handsome; and that +is, the inn-keeper’s daughter: She has been eighteen months at +_Amiens_, and six at _Paris_, in going through her classes; so knits, +and sews, and dances, and does the little coquetries very well.—— + +—A slut! in running them over within these five minutes that I have +stood looking at her, she has let fall at least a dozen loops in a +white thread stocking——yes, yes—I see, you cunning gipsy!—’tis long and +taper—you need not pin it to your knee—and that ’tis your own—and fits +you exactly.—— + +——That Nature should have told this creature a word about a _statue’s +thumb!_ + +—But as this sample is worth all their thumbs—besides, I have her +thumbs and fingers in at the bargain, if they can be any guide to +me,—and as _Janatone_ withal (for that is her name) stands so well for +a drawing——may I never draw more, or rather may I draw like a +draught-horse, by main strength all the days of my life,—if I do not +draw her in all her proportions, and with as determined a pencil, as if +I had her in the wettest drapery.—— + +—But your worships chuse rather that I give you the length, breadth, +and perpendicular height of the great parish-church, or drawing of the +façade of the abbey of Saint _Austreberte_ which has been transported +from _Artois_ hither—every thing is just I suppose as the masons and +carpenters left them,—and if the belief in _Christ_ continues so long, +will be so these fifty years to come—so your worships and reverences +may all measure them at your leisures——but he who measures thee, +_Janatone_, must do it now—thou carriest the principles of change +within thy frame; and considering the chances of a transitory life, I +would not answer for thee a moment; ere twice twelve months are passed +and gone, thou mayest grow out like a pumpkin, and lose thy shapes——or +thou mayest go off like a flower, and lose thy beauty—nay, thou mayest +go off like a hussy—and lose thyself.—I would not answer for my aunt +_Dinah_, was she alive——’faith, scarce for her picture——were it but +painted by _Reynolds_— + +But if I go on with my drawing, after naming that son of _Apollo_, I’ll +be shot—— + +So you must e’en be content with the original; which, if the evening is +fine in passing thro’ _Montreuil_, you will see at your chaise-door, as +you change horses: but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I +have—you had better stop:—She has a little of the _devote:_ but that, +sir, is a terce to a nine in your favour—— + +—L— help me! I could not count a single point: so had been piqued and +repiqued, and capotted to the devil. + +C H A P. XCIII + +ALL which being considered, and that Death moreover might be much +nearer me than I imagined——I wish I was at _Abbeville_, quoth I, were +it only to see how they card and spin——so off we set. + +[33]_de Montreuil a Nampont - poste et demi +de Nampont_ a Bernay - - - - - - poste +de Bernay a Nouvion - - - - - poste +de Nouvion a ABBEVILLE poste +——but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed. + + [33] Vid. Book of French post-roads, page 36. edition of 1762. + +C H A P. XCIV + +WHAT a vast advantage is travelling! only it heats one; but there is a +remedy for that, which you may pick out of the next chapter. + +C H A P. XCV + +WAS I in a condition to stipulate with Death, as I am this moment with +my apothecary, how and where I will take his clyster——I should +certainly declare against submitting to it before my friends; and +therefore I never seriously think upon the mode and manner of this +great catastrophe, which generally takes up and torments my thoughts as +much as the catastrophe itself; but I constantly draw the curtain +across it with this wish, that the Disposer of all things may so order +it, that it happen not to me in my own house——but rather in some decent +inn——at home, I know it,——the concern of my friends, and the last +services of wiping my brows, and smoothing my pillow, which the +quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify my soul, +that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not aware of: but +in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be purchased with a few +guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but punctual attention——but +mark. This inn should not be the inn at _Abbeville_——if there was not +another inn in the universe, I would strike that inn out of the +capitulation: so + +Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the morning——Yes, by +four, Sir,——or by _Genevieve!_ I’ll raise a clatter in the house shall +wake the dead. + +C H A P. XCVI + +“MAKE _them like unto a wheel_,” is a bitter sarcasm, as all the +learned know, against the _grand tour_, and that restless spirit for +making it, which _David_ prophetically foresaw would haunt the children +of men in the latter days; and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop +_Hall_, ’tis one of the severest imprecations which _David_ ever +utter’d against the enemies of the Lord—and, as if he had said, “I wish +them no worse luck than always to be rolling about.”—So much motion, +continues he (for he was very corpulent)—is so much unquietness; and so +much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven. + +Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, +is so much of life, and so much of joy——and that to stand still, or get +on but slowly, is death and the devil—— + +Hollo! Ho!——the whole world’s asleep!——bring out the horses——grease the +wheels——tie on the mail——and drive a nail into that moulding——I’ll not +lose a moment—— + +Now the wheel we are talking of, and _whereinto_ (but not _whereonto_, +for that would make an Ixion’s wheel of it) he curseth his enemies, +according to the bishop’s habit of body, should certainly be a +post-chaise wheel, whether they were set up in _Palestine_ at that time +or not——and my wheel, for the contrary reasons, must as certainly be a +cart-wheel groaning round its revolution once in an age; and of which +sort, were I to turn commentator, I should make no scruple to affirm, +they had great store in that hilly country. + +I love the Pythagoreans (much more than ever I dare tell my dear +_Jenny_) for their “Χωξισμον απο τκ Εωμαιος, εις το καλως +φιλοσοφειν”——[their] “getting out of the body, in order to think well.” + +No man thinks right, whilst he is in it; blinded as he must be, with +his congenial humours, and drawn differently aside, as the bishop and +myself have been, with too lax or too tense a fibre——REASON is, half of +it, SENSE; and the measure of heaven itself is but the measure of our +present appetites and concoctions.—— + +——But which of the two, in the present case, do you think to be mostly +in the wrong? + +You, certainly: quoth she, to disturb a whole family so early. + +C H A P. XCVII + +——But she did not know I was under a vow not to shave my beard till I +got to _Paris;_——yet I hate to make mysteries of nothing;——’tis the +cold cautiousness of one of those little souls from which _Lessius +(lib. 13. de moribus divinis, cap. 24.)_ hath made his estimate, +wherein he setteth forth, That one _Dutch_ mile, cubically multiplied, +will allow room enough, and to spare, for eight hundred thousand +millions, which he supposes to be as great a number of souls (counting +from the fall of _Adam_) as can possibly be damn’d to the end of the +world. + +From what he has made this second estimate——unless from the parental +goodness of God—I don’t know—I am much more at a loss what could be in +_Franciscus Ribbera_’s head, who pretends that no less a space than one +of two hundred _Italian_ miles multiplied into itself, will be +sufficient to hold the like number——he certainly must have gone upon +some of the old _Roman_ souls, of which he had read, without reflecting +how much, by a gradual and most tabid decline, in the course of +eighteen hundred years, they must unavoidably have shrunk so as to have +come, when he wrote, almost to nothing. + +In _Lessius_’s time, who seems the cooler man, they were as little as +can be imagined—— + +——We find them less _now_—— + +And next winter we shall find them less again; so that if we go on from +little to less, and from less to nothing, I hesitate not one moment to +affirm, that in half a century at this rate, we shall have no souls at +all; which being the period beyond which I doubt likewise of the +existence of the Christian faith, ’twill be one advantage that both of +’em will be exactly worn out together. + +Blessed _Jupiter!_ and blessed every other heathen god and goddess! for +now ye will all come into play again, and with _Priapus_ at your +tails——what jovial times!——but where am I? and into what a delicious +riot of things am I rushing? I——I who must be cut short in the midst of +my days, and taste no more of ’em than what I borrow from my +imagination——peace to thee, generous fool! and let me go on. + +C H A P. XCVIII + +——“So hating, I say, to make mysteries of _nothing_”——I intrusted it +with the post-boy, as soon as ever I got off the stones; he gave a +crack with his whip to balance the compliment; and with the thill-horse +trotting, and a sort of an up and a down of the other, we danced it +along to _Ailly au clochers_, famed in days of yore for the finest +chimes in the world; but we danced through it without music—the chimes +being greatly out of order—(as in truth they were through all +_France_). + +And so making all possible speed, from + +_Ailly au clochers_, I got to _Hixcourt_, +from _Hixcourt_ I got to _Pequignay_, and +from _Pequignay_, I got to AMIENS, +concerning which town I have nothing to inform you, but what I have +informed you once before——and that was—that _Janatone_ went there to +school. + +C H A P. XCIX + +IN the whole catalogue of those whiffling vexations which come puffing +across a man’s canvass, there is not one of a more teasing and +tormenting nature, than this particular one which I am going to +describe——and for which (unless you travel with an avance-courier, +which numbers do in order to prevent it)——there is no help: and it is +this. + +That be you in never so kindly a propensity to sleep——though you are +passing perhaps through the finest country—upon the best roads, and in +the easiest carriage for doing it in the world——nay, was you sure you +could sleep fifty miles straight forwards, without once opening your +eyes—nay, what is more, was you as demonstratively satisfied as you can +be of any truth in _Euclid_, that you should upon all accounts be full +as well asleep as awake——nay, perhaps better——Yet the incessant returns +of paying for the horses at every stage,——with the necessity thereupon +of putting your hand into your pocket, and counting out from thence +three livres fifteen sous (sous by sous), puts an end to so much of the +project, that you cannot execute above six miles of it (or supposing it +is a post and a half, that is but nine)——were it to save your soul from +destruction. + +—I’ll be even with ’em, quoth I, for I’ll put the precise sum into a +piece of paper, and hold it ready in my hand all the way: “Now I shall +have nothing to do,” said I (composing myself to rest), “but to drop +this gently into the post-boy’s hat, and not say a word.”——Then there +wants two sous more to drink——or there is a twelve sous piece of +_Louis_ XIV. which will not pass—or a livre and some odd liards to be +brought over from the last stage, which Monsieur had forgot; which +altercations (as a man cannot dispute very well asleep) rouse him: +still is sweet sleep retrievable; and still might the flesh weigh down +the spirit, and recover itself of these blows—but then, by heaven! you +have paid but for a single post—whereas ’tis a post and a half; and +this obliges you to pull out your book of post-roads, the print of +which is so very small, it forces you to open your eyes, whether you +will or no: Then Monsieur _le Curé_ offers you a pinch of snuff——or a +poor soldier shews you his leg——or a shaveling his box——or the +priestesse of the cistern will water your wheels——they do not want +it——but she swears by her _priesthood_ (throwing it back) that they +do:——then you have all these points to argue, or consider over in your +mind; in doing of which, the rational powers get so thoroughly +awakened——you may get ’em to sleep again as you can. + +It was entirely owing to one of these misfortunes, or I had pass’d +clean by the stables of _Chantilly_—— + +——But the postillion first affirming, and then persisting in it to my +face, that there was no mark upon the two sous piece, I open’d my eyes +to be convinced—and seeing the mark upon it as plain as my nose—I +leap’d out of the chaise in a passion, and so saw every thing at +_Chantilly_ in spite.——I tried it but for three posts and a half, but +believe ’tis the best principle in the world to travel speedily upon; +for as few objects look very inviting in that mood—you have little or +nothing to stop you; by which means it was that I passed through St. +_Dennis_, without turning my head so much as on one side towards the +Abby—— + +——Richness of their treasury! stuff and nonsense!——bating their jewels, +which are all false, I would not give three sous for any one thing in +it, but _Jaidas’s lantern_——nor for that either, only as it grows dark, +it might be of use. + +C H A P. C + +CRACK, crack——crack, crack——crack, crack—so this is _Paris!_ quoth I +(continuing in the same mood)—and this is _Paris!_——humph!——_Paris!_ +cried I, repeating the name the third time—— + +The first, the finest, the most brilliant—— + +The streets however are nasty. + +But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells——crack, crack——crack, +crack——what a fuss thou makest!—as if it concerned the good people to +be informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the +honour to be driven into _Paris_ at nine o’clock at night, by a +postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with red +calamanco—crack, crack——crack, crack——crack, crack,——I wish thy whip—— + +——But ’tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack—crack on. + +Ha!——and no one gives the wall!——but in the SCHOOL of URBANITY herself, +if the walls are besh-t—how can you do otherwise? + +And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?—never in the summer +months!——Ho! ’tis the time of sallads.——O rare! sallad and soup—soup +and sallad—sallad and soup, _encore_—— + +——’Tis _too much_ for sinners. + +Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable +coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don’t you see, friend, +the streets are so villanously narrow, that there is not room in all +_Paris_ to turn a wheelbarrow? In the grandest city of the whole world, +it would not have been amiss, if they had been left a thought wider; +nay, were it only so much in every single street, as that a man might +know (was it only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking. + +One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten.—Ten cooks shops! and +twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes driving! one +would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great +merry-meeting with the barbers, by joint consent had said—Come, let us +all go live at _Paris:_ the _French_ love good eating——they are all +_gourmands_——we shall rank high; if their god is their belly——their +cooks must be gentlemen: and forasmuch as _the periwig maketh the man_, +and the periwig-maker maketh the periwig—_ergo_, would the barbers say, +we shall rank higher still—we shall be above you all—we shall be +_Capitouls_[34] at least—_pardi!_ we shall all wear swords—— + +—And so, one would swear, (that is, by candle-light,—but there is no +depending upon it,) they continued to do, to this day. + + [34] Chief Magistrate in Toulouse, &c. &c. &c. + +C H A P. CI + +THE _French_ are certainly misunderstood:——but whether the fault is +theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with +that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point +of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested +by us——or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not +understanding their language always so critically as to know “what they +would be at”——I shall not decide; but ’tis evident to me, when they +affirm, “_That they who have seen_ Paris, _have seen every thing_,” +they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light. + +As for candle-light—I give it up——I have said before, there was no +depending upon it—and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and +shades are too sharp—or the tints confounded—or that there is neither +beauty or keeping, &c. . . . for that’s not truth—but it is an +uncertain light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand +Hôtels, which they number up to you in _Paris_—and the five hundred +good things, at a modest computation (for ’tis only allowing one good +thing to a Hôtel), which by candle-light are best to be _seen, felt, +heard_, and _understood_ (which, by the bye, is a quotation from +_Lilly_)——the devil a one of us out of fifty, can get our heads fairly +thrust in amongst them. + +This is no part of the _French_ computation: ’tis simply this, + +That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven hundred +and sixteen, since which time there have been considerable +augmentations, _Paris_ doth contain nine hundred streets; (viz) + +In the quarter called the _City_—there are + fifty-three streets. + +In St. _James_ of the Shambles, + fifty-five streets. + +In St. _Oportune_, thirty-four streets. + +In the quarter of the _Louvre_, + twenty-five streets. + +In the _Palace Royal_, or St. _Honorius_, + forty-nine streets. + +In _Mont. Martyr_, forty-one streets. + +In St. _Eustace_, twenty-nine streets. + +In the _Halles_, twenty-seven streets. + +In St. _Dennis_, fifty-five streets. + +In St. _Martin_, fifty-four streets. + +In St. _Paul_, or the _Mortellerie_, + twenty-seven streets. + +The _Greve_, thirty-eight streets. + +In St. _Avoy_, or the _Verrerie_, + nineteen streets. + +In the _Marais_, or the _Temple_, + fifty-two streets. + +In St. _Antony_’s, sixty-eight streets. + +In the _Place Maubert_, eighty-one streets. + +In St. _Bennet_, sixty streets. + +In St. _Andrews de Arcs_, fifty-one streets. + +In the quarter of the _Luxembourg_, + sixty-two streets. + +And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets, into any of which you +may walk; and that when you have seen them with all that belongs to +them, fairly by day-light—their gates, their bridges, their squares, +their statues - - - and have crusaded it moreover, through all their +parish-churches, by no means omitting St. _Roche_ and _Sulpice_ - - - +and to crown all, have taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may +see, either with or without the statues and pictures, just as you +chuse— + +——Then you will have seen—— + +——but ’tis what no one needeth to tell you, for you will read of it +yourself upon the portico of the _Louvre_, in these words, + +[35]EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS!—NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN + +AS PARIS IS!—SING, DERRY, DERRY, DOWN. + +The _French_ have a _gay_ way of treating every thing that is Great; +and that is all can be said upon it. + + [35] Non orbis gentem, non urbem gens habet ullam +——————ulla parem. + +C H A P. CII + +IN mentioning the word _gay_ (as in the close of the last chapter) it +puts one (_i.e._ an author) in mind of the word _spleen_——especially if +he has any thing to say upon it: not that by any analysis—or that from +any table of interest or genealogy, there appears much more ground of +alliance betwixt them, than betwixt light and darkness, or any two of +the most unfriendly opposites in nature——only ’tis an undercraft of +authors to keep up a good understanding amongst words, as politicians +do amongst men—not knowing how near they may be under a necessity of +placing them to each other——which point being now gain’d, and that I +may place mine exactly to my mind, I write it down here— + +S P L E E N + +This, upon leaving _Chantilly_, I declared to be the best principle in +the world to travel speedily upon; but I gave it only as matter of +opinion. I still continue in the same sentiments—only I had not then +experience enough of its working to add this, that though you do get on +at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same +time; for which reason I here quit it entirely, and for ever, and ’tis +heartily at any one’s service—it has spoiled me the digestion of a good +supper, and brought on a bilious diarrhœa, which has brought me back +again to my first principle on which I set out——and with which I shall +now scamper it away to the banks of the _Garonne_— + +——No;——I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the +people—their genius—— their manners—their customs—their laws——their +religion—their government— their manufactures—their commerce—their +finances, with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them: +qualified as I may be, by spending three days and two nights amongst +them, and during all that time making these things the entire subject +of my enquiries and reflections—— + +Still—still I must away——the roads are paved—the posts are short—the +days are long—’tis no more than noon—I shall be at _Fontainebleau_ +before the king—— + +—Was he going there? not that I know—— + +END OF THE THIRD VOLUME + +Tristram Shandy + +_Tristram Shandy_ + + + + +THE +LIFE AND OPINIONS +OF +TRISTRAM SHANDY, +GENTLEMAN +——— +Volume the Fourth +——— + +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 + +D E D I C A T I O N + +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 any thing else—in order to get + it. + +DEDICATION + + 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 wat’ry-waste— +And where admitted to that equal sky, +His _faithful_ Dogs 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 mean time, + +I am +THE AUTHOR. + +C H A P. I + +NOW I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain +that we do not get on so fast in _France_ as we do in _England;_ +whereas we get on much faster, _consideratis considerandis;_ thereby +always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of +baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them—and then +consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them—’tis a +wonder they get on at all: their suffering is most unchristian, and +’tis evident thereupon to me, that a _French_ post-horse would not know +what in the world to do, was it not for the two words * * * * * * and * +* * * * * in which there is as much sustenance, as if you give him a +peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from my soul to +tell the reader what they are; but here is the question—they must be +told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it will +answer no end—and yet to do it in that plain way—though their +reverences may laugh at it in the bed-chamber—full well I wot, they +will abuse it in the parlour: for which cause, I have been volving and +revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean +device or facette contrivance I might so modulate them, that whilst I +satisfy _that ear_ which the reader chuses to _lend_ me—I might not +dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself. + +——My ink burns my finger to try——and when I have——’twill have a worse +consequence——It will burn (I fear) my paper. + +——No;——I dare not—— + +But if you wish to know how the _abbess_ of _Andoüillets_ and a novice +of her convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all +imaginable success)—I’ll tell you without the least scruple. + +C H A P. II + +THE abbess of _Andoüillets_, which if you look into the large set of +provincial maps now publishing at _Paris_, you will find situated +amongst the hills which divide _Burgundy_ from _Savoy_, being in danger +of an _Anchylosis_ or stiff joint (the _sinovia_ of her knee becoming +hard by long matins), and having tried every remedy——first, prayers and +thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven +promiscuously——then particularly to every saint who had ever had a +stiff leg before her——then touching it with all the reliques of the +convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of _Lystra_, who +had been impotent from his youth——then wrapping it up in her veil when +she went to bed—then cross-wise her rosary—then bringing in to her aid +the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of +animals——then treating it with emollient and resolving +fomentations——then with poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus +Henricus, white lillies and fenugreek—then taking the woods, I mean the +smoak of ’em, holding her scapulary across her lap——then decoctions of +wild chicory, water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia——and +nothing all this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the +hot-baths of _Bourbon_——so having first obtained leave of the +visitor-general to take care of her existence—she ordered all to be got +ready for her journey: a novice of the convent of about seventeen, who +had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it +constantly into the abbess’s cast poultices, &c.—had gained such an +interest, that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been set +up for ever by the hot-baths of _Bourbon, Margarita_, the little +novice, was elected as the companion of the journey. + +An old calesh, belonging to the abbesse, lined with green frize, was +ordered to be drawn out into the sun—the gardener of the convent being +chosen muleteer, led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the +rump- ends of their tails, whilst a couple of lay-sisters were busied, +the one in darning the lining, and the other in sewing on the shreds of +yellow binding, which the teeth of time had unravelled——the +under-gardener dress’d the muleteer’s hat in hot wine-lees——and a +taylor sat musically at it, in a shed over-against the convent, in +assorting four dozen of bells for the harness, whistling to each bell, +as he tied it on with a thong.—— + +——The carpenter and the smith of _Andoüillets_ held a council of +wheels; and by seven, the morning after, all look’d spruce, and was +ready at the gate of the convent for the hot-baths of _Bourbon_—two +rows of the unfortunate stood ready there an hour before. + +The abbess of _Andoüillets_, supported by _Margarita_ the novice, +advanced slowly to the calesh, both clad in white, with their black +rosaries hanging at their breasts—— + +——There was a simple solemnity in the contrast: they entered the +calesh; the nuns in the same uniform, sweet emblem of innocence, each +occupied a window, and as the abbess and _Margarita_ look’d up—each +(the sciatical poor nun excepted)—each stream’d out the end of her veil +in the air—then kiss’d the lilly hand which let it go: the good abbess +and _Margarita_ laid their hands saint-wise upon their breasts—look’d +up to heaven—then to them—and look’d “God bless you, dear sisters.” + +I declare I am interested in this story, and wish I had been there. + +The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer, was a little, hearty, +broad-set, good-natured, chattering, toping kind of a fellow, who +troubled his head very little with the _hows_ and _whens_ of life; so +had mortgaged a month of his conventical wages in a borrachio, or +leathern cask of wine, which he had disposed behind the calesh, with a +large russet-coloured riding-coat over it, to guard it from the sun; +and as the weather was hot, and he not a niggard of his labours, +walking ten times more than he rode—he found more occasions than those +of nature, to fall back to the rear of his carriage; till by frequent +coming and going, it had so happen’d, that all his wine had leak’d out +at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one half of the journey was +finish’d. + +Man is a creature born to habitudes. The day had been sultry—the +evening was delicious—the wine was generous—the _Burgundian_ hill on +which it grew was steep—a little tempting bush over the door of a cool +cottage at the foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the +passions—a gentle air rustled distinctly through the leaves—“Come—come, +thirsty muleteer,—come in.” + +—The muleteer was a son of _Adam_, I need not say a word more. He gave +the mules, each of ’em, a sound lash, and looking in the abbess’s and +_Margarita_’s faces (as he did it)—as much as to say “here I am”—he +gave a second good crack—as much as to say to his mules, “get on”——so +slinking behind, he enter’d the little inn at the foot of the hill. + +The muleteer, as I told you, was a little, joyous, chirping fellow, who +thought not of to-morrow, nor of what had gone before, or what was to +follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little +chit-chat along with it; so entering into a long conversation, as how +he was chief gardener to the convent of _Andoüillets_, &c. &c. and out +of friendship for the abbess and Mademoiselle _Margarita_, who was only +in her noviciate, he had come along with them from the confines of +_Savoy_, &c. &c.—and as how she had got a white swelling by her +devotions—and what a nation of herbs he had procured to mollify her +humours, &c. &c. and that if the waters of _Bourbon_ did not mend that +leg—she might as well be lame of both—&c. &c. &c.—He so contrived his +story, as absolutely to forget the heroine of it—and with her the +little novice, and what was a more ticklish point to be forgot than +both—the two mules; who being creatures that take advantage of the +world, inasmuch as their parents took it of them—and they not being in +a condition to return the obligation _downwards_ (as men and women and +beasts are)—they do it side-ways, and long-ways, and back-ways—and up +hill, and down hill, and which way they can.——Philosophers, with all +their ethicks, have never considered this rightly—how should the poor +muleteer, then in his cups, consider it at all? he did not in the +least—’tis time we do; let us leave him then in the vortex of his +element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal men—and for a +moment let us look after the mules, the abbess, and _Margarita._ + +By virtue of the muleteer’s two last strokes the mules had gone quietly +on, following their own consciences up the hill, till they had +conquer’d about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty +old devil, at the turn of an angle, giving a side glance, and no +muleteer behind them,—— + +By my fig! said she, swearing, I’ll go no further——And if I do, replied +the other, they shall make a drum of my hide.—— + +And so with one consent they stopp’d thus—— + +C H A P. III + +——Get on with you, said the abbess. + +——Wh - - - - - ysh——ysh——cried _Margarita._ + +Sh - - - a——shu - u——shu - - u—sh - - aw——shaw’d the abbess. + +——Whu—v—w—whew—w—w—whuv’d _Margarita_, pursing up her sweet lips +betwixt a hoot and a whistle. + +Thump—thump—thump—obstreperated the abbess of _Andoüillets_ with the +end of her gold-headed cane against the bottom of the calesh—— + +The old mule let a f— + +C H A P. IV + +WE are ruin’d and undone, my child, said the abbess to _Margarita_,——we +shall be here all night——we shall be plunder’d——we shall be ravished—— + +——We shall be ravish’d, said _Margarita_, as sure as a gun. + +_Sancta Maria!_ cried the abbess (forgetting the _O!_)—why was I +govern’d by this wicked stiff joint? why did I leave the convent of +_Andoüillets?_ and why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go +unpolluted to her tomb? + +O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word +_servant_—why was I not content to put it here, or there, any where +rather than be in this strait? + +Strait! said the abbess. + +Strait——said the novice; for terror had struck their +understandings——the one knew not what she said——the other what she +answer’d. + +O my virginity! virginity! cried the abbess. + +——inity!——inity! said the novice, sobbing. + +C H A P. V + +MY dear mother, quoth the novice, coming a little to herself,—there are +two certain words, which I have been told will force any horse, or ass, +or mule, to go up a hill whether he will or no; be he never so +obstinate or ill-will’d, the moment he hears them utter’d, he obeys. +They are words magic! cried the abbess in the utmost horror—No; replied +_Margarita_ calmly—but they are words sinful—What are they? quoth the +abbess, interrupting her: They are sinful in the first degree, answered +_Margarita_,—they are mortal—and if we are ravished and die unabsolved +of them, we shall both——but you may pronounce them to me, quoth the +abbess of _Andoüillets_——They cannot, my dear mother, said the novice, +be pronounced at all; they will make all the blood in one’s body fly up +into one’s face—But you may whisper them in my ear, quoth the abbess. + +Heaven! hadst thou no guardian angel to delegate to the inn at the +bottom of the hill? was there no generous and friendly spirit +unemployed——no agent in nature, by some monitory shivering, creeping +along the artery which led to his heart, to rouse the muleteer from his +banquet?——no sweet minstrelsy to bring back the fair idea of the abbess +and _Margarita_, with their black rosaries! + +Rouse! rouse!——but ’tis too late—the horrid words are pronounced this +moment—— + +——and how to tell them—Ye, who can speak of every thing existing, with +unpolluted lips—instruct me——guide me—— + +C H A P. VI + +ALL sins whatever, quoth the abbess, turning casuist in the distress +they were under, are held by the confessor of our convent to be either +mortal or venial: there is no further division. Now a venial sin being +the slightest and least of all sins—being halved—by taking either only +the half of it, and leaving the rest—or, by taking it all, and amicably +halving it betwixt yourself and another person—in course becomes +diluted into no sin at all. + +Now I see no sin in saying, _bou, bou, bou, bou, bou_, a hundred times +together; nor is there any turpitude in pronouncing the syllable _ger, +ger, ger, ger, ger_, were it from our matins to our vespers: Therefore, +my dear daughter, continued the abbess of _Andoüillets_—I will say +_bou_, and thou shalt say _ger;_ and then alternately, as there is no +more sin in _fou_ than in _bou_—Thou shalt say _fou_—and I will come in +(like fa, sol, la, re, mi, ut, at our complines) with _ter._ And +accordingly the abbess, giving the pitch note, set off thus: + +Abbess, ) Bou - - bou - - bou - - +_Margarita_,) ——ger, - - ger, - - ger. +_Margarita_,) Fou...fou...fou.. +Abbess, ) —ter, - - ter, - - ter. + +The two mules acknowledged the notes by a mutual lash of their tails; +but it went no further——’Twill answer by an’ by, said the novice. + +Abbess, ) Bou. bou. bou. bou. bou. bou. +Margarita,) —ger, ger, ger, ger, ger, ger. + +Quicker still, cried _Margarita._ + +Fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou. + +Quicker still, cried _Margarita._ + +Bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou. + +Quicker still—God preserve me; said the abbess—They do not understand +us, cried _Margarita_—But the Devil does, said the abbess of +_Andoüillets._ + +C H A P. VII + +WHAT a tract of country have I run!—how many degrees nearer to the warm +sun am I advanced, and how many fair and goodly cities have I seen, +during the time you have been reading and reflecting, Madam, upon this +story! There’s FONTAINBLEAU, and SENS, and JOIGNY, and AUXERRE, and +DIJON the capital of _Burgundy_, and CHALLON, and _Mâcon_ the capital +of the _Maconese_, and a score more upon the road to LYONS——and now I +have run them over——I might as well talk to you of so many market towns +in the moon, as tell you one word about them: it will be this chapter +at the least, if not both this and the next entirely lost, do what I +will—— + +—Why, ’tis a strange story! _Tristram._ + +——Alas! Madam, + +had it been upon some melancholy lecture of the cross—the peace of +meekness, or the contentment of resignation——I had not been incommoded: +or had I thought of writing it upon the purer abstractions of the soul, +and that food of wisdom and holiness and contemplation, upon which the +spirit of man (when separated from the body) is to subsist for +ever——You would have come with a better appetite from it—— + +——I wish I never had wrote it: but as I never blot any thing out——let +us use some honest means to get it out of our heads directly. + +——Pray reach me my fool’s cap——I fear you sit upon it, Madam——’tis +under the cushion——I’ll put it on—— + +Bless me! you have had it upon your head this half hour.——There then +let it stay, with a + +Fa-ra diddle di + +and a fa-ri diddle d + +and a high-dum—dye-dum + + fiddle - - - dumb - c. + +And now, Madam, we may venture, I hope a little to go on. + +C H A P. VIII + +——All you need say of _Fontainbleau_ (in case you are ask’d) is, that +it stands about forty miles (south something) from _Paris_, in the +middle of a large forest_—_That there is something great in it_—_That +the king goes there once every two or three years, with his whole +court, for the pleasure of the chace—and that, during that carnival of +sporting, any _English_ gentleman of fashion (you need not forget +yourself) may be accommodated with a nag or two, to partake of the +sport, taking care only not to out-gallop the king—— + +Though there are two reasons why you need not talk loud of this to +every one. + +First, Because ’twill make the said nags the harder to be got; and + +Secondly, ’Tis not a word of it true.——_Allons!_ + +As for SENS——you may dispatch—in a word——“_’Tis an archiepiscopal +see._” + +——For JOIGNY—the less, I think, one says of it the better. + +But for AUXERRE—I could go on for ever: for in my _grand tour_ through +_Europe_, in which, after all, my father (not caring to trust me with +any one) attended me himself, with my uncle _Toby_, and _Trim_, and +_Obadiah_, and indeed most of the family, except my mother, who being +taken up with a project of knitting my father a pair of large worsted +breeches—(the thing is common sense)—and she not caring to be put out +of her way, she staid at home, at SHANDY HALL, to keep things right +during the expedition; in which, I say, my father stopping us two days +at _Auxerre_, and his researches being ever of such a nature, that they +would have found fruit even in a desert——he has left me enough to say +upon AUXERRE: in short, wherever my father went——but ’twas more +remarkably so, in this journey through _France_ and _Italy_, than in +any other stages of his life—his road seemed to lie so much on one side +of that, wherein all other travellers have gone before him—he saw kings +and courts and silks of all colours, in such strange lights——and his +remarks and reasonings upon the characters, the manners, and customs of +the countries we pass’d over, were so opposite to those of all other +mortal men, particularly those of my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_—(to say +nothing of myself)—and to crown all—the occurrences and scrapes which +we were perpetually meeting and getting into, in consequence of his +systems and opiniotry—they were of so odd, so mix’d and tragi-comical a +contexture—That the whole put together, it appears of so different a +shade and tint from any tour of _Europe_, which was ever executed—that +I will venture to pronounce—the fault must be mine and mine only—if it +be not read by all travellers and travel-readers, till travelling is no +more,—or which comes to the same point—till the world, finally, takes +it into its head to stand still.—— + +——But this rich bale is not to be open’d now; except a small thread or +two of it, merely to unravel the mystery of my father’s stay at +AUXERRE. + +——As I have mentioned it—’tis too slight to be kept suspended; and when +’tis wove in, there is an end of it. + +We’ll go, brother _Toby_, said my father, whilst dinner is coddling—to +the abbey of Saint _Germain_, if it be only to see these bodies, of +which Monsieur _Sequier_ has given such a recommendation.——I’ll go see +any body, quoth my uncle _Toby;_ for he was all compliance through +every step of the journey——Defend me! said my father—they are all +mummies——Then one need not shave; quoth my uncle _Toby_——Shave! +no—cried my father—’twill be more like relations to go with our beards +on—So out we sallied, the corporal lending his master his arm, and +bringing up the rear, to the abbey of Saint _Germain._ + +Every thing is very fine, and very rich, and very superb, and very +magnificent, said my father, addressing himself to the sacristan, who +was a younger brother of the order of _Benedictines_—but our curiosity +has led us to see the bodies, of which Monsieur _Sequier_ has given the +world so exact a description.—The sacristan made a bow, and lighting a +torch first, which he had always in the vestry ready for the purpose; +he led us into the tomb of St. _Heribald_——This, said the sacristan, +laying his hand upon the tomb, was a renowned prince of the house of +_Bavaria_, who under the successive reigns of _Charlemagne, Louis le +Debonnair_, and _Charles the Bald_, bore a great sway in the +government, and had a principal hand in bringing every thing into order +and discipline—— + +Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field, as in the +cabinet——I dare say he has been a gallant soldier——He was a monk—said +the sacristan. + +My uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ sought comfort in each other’s faces—but +found it not: my father clapped both his hands upon his cod-piece, +which was a way he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for though he +hated a monk and the very smell of a monk worse than all the devils in +hell——yet the shot hitting my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ so much harder +than him, ’twas a relative triumph; and put him into the gayest humour +in the world. + +——And pray what do you call this gentleman? quoth my father, rather +sportingly: This tomb, said the young _Benedictine_, looking downwards, +contains the bones of Saint MAXIMA, who came from _Ravenna_ on purpose +to touch the body—— + +——Of Saint MAXIMUS, said my father, popping in with his saint before +him,—they were two of the greatest saints in the whole martyrology, +added my father——Excuse me, said the sacristan——’twas to touch the +bones of Saint _Germain_, the builder of the abbey——And what did she +get by it? said my uncle _Toby_——What does any woman get by it? said my +father——MARTYRDOME; replied the young _Benedictine_, making a bow down +to the ground, and uttering the word with so humble, but decisive a +cadence, it disarmed my father for a moment. ’Tis supposed, continued +the _Benedictine_, that St. _Maxima_ has lain in this tomb four hundred +years, and two hundred before her canonization——’Tis but a slow rise, +brother _Toby_, quoth my father, in this self-same army of martyrs.——A +desperate slow one, an’ please your honour, said _Trim_, unless one +could purchase——I should rather sell out entirely, quoth my uncle +_Toby_——I am pretty much of your opinion, brother _Toby_, said my +father. + +——Poor St. _Maxima!_ said my uncle _Toby_ low to himself, as we turn’d +from her tomb: She was one of the fairest and most beautiful ladies +either of _Italy_ or _France_, continued the sacristan——But who the +duce has got lain down here, besides her? quoth my father, pointing +with his cane to a large tomb as we walked on——It is Saint _Optat_, +Sir, answered the sacristan——And properly is Saint _Optat_ plac’d! said +my father: And what is Saint _Optat_’s story? continued he. Saint +_Optat_, replied the sacristan, was a bishop—— + +——I thought so, by heaven! cried my father, interrupting him—Saint +_Optat!_——how should Saint _Optat_ fail? so snatching out his +pocket-book, and the young _Benedictine_ holding him the torch as he +wrote, he set it down as a new prop to his system of Christian names, +and I will be bold to say, so disinterested was he in the search of +truth, that had he found a treasure in Saint _Optat_’s tomb, it would +not have made him half so rich: ’Twas as successful a short visit as +ever was paid to the dead; and so highly was his fancy pleas’d with all +that had passed in it,—that he determined at once to stay another day +in _Auxerre._ + +—I’ll see the rest of these good gentry to-morrow, said my father, as +we cross’d over the square—And while you are paying that visit, brother +_Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_—the corporal and I will mount the +ramparts. + +C H A P. IX + +——NOW this is the most puzzled skein of all——for in this last chapter, +as far at least as it has help’d me through _Auxerre_, I have been +getting forwards in two different journies together, and with the same +dash of the pen—for I have got entirely out of _Auxerre_ in this +journey which I am writing now, and I am got half way out of _Auxerre_ +in that which I shall write hereafter——There is but a certain degree of +perfection in every thing; and by pushing at something beyond that, I +have brought myself into such a situation, as no traveller ever stood +before me; for I am this moment walking across the market-place of +_Auxerre_ with my father and my uncle _Toby_, in our way back to +dinner——and I am this moment also entering _Lyons_ with my post-chaise +broke into a thousand pieces—and I am moreover this moment in a +handsome pavillion built by _Pringello_,[36] upon the banks of the +_Garonne_, which Mons. _Sligniac_ has lent me, and where I now sit +rhapsodising all these affairs. + +——Let me collect myself, and pursue my journey. + + [36] The same Don _Pringello_, the celebrated _Spanish_ architect, of + whom my cousin _Antony_ has made such honourable mention in a scholium + to the Tale inscribed to his name.—Vid. p.129, small edit. + +C H A P. X + +I AM glad of it, said I, settling the account with myself, as I walk’d +into _Lyons_——my chaise being all laid higgledy-piggledy with my +baggage in a cart, which was moving slowly before me——I am heartily +glad, said I, that ’tis all broke to pieces; for now I can go directly +by water to _Avignon_, which will carry me on a hundred and twenty +miles of my journey, and not cost me seven livres——and from thence, +continued I, bringing forwards the account, I can hire a couple of +mules—or asses, if I like, (for nobody knows me,) and cross the plains +of _Languedoc_ for almost nothing——I shall gain four hundred livres by +the misfortune clear into my purse: and pleasure! worth—worth double +the money by it. With what velocity, continued I, clapping my two hands +together, shall I fly down the rapid _Rhône_, with the VIVARES on my +right hand, and DAUPHINY on my left, scarce seeing the ancient cities +of VIENNE, _Valence_, and _Vivieres._ What a flame will it rekindle in +the lamp, to snatch a blushing grape from the _Hermitage_ and _Cotê +roti_, as I shoot by the foot of them! and what a fresh spring in the +blood! to behold upon the banks advancing and retiring, the castles of +romance, whence courteous knights have whilome rescued the +distress’d——and see vertiginous, the rocks, the mountains, the +cataracts, and all the hurry which Nature is in with all her great +works about her. + +As I went on thus, methought my chaise, the wreck of which look’d +stately enough at the first, insensibly grew less and less in its size; +the freshness of the painting was no more—the gilding lost its +lustre—and the whole affair appeared so poor in my eyes—so sorry!—so +contemptible! and, in a word, so much worse than the abbess of +_Andoüillets’_ itself—that I was just opening my mouth to give it to +the devil—when a pert vamping chaise-undertaker, stepping nimbly across +the street, demanded if Monsieur would have his chaise refitted——No, +no, said I, shaking my head sideways—Would Monsieur choose to sell it? +rejoined the undertaker—With all my soul, said I—the iron work is worth +forty livres—and the glasses worth forty more—and the leather you may +take to live on. + +What a mine of wealth, quoth I, as he counted me the money, has this +post-chaise brought me in? And this is my usual method of book-keeping, +at least with the disasters of life—making a penny of every one of ’em +as they happen to me—— + +——Do, my dear _Jenny_, tell the world for me, how I behaved under one, +the most oppressive of its kind, which could befal me as a man, proud +as he ought to be of his manhood—— + +’Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my +garters in my hand, reflecting upon what had not pass’d——’Tis enough, +_Tristram_, and I am satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in +my ear, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *;—* * * * * * * * +*——any other man would have sunk down to the centre—— + +——Every thing is good for something, quoth I. + +——I’ll go into _Wales_ for six weeks, and drink goat’s whey—and I’ll +gain seven years longer life for the accident. For which reason I think +myself inexcusable, for blaming Fortune so often as I have done, for +pelting me all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call’d +her, with so many small evils: surely, if I have any cause to be angry +with her, ’tis that she has not sent me great ones—a score of good +cursed, bouncing losses, would have been as good as a pension to me. + +——One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wish—I would not be at the +plague of paying land-tax for a larger. + +C H A P. XI + +TO those who call vexations, VEXATIONS, as knowing what they are, there +could not be a greater, than to be the best part of a day at _Lyons_, +the most opulent and flourishing city in _France_, enriched with the +most fragments of antiquity—and not be able to see it. To be withheld +upon _any_ account, must be a vexation; but to be withheld _by_ a +vexation——must certainly be, what philosophy justly calls + +VEXATION +upon +VEXATION. + +I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently +good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee +together—otherwise ’tis only coffee and milk)—and as it was no more +than eight in the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had +time to see enough of _Lyons_ to tire the patience of all the friends I +had in the world with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, +looking at my list, and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock +of _Lippius_ of _Basil_, in the first place—— + +Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism——I +have neither genius, or taste, or fancy—and have a brain so entirely +unapt for every thing of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never +yet able to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or +a common knife-grinder’s wheel—tho’ I have many an hour of my life +look’d up with great devotion at the one—and stood by with as much +patience as any christian ever could do, at the other—— + +I’ll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the +very first thing I do: and then I will pay a visit to the great library +of the Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes +of the general history of _China_, wrote (not in the _Tartarean_, but) +in the _Chinese_ language, and in the _Chinese_ character too. + +Now I almost know as little of the _Chinese_ language, as I do of the +mechanism of _Lippius_’s clock-work; so, why these should have jostled +themselves into the two first articles of my list——I leave to the +curious as a problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her +ladyship’s obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in +finding out her humour as much as I. + +When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my +_valet de place_, who stood behind me——’twill be no hurt if we go to +the church of St. _Irenæus_, and see the pillar to which _Christ_ was +tied——and after that, the house where _Pontius Pilate_ lived——’Twas at +the next town, said the _valet de place_—at _Vienne;_ I am glad of it, +said I, rising briskly from my chair, and walking across the room with +strides twice as long as my usual pace——“for so much the sooner shall I +be at the _Tomb of the two lovers._” + +What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides +in uttering this——I might leave to the curious too; but as no principle +of clock-work is concerned in it——’twill be as well for the reader if I +explain it myself. + +C H A P. XII + +O! THERE is a sweet æra in the life of man, when (the brain being +tender and fibrillous, and more like pap than any thing else)——a story +read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, +and by still more cruel destiny—— + + _Amandus_——He + _Amanda_——She—— + +each ignorant of the other’s course, + He——east + She——west +_Amandus_ taken captive by the _Turks_, and carried to the emperor of +_Morocco_’s court, where the princess of _Morocco_ falling in love with +him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of his _Amanda._—— + +She—(_Amanda_) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell’d +hair, o’er rocks and mountains, enquiring for _Amandus!——Amandus! +Amandus!—_making every hill and valley to echo back his name—— + +_Amandus! Amandus!_ + +at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate——Has +Amandus!—has my _Amandus_ enter’d?——till,——going round, and round, and +round the world——chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of +the night, though by different ways, to the gate of _Lyons_, their +native city, and each in well-known accents calling out aloud, + +Is _Amandus_ + +still alive? + +Is my _Amanda_ + +they fly into each other’s arms, and both drop down dead for joy. + +There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story +affords more _pabulum_ to the brain, than all the _Frusts_, and +_Crusts_, and _Rusts_ of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for +it. + +——’Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of +what _Spon_ and others, in their accounts of _Lyons_, had _strained_ +into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God +knows——That sacred to the fidelity of _Amandus_ and _Amanda_, a tomb +was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon +them to attest their truths——I never could get into a scrape of that +kind in my life, but this _tomb of the lovers_ would, somehow or other, +come in at the close —nay such a kind of empire had it establish’d over +me, that I could seldom think or speak of _Lyons_—and sometimes not so +much as see even a _Lyons-waistcoat_, but this remnant of antiquity +would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way +of running on——tho’ I fear with some irreverence——“I thought this +shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of _Mecca_, and so +little short, except in wealth, of the _Santa Casa_ itself, that some +time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business +at _Lyons_) on purpose to pay it a visit.” + +In my list, therefore, of _Videnda_ at _Lyons_, this, tho’ _last_,—was +not, you see, _least_ ; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than +usual cross my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down +calmly into the _basse cour_, in order to sally forth; and having +called for my bill—as it was uncertain whether I should return to my +inn, I had paid it——had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just +receiving the dernier compliments of Monsieur _Le Blanc_, for a +pleasant voyage down the _Rhône_——when I was stopped at the gate—— + +C H A P. XIII + +——’TWAS by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large +panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and +cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside +of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as +not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no. + +Now, ’tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to +strike——there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so +unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for +him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like +to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I +will—whether in town or country—in cart or under panniers—whether in +liberty or bondage——I have ever something civil to say to him on my +part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as +I)——I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my +imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of +his countenance—and where those carry me not deep enough—in flying from +my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to +think—as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only +creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do +this: for parrots, jackdaws, &c.——I never exchange a word with +them——nor with the apes, &c. for pretty near the same reason; they act +by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my +dog and my cat, though I value them both——(and for my dog he would +speak if he could)—yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess +the talents for conversation——I can make nothing of a discourse with +them, beyond the _proposition_, the _reply_, and _rejoinder_, which +terminated my father’s and my mother’s conversations, in his beds of +justice——and those utter’d——there’s an end of the dialogue—— + +—But with an ass, I can commune for ever. + +Come, _Honesty!_ said I,——seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt +him and the gate——art thou for coming in, or going out? + +The ass twisted his head round to look up the street—— + +Well—replied I—we’ll wait a minute for thy driver: + +——He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the +opposite way—— + +I understand thee perfectly, answered I——If thou takest a wrong step in +this affair, he will cudgel thee to death——Well! a minute is but a +minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be +set down as ill-spent. + +He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and +in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and +unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and +pick’d it up again——God help thee, _Jack!_ said I, thou hast a bitter +breakfast on’t—and many a bitter day’s labour,—and many a bitter blow, +I fear, for its wages——’tis all—all bitterness to thee, whatever life +is to others.——And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as +bitter, I dare say, as soot—(for he had cast aside the stem) and thou +hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will give thee a +macaroon.——In saying this, I pull’d out a paper of ’em, which I had +just purchased, and gave him one—and at this moment that I am telling +it, my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the +conceit, of seeing _how_ an ass would eat a macaroon——than of +benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. + +When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press’d him to come in——the poor +beast was heavy loaded——his legs seem’d to tremble under him——he hung +rather backwards, and as I pull’d at his halter, it broke short in my +hand——he look’d up pensive in my face—“Don’t thrash me with it—but if +you will, you may”——If I do, said I, I’ll be d——d. + +The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of +_Andoüillet_’s—(so there was no sin in it)—when a person coming in, let +fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil’s crupper, which put an +end to the ceremony. + +_ Out upon it!_ + +cried I——but the interjection was equivocal——and, I think, wrong placed +too—for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture +of the ass’s panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as he +rush’d by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can +imagine——so that the + +_Out upon it!_ in my opinion, should have come in here——but this I +leave to be settled by + +The +REVIEWERS +of +MY BREECHES, + +which I have brought over along with me for that purpose. + +C H A P. XIV + +WHEN all was set to rights, I came down stairs again into the _basse +cour_ with my _valet de place_, in order to sally out towards the tomb +of the two lovers, &c.—and was a second time stopp’d at the gate——not +by the ass—but by the person who struck him; and who, by that time, had +taken possession (as is not uncommon after a defeat) of the very spot +of ground where the ass stood. + +It was a commissary sent to me from the post-office, with a rescript in +his hand for the payment of some six livres odd sous. + +Upon what account? said I.——’Tis upon the part of the king, replied the +commissary, heaving up both his shoulders—— + +——My good friend, quoth I——as sure as I am I—and you are you—— + +——And who are you? said he.—— + +——Don’t puzzle me; said I. + +C H A P. XV + +——But it is an indubitable verity, continued I, addressing myself to +the commissary, changing only the form of my asseveration——that I owe +the king of _France_ nothing but my good will; for he is a very honest +man, and I wish him all health and pastime in the world—— + +_Pardonnez moi_—replied the commissary, you are indebted to him six +livres four sous, for the next post from hence to St. _Fons_, in your +route to _Avignon_—which being a post royal, you pay double for the +horses and postillion—otherwise ’twould have amounted to no more than +three livres two sous—— + +——But I don’t go by land; said I. + +——You may if you please; replied the commissary—— + +Your most obedient servant——said I, making him a low bow—— + +The commissary, with all the sincerity of grave good breeding—made me +one, as low again.——I never was more disconcerted with a bow in my +life. + +——The devil take the serious character of these people! quoth I—(aside) +they understand no more of Irony than this—— + +The comparison was standing close by with his panniers—but something +seal’d up my lips—I could not pronounce the name— + +Sir, said I, collecting myself—it is not my intention to take post—— + +—But you may—said he, persisting in his first reply—you may take post +if you chuse—— + +—And I may take salt to my pickled herring, said I, if I chuse— + +—But I do not chuse— + +—But you must pay for it, whether you do or no. + +Aye! for the salt; said I (I know)—— + +—And for the post too; added he. Defend me! cried I—— + +I travel by water—I am going down the _Rhône_ this very afternoon—my +baggage is in the boat—and I have actually paid nine livres for my +passage—— + +_C’est tout egal_—’tis all one; said he. + +_Bon Dieu!_ what, pay for the way I go! and for the way I do _not_ go! + +——_C’est tout egal;_ replied the commissary—— + +——The devil it is! said I—but I will go to ten thousand Bastiles +first—— + +_O England! England!_ thou land of liberty, and climate of good sense, +thou tenderest of mothers—and gentlest of nurses, cried I, kneeling +upon one knee, as I was beginning my apostrophè. + +When the director of Madam _Le Blanc_’s conscience coming in at that +instant, and seeing a person in black, with a face as pale as ashes, at +his devotions—looking still paler by the contrast and distress of his +drapery—ask’d, if I stood in want of the aids of the church—— + +I go by WATER—said I—and here’s another will be for making me pay for +going by OIL. + +C H A P. XVI + +AS I perceived the commissary of the post-office would have his six +livres four sous, I had nothing else for it, but to say some smart +thing upon the occasion, worth the money: + +And so I set off thus:—— + +——And pray, Mr. Commissary, by what law of courtesy is a defenceless +stranger to be used just the reverse from what you use a _Frenchman_ in +this matter? + +By no means; said he. + +Excuse me; said I—for you have begun, Sir, with first tearing off my +breeches—and now you want my pocket—— + +Whereas—had you first taken my pocket, as you do with your own +people—and then left me bare a—’d after—I had been a beast to have +complain’d—— + +As it is—— + +——’Tis contrary to the _law of nature._ + +——’Tis contrary to _reason._ + +——’Tis contrary to the GOSPEL. + +But not to this——said he—putting a printed paper into my hand, + +PAR le ROY. + +———’Tis a pithy prolegomenon, quoth I—and so read on — — — — — — — — — +— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — + +——By all which it appears, quoth I, having read it over, a little too +rapidly, that if a man sets out in a post-chaise from _Paris_—he must +go on travelling in one, all the days of his life—or pay for it.—Excuse +me, said the commissary, the spirit of the ordinance is this—That if +you set out with an intention of running post from _Paris_ to +_Avignon_, &c. you shall not change that intention or mode of +travelling, without first satisfying the fermiers for two posts further +than the place you repent at—and ’tis founded, continued he, upon this, +that the REVENUES are not to fall short through your _fickleness_—— + +——O by heavens! cried I—if fickleness is taxable in _France_—we have +nothing to do but to make the best peace with you we can—— + +AND SO THE PEACE WAS MADE; + +——And if it is a bad one—as _Tristram Shandy_ laid the corner-stone of +it—nobody but _Tristram Shandy_ ought to be hanged. + +C H A P. XVII + +THOUGH I was sensible I had said as many clever things to the +commissary as came to six livres four sous, yet I was determined to +note down the imposition amongst my remarks before I retired from the +place; so putting my hand into my coat-pocket for my remarks—(which, by +the bye, may be a caution to travellers to take a little more care of +_their_ remarks for the future) “my remarks were _stolen_”——Never did +sorry traveller make such a pother and racket about his remarks as I +did about mine, upon the occasion. + +Heaven! earth! sea! fire! cried I, calling in every thing to my aid but +what I should——My remarks are stolen!—what shall I do?——Mr. Commissary! +pray did I drop any remarks, as I stood besides you?—— + +You dropp’d a good many very singular ones; replied he——Pugh! said I, +those were but a few, not worth above six livres two sous—but these are +a large parcel——He shook his head——Monsieur _Le Blanc!_ Madam _Le +Blanc!_ did you see any papers of mine?—you maid of the house! run up +stairs—_François!_ run up after her—— + +—I must have my remarks——they were the best remarks, cried I, that ever +were made—the wisest—the wittiest—What shall I do?—which way shall I +turn myself? + +_Sancho Pança_, when he lost his ass’s FURNITURE, did not exclaim more +bitterly. + +C H A P. XVIII + +WHEN the first transport was over, and the registers of the brain were +beginning to get a little out of the confusion into which this jumble +of cross accidents had cast them—it then presently occurr’d to me, that +I had left my remarks in the pocket of the chaise—and that in selling +my chaise, I had sold my remarks along with it, to the chaise-vamper. + I leave this void space that the reader may swear into it any +oath that he is most accustomed to——For my own part, if ever I swore a +_whole_ oath into a vacancy in my life, I think it was into that—— * * +* * * * * * *, said I—and so my remarks through _France_, which were as +full of wit, as an egg is full of meat, and as well worth four hundred +guineas, as the said egg is worth a penny—have I been selling here to a +chaise-vamper—for four _Louis d’Ors_—and giving him a post-chaise (by +heaven) worth six into the bargain; had it been to _Dodsley_, or +_Becket_, or any creditable bookseller, who was either leaving off +business, and wanted a post-chaise—or who was beginning it—and wanted +my remarks, and two or three guineas along with them—I could have borne +it——but to a chaise-vamper!—shew me to him this moment, +_François_,—said I—The valet de place put on his hat, and led the +way—and I pull’d off mine, as I pass’d the commissary, and followed +him. + +C H A P. XIX + +WHEN we arrived at the chaise-vamper’s house, both the house and the +shop were shut up; it was the eighth of _September_, the nativity of +the blessed Virgin _Mary_, mother of God— + +——Tantarra - ra - tan - tivi——the whole world was gone out a +May-poling—frisking here—capering there——no body cared a button for me +or my remarks; so I sat me down upon a bench by the door, +philosophating upon my condition: by a better fate than usually attends +me, I had not waited half an hour, when the mistress came in to take +the papilliotes from off her hair, before she went to the May-poles—— + +The _French_ women, by the bye, love May-poles, _à la folie_—that is, +as much as their matins——give ’em but a May-pole, whether in _May, +June, July_ or _September_—they never count the times——down it +goes——’tis meat, drink, washing, and lodging to ’em——and had we but the +policy, an’ please your worships (as wood is a little scarce in +_France_), to send them but plenty of May-poles—— + +The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance +round them (and the men for company) till they were all blind. + +The wife of the chaise-vamper stepp’d in, I told you, to take the +papilliotes from off her hair——the toilet stands still for no man——so +she jerk’d off her cap, to begin with them as she open’d the door, in +doing which, one of them fell upon the ground—I instantly saw it was my +own writing—— + +O Seigneur! cried I—you have got all my remarks upon your head, +Madam!——_J’en suis bien mortifiée_, said she——’tis well, thinks I, they +have stuck there—for could they have gone deeper, they would have made +such confusion in a _French_ woman’s noddle—She had better have gone +with it unfrizled, to the day of eternity. + +_Tenez_—said she—so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she +took them from her curls, and put them gravely one by one into my +hat——one was twisted this way——another twisted that——ey! by my faith; +and when they are published, quoth I,—— + +They will be worse twisted still. + +C H A P. XX + +ANS now for _Lippius_’s clock! said I, with the air of a man, who had +got thro’ all his difficulties——nothing can prevent us seeing that, and +the _Chinese_ history, &c. except the time, said _François_——for ’tis +almost eleven—then we must speed the faster, said I, striding it away +to the cathedral. + +I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by +one of the minor canons, as I was entering the west door,—That +_Lippius_’s great clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for +some years——It will give me the more time, thought I, to peruse the +_Chinese_ history; and besides I shall be able to give the world a +better account of the clock in its decay, than I could have done in its +flourishing condition—— + +——And so away I posted to the college of the Jesuits. + +Now it is with the project of getting a peep at the history of _China_ +in _Chinese_ characters—as with many others I could mention, which +strike the fancy only at a distance; for as I came nearer and nearer to +the point—my blood cool’d—the freak gradually went off, till at length +I would not have given a cherry-stone to have it gratified——The truth +was, my time was short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the Lovers——I +wish to God, said I, as I got the rapper in my hand, that the key of +the library may be but lost; it fell out as well—— + +_For all the_ JESUITS _had got the cholic_—and to that degree, as never +was known in the memory of the oldest practitioner. + +C H A P. XXI + +AS I knew the geography of the Tomb of the Lovers, as well as if I had +lived twenty years in _Lyons_, namely, that it was upon the turning of +my right hand, just without the gate, leading to the _Fauxbourg de +Vaise_——I dispatched _François_ to the boat, that I might pay the +homage I so long ow’d it, without a witness of my weakness—I walk’d +with all imaginable joy towards the place——when I saw the gate which +intercepted the tomb, my heart glowed within me—— + +—Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to _Amandus_ +and _Amanda_—long—long have I tarried to drop this tear upon your +tomb——I come——I come—— + +When I came—there was no tomb to drop it upon. + +What would I have given for my uncle _Toby_, to have whistled Lillo +bullero! + +C H A P. XXII + +NO matter how, or in what mood—but I flew from the tomb of the +lovers—or rather I did not fly _from_ it—(for there was no such thing +existing) and just got time enough to the boat to save my passage;—and +ere I had sailed a hundred yards, the _Rhône_ and the _Saôn_ met +together, and carried me down merrily betwixt them. + +But I have described this voyage down the _Rhône_, before I made it—— + +——So now I am at _Avignon_, and as there is nothing to see but the old +house, in which the duke of _Ormond_ resided, and nothing to stop me +but a short remark upon the place, in three minutes you will see me +crossing the bridge upon a mule, with _François_ upon a horse with my +portmanteau behind him, and the owner of both, striding the way before +us, with a long gun upon his shoulder, and a sword under his arm, lest +peradventure we should run away with his cattle. Had you seen my +breeches in entering _Avignon_,——Though you’d have seen them better, I +think, as I mounted—you would not have thought the precaution amiss, or +found in your heart to have taken it in dudgeon; for my own part, I +took it most kindly; and determined to make him a present of them, when +we got to the end of our journey, for the trouble they had put him to, +of arming himself at all points against them. + +Before I go further, let me get rid of my remark upon _Avignon_, which +is this: That I think it wrong, merely because a man’s hat has been +blown off his head by chance the first night he comes to +_Avignon_,——that he should therefore say, “_Avignon_ is more subject to +high winds than any town in all _France:_” for which reason I laid no +stress upon the accident till I had enquired of the master of the inn +about it, who telling me seriously it was so——and hearing, moreover, +the windiness of _Avignon_ spoke of in the country about as a +proverb——I set it down, merely to ask the learned what can be the +cause——the consequence I saw—for they are all Dukes, Marquisses, and +Counts, there——the duce a Baron, in all _Avignon_——so that there is +scarce any talking to them on a windy day. + +Prithee, friend, said I, take hold of my mule for a moment——for I +wanted to pull off one of my jack-boots, which hurt my heel—the man was +standing quite idle at the door of the inn, and as I had taken it into +my head, he was someway concerned about the house or stable, I put the +bridle into his hand—so begun with the boot:—when I had finished the +affair, I turned about to take the mule from the man, and thank him—— + +——But _Monsieur le Marquis_ had walked in—— + +C H A P. XXIII + +I HAD now the whole south of _France_, from the banks of the _Rhône_ to +those of the _Garonne_, to traverse upon my mule at my own leisure—_at +my own leisure_——for I had left Death, the Lord knows——and He only—how +far behind me——“I have followed many a man thro’ _France_, quoth he—but +never at this mettlesome rate.”——Still he followed,——and still I fled +him——but I fled him cheerfully——still he pursued——but, like one who +pursued his prey without hope——as he lagg’d, every step he lost, +softened his looks——why should I fly him at this rate? + +So notwithstanding all the commissary of the post-office had said, I +changed the _mode_ of my travelling once more; and, after so +precipitate and rattling a course as I had run, I flattered my fancy +with thinking of my mule, and that I should traverse the rich plains of +_Languedoc_ upon his back, as slowly as foot could fall. + +There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller——or more terrible to +travel-writers, than a large rich plain; especially if it is without +great rivers or bridges; and presents nothing to the eye, but one +unvaried picture of plenty: for after they have once told you, that +’tis delicious! or delightful! (as the case happens)—that the soil was +grateful, and that nature pours out all her abundance, &c. . . . they +have then a large plain upon their hands, which they know not what to +do with—and which is of little or no use to them but to carry them to +some town; and that town, perhaps of little more, but a new place to +start from to the next plain——and so on. + +—This is most terrible work; judge if I don’t manage my plains better. + +C H A P. XXIV + +I HAD not gone above two leagues and a half, before the man with his +gun began to look at his priming. + +I had three several times loiter’d _terribly_ behind; half a mile at +least every time; once, in deep conference with a drum-maker, who was +making drums for the fairs of _Baucaira_ and _Tarascone_—I did not +understand the principles—— + +The second time, I cannot so properly say, I stopp’d——for meeting a +couple of _Franciscans_ straitened more for time than myself, and not +being able to get to the bottom of what I was about——I had turn’d back +with them—— + +The third, was an affair of trade with a gossip, for a hand-basket of +_Provence_ figs for four sous; this would have been transacted at once; +but for a case of conscience at the close of it; for when the figs were +paid for, it turn’d out, that there were two dozen of eggs covered over +with vine-leaves at the bottom of the basket—as I had no intention of +buying eggs—I made no sort of claim of them—as for the space they had +occupied—what signified it? I had figs enow for my money—— + +—But it was my intention to have the basket—it was the gossip’s +intention to keep it, without which, she could do nothing with her +eggs——and unless I had the basket, I could do as little with my figs, +which were too ripe already, and most of ’em burst at the side: this +brought on a short contention, which terminated in sundry proposals, +what we should both do—— + +——How we disposed of our eggs and figs, I defy you, or the Devil +himself, had he not been there (which I am persuaded he was), to form +the least probable conjecture: You will read the whole of it——not this +year, for I am hastening to the story of my uncle _Toby_’s amours—but +you will read it in the collection of those which have arose out of the +journey across this plain—and which, therefore, I call my + +PLAIN STORIES. + +How far my pen has been fatigued, like those of other travellers, in +this journey of it, over so barren a track—the world must judge—but the +traces of it, which are now all set o’ vibrating together this moment, +tell me ’tis the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for as I had +made no convention with my man with the gun, as to time—by stopping and +talking to every soul I met, who was not in a full trot—joining all +parties before me—waiting for every soul behind—hailing all those who +were coming through cross-roads—arresting all kinds of beggars, +pilgrims, fiddlers, friars—not passing by a woman in a mulberry-tree +without commending her legs, and tempting her into conversation with a +pinch of snuff——In short, by seizing every handle, of what size or +shape soever, which chance held out to me in this journey—I turned my +_plain_ into a _city_—I was always in company, and with great variety +too; and as my mule loved society as much as myself, and had some +proposals always on his part to offer to every beast he met—I am +confident we could have passed through _Pall-Mall_, or St. +_James_’s-Street, for a month together, with fewer adventures—and seen +less of human nature. + +O! there is that sprightly frankness, which at once unpins every plait +of a _Languedocian_’s dress—that whatever is beneath it, it looks so +like the simplicity which poets sing of in better days—I will delude my +fancy, and believe it is so. + +’Twas in the road betwixt _Nismes_ and _Lunel_, where there is the best +_Muscatto_ wine in all _France_, and which by the bye belongs to the +honest canons of MONTPELLIER—and foul befal the man who has drunk it at +their table, who grudges them a drop of it. + +——The sun was set—they had done their work; the nymphs had tied up +their hair afresh—and the swains were preparing for a carousal—my mule +made a dead point——’Tis the fife and tabourin, said I——I’m frighten’d +to death, quoth he——They are running at the ring of pleasure, said I, +giving him a prick——By saint _Boogar_, and all the saints at the +backside of the door of purgatory, said he—(making the same resolution +with the abbesse of _Andoüillets_) I’ll not go a step further——’Tis +very well, sir, said I——I never will argue a point with one of your +family, as long as I live; so leaping off his back, and kicking off one +boot into this ditch, and t’other into that—I’ll take a dance, said +I—so stay you here. + +A sun-burnt daughter of Labour rose up from the groupe to meet me, as I +advanced towards them; her hair, which was a dark chesnut approaching +rather to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress. + +We want a cavalier, said she, holding out both her hands, as if to +offer them—And a cavalier ye shall have; said I, taking hold of both of +them. + +Hadst thou, _Nannette_, been array’d like a duchesse! + +——But that cursed slit in thy petticoat! + +_Nannette_ cared not for it. + +We could not have done without you, said she, letting go one hand, with +self-taught politeness, leading me up with the other. + +A lame youth, whom _Apollo_ had recompensed with a pipe, and to which +he had added a tabourin of his own accord, ran sweetly over the +prelude, as he sat upon the bank——Tie me up this tress instantly, said +_Nannette_, putting a piece of string into my hand—It taught me to +forget I was a stranger—— The whole knot fell down——We had been seven +years acquainted. + +The youth struck the note upon the tabourin—his pipe followed, and off +we bounded——“the duce take that slit!” + +The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from heaven, sung +alternately with her brother——’twas a _Gascoigne_ roundelay. + +VIVA LA JOIA! + +FIDON LA TRISTESSA! + +The nymphs join’d in unison, and their swains an octave below them—— + +I would have given a crown to have it sew’d up—_Nannette_ would not +have given a sous—_Viva la joia!_ was in her lips—_Viva la joia!_ was +in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt +us——She look’d amiable!——Why could I not live, and end my days thus? +Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows, cried I, why could not a man sit +down in the lap of content here——and dance, and sing, and say his +prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid? Capriciously did +she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidious——Then ’tis time +to dance off, quoth I; so changing only partners and tunes, I danced it +away from _Lunel_ to _Montpellier_——from thence to _Pesçnas, +Beziers_——I danced it along through _Narbonne, Carcasson_, and _Castle +Naudairy_, till at last I danced myself into _Perdrillo_’s pavillion, +where pulling out a paper of black lines, that I might go on straight +forwards, without digression or parenthesis, in my uncle _Toby_’s +amours—— + +I begun thus—— + +C H A P. XXV + +——BUT softly——for in these sportive plains, and under this genial sun, +where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and +dancing to the vintage, and every step that’s taken, the judgment is +surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been +said upon _straight lines_[37] in sundry pages of my book—I defy the +best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants backwards or +forwards, it makes little difference in the account (except that he +will have more to answer for in the one case than in the other)—I defy +him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically, planting his cabbages +one by one, in straight lines, and stoical distances, especially if +slits in petticoats are unsew’d up—without ever and anon straddling +out, or sidling into some bastardly digression——In _Freeze-land, +Fog-land_, and some other lands I wot of—it may be done—— + +But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every +idea, sensible and insensible, gets vent—in this land, my dear +_Eugenius_—in this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now +sit, unskrewing my ink-horn to write my uncle _Toby_’s amours, and with +all the meanders of JULIA’s track in quest of her DIEGO, in full view +of my study window—if thou comest not and takest me by the hand—— + +What a work it is likely to turn out! + +Let us begin it. + + [37] Vid. Vol. III. p. 243. + +C H A P. XXVI + +IT is with LOVE as with CUCKOLDOM—— + +But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing +upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, +can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the COMPARISON +may be imparted to him any hour in the day)——I’ll just mention it, and +begin in good earnest. + +The thing is this. + +That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in +practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing +it is the best——I’m sure it is the most religious——for I begin with +writing the first sentence——and trusting to Almighty God for the +second. + +’Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his +street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, +with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. +only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the +plan follows the whole. + +I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, +as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up——catching the idea, even +sometimes before it half way reaches me—— + +I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven +intended for another man. + +_Pope_ and his Portrait[38] are fools to me——no martyr is ever so full +of faith or fire——I wish I could say of good works too——but I have no + +Zeal or Anger——or + +Anger or Zeal—— + +And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name——the +errantest TARTUFFE, in science——in politics—or in religion, shall never +kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind +greeting, than what he will read in the next chapter. + + [38] Vid. _Pope_’s Portrait. + +C H A P. XXVII + +——Bon jour!——good morrow!——so you have got your cloak on betimes!——but +’tis a cold morning, and you judge the matter rightly——’tis better to +be well mounted, than go o’ foot——and obstructions in the glands are +dangerous——And how goes it with thy concubine—thy wife,—and thy little +ones o’ both sides? and when did you hear from the old gentleman and +lady—your sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins——I hope they have got better +of their colds, coughs, claps, tooth-aches, fevers, stranguries, +sciaticas, swellings, and sore eyes. + +——What a devil of an apothecary! to take so much blood—give such a vile +purge—puke—poultice—plaister—night-draught—clyster—blister?——And why so +many grains of calomel? santa Maria! and such a dose of opium! +periclitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to tail——By my +great-aunt _Dinah_’s old black velvet mask! I think there is no +occasion for it. + +Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off +and on, _before_ she was got with child by the coachman—not one of our +family would wear it after. To cover the MASK afresh, was more than the +mask was worth——and to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be +half seen through, was as bad as having no mask at all—— + +This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that in all our +numerous family, for these four generations, we count no more than one +archbishop, a _Welch_ judge, some three or four aldermen, and a single +mountebank—— + +In the sixteenth century, we boast of no less than a dozen alchymists. + +C H A P. XXVIII + +“IT is with Love as with Cuckoldom”——the suffering party is at least +the _third_, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing +about the matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half +a dozen words for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the +human frame, is _Love_—may be _Hatred_, in that——_Sentiment_ half a +yard higher——and _Nonsense_———no, Madam,—not there——I mean at the part +I am now pointing to with my forefinger——how can we help ourselves? + +Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, who ever +soliloquized upon this mystic subject, my uncle _Toby_ was the worst +fitted, to have push’d his researches, thro’ such a contention of +feelings; and he had infallibly let them all run on, as we do worse +matters, to see what they would turn out——had not _Bridget_’s +pre-notification of them to _Susannah_, and _Susannah_’s repeated +manifestoes thereupon to all the world, made it necessary for my uncle +_Toby_ to look into the affair. + +C H A P. XXIX + +WHY weavers, gardeners, and gladiators—or a man with a pined leg +(proceeding from some ailment in the _foot_)—should ever have had some +tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and +duly settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists. + +A water-drinker, provided he is a profess’d one, and does it without +fraud or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at +first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, “That a +rill of cold water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a +torch in my _Jenny_’s—” + +——The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run +opposite to the natural workings of causes and effects—— + +But it shews the weakness and imbecility of human reason. + +——“And in perfect good health with it?” + +—The most perfect,—Madam, that friendship herself could wish me—— + +“And drink nothing!—nothing but water?” + +—Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of +the brain——see how they give way!—— + +In swims CURIOSITY, beckoning to her damsels to follow—they dive into +the center of the current—— + +FANCY sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the +stream, turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits——And +DESIRE, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as +they swim by her, with the other—— + +O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have +so often governed and turn’d this world about like a +mill-wheel—grinding the faces of the impotent—bepowdering their +ribs—bepeppering their noses, and changing sometimes even the very +frame and face of nature—— + +If I was you, quoth _Yorick_, I would drink more water, _Eugenius_—And, +if I was you, _Yorick_, replied _Eugenius_, so would I. + +Which shews they had both read _Longinus_— + +For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as +long as I live. + +C H A P. XXX + +I WISH my uncle _Toby_ had been a water-drinker; for then the thing had +been accounted for, That the first moment Widow _Wadman_ saw him, she +felt something stirring within her in his favour—Something!—something. + +—Something perhaps more than friendship—less than love—something—no +matter what—no matter where—I would not give a single hair off my +mule’s tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed the villain +has not many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain), +to be let by your worships into the secret—— + +But the truth is, my uncle _Toby_ was not a water-drinker; he drank it +neither pure nor mix’d, or any how, or any where, except fortuitously +upon some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be had——or +during the time he was under cure; when the surgeon telling him it +would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner into contact——my uncle +_Toby_ drank it for quietness sake. + +Now as all the world knows, that no effect in nature can be produced +without a cause, and as it is as well known, that my uncle _Toby_ was +neither a weaver—a gardener, or a gladiator——unless as a captain, you +will needs have him one—but then he was only a captain of foot—and +besides, the whole is an equivocation——There is nothing left for us to +suppose, but that my uncle _Toby_’s leg——but that will avail us little +in the present hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment +_in the foot_—whereas his leg was not emaciated from any disorder in +his foot—for my uncle _Toby_’s leg was not emaciated at all. It was a +little stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it, for the three +years he lay confined at my father’s house in town; but it was plump +and muscular, and in all other respects as good and promising a leg as +the other. + +I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, +where my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and +torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter +following it, than in the present case: one would think I took a +pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to make +fresh experiments of getting out of ’em——Inconsiderate soul that thou +art! What! are not the unavoidable distresses with which, as an author +and a man, thou art hemm’d in on every side of thee——are they, +_Tristram_, not sufficient, but thou must entangle thyself still more? + +Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten +cart-loads of thy fifth and sixth volumes[39] still—still unsold, and +art almost at thy wit’s ends, how to get them off thy hands? + +To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou +gattest in skating against the wind in _Flanders?_ and is it but two +months ago, that in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water +like a quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, +whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and hadst +thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell thee——it would have +amounted to a gallon?—— + + [39] Alluding to the first edition. + +C H A P. XXXI + +—But for heaven’s sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons——let us +take the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, +it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow +or other, you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it— + +—I beg we may take more care. + +C H A P. XXXII + +MY uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and +precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so +often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of +the allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of +the whole affair, it was neither a pioneer’s spade, a pickax, or a +shovel— + +—It was a bed to lie on: so that as _Shandy-Hall_ was at that time +unfurnished; and the little inn where poor _Le Fever_ died, not yet +built; my uncle _Toby_ was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. +_Wadman_’s, for a night or two, till corporal _Trim_ (who to the +character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and +engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the +help of a carpenter and a couple of taylors, constructed one in my +uncle _Toby_’s house. + +A daughter of _Eve_, for such was widow _Wadman_, and ’tis all the +character I intend to give of her— + +—“_ That she was a perfect woman—_” had better be fifty leagues off—or +in her warm bed—or playing with a case-knife—or any thing you +please—than make a man the object of her attention, when the house and +all the furniture is her own. + +There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad day-light, where a +woman has a power, physically speaking, of viewing a man in more lights +than one—but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without +mixing something of her own goods and chattels along with him——till by +reiterated acts of such combination, he gets foisted into her +inventory—— + +—And then good night. + +But this is not matter of SYSTEM; for I have delivered that above——nor +is it matter of BREVIARY——for I make no man’s creed but my own——nor +matter of FACT——at least that I know of; but ’tis matter copulative and +introductory to what follows. + +C H A P. XXXIII + +I DO not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them—or +the strength of their gussets——but pray do not night-shifts differ from +day-shifts as much in this particular, as in any thing else in the +world; that they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are +laid down in them, they fall almost as much below the feet, as the +day-shifts fall short of them? + +Widow _Wadman_’s night-shifts (as was the mode I suppose in King +_William_’s and Queen _Anne_’s reigns) were cut however after this +fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in _Italy_ they are come to +nothing)——so much the worse for the public; they were two _Flemish_ +ells and a half in length, so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, +she had half an ell to spare, to do what she would with. + +Now from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak +and decemberley nights of a seven years widow-hood, things had +insensibly come to this pass, and for the two last years had got +establish’d into one of the ordinances of the bed-chamber—That as soon +as Mrs. _Wadman_ was put to bed, and had got her legs stretched down to +the bottom of it, of which she always gave _Bridget_ notice—_Bridget_, +with all suitable decorum, having first open’d the bed-clothes at the +feet, took hold of the half-ell of cloth we are speaking of, and having +gently, and with both her hands, drawn it downwards to its furthest +extension, and then contracted it again side-long by four or five even +plaits, she took a large corking-pin out of her sleeve, and with the +point directed towards her, pinn’d the plaits all fast together a +little above the hem; which done, she tuck’d all in tight at the feet, +and wish’d her mistress a good night. + +This was constant, and without any other variation than this; that on +shivering and tempestuous nights, when _Bridget_ untuck’d the feet of +the bed, &c. to do this——she consulted no thermometer but that of her +own passions; and so performed it standing—kneeling—or squatting, +according to the different degrees of faith, hope, and charity, she was +in, and bore towards her mistress that night. In every other respect, +the _etiquette_ was sacred, and might have vied with the most +mechanical one of the most inflexible bed-chamber in _Christendom._ + +The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle _Toby_ +up stairs, which was about ten——Mrs. _Wadman_ threw herself into her +arm-chair, and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a +resting-place for her elbow, she reclin’d her cheek upon the palm of +her hand, and leaning forwards, ruminated till midnight upon both sides +of the question. + +The second night she went to her bureau, and having ordered _Bridget_ +to bring her up a couple of fresh candles and leave them upon the +table, she took out her marriage-settlement, and read it over with +great devotion: and the third night (which was the last of my uncle +_Toby_’s stay) when _Bridget_ had pull’d down the night-shift, and was +assaying to stick in the corking pin—— + +——With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most +natural kick that could be kick’d in her situation——for supposing * * * +* * * * * * to be the sun in its meridian, it was a north-east +kick——she kick’d the pin out of her fingers——the _etiquette_ which hung +upon it, down——down it fell to the ground, and was shiver’d into a +thousand atoms. + +From all which it was plain that widow _Wadman_ was in love with my +uncle _Toby._ + +C H A P. XXXIV + +MY uncle _Toby_’s head at that time was full of other matters, so that +it was not till the demolition of _Dunkirk_, when all the other +civilities of _Europe_ were settled, that he found leisure to return +this. + +This made an armistice (that is, speaking with regard to my uncle +_Toby_—but with respect to Mrs. _Wadman_, a vacancy)—of almost eleven +years. But in all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, +happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray——I chuse +for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle _Toby_ with Mrs. +_Wadman_, rather than the amours of Mrs. _Wadman_ with my uncle _Toby._ + +This is not a distinction without a difference. + +It is not like the affair of _an old hat cock’d——and a cock’d old hat_, +about which your reverences have so often been at odds with one +another——but there is a difference here in the nature of things—— + +And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too. + +C H A P. XXXV + +NOW as widow _Wadman_ did love my uncle _Toby_——and my uncle _Toby_ did +not love widow _Wadman_, there was nothing for widow _Wadman_ to do, +but to go on and love my uncle _Toby_——or let it alone. + +Widow _Wadman_ would do neither the one or the other. + +——Gracious heaven!——but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; +for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the +equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and +t’other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her——and that she careth +not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no—— + +——Curse on her! and so I send her to _Tartary_, and from _Tartary_ to +_Terra del Fuogo_, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an +infernal nitch where I do not take her divinityship and stick it. + +But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and +flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I +do all things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the +milky-way—— + +Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon some one—— + +——The duce take her and her influence too——for at that word I lose all +patience——much good may it do him!——By all that is hirsute and gashly! +I cry, taking off my furr’d cap, and twisting it round my finger——I +would not give sixpence for a dozen such! + +——But ’tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing +it close to my ears)—and warm—and soft; especially if you stroke it the +right way—but alas! that will never be my luck——(so here my philosophy +is shipwreck’d again.) + +——No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my +metaphor)—— + +Crust and Crumb + +Inside and out + +Top and bottom——I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it——I’m sick at the +sight of it—— + +’Tis all pepper, + garlick, + speak-punctuation:, + salt, and + devil’s dung——by the great arch-cooks of cooks, who does nothing, +I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fire-side and +invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world—— + +——_O Tristram! Tristram!_ cried _Jenny._ + +_O Jenny! Jenny!_ replied I, and so went on with the thirty-sixth +chapter. + +C H A P. XXXVI + +——“Not touch it for the world,” did I say—— + +Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor! + +C H A P. XXXVII + +WHICH shews, let your reverences and worships say what you will of it +(for as for _thinking_——all who do think—think pretty much alike both +upon it and other matters)——Love is certainly, at least alphabetically +speaking, one of the most + +A gitating + +B ewitching + +C onfounded + +D evilish affairs of life——the most + +E xtravagant + +F utilitous + +G alligaskinish + +H andy-dandyish + +I racundulous (there is no K to it) and + +L yrical of all human passions: at the + +same time, the most + +M isgiving + +N innyhammering + +O bstipating + +P ragmatical + +S tridulous + +R idiculous—though by the bye the R should have gone first—But in short +’tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle _Toby_ upon the +close of a long dissertation upon the subject——“You can scarce,” said +he, “combine two ideas together upon it, brother _Toby_, without an +hypallage”——What’s that? cried my uncle _Toby._ + +The cart before the horse, replied my father—— + +——And what is he to do there? cried my uncle _Toby._ + +Nothing, quoth my father, but to get in——or let it alone. + +Now widow _Wadman_, as I told you before, would do neither the one or +the other. + +She stood however ready harnessed and caparisoned at all points, to +watch accidents. + +C H A P. XXXVIII + +THE Fates, who certainly all fore-knew of these amours of widow +_Wadman_ and my uncle _Toby_, had, from the first creation of matter +and motion (and with more courtesy than they usually do things of this +kind), established such a chain of causes and effects hanging so fast +to one another, that it was scarce possible for my uncle _Toby_ to have +dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other +garden in _Christendom_, but the very house and garden which join’d and +laid parallel to Mrs. _Wadman_’s; this, with the advantage of a +thickset arbour in Mrs. _Wadman_’s garden, but planted in the hedge-row +of my uncle _Toby_’s, put all the occasions into her hands which +Love-militancy wanted; she could observe my uncle _Toby_’s motions, and +was mistress likewise of his councils of war; and as his unsuspecting +heart had given leave to the corporal, through the mediation of +_Bridget_, to make her a wicker-gate of communication to enlarge her +walks, it enabled her to carry on her approaches to the very door of +the sentry-box; and sometimes out of gratitude, to make an attack, and +endeavour to blow my uncle _Toby_ up in the very sentry-box itself. + +C H A P. XXXIX + +IT is a great pity——but ’tis certain from every day’s observation of +man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end—provided +there is a sufficient wick standing out; if there is not—there’s an end +of the affair; and if there is—by lighting it at the bottom, as the +flame in that case has the misfortune generally to put out +itself—there’s an end of the affair again. + +For my part, could I always have the ordering of it which way I would +be burnt myself—for I cannot bear the thoughts of being burnt like a +beast—I would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the top; for +then I should burn down decently to the socket; that is, from my head +to my heart, from my heart to my liver, from my liver to my bowels, and +so on by the meseraick veins and arteries, through all the turns and +lateral insertions of the intestines and their tunicles to the blind +gut—— + +——I beseech you, doctor _Slop_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, interrupting him +as he mentioned the _blind gut_, in a discourse with my father the +night my mother was brought to bed of me——I beseech you, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, to tell me which is the blind gut; for, old as I am, I vow I do +not know to this day where it lies. + +The blind gut, answered doctor _Slop_, lies betwixt the _Ilion_ and +_Colon_—— + +In a man? said my father. + +——’Tis precisely the same, cried doctor _Slop_, in a woman.—— + +That’s more than I know; quoth my father. + +C H A P. XL + +——And so to make sure of both systems, Mrs. _Wadman_ predetermined to +light my uncle _Toby_ neither at this end or that; but, like a +prodigal’s candle, to light him, if possible, at both ends at once. + +Now, through all the lumber rooms of military furniture, including both +of horse and foot, from the great arsenal of _Venice_ to the _Tower_ of +_London_ (exclusive), if Mrs. _Wadman_ had been rummaging for seven +years together, and with _Bridget_ to help her, she could not have +found any one _blind_ or _mantelet_ so fit for her purpose, as that +which the expediency of my uncle _Toby_’s affairs had fix’d up ready to +her hands. + +I believe I have not told you——but I don’t know——possibly I have——be it +as it will, ’tis one of the number of those many things, which a man +had better do over again, than dispute about it—That whatever town or +fortress the corporal was at work upon, during the course of their +campaign, my uncle _Toby_ always took care, on the inside of his +sentry-box, which was towards his left hand, to have a plan of the +place, fasten’d up with two or three pins at the top, but loose at the +bottom, for the conveniency of holding it up to the eye, &c. . . . as +occasions required; so that when an attack was resolved upon, Mrs. +_Wadman_ had nothing more to do, when she had got advanced to the door +of the sentry-box, but to extend her right hand; and edging in her left +foot at the same movement, to take hold of the map or plan, or upright, +or whatever it was, and with out-stretched neck meeting it half way,—to +advance it towards her; on which my uncle _Toby_’s passions were sure +to catch fire——for he would instantly take hold of the other corner of +the map in his left hand, and with the end of his pipe in the other, +begin an explanation. + +When the attack was advanced to this point;——the world will naturally +enter into the reasons of Mrs. _Wadman_’s next stroke of +generalship——which was, to take my uncle _Toby_’s tobacco-pipe out of +his hand as soon as she possibly could; which, under one pretence or +other, but generally that of pointing more distinctly at some redoubt +or breastwork in the map, she would effect before my uncle _Toby_ (poor +soul!) had well march’d above half a dozen toises with it. + +—It obliged my uncle _Toby_ to make use of his forefinger. + +The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, +as in the first case, with the end of her fore-finger against the end +of my uncle _Toby_’s tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, +along the lines, from _Dan_ to _Beersheba_, had my uncle _Toby_’s lines +reach’d so far, without any effect: For as there was no arterial or +vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no +sentiment——it could neither give fire by pulsation——or receive it by +sympathy——’twas nothing but smoke. + +Whereas, in following my uncle _Toby_’s forefinger with hers, close +thro’ all the little turns and indentings of his works——pressing +sometimes against the side of it——then treading upon its nail——then +tripping it up——then touching it here——then there, and so on——it set +something at least in motion. + +This, tho’ slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, +yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back +of it, close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle _Toby_, in the +simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go +on with his explanation; and Mrs. _Wadman_, by a manœuvre as quick as +thought, would as certainly place her’s close beside it; this at once +opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or +re-pass, which a person skill’d in the elementary and practical part of +love-making, has occasion for—— + +By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle +_Toby_’s——it unavoidably brought the thumb into action——and the +forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the +whole hand. Thine, dear uncle _Toby!_ was never now in ’ts right +place——Mrs. _Wadman_ had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest +pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be +removed is capable of receiving——to get it press’d a hair breadth of +one side out of her way. + +Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that +it was her leg (and no one’s else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, +which slightly press’d against the calf of his——So that my uncle _Toby_ +being thus attack’d and sore push’d on both his wings——was it a wonder, +if now and then, it put his centre into disorder?—— + +——The duce take it! said my uncle _Toby._ + +C H A P. XLI + +THESE attacks of Mrs. _Wadman_, you will readily conceive to be of +different kinds; varying from each other, like the attacks which +history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general looker-on +would scarce allow them to be attacks at all——or if he did, would +confound them all together——but I write not to them: it will be time +enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come +up to them, which will not be for some chapters; having nothing more to +add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings which +my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of +_Bouchain_ in perfect preservation (and shall be kept so, whilst I have +power to preserve any thing), upon the lower corner of which, on the +right hand side, there is still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger +and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to imagine, were +Mrs. _Wadman_’s; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose +to have been my uncle _Toby_’s, is absolutely clean: This seems an +authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia of +the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite +corner of the map, which are unquestionably the very holes, through +which it has been pricked up in the sentry-box—— + +By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its +_stigmata_ and pricks, more than all the relicks of the _Romish_ +church——always excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the +pricks which entered the flesh of St. _Radagunda_ in the desert, which +in your road from FESSE to CLUNY, the nuns of that name will shew you +for love. + +C H A P. XLII + +I THINK, an’ please your honour, quoth _Trim_, the fortifications are +quite destroyed——and the bason is upon a level with the mole——I think +so too; replied my uncle _Toby_ with a sigh half suppress’d——but step +into the parlour, _Trim_, for the stipulation——it lies upon the table. + +It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal, till this very +morning that the old woman kindled the fire with it— + +——Then, said my uncle _Toby_, there is no further occasion for our +services. The more, an’ please your honour, the pity, said the +corporal; in uttering which he cast his spade into the wheel-barrow, +which was beside him, with an air the most expressive of disconsolation +that can be imagined, and was heavily turning about to look for his +pickax, his pioneer’s shovel, his picquets, and other little military +stores, in order to carry them off the field——when a heigh-ho! from the +sentry-box, which being made of thin slit deal, reverberated the sound +more sorrowfully to his ear, forbad him. + +——No; said the corporal to himself, I’ll do it before his honour rises +to-morrow morning; so taking his spade out of the wheel-barrow again, +with a little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the +glacis——but with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in +order to divert him——he loosen’d a sod or two——pared their edges with +his spade, and having given them a gentle blow or two with the back of +it, he sat himself down close by my uncle _Toby_’s feet and began as +follows. + +C H A P. XLIII + +IT was a thousand pities——though I believe, an’ please your honour, I +am going to say but a foolish kind of a thing for a soldier—— + +A soldier, cried my uncle _Toby_, interrupting the corporal, is no more +exempt from saying a foolish thing, _Trim_, than a man of letters——But +not so often, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal——my uncle +_Toby_ gave a nod. + +It was a thousand pities then, said the corporal, casting his eye upon +_Dunkirk_, and the mole, as _Servius Sulpicius_, in returning out of +_Asia_ (when he sailed from _Ægina_ towards _Megara_), did upon +_Corinth_ and _Pyreus_—— + +—“It was a thousand pities, an’ please your honour, to destroy these +works——and a thousand pities to have let them stood.”—— + +——Thou art right, _Trim_, in both cases; said my uncle _Toby._——This, +continued the corporal, is the reason, that from the beginning of their +demolition to the end——I have never once whistled, or sung, or laugh’d, +or cry’d, or talk’d of past done deeds, or told your honour one story +good or bad—— + +——Thou hast many excellencies, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, and I hold +it not the least of them, as thou happenest to be a story-teller, that +of the number thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful +hours, or divert me in my grave ones—thou hast seldom told me a bad +one—— + +——Because, an’ please your honour, except one of a _King of Bohemia and +his seven castles_,—they are all true; for they are about myself—— + +I do not like the subject the worse, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, on +that score: But prithee what is this story? thou hast excited my +curiosity. + +I’ll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal, directly—Provided, said +my uncle _Toby_, looking earnestly towards _Dunkirk_ and the mole +again——provided it is not a merry one; to such, _Trim_, a man should +ever bring one half of the entertainment along with him; and the +disposition I am in at present would wrong both thee, _Trim_, and thy +story——It is not a merry one by any means, replied the corporal—Nor +would I have it altogether a grave one, added my uncle _Toby_——It is +neither the one nor the other, replied the corporal, but will suit your +honour exactly——Then I’ll thank thee for it with all my heart, cried my +uncle _Toby;_ so prithee begin it, _Trim._ + +The corporal made his reverence; and though it is not so easy a matter +as the world imagines, to pull off a lank _Montero_-cap with grace——or +a whit less difficult, in my conceptions, when a man is sitting squat +upon the ground, to make a bow so teeming with respect as the corporal +was wont; yet by suffering the palm of his right hand, which was +towards his master, to slip backwards upon the grass, a little beyond +his body, in order to allow it the greater sweep——and by an unforced +compression, at the same time, of his cap with the thumb and the two +forefingers of his left, by which the diameter of the cap became +reduced, so that it might be said, rather to be insensibly +squeez’d—than pull’d off with a flatus——the corporal acquitted himself +of both in a better manner than the posture of his affairs promised; +and having hemmed twice, to find in what key his story would best go, +and best suit his master’s humour,—he exchanged a single look of +kindness with him, and set off thus. + +THE STORY OF THE +KING OF BOHEMIA AND +HIS SEVEN CASTLES + +THERE was a certain king of Bo - - he—— + +As the corporal was entering the confines of _Bohemia_, my uncle _Toby_ +obliged him to halt for a single moment; he had set out bare-headed, +having, since he pull’d off his _Montero_-cap in the latter end of the +last chapter, left it lying beside him on the ground. + +——The eye of Goodness espieth all things——so that before the corporal +had well got through the first five words of his story, had my uncle +_Toby_ twice touch’d his _Montero_-cap with the end of his cane, +interrogatively——as much as to say, Why don’t you put it on, _Trim? +Trim_ took it up with the most respectful slowness, and casting a +glance of humiliation as he did it, upon the embroidery of the +fore-part, which being dismally tarnish’d and fray’d moreover in some +of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, he lay’d it +down again between his two feet, in order to moralize upon the subject. + +——’Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle _Toby_, that thou +art about to observe—— + +“_Nothing in this world, Trim, is made to last for ever._” + +——But when tokens, dear _Tom_, of thy love and remembrance wear out, +said _Trim_, what shall we say? + +There is no occasion, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to say any thing +else; and was a man to puzzle his brains till Doom’s day, I believe, +_Trim_, it would be impossible. + +The corporal, perceiving my uncle _Toby_ was in the right, and that it +would be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer +moral from his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and +passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, +which the text and the doctrine between them had engender’d, he +return’d, with the same look and tone of voice, to his story of the +king of _Bohemia_ and his seven castles. + +THE STORY OF THE +KING OF BOHEMIA AND +HIS SEVEN CASTLES, +CONTINUED + +THERE was a certain king of _Bohemia_, but in whose reign, except his +own, I am not able to inform your honour—— + +I do not desire it of thee, _Trim_, by any means, cried my uncle +_Toby._ + +——It was a little before the time, an’ please your honour, when giants +were beginning to leave off breeding:—but in what year of our Lord that +was— + +I would not give a halfpenny to know, said my uncle _Toby._ + +——Only, an’ please your honour, it makes a story look the better in the +face—— + +——’Tis thy own, _Trim_, so ornament it after thy own fashion; and take +any date, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking pleasantly upon him—take +any date in the whole world thou chusest, and put it to—thou art +heartily welcome—— + +The corporal bowed; for of every century, and of every year of that +century, from the first creation of the world down to _Noah_’s flood; +and from _Noah_’s flood to the birth of _Abraham;_ through all the +pilgrimages of the patriarchs, to the departure of the _Israelites_ out +of _Egypt_——and throughout all the Dynasties, Olympiads, Urbeconditas, +and other memorable epochas of the different nations of the world, down +to the coming of Christ, and from thence to the very moment in which +the corporal was telling his story——had my uncle _Toby_ subjected this +vast empire of time and all its abysses at his feet; but as MODESTY +scarce touches with a finger what LIBERALITY offers her with both hands +open—the corporal contented himself with the very _worst year_ of the +whole bunch; which, to prevent your honours of the Majority and +Minority from tearing the very flesh off your bones in contestation, ‘ +Whether that year is not always the last cast-year of the last +cast-almanack’——I tell you plainly it was; but from a different reason +than you wot of—— + +——It was the year next him——which being the year of our Lord seventeen +hundred and twelve, when the Duke of _Ormond_ was playing the devil in +_Flanders_——the corporal took it, and set out with it afresh on his +expedition to _Bohemia._ + +THE STORY OF THE +KING OF BOHEMIA AND +HIS SEVEN CASTLES, +CONTINUED + +IN the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve, there +was, an’ please your honour—— + +—To tell thee truly, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, any other date +would have pleased me much better, not only on account of the sad stain +upon our history that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to +cover the siege of _Quesnoi_, though _Fagel_ was carrying on the works +with such incredible vigour—but likewise on the score, _Trim_, of thy +own story; because if there are—and which, from what thou hast dropt, I +partly suspect to be the fact—if there are giants in it—— + +There is but one, an’ please your honour—— + +——’Tis as bad as twenty, replied my uncle _Toby_——thou should’st have +carried him back some seven or eight hundred years out of harm’s way, +both of critics and other people: and therefore I would advise thee, if +ever thou tellest it again—— + +——If I live, an’ please your honour, but once to get through it, I will +never tell it again, quoth _Trim_, either to man, woman, or +child——Poo—poo! said my uncle _Toby_—but with accents of such sweet +encouragement did he utter it, that the corporal went on with his story +with more alacrity than ever. + +THE STORY OF THE +KING OF BOHEMIA AND +HIS SEVEN CASTLES, +CONTINUED + +THERE was, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, raising his voice +and rubbing the palms of his two hands cheerily together as he begun, a +certain king of _Bohemia_—— + +——Leave out the date entirely, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaning +forwards, and laying his hand gently upon the corporal’s shoulder to +temper the interruption—leave it out entirely, _Trim;_ a story passes +very well without these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of +’em——Sure of ’em! said the corporal, shaking his head—— + +Right; answered my uncle _Toby_, it is not easy, _Trim_, for one, bred +up as thou and I have been to arms, who seldom looks further forward +than to the end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, to +know much about this matter——God bless your honour! said the corporal, +won by the manner of my uncle _Toby_’s reasoning, as much as by the +reasoning itself, he has something else to do; if not on action, or a +march, or upon duty in his garrison—he has his firelock, an’ please +your honour, to furbish—his accoutrements to take care of—his +regimentals to mend—himself to shave and keep clean, so as to appear +always like what he is upon the parade; what business, added the +corporal triumphantly, has a soldier, an’ please your honour, to know +any thing at all of _geography?_ + +——Thou would’st have said _chronology, Trim_, said my uncle _Toby;_ for +as for geography, ’tis of absolute use to him; he must be acquainted +intimately with every country and its boundaries where his profession +carries him; he should know every town and city, and village and +hamlet, with the canals, the roads, and hollow ways which lead up to +them; there is not a river or a rivulet he passes, _Trim_, but he +should be able at first sight to tell thee what is its name—in what +mountains it takes its rise—what is its course—how far it is +navigable—where fordable—where not; he should know the fertility of +every valley, as well as the hind who ploughs it; and be able to +describe, or, if it is required, to give thee an exact map of all the +plains and defiles, the forts, the acclivities, the woods and morasses, +thro’ and by which his army is to march; he should know their produce, +their plants, their minerals, their waters, their animals, their +seasons, their climates, their heats and cold, their inhabitants, their +customs, their language, their policy, and even their religion. + +Is it else to be conceived, corporal, continued my uncle _Toby_, rising +up in his sentry-box, as he began to warm in this part of his +discourse—how _Marlborough_ could have marched his army from the banks +of the _Maes_ to _Belburg;_ from _Belburg_ to _Kerpenord_—(here the +corporal could sit no longer) from _Kerpenord, Trim_, to _Kalsaken;_ +from _Kalsaken_ to _Newdorf;_ from _Newdorf_ to _Landenbourg;_ from +_Landenbourg_ to _Mildenheim;_ from _Mildenheim_ to _Elchingen;_ from +_Elchingen_ to _Gingen;_ from _Gingen_ to _Balmerchoffen;_ from +_Balmerchoffen_ to _Skellenburg_, where he broke in upon the enemy’s +works; forced his passage over the _Danube;_ cross’d the _Lech_—push’d +on his troops into the heart of the empire, marching at the head of +them through _Fribourg, Hokenwert_, and _Schonevelt_, to the plains of +_Blenheim_ and _Hochstet?_——Great as he was, corporal, he could not +have advanced a step, or made one single day’s march without the aids +of _Geography._——As for _Chronology_, I own, _Trim_, continued my uncle +_Toby_, sitting down again coolly in his sentry-box, that of all +others, it seems a science which the soldier might best spare, was it +not for the lights which that science must one day give him, in +determining the invention of powder; the furious execution of which, +renversing every thing like thunder before it, has become a new æra to +us of military improvements, changing so totally the nature of attacks +and defences both by sea and land, and awakening so much art and skill +in doing it, that the world cannot be too exact in ascertaining the +precise time of its discovery, or too inquisitive in knowing what great +man was the discoverer, and what occasions gave birth to it. + +I am far from controverting, continued my uncle _Toby_, what historians +agree in, that in the year of our Lord 1380, under the reign of +_Wencelaus_, son of _Charles_ the Fourth——a certain priest, whose name +was _Schwartz_, shew’d the use of powder to the _Venetians_, in their +wars against the _Genoese;_ but ’tis certain he was not the first; +because if we are to believe Don _Pedro_, the bishop of _Leon_—How came +priests and bishops, an’ please your honour, to trouble their heads so +much about gun-powder? God knows, said my uncle _Toby_——his providence +brings good out of every thing—and he avers, in his chronicle of King +_Alphonsus_, who reduced _Toledo_, That in the year 1343, which was +full thirty-seven years before that time, the secret of powder was well +known, and employed with success, both by Moors and Christians, not +only in their sea-combats, at that period, but in many of their most +memorable sieges in _Spain_ and _Barbary_—And all the world knows, that +Friar _Bacon_ had wrote expressly about it, and had generously given +the world a receipt to make it by, above a hundred and fifty years +before even _Schwartz_ was born—And that the _Chinese_, added my uncle +_Toby_, embarrass us, and all accounts of it, still more, by boasting +of the invention some hundreds of years even before him—— + +They are a pack of liars, I believe, cried _Trim_—— + +——They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle _Toby_, in this +matter, as is plain to me from the present miserable state of military +architecture amongst them; which consists of nothing more than a fossé +with a brick wall without flanks—and for what they gave us as a bastion +at each angle of it, ’tis so barbarously constructed, that it looks for +all the world—————Like one of my seven castles, an’ please your honour, +quoth _Trim._ + +My uncle _Toby_, tho’ in the utmost distress for a comparison, most +courteously refused _Trim_’s offer—till _Trim_ telling him, he had half +a dozen more in _Bohemia_, which he knew not how to get off his +hands——my uncle _Toby_ was so touch’d with the pleasantry of heart of +the corporal——that he discontinued his dissertation upon +gun-powder——and begged the corporal forthwith to go on with his story +of the King of _Bohemia_ and his seven castles. + +THE STORY OF THE +KING OF BOHEMIA AND +HIS SEVEN CASTLES, +CONTINUED + +THIS unfortunate King of _Bohemia_, said _Trim_,——Was he unfortunate, +then? cried my uncle _Toby_, for he had been so wrapt up in his +dissertation upon gun-powder, and other military affairs, that tho’ he +had desired the corporal to go on, yet the many interruptions he had +given, dwelt not so strong upon his fancy as to account for the +epithet——Was he _unfortunate_, then, _Trim?_ said my uncle _Toby_, +pathetically——The corporal, wishing first the word and all its +synonimas at the devil, forthwith began to run back in his mind, the +principal events in the King of _Bohemia_’s story; from every one of +which, it appearing that he was the most fortunate man that ever +existed in the world——it put the corporal to a stand: for not caring to +retract his epithet——and less to explain it——and least of all, to twist +his tale (like men of lore) to serve a system——he looked up in my uncle +_Toby_’s face for assistance——but seeing it was the very thing my uncle +_Toby_ sat in expectation of himself——after a hum and a haw, he went +on—— + +The King of _Bohemia_, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, +was _unfortunate_, as thus——That taking great pleasure and delight in +navigation and all sort of sea affairs——and there _happening_ +throughout the whole kingdom of _Bohemia_, to be no sea-port town +whatever—— + +How the duce should there—_Trim?_ cried my uncle _Toby;_ for _Bohemia_ +being totally inland, it could have happen’d no otherwise——It might, +said _Trim_, if it had pleased God—— + +My uncle _Toby_ never spoke of the being and natural attributes of God, +but with diffidence and hesitation—— + +——I believe not, replied my uncle _Toby_, after some pause—for being +inland, as I said, and having _Silesia_ and _Moravia_ to the east; +_Lusatia_ and _Upper Saxony_ to the north; _Franconia_ to the west; and +_Bavaria_ to the south; _Bohemia_ could not have been propell’d to the +sea without ceasing to be _Bohemia_——nor could the sea, on the other +hand, have come up to _Bohemia_, without overflowing a great part of +_Germany_, and destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could +make no defence against it——Scandalous! cried _Trim_—Which would +bespeak, added my uncle _Toby_, mildly, such a want of compassion in +him who is the father of it——that, I think, _Trim_——the thing could +have happen’d no way. + +The corporal made the bow of unfeign’d conviction; and went on. + +Now the King of _Bohemia_ with his queen and courtiers _happening_ one +fine summer’s evening to walk out——Aye! there the word _happening_ is +right, _Trim_, cried my uncle _Toby;_ for the King of _Bohemia_ and his +queen might have walk’d out or let it alone:——’twas a matter of +contingency, which might happen, or not, just as chance ordered it. + +King _William_ was of an opinion, an’ please your honour, quoth _Trim_, +that every thing was predestined for us in this world; insomuch, that +he would often say to his soldiers, that “every ball had its billet.” +He was a great man, said my uncle _Toby_——And I believe, continued +_Trim_, to this day, that the shot which disabled me at the battle of +_Landen_, was pointed at my knee for no other purpose, but to take me +out of his service, and place me in your honour’s, where I should be +taken so much better care of in my old age——It shall never, _Trim_, be +construed otherwise, said my uncle _Toby._ + +The heart, both of the master and the man, were alike subject to sudden +over-flowings;——a short silence ensued. + +Besides, said the corporal, resuming the discourse—but in a gayer +accent——if it had not been for that single shot, I had never, ’an +please your honour, been in love—— + +So, thou wast once in love, _Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, smiling—— + +Souse! replied the corporal—over head and ears! an’ please your honour. +Prithee when? where?—and how came it to pass?—I never heard one word of +it before; quoth my uncle _Toby:_——I dare say, answered _Trim_, that +every drummer and serjeant’s son in the regiment knew of it——It’s high +time I should——said my uncle _Toby._ + +Your honour remembers with concern, said the corporal, the total rout +and confusion of our camp and army at the affair of _Landen;_ every one +was left to shift for himself; and if it had not been for the regiments +of _Wyndham, Lumley_, and _Galway_, which covered the retreat over the +bridge _Neerspeeken_, the king himself could scarce have gained it——he +was press’d hard, as your honour knows, on every side of him—— + +Gallant mortal! cried my uncle _Toby_, caught up with enthusiasm—this +moment, now that all is lost, I see him galloping across me, corporal, +to the left, to bring up the remains of the _English_ horse along with +him to support the right, and tear the laurel from _Luxembourg_’s +brows, if yet ’tis possible——I see him with the knot of his scarfe just +shot off, infusing fresh spirits into poor _Galway_’s regiment—riding +along the line—then wheeling about, and charging _Conti_ at the head of +it——Brave, brave, by heaven! cried my uncle _Toby_—he deserves a +crown——As richly, as a thief a halter; shouted _Trim._ + +My uncle _Toby_ knew the corporal’s loyalty;—otherwise the comparison +was not at all to his mind——it did not altogether strike the corporal’s +fancy when he had made it——but it could not be recall’d——so he had +nothing to do, but proceed. + +As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think +of any thing but his own safety—Though _Talmash_, said my uncle _Toby_, +brought off the foot with great prudence——But I was left upon the +field, said the corporal. Thou wast so; poor fellow! replied my uncle +_Toby_—So that it was noon the next day, continued the corporal, before +I was exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more, in +order to be convey’d to our hospital. + +There is no part of the body, an’ please your honour, where a wound +occasions more intolerable anguish than upon the knee—— + +Except the groin; said my uncle _Toby._ An’ please your honour, replied +the corporal, the knee, in my opinion, must certainly be the most +acute, there being so many tendons and what-d’ye-call-’ems all about +it. + +It is for that reason, quoth my uncle _Toby_, that the groin is +infinitely more sensible——there being not only as many tendons and +what-d’ye-call-’ems (for I know their names as little as thou +dost)——about it——but moreover * * *—— + +Mrs. _Wadman_, who had been all the time in her arbour—instantly +stopp’d her breath—unpinn’d her mob at the chin, and stood upon one +leg—— + +The dispute was maintained with amicable and equal force betwixt my +uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ for some time; till _Trim_ at length +recollecting that he had often cried at his master’s sufferings, but +never shed a tear at his own—was for giving up the point, which my +uncle _Toby_ would not allow——’Tis a proof of nothing, _Trim_, said he, +but the generosity of thy temper—— + +So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (cæteris paribus) is +greater than the pain of a wound in the knee——or + +Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of +a wound in the groin——are points which to this day remain unsettled. + +C H A P. XLIV + +THE anguish of my knee, continued the corporal, was excessive in +itself; and the uneasiness of the cart, with the roughness of the +roads, which were terribly cut up—making bad still worse—every step was +death to me: so that with the loss of blood, and the want of +care-taking of me, and a fever I felt coming on besides——(Poor soul! +said my uncle _Toby_)——all together, an’ please your honour, was more +than I could sustain. + +I was telling my sufferings to a young woman at a peasant’s house, +where our cart, which was the last of the line, had halted; they had +help’d me in, and the young woman had taken a cordial out of her pocket +and dropp’d it upon some sugar, and seeing it had cheer’d me, she had +given it me a second and a third time——So I was telling her, an’ please +your honour, the anguish I was in, and was saying it was so intolerable +to me, that I had much rather lie down upon the bed, turning my face +towards one which was in the corner of the room—and die, than go +on——when, upon her attempting to lead me to it, I fainted away in her +arms. She was a good soul! as your honour, said the corporal, wiping +his eyes, will hear. + +I thought _love_ had been a joyous thing, quoth my uncle _Toby._ + +’Tis the most serious thing, an’ please your honour (sometimes), that +is in the world. + +By the persuasion of the young woman, continued the corporal, the cart +with the wounded men set off without me: she had assured them I should +expire immediately if I was put into the cart. So when I came to +myself——I found myself in a still quiet cottage, with no one but the +young woman, and the peasant and his wife. I was laid across the bed in +the corner of the room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the young +woman beside me, holding the corner of her handkerchief dipp’d in +vinegar to my nose with one hand, and rubbing my temples with the +other. + +I took her at first for the daughter of the peasant (for it was no +inn)—so had offer’d her a little purse with eighteen florins, which my +poor brother _Tom_ (here _Trim_ wip’d his eyes) had sent me as a token, +by a recruit, just before he set out for _Lisbon_—— + +——I never told your honour that piteous story yet——here _Trim_ wiped +his eyes a third time. + +The young woman call’d the old man and his wife into the room, to shew +them the money, in order to gain me credit for a bed and what little +necessaries I should want, till I should be in a condition to be got to +the hospital——Come then! said she, tying up the little purse—I’ll be +your banker—but as that office alone will not keep me employ’d, I’ll be +your nurse too. + +I thought by her manner of speaking this, as well as by her dress, +which I then began to consider more attentively——that the young woman +could not be the daughter of the peasant. + +She was in black down to her toes, with her hair conceal’d under a +cambric border, laid close to her forehead: she was one of those kind +of nuns, an’ please your honour, of which, your honour knows, there are +a good many in _Flanders_, which they let go loose——By thy description, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, I dare say she was a young _Beguine_, of +which there are none to be found any where but in the _Spanish +Netherlands_—except at _Amsterdam_——they differ from nuns in this, that +they can quit their cloister if they choose to marry; they visit and +take care of the sick by profession——I had rather, for my own part, +they did it out of good-nature. + +——She often told me, quoth _Trim_, she did it for the love of Christ—I +did not like it.——I believe, _Trim_, we are both wrong, said my uncle +_Toby_—we’ll ask Mr. _Yorick_ about it to-night at my brother +_Shandy_’s——so put me in mind; added my uncle _Toby._ + +The young _Beguine_, continued the corporal, had scarce given herself +time to tell me “she would be my nurse,” when she hastily turned about +to begin the office of one, and prepare something for me——and in a +short time—though I thought it a long one—she came back with flannels, +&c. &c. and having fomented my knee soundly for a couple of hours, &c. +and made me a thin bason of gruel for my supper—she wish’d me rest, and +promised to be with me early in the morning.——She wish’d me, an’ please +your honour, what was not to be had. My fever ran very high that +night—her figure made sad disturbance within me—I was every moment +cutting the world in two—to give her half of it—and every moment was I +crying, That I had nothing but a knapsack and eighteen florins to share +with her——The whole night long was the fair _Beguine_, like an angel, +close by my bed-side, holding back my curtain and offering me +cordials—and I was only awakened from my dream by her coming there at +the hour promised, and giving them in reality. In truth, she was scarce +ever from me; and so accustomed was I to receive life from her hands, +that my heart sickened, and I lost colour when she left the room: and +yet, continued the corporal (making one of the strangest reflections +upon it in the world)—— + +——“_It was not love_”——for during the three weeks she was almost +constantly with me, fomenting my knee with her hand, night and day—I +can honestly say, an’ please your honour—that * * * * * * * * * * * * * +* * * * once. + +That was very odd, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby._ + +I think so too—said Mrs. _Wadman._ + +It never did, said the corporal. + +C H A P. XLV + +——But ’tis no marvel, continued the corporal—seeing my uncle _Toby_ +musing upon it—for Love, an’ please your honour, is exactly like war, +in this; that a soldier, though he has escaped three weeks complete +o’_Saturday_ night,—may nevertheless be shot through his heart on +_Sunday_ morning——_It happened so here_, an’ please your honour, with +this difference only—that it was on _Sunday_ in the afternoon, when I +fell in love all at once with a sisserara——It burst upon me, an’ please +your honour, like a bomb——scarce giving me time to say, “God bless me.” + +I thought, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, a man never fell in love so +very suddenly. + +Yes, an’ please your honour, if he is in the way of it——replied _Trim._ + +I prithee, quoth my uncle _Toby_, inform me how this matter happened. + +——With all pleasure, said the corporal, making a bow. + +C H A P. XLVI + +I HAD escaped, continued the corporal, all that time from falling in +love, and had gone on to the end of the chapter, had it not been +predestined otherwise——there is no resisting our fate. + +It was on a _Sunday_, in the afternoon, as I told your honour. + +The old man and his wife had walked out—— + +Every thing was still and hush as midnight about the house—— + +There was not so much as a duck or a duckling about the yard—— + +——When the fair _Beguine_ came in to see me. + +My wound was then in a fair way of doing well——the inflammation had +been gone off for some time, but it was succeeded with an itching both +above and below my knee, so insufferable, that I had not shut my eyes +the whole night for it. + +Let me see it, said she, kneeling down upon the ground parallel to my +knee, and laying her hand upon the part below it——it only wants rubbing +a little, said the _Beguine;_ so covering it with the bed-clothes, she +began with the fore-finger of her right hand to rub under my knee, +guiding her fore-finger backwards and forwards by the edge of the +flannel which kept on the dressing. + +In five or six minutes I felt slightly the end of her second finger—and +presently it was laid flat with the other, and she continued rubbing in +that way round and round for a good while; it then came into my head, +that I should fall in love—I blush’d when I saw how white a hand she +had—I shall never, an’ please your honour, behold another hand so white +whilst I live—— + +——Not in that place, said my uncle _Toby_—— + +Though it was the most serious despair in nature to the corporal—he +could not forbear smiling. + +The young _Beguine_, continued the corporal, perceiving it was of great +service to me—from rubbing for some time, with two fingers—proceeded to +rub at length, with three—till by little and little she brought down +the fourth, and then rubb’d with her whole hand: I will never say +another word, an’ please your honour, upon hands again—but it was +softer than sattin—— + +——Prithee, _Trim_, commend it as much as thou wilt, said my uncle +_Toby;_ I shall hear thy story with the more delight——The corporal +thank’d his master most unfeignedly; but having nothing to say upon the +_Beguine_’s hand but the same over again——he proceeded to the effects +of it. + +The fair _Beguine_, said the corporal, continued rubbing with her whole +hand under my knee—till I fear’d her zeal would weary her——“I would do +a thousand times more,” said she, “for the love of Christ”——In saying +which, she pass’d her hand across the flannel, to the part above my +knee, which I had equally complain’d of, and rubb’d it also. + +I perceiv’d, then, I was beginning to be in love—— + +As she continued rub-rub-rubbing—I felt it spread from under her hand, +an’ please your honour, to every part of my frame—— + +The more she rubb’d, and the longer strokes she took——the more the fire +kindled in my veins——till at length, by two or three strokes longer +than the rest——my passion rose to the highest pitch——I seiz’d her +hand—— + +——And then thou clapped’st it to thy lips, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_——and madest a speech. + +Whether the corporal’s amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle +_Toby_ described it, is not material; it is enough that it contained in +it the essence of all the love romances which ever have been wrote +since the beginning of the world. + +C H A P. XLVII + +AS soon as the corporal had finished the story of his amour—or rather +my uncle _Toby_ for him—Mrs. _Wadman_ silently sallied forth from her +arbour, replaced the pin in her mob, pass’d the wicker gate, and +advanced slowly towards my uncle _Toby_’s sentry-box: the disposition +which _Trim_ had made in my uncle _Toby_’s mind, was too favourable a +crisis to be let slipp’d—— + +——The attack was determin’d upon: it was facilitated still more by my +uncle _Toby_’s having ordered the corporal to wheel off the pioneer’s +shovel, the spade, the pick-axe, the picquets, and other military +stores which lay scatter’d upon the ground where _Dunkirk_ stood—The +corporal had march’d—the field was clear. + +Now, consider, sir, what nonsense it is, either in fighting, or +writing, or any thing else (whether in rhyme to it, or not) which a man +has occasion to do—to act by plan: for if ever Plan, independent of all +circumstances, deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean in the +archives of _Gotham_)—it was certainly the PLAN of Mrs. _Wadman_’s +attack of my uncle _Toby_ in his sentry-box, BY PLAN——Now the plan +hanging up in it at this juncture, being the Plan of _Dunkirk_—and the +tale of _Dunkirk_ a tale of relaxation, it opposed every impression she +could make: and besides, could she have gone upon it—the manœuvre of +fingers and hands in the attack of the sentry-box, was so outdone by +that of the fair _Beguine_’s, in _Trim_’s story—that just then, that +particular attack, however successful before—became the most heartless +attack that could be made—— + +O! let woman alone for this. Mrs. _Wadman_ had scarce open’d the +wicker-gate, when her genius sported with the change of circumstances. + +——She formed a new attack in a moment. + +C H A P. XLVIII + +——I am half distracted, captain _Shandy_, said Mrs. _Wadman_, holding +up her cambrick handkerchief to her left eye, as she approach’d the +door of my uncle _Toby_’s sentry-box——a mote——or sand——or something——I +know not what, has got into this eye of mine——do look into it—it is not +in the white— + +In saying which, Mrs. _Wadman_ edged herself close in beside my uncle +_Toby_, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she +gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up—Do look into +it—said she. + +Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart, +as ever child look’d into a raree-shew-box; and ’twere as much a sin to +have hurt thee. + +——If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that +nature——I’ve nothing to say to it—— + +My uncle _Toby_ never did: and I will answer for him, that he would +have sat quietly upon a sofa from _June_ to _January_ (which, you know, +takes in both the hot and cold months), with an eye as fine as the +_Thracian_[40] _Rodope_’s besides him, without being able to tell, +whether it was a black or blue one. + +The difficulty was to get my uncle _Toby_, to look at one at all. + +’Tis surmounted. And + +I see him yonder with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes +falling out of it—looking—and looking—then rubbing his eyes—and looking +again, with twice the good-nature that ever _Galileo_ look’d for a spot +in the sun. + +——In vain! for by all the powers which animate the organ——Widow +_Wadman_’s left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right——there is +neither mote, or sand, or dust, or chaff, or speck, or particle of +opake matter floating in it—There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! +but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part +of it, in all directions, into thine—— + +——If thou lookest, uncle _Toby_, in search of this mote one moment +longer,——thou art undone. + + [40] _Rodope Thracia_ tam inevitabili fascino instructa, tam exactè + oculus intuens attraxit, ut si in illam quis incidisset, fieri non + posset, quin caperetur.——I know not who. + +C H A P. XLIX + +AN eye is for all the world exactly like a cannon, in this respect; +That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is +the carriage of the eye——and the carriage of the cannon, by which both +the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution. I don’t +think the comparison a bad one: However, as ’tis made and placed at the +head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in +return, is, that whenever I speak of Mrs. _Wadman_’s eyes (except once +in the next period), that you keep it in your fancy. + +I protest, Madam, said my uncle _Toby_, I can see nothing whatever in +your eye. + +It is not in the white; said Mrs _Wadman:_ my uncle _Toby_ look’d with +might and main into the pupil—— + +Now of all the eyes which ever were created——from your own, Madam, up +to those of _Venus_ herself, which certainly were as venereal a pair of +eyes as ever stood in a head——there never was an eye of them all, so +fitted to rob my uncle _Toby_ of his repose, as the very eye, at which +he was looking——it was not, Madam a rolling eye——a romping or a wanton +one—nor was it an eye sparkling—petulant or imperious—of high claims +and terrifying exactions, which would have curdled at once that milk of +human nature, of which my uncle _Toby_ was made up——but ’twas an eye +full of gentle salutations——and soft responses——speaking——not like the +trumpet stop of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to, +holds coarse converse——but whispering soft——like the last low accent of +an expiring saint——“How can you live comfortless, captain _Shandy_, and +alone, without a bosom to lean your head on——or trust your cares to?” + +It was an eye—— + +But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it. + +——It did my uncle _Toby_’s business. + +C H A P. L + +THERE is nothing shews the character of my father and my uncle _Toby_, +in a more entertaining light, than their different manner of +deportment, under the same accident——for I call not love a misfortune, +from a persuasion, that a man’s heart is ever the better for it——Great +God! what must my uncle _Toby_’s have been, when ’twas all benignity +without it. + +My father, as appears from many of his papers, was very subject to this +passion, before he married——but from a little subacid kind of drollish +impatience in his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never submit +to it like a christian; but would pish, and huff, and bounce, and kick, +and play the Devil, and write the bitterest Philippicks against the eye +that ever man wrote——there is one in verse upon somebody’s eye or +other, that for two or three nights together, had put him by his rest; +which in his first transport of resentment against it, he begins thus: + +“A Devil ’tis——and mischief such doth work +As never yet did _Pagan, Jew_, or _Turk._”[41] + +In short, during the whole paroxism, my father was all abuse and foul +language, approaching rather towards malediction——only he did not do it +with as much method as _Ernulphus_——he was too impetuous; nor with +_Ernulphus_’s policy——for tho’ my father, with the most intolerant +spirit, would curse both this and that, and every thing under heaven, +which was either aiding or abetting to his love——yet never concluded +his chapter of curses upon it, without cursing himself in at the +bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and cox-combs, he would +say, that ever was let loose in the world. + +My uncle _Toby_, on the contrary, took it like a lamb——sat still and +let the poison work in his veins without resistance——in the sharpest +exacerbations of his wound (like that on his groin) he never dropt one +fretful or discontented word——he blamed neither heaven nor earth——or +thought or spoke an injurious thing of any body, or any part of it; he +sat solitary and pensive with his pipe——looking at his lame leg——then +whiffing out a sentimental heigh ho! which mixing with the smoke, +incommoded no one mortal. + +He took it like a lamb——I say. + +In truth he had mistook it at first; for having taken a ride with my +father, that very morning, to save if possible a beautiful wood, which +the dean and chapter were hewing down to give to the poor;[42] which +said wood being in full view of my uncle _Toby_’s house, and of +singular service to him in his description of the battle of +_Wynnendale_—by trotting on too hastily to save it——upon an uneasy +saddle——worse horse, &c. &c. . . it had so happened, that the serous +part of the blood had got betwixt the two skins, in the nethermost part +of my uncle _Toby_——the first shootings of which (as my uncle _Toby_ +had no experience of love) he had taken for a part of the passion—till +the blister breaking in the one case—and the other remaining—my uncle +_Toby_ was presently convinced, that his wound was not a skin-deep +wound——but that it had gone to his heart. + + [41] This will be printed with my father’s Life of _Socrates_, &c. &c. + + [42] Mr _Shandy_ must mean the poor _in spirit;_ inasmuch as they + divided the money amongst themselves. + +C H A P. LI + +THE world is ashamed of being virtuous——my uncle _Toby_ knew little of +the world; and therefore when he felt he was in love with widow +_Wadman_, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a +mystery of, than if Mrs. _Wadman_ had given him a cut with a gap’d +knife across his finger: Had it been otherwise——yet as he ever look’d +upon _Trim_ as a humble friend; and saw fresh reasons every day of his +life, to treat him as such——it would have made no variation in the +manner in which he informed him of the affair. + +“I am in love, corporal!” quoth my uncle _Toby._ + +C H A P. LII + +IN love!——said the corporal—your honour was very well the day before +yesterday, when I was telling your honour of the story of the King of +_Bohemia—Bohemia!_ said my uncle _Toby_ - - - - musing a long time - - +- What became of that story, _Trim?_ + +—We lost it, an’ please your honour, somehow betwixt us—but your honour +was as free from love then, as I am——’twas just whilst thou went’st off +with the wheel-barrow——with Mrs. _Wadman_, quoth my uncle _Toby_——She +has left a ball here—added my uncle _Toby_—pointing to his breast—— + +——She can no more, an’ please your honour, stand a siege, than she can +fly—cried the corporal—— + +——But as we are neighbours, _Trim_,—the best way I think is to let her +know it civilly first—quoth my uncle _Toby._ + +Now if I might presume, said the corporal, to differ from your honour—— + +—Why else do I talk to thee, _Trim?_ said my uncle _Toby_, mildly—— + +—Then I would begin, an’ please your honour, with making a good +thundering attack upon her, in return—and telling her civilly +afterwards—for if she knows any thing of your honour’s being in love, +before hand——L—d help her!—she knows no more at present of it, _Trim_, +said my uncle _Toby_—than the child unborn—— + +Precious souls!—— + +Mrs. _Wadman_ had told it, with all its circumstances, to Mrs. +_Bridget_ twenty-four hours before; and was at that very moment sitting +in council with her, touching some slight misgivings with regard to the +issue of the affairs, which the Devil, who never lies dead in a ditch, +had put into her head—before he would allow half time, to get quietly +through her _Te Deum._ + +I am terribly afraid, said widow _Wadman_, in case I should marry him, +_Bridget_—that the poor captain will not enjoy his health, with the +monstrous wound upon his groin—— + +It may not, Madam, be so very large, replied _Bridget_, as you +think——and I believe, besides, added she—that ’tis dried up—— + +——I could like to know—merely for his sake, said Mrs. _Wadman_—— + +—We’ll know and long and the broad of it, in ten days—answered Mrs. +_Bridget_, for whilst the captain is paying his addresses to you—I’m +confident Mr. _Trim_ will be for making love to me—and I’ll let him as +much as he will—added _Bridget_—to get it all out of him—— + +The measures were taken at once——and my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal +went on with theirs. + +Now, quoth the corporal, setting his left hand a-kimbo, and giving such +a flourish with his right, as just promised success—and no more——if +your honour will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack—— + +——Thou wilt please me by it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, +exceedingly—and as I foresee thou must act in it as my _aid de camp_, +here’s a crown, corporal, to begin with, to steep thy commission. + +Then, an’ please your honour, said the corporal (making a bow first for +his commission)—we will begin with getting your honour’s laced clothes +out of the great campaign-trunk, to be well air’d, and have the blue +and gold taken up at the sleeves—and I’ll put your white ramallie-wig +fresh into pipes—and send for a taylor, to have your honour’s thin +scarlet breeches turn’d—— + +—I had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle _Toby_—They will +be too clumsy—said the corporal. + +C H A P. LIII + +——Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword——’Twill be only +in your honour’s way, replied _Trim._ + +C H A P. LIV + +—But your honour’s two razors shall be new set—and I will get my +_Montero_ cap furbish’d up, and put on poor lieutenant _Le Fever_’s +regimental coat, which your honour gave me to wear for his sake—and as +soon as your honour is clean shaved—and has got your clean shirt on, +with your blue and gold, or your fine scarlet——sometimes one and +sometimes t’other—and every thing is ready for the attack—we’ll march +up boldly, as if ’twas to the face of a bastion; and whilst your honour +engages Mrs. _Wadman_ in the parlour, to the right——I’ll attack Mrs. +_Bridget_ in the kitchen, to the left; and having seiz’d the pass, I’ll +answer for it, said the corporal, snapping his fingers over his +head—that the day is our own. + +I wish I may but manage it right; said my uncle _Toby_—but I declare, +corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench—— + +—A woman is quite a different thing—said the corporal. + +—I suppose so, quoth my uncle _Toby._ + +C H A P. LV + +IF any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked +my uncle _Toby_, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse +use my father was always making of an expression of _Hilarion_ the +hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, +flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would +say—tho’ with more facetiousness than became an hermit—“That they were +the means he used, to make his _ass_ (meaning his body) leave off +kicking.” + +It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconick way of +expressing——but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and +appetites of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my +father’s life, ’twas his constant mode of expression—he never used the +word _passions_ once—but _ass_ always instead of them——So that he might +be said truly, to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass, +or else of some other man’s, during all that time. + +I must here observe to you the difference betwixt + +My father’s ass + +and my hobby-horse—in order to keep characters as separate as may be, +in our fancies as we go along. + +For my hobby-horse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious +beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him——’Tis +the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present +hour—a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestick—an uncle _Toby_’s +siege—or an _any thing_, which a man makes a shift to get a-stride on, +to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life—’Tis as useful +a beast as is in the whole creation—nor do I really see how the world +could do without it—— + +——But for my father’s ass——oh! mount him—mount him—mount him—(that’s +three times, is it not?)—mount him not:—’tis a beast concupiscent—and +foul befal the man, who does not hinder him from kicking. + +C H A P. LVI + +WELL! dear brother _Toby_, said my father, upon his first seeing him +after he fell in love—and how goes it with your ASSE? + +Now my uncle _Toby_ thinking more of the part where he had had the +blister, than of _Hilarion_’s metaphor—and our preconceptions having +(you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of +things, he had imagined, that my father, who was not very ceremonious +in his choice of words, had enquired after the part by its proper name: +so notwithstanding my mother, doctor _Slop_, and Mr. _Yorick_, were +sitting in the parlour, he thought it rather civil to conform to the +term my father had made use of than not. When a man is hemm’d in by two +indecorums, and must commit one of ’em—I always observe—let him chuse +which he will, the world will blame him—so I should not be astonished +if it blames my uncle _Toby._ + +My A—e, quoth my uncle _Toby_, is much better—brother _Shandy_—My +father had formed great expectations from his Asse in this onset; and +would have brought him on again; but doctor _Slop_ setting up an +intemperate laugh—and my mother crying out L— bless us!—it drove my +father’s Asse off the field—and the laugh then becoming general—there +was no bringing him back to the charge, for some time—— + +And so the discourse went on without him. + +Every body, said my mother, says you are in love, brother _Toby_,—and +we hope it is true. + +I am as much in love, sister, I believe, replied my uncle _Toby_, as +any man usually is——Humph! said my father——and when did you know it? +quoth my mother—— + +——When the blister broke; replied my uncle _Toby._ + +My uncle _Toby_’s reply put my father into good temper—so he charg’d o’ +foot. + +C H A P. LVII + +AS the ancients agree, brother _Toby_, said my father, that there are +two different and distinct kinds of love, according to the different +parts which are affected by it—the Brain or Liver——I think when a man +is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he is +fallen into. + +What signifies it, brother _Shandy_, replied my uncle _Toby_, which of +the two it is, provided it will but make a man marry, and love his +wife, and get a few children? + +——A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking +full in my mother’s face, as he forced his way betwixt her’s and doctor +_Slop_’s—a few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle _Toby_’s +words as he walk’d to and fro—— + +——Not, my dear brother _Toby_, cried my father, recovering himself all +at once, and coming close up to the back of my uncle _Toby_’s chair—not +that I should be sorry hadst thou a score—on the contrary, I should +rejoice—and be as kind, _Toby_, to every one of them as a father— + +My uncle _Toby_ stole his hand unperceived behind his chair, to give my +father’s a squeeze—— + +——Nay, moreover, continued he, keeping hold of my uncle _Toby_’s +hand—so much dost thou possess, my dear _Toby_, of the milk of human +nature, and so little of its asperities—’tis piteous the world is not +peopled by creatures which resemble thee; and was I an _Asiatic_ +monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new project—I would +oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strength—or dry up thy +radical moisture too fast—or weaken thy memory or fancy, brother +_Toby_, which these gymnics inordinately taken are apt to do—else, dear +_Toby_, I would procure thee the most beautiful woman in my empire, and +I would oblige thee, _nolens, volens_, to beget for me one subject +every _month_—— + +As my father pronounced the last word of the sentence—my mother took a +pinch of snuff. + +Now I would not, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get a child, _nolens, volens_, +that is, whether I would or no, to please the greatest prince upon +earth—— + +——And ’twould be cruel in me, brother _Toby_, to compel thee; said my +father—but ’tis a case put to shew thee, that it is not thy begetting a +child—in case thou should’st be able—but the system of Love and +Marriage thou goest upon, which I would set thee right in—— + +There is at least, said _Yorick_, a great deal of reason and plain +sense in captain _Shandy_’s opinion of love; and ’tis amongst the +ill-spent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have +read so many flourishing poets and rhetoricians in my time, from whom I +never could extract so much—— + +I wish, _Yorick_, said my father, you had read _Plato;_ for there you +would have learnt that there are two LOVES—I know there were two +RELIGIONS, replied _Yorick_, amongst the ancients——one—for the vulgar, +and another for the learned;—but I think ONE LOVE might have served +both of them very well— + +I could not; replied my father—and for the same reasons: for of these +Loves, according to _Ficinus_’s comment upon _Velasius_, the one is +rational—— + +——the other is _natural_—— +the first ancient——without mother——where _Venus_ had nothing to do: the +second, begotten of _Jupiter_ and _Dione_— + +——Pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, what has a man who believes in +God to do with this? My father could not stop to answer, for fear of +breaking the thread of his discourse—— + +This latter, continued he, partakes wholly of the nature of _Venus._ + +The first, which is the golden chain let down from heaven, excites to +love heroic, which comprehends in it, and excites to the desire of +philosophy and truth——the second, excites to _desire_, simply—— + +——I think the procreation of children as beneficial to the world, said +_Yorick_, as the finding out the longitude—— + +——To be sure, said my mother, _love_ keeps peace in the world—— + +——In the _house_—my dear, I own— + +——It replenishes the earth; said my mother—— + +But it keeps heaven empty—my dear; replied my father. + +——’Tis Virginity, cried _Slop_, triumphantly, which fills paradise. + +Well push’d nun! quoth my father. + +C H A P. LVIII + +MY father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of a slashing way with +him in his disputations, thrusting and ripping, and giving every one a +re were twenty people in company—in less than half an hour he was sure +to have every one of ’em against him. + +What did not a little contribute to leave him thus without an ally, +was, that if there was any one post more untenable than the rest, he +would be sure to throw himself into it; and to do him justice, when he +was once there, he would defend it so gallantly, that ’twould have been +a concern, either to a brave man or a good-natured one, to have seen +him driven out. + +_Yorick_, for this reason, though he would often attack him—yet could +never bear to do it with all his force. + +Doctor _Slop_’s VIRGINITY, in the close of the last chapter, had got +him for once on the right side of the rampart; and he was beginning to +blow up all the convents in _Christendom_ about _Slop_’s ears, when +corporal _Trim_ came into the parlour to inform my uncle _Toby_, that +his thin scarlet breeches, in which the attack was to be made upon Mrs. +_Wadman_, would not do; for that the taylor, in ripping them up, in +order to turn them, had found they had been turn’d before——Then turn +them again, brother, said my father, rapidly, for there will be many a +turning of ’em yet before all’s done in the affair——They are as rotten +as dirt, said the corporal——Then by all means, said my father, bespeak +a new pair, brother——for though I know, continued my father, turning +himself to the company, that widow _Wadman_ has been deeply in love +with my brother _Toby_ for many years, and has used every art and +circumvention of woman to outwit him into the same passion, yet now +that she has caught him——her fever will be pass’d its height—— + +——She has gained her point. + +In this case, continued my father, which _Plato_, I am persuaded, never +thought of——Love, you see, is not so much a SENTIMENT as a SITUATION, +into which a man enters, as my brother _Toby_ would do, into a +_corps_——no matter whether he loves the service or no——being once in +it—he acts as if he did; and takes every step to shew himself a man of +prowesse. + +The hypothesis, like the rest of my father’s, was plausible enough, and +my uncle _Toby_ had but a single word to object to it—in which _Trim_ +stood ready to second him——but my father had not drawn his conclusion—— + +For this reason, continued my father (stating the case over +again)—notwithstanding all the world knows, that Mrs. _Wadman affects_ +my brother _Toby_—and my brother _Toby_ contrariwise _affects_ Mrs. +_Wadman_, and no obstacle in nature to forbid the music striking up +this very night, yet will I answer for it, that this self-same tune +will not be play’d this twelvemonth. + +We have taken our measures badly, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking up +interrogatively in _Trim_’s face. + +I would lay my _Montero_-cap, said _Trim_——Now _Trim_’s _Montero_-cap, +as I once told you, was his constant wager; and having furbish’d it up +that very night, in order to go upon the attack—it made the odds look +more considerable——I would lay, an’ please your honour, my +_Montero_-cap to a shilling—was it proper, continued _Trim_ (making a +bow), to offer a wager before your honours—— + +——There is nothing improper in it, said my father—’tis a mode of +expression; for in saying thou would’st lay thy _Montero_-cap to a +shilling—all thou meanest is this—that thou believest—— + +——Now, What do’st thou believe? + +That widow _Wadman_, an’ please your worship, cannot hold it out ten +days—— + +And whence, cried _Slop_, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of +woman, friend? + +By falling in love with a popish clergy-woman; 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 oftner 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 her +from 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 every thing, dear +_Toby_, for best, + +I rest thy affectionate brother, + +WALTER SHANDY. + +C H A P. LIX + +WHILST my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle +_Toby_ and the corporal were busy in preparing every thing 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 resolv’d 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[43] 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. + + [43] Alluding to the first edition. + +C H A P. LX + +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. + +C H A P. LXI + +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 every where 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 every thing 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 straight 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. + +C H A P. LXII + +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 +taking bawdy.—— + +——And suppose it is? my father would say. + +C H A P. LXIII + +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—— + +squiqqly line diagonally across the page + +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. + +C H A P. LXIV + +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 every body 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 waist-coat 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 every body 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. + +C H A P. LXV + +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. + +C H A P. LXVI + +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. + +C H A P. LXVII + +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——every thing 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! + +C H A P. LXVIII + +NOW, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation——I would not give a +groat. + +C H A P. LXIX + +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 danglings, 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. + +C H A P. LXX + +——“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. + +C H A P. LXXI + +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 every thing 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. + +C H A P. LXXII + +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 +(εξωιεριχη πραξις) as he calls it——but he is deceived: the soul and +body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but +his ideas get cloth’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 is 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. + +C H A P. LXXIII + +AS I never had any intention of beginning the Digression, I am making +all this preparation for, till I come to the 74th 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 before-hand, 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—— + +C H A P. LXXIV + +THE seventy-fourth 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._ + +C H A P. LXXV + +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. + +C H A P. LXXVI + +AS Mrs. _Bridget_’s finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal +did not knock as often 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 any thing 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. + +C H A P. LXXVII + +C H A P. LXXVIII + +C H A P. LXXIX + +—— * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. + +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * +*.—— + +——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 cheerfully 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. + +C H A P. LXXX + +AS there are fifty different ends (counting all ends in——as well civil +as religious) for which a woman takes a husband, the 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. + +C H A P. LXXXI + +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 every +thing 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._ + +C H A P. LXXXII + +MRS. _Bridget_ had pawn’d all the little stock of honour a poor +chamber-maid 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. + +C H A P. LXXXIII + +——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. + +T H E I N V O C A T I O N + +GENTLE Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of +my beloved CERVANTES; Thou who glidedst daily through his lattice, and +turned’st the twilight of his prison into noon-day 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[44], 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 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 tinder-box 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 gate-way, 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; +every thing 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!_ + + [44] He lost his hand at the battle of _Lepanto._ + +C H A P. LXXXIV + +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 84th chapter of my book, before the 77th, &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 Seventy-seventh 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 processe 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-achs—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 Seventy-eighth + +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. + +C H A P. LXXXV + +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 any body 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[45] _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 +_péle mele_ 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 fore-finger 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 to 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. + + [45] This must be a mistake in Mr. _Shandy;_ for _Graaf_ wrote upon + the pancreatick juice, and the parts of generation. + +C H A P. LXXXVI + +MYy uncle _Toby_’s Map is carried down into the kitchen. + +C H A P. LXXXVII + +——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 protruberance——’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 * * * * * * +* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. + +C H A P. LXXXVIII + +IT was like the momentary contest in the moist eye-lids of an _April_ +morning, “Whether Bridget should laugh or cry.” + +She snatch’d 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. + +C H A P. LXXXIX + +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. + +C H A P. XC + +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 +H U M A N I T Y - - - - 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. + +C H A P. XCI + +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 re-kindled 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. + +C H A P. XCII + +——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 every thing; 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 house-maid——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. + +END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM SHANDY *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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