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diff --git a/39270-0.txt b/39270-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08d5ead --- /dev/null +++ b/39270-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22674 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. 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 + +Commentator: George Saintsbury + +Release Date: March 26, 2012 [eBook #39270] +[Most recently updated: August 24, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Louise Hope, Malcolm Farmer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM SHANDY *** + + + + +[Transcriber’s Note: + +Text marked #like this# was printed in blackletter (“Gothic”) type. +Nested _lines_ represent emphatic Roman text within Italic body text. +The notation [-->] represents a pointing finger. + +The editor’s Introduction says: + + No attempt has been made to correct any oddities of spelling + that are not clearly mere misprints. + +The same principle was used in the e-text. Unless otherwise noted, +spelling, punctuation and capitalization are as in the original. +Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text. Footnotes +are numbered by Book, and are shown at the end of each chapter. All +footnotes to the word “volume” have the same text. + +Except for footnotes and similar obvious additions, all brackets are in +the original.] + + + + + Everyman’s Library + Edited By Ernest Rhys + + + FICTION + + + TRISTRAM SHANDY + + With An Introduction By + + GEORGE SAINTSBURY + + + + + This is No. 617 of _EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY_. The Publishers will be + pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published + and projected volumes, arranged under the following sections: + + Travel * Science * Fiction + Theology & Philosophy + History * Classical + For Young People + Essays * Oratory + Poetry & Drama + Biography + Reference + Romance + + [Decoration] + + In four styles of binding: Cloth, Flat Back, Coloured Top; + Leather, Round Corners, Gilt Top; Library Binding in Cloth, + & Quarter Pigskin + + London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. + New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. + + + + + [Decorative Text: + + A TALE + WHICH + HOLDETH + CHILDREN + FROM PLAY + & OLD MEN + FROM THE + CHIMNEY + CORNER + + Sir Philip Sidney] + + + + + [Decorative Text: + + THE LIFE & + OPINIONS of + TRISTRAM + SHANDY * + GENTLEMAN + By LAURENCE + * STERNE + + London & Toronto + J·M·Dent & Sons + Ltd. * New York + E·P·Dutton & Co] + + + + + First Issue of this Edition 1912 + Reprinted 1915, 1917 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +It can hardly be said that Sterne was an unfortunate person during his +lifetime, though he seems to have thought himself so. His childhood was +indeed a little necessitous, and he died early, and in debt, after some +years of very bad health. But from the time when he went to Cambridge, +things went on the whole very fairly well with him in respect of +fortune; his ill-health does not seem to have caused him much disquiet; +his last ten years gave him fame, flirting, wandering, and other +pleasures and diversions to his heart’s content; and his debts only +troubled those he left behind him. He delighted in his daughter; he was +able to get rid of his wife, when he was more than usually _fatigatus et +aegrotus_ of her, with singular ease. During the unknown, or almost +unknown, middle of his life he had friends of the kind most congenial to +him; and both in his time of preparation and his time of production in +literature, he was able to indulge his genius in a way by no means +common with men of letters. If his wish to die in a certain manner and +circumstance was only bravado--and borrowed bravado--still it was +granted; and it is quite certain that to him an old age of real illness +would have been unmitigated torture. Even if we admit the ghastly +stories of the fate of his remains, there was very little reason why any +one should not have anticipated Mr. Swinburne’s words on the morrow of +Sterne’s death and said, “Oh! brother, the gods were good to you,” +though even then he might have said it with a sort of mental reservation +on the question whether Sterne had been very good to the gods. + +Nemesis, for the purpose of adjusting things, played him the +exceptionally savage trick of using the intervention of his idolised +daughter. Little or nothing seems to be known of “Lydia Sterne de +Medalle,” as she was pleased to sign herself; “Mrs. Medalle,” as her +bluff British contemporaries call her. But that she must have been +either a very silly, a very stupid, or an excessively callous person, +appears certain. It would seem, indeed, to require a combination of the +flightiness and lack of taste which her father too often displayed, with +the stolidity which (from rather unfair inference through Mrs. Shandy) +is sometimes supposed to have characterised her mother, to prompt or +permit a daughter to publish such a collection of letters as those which +were first given to the world in 1775. Charity, not unsupported by +probability, has trusted that Madame de Medalle could not read Latin, +but she certainly could read English; and only an utterly corrupted +heart, or an incurably dense or feather-brained head, could hide from +her the fact that not a few of the English letters she published were +damaging to her father’s character. Her alleged excuse--that her mother, +who was then dead, had desired her, if any letters should be published +under her father’s name, to publish these, and that the “Yorick and +Eliza” correspondence had appeared--is utterly insufficient. For Mrs. +Sterne, of whose conduct we know nothing unfavourable, and one or two +things decidedly to her credit, could only have meant “such of these as +will put your father in a favourable light,” else she would have +published them herself. Yet though Lydia could, while taking no +editorial trouble whatever, go out of her way to make a silly missish +apology for publishing a passage in which her charms and merits are +celebrated, she seems never to have given a thought to what she was +doing in other ways. Nor were Sterne’s misfortunes in this way over with +the publication of these things; for the subsequently discovered +Fourmentelle correspondence sunk him, with precise judges, a little +deeper. No doubt _Tristram Shandy_, the _Sentimental Journey_, and the +curious stories or traditions about their author, were not exactly +calculated to give Sterne a very high reputation with grave authorities. +But it is these unlucky letters which put him almost hopelessly out of +court. Even the slight relenting of fortune which gave him at last, in +Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, a biographer very good-natured, very +indefatigable, and with a natural genius for detecting undiscovered +facts and documents, only made matters worse in some ways. And the +consequence is, that it has become a commonplace and almost a necessity +to make up for praising Sterne’s genius by damning his character. +Johnson, while declining to deny him ability, seems to have been too +much disgusted to talk freely about him; Scott’s natural kindliness, +warm admiration for my Uncle Toby, and total freedom from squeamish +prudery, seem yet to have left him ill at ease and tongue-tied in +discussing Sterne; Thackeray, as is well known, exceeded all measure in +denouncing him; and his chief recent critical biographer, Mr. Traill, +who is probably as free from cant, Britannic or other, as any man who +ever wrote in English, speaks his mind in the most unsparing fashion. + +For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that I do not think letters of +this kind ought to be published at all; and though it may seem +paradoxical or foolish, I am by no means sure that, if they are +published, they ought to be admitted as evidence. That which is not +written for the public, is no business of the public’s; and I never read +letters of this kind, published for the first time, without feeling like +an eavesdropper.[I.1] Unluckily, the evidence furnished by the letters +fits in only too well with that furnished by the published works, by his +favourite cronies and companions, and by his general reputation, so that +“what the prisoner says” must, no doubt, “be used against him.” + + [Footnote I.1: It is perhaps barely necessary to observe that + the parallel does not extend to a further parallel between + republication and tale-bearing. Once published, the thing is + public.] + + * * * * * + +It may be doubted whether it was accident or his usual deliberate +fantasticality that made Sterne, in the well-known summary of his life +which (very late in it) he drew up for his daughter, devote almost the +whole space to his childhood. Perhaps it may be accounted for, +reasonably enough, by supposing that of his later years he thought his +daughter knew quite as much as he wished her to know, while of the +middle period he had little or nothing to tell. In fact, of the two +earlier divisions we still know very little but what he has chosen to +tell us in one of the most characteristic and not the least charming +excursions of his pen. Laurence Sterne was, with two sisters, the only +“permanent child” (to borrow a pleasant phrase of Mr. Traill’s) out of a +very plentiful but most impermanent family, borne in the most +inconvenient circumstances possible by Agnes Nuttle or Herbert or +Sterne, a widow, and daughter or stepdaughter of a sutler of our army in +Flanders, to Roger, second son of Simon Sterne of Elvington, in +Yorkshire, who was the third son of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of +York. The Sternes were of a gentle if not very distinguished family, +which, after being seated in Suffolk, migrated to Nottinghamshire. After +the promotion of the archbishop (who had been a stout cavalier, as +Master of Jesus at Cambridge, in the bad times), they obtained, as was +fitting, divers establishments by marriage or benefice in Yorkshire +itself. Very little endowment of any kind, however, fell to the lot of +Roger Sterne, who was an ensign in what ranked later as the 34th +regiment. Laurence, his eldest son, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, +where his mother’s relations lived, and just after his father’s regiment +had been disbanded. It was shortly re-established, however, and became +the most “marching” of all marching corps; for though its headquarters +were generally in Ireland, it was constantly being ordered elsewhere, +and Roger Sterne saw active service both at Vigo and Gibraltar. In this +latter station he fought a duel of an extremely Shandean character +“about a goose.” He was run through the body and pinned to the wall; +whereupon, it is said, he requested his antagonist to be so kind as to +wipe the plaster off the sword before pulling it out of his body. In +despite of this thoughtfulness, however, and of an immediate recovery, +the wound so weakened him that, being ordered to Jamaica, he took fever +and died there in March 1731. As Lawrence had been born on November 24, +1713, he was nearly eighteen; and the family had meanwhile been +increased by four other children who all died, and a youngest daughter, +Catherine, who, like the eldest, Mary, lived. Till he was about nine or +ten the boy followed the exceedingly fluctuating fortunes of his family, +which he diversified further on by falling through, not a millrace, but +a going mill. Then he was sent to school at Halifax, in Yorkshire, and +soon after practically adopted by his cousin Sterne of Elvington, who, +when the time came, sent him to Jesus College at Cambridge, the family +connection with which had begun with his great-grandfather. He was +admitted there on July 6, 1733, being then nearly twenty, and took his +degree of B.A. in 1736, and that of M.A. in 1740. The only tradition of +his school career is his own story that, having written his name on the +school ceiling, he was whipped by the usher, but complimented as a “boy +of genius” by the master, who said the name should never be effaced. +This anecdote, as might be expected, has not escaped the _aqua fortis_ +of criticism. + +We know practically nothing of Sterne’s Cambridge career except the +dates above mentioned, the fact of his being elected first to a +sizarship and then as founder’s kin to a scholarship endowed by +Archbishop Sterne, and the incident told by himself that he there +contracted his lifelong friendship with a distant relative and fellow +Jesus man, John Hall, or John Hall Stevenson, of whom more presently. +But Sterne had further reason to acknowledge that his family stood +together. He had no sooner taken his degree, than he was taken up by a +brother of his father’s, Jaques Sterne, a great pluralist in the diocese +of York, a very busy and masterful person, and a strong Whig and +Hanoverian. Under his care, Sterne took deacon’s orders in March 1736 at +the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln; and as soon as, two years later, he +had been ordained priest, he was appointed to the living of +Sutton-on-the-Forest, eight miles from York. The uncle and nephew some +years later quarrelled bitterly--according to the latter’s account, +because he would not write “dirty paragraphs in the newspapers,” being +“no party man.” That Sterne would have been particularly squeamish about +what he wrote may be doubted; but it is certain that he shows no +partisan spirit anywhere, and very little interest in politics as such. +However, for some years his uncle was certainly his active patron, and +obtained for him two prebends and some other special preferments in +connection with the diocese and chapter of York, so that he became, as +_Tristram_ shows, intimately acquainted with cathedral society there. + +It has been a steady rule in the Anglican Church (if not, as in the +Greek, a _sine quâ non_) that when a man has been provided with a +living, he should, if he has not done so before, provide himself with a +wife; and Sterne was a very unlikely man to break good custom in this +respect. Very soon at least after his ordination he fell in love with +Elizabeth Lumley, a young lady of a good Yorkshire family, and of some +little fortune, which, however, for a time she thought “not enough” to +share with him, but which, as she told him during a fit of illness, she +left to him in her will. On the strength of two quite unauthenticated +and, I believe, not now traceable portraits seen by this or that person +in printshops or elsewhere, she is said to have been plain. Certain +expressions in Sterne’s letters seem to imply that she had a rather +exasperatingly steady and not too intelligent will of her own; and some +twenty or five and twenty years after the marriage, M. Tollot, +a gossiping Frenchman, with French ideas on the duty of husbands and +wives going separate ways, said that she wished to have a finger in +every pie, and pestered “the good and agreeable Tristram” with her +presence. But Sterne, despite his reckless confessions of conjugal +indifference, and worse, says nothing serious or even ill-natured of +her; and one or two traits and sayings of hers, especially her refusal +to listen to a meddlesome person who wished to tell her tales about +“Eliza,” seem to argue sense and dignity. That in the latter years she +cared little to be with a husband who had long been “tired and sick” of +her is not to her discredit. Their daughter, with the almost invariable +ill-luck or ill-judgment which seems to have attended her, printed +certain letters of this courtship time, though she gave nothing for many +years afterwards. The use made of these Strephon or Damon blandishments, +in contrast with the expressions used by the writer of his wife, and of +other women, long afterwards, is perhaps a little unfair; but it must be +admitted that though far too characteristic and amusing to be omitted, +they are anything but brilliant specimens of their kind. In particular, +Thackeray’s bitter fun on the ineffably lackadaisical passage, “My L. +has seen a polyanthus blow in December,” is pretty fully justified. + +If, however, the marriage, which, difficulties being removed, took place +on Easter Monday, March 30, 1741, did not bring lasting happiness to +Sterne, it probably brought him some at the time, and it certainly +brought him an accession of fortune; for in addition to what little +money Miss Lumley had, a friend of hers bestowed the additional living +of Stillington on her husband. These various sources of income must have +made a tolerable revenue, which, after the publication of _Tristram_, +was further supplemented by yet another benefice given him by Lord +Falconbridge at Coxwold, a living of no great value, but a pleasant +place of residence. Add to this the profits of his books in the last +eight years of his life, which were for that day considerable, and it +will be seen that, as has been said above, Sterne might have been much +worse off in this world’s goods than he was. He seems, like other +people, to have made some rather costly experiments in farming; and his +way of life latterly, what with his own journeys and sojourns in London, +and the long separate residence of his wife and daughter in France, was +expensive. But he complains little of poverty; and though he died in +debt, much of that debt was due to no fault of his, but to the burning +of the parsonage of Sutton. + +It is all the more remarkable in one way, though the absence of any +pressure of want may explain it in another, that Sterne’s great literary +gifts should have remained so long without finding any kind of literary +expression, unless it was in the newspaper way, in respect to which he +first obliged and afterwards disobliged his uncle. There is, I believe, +no dispute about the fact that he distances, and that by many years, +every other man of letters of anything like his rank--except Cowper, +whose affliction puts him out of comparison--in the lateness of his +fruiting time. All but a quarter of a century had passed since he took +his degree when _Tristram Shandy_ appeared; and, putting sermons aside, +the very earliest thing of his known, _The History of a Good Watch +Coat_, only antedated _Tristram_ by two years or rather less. He was no +doubt “making himself all this time;” but the making must have been an +uncommonly slow process. Nor did he, like a good many writers, occupy +the time in preparing what he was afterwards to publish, unless in the +case of a few of his sermons. It is positively known that _Tristram_ was +written merely as it was published, and the _Journey_ likewise. Nor is +even the first by any means a long book. It is as nearly as possible the +same length as Fielding’s _Amelia_ when printed straight on; and even +then more allowance has to be made, not merely for its free and +audacious plagiarisms, but for its constantly broken paragraphs, stars, +dashes, and other trickeries. If it were possible to squeeze it up, as +one squeezes a sponge, into the solid texture of an ordinary book, +I doubt whether it would be very much longer than _Joseph Andrews_. + +It will probably be admitted, however, that the idiosyncrasy of the +writings of Sterne’s last and incomplete decade, even if it be in part +only an idiosyncrasy of mannerism, is almost great enough to justify the +nearly three decades of _Lehrjahre_ (starting from his entrance at +Cambridge) which preceded it. It is true that of the actual occupations +of these years we know extremely little--indeed, what we know as +distinguished from what is guesswork and inference is mostly summed up +by Sterne’s own current and curvetting pen thus: “I remained near twenty +years at Sutton, doing duty at both places [_i.e._, Sutton and +Stillington]. I had then very good health. Books, painting, fiddling, +and shooting were my amusements;” to which he adds only that he and the +squire of Sutton were not very good friends, but that at Stillington the +Croft family were extremely kind and amiable. From other sources, +including, it is true, his own letters--though the dates and allusions +of these are so uncertain that they are very doubtful guides--we find +that his chief crony during this period, as during his life, was the +already-mentioned John Hall, who had taken to the name of Stevenson, and +was master of Skelton Castle, a very old and curious house on the border +of the Cleveland moors, not far from the town of Guisborough. The master +of “Crazy” Castle--he liked to give his house this name, which he +afterwards used in entitling his book of _Crazy Tales_--his ways and his +library, have usually been charged with debauching Sterne’s innocent +mind, which I should imagine lent itself to that process in a most +docile and _morigerant_ fashion; but whether this was the case or not, +it is clear that Stevenson bore no very good reputation. It is not +certain, but was asserted, that he had been a monk of Medmenham. He +gathered about him at Skelton a society which, though no such +imputations were made on it as on that of Wilkes and Dashwood, was of a +pretty loose kind; he was a humourist, both in the old and the modern +sense; and his _Crazy Tales_ were, if not very mad, rather sad and bad +exercises of the imagination. + +Amid all this dream- and guess-work, almost the only solid facts in +Sterne’s life are the births of two daughters, one in 1745, and the +other two years later. Both were christened Lydia; the first died soon +after she was born, the second lived to be the darling of both her +parents, the object of the most respectable emotions of Sterne’s life, +the wife of an unknown Frenchman, M. de Medalle, and, as has been said, +the probably unwitting destroyer of her father’s last chance of +reputation. + +Our exuberant nescience in matters Sternian extends up to the very +publication of _Tristram_, as far as the determining causes of its +production are concerned. It is true that in passages of the letters +Sterne seems to say that his experiment with the pen was prompted by a +desire to make good some losses in farming, and elsewhere that he was +tired of employing his brains for other people’s advantage, as he had +done for some years for an ungrateful person, that is to say, his uncle. +This last passage was written just before _Tristram_ came out; but at no +time was Sterne a very trustworthy reporter of his own motives, and it +would seem that the quarrel with his uncle must have been a good deal +earlier. At any rate, the year 1759 seems to have been spent in writing +the first two volumes of the book, and _The Life and Opinions of +Tristram Shandy, Gent._, published by John Hinxham, Stonegate, York, but +obtainable also from divers London booksellers, appeared on the 1st of +January 1760. I wish Sterne had thought of keeping it till the 1st of +April, which he would probably then have done. + +The comparatively short last scenes of his life were as busy and varied +as his long middle course had been outwardly monotonous. Although his +book was nominally published at York, he had gone up to London to +superintend arrangements for its sale there, perhaps not without a hope +of triumph. If so, Fortune chose not to play him her usual tricks. In +York, the extreme personality of the book excited interest of a twofold +and dubious kind; but, to play on some words of Dryden’s, “London liked +grossly” and swallowed _Tristram Shandy_ whole with singular avidity. +Its author came to town just in time to enjoy the results of this, and +was one of the chief lions of the season of 1760, a position which he +enjoyed with a childish frankness that is not the least pleasant thing +in his history. One, probably of the least important, though by accident +one of the best known of his innumerable flirtations, with a Miss +Fourmentelle, was apparently quenched by this distraction when it was on +the point of going such lengths that the lady had actually come up alone +to London to meet Sterne there. He was introduced to persons as +different as Garrick and Warburton, from the latter of whom he received, +in rather mysterious circumstances, a present of money. He haunted +Ministers and Knights of the Garter; he was overwhelmed with invitations +and callers; and, as has been said, he received one very solid present +in the shape of the living of Coxwold. _Tristram_ went into a second +edition rapidly; its author was enabled to announce a collection of +“_Sermons_ by Mr. Yorick” in April; and he went to his new living in the +early summer, determined to set to work vigorously on more of the work +that had been so fortunate. By the end of the year he was ready with two +more volumes, again came up to town, and again, when vols. iii. and iv. +had appeared, at the end of January 1761, was besieged by admirers. For +these two he received £380 from Dodsley, who had fought shy of the book +earlier. They were quite as successful as the first pair; and again +Sterne stayed all the spring and earlier summer in London, returning to +Yorkshire to make more _Shandy_ in the autumn. He was still quicker over +the third batch, and it was published in December 1761, when he was +again in town, but he now meditated a longer flight. His health had been +really declining, and he obtained leave from the archbishop for a year +certain, and perhaps two, that he might go to the south of France. He +was warmly received in Paris, where his work had obtained a popularity +which it has never wholly lost, and the framework of fact (including the +passport difficulties) for the _Sentimental Journey_, as well as for the +seventh volume of _Tristram_, was laid during the spring. His plans were +now changed, it being determined that his wife and daughter (who had +inherited his constitution) should join him. They did so after some +difficulties, and the consumptive novelist, having spent all the winter +in one of the worst climates in Europe, that of the French capital, +started with his family in the torrid heats of July for Toulouse, where +at last they were established about the middle of August. + +Toulouse became Sterne’s abode for nearly a year, his headquarters for a +somewhat longer period, and the home of his wife and daughter, with +migrations to Bagnères, Montpellier, and a great many other places in +France, for about five years. He himself--he had been ill at Toulouse, +and worse at Montpellier--reached England again (after a short stay in +Paris) during the early summer of 1764. Nor was it till January 1765 +that the seventh and eighth volumes of _Tristram_ appeared. As usual +Sterne went to town to receive the congratulations of the public, which +seem to have been fairly hearty; for though the instalment immediately +preceding had not been an entire success, the longer interval had now +had its effect not merely on the art and materials of the caterer, but +on the appetite of his guests. He followed this up with two more volumes +of Sermons, of a much more characteristic kind than his earlier venture +in this way, and published partly by subscription. These, however, were +not actually issued till 1766. Meanwhile, in October 1765, Sterne had +set out for his second attempt in travel on the Continent, which was to +supply the remaining material for the _Sentimental Journey_, and to be +prolonged as far as Naples. Little is known of his winter stay at that +city and in Rome. On his way homeward he met his wife and daughter in +Franche-Comté, but at Mrs. Sterne’s request left them there, and went on +alone to Coxwold. + +He reached England in extremely bad health, and never left it again; but +he had still nearly two years of fairly well filled life to run. The +ninth, or last volume of _Tristram_ occupied him during the autumn of +1766, and was produced with the invariable accompaniment of its author’s +appearance in London during January 1767. This visit, which lasted till +May, saw the flirtation with “Eliza” Draper, the young wife of an Indian +official, who was at home for her health, an affair which exalted Sterne +in the eyes of eighteenth-century sensibility, especially in France, +about as much as it has depressed him in the eyes not merely of the +propriety, not merely of the common sense, but of the romance of later +times. He was very ill when he got back to Coxwold, but recovered, and +in October was joined by his wife and daughter. Even then, however, the +community was a very temporary and divided one, for he took a house for +them at York, and they were not to stay in England beyond the spring. He +himself finished what we have of the _Sentimental Journey_, and went to +London with it, where it was published rather later than usual, on the +27th February 1768. Three weeks later its author, at his lodgings at 41 +New Bond Street, in the presence only of a hired nurse and a footman, +who had been sent by some of his friends to inquire after him, took a +journey other than sentimental, and so far unreported. Some odd but not +very well authenticated stories gathered round his death, which occurred +on Friday the 18th March. It was said, and it is probable enough, that +his gold sleeve-links were stolen by his landlady. After his funeral, +scantily attended, at the burying-ground of St. George’s, Hanover +Square, opposite Hyde Park (which used to be known by the squalid brown +of its unrestored, and afterwards made more hideous by the bedizened red +of its restored chapel), his body is said to have been snatched by +resurrection men. And the myth is rounded off by the addition that the +remains, having been sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge, were +dissected there in public, one of the spectators, a friend of Sterne’s, +recognising the face too late, and fainting. + +His affairs, which had never been managed in a very business-like +manner, were in considerable disorder. Some years before, the +carelessness of his curate had caused or allowed the parsonage at Sutton +to be burnt to the ground; and Sterne, besides losing valuable effects +of his own, was of course liable for the rebuilding. He managed to put +this off till his death, after which his widow and administratrix was +sued for dilapidations. These, as she was in very poor circumstances, +had to be compounded for sixty pounds only, but they probably ranked for +a much larger sum in the £1100 at which Sterne’s indebtedness was +reckoned. His widow had a little money of her own: £800 was collected +for her and her daughter at York races; there must have been profits +from the copyrights; and a fresh collection of _Sermons_ was issued by +subscription. But though very little is known about the pair, they are +said to have been ill off. They applied first to Wilkes and then to +Stevenson to write a life of Sterne to prefix to his Works, but neither +complied. Mr. Fitzgerald, who seldom deserves the curse laid on those +who use harsh judgment, is very severe on both for this. Yet surely +each, considering his own reputation, must have felt that he was the +last person to set Sterne right with the stricter part of society, and +that to write a “Crazy” or “Shandean” life of him would be a cruel +crime. It is not known exactly when Lydia married, or when either she or +her mother died. Mrs. Sterne must have been dead by 1775, the date of +the publication of the letters; Lydia is said to have perished in the +French Revolution. + +Beginning authorship very late in life, having schooled himself to an +intensely artificial method, both in style and in construction, and not +allowed by Fate more than a few years in which to write at all, Sterne, +as is natural, displays a great uniformity throughout his work. Indeed, +it might be said that he has written but one book, _Tristram Shandy_. +The _Sentimental Journey_ (as to the relative merits of which, compared +with the earlier and larger work, there is a _polemos aspondos_ between +the Big-endians and the Little-endians of Sternism) is after all only an +expansion of the seventh book of Tristram, with _fioriture_, variations, +and new divertisements. The sermon which occurs so early is an actual +sermon of “Yorick’s,” and a sufficient specimen of his more serious +concionatory vein; many, if not most of his letters might have been +twined into _Tristram_ without being in the least degree more out of +place than most of its actual contents. And so there is more propriety +than depends upon the mere fact that _Tristram Shandy_ is the earliest +and the largest part of its author’s work, in making no extremely +scholastic distinction between the specially Shandean and the generally +Sternian characteristics; for, indeed, all Sterne is in it more or less +eminently. + +No less a critic than M. Scherer has given his sanction to the idea that +in Sterne we have a special, if not even _the_ special, type of the +humourist; and probably few people who have given no particular thought +or attention to the matter, would refuse to agree with him. I am myself +inclined rather to a demur, or, at any rate, to a distinction, though +few better things have been written about humour itself than a passage +in M. Scherer’s essay on our author. Sterne has no doubt in a very +eminent degree the sense of contrast, which all the best critics admit +to be the root of humour--the note of the humourist. But he has it +partially, occasionally, and, I should even go as far as to say, not +_greatly_. The _great_ English humourists, I take it, are Shakespeare, +Swift, Fielding, Thackeray, and Carlyle. All these--even Fielding, whose +eighteenth-century manner, the contemporary and counterpart of Sterne’s, +cannot hide the truth--apply the humourist contrast, the humourist sense +of the irony of existence, to the great things, the _prima et +novissima_. They see, and feel, and show the simultaneous sense of Death +and Life, of Love and Loss, of the Finite and the Infinite. Sterne stops +a long way short of this; _les grands sujets lui sont défendus_ in +another sense than La Bruyère’s. It is scarcely too much to say that his +ostentatious preference for the _bagatelle_ was a real, and not in the +least affected fact. Nowhere, not in the true pathos of the famous +deathbed letter to Mrs. James, not in the, as it seems to me, by no +means wholly true pathos of the Le Fever episode, does he pierce to “the +accepted hells beneath.” He has an unmatched command of the lesser and +lower varieties of the humorous contrast--over the odd, the petty, the +queer, above all, over what the French untranslatably call the +_saugrenu_. His forte is the foible; his _cheval de bataille_, the +hobby-horse. If you want to soar into the heights, or plunge into the +depths of humour, Sterne is not for you. But if you want what his own +generation called a frisk on middle, _very_ middle-earth, a hunt in +curiosity-shops (especially of the technically “curious” description), +a peep into all manner of _coulisses_ and behind-scenes of human nature, +a ride on a sort of intellectual switchback, a view of moral, mental, +religious, sentimental dancing of all the kinds that have delighted man, +from the rope to the skirt, then have with Sterne in any direction he +pleases. He may sometimes a very little disgust you, but you will seldom +have just cause to complain that he disappoints and deceives. + +The _Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent._ (which, as it has been +excellently observed, is in reality based on the life of the gent’s +uncle, and the opinions of the gent’s father), is the largest and in +every way the chief field for these diversions. The apparatus, and, so +far as there can be said to have been one, the object with which Sterne +marked it out and filled it up, are clear, and even the former must have +been clear enough to anybody of some reading and some intelligence long +before the excellent Dr. Ferriar, in the spirit of a reverent +iconoclast, set himself to work to point out Sterne’s exact indebtedness +to Rabelais, Burton, Beroalde (if Beroalde wrote the _Moyen de +Parvenir_), Bruscambille, and the rest. Of this particular part of the +matter I do not think it necessary to say much. The charge of plagiarism +is usually an excessively idle one; for when a man of genius steals, he +always makes the thefts his own; and when a man steals without genius, +the thefts are mere fairy gold which turns to leaves and pebbles under +his hand. No doubt Sterne “lifted” in _Tristram_, and still more in the +_Sermons_, with rather more freedom and audacity than most men of +genius; but when we remember that he took Burton’s denunciation of the +practice and reproduced it (all but in Burton’s very words) as his own, +it must be clear to any one who is not very dull indeed that he was +playing an audacious practical joke. Where he is best, he does not steal +at all, and that is the only point of real importance. + +It is somewhat more, I think, the business of the critic (who is here +more especially bound not to look only at the stop-watch) to note the +far more striking way in which Sterne borrowed, not actual passages and +words, but manner and style. Here, perhaps, we shall find him accountant +for a greater debt; and here also we may think that though his genius is +indisputable, he gives more reason to those who should deny him the +highest kind of genius. Beyond doubt not merely his reading, but his +temper and his characteristics of all kinds, inclined him to the style +to which the French fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave the name of +_fatrasie_, or pillar-to-post divagation, with more or less of a covert +satiric aim. But if we compare the dealing of Swift with Cyrano de +Bergerac, the dealing of Fielding with the romance and novel as it +existed before his time, nay, the dealing of Shakespeare with the +Marlowe drama, we shall note a marked difference in Sterne’s procedure. +Nobody, even in his own day, who knew Rabelais at all could fail to +detect the almost servile following of manner in great things and in +small which _Tristram_ displays. No one--a much smaller designation--who +knows the strange, unedifying, but very far from commonplace book of +which, as I have hinted, I never can quite believe that Beroalde de +Verville was the author, can fail to detect an even closer, though a +somewhat less obvious and, so to speak, less verifiable following here. + +In another region--the purgatory of all Sterne’s commentators--we can +trace this corrupt following as distinctly at least, though it has, +I think, been less often definitely attributed. Sterne’s too celebrated +indecency, is, with one exception, _sui generis_. No doubt much nonsense +has been and is talked about “indecency” in general literature. When it +is indulged, as it has been, for instance, in French of late, it becomes +a nuisance of the most loathsome kind. It is always perhaps better left +alone. But if it be a sin to laugh now and then frankly at what were +once called “gentlemen’s stories,” then not merely many a gallant, +noble, and not unwise gentleman, but I fear not a few ladies, both fair +and fine, are damned, with Shakespeare and Scott and Southey, with +Margaret of Navarre and Marie de Sévigné, to keep them in countenance. +Yet to merit indulgence, this questionable quality, in addition to being +treated as genius treats, must have certain sub-qualities, or freedoms +from quality, of its own. It must not be brutal and inhuman, since the +quality of humanity is the main thing that saves it. It must not be +underhand and sniggering. It must be frank and jovial, or frank and +passionate. Perhaps, in some cases, it may be saved, as Swift’s is to a +great extent, by the overmastering pessimism of despair, which enforces +its contempt of man and man’s fate by bringing forward these evidences +of his weakness. But Sterne can plead none of these exemptions. He has +neither the frank laughter of Aristophanes and Rabelais, nor the frank +passion of Catullus and Donne. He was incapable of feeling any _sæva +indignatio_ whatever. The attraction of the thing for him was, I fear, +merely the attraction of the improper, because it is improper; because +it shocks people, or makes them blush, or gives them an unholy little +quiver of sordid shamefaced delectation. His famous apology of the child +playing on the floor and showing in innocence what is not usually shown, +was desperately unlucky. For his displays are those of educated and +economic un-innocency. And he took this manner, I am nearly sure, wholly +and directly from Voltaire, who enjoys the unenviable copyright and +patent of it. + +The third characteristic which Sterne took from others, which dyed his +work deeply, and which injured more than it helped it, was his famous, +his unrivalled, Sensibility or Sentimentalism. A great deal has been +written about this admired eighteenth-century device, and there is no +space here for discussing it. Suffice it to say, that although Sterne +certainly did not invent it--it had been inculcated by two whole +generations of French novelists before him, and had been familiar in +England for half a century--he has the glory, such as it is, of carrying +it to the farthest possible. The dead donkey and the live donkey, the +latter (as I humbly but proudly join myself to Mr. Thackeray and Mr. +Traill in thinking) far the finer animal; Le Fever and La Fleur; Maria +and Eliza; Uncle Toby’s fly, and poor Mrs. Sterne’s antenuptial +polyanthus; the stoics that Mr. Sterne (with a generous sense that he +was in no danger of that lash) wished to be whipped, and the critics +from whom he would have fled from Dan to Beersheba to be delivered; +--all the celebrated persons and passages of his works, all the +decorations and fireworks thereof, are directed mainly to the exhibition +of _Sensibility_, once so charming, now, alas! hooted and contemned of +the people! + +And now it will be possible to have done with his foibles, all the rest +in Sterne being for praise, with hardly any mixture of blame. We have +seen what he borrowed from others, mostly to his hurt; let us now see +what he contributed of his own, almost wholly to his credit and +advantage. He had, in the first place, what most writers when they begin +almost invariably and almost inevitably lack, a long and carefully +amassed store, not merely of reading, but of observation of mankind. +Although his nearly fifty years of life had been in the ordinary sense +uneventful, they had given him opportunities which he had amply taken. +A “son of the regiment,” he had evidently studied with the greatest and +most loving care the ways of an army which still included a large +proportion of Marlborough’s veterans; and it has been constantly and +reasonably held that his chief study had been his father, whom he +evidently adored in a way. Roger Sterne is the admitted model of my +Uncle Toby; and I at least have no doubt that he was the original of Mr. +Shandy also, for some of the qualities which appear in his son’s +character of him are Walter’s, not Toby’s. It would have required, +perhaps, even greater genius than Sterne possessed, and an environment +less saturated with the delusive theory of the “ruling passion,” to have +given us the mixed and blended temperament instead of separating it into +two gentlemen at once, and making Walter Shandy all wayward intellect, +and Tobias all gentle goodness. But if it had been done--as Shakespeare +perhaps alone could have done it--we should have had a greater and more +human figure than either. Mr. Shandy would then never have come near, as +he does sometimes, to being a bore; and my Uncle Toby (if I may say so +without taking the wings of the morning to flee from the wrath of the +extreme Tobyolaters) would have been saved from the occasional +appearance of being something like a fool. + +Still, these two are delightful even in their present dichotomy; and +Sterne was amply provided by his genius, working on his experience, with +company for them. His fancy portrait of himself as “Yorick” (his +unfeigned Shakespearianism is one of his best traits) is a little vague +and fantastic; and that of Eugenius, which is supposed to represent John +Hall Stevenson, is almost as slight as it is flattering. But Dr. Slop, +who is known to have been drawn (with somewhat unmerciful fidelity in +externals, but not at all unkindly when we look deeper) from Dr. Burton, +a well-known Jacobite practitioner who had suffered from the Hanoverian +zeal of Yorick’s uncle Jaques in the ’45, is a masterpiece. The York +dignitaries are veritable etchings in outline, more instinct with life +and individuality than a thousand elaborately painted pictures; all the +servants, Obadiah, Susannah, Bridget, and the rest, are the equals of +Fielding’s, or of Thackeray’s domestics; and though Tristram himself is +the shadow of a shade, I confess that I seem to see a vivid portrait in +the three or four strokes which alone give us “my dear, dear Jenny.” Mr. +Fitzgerald, succumbing to a not unnatural temptation, considering the +close juxtaposition in time, approximates this to the “dear, dear Kitty” +of the letters to Miss Catherine de Fourmentelle. But this, taking all +things together, would be a rather serious _scandalum damigellarum_; and +I do not think it necessary to identify, though the traits seem to me to +suit not ill with the few genuine ones in the letters about Mrs. Sterne +herself. That the “dear, dear” should be ironical more or less is quite +Shandean. All these, if not drawn directly from individuals (the lower +exercise), are first generalised and then precipitated into +individuality from a large observation (which is the infinitely higher +and better). I fear I must except Widow Wadman, save in the sentry-box +scene, from this encomium. But then Widow Wadman is not really a real +person. She is partly an instrument to put my Uncle Toby through some +new motions, and partly a cue to enable Sterne to indulge in his worst +foible. As for Trim, _quis vituperavit_ Trim? The lover of the “popish +clergywoman” is simply perfect, with a not much less good heart and a +much better head than his master’s, and in his own degree hardly less of +a gentleman. + +The manner in which these delightful persons (I observe with shame that +I had omitted the modest worth of Mrs. Shandy, nearly the most +delightful of them all) are introduced to the reader, may have suffered +a little from that corrupt following of which enough has been said. +I can only say, that I would compound for a good deal more corruption of +the same kind, allied with a good deal less genius. It can scarcely be +doubted that there was a real pre-established harmony between Sterne’s +gifts and the _fatrasie_ manner; certainly this manner, if it sometimes +exhibited his weaknesses, gave rare opportunities to his strength. And +the same may be said of his style. He might certainly have given us less +of the typographical tricks with which he chose to bedizen and bedaub +it, and sometimes in his ultra-Rabelaisian moods --I do not mean of +_gauloiserie_ but of sheer fooling--we feel the falsetto rather +disastrously. It is constantly forgotten by unfavourable critics of +Rabelais that his extravagances were to a great extent, at any rate, +quite natural outbursts of animal spirits. The Middle Ages, though it +has become the fashion with those who know nothing about them to +represent them as ages of gloom, were probably the merriest time of this +world’s history; and the Reformation and the Renaissance, with their +pedantry and their puritanism, and worst of all their physical science, +had not quite killed the merriment when Rabelais wrote. But though +animal spirits still survived in Sterne’s day, it cannot be said that in +England, any more than elsewhere, there was much genuine merriment of +the honest, childish, mediæval kind, and thus his manner perpetually +jars. Still the style, independently of the tricks, was excellently +suited for the work. It is a moot point how far the extremely loose and +ungirt character of this style, which sometimes, and indeed often, +reaches sheer slovenliness and solecism, was intentional. I think myself +that it was nearly as deliberate as the asterisks, and the black and +marble pages. We know from the _Sermons_ that Sterne could write +carefully enough when he chose, and we know from the MS. of the +_Journey_ that he corrected sedulously. Nor is it likely that he had the +excuse of hurry. The shortest time that he ever took over one of his +two-volume batches was more than six months; and looking at the +practice, not of miracles of industry and facility like Scott, but of +rather dilatory writers like Thackeray, one would think that the +quantity (which is not more than a couple of hundred pages of one of +these present volumes) might be written in little more than six weeks. +At any rate, the style, conversational, unpretentious, too easy to be +jerky, and yet too broken to be sustained, suits subject and scheme as +few others could. + + * * * * * + +But there is perhaps little need to say more about a book which, though +some say that few read it through nowadays, is thoroughly well known in +outline and in its salient passages, and which will pretty certainly lay +hold of all fit readers as soon as they take to it. Of its writer a very +little more may perhaps be said, all the more so because those who, not +understanding critical admiration, think that biographers and editors +ought not only to be just and a little kind, but extravagantly partial +to their subjects, may conceive that I have been a little unjust, or, at +any rate, a little unkind to Sterne. If so, they have not read his own +extremely ingenious, and in general, if not in particular, very sound +attack on the adage _de mortuis_. But if not _nil nisi_, there is yet +very much _bonum_ to be said of Sterne. He was not merely endowed with a +singular and essential genius; he was not merely the representative and +mouthpiece, in a way hardly surpassed by any one, of a certain way of +thought and feeling more or less peculiar to his time. These were his +merits, his very great merits as a writer. But he had others, and great, +if not very great ones, as a man. Though never rich, he seems to have +been free from the fault of parsimony; and albeit he died in debt, not +deeply tainted with that of extravagance in money matters. For most of +his later expenditure was on others, and he might justly calculate on +his pen paying, and more than paying, his shot. Little love as there was +lost between him and his wife, he always took the greatest care to +provide for her wants in the rather costly severance of their +establishments, and never even in his most indiscreet moments hints a +grumble at her expenditure, a vice of which some people of much higher +general reputation have been known to be guilty. Though he was certainly +pleased at the attentions of “the great,” I do not know that there is +any just cause for accusing him of truckling to, or fawning on them +beyond the custom and courtesy of the time. For all his reckless humour, +there was no ill-nature in him. His worst enemies have admitted that his +affection for his daughter was very pretty and quite unaffected; and his +letters to and of Mrs. James show that he could think of a woman nobly +and wholesomely as a friend, for all his ignoble and unwholesome ways of +thought in regard to the sex. If it had not been for the cruel +indiscretion of his Lydia (which, however, has something of the old +virtue of conveying the balm as well as the sting), he would probably +have been much better thought of than he is. And considering the +delightful books here once more presented, I think we may consent to +forgive the faults which, after all, were mainly his own business, for +the merits by which we so largely benefit and for which he reaped no +over-bounteous guerdon. + + GEORGE SAINTSBURY. + + + WORKS. --The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Vols. I. and II., + 1759; III. and IV., 1761; V. and VI., 1762; VII. and VIII., 1765; + IX., 1767; first collected edition, 1767; numerous later editions, + chiefly of recent date. Sermons of Mr. Yorick, Vols. I. and II., + 1760; III. and IV., 1766; V., VI., and VII., 1769. A Sentimental + Journey, 1768; many later editions; Letters from Yorick to Eliza, + 1775; Sterne’s Letters to his Friends on Various Occasions, 1775; + Letters of Laurence Sterne to his most intimate friends, 1775; + Original Letters never before published, 1788; Letters of Yorick and + Eliza, 1807; Seven Letters written by Sterne and his Friends, + hitherto unpublished, 1844; Unpublished Letters of Laurence Sterne, + edited by J. Murray, 1856. + + Collected editions of the works of Laurence Sterne appeared in 1779, + 1780; edited by G. Saintsbury, 1894; by Wilbur L. Cross, 1906. + + + LIFE. --An account of the life and writings of the author is prefixed + to the edition of his Works, 1779; a life of the author written by + himself in edition of works, 1780; by Sir W. Scott in edition of + Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 1867; by H. D. Traill, 1878; + by P. H. Fitzgerald, 1896; Laurence Sterne in Germany, by H. W. + Thayer, 1905; Life and Times, by Wilbur L. Cross, 1909; A Study, by + Walter S. Sichel, 1910; Life and Letters, by Lewis Melville, 1911. + + +⁂ The text which has been here adopted is that of the ten-volume +edition, first printed in 1781, and reprinted several times before the +end of the century, which is as near as anything to the “standard” +Sterne. It seems, however, to have had no competent editing; and the +renumbering of the chapters to suit the _four_ volumes, in which +_Tristram_ was printed, completely upsets the original and important +division into _nine_ volumes, or books, which has here, as in some other +editions, been restored. Another piece of thoughtlessness was that of +sticking the Dedication, which originally came between the eighth and +ninth volumes, or books, at the beginning of the _fourth_ volume as +reprinted, thereby making nonsense or puzzle of Sterne’s joke about _à +priori_. It should be observed that the Dedication to Pitt, which here +leads off, was not prefixed till the _second_ edition of the original, +and that sometimes in the last-century editions it appears displaced at +a later spot. No attempt has been made to correct any oddities of +spelling that are not clearly mere misprints. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +BOOK I. 3 + +BOOK II. 59 + +BOOK III. 113 + +BOOK IV. 176 + +BOOK V. 251 + +BOOK VI. 300 + +BOOK VII. 349 + +BOOK VIII. 395 + +BOOK IX. 441 + + + + + THE LIFE AND OPINIONS + + OF + + TRISTRAM SHANDY + + GENTLEMAN + + + Ταράσσει τοὺς Ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα, + Ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν Πραγμάτων Δόγματα. + + + + + TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + + _MR. PITT_ + + +SIR, --Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his +Dedication, than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye +corner of the kingdom, and in a retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in +a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and +other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a +man smiles, ----but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to +this Fragment of Life. + +I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it----(not +under your Protection, ----it must protect itself, but)----into the +country with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or +can conceive it has beguiled you of one moment’s pain ----I shall think +myself as happy as a minister of state; ------perhaps much happier than +any one (one only excepted) that I have read or heard of. + + I am, GREAT SIR, + (and what is more to your Honour) + I am, GOOD SIR, + Your Well-wisher, and + most humble Fellow-subject, + + THE AUTHOR. + + + + +THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF + +TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT. + + + + +BOOK I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they +were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about +when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what +they were then doing; --that not only the production of a rational Being +was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and +temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his +mind; --and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of +his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions +which were then uppermost; ----Had they duly weighed and considered all +this, and proceeded accordingly, ----I am verily persuaded I should have +made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader +is likely to see me. --Believe me, good folks, this is not so +inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it; --you have all, +I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from +father to son, &c., &c. --and a great deal to that purpose: --Well, you +may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his +nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their +motions and activity, and the different tracts and trains you put them +into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, +’tis not a halfpenny matter, --away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; +and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make +a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they +are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive +them off it. + +_Pray, my Dear_, quoth my mother, _have you not forgot to wind up the +clock? ------Good G--!_ cried my father, making an exclamation, but +taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, ----_Did ever woman, +since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly +question?_ Pray, what was your father saying? ------Nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +------Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see, +either good or bad. ----Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very +unseasonable question at least, --because it scattered and dispersed the +animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in +hand with the _HOMUNCULUS_, and conducted him safe to the place destined +for his reception. + +The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may appear, +in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice; --to the eye of +reason in scientifick research, he stands confess’d--a BEING guarded and +circumscribed with rights. ----The minutest philosophers, who, by the +bye, have the most enlarged understandings (their souls being inversely +as their enquiries), shew us incontestably, that the HOMUNCULUS is +created by the same hand, --engender’d in the same course of nature, +--endow’d with the same locomotive powers and faculties with us: --That +he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, +ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals, +humours, and articulations; --is a Being of as much activity, --and, in +all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my +Lord Chancellor of _England_. --He may be benefited, --he may be +injured, --he may obtain redress; --in a word, he has all the claims and +rights of humanity, which _Tully_, _Puffendorf_, or the best ethick +writers allow to arise out of that state and relation. + +Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone! +--or that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my +little Gentleman had got to his journey’s end miserably spent; --his +muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread; --his own animal +spirits ruffled beyond description, --and that in this sad disordered +state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series +of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together. +--I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand +weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the +philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +To my uncle Mr. _Toby Shandy_ do I stand indebted for the preceding +anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, +and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, +and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my +uncle _Toby_ well remember’d, upon his observing a most unaccountable +obliquity (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting up my top, and +justifying the principles upon which I had done it, --the old gentleman +shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than +reproach, --he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it +verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made +upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s child: +--_But alas!_ continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping +away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, _My Tristram’s +misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world_. + +--My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up, --but she knew no more than +her backside what my father meant, --but my uncle, Mr. _Toby Shandy_, +who had been often informed of the affair, --understood him very well. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people +in it, who are no readers at all, who find themselves ill at ease, +unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of +everything which concerns you. + +It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a +backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have +been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to +make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in +all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever, --be no less +read than the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ itself--and in the end, prove the +very thing which _Montaigne_ dreaded his Essays should turn out, that +is, a book for a parlour-window; --I find it necessary to consult every +one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a +little farther in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I +have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am +able to go on, tracing everything in it, as _Horace_ says, _ab Ovo_. + +_Horace_, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that +gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy; --(I forget +which), --besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. _Horace’s_ pardon; +--for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither +to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived. + +To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, +I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part +of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the +curious and inquisitive. + +------------Shut the door. -------------------------------------- I was +begot in the night, betwixt the first _Sunday_ and the first _Monday_ in +the month of _March_, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred +and eighteen. I am positive I was. --But how I came to be so very +particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is +owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now +made publick for the better clearing up this point. + +My father, you must know, who was originally a _Turkey_ merchant, but +had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die +upon, his paternal estate in the county of ------, was, I believe, one +of the most regular men in everything he did, whether ’twas matter of +business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen +of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, --he +had made it a rule for many years of his life, --on the first +_Sunday-night_ of every month throughout the whole year, --as certain as +ever the _Sunday-night_ came, ----to wind up a large house-clock, which +we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands: --And being +somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been +speaking of, --he had likewise gradually brought some other little +family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say +to my uncle _Toby_, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be +no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month. + +It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell +upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my +grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no +connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother +could never hear the said clock wound up, ----but the thoughts of some +other things unavoidably popped into her head--and _vice versâ_: +----Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious _Locke_, who +certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, +affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of +prejudice whatsoever. + +But this by the bye. + +Now it appears by a memorandum in my father’s pocket-book, which now +lies upon the table, “That on _Lady-day_, which was on the 25th of the +same month in which I date my geniture, ----my father set out upon his +journey to _London_, with my eldest brother _Bobby_, to fix him at +_Westminster_ school;” and, as it appears from the same authority, “That +he did not get down to his wife and family till the _second week_ in +_May_ following,” --it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However, +what follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it beyond all +possibility of doubt. + +------But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all _December_, +_January_, and _February?_ ----Why, Madam, --he was all that time +afflicted with a Sciatica. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +On the fifth day of _November_, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as +near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected, +--was I _Tristram Shandy_, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and +disasterous world of ours. ----I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in +any of the planets (except _Jupiter_ or _Saturn_, because I never could +bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any +of them (though I will not answer for _Venus_) than it has in this vile, +dirty planet of ours, --which, o’ my conscience, with reverence be it +spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the rest; +----not but the planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in +it to a great title or to a great estate; or could any how contrive to +be called up to publick charges, and employments of dignity or power; +----but that is not my case; ----and therefore every man will speak of +the fair as his own market has gone in it; ------for which cause I +affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made; +--for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, +to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in +scating against the wind in _Flanders_; --I have been the continual +sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her +by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal +evil; ----yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her, +that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she +could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set +of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small HERO +sustained. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly _when_ I +was born; but I did not inform you _how. No_, that particular was +reserved entirely for a chapter by itself; --besides, Sir, as you and I +are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been +proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself +all at once. --You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you +see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and +expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a +mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: +As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now +beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one +of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship. --_O diem +præclarum!_--then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling +in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and +companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my +first setting out--bear with me, --and let me go on, and tell my story +my own way: --Or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road, +--or should sometimes put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it, for a +moment or two as we pass along, --don’t fly off, --but rather +courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my +outside; --and as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in +short, do anything, --only keep your temper. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a +thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with +the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in +her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own +efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature, --had acquired, in +her way, no small degree of reputation in the world: ----by which word +_world_, need I in this place inform your worship, that I would be +understood to mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the +circle of the great world, of four _English_ miles diameter, or +thereabouts, of which the cottage where the good old woman lived, is +supposed to be the centre? --She had been left, it seems, a widow in +great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh +year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage, --grave +deportment, --a woman moreover of few words, and withal an object of +compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, called out the louder +for a friendly lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched +with pity; and having often lamented an inconvenience, to which her +husband’s flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was +no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the +case have been never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles +riding; which seven said long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the +country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to +fourteen; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at +all; it came into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a +kindness to the whole parish, as to the poor creature herself, to get +her a little instructed in some of the plain principles of the business, +in order to set her up in it. As no woman thereabouts was better +qualified to execute the plan she had formed than herself, the +gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great influence +over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in effecting +it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson join’d his interest +with his wife’s in the whole affair; and in order to do things as they +should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise, as +his wife had given by institution, --he chearfully paid the fees for the +ordinary’s licence himself, amounting in the whole, to the sum of +eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them both, the good +woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her +office, together with all its _rights, members, and appurtenances +whatsoever_. + +These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in +which such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like +cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was +according to a neat _Formula_ of _Didius_ his own devising, who having a +particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over again, all +kind of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty +amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the +neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this +wham-wham of his inserted. + +I own I never could envy _Didius_ in these kinds of fancies of his: +--But every man to his own taste. --Did not Dr. _Kunastrokius_, that +great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in +combing of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, +though he had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, +Sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting _Solomon_ +himself, --have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES; --their running horses, +--their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets, +their fiddles, their pallets, --their maggots and their butterflies? +--and so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and quietly along +the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, +--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +--_De gustibus non est disputandum_; --that is, there is no disputing +against HOBBY-HORSES; and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with any +sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for happening, +at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fidler and +painter, according as the fly stings: --Be it known to you, that I keep +a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor do I care who +knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air; --though sometimes, to +my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a wise +man would think altogether right. --But the truth is, --I am not a wise +man; --and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in the world, it +is not much matter what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at all about it: +Nor does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great Lords and tall +Personages as hereafter follow; --such, for instance, as my Lord A, B, +C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, +mounted upon their several horses; --some with large stirrups, getting +on in a more grave and sober pace; ----others on the contrary, tucked up +to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and +scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a +mortgage, --and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks. +----So much the better--say I to myself; --for in case the worst should +happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well without them; +and for the rest, ----why ----God speed them----e’en let them ride on +without opposition from me; for were their lordships unhorsed this very +night--’tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse mounted by +one half before to-morrow morning. + +Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my +rest. ----But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard, +and that is, when I see one born for great actions, and what is still +more for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones; --when +I behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and +conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that +reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment; --when I see such a +one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time +which my love to my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his +glory wishes, --then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the +first transport of an honest impatience, I wish the HOBBY-HORSE, with +all his fraternity, at the Devil. + +“MY LORD, + +“I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in +the three great essentials of matter, form, and place: I beg, therefore, +you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with +the most respectful humility, at your Lordship’s feet, --when you are +upon them, --which you can be when you please; --and that is, my Lord, +whenever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes +too. I have the honour to be, + + “_My Lord, + Your Lordship’s most obedient, + and most devoted, + and most humble servant_, + + TRISTRAM SHANDY.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +I solemnly declare to all mankind, that the above dedication was made +for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate, --Duke, Marquis, Earl, +Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other Realm in Christendom; ----nor +has it yet been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately, directly +or indirectly, to any one person or personage, great or small; but is +honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul living. + +I labour this point so particularly, merely to remove any offence or +objection which might arise against it from the manner in which I +propose to make the most of it; --which is the putting it up fairly to +public sale; which I now do. + +----Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear; +--for my own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas +in a dark entry; --I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to +deal squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try +whether I should not come off the better by it. + +If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, +in these his Majesty’s dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel +dedication, and whom the above will suit, (for by the bye, unless it +suits in some degree, I will not part with it)----it is much at his +service for fifty guineas; ----which I am positive is twenty guineas +less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius. + +My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross +piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship +sees, is good, --the colouring transparent, --the drawing not amiss; +--or to speak more like a man of science, --and measure my piece in the +painter’s scale, divided into 20, --I believe, my Lord, the outlines +will turn out as 12, --the composition as 9, --the colouring as 6, --the +expression 13 and a half, --and the design, --if I may be allowed, my +Lord, to understand my own _design_, and supposing absolute perfection +in designing, to be as 20, --I think it cannot well fall short of 19. +Besides all this, --there is keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the +HOBBY-HORSE, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to +the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your own figure, +and make it come off wonderfully; ----and besides, there is an air of +originality in the _tout ensemble_. + +Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of +Mr. _Dodsley_, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition +care shall be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship’s +titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of +the preceding chapter: All which, from the words, _De gustibus non est +disputandum_, and whatever else in this book relates to HOBBY-HORSES, +but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship. --The rest I +dedicate to the MOON, who, by the bye, of all the PATRONS or MATRONS I +can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world +run mad after it. + + +_Bright Goddess_, + +If thou art not too busy with CANDID and Miss CUNEGUND’S affairs, --take +_Tristram Shandy’s_ under thy protection also. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Whatever degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the +midwife might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested, --at +first sight seems not very material to this history; ----certain however +it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson’s wife, did run away at that +time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking +but that the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit +upon the design first, --yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment +it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry +it into execution, had a claim to some share of it, --if not to a full +half of whatever honour was due to it. + +The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise. + +Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable +guess at the grounds of this procedure. + +Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the +midwife’s licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an account, +--the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk by a +breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his +station, and his office; --and that was in never appearing better, or +otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jack-ass of a horse, value +about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of +him, was full brother to _Rosinante_, as far as similitude congenial +could make him; for he answered his description to a hair-breadth in +every thing, --except that I do not remember ’tis any where said, that +_Rosinante_ was broken-winded; and that, moreover, _Rosinante_, as is +the happiness of most _Spanish_ horses, fat or lean, --was undoubtedly a +horse at all points. + +I know very well that the HERO’S horse was a horse of chaste deportment, +which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But it is as +certain at the same time, that _Rosinante’s_ continency (as may be +demonstrated from the adventure of the _Yanguesian_ carriers) proceeded +from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and +orderly current of his blood. --And let me tell you, Madam, there is a +great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which you +could not say more for your life. + +Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do extra justice to every +creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work, --I could not +stifle this distinction in favour of Don _Quixote’s_ horse; ----in all +other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another, --for he +was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as HUMILITY herself could +have bestrided. + +In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was +greatly in the parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse of +his, --for he was master of a very handsome demi-peak’d saddle, quilted +on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of +silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a +housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of +black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, _poudré d’or_, +--all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, +together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it +should be. ----But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these +up behind his study door: --and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted +him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the figure and value +of such a steed might well and truly deserve. + +In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits +to the gentry who lived around him, --you will easily comprehend, that +the parson, so appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his +philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a +village, but he caught the attention of both old and young. ----Labour +stood still as he pass’d----the bucket hung suspended in the middle of +the well, ----the spinning-wheel forgot its round, ----even +chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got +out of sight; and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had +generally time enough upon his hands to make his observations, --to hear +the groans of the serious, --and the laughter of the light-hearted; +--all which he bore with excellent tranquillity. --His character was, +--he loved a jest in his heart--and as he saw himself in the true point +of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing +him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his +friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who +therefore made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his +humour, --instead of giving the true cause, --he chose rather to join in +the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of +flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his +beast, --he would sometimes insist upon it, that the horse was as good +as the rider deserved; --that they were, centaur-like, --both of a +piece. At other times, and in other moods, when his spirits were above +the temptation of false wit, --he would say, he found himself going off +fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity, would pretend, he could +not bear the sight of a fat horse, without a dejection of heart, and a +sensible alteration in his pulse; and that he had made choice of the +lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in +spirits. + +At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for +riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one +of mettle; --for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate +as delightfully _de vanitate mundi et fugâ sæculi_, as with the +advantage of a death’s-head before him; --that, in all other +exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along, --to as +much account as in his study; --that he could draw up an argument in his +sermon, --or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the +other; --that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and +judgment, were two incompatible movements. --But that upon his steed--he +could unite and reconcile every thing, --he could compose his sermon--he +could compose his cough, ----and, in case nature gave a call that way, +he could likewise compose himself to sleep. --In short, the parson upon +such encounters would assign any cause but the true cause, --and he +with-held the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he +thought it did honour to him. + +But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this +gentleman’s life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle +were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it +what you will, --to run into the opposite extreme. --In the language of +the county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and +generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his stable +always ready for saddling; and as the nearest midwife, as I told you, +did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile +country, --it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole +week together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he +was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more +distressful than the last, --as much as he loved his beast, he had never +a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this, that his +horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d; --or he was +twitter-bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had +befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh; --so that he had every +nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of, --and a good horse to +purchase in his stead. + +What the loss on such a balance might amount to, _communibus annis_, I +would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to +determine; --but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it +for many years without a murmur, till at length, by repeated ill +accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under +consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his +mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but +withal so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other +act of generosity in his parish: Besides this, he considered that with +half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good; +--and what still weighed more with him than all other considerations put +together, was this, that it confined all his charity into one particular +channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely, to +the child-bearing and child-getting part of his parish; reserving +nothing for the impotent, --nothing for the aged, --nothing for the many +comfortless scenes he was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, +and sickness, and affliction dwelt together. + +For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there +appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it; --and +these were, either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his +steed upon any application whatever, --or else be content to ride the +last poor devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and +infirmities, to the very end of the chapter. + +As he dreaded his own constancy in the first--he very chearfully betook +himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it, +as I said, to his honour, --yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit +above it; choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the +laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story, which +might seem a panegyrick upon himself. + +I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this +reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I +think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight +of _La Mancha_, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and +would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the +greatest hero of antiquity. + +But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to +shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair. --For you must +know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson +credit, --the devil a soul could find it out, --I suppose his enemies +would not, and that his friends could not. ----But no sooner did he +bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the +ordinary’s licence to set her up, --but the whole secret came out; every +horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all +the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly +remembered. --The story ran like wild-fire-- “The parson had a returning +fit of pride which had just seized him; and he was going to be well +mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, ’twas plain as the sun +at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the licence, ten times told, +the very first year: --So that every body was left to judge what were +his views in this act of charity.” + +What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life, --or +rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other +people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, +and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound +asleep. + +About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made +entirely easy upon that score, --it being just so long since he left his +parish, --and the whole world at the same time behind him, --and stands +accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain. + +But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men: Order them as +they will, they pass thro’ a certain medium, which so twists and +refracts them from their true directions----that, with all the titles to +praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are +nevertheless forced to live and die without it. + +Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example. ----But to +know by what means this came to pass, --and to make that knowledge of +use to you, I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters, +which contain such a sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry +its moral along with it. --When this is done, if nothing stops us in our +way, we will go on with the midwife. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable in it +(as appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong +vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt +for near, ----I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years; ----but +I would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however +indisputable in itself; ----and therefore I shall content myself with +only saying ----It had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation +or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which +is more than I would venture to say of one half of the best surnames in +the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as +many chops and changes as their owners. --Has this been owing to the +pride, or to the shame of the respective proprietors? --In honest truth, +I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other, just as the +temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day +so blend and confound us altogether, that no one shall be able to stand +up and swear, “That his own great grandfather was the man who did either +this or that.” + +This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of +the _Yorick’s_ family, and their religious preservation of these records +I quote, which do farther inform us, That the family was originally of +_Danish_ extraction, and had been transplanted into _England_ as early +as in the reign of _Horwendillus_, king of _Denmark_, in whose court, it +seems, an ancestor of this Mr. _Yorick’s_, and from whom he was lineally +descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of what +nature this considerable post was, this record saith not; --It only +adds, That, for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished, as +altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in every other court +of the Christian world. + +It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than +that of the king’s chief Jester; --and that _Hamlet’s Yorick_, in our +_Shakespeare_, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon +authenticated facts, was certainly the very man. + +I have not the time to look into _Saxo-Grammaticus’s Danish_ history, to +know the certainty of this; --but if you have leisure, and can easily +get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself. + +I had just time, in my travels through _Denmark_ with Mr. _Noddy’s_ +eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding +along with him at a prodigious rate thro’ most parts of _Europe_, and of +which original journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative +will be given in the progress of this work; I had just time, I say, and +that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long +sojourner in that country; ----namely, “That nature was neither very +lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to +its inhabitants; --but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to +them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her +favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with +each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of +refined parts; but a great deal of good plain household understanding +amongst all ranks of people, of which everybody has a share;” which is, +I think, very right. + +With us, you see, the case is quite different: --we are all ups and +downs in this matter; --you are a great genius; --or ’tis fifty to one, +Sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead; --not that there is a total +want of intermediate steps, --no, --we are not so irregular as that +comes to; --but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater +degree in this unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and +dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune +herself not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than +she. + +This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to _Yorick’s_ +extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts +I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of +_Danish_ blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might +possibly have all run out: ----I will not philosophize one moment with +you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this: --That instead +of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would +have looked for, in one so extracted; --he was, on the contrary, as +mercurial and sublimated a composition, --as heteroclite a creature in +all his declensions; --with as much life and whim, and _gaité de cœur_ +about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put +together. With all this sail, poor _Yorick_ carried not one ounce of +ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of +twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a +romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting +out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul +ten times in a day of somebody’s tackling; and as the grave and more +slow-paced were oftenest in his way, ----you may likewise imagine, ’twas +with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For +aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of +such _Fracas_: ----For, to speak the truth, _Yorick_ had an invincible +dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity; --not to gravity as +such; --for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or +serious of mortal men for days and weeks together; --but he was an enemy +to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it +appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it fell +in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much +quarter. + +Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say that Gravity was an +errant scoundrel, and he would add, --of the most dangerous kind too, +--because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest, +well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in +one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In +the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say, there was +no danger, --but to itself: --whereas the very essence of gravity was +design, and consequently deceit; --’twas a taught trick to gain credit +of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and +that, with all its pretensions, --it was no better, but often worse, +than what a _French_ wit had long ago defined it, --_viz._ _A mysterious +carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind_; --which +definition of gravity, _Yorick_, with great imprudence, would say, +deserved to be wrote in letters of gold. + +But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the +world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other +subject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint. _Yorick_ +had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the nature of +the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually translate into +plain _English_ without any periphrasis; --and too oft without much +distinction of either person, time, or place; --so that when mention was +made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding----he never gave himself a +moment’s time to reflect who was the hero of the piece, ----what his +station, ----or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter; ----but if +it was a dirty action, --without more ado, --The man was a dirty fellow, +--and so on. --And as his comments had usually the ill fate to be +terminated either in a _bon mot_, or to be enlivened throughout with +some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to _Yorick’s_ +indiscretion. In a word, tho’ he never sought, yet, at the same time, as +he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without +much ceremony; ----he had but too many temptations in life, of +scattering his wit and his humour, --his gibes and his jests about him. +----They were not lost for want of gathering. + +What were the consequences, and what was _Yorick’s_ catastrophe +thereupon, you will read in the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The _Mortgager_ and _Mortgagée_ differ the one from the other, not more +in length of purse, than the _Jester_ and _Jestée_ do, in that of +memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts +call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more +than some of the best of _Homer’s_ can pretend to; --namely, That the +one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and thinks no +more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; --the +periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the memory +of the affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour, --pop comes the +creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot, together +with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the full extent +of their obligations. + +As the reader (for I hate your _ifs_) has a thorough knowledge of human +nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my HERO could not go on +at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental +mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a +multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding +_Eugenius’s_ frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that as +not one of them was contracted thro’ any malignancy; --but, on the +contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they +would all of them be cross’d out in course. + +_Eugenius_ would never admit this; and would often tell him, that one +day or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often +add, in an accent of sorrowful apprehension, --to the uttermost mite. To +which _Yorick_, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often +answer with a pshaw! --and if the subject was started in the +fields--with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent +up in the social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado’d in, +with a table and a couple of armchairs, and could not so readily fly off +in a tangent, --_Eugenius_ would then go on with his lecture upon +discretion in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put +together. + +Trust me, dear _Yorick_, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or +later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can +extricate thee out of. ----In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, +that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person +injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and +when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, his +family, his kindred and allies, ----and musters up with them the many +recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger; +----’tis no extravagant arithmetick to say, that for every ten jokes, +--thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and +raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by +them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so. + +I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least +spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies ----I believe +and know them to be truly honest and sportive: --But consider, my dear +lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, --and that knaves will not: and +thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry +with the other: ----whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend +upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my +dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too. + +Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at +thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set +right. ----The fortunes of thy house shall totter, --thy character, +which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it, --thy faith +questioned, --thy works belied, --thy wit forgotten, --thy learning +trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and +COWARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall +strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes: ----The best of us, +my dear lad, lie open there, ----and trust me, ----trust me, _Yorick, +when to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an +innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy +matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, +to make a fire to offer it up with_. + +_Yorick_ scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read +over to him, but with a fear stealing from his eye, and a promissory +look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride +his tit with more sobriety. --But, alas, too late! --a grand +confederacy, with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before +the first prediction of it. --The whole plan of the attack, just as +_Eugenius_ had foreboded, was put in execution all at once, --with so +little mercy on the side of the allies, --and so little suspicion in +_Yorick_, of what was carrying on against him, --that when he thought, +good easy man! full surely preferment was o’ ripening, --they had smote +his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him. + +_Yorick_, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some +time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the +calamities of the war, --but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which +it was carried on, --he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his +spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was +generally thought, quite broken-hearted. + +What inclined _Eugenius_ to the same opinion was as follows: + +A few hours before _Yorick_ breathed his last, _Eugenius_ stept in with +an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his +drawing _Yorick’s_ curtain, and asking how he felt himself, _Yorick_ +looking up in his face took hold of his hand, --and after thanking him +for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it +was their fate to meet hereafter, --he would thank him again and again, +--he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip +for ever. --I hope not, answered _Eugenius_, with tears trickling down +his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke. --I hope +not, _Yorick_, said he. ----_Yorick_ replied, with a look up, and a +gentle squeeze of _Eugenius’s_ hand, and that was all, --but it cut +_Eugenius_ to his heart, --Come--come, _Yorick_, quoth _Eugenius_, +wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him, --my dear lad, be +comforted, --let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this +crisis when thou most wants them; ----who knows what resources are in +store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee? ----_Yorick_ laid +his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head; --For my part, +continued _Eugenius_, crying bitterly as he uttered the words, --I +declare I know not, _Yorick_, how to part with thee, and would gladly +flatter my hopes, added _Eugenius_, chearing up his voice, that there is +still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to see +it. ----I beseech thee, _Eugenius_, quoth _Yorick_, taking off his +night-cap as well as he could with his left hand, ----his right being +still grasped close in that of _Eugenius_, ----I beseech thee to take a +view of my head. --I see nothing that ails it, replied _Eugenius_. Then, +alas! my friend, said _Yorick_, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised +and mis-shapened with the blows which ***** and *****, and some others +have so unhandsomely given me, in the dark, that I might say with +_Sancho Pança_, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered +to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit +it.” ----_Yorick’s_ last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips +ready to depart as he uttered this: ----yet still it was uttered with +something of a _Cervantick_ tone; ----and as he spoke it, _Eugenius_ +could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his +eyes; ----faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which +(as _Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a +roar! + +_Eugenius_ was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was +broke: he squeezed his hand, ----and then walked softly out of the room, +weeping as he walked. _Yorick_ followed _Eugenius_ with his eyes to the +door, --he then closed them, --and never opened them more. + + [Illustration (full-page black tombstone)] + +He lies buried in the corner of his churchyard, in the parish of ------, +under a plain marble slab, which his friend _Eugenius_, by leave of his +executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of +inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy. + ____________________ + | | + | Alas, poor YORICK! | + |____________________| + +Ten times a day has _Yorick’s_ ghost the consolation to hear his +monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones, +as denote a general pity and esteem for him; ----a foot-way crossing the +churchyard close by the side of his grave, --not a passenger goes by +without stopping to cast a look upon it, --and sighing as he walks on, + + Alas, poor YORICK! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +It is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted +from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, +merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world, +and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at present, +--I am going to introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh matter +may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt the reader +and myself, which may require immediate dispatch; ----’twas right to +take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the meantime; +--because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her. + +I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note +and consequence throughout our whole village and township; --that her +fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that +circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a +shirt to his back or no, ----has one surrounding him; --which said +circle, by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a one is of great +weight and importance in the _world_, ----I desire may be enlarged or +contracted in your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station, +profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways) +of the personage brought before you. + +In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five miles, +which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two +or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish; which +made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That she was, moreover, +very well looked on at one large grange-house, and some other odd houses +and farms within two or three miles, as I said, from the smoke of her +own chimney: ----But I must here, once for all, inform you, that all +this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d in a map, now in the +hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developements +of this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume, --not to +swell the work, --I detest the thought of such a thing; --but by way of +commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to such passages, incidents, +or innuendos as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation, +or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my life and my opinions shall have +been read over (now don’t forget the meaning of the word) by all the +_world_; ----which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all the +gentlemen-reviewers in _Great Britain_, and of all that their worships +shall undertake to write or say to the contrary, --I am determined shall +be the case. --I need not tell your worship, that all this is spoke in +confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Upon looking into my mother’s marriage-settlement, in order to satisfy +myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could +proceed any farther in this history; --I had the good fortune to pop +upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight +forwards, --it might have taken me up a month; --which shews plainly, +that when a man sits down to write a history, --tho’ it be but the +history of _Jack Hickathrift_ or _Tom Thumb_, he knows no more than his +heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way, +--or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all +is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer +drives on his mule, --straight forward; ----for instance, from _Rome_ +all the way to _Loretto_, without ever once turning his head aside +either to the right hand or to the left, ----he might venture to +foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end; ----but +the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the +least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make +with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways avoid. He +will have views and prospects to himself perpetually soliciting his eye, +which he can no more help standing still to look at than he can fly; he +will moreover have various + +Accounts to reconcile: + +Anecdotes to pick up: + +Inscriptions to make out: + +Stories to weave in: + +Traditions to sift: + +Personages to call upon: + +Panegyricks to paste up at this door; + +Pasquinades at that: ----All which both the man and his mule are quite +exempt from. To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be +look’d into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies, +which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of: +----In short, there is no end of it; ----for my own part, I declare I +had been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could, +--and am not yet born: --I have just been able, and that’s all, to tell +you _when_ it happen’d, but not _how_; --so that you see the thing is +yet far from being accomplished. + +These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I +first set out; --but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase +than diminish as I advance, --have struck out a hint which I am resolved +to follow; ----and that is, --not to be in a hurry; but to go on +leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year; +----which, if I am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable +bargain with my bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader +I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it, +I think proper to lay before him, --is so much more fully express’d in +the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be +barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand: --It is as follows. + +“#And this Indenture further witnesseth#, That the said _Walter Shandy_, +merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had, and, +by God’s blessing, to be well and truly solemnised and consummated +between the said _Walter Shandy_ and _Elizabeth Mollineux_ aforesaid, +and divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him +thereunto specially moving, --doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent, +conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with _John Dixon_, and _James +Turner_, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, _&c. &c._--#to Wit#, --That in +case it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come +to pass, --That the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, shall have left off +business before the time or times, that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ +shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off +bearing and bringing forth children; --and that, in consequence of the +said _Walter Shandy_ having so left off business, he shall in despight, +and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said +_Elizabeth Mollineux_, --make a departure from the city of _London_, in +order to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at _Shandy Hall_, in the +county of ----, or at any other country-seat, castle, hall, +mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now purchased, or hereafter to +be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof: --That then, and as +often as the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall happen to be enceint with +child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon +the body of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, during her said coverture, +--he the said _Walter Shandy_ shall, at his own proper cost and charges, +and out of his own proper monies, upon good and reasonable notice, which +is hereby agreed to be within six weeks of her the said _Elizabeth +Mollineux’s_ full reckoning, or time of supposed and computed delivery, +--pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds of +good and lawful money, to _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. or +assigns, --upon TRUST and confidence, and for and unto the use and uses, +intent, end, and purpose following: --#That is to say#, --That the said +sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid into the hands of the +said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, or to be otherwise applied by them the said +Trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one coach, with able and +sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of the said _Elizabeth +Mollineux_, and the child or children which she shall be then and there +enceint and pregnant with, --unto the city of _London_; and for the +further paying and defraying of all other incidental costs, charges, and +expences whatsoever, --in and about, and for, and relating to, her said +intended delivery and lying-in, in the said city or suburbs thereof. And +that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall and may, from time to time, +and at all such time and times as are here covenanted and agreed upon, +--peaceably and quietly hire the said coach and horses, and have free +ingress, egress, and regress throughout her journey, in and from the +said coach, according to the tenor, true intent, and meaning of these +presents, without any let, suit, trouble, disturbance, molestation, +discharge, hindrance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation, interruption, or +incumbrance whatsoever. --And that it shall moreover be lawful to and +for the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, from time to time, and as oft or +often as she shall well and truly be advanced in her said pregnancy, to +the time heretofore stipulated and agreed upon, --to live and reside in +such place or places, and in such family or families, and with such +relations, friends, and other persons within the said city of _London_, +as she at her own will and pleasure, notwithstanding her present +coverture, and as if she was a _femme sole_ and unmarried, --shall think +fit. --#And this Indenture further Witnesseth#, That for the more +effectually carrying of the said covenant into execution, the said +_Walter Shandy_, merchant, doth hereby grant, bargain, sell, release, +and confirm unto the said _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. their +heirs, executors, and assigns, in their actual possession now being, by +virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale for a year to them the said +_John Dickson_, and _James Turner_, Esqrs. by him the said _Walter +Shandy_, merchant, thereof made; which said bargain and sale for a year, +bears date the day next before the date of these presents, and by force +and virtue of the statute for transferring of uses into possession, +--#All# that the manor and lordship of _Shandy_, in the county of ----, +with all the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof; and all and +every the messuages, houses, buildings, barns, stables, orchards, +gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts, garths, cottages, lands, meadows, +feedings, pastures, marshes, commons, woods, underwoods, drains, +fisheries, waters, and water-courses; --together with all rents, +reversions, services, annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of +frankpledge, escheats, reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of +felons and fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in exigent, +deodands, free warrens, and all other royalties and seigniories, rights +and jurisdictions, privileges and hereditaments whatsoever. ----#And +also# the advowson, donation, presentation, and free disposition of the +rectory or parsonage of _Shandy_ aforesaid, and all and every the +tenths, tythes, glebe-lands.” ----In three words, ----“My mother was to +lay in, (if she chose it) in _London_.” + +But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the +part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too +manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of +at all, but for my uncle _Toby Shandy_; --a clause was added in security +of my father, which was this: --“That in case my mother hereafter +should, at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a +_London_ journey, upon false cries and tokens; ----that for every such +instance, she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant +gave her to the next turn; ----but to no more, --and so on, _toties +quoties_, in as effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them +had not been made.” --This, by the way, was no more than what was +reasonable; --and yet, as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it +hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely, +as it did, upon myself. + +But I was begot and born to misfortunes: --for my poor mother, whether +it was wind or water--or a compound of both, --or neither; --or whether +it was simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her; --or how +far a strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment: +--in short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no +way becomes me to decide. The fact was this, That in the latter end of +_September_ 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having +carried my father up to town much against the grain, --he peremptorily +insisted upon the clause; --so that I was doom’d, by marriage-articles, +to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had +actually spun me without one. + +How this event came about, --and what a train of vexatious +disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from +the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member, --shall +be laid before the reader all in due time. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +My father, as anybody may naturally imagine, came down with my mother +into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty or +five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze +himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he +said might every shilling of it have been saved; --then what vexed him +more than everything else was, the provoking time of the year, --which, +as I told you, was towards the end of _September_, when his wall-fruit +and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just +ready for pulling: ----“Had he been whistled up to _London_, upon a _Tom +Fool’s_ errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not have +said three words about it.” + +For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy +blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully +reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his pocket-book, as a +second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should fail him. The +disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a wise man, than +all the money which the journey, etc., had cost him, put together, --rot +the hundred and twenty pounds, ----he did not mind it a rush. + +From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair +provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish +figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_; ----of +which, in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by +vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking descriptions, +--and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes +in the face of the whole congregation; --that my mother declared, these +two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did nothing but laugh +and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of them all the way. + +From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out of +all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied +my mother had put upon him in this affair-- “Certainly,” he would say to +himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived +herself----if she could, ----what weakness!” --tormenting word! --which +led his imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the +duce and all with him; ----for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was +uttered, and struck full upon his brain--so sure it set him upon running +divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were; ----that there +was such a thing as weakness of the body, ----as well as weakness of the +mind, --and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a +stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might, +or might not, have arisen out of himself. + +In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of +this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up +in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy +journey of it down. ----In a word, as she complained to my uncle _Toby_, +he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the best +of moods, --pshawing and pishing all the way down, --yet he had the +complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to himself; +--which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the justice, +which my uncle _Toby’s_ clause in the marriage-settlement empowered him; +nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, which was thirteen +months after, that she had the least intimation of his design: when my +father, happening, as you remember, to be a little chagrin’d and out of +temper, ----took occasion as they lay chatting gravely in bed +afterwards, talking over what was to come, ----to let her know that she +must accommodate herself as well as she could to the bargain made +between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in of her next +child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey. + +My father was a gentleman of many virtues, --but he had a strong spice +of that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number. +--’Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, --and of +obstinacy in a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that +she knew ’twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance, --so she e’en +resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother +should lye-in of me in the country, she took her measures accordingly; +for which purpose, when she was three days, or thereabouts, gone with +child, she began to cast her eyes upon the midwife, whom you have so +often heard me mention; and before the week was well got round, as the +famous Dr. _Manningham_ was not to be had, she had come to a final +determination in her mind, ----notwithstanding there was a scientific +operator within so near a call as eight miles of us, and who, moreover, +had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon the subject of midwifery, +in which he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself, +----but had likewise superadded many curious improvements for the +quicker extraction of the fœtus in cross births, and some other cases of +danger, which belay us in getting into the world; notwithstanding all +this, my mother, I say, was absolutely determined to trust her life, and +mine with it, into no soul’s hand but this old woman’s only. --Now this +I like; --when we cannot get at the very thing we wish----never to take +up with the next best in degree to it: --no; that’s pitiful beyond +description; --it is no more than a week from this very day, in which I +am now writing this book for the edification of the world; --which is +_March_ 9, 1759, ----that my dear, dear _Jenny_, observing I looked a +little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five-and-twenty +shillings a yard, --told the mercer, she was sorry she had given him so +much trouble; --and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide +stuff of tenpence a yard. --’Tis the duplication of one and the same +greatness of soul; only what lessened the honour of it, somewhat, in my +mother’s case, was, that she could not heroine it into so violent and +hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation might have wished, because +the old widwife had really some little claim to be depended upon, --as +much, at least, as success could give her; having, in the course of her +practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought every mother’s son +of them into the world without any one slip or accident which could +fairly be laid to her account. + +These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy +some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father’s spirits +in relation to this choice. --To say nothing of the natural workings of +humanity and justice--or of the yearnings of parental and connubial +love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible in +a case of this kind; ----he felt himself concerned in a particular +manner, that all should go right in the present case; --from the +accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and +child in lying-in at _Shandy-Hall_. ----He knew the world judged by +events, and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by +loading him with the whole blame of it. ----“Alas, o’day; --had Mrs. +_Shandy_, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in going up to town just to +lye-in and come down again; --which, they say, she begged and prayed for +upon her bare knees, ----and which, in my opinion, considering the +fortune which Mr. _Shandy_ got with her, --was no such mighty matter to +have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been +alive at this hour.” + +This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable; --and yet, it was +not merely to shelter himself, --nor was it altogether for the care of +his offspring and wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this +point; --my father had extensive views of things, ----and stood +moreover, as he thought, deeply concerned in it for the publick good, +from the dread he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance +might be put to. + +He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had +unanimously agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen +_Elizabeth’s_ reign down to his own time, that the current of men and +money towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or another, +--set in so strong, --as to become dangerous to our civil rights, +--though, by the bye, ----a _current_ was not the image he took most +delight in, --a _distemper_ was here his favourite metaphor, and he +would run it down into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was +identically the same in the body national as in the body natural where +the blood and spirits were driven up into the head faster than they +could find their ways down; ----a stoppage of circulation must ensue, +which was death in both cases. + +There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by +_French_ politicks or _French_ invasions; ----nor was he so much in pain +of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humours +in our constitution, which he hoped was not so bad as it was imagined; +--but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go off, all +at once, in a state-apoplexy; --and then he would say, _The Lord have +mercy upon us all_. + +My father was never able to give the history of this distemper, +--without the remedy along with it. + +“Was I an absolute prince,” he would say, pulling up his breeches with +both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, “I would appoint able +judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of +every fool’s business who came there; --and if, upon a fair and candid +hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, and +come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer’s sons, +&c., &c., at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable +to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of their legal +settlements. By this means I shall take care, that my metropolis +totter’d not thro’ its own weight; --that the head be no longer too big +for the body; --that the extremes, now wasted and pinn’d in, be restored +to their due share of nourishment, and regain with it their natural +strength and beauty: --I would effectually provide, That the meadows and +corn-fields of my dominions, should laugh and sing; --that good chear +and hospitality flourish once more; --and that such weight and influence +be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of my kingdom, as should +counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now taking from them. + +“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s seats,” he would ask, with +some emotion, as he walked across the room, “throughout so many +delicious provinces in _France?_ Whence is it that the few remaining +_Chateaus_ amongst them are so dismantled, --so unfurnished, and in so +ruinous and desolate a condition? ----Because, Sir,” (he would say) “in +that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support; --the little +interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is concentrated +in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of +whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every _French_ +man lives or dies.” + +Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard +against the least evil accident in my mother’s lying-in in the country, +----was, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance of +power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in his +own, or higher stations; ----which, with the many other usurped rights +which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing, --would, in +the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestick government +established in the first creation of things by God. + +In this point he was entirely of Sir _Robert Filmer’s_ opinion, That the +plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern parts +of the world were, originally, all stolen from that admirable pattern +and prototype of this household and paternal power; --which, for a +century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a +mix’d government; ----the form of which, however desirable in great +combinations of the species, ----was very troublesome in small ones, +--and seldom produced anything, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion. + +For all these reasons, private and publick, put together, --my father +was for having the man-midwife by all means, --my mother by no means. My +father begg’d and intreated she would for once recede from her +prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her; --my +mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privilege in this matter, to +choose for herself, --and have no mortal’s help but the old woman’s. +--What could my father do? He was almost at his wit’s end; ----talked it +over with her in all moods; --placed his arguments in all lights; +--argued the matter with her like a christian, --like a heathen, --like +a husband, --like a father, --like a patriot, --like a man: --My mother +answered everything only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her; +--for as she could not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of +characters, --’twas no fair match: --’twas seven to one. --What could my +mother do? ----She had the advantage (otherwise she had been certainly +overpowered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom, +which bore her up, and enabled her to dispute the affair with my father +with so equal an advantage, ----that both sides sung _Te Deum_. In a +word, my mother was to have the old woman, --and the operator was to +have licence to drink a bottle of wine with my father and my uncle _Toby +Shandy_ in the back parlour, --for which he was to be paid five guineas. + +I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the +breast of my fair reader; --and it is this, ----Not to take it +absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have +dropp’d in it, ----“That I am a married man.” --I own, the tender +appellation of my dear, dear _Jenny_, --with some other strokes of +conjugal knowledge, interspersed here and there, might, naturally +enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a +determination against me. --All I plead for, in this case, Madam, is +strict justice, and that you do so much of it, to me as well as to +yourself, --as not to prejudge, or receive such an impression of me, +till you have better evidence, than, I am positive, at present can be +produced against me. --Not that I can be so vain or unreasonable, Madam, +as to desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear _Jenny_ is +my kept mistress; --no, --that would be flattering my character in the +other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has +no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the utter impossibility, for +some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth, +should know how this matter really stands. --It is not impossible, but +that my dear, dear _Jenny!_ tender as the appellation is, may be my +child. ----Consider, --I was born in the year eighteen. --Nor is there +anything unnatural or extravagant in the supposition, that my dear +_Jenny_ may be my friend. --Friend! --My friend. --Surely, Madam, +a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported +without ------Fy! Mr. _Shandy_: --Without anything, Madam, but that +tender and delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friendship, where +there is a difference of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and +sentimental parts of the best _French_ Romances; --it will really, +Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions +this delicious sentiment, which I have the honour to speak of, is +dress’d out. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +I would sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry, +than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great +good sense, ----knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and +curious too in philosophy, --wise also in political reasoning, --and in +polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant, --could be capable of +entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track, --that I +fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of +a cholerick temper, will immediately throw the book by; if mercurial, he +will laugh most heartily at it; --and if he is of a grave and saturnine +cast, he will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and +extravagant; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of +christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than +what superficial minds were capable of conceiving. + +His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of +magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly +impressed upon our characters and conduct. + +The hero of _Cervantes_ argued not the point with more seriousness, +----nor had he more faith, ----or more to say on the powers of +necromancy in dishonouring his deeds, --or on DULCINEA’S name, in +shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS +or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand--or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How +many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, +have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add, are +there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their +characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICOMEDUS’D into +nothing? + +I see plainly, Sir, by your looks (or as the case happened), my father +would say--that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine, +--which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the +bottom, --I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it; +----and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am +morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you, --not +as a party in the dispute, --but as a judge, and trusting my appeal upon +it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this matter; +----you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as +most men; --and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into you, --of a +liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely because it +wants friends. Your son, --your dear son, --from whose sweet and open +temper you have so much to expect. --Your BILLY, Sir! --would you, for +the world, have called him JUDAS? --Would you, my dear Sir, he would +say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address, +--and in that soft and irresistible _piano_ of voice, which the nature +of the _argumentum ad hominem_ absolutely requires, --Would you, Sir, if +a _Jew_ of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered +you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a +desecration of him? ----O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know +your temper right, Sir, --you are incapable of it; ----you would have +trampled upon the offer; --you would have thrown the temptation at the +tempter’s head with abhorrence. + +Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that +generous contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction, +is really noble; --and what renders it more so, is the principle of it; +--the workings of a parent’s love upon the truth and conviction of this +very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS, --the sordid +and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have +accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a +miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example. + +I never knew a man able to answer this argument. ----But, indeed, to +speak of my father as he was; --he was certainly irresistible; --both in +his orations and disputations; --he was born an orator; --Θεοδίδακτος. +--Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and +Rhetorick were so blended up in him, --and, withal, he had so shrewd a +guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent, ----that NATURE +might have stood up and said, --“This man is eloquent.” --In short, +whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas +hazardous in either case to attack him. --And yet, ’tis strange, he had +never read _Cicero_, nor _Quintilian de Oratore_, nor _Isocrates_, nor +_Aristotle_, nor _Longinus_ amongst the antients; --nor _Vossius_, nor +_Skioppius_, nor _Ramus_, nor _Farnaby_ amongst the moderns; --and what +is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or +spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon +_Crackenthorp_ or _Burgersdicius_, or any Dutch logician or commentator; +--he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument _ad +ignorantiam_, and an argument _ad hominem_ consisted; so that I well +remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at _Jesus +College_ in ****, --it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, +and two or three fellows of that learned society, --that a man who knew +not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work after that +fashion with them. + +To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was, +however, perpetually forced upon; ----for he had a thousand little +sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend----most of which notions, +I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and +of a _vive la Bagatelle_; and as such he would make merry with them for +half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss them +till another day. + +I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the +progress and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions, --but as a +warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such +guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance, for some years, into +our brains, --at length claim a kind of settlement there, ----working +sometimes like yeast; --but more generally after the manner of the +gentle passion, beginning in jest, --but ending in downright earnest. + +Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions--or +that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit; --or how far, +in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right; +----the reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain +here, is, that in this one, of the influence of christian names, however +it gained footing, he was serious; --he was all uniformity; --he was +systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would move both +heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support +his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again; --he was serious; +--and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever +he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better, +----as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon +their child, --or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_ for +their puppy-dog. + +This, he would say, look’d ill; --and had, moreover, this particular +aggravation in it, viz., That when once a vile name was wrongfully or +injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character, +which, when wrong’d, might hereafter be cleared; ----and, possibly, some +time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least after his death, --be, +somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this, +he would say, could never be undone; --nay, he doubted even whether an +act of parliament could reach it: ----He knew as well as you, that the +legislature assumed a power over surnames; --but for very strong +reasons, which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, +to go a step farther. + +It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion, +had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards +certain names; --that there were still numbers of names which hung so +equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely indifferent +to him. _Jack_, _Dick_, and _Tom_ were of this class: These my father +called neutral names; --affirming of them, without a satire, That there +had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men, since +the world began, who had indifferently borne them; --so that, like equal +forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they +mutually destroyed each other’s effects; for which reason, he would +often declare, He would not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them. +_Bob_, which was my brother’s name, was another of these neutral kinds +of christian names, which operated very little either way; and as my +father happen’d to be at _Epsom_, when it was given him, --he would +oft-times thank Heaven it was no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a +negative quantity in Algebra with him; --’twas worse, he said, than +nothing. --_William_ stood pretty high: ----_Numps_ again was low with +him: --and _Nick_, he said, was the DEVIL. + +But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable +aversion for TRISTRAM; --he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion +of it of anything in the world, --thinking it could possibly produce +nothing in _rerum naturâ_, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So +that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he +was frequently involved, ----he would sometimes break off in a sudden +and spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and +sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse, ----and demand it +categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, +he had ever remembered, ----whether he had ever read, --or even whether +he had ever heard tell of a man, called _Tristram_, performing anything +great or worth recording? --No, --he would say, --TRISTRAM! --The thing +is impossible. + +What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish +this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle +speculatist to stand single in his opinions, --unless he gives them +proper vent: --It was the identical thing which my father did: --for in +the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the +pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word +_Tristram_, --shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the +grounds of his great abhorrence to the name. + +When this story is compared with the title-page, --Will not the gentle +reader pity my father from his soul? --to see an orderly and +well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular, --yet inoffensive in his +notions, --so played upon in them by cross purposes; ----to look down +upon the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little +systems and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out +against him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had +purposedly been plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his +speculations. ----In a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, +ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow; --ten +times in a day calling the child of his prayers TRISTRAM! --Melancholy +dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to _Nincompoop_, +and every name vituperative under heaven. ----By his ashes! I swear it, +--if ever malignant spirit took pleasure, or busied itself in traversing +the purposes of mortal man, --it must have been here; --and if it was +not necessary I should be born before I was christened, I would this +moment give the reader an account of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +------How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last +chapter? I told you in it, _That my mother was not a papist_. +----Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir. --Madam, I beg leave to +repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least, as words, by +direct inference, could tell you such a thing. --Then, Sir, I must have +miss’d a page. --No, Madam, --you have not miss’d a word. ----Then I was +asleep, Sir. --My pride, Madam, cannot allow you that refuge. ----Then, +I declare, I know nothing at all about the matter. --That, Madam, is the +very fault I lay to your charge; and as a punishment for it, I do insist +upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to +the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again. I have +imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness nor +cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall make her no +apology for it when she returns back: --’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, +which has crept into thousands besides herself, --of reading straight +forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition +and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, +would infallibly impart with them ----The mind should be accustomed to +make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; +the habitude of which made _Pliny_ the younger affirm, “That he never +read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of +_Greece_ and _Rome_, run over without this turn and application, --do +less service, I affirm it, than the history of _Parismus_ and +_Parismenus_, or of the Seven Champions of _England_, read with it. + +------But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter, +Madam, as I desired you? --You have: And did you not observe the +passage, upon the second reading, which admits the inference? ----Not a +word like it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but +one of the chapter, where I take upon me to say, “It was _necessary_ I +should be born before I was christen’d.” Had my mother, Madam, been a +Papist, that consequence did not follow.[1.1] + +It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to +the Republick of letters; --so that my own is quite swallowed up in the +consideration of it, --that this selfsame vile pruriency for fresh +adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humour, +--and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our +concupiscence that way, --that nothing but the gross and more carnal +parts of a composition will go down: --The subtle hints and sly +communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards, ----the heavy +moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much lost +to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn. + +I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and +curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. +I wish it may have its effects; --and that all good people, both male +and female, from her example, may be taught to think as well as read. + +MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les Docteurs de SORBONNE[1.2] + +_Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de +SORBONNE, qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne sçauroit +accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa +mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit +un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous condition, +le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le moyen d’une +_petite canulle_, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement l’enfant, sans +faire aucun tort à la mere. ----Il demand si ce moyen, qu’il vient de +proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir dans les cas +qu’il vient d’exposer._ + + [Footnote 1.1: The _Romish_ Rituals direct the baptizing of the + child, in cases of danger, _before_ it is born; --but upon this + proviso, That some part or other of the child’s body be seen by + the baptizer: ----But the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, by a + deliberation held amongst them, _April_ 10, 1733, --have enlarged + the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part + of the child’s body should appear, ----that baptism shall, + nevertheless, be administered to it by injection, --_par le moyen + d’une petite canulle_, --Anglicè _a squirt_. ----’Tis very strange + that St. _Thomas Aquinas_, who had so good a mechanical head, + both for tying and untying the knots of school-divinity, --should, + after so much pains bestowed upon this, --give up the point at + last, as a second _La chose impossible_, --“Infantes in maternis + uteris existentes (quoth St. _Thomas!_) baptizari possunt _nullo + modo_.” --O _Thomas!_ _Thomas!_ + + If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism + _by injection_, as presented to the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, + with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.] + + [Footnote 1.2: Vide Deventer, Paris edit., 4to, 1734, p. 366.] + + +REPONSE + +_Le Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes +difficultés. Les Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le +baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere +naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour renaître en _Jesus +Christ_, comme ils l’enseignent. _S. Thomas, 3 part, quæst. 88, artic. +II_, suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit +ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de +leurs meres, & _S. Thomas_ est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont +point nés, & ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il +conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet d’une action extérieure, pour +reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens nécessaires au salut:_ Pueri +in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis +hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanæ, ut per +eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. _Les rituels +ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les +mêmes matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de +baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, +s’ils ne font paroître quelque partie de leurs corps. Le concours des +théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des diocéses, paroit +former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le +conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des +théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la +deffense des rituels suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement les +enfans ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre la +supposition presente; & d’un autre côté, considerant que les mêmes +théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les sacremens que _Jesus +Christ_ a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour +sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés +dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut, +parcequ’ils sont capables de damnation; --pour ces considerations, & en +egard à l’exposé, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen certain +de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans faire aucun tort à la mere, +le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen proposé, dans la +confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces sortes d’enfans sans +aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé, que le moyen dont il +s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême; cependant comme il +s’agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposée, de changer une regie +universellement établie, le Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit +s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il appartient de juger de l’utilité, & +du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le bon plaisir de l’evêque, le +Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le droit +d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans le cas, ou la loi +ne sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que paroisse la +maniére de baptiser dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit l’approuver +sans le concours de ces deux autorités. On conseile au moins à celui qui +consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque, & de lui faire part de la +presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les raisons sur +lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être autorisé +dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que la +permission fût demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose si +avantageux au salut de l’enfant. Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant que +l’on pourroit s’en servir, croit cependant, que si les enfans dont il +s’agit, venoient au monde, contre l’esperance de ceux qui se seroient +servis du même moyen, il seroit nécessaire de les baptiser sous +condition; & en cela le Conseil se conforme à tous les rituels, qui en +autorisant le baptême d’un enfant qui fait paroître quelque partie de +son corps, enjoignent néantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser sous +condition, s’il vient heureusement au monde._ + +Deliberé en _Sorbonne_, le 10 _Avril_, 1733. + + A. LE MOYNE. + L. DE ROMIGNY. + DE MARCILLY. + +Mr. _Tristram Shandy’s_ compliments to Messrs. _Le Moyne_, _De Romigny_, +and _De Marcilly_; hopes they all rested well the night after so +tiresome a consultation. --He begs to know, whether after the ceremony +of marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the +HOMUNCULI at once, slapdash, by _injection_, would not be a shorter and +safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the HOMUNCULI do well, +and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of them +shall be baptized again (_sous condition_) ----And provided, in the +second place, That the thing can be done, which _Mr. Shandy_ apprehends +it may, _par le moyen d’une petite canulle_, and _sans faire aucun tort +au pere_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +----I wonder what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards +for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour +and a half’s silence, to my uncle _Toby_, ----who, you must know, was +sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all +the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches +which he had got on: --What can they be doing, brother? --quoth my +father, --we can scarce hear ourselves talk. + +I think, replied my uncle _Toby_, taking his pipe from his mouth, and +striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left +thumb, as he began his sentence, ----I think, says he: ----But to enter +rightly into my uncle _Toby’s_ sentiments upon this matter, you must be +made to enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I +shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father +will go on as well again. + +Pray what was that man’s name, --for I write in such a hurry, I have no +time to recollect or look for it, ----who first made the observation, +“That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?” Whoever he +was, ’twas a just and good observation in him. --But the corollary drawn +from it, namely, “That it is this which has furnished us with such a +variety of odd and whimsical characters;” --that was not his; --it was +found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then +again, --that this copious store-house of original materials, is the +true and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those +of _France_, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the +Continent: ----that discovery was not fully made till about the middle +of King _William’s_ reign, --when the great _Dryden_, in writing one of +his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. +Indeed toward the latter end of Queen _Anne_, the great _Addison_ began +to patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in one +or two of his Spectators; --but the discovery was not his. --Then, +fourthly and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, +producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, ----doth +thereby, in some sort, make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us +merry with when the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors, +--that observation is my own; --and was struck out by me this very rainy +day, _March_ 26, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the +morning. + +Thus--thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest +of our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow +steps of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, +physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical, +technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with +fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending as these do, in _ical_) +have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping +upwards towards that Ἀκμὴ of their perfections, from which, if we may +form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot +possibly be far off. + +When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of +writings whatsoever; --the want of all kind of writing will put an end +to all kind of reading; --and that in time, _As war begets poverty; +poverty peace_, ----must, in course, put an end to all kind of +knowledge, --and then----we shall have all to begin over again; or, in +other words, be exactly where we started. + +------Happy! thrice happy times! I only wish that the æra of my +begetting, as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little +alter’d, ----or that it could have been put off, with any convenience to +my father or mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, +when a man in the literary world might have stood some chance.---- + +But I forget my uncle _Toby_, whom all this while we have left knocking +the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe. + +His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our +atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one +of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many +strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he derived +the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind or +water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I +have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho’ I believe he +had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity, +in my course, when I was a boy, --should never once endeavour to account +for them in this way: for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original +character throughout: ----I mean the males, --the females had no +character at all, --except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about +sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for +which my father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would +often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers. + +It will seem very strange, ----and I would as soon think of dropping a +riddle in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him +upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so +many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the +interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially +subsisted, between my father and my uncle _Toby_. One would have +thought, that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and +wasted itself in the family at first, --as is generally the case. --But +nothing ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at +the very time this happened, it might have something else to afflict it; +and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had +never done the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till +apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge +its office. ----Observe, I determine nothing upon this. ----My way is +ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to +come at the first springs of the events I tell; --not with a pedantic +_Fescue_, --or in the decisive manner of _Tacitus_, who outwits himself +and his reader; --but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to +the assistance merely of the inquisitive; --to them I write, ----and by +them I shall be read, ----if any such reading as this could be supposed +to hold out so long, --to the very end of the world. + +Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and +uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted +itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after +it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, +and is as follows: + +My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues +which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude, +----possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put +into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and unparallel’d modesty +of nature; ----though I correct the word nature, for this reason, that I +may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to a hearing, and that +is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or acquir’d. ----Whichever +way my uncle _Toby_ came by it, ’twas nevertheless modesty in the truest +sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he was so +unhappy as to have very little choice in them, --but to things; ----and +this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a height in +him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a +woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and +fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the awe of ours. + +You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle _Toby_ had contracted all this +from this very source; --that he had spent a great part of his time in +converse with your sex; and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and +the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he +had acquired this amiable turn of mind. + +I wish I could say so, --for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my +father’s wife and my mother----my uncle _Toby_ scarce exchanged three +words with the sex in as many years; --no, he got it, Madam, by a blow. +----A blow! --Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off +by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of _Namur_, which +struck full upon my uncle _Toby’s_ groin. --Which way could that effect +it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting; --but it would be +running my history all upon heaps to give it you here. ----’Tis for an +episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its proper +place, shall be faithfully laid before you: --’Till then, it is not in +my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more than what I +have said already, ----That my uncle _Toby_ was a gentleman of +unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and +rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride, ----they both so +wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the affair +of my aunt DINAH touch’d upon, but with the greatest emotion. ----The +least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into his face; --but +when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, which the +illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged him to do, --the +unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would +set my uncle _Toby’s_ honour and modesty o’bleeding; and he would often +take my father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate +and tell him, he would give him anything in the world, only to let the +story rest. + +My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle +_Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done +any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of +another, to have made my uncle _Toby’s_ heart easy in this, or any other +point. But this lay out of his power. + +----My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain, --speculative, +--systematical; --and my aunt _Dinah’s_ affair was a matter of as much +consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to +_Copernicus_: --The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit fortified the +_Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the backslidings of +my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my +father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be called the +_Shandean System_, after this. + +In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense +of shame as any man whatever; ----and neither he, nor, I dare say, +_Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have +taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they +owed, as they thought, to truth. --_Amicus Plato_, my father would say, +construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus +Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt; --_sed magis amica veritas_----but +TRUTH is my sister. + +This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the +source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the +tale of family disgrace recorded, ----and the other would scarce ever +let a day pass to an end without some hint at it. + +For God’s sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry, ----and for my sake, and for +all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_, --do let this story of our +aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace; ----how can you, ----how can you +have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family? +----What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would +reply. ----Nay, if you come to that--what is the life of a family? +----The life of a family! --my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself +back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg. +----Yes, the life, ----my father would say, maintaining his point. How +many thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all +civilized countries at least)----and considered as nothing but common +air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my +uncle _Toby_ would answer, ----every such instance is downright MURDER, +let who will commit it. ----There lies your mistake, my father would +reply; ----for, in _Foro Scientiæ_ there is no such thing as MURDER, +----’tis only DEATH, brother. + +My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of +argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of _Lillabullero_. +----You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his passions got +vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him: ----but especially when +any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offered. + +As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon +them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this +particular species of argument, --I here take the liberty to do it +myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion +in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every +other species of argument------as the _Argumentum ad Verecundiam_, _ex +Absurdo, ex Fortiori_, or any other argument whatsoever: ----And, +secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head is +laid to rest, ----that their learn’d grandfather’s head had been busied +to as much purpose once, as other people’s; --That he had invented a +name, --and generously thrown it into the TREASURY of the _Ars Logica_, +for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And, if +the end of disputation is more to silence than convince, --they may add, +if they please, to one of the best arguments too. + +I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it +be known and distinguished by the name and title of the _Argumentum +Fistulatorium_, and no other; --and that it rank hereafter with the +_Argumentum Baculinum_ and the _Argumentum ad Crumenam_, and for ever +hereafter be treated of in the same chapter. + +As for the _Argumentum Tripodium_, which is never used but by the woman +against the man; --and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is +made use of by the man only against the woman; --As these two are enough +in conscience for one lecture; ----and, moreover, as the one is the best +answer to the other, --let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated +of in a place by themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The learned Bishop _Hall_, I mean the famous Dr. _Joseph Hall_, who was +Bishop of _Exeter_ in King _James_ the First’s reign, tells us in one of +his _Decads_, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at +_London_, in the year 1610, by _John Beal_, dwelling in +_Aldersgate-street_, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to +commend himself;” ----and I really think it is so. + +And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind +of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out; --I think it is +full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out +of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head. + +This is precisely my situation. + +For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all +my digressions (one only excepted) there is a masterstroke of digressive +skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my +reader, --not for want of penetration in him, --but because ’tis an +excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression; --and +it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as you observe, --and +that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as often too, as any +writer in _Great Britain_; yet I constantly take care to order affairs +so that my main business does not stand still in my absence. + +I was just going, for example, to have given you the great outlines of +my uncle _Toby’s_ most whimsical character; --when my aunt _Dinah_ and +the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles +into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this, +you perceive that the drawing of my uncle _Toby’s_ character went on +gently all the time; --not the great contours of it, --that was +impossible, --but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, +were here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much +better acquainted with my uncle _Toby_ now than you was before. + +By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; +two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were +thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is +digressive, and it is progressive too, --and at the same time. + +This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving +round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her +elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that +variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy; --though I own it suggested +the thought, --as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and +discoveries have come from such trifling hints. + +Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; ----they are the life, the +soul of reading! --take them out of this book, for instance, --you might +as well take the book along with them; --one cold eternal winter would +reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; --he steps forth +like a bridegroom, --bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the +appetite to fail. + +All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as +to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, +whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a +digression, --from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock +still; --and if he goes on with his main work, --then there is an end of +his digression. + +----This is vile work. --For which reason, from the beginning of this, +you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of +it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the +digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the +whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going; --and, what’s more, it +shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of +health to bless me so long with life and good spirits. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very +nonsensically, and I will not baulk my fancy. --Accordingly I set off +thus: + +If the fixture of _Momus’s_ glass in the human breast, according to the +proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place, ----first, +This foolish consequence would certainly have followed, --That the very +wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid +window-money every day of our lives. + +And, secondly, That had the said glass been there set up, nothing more +would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but +to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical +beehive, and look’d in, --view’d the soul stark naked; --observed all +her motions, --her machinations; --traced all her maggots from their +first engendering to their crawling forth; --watched her loose in her +frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more +solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, etc. ----then taken your +pen and ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have +sworn to: --But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in +this planet; --in the planet _Mercury_ (belike) it may be so, if not +better still for him; ----for there the intense heat of the country, +which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more +than equal to that of red-hot iron, --must, I think, long ago have +vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to +suit them for the climate (which is the final cause); so that betwixt +them both, all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be +nothing else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the +contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the +umbilical knot)--so that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably +wrinkled, whereby the rays of light, in passing through them, become so +monstrously refracted, ----or return reflected from their surfaces in +such transverse lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through; +--his soul might as well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling +advantage which the umbilical point gave her, --might, upon all other +accounts, I say, as well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house. + +But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this +earth; --our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in +a dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would +come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to +work. + +Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to +take, to do this thing with exactness. + +Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind-instruments. +--_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of _Dido_ and _Æneas_; +--but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame; --and, moreover, +bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the _Italians_ pretend +to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one particular sort +of character among them, from the _forte_ or _piano_ of a certain +wind-instrument they use, --which they say is infallible. --I dare not +mention the name of the instrument in this place; --’tis sufficient we +have it amongst us, --but never think of making a drawing by it; --this +is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at least _ad populum_: --And +therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you read on as fast as +you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about it. + +There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other +helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations; --but this often +gives a very incorrect outline, --unless, indeed, you take a sketch of +his repletions too; and by correcting one drawing from the other, +compound one good figure out of them both. + +I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must +smell too strong of the lamp, --and be render’d still more operose, by +forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his _Non-naturals_. ----Why +the most natural actions of a man’s life should be called his +Non-naturals, --is another question. + +There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these expedients; +--not from any fertility of their own, but from the various ways of +doing it, which they have borrowed from the honourable devices which the +Pentagraphic Brethren[1.3] of the brush have shewn in taking copies. +--These, you must know, are your great historians. + +One of these you will see drawing a full-length character _against the +light_; --that’s illiberal, --dishonest, --and hard upon the character +of the man who sits. + +Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the _Camera_; +--that is most unfair of all, --because, _there_ you are sure to be +represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes. + +To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle +_Toby’s_ character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help +whatever; ----nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument +which ever was blown upon, either on this, or on the other side of the +_Alps_; --nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges, +--or touch upon his Non-naturals--but, in a word, I will draw my uncle +_Toby’s_ character from his HOBBY-HORSE. + + [Footnote 1.3: Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and + Pictures mechanically, and in any proportion.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +If I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience +for my uncle _Toby’s_ character, ----I would here previously have +convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing +with, as that which I have pitch’d upon. + +A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act +exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each +other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind; +and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the +manner of electrified bodies, --and that, by means of the heated parts +of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the +HOBBY-HORSE, --by long journeys and much friction, it so happens, that +the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of HOBBY-HORSICAL +matter as it can hold; ----so that if you are able to give but a clear +description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion +of the genius and character of the other. + +Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my +opinion a HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was only +upon the score of his great singularity; --for you might have travelled +from _York_ to _Dover_, --from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in _Cornwall_, and +from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen such another +upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever haste you had +been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a view of him. +Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly unlike +was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that +it was now and then made a matter of dispute, ----whether he was really +a HOBBY-HORSE or no: but as the Philosopher would use no other argument +to the Sceptic, who disputed with him against the reality of motion, +save that of rising up upon his legs, and walking across the room; --so +would my uncle _Toby_ use no other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was +a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him about; +--leaving the world, after that, to determine the point as it thought +fit. + +In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and he +carried my uncle _Toby_ so well, ----that he troubled his head very +little with what the world either said or thought about it. + +It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him: +--But to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint +you first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The wound in my uncle _Toby’s_ groin, which he received at the siege of +_Namur_, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient +he should return to _England_, in order, if possible, to be set to +rights. + +He was four years totally confined, --part of it to his bed, and all of +it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time +in hand, suffer’d unspeakable miseries, --owing to a succession of +exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of +the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_, ----both which bones were +dismally crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told +you was broke off the parapet, --as by its size, --(tho’ it was pretty +large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great +injury which it had done my uncle _Toby’s_ groin, was more owing to the +gravity of the stone itself, than to the projectile force of it, --which +he would often tell him was a great happiness. + +My father at that time was just beginning business in _London_, and had +taken a house; --and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted +between the two brothers, --and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_ +could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house, +----he assign’d him the very best apartment in it. --And what was a much +more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a friend +or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but he would +take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his brother _Toby_, +and chat an hour by his bedside. + +The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it; --my uncle’s +visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from +the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the +discourse to that subject, --and from that subject the discourse would +generally roll on to the siege itself. + +These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle _Toby_ received +great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they +brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months +together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an +expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they would +have laid him in his grave. + +What these perplexities of my uncle _Toby_ were, ----’tis impossible for +you to guess; --if you could, --I should blush; not as a relation, --not +as a man, --nor even as a woman, --but I should blush as an author; +inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that +my reader has never yet been able to guess at anything. And in this, +Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was +able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of +what was to come in the next page, --I would tear it out of my book. + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to +explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle _Toby_ was +involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of +_Namur_, where he received his wound. + +I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King +_William’s_ wars, --but if he has not, --I then inform him, that one of +the most memorable attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the +_English_ and _Dutch_ upon the point of the advanced counterscarp, +between the gate of _St. Nicolas_, which inclosed the great sluice or +water-stop, where the _English_ were terribly exposed to the shot of the +counter-guard and demi-bastion of _St. Roch_. The issue of which hot +dispute, in three words, was this; That the _Dutch_ lodged themselves +upon the counter-guard, --and that the _English_ made themselves masters +of the covered-way before _St. Nicolas_-gate, notwithstanding the +gallantry of the _French_ officers, who exposed themselves upon the +glacis sword in hand. + +As this was the principal attack of which my uncle _Toby_ was an +eye-witness at _Namur_, ----the army of the besiegers being cut off, by +the confluence of the _Maes_ and _Sambre_, from seeing much of each +other’s operations, ----my uncle _Toby_ was generally more eloquent and +particular in his account of it; and the many perplexities he was in, +arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling +his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences +and distinctions between the scarp and counter-scarp, --the glacis and +covered-way, --the half-moon and ravelin, --as to make his company fully +comprehend where and what he was about. + +Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you will +the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in opposition +to many misconceptions, that my uncle _Toby_ did oft-times puzzle his +visitors, and sometimes himself too. + +To speak the truth, unless the company my father led upstairs were +tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle _Toby_ was in one of his explanatory +moods, ’twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse +free from obscurity. + +What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle +_Toby_, was this, --that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the +gate of _St. Nicolas_, extending itself from the bank of the _Maes_, +quite up to the great water-stop, --the ground was cut and cross cut +with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all +sides, --and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst +them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save +his life; and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very +account only. + +These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle _Toby Shandy_ more perturbations +than you would imagine: and as my father’s kindness to him was +continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers, ----he had +but a very uneasy task of it. + +No doubt my uncle _Toby_ had great command of himself, could guard +appearances, I believe, as well as most men; --yet any one may imagine, +that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into +the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the +counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the +ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly: --He did so; +and the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no +account to the man who has not read _Hippocrates_, yet, whoever has read +_Hippocrates_, or Dr. _James Mackenzie_, and has considered well the +effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the +digestion--(Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner?)--may easily +conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle +_Toby_ must have undergone upon that score only. + +--My uncle _Toby_ could not philosophize upon it; --’twas enough he felt +it was so, --and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three +months together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate himself. + +He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and +nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other +position, when a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase +such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of +the fortification of the town and citadel of _Namur_, with its environs, +it might be a means of giving him ease. --I take notice of his desire to +have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this reason, +--because my uncle _Toby’s_ wound was got in one of the traverses, about +thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench, opposite to the +salient angle of the demi-bastion of _St. Roch_: ----so that he was +pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground +where he was standing on when the stone struck him. + +All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of +sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you +will read, of procuring my uncle _Toby_ his HOBBY-HORSE. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an +entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your +criticks and gentry of refined taste run it down: Nor is there anything +so likely to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the party, +or, what is full as offensive, of bestowing your attention upon the rest +of your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such thing as +a critick (by occupation) at table. + +----I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a +dozen places purposely open for them; --and in the next place, I pay +them all court. --Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company +could give me half the pleasure, --by my soul I am glad to see +you ------I beg only you will make no strangers of yourselves, but sit +down without any ceremony, and fall on heartily. + +I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my +complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them, --and in +this very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho’ not by +occupation, --but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, +I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the meantime, that I shall be +able to make a great deal of more room next year. + +------How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle _Toby_, who, it +seems, was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool, +----be at the same time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, +fellow, as --Go look. + +So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it. --’Tis language +unurbane, --and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and +satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first +causes of human ignorance and confusion. It is moreover the reply +valiant--and therefore I reject it: for tho’ it might have suited my +uncle _Toby’s_ character as a soldier excellently well, and had he not +accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle the _Lillabullero_, as +he wanted no courage, ’tis the very answer he would have given; yet it +would by no means have done for me. You see as plain as can be, that I +write as a man of erudition; --that even my similies, my allusions, my +illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite, --and that I must sustain my +character properly, and contrast it properly too, --else what would +become of me? Why, Sir, I should be undone; --at this very moment that I +am going here to fill up one place against a critick, --I should have +made an opening for a couple. + +----Therefore I answer thus: + +Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever +read such a book as _Locke’s_ Essay upon the Human Understanding? +----Don’t answer me rashly--because many, I know, quote the book, who +have not read it--and many have read it who understand it not: --If +either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will tell you in +three words what the book is. --It is a history. --A history! of who? +what? where? when? Don’t hurry yourself ----It is a history-book, Sir +(which may possibly recommend it to the world) of what passes in a man’s +own mind; and if you will say so much of the book, and no more, believe +me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysick circle. + +But this by the way. + +Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the +bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and +confusion, in the mind of a man, is threefold. + +Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and +transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not +dull. And thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what +it has received. --Call down _Dolly_ your chambermaid, and I will give +you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain +that _Dolly_ herself should understand it as well as _Malbranch_. +----When _Dolly_ has indited her epistle to _Robin_, and has thrust her +arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side; --take that +opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception +can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by +that one thing which _Dolly’s_ hand is in search of. --Your organs are +not so dull that I should inform you--’tis an inch, Sir, of red +seal-wax. + +When this is melted, and dropped upon the letter, if _Dolly_ fumbles too +long for her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not receive +the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint +it. Very well. If _Dolly’s_ wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of +a temper too soft, --tho’ it may receive, --it will not hold the +impression, how hard soever _Dolly_ thrusts against it; and last of all, +supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied thereto in +careless haste, as her Mistress rings the bell; ----in any one of these +three cases the print left by the thimble will be as unlike the +prototype as a brass-jack. + +Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the +confusion in my uncle _Toby’s_ discourse; and it is for that very reason +I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists--to +shew the world, what it did _not_ arise from. + +What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of +obscurity it is, --and ever will be, --and that is the unsteady uses of +words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted +understandings. + +It is ten to one (at _Arthur’s_) whether you have ever read the literary +histories of past ages; --if you have, what terrible battles, ’yclept +logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and +ink-shed, --that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them +without tears in his eyes. + +Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within +thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has +been pestered and disordered at one time or other, by this, and this +only: --What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about οὐσία and ὑπόστασις; +and in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit; --about +essences, and about quintessences; ----about substances, and about +space. ----What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little +meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this, thou +wilt not wonder at my uncle _Toby’s_ perplexities, --thou wilt drop a +tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp; --his glacis and his +covered way; --his ravelin and his half-moon: ’Twas not by ideas, --by +Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When my uncle _Toby_ got his map of _Namur_ to his mind, he began +immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the +study of it; for nothing being of more importance to him than his +recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the +passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest +care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to talk +upon it without emotion. + +In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did +my uncle _Toby’s_ wound, upon his groin, no good, --he was enabled, by +the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, +together with _Gobesius’s_ military architecture and pyroballogy, +translated from the _Flemish_, to form his discourse with passable +perspicuity; and before he was two full months gone, --he was right +eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced +counterscarp with great order; ----but having, by that time, gone much +deeper into the art, than what his first motive made necessary, my uncle +_Toby_ was able to cross the _Maes_ and _Sambre_; make diversions as far +as _Vauban’s_ line, the abbey of _Salsines_, etc., and give his visitors +as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of the gate +of _St. Nicolas_, where he had the honour to receive his wound. + +But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with +the acquisition of it. The more my uncle _Toby_ pored over his map, the +more he took a liking to it! --by the same process and electrical +assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of +connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the +happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d--be-pictured, +--be-butterflied, and befiddled. + +The more my uncle _Toby_ drank of this sweet fountain of science, the +greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the +first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a +fortified town in _Italy_ or _Flanders_, of which, by one means or +other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and +carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their +demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read +with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, +his wound, his confinement, his dinner. + +In the second year my uncle _Toby_ purchased _Ramelli_ and _Cataneo_, +translated from the _Italian_; --likewise _Stevinus_, _Moralis_, the +Chevalier _de Ville_, _Lorini_, _Cochorn_, _Sheeter_, the Count _de +Pagan_, the Marshal _Vauban_, Mons. _Blondel_, with almost as many more +books of military architecture, as Don _Quixote_ was found to have of +chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library. + +Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in _August_, +ninety-nine, my uncle _Toby_ found it necessary to understand a little +of projectiles: --and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from +the fountain-head, he began with _N. Tartaglia_, who it seems was the +first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball’s doing all that +mischief under the notion of a right line --This _N. Tartaglia_ proved +to my uncle _Toby_ to be an impossible thing. + +----Endless is the search of Truth. + +No sooner was my uncle _Toby_ satisfied which road the cannon-ball did +not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to +enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he +was obliged to set off afresh with old _Maltus_, and studied him +devoutly. --He proceeded next to _Galileo_ and _Torricellius_, wherein, +by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise +part to be a PARABOLA--or else an HYPERBOLA, --and that the parameter, +or _latus rectum_, of the conic section of the said path, was to the +quantity and amplitude in a direct _ratio_, as the whole line to the +sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breech upon an +horizontal plane; --and that the semiparameter, ----stop! my dear uncle +_Toby_----stop! --go not one foot farther into this thorny and +bewildered track, --intricate are the steps! intricate are the mazes of +this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this +bewitching phantom KNOWLEDGE will bring upon thee. --O my uncle; +--fly--fly, fly from it as from a serpent. ----Is it fit----good-natured +man! thou should’st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights +baking thy blood with hectic watchings? ----Alas! ’twill exasperate thy +symptoms, --check thy perspirations--evaporate thy spirits--waste thy +animal strength, --dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a +costive habit of body, ----impair thy health, ----and hasten all the +infirmities of thy old age. ----O my uncle! my uncle _Toby_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +I would not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pencraft, who does +not understand this, ----That the best plain narrative in the world, +tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle +_Toby_----would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s palate; +--therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the +middle of my story. + +------Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. +Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the +less evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, +than beauty. This is to be understood _cum grano salis_; but be it as it +will, --as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the +apostrophe cool, than any thing else, --’tis not very material whether +upon any other score the reader approves of it or not. + +In the latter end of the third year, my uncle _Toby_ perceiving that the +parameter and semiparameter of the conic section angered his wound, he +left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook +himself to the practical part of fortification only; the pleasure of +which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force. + +It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily +regularity of a clean shirt, ----to dismiss his barber unshaven, ----and +to allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, +concerning himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven +times dressing, how it went on: when, lo! --all of a sudden, for the +change was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his +recovery, ----complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon: +----and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he shut up +his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate +with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told him, might +surely have been accomplished at least by that time: --He dwelt long +upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years +melancholy imprisonment; --adding, that had it not been for the kind +looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers, --he had long +since sunk under his misfortunes. ----My father was by: My uncle +_Toby’s_ eloquence brought tears into his eyes; ----’twas unexpected: +----My uncle _Toby_, by nature was not eloquent; --it had the greater +effect: ----The surgeon was confounded; ----not that there wanted +grounds for such, or greater marks of impatience, --but ’twas unexpected +too; in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen anything +like it in my uncle _Toby’s_ carriage; he had never once dropped one +fretful or discontented word; ----he had been all patience, --all +submission. + +--We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it; --but we +often treble the force: --The surgeon was astonished; but much more so, +when he heard my uncle _Toby_ go on, and peremptorily insist upon his +healing up the wound directly, --or sending for Monsieur _Ronjat_, the +king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him. + +The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature; ----the love +of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle +_Toby_ had in common with his species; ----and either of them had been +sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of +doors; ----but I have told you before, that nothing wrought with our +family after the common way; ----and from the time and manner in which +this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating +reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my +uncle _Toby’s_ head: ----There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next +chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when +that’s done, ’twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, +where we left my uncle _Toby_ in the middle of his sentence. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, --or, +in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong, ----farewel cool +reason and fair discretion! + +My uncle _Toby’s_ wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon +recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much----he told +him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation +happened, which there was no sign of, --it would be dried up in five or +six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would +have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. +----The succession of his ideas was now rapid, --he broiled with +impatience to put his design in execution; ----and so, without +consulting farther with any soul living, --which, by the bye, I think is +right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice, ----he +privately ordered _Trim_, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and +dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by +twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change. +----So leaving a banknote upon the table for the surgeon’s care of him, +and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s--he packed up his maps, +his books of fortification, his instruments, &c., and by the help of a +crutch on one side, and _Trim_ on the other, ----my uncle _Toby_ +embarked for _Shandy-Hall_. + +The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as +follows: + +The table in my uncle _Toby’s_ room, and at which, the night before this +change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c., about him--being +somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small +instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it--he had the +accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his +compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he +threw down his case of instruments and snuffers; --and as the dice took +a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, +----he thrust Monsieur _Blondel_ off the table, and Count _de Pagan_ +o’top of him. + +’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle _Toby_ was, to think of +redressing these evils by himself, --he rung his bell for his man +_Trim_; ------_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, prithee see what confusion +I have here been making --I must have some better contrivance, _Trim_. +----Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and breadth of +this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again? ----Yes, an’ +please your Honour, replied _Trim_, making a bow; but I hope your Honour +will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where, --as +your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage +this matter to a T. + +I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle _Toby’s_, who went +by the name of _Trim_, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own company, +--his real name was _James Butler_, --but having got the nick-name of +_Trim_ in the regiment, my uncle _Toby_, unless when he happened to be +very angry with him, would never call him by any other name. + +The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his +left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of _Landen_, which was two +years before the affair of _Namur_; --and as the fellow was well-beloved +in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle _Toby_ +took him for his servant; and of an excellent use was he, attending my +uncle _Toby_ in the camp and in his quarters as a valet, groom, barber, +cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon +him and served him with great fidelity and affection. + +My uncle _Toby_ loved the man in return, and what attached him more to +him still, was the similitude of their knowledge. ----For Corporal +_Trim_ (for so, for the future, I shall call him), by four years +occasional attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and +the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans, +&c., exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a +body-servant, _Non Hobby Horsical per se_; ----had become no mean +proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and +chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle +_Toby_ himself. + +I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal _Trim’s_ +character, ----and it is the only dark line in it. --The fellow loved to +advise, --or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so +perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; +but set his tongue a-going, --you had no hold of him--he was voluble; +--the eternal interlardings of _your Honour_, with the respectfulness of +Corporal _Trim’s_ manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his +elocution, --that though you might have been incommoded, ----you could +not well be angry. My uncle _Toby_ was seldom either the one or the +other with him, --or, at least, this fault, in _Trim_, broke no squares +with them. My uncle _Toby_, as I said, loved the man; ----and besides, +as he ever looked upon a faithful servant, --but as an humble friend, +--he could not bear to stop his mouth. ----Such was Corporal _Trim_. + +If I durst presume, continued _Trim_, to give your Honour my advice, and +speak my opinion in this matter. --Thou art welcome, _Trim_, quoth my +uncle _Toby_--speak, ----speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, +without fear. Why then, replied _Trim_ (not hanging his ears and +scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back +from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division, --I think, +quoth _Trim_, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little +forwards, --and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of +_Dunkirk_, which was pinned against the hangings, ----I think, quoth +Corporal _Trim_, with humble submission to your Honour’s better +judgment, ----that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and horn-works, +make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here +upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we +in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of +ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued +_Trim_, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the +nography--(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle)----of the town or +citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before, --and I will be +shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to +your Honour’s mind ----I dare say thou would’st, _Trim_, quoth my uncle. +--For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the +polygon, with its exact lines and angles --That I could do very well, +quoth my uncle. --I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could +tell me the proper depth and breadth --I can to a hair’s breadth, _Trim_, +replied my uncle. --I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards +the town for the scarp, --and on that hand towards the campaign for the +counterscarp. --Very right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_: ----And when +I had sloped them to your mind, ----an’ please your Honour, I would face +the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in _Flanders_, with +sods, ----and as your Honour knows they should be, --and I would make +the walls and parapets with sods too. --The best engineers call them +gazons, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. ----Whether they are gazons or +sods, is not much matter, replied _Trim_; your Honour knows they are ten +times beyond a facing either of brick or stone. ----I know they are, +_Trim_, in some respects, ----quoth my uncle _Toby_, nodding his head; +--for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without +bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé (as was +the case at _St. Nicolas’s_ gate), and facilitate the passage over it. + +Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal _Trim_, better +than any officer in his Majesty’s service; ----but would your Honour +please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into +the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse, +and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their +batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all +the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it. + +My uncle _Toby_ blushed as red as scarlet as _Trim_ went on; --but it +was not a blush of guilt, --of modesty, --or of anger, --it was a blush +of joy; --he was fired with Corporal _Trim’s_ project and description. +----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, thou hast said enough. --We might +begin the campaign, continued _Trim_, on the very day that his Majesty +and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town as fast +as--_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, say no more. Your Honour, continued +_Trim_, might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this fine weather, +giving me your orders, and I would ----Say no more, _Trim_, quoth my +uncle _Toby_ ----Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure and +good pastime, --but good air, and good exercise, and good health, --and +your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, +_Trim_, --quoth my uncle _Toby_ (putting his hand into his +breeches-pocket) ----I like thy project mightily. --And if your Honour +pleases, I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down with +us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of ----Say no +more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaping up upon one leg, quite +overcome with rapture, --and thrusting a guinea into _Trim’s_ hand, +--_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, say no more; --but go down, _Trim_, this +moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant. + +_Trim_ ran down and brought up his master’s supper, ----to no purpose: +--_Trim’s_ plan of operation ran so in my uncle _Toby’s_ head, he could +not taste it. --_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get me to bed. --’Twas +all one. --Corporal _Trim’s_ description had fired his imagination, --my +uncle _Toby_ could not shut his eyes. --The more he considered it, the +more bewitching the scene appeared to him; --so that, two full hours +before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had +concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal _Trim’s_ decampment. + +My uncle _Toby_ had a little neat country-house of his own, in the +village where my father’s estate lay at _Shandy_, which had been left +him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds +a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of +about half an acre; and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off from it +by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about as much +ground as Corporal _Trim_ wished for; --so that as _Trim_ uttered the +words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with,” --this +identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously +painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle _Toby’s_ fancy; --which +was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least of +heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree I spoke of. + +Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and +expectation, than my uncle _Toby_ did, to enjoy this self-same thing in +private; --I say in private; --for it was sheltered from the house, as I +told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three sides, +from mortal sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowering shrubs: --so +that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute to the idea +of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. --Vain thought! +however thick it was planted about, ----or private soever it might seem, +--to think, dear uncle _Toby_, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole +rood and a half of ground, ----and not have it known! + +How my uncle _Toby_ and Corporal _Trim_ managed this matter, ----with +the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, +----may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up +of this drama. --At present the scene must drop, --and change for the +parlour fire-side. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +----What can they be doing, brother? said my father. --I think, replied +my uncle _Toby_, --taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and +striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence; ----I think, +replied he, --it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. + +Pray, what’s all that racket over our heads, _Obadiah?_ ----quoth my +father; ----my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak. + +Sir, answered _Obadiah_, making a bow towards his left shoulder, --my +Mistress is taken very badly. --And where’s _Susannah_ running down the +garden there, as if they were going to ravish her? ----Sir, she is +running the shortest cut into the town, replied _Obadiah_, to fetch the +old midwife. --Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go +directly for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife, with all our services, ----and +let him know your mistress is fallen into labour----and that I desire he +will return with you with all speed. + +It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle +_Toby_, as _Obadiah_ shut the door, ----as there is so expert an +operator as Dr. _Slop_ so near, --that my wife should persist to the +very last in this obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of my +child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old +woman; ----and not only the life of my child, brother, ----but her own +life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, +have begot out of her hereafter. + +Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, my sister does it to save the +expense: --A pudding’s end, --replied my father, ----the Doctor must be +paid the same for inaction as action, ----if not better, --to keep him +in temper. + +----Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, in the simplicity of his heart, --but MODESTY. --My sister, +I dare say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her ****. +I will not say whether my uncle _Toby_ had completed the sentence or +not; ----’tis for his advantage to suppose he had, ----as, I think, he +could have added no ONE WORD which would have improved it. + +If, on the contrary, my uncle _Toby_ had not fully arrived at the +period’s end, --then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of +my father’s tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that +ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the +_Aposiopesis_. ----Just Heaven! how does the _Poco piu_ and the _Poco +meno_ of the _Italian_ artists; --the insensible MORE OR LESS, determine +the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statute! +How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the +fiddle-stick, _et cætera_, --give the true swell, which gives the true +pleasure! --O my countrymen; --be nice; --be cautious of your language; +--and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your +eloquence and your fame depend. + +----“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “does not choose to let +a man come so near her ****.” Make this dash, --’tis an Aposiopesis. +--Take the dash away, and write _Backside_, ----’tis Bawdy. --Scratch +Backside out, and put _Cover’d way_ in, ’tis a Metaphor; --and, I dare +say, as fortification ran so much in my uncle _Toby’s_ head, that if he +had been left to have added one word to the sentence, ----that word was +it. + +But whether that was the case or not the case; --or whether the snapping +of my father’s tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident or +anger, will be seen in due time. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Tho’ my father was a good natural philosopher, --yet he was something of +a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapp’d +short in the middle, --he had nothing to do, as such, but to have taken +hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of the +fire. ----He did no such thing; ----he threw them with all the violence +in the world; --and, to give the action still more emphasis, --he +started upon both his legs to do it. + +This looked something like heat; --and the manner of his reply to what +my uncle _Toby_ was saying, proved it was so. + +--“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle _Toby’s_ words) “to +let a man come so near her!” ----By Heaven, brother _Toby!_ you would +try the patience of _Job_; --and I think I have the plagues of one +already without it. ----Why? ----Where? ----Wherein? ----Wherefore? +----Upon what account? replied my uncle _Toby_, in the utmost +astonishment. --To think, said my father, of a man living to your age, +brother, and knowing so little about women! ----I know nothing at all +about them, --replied my uncle _Toby_: And I think, continued he, that +the shock I received the year after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in my +affair with widow _Wadman_; --which shock you know I should not have +received, but from my total ignorance of the sex, --has given me just +cause to say, That I neither know nor do pretend to know anything about +’em or their concerns either. --Methinks, brother, replied my father, +you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the +wrong. + +It is said in _Aristotle’s_ _Master Piece_, “That when a man doth think +of anything which is past, ----he looketh down upon the ground; ----but +that when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up +towards the heavens.” + +My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d +horizontally. --Right end! quoth my uncle _Toby_, muttering the two +words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered +them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the +chimney-piece ----Right end of a woman! ----I declare, quoth my uncle, +I know no more which it is than the man in the moon; ----and if I was to +think, continued my uncle _Toby_ (keeping his eye still fixed upon the +bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find +it out. + +Then, brother _Toby_, replied my father, I will tell you. + +Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh +pipe)--every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two +handles. ----Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----At least, replied my +father, everyone has two hands, ----which comes to the same thing. +----Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself +the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience +of all the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called +Woman, and compare them analogically ----I never understood rightly the +meaning of that word, --quoth my uncle _Toby_.-- + +ANALOGY, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which +different ----Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s +definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two, --and, at the same time, +crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was +engendered in the womb of speculation; --it was some months before my +father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it: --And, at +this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the +dissertation itself, --(considering the confusion and distresses of our +domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of +another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third +volume or not. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +It is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle +_Toby_ rung the bell, when _Obadiah_ was ordered to saddle a horse, and +go for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife; --so that no one can say, with +reason, that I have not allowed _Obadiah_ time enough, poetically +speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and come; +----though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce had +time to get on his boots. + +If the hypercritick will go upon this; and is resolved after all to take +a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the +bell, and the rap at the door; --and, after finding it to be no more +than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three fifths, --should take upon +him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather +probability of time; --I would remind him, that the idea of duration, +and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of +our ideas, ----and is the true scholastic pendulum, ----and by which, as +a scholar, I will be tried in this matter, --abjuring and detesting the +jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever. + +I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles +from _Shandy-Hall_ to Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife’s house; --and that +whilst _Obadiah_ has been going those said miles and back, I have +brought my uncle _Toby_ from _Namur_, quite across all _Flanders_, into +_England_: --That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years; +--and have since travelled him and Corporal _Trim_ in a +chariot-and-four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into +_Yorkshire_, ----all which put together, must have prepared the reader’s +imagination for the entrance of Dr. _Slop_ upon the stage, --as much, at +least (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts. + +If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and +thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds, +--when I have said all I can about them; and that this plea, though it +might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my +book from this very moment, a professed ROMANCE, which, before, was a +book apocryphal: ----If I am thus pressed --I then put an end to the +whole objection and controversy about it all at once, ----by acquainting +him, that _Obadiah_ had not got above threescore yards from the +stable-yard before he met with Dr. _Slop_; --and indeed he gave a +dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a +tragical one too. + +Imagine to yourself; --but this had better begin a new chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor _Slop_, +of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of +back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a +serjeant in the horse-guards. + +Such were the out-lines of Dr. _Slop’s_ figure, which, --if you have +read _Hogarth’s_ analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you +would; ----you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed +to the mind by three strokes as three hundred. + +Imagine such a one, ----for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. +_Slop’s_ figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the +dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty +colour----but of strength, ----alack! ----scarce able to have made an +amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling +condition. ----They were not. ----Imagine to yourself, _Obadiah_ mounted +upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and +making all practicable speed the adverse way. + +Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description. + +Had Dr. _Slop_ beheld _Obadiah_ a mile off, posting in a narrow lane +directly towards him, at that monstrous rate, --splashing and plunging +like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a +phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, +round its axis, --have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. +_Slop_ in his situation, than the _worst_ of _Whiston’s_ comets? --To +say nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of _Obadiah_ and the coach-horse. +--In my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved and +carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with +it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. _Slop_ +have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was +advancing thus warily along towards _Shandy-Hall_, and had approached to +within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made +by an acute angle of the garden-wall, --and in the dirtiest part of a +dirty lane, --when _Obadiah_ and his coach-horse turned the corner, +rapid, furious, --pop, --full upon him! --Nothing, I think, in nature, +can be supposed more terrible than such a rencounter, --so imprompt! so +ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. _Slop_ was. + +What could Dr. _Slop_ do? ----he crossed himself + --Pugh! --but the +doctor, Sir, was a Papist. --No matter; he had better have kept hold of +the pummel --He had so; --nay, as it happened, he had better have done +nothing at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip, ----and in +attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as +it slipped, he lost his stirrup, ----in losing which he lost his seat; +----and in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews +what little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost +his presence of mind. So that without waiting for _Obadiah’s_ onset, he +left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in +the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other +consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have +been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the +mire. + +_Obadiah_ pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. _Slop_; --once as he was +falling, --and then again when he saw him seated. ----Ill-timed +complaisance; --had not the fellow better have stopped his horse, and +got off and help’d him? --Sir, he did all that his situation would +allow; --but the MOMENTUM of the coach-horse was so great, that +_Obadiah_ could not do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times +round Dr. _Slop_, before he could fully accomplish it any how; --and at +the last, when he did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion +of mud, that _Obadiah_ had better have been a league off. In short, +never was a Dr. _Slop_ so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that +affair came into fashion. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +When Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle +_Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women, ----it was hard to +determine whether Dr. _Slop’s_ figure, or Dr. _Slop’s_ presence, +occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near +the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount him, +----Obadiah had led him in as he was, _unwiped_, _unappointed_, +_unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him. --He stood like +_Hamlet’s_ ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a +half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all the +majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall, +totally besmeared, ----and in every other part of him, blotched over in +such a manner with _Obadiah’s_ explosion, that you would have sworn +(without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect. + +Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over +my father in his turn; --for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in +that pickle, could have dissented from so much at least, of my uncle +_Toby’s_ opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a +Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****.” But it was the _Argumentum ad +hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may +think, he might not care to use it. ----No; the reason was, --’twas not +his nature to insult. + +Dr. _Slop’s_ presence at that time, was no less problematical than the +mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father +might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week +before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had +heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to +have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how matters +went on. + +But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the +investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the +ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door, --measuring their +distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation as to have +power to think of nothing else, ----common-place infirmity of the +greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the +demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have +none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with. + +The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise +strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_, --but it excited a very +different train of thoughts; --the two irreconcileable pulsations +instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into +my uncle _Toby’s_ mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair, +--is the greatest problem of all: ----It shall be solved, --but not in +the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is +but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is +about in good company, would venture to talk all; ----so no author, who +understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would +presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the +reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him +something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself. + +For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and +do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own. + +’Tis his turn now; --I have given an ample description of Dr. _Slop’s_ +sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour; --his +imagination must now go on with it for a while. + +Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. _Slop_ has told his tale--and in +what words, and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses; --Let him +suppose, that _Obadiah_ has told his tale also, and with such rueful +looks of affected concern, as he thinks best will contrast the two +figures as they stand by each other. ----Let him imagine, that my father +has stepped upstairs to see my mother. --And, to conclude this work of +imagination--let him imagine the doctor washed, --rubbed down, and +condoled, --felicitated, --got into a pair of _Obadiah’s_ pumps, +stepping forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon +action. + +Truce! --truce, good Dr. _Slop_: --stay thy obstetrick hand; ----return +it safe into thy bosom to keep it warm; ----little dost thou know what +obstacles, ------little dost thou think what hidden causes, retard its +operation! ----Hast thou, Dr. _Slop_, --hast thou been intrusted with +the secret articles of the solemn treaty which has brought thee into +this place? --Art thou aware that at this instant, a daughter of +_Lucina_ is put obstetrically over thy head? Alas! --’tis too true. +--Besides, great son of _Pilumnus!_ what canst thou do? --Thou hast come +forth unarm’d; --thou hast left thy _tire-tête_, --thy new-invented +_forceps_, --thy _crotchet_, --thy _squirt_, and all thy instruments of +salvation and deliverance, behind thee, --By Heaven! at this moment they +are hanging up in a green bays bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the +bed’s head! --Ring; --call; --send _Obadiah_ back upon the coach-horse +to bring them with all speed. + +----Make great haste, _Obadiah_, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a +crown! --and quoth my uncle _Toby_, I’ll give him another. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing +himself to Dr. _Slop_ (all three of them sitting down to the fire +together, as my uncle _Toby_ began to speak)--instantly brought the +great _Stevinus_ into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite author +with me. --Then, added my father, making use of the argument _Ad +Crumenam_, --I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece (which +will serve to give away to _Obadiah_ when he gets back) that this same +_Stevinus_ was some engineer or other, --or has wrote something or +other, either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification. + +He has so, --replied my uncle _Toby_. --I knew it, said my father, +though, for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there +can be betwixt Dr. _Slop’s_ sudden coming, and a discourse upon +fortification; --yet I fear’d it. --Talk of what we will, brother, +----or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject, +--you are sure to bring it in. I would not, brother _Toby_, continued my +father, ------I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and +hornworks. --That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun. + +_Dennis_ the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation +of a pun, more cordially than my father; --he would grow testy upon it +at any time; --but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, +was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose; ----he saw no +difference. + +Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_, --the +curtins my brother _Shandy_ mentions here, have nothing to do with +bedsteads; --tho’, I know _Du Cange_ says, “That bed-curtains, in all +probability, have taken their name from them;” --nor have the hornworks +he speaks of, anything in the world to do with the horn-works of +cuckoldom: --But the _Curtin_, Sir, is the word we use in fortification, +for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions +and joins them --Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks +directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well +_flanked_. (’Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +laughing.) However, continued my uncle _Toby_, to make them sure, we +generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to +extend them beyond the fossé or ditch: ----The common men, who know very +little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon +together, --tho’ they are very different things; --not in their figure +or construction, for we make them exactly alike, in all points; --for +they always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the +gorges, not straight, but in form of a crescent: ----Where then lies the +difference? (quoth my father, a little testily). --In their situations, +answered my uncle _Toby_: --For when a ravelin, brother, stands before +the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion, +then the ravelin is not a ravelin; --it is a half-moon; --a half-moon +likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands before its +bastion; ----but was it to change place, and get before the curtin, +--’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a +half-moon; --’tis no more than a ravelin. ----I think, quoth my father, +that the noble science of defence has its weak sides----as well as +others. + +--As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my +uncle _Toby_, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable +part of an outwork; ----they are called by the _French_ engineers, +_Ouvrage à corne_, and we generally make them to cover such places as we +suspect to be weaker than the rest; --’tis formed by two epaulments or +demi-bastions--they are very pretty, --and if you will take a walk, I’ll +engage to shew you one well worth your trouble. --I own, continued my +uncle _Toby_, when we crown them, --they are much stronger, but then +they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in +my opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; +otherwise the double tenaille --By the mother who bore us! ----brother +_Toby_, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer, ----you would +provoke a saint; ----here have you got us, I know not how, not only +souse into the middle of the old subject again: --But so full is your +head of these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in +the pains of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve +you but to carry off the man-midwife. ----_Accoucheur_, --if you please, +quoth Dr. _Slop_. ----With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care +what they call you, --but I wish the whole science of fortification, +with all its inventors, at the devil; --it has been the death of +thousands, --and it will be mine in the end, --I would not, I would not, +brother _Toby_, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, +pallisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor +of _Namur_, and of all the towns in _Flanders_ with it. + +My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries; --not from want of +courage, --I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of +courage:” --And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or +called it forth, --I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner +taken shelter; ----nor did this arise from any insensibility or +obtuseness of his intellectual parts; --for he felt this insult of my +father’s as feelingly as a man could do; --but he was of a peaceful, +placid nature, --no jarring element in it, --all was mixed up so kindly +within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. + +--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed +about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, --and which +after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him; +--I’ll not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and +going across the room, with the fly in his hand, ----I’ll not hurt a +hair of thy head: --Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his +hand as he spoke, to let it escape; --go, poor devil, get thee gone, why +should I hurt thee? ----This world surely is wide enough to hold both +thee and me. + +I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the +action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which +instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable +sensation; --or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards +it; --or in what degree, or by what secret magick, --a tone of voice and +harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, +I know not; --this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then +taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_, has never since been worn out +of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the study of the +_Literæ humaniores_, at the university, have done for me in that +respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed +upon me, both at home and abroad since; --yet I often think that I owe +one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression. + +[-->] This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole +volume upon the subject. + +I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle _Toby’s_ picture, by +the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it, --that taking in +no more than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness: ----this is a part of his +moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I +mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted; he +had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with a +little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him to anything +which looked like malignancy: --yet in the little rubs and vexations of +life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty kind of +peevishness: ----He was, however, frank and generous in his nature; +----at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions of +this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my uncle +_Toby_, whom he truly loved: ----he would feel more pain, ten times told +(except in the affair of my aunt _Dinah_, or where an hypothesis was +concerned) than what he ever gave. + +The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected +light upon each other, and appeared with great advantage in this affair +which arose about _Stevinus_. + +I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HOBBY-HORSE, ----that a man’s +HOBBY-HORSE is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these +unprovoked strokes at my uncle _Toby’s_ could not be unfelt by him. +----No: ------as I said above, my uncle _Toby_ did feel them, and very +sensibly too. + +Pray, Sir, what said he? --How did he behave? --O, Sir! --it was great: +For as soon as my father had done insulting his HOBBY-HORSE, ------he +turned his head without the least emotion, from Dr. _Slop_, to whom he +was addressing his discourse, and looking up into my father’s face, with +a countenance spread over with so much good-nature; ----so placid; +----so fraternal; ----so inexpressibly tender towards him: --it +penetrated my father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair, +and seizing hold of both my uncle _Toby’s_ hands as he spoke: --Brother +_Toby_, said he, --I beg thy pardon; ----forgive, I pray thee, this rash +humour which my mother gave me. ----My dear, dear brother, answered my +uncle _Toby_, rising up by my father’s help, say no more about it; --you +are heartily welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis +ungenerous, replied my father, to hurt any man; ----a brother worse; +----but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners, --so unprovoking, +--and so unresenting; ----’tis base: ----By Heaven, ’tis cowardly. --You +are heartily welcome, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, ------had it been +fifty times as much. ----Besides, what have I to do, my dear _Toby_, +cried my father, either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless +it was in my power (which it is not) to increase their measure? + +----Brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_, looking wistfully in his +face, ----you are much mistaken in this point: --for you do increase my +pleasure very much, in begetting children for the _Shandy_ family at +your time of life. --But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, Mr. _Shandy_ +increases his own. --Not a jot, quoth my father. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +My brother does it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, out of _principle_. ----In a +family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. _Slop_. ----Pshaw! --said my father, +--’tis not worth talking of. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle _Toby_ were left +both standing, like _Brutus_ and _Cassius_, at the close of the scene, +making up their accounts. + +As my father spoke the three last words, ----he sat down; --my uncle +_Toby_ exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his +chair, he rung the bell, to order Corporal _Trim_, who was in waiting, +to step home for _Stevinus_: --my uncle _Toby’s_ house being no farther +off than the opposite side of the way. + +Some men would have dropped the subject of _Stevinus_; ----but my uncle +_Toby_ had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, +to shew my father that he had none. + +Your sudden appearance, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my uncle, resuming the +discourse, instantly brought _Stevinus_ into my head. (My father, you +may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon _Stevinus’s_ +head.) ----Because, continued my uncle _Toby_, the celebrated sailing +chariot, which belonged to Prince _Maurice_, and was of such wonderful +contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty +_German_ miles, in I don’t know how few minutes, ----was invented by +_Stevinus_, that great mathematician and engineer. + +You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (as the +fellow is lame) of going for _Stevinus’s_ account of it, because in my +return from _Leyden_ thro’ the _Hague_, I walked as far as _Schevling_, +which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it. + +That’s nothing, replied my uncle _Toby_, to what the learned +_Peireskius_ did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning +from _Paris_ to _Schevling_, and from _Schevling_ to _Paris_ back again, +in order to see it, --and nothing else. + +Some men cannot bear to be out-gone. + +The more fool _Peireskius_, replied Dr. _Slop_. But mark, ’twas out of +no contempt of _Peireskius_ at all; ----but that _Peireskius’s_ +indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the +sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. _Slop_, in that affair, to nothing: +--the more fool _Peireskius_, said he again. --Why so? --replied my +father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast +as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my +father’s mind; ----but partly, that my father began really to interest +himself in the discourse. ----Why so? ----said he. Why is _Peireskius_, +or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other +morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the +chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a +very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of +philosophy he has atchieved it; --yet certainly his machine has been +constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not +have answered at the rate my brother mentions. + +It answered, replied my uncle _Toby_, as well, if not better; for, as +_Peireskius_ elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its +motion, _Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus_; which, unless I have forgot +my Latin, is, _that it was as swift as the wind itself_. + +But pray, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho’ not +without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles was +this self-same chariot set a-going? --Upon very pretty principles to be +sure, replied Dr. _Slop_: --And I have often wondered, continued he, +evading the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large plains +like this of ours, --(especially they whose wives are not past +child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be +infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is subject, +--if the wind only served, --but would be excellent good husbandry to +make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather +than horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a great deal. + +For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing, and +because they eat nothing,” --the scheme is bad; --it is the consumption +of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread +to the hungry, circulates trade, --brings in money, and supports the +value of our lands: --and tho’, I own, if I was a Prince, I would +generously recompense the scientifick head which brought forth such +contrivances; --yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them. + +My father here had got into his element, ----and was going on as +prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle _Toby_ had +before, upon his of fortification; --but to the loss of much sound +knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dissertation +of any kind should be spun by my father that day, ----for as he opened +his mouth to begin the next sentence. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +In popped Corporal _Trim_ with _Stevinus_: --But ’twas too late, --all +the discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new +channel. --You may take the book home again, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_, nodding to him. + +But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling, --look first into it, +and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it. + +Corporal _Trim_, by being in the service, had learned to obey, --and not +to remonstrate; --so taking the book to a side-table, and running over +the leaves; An’ please your Honour, said _Trim_, I can see no such +thing; --however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, +I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your Honour; --so taking hold of +the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves +fall down, as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound +shake. + +There is something falling out, however, said _Trim_, an’ please your +Honour; --but it is not a chariot, or anything like one: --Prithee, +Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then? --I think, answered +_Trim_, stooping to take it up, ----’tis more like a sermon, ------for +it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse; --and +then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly. + +The company smiled. + +I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle _Toby_, for such a +thing as a sermon to have got into my _Stevinus_. + +I think ’tis a sermon, replied _Trim_; --but if it please your Honours, +as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page; --for _Trim_, you must +know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk. + +I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things +which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these; --and as we +have nothing better to do, at least till _Obadiah_ gets back, I shall be +obliged to you, brother, if Dr. _Slop_ has no objection to it, to order +the Corporal to give us a page or two of it, --if he is as able to do +it, as he seems willing. An’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_, I +officiated two whole campaigns, in _Flanders_, as clerk to the chaplain +of the regiment. ----He can read it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, as well as I +can. ----_Trim_, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and +should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s misfortune. +Corporal _Trim_ laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to +his master; --then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the +sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty, ----he +advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could +best see, and be best seen by his audience. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +--If you have any objection, --said my father, addressing himself to Dr. +_Slop_. Not in the least, replied Dr. _Slop_; --for it does not appear +on which side of the question it is wrote; ----it may be a composition +of a divine of our church, as well as yours, --so that we run equal +risques. ----’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth _Trim_, for ’tis only +upon _Conscience_, an’ please your Honours. + +_Trim’s_ reason put his audience into good-humour, --all but Dr. _Slop_, +who turning his head about towards _Trim_, looked a little angry. + +Begin, _Trim_, --and read distinctly, quoth my father. --I will, an’ +please your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking +attention with a slight movement of his right hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +----But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description +of his attitude; ----otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by +your imagination, in an uneasy posture, --stiff, --perpendicular, +--dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs; ----his eye +fixed, as if on duty; --his look determined, --clenching the sermon in +his left hand, like his firelock. ----In a word, you would be apt to +paint _Trim_, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action. +--His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive. + +He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so +far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the +horizon; --which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well +to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; --in any other angle you +may talk and preach; --’tis certain; --and it is done every day; --but +with what effect, --I leave the world to judge! + +The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half to a +mathematical exactness, ----does it not shew us, by the way, how the +arts and sciences mutually befriend each other? + +How the duce Corporal _Trim_, who knew not so much as an acute angle +from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly; ----or whether it was +chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c., shall be commented +upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the +instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the +bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under +consideration. + +He stood, ----for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one +view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards, --his right leg +from under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight, ------the +foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his +attitude, advanced a little, --not laterally, nor forwards, but in a +line betwixt them; --his knee bent, but that not violently, --but so as +to fall within the limits of the line of beauty; --and I add, of the +line of science too; --for consider, it had one eighth part of his body +to bear up; --so that in this case the position of the leg is +determined, --because the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee +more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth +part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too. + +[-->] This I recommend to painters: --need I add, --to orators! --I +think not; for unless they practise it, ------they must fall upon their +noses. + +So much for Corporal _Trim’s_ body and legs. ----He held the sermon +loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his +stomach, and detached a little from his breast; ----his right arm +falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity +ordered it, ----but with the palm of it open and turned towards his +audience, ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need. + +Corporal _Trim’s_ eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony +with the other parts of him; --he looked frank, --unconstrained, +--something assured, --but not bordering upon assurance. + +Let not the critic ask how Corporal _Trim_ could come by all this. +----I’ve told him it should be explained; --but so he stood before my +father, my uncle _Toby_, and Dr. _Slop_, --so swayed his body, so +contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the +whole figure, ----a statuary might have modelled from it; ----nay, +I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College, --or the _Hebrew_ +Professor himself, could have much mended it. + +_Trim_ made a bow, and read as follows: + + +The SERMON + +HEBREWS xiii. 18 + + ----_For we _trust_ we have a good Conscience_ + +“Trust! ----Trust we have a good conscience!” + +[Certainly, _Trim_, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that +sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and +read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse +the Apostle. + +He is, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim_. Pugh! said my father, +smiling. + +Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_ is certainly in the right; for the writer +(who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he +takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him; --if this +treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my +father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. _Slop_, that the writer is of +our church? --for aught I can see yet, --he may be of any church. +----Because, answered Dr. _Slop_, if he was of ours, --he durst no more +take such a licence, --than a bear by his beard: --If, in our communion, +Sir, a man was to insult an apostle, ----a saint, ----or even the paring +of a saint’s nail, --he would have his eyes scratched out. --What, by +the saint? quoth my uncle _Toby_. No, replied Dr. _Slop_, he would have +an old house over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building, +answered my uncle _Toby_, or is it a modern one? --I know nothing of +architecture, replied Dr. _Slop_. --An’ please your Honours, quoth +_Trim_, the Inquisition is the vilest ----Prithee spare thy description, +_Trim_, I hate the very name of it, said my father. --No matter for +that, answered Dr. _Slop_, --it has its uses; for tho’ I’m no great +advocate for it, yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught +better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be +flung into the Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my +uncle _Toby_. Amen, added _Trim_; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor +brother who has been fourteen years a captive in it. --I never heard one +word of it before, said my uncle _Toby_, hastily: --How came he there, +_Trim?_ ----O, Sir! the story will make your heart bleed, --as it has +made mine a thousand times; --but it is too long to be told now; --your +Honour shall hear it from first to last some day when I am working +beside you in our fortifications; --but the short of the story is this; +--That my brother _Tom_ went over a servant to _Lisbon_, --and then +married a Jew’s widow, who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which +somehow or other, was the cause of his being taken in the middle of the +night out of his bed, where he was lying with his wife and two small +children, and carried directly to the Inquisition, where, God help him, +continued _Trim_, fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart, --the +poor honest lad lies confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, +added _Trim_, (pulling out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.---- + +--The tears trickled down _Trim’s_ cheeks faster than he could well wipe +them away. --And dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes. +--Certain proof of pity! + +Come, _Trim_, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow’s grief had +got a little vent, --read on, --and put this melancholy story out of thy +head: --I grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon +again; --for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou +sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the +apostle has given. + +Corporal _Trim_ wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his +pocket, and, making a bow as he did it, --he began again.] + + +The SERMON + +HEBREWS xiii. 18 + + _----For we _trust_ we have a good Conscience. --_ + +“Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing in +this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he +is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be +this very thing, --whether he has a good conscience or no.” + +[I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. _Slop_.] + +“If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state +of this account; ----he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires; +--he must remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true +springs and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his +life.” + +[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. _Slop_.] + +“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the +wise man complains, _hardly do we guess aright at the things that are +upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before +us_. But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself; +----is conscious of the web she has wove; ----knows its texture and +fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working +upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.” + +[The language is good, and I declare _Trim_ reads very well, quoth my +father.] + +“Now, --as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind +has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or +censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our +lives; ’tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the proposition, +--whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands +self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man. --And, on the +contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart +condemns him not: --that it is not a matter of _trust_, as the apostle +intimates, but a matter of _certainty_ and fact, that the conscience is +good, and that the man must be good also.” + +[Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. +_Slop_, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, +replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. _Paul_ +and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion. --As nearly so, quoth +Dr. _Slop_, as east is to west; --but this, continued he, lifting both +hands, comes from the liberty of the press. + +It is no more, at the worst, replied my uncle _Toby_, than the liberty +of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or +ever likely to be. + +Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father.] + +“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I make +no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon +the mind of man, --that did no such thing ever happen, as that the +conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture +assures it may) insensibly become hard; --and, like some tender parts of +his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that +nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it: --Did +this never happen; --or was it certain that self-love could never hang +the least bias upon the judgment; --or that the little interests below +could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and +encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness: ----Could no such +thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court: --Did WIT disdain +to take a bribe in it; --or was ashamed to shew its face as an advocate +for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, lastly, were we assured that +INTEREST stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing--and that +Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the +stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon +the case: --Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose; --no doubt +then the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he +himself esteemed it: --and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life +could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of +his own approbation and censure. + +“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it +seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty; and unless in melancholy +and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is +always sufficient grounds for the accusation. + +“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true; --namely, that +whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, +that a man is therefore innocent. ----This is not fact ------So that the +common consolation which some good christian or other is hourly +administering to himself, --that he thanks God his mind does not misgive +him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he hath a +quiet one, --is fallacious; --and as current as the inference is, and as +infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer +to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts, ----you see it +liable to so much error from a false application; ----the principle upon +which it goes so often perverted; ----the whole force of it lost, and +sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common +examples from human life, which confirm the account. + +“A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles; +--exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in +the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify, +----a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall +ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt; --rob her of her best +dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour; --but involve a +whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will +think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can have no +rest night or day from its reproaches. + +“Alas! CONSCIENCE had something else to do all this time, than break in +upon him; as _Elijah_ reproached the god _Baal_, ----this domestic god +_was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure +he slept and could not be awoke_. + +“Perhaps HE was gone out in company with HONOUR to fight a duel: to pay +off some debt at play; ----or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust; +Perhaps CONSCIENCE all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud +against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny +crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all +temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily” ----[If he was of +our church, tho’, quoth Dr. _Slop_, he could not]-- “sleeps as soundly +in his bed; --and at last meets death as unconcernedly; --perhaps much +more so, than a much better man.” + +[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my father, +--the case could not happen in our church. --It happens in ours, +however, replied my father, but too often. ----I own, quoth Dr. _Slop_, +(struck a little with my father’s frank acknowledgment)--that a man in +the _Romish_ church may live as badly; --but then he cannot easily die +so. ----’Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of +indifference, --how a rascal dies. --I mean, answered Dr. _Slop_, he +would be denied the benefits of the last sacraments. --Pray how many +have you in all, said my uncle _Toby_, ----for I always forget? +----Seven, answered Dr. _Slop_. ----Humph! --said my uncle _Toby_; tho’ +not accented as a note of acquiescence, --but as an interjection of that +particular species of surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer, +finds more of a thing than he expected. ----Humph! replied my uncle +_Toby_. Dr. _Slop_, who had an ear, understood my uncle _Toby_ as well +as if he had wrote a whole volume against the seven sacraments. +----Humph! replied Dr. _Slop_ (stating my uncle _Toby’s_ argument over +again to him) ----Why, Sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues? +----Seven mortal sins? ----Seven golden candlesticks? ----Seven heavens? +--’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle _Toby_. ------Are there not +seven wonders of the world? ----Seven days of the creation? ----Seven +planets? ----Seven plagues? ----That there are, quoth my father with a +most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on with the rest of +thy characters, _Trim_.] + +“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here _Trim_ waved his right hand) +“a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private +friendship or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and +orphan in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human +life without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your honours, cried +_Trim_, I think this a viler man than the other.] + +“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions? ----No; +thank God there is no occasion, _I pay every man his own; --I have no +fornication to answer to my conscience; --no faithless vows or promises +to make up; --I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am +not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who +stands before me._ + +“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life; +--’tis nothing but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable +subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws, +----plain-dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several properties. +----You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon +the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man; --shall raise +a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper +of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life. + +“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this +black account, and state it over again with his conscience --CONSCIENCE +looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE; --finds no express law broken by what +he has done; --perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels +incurred; --sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his +gates upon him: --What is there to affright his conscience? --Conscience +has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there +invulnerable, fortified with #Cases# and #Reports# so strongly on all +sides; --that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.” + +[Here Corporal _Trim_ and my uncle _Toby_ exchanged looks with each +other. --Aye, aye, _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, shaking his head, +------these are but sorry fortifications, _Trim_. ------O! very poor +work, answered _Trim_, to what your Honour and I make of it. ----The +character of this last man, said Dr. _Slop_, interrupting _Trim_, is +more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from +some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you: --Amongst us, a man’s conscience +could not possibly continue so long _blinded_, ----three times in a +year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? +quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father, or _Obadiah_ +will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon. +----’Tis a very short one, replied _Trim_. ----I wish it was longer, +quoth my uncle _Toby_, for I like it hugely. --_Trim_ went on.] + +“A fourth man shall want even this refuge; --shall break through all +their ceremony of slow chicane; ----scorns the doubtful workings of +secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose: ----See the +bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders! +--Horrid! --But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the +present case--the poor man was in the dark! ------his priest had got the +keeping of his conscience; ----and all he would let him know of it, was, +That he must believe in the Pope; --go to Mass; --cross himself; --tell +his beads; --be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was +enough to carry him to heaven. What; --if he perjures! --Why; --he had a +mental reservation in it. --But if he is so wicked and abandoned a +wretch as you represent him; --if he robs, --if he stabs, will not +conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? --Aye, --but the +man has carried it to confession; ----the wound digests there, and will +do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution. +O Popery! what hast thou to answer for? ----when, not content with the +too many natural and fatal ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every +day thus treacherous to itself above all things; --thou hast wilfully +set open the wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary +traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself; and confidently +speak peace to himself, when there is no peace. + +“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too +notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of +them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself, +--I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then +venture to trust my appeal with his own heart. + +“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of +wicked actions stand _there_, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own +natures; --he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination +and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and +painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand +can give them; --and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, +appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true +circumstances of folly and dishonour. + +“When _David_ surprized _Saul_ sleeping in the cave, and cut off the +skirt of his robe--we read his heart smote him for what he had done: +----But in the matter of _Uriah_, where a faithful and gallant servant, +whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust, +--where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his +heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from the first +commission of that crime, to the time _Nathan_ was sent to reprove him; +and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which +he testified, during all that time, for what he had done. + +“Thus conscience, this once able monitor, ----placed on high as a judge +within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too, +--by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such +imperfect cognizance of what passes, ----does its office so negligently, +----sometimes so corruptly--that it is not to be trusted alone; and +therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute necessity, of +joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its +determinations. + +“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite +importance to you not to be misled in, --namely, in what degree of real +merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful +subject to your king, or a good servant to your God, ----call in +religion and morality. --Look, What is written in the law of God? +----How readest thou? --Consult calm reason and the unchangeable +obligations of justice and truth; ----what say they? + +“Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports; ----and then if +thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle supposes, +----the rule will be infallible;” --[Here Dr. _Slop_ fell asleep]-- +“_thou wilt have confidence towards God_; ----that is, have just grounds +to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the judgment of +God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous sentence +which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to whom thou +art finally to give an account of thy actions. + +“_Blessed is the man_, indeed, then, as the author of the book of +_Ecclesiasticus_ expresses it, _who is not pricked with the multitude of +his sins: Blessed is the man whose heart hath not condemned him; whether +he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart_ (a heart +thus guided and informed) _he shall at all times rejoice in a chearful +countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men that sit +above upon a tower on high_.” --[A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, unless ’tis flank’d.]-- “In the darkest doubts it shall conduct +him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in, +a better security for his behaviour than all the causes and restrictions +put together which law-makers are forced to multiply: --_Forced_, I say, +as things stand; human laws not being a matter of original choice, but +of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the mischievous effects +of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well intending, +by the many provisions made, --that in all such corrupt and misguided +cases, where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us +upright, --to supply their force, and, by the terrors of gaols and +halters, oblige us to it.” + +[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be +preached at the Temple, ----or at some Assize. --I like the reasoning, +--and am sorry that Dr. _Slop_ has fallen asleep before the time of his +conviction: --for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at +first, never insulted St. _Paul_ in the least; --nor has there been, +brother, the least difference between them. ----A great matter, if they +had differed, replied my uncle _Toby_, --the best friends in the world +may differ sometimes. ----True, --brother _Toby_, quoth my father, +shaking hands with him, --we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then _Trim_ +shall go on. + +Well, ----what dost thou think of it? said my father speaking to +Corporal _Trim_, as he reached his tobacco-box. + +I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the tower, +who, I suppose, are all centinels there, --are more, an’ please your +Honour, than were necessary; --and, to go on at that rate, would harrass +a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves his men, +will never do, if he can help it, because two centinels, added the +Corporal, are as good as twenty. --I have been a commanding officer +myself in the _Corps de Garde_ a hundred times, continued _Trim_, rising +an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke, --and all the time I had the +honour to serve his Majesty King _William_, in relieving the most +considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life. ----Very +right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --but you do not consider, +_Trim_, that the towers, in _Solomon’s_ days, were not such things as +our bastions, flanked and defended by other works; --this, _Trim_, was +an invention since _Solomon’s_ death; nor had they horn-works, or +ravelins before the curtin, in his time; ----or such a fossé as we make +with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and +counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a _Coup de main_: +--So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from +the _Corps de Garde_, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it. +--They could be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s +Guard. --My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly; --the subject +being rather too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest +of. --So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted, +--he contented himself with ordering _Trim_ to read on. He read on as +follows:] + +“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings +with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right +and wrong: ----The first of these will comprehend the duties of +religion; --the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably +connected together, that you cannot divide these two _tables_, even in +imagination (tho’ the attempt is often made in practice) without +breaking and mutually destroying them both. + +“I said the attempt is often made; and so it is; ----there being nothing +more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and +indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as +the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral +character, ----or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous +to the uttermost mite. + +“When there is some appearance that it is so, --tho’ one is unwilling +even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, +yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am +persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of +his motive. + +“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be +found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his +pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will give +us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress. + +“I will illustrate this by an example. + +“I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in” +--[There is no need, cried Dr. _Slop_ (waking), to call in any physician +in this case]---- “to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear +them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so +much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well; --notwithstanding +this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one: --and what is dearer +still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other. + +“Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in +the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them +will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage; --I +consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life: --I know their +success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters. --In +a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting +themselves more. + +“But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other +side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his +reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the world; +--or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate by my +death, without dishonour to himself or his art: --In this case, what +hold have I of either of them? --Religion, the strongest of all motives, +is out of the question; --Interest, the next most powerful motive in the +world, is strongly against me: ------What have I left to cast into the +opposite scale to balance this temptation? ------Alas! I have nothing, +----nothing but what is lighter than a bubble ------I must lie at the +mercy of HONOUR, or some such capricious principle --Strait security for +two of the most valuable blessings! --my property and myself. + +“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without +religion; --so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be +expected from religion without morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy +to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet +entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious +man. + +“He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable, --but even +wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud +against the infidelity of the age, ----is zealous for some points of +religion, ----goes twice a day to church, --attends the sacraments, +--and amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion, --shall +cheat his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a religious +man, and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find such a +man, through force of this delusion, generally looks down with spiritual +pride upon every other man who has less affectation of piety, --though, +perhaps, ten times more real honesty than himself. + +“_This likewise is a sore evil under the sun_; and I believe, there is +no one mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more serious +mischiefs. ------For a general proof of this, --examine the history of +the _Romish_ church;” --[Well, what can you make of that? cried Dr. +_Slop_]-- “see what scenes of cruelty, murder, rapine, bloodshed,” +----[They may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr. _Slop_]---- “have all +been sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality. + +“In how many kingdoms of the world” --[Here _Trim_ kept waving his right +hand from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it backwards +and forwards to the conclusion of the paragraph.] + +“In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this +misguided saint-errant, spared neither age nor merit, or sex, or +condition? --and, as he fought under the banners of a religion which set +him loose from justice and humanity, he shewed none; mercilessly +trampled upon both, --heard neither the cries of the unfortunate, nor +pitied their distresses.” + +[I have been in many a battle, an’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_, +sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this, --I would not have +drawn a tricker in it against these poor souls, ----to have been made a +general officer. ----Why? what do you understand of the affair? said Dr. +_Slop_, looking towards _Trim_, with something more of contempt than the +Corporal’s honest heart deserved. ----What do you know, friend, about +this battle you talk of? --I know, replied _Trim_, that I never refused +quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it; ----but to a woman +or a child, continued _Trim_, before I would level my musket at them, +I would lose my life a thousand times. ----Here’s a crown for thee, +_Trim_, to drink with _Obadiah_ to-night, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and +I’ll give _Obadiah_ another too. --God bless your Honour, replied +_Trim_, ----I had rather these poor women and children had it. ----Thou +art an honest fellow, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----My father nodded his +head, as much as to say, --and so he is.---- + +But prithee, _Trim_, said my father, make an end, --for I see thou hast +but a leaf or two left. + +Corporal _Trim_ read on.] + +“If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not sufficient, +--consider at this instant, how the votaries of that religion are every +day thinking to do service and honour to God, by actions which are a +dishonour and scandal to themselves. + +“To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of +the Inquisition.” --[God help my poor brother _Tom_.]-- “Behold +_Religion_, with _Mercy_ and _Justice_ chained down under her feet, +----there sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks +and instruments of torment. Hark! --hark! what a piteous groan!” --[Here +_Trim’s_ face turned as pale as ashes.]---- “See the melancholy wretch +who uttered it” --[Here the tears began to trickle down.]---- “just +brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the +utmost pains that a studied system of cruelty has been able to invent.” +--[D--n them all, quoth _Trim_, his colour returning into his face as +red as blood.]-- “Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his +tormentors, --his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement.” ----[Oh! +’tis my brother, cried poor _Trim_ in a most passionate exclamation, +dropping the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his hands together --I +fear ’tis poor _Tom_. My father’s and my uncle _Toby’s_ heart yearned +with sympathy for the poor fellow’s distress; even _Slop_ himself +acknowledged pity for him. ----Why, _Trim_, said my father, this is not +a history, ----’tis a sermon thou art reading; prithee begin the +sentence again.]---- “Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his +tormentors, --his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement, you will +see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. + +“Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!” --[I would rather +face a cannon, quoth _Trim_, stamping.]-- “See what convulsions it has +thrown him into! ----Consider the nature of the posture in which he now +lies stretched, --what exquisite tortures he endures by it!” --[I hope +’tis not in _Portugal_.]-- “’Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how +it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!” [I would not +read another line of it, quoth _Trim_, for all this _world_; --I fear, +an’ please your Honours, all this is in _Portugal_, where my poor +brother _Tom_ is. I tell thee, _Trim_, again, quoth my father, ’tis not +an historical account, --’tis a description. --’Tis only a description, +honest man, quoth _Slop_, there’s not a word of truth in it. ----That’s +another story, replied my father. --However, as _Trim_ reads it with so +much concern, --’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it. --Give me +hold of the sermon, _Trim_, --I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st +go. I must stay and hear it, too, replied _Trim_, if your Honour will +allow me; --tho’ I would not read it myself for a Colonel’s pay. +------Poor _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_. My father went on.]-- + +“----Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched, +--what exquisite torture he endures by it! --’Tis all nature can bear! +Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling +lips, --willing to take its leave, ----but not suffered to depart! +--Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!” ----[Then, thank God, +however, quoth _Trim_, they have not killed him.]-- “See him dragged out +of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last agonies, +which this principle, --this principle, that there can be religion +without mercy, has prepared for him.” ----[Then, thank God, ----he is +dead, quoth _Trim_, --he is out of his pain, --and they have done their +worst at him. --O Sirs! --Hold your peace, _Trim_, said my father, going +on with the sermon, lest _Trim_ should incense Dr. _Slop_, --we shall +never have done at this rate.] + +“The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace +down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with +the spirit of Christianity; ----’tis the short and decisive rule which +our Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth +a thousand arguments----_By their fruits ye shall know them._ + +“I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or +three short and independent rules deducible from it. + +“_First_, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect +that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better +of his CREED. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and +troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, ’tis +for no other cause but quietness’ sake. + +“_Secondly_, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular +instance, ----That such a thing goes against his conscience, ----always +believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a +thing goes _against_ his stomach; --a present want of appetite being +generally the true cause of both. + +“In a word, --trust that man in nothing, who has not a CONSCIENCE in +everything. + +“And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in +which has ruined thousands, --that your conscience is not a law: --No, +God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to +determine; ----not, like an _Asiatic_ Cadi, according to the ebbs and +flows of his own passions, --but like a _British_ judge in this land of +liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares +that law which he knows already written.” + +_FINIS_ + + +Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, _Trim_, quoth my father. --If +he had spared his comments, replied Dr. _Slop_, ----he would have read +it much better. I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered +_Trim_, but that my heart was so full. --That was the very reason, +_Trim_, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well +as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, +addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_, would take part in what they deliver +as deeply as this poor fellow has done, --as their compositions are +fine; --[I deny it, quoth Dr. _Slop_]-- I maintain it, --that the +eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to enflame it, would be a +model for the whole world: ----But alas! continued my father, and I own +it, Sir, with sorrow, that, like _French_ politicians in this respect, +what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field. ----’Twere a pity, +quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well, +replied my father, ----’tis dramatick, --and there is something in that +way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention. +----We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. _Slop_. --I know that +very well, said my father, ----but in a tone and manner which disgusted +Dr. _Slop_, full as much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him. +----But in this, added Dr. _Slop_, a little piqued, --our sermons have +greatly the advantage, that we never introduce any character into them +below a patriarch or a patriarch’s wife, or a martyr or a saint. --There +are some very bad characters in this, however, said my father, and I do +not think the sermon a jot the worse for ’em. ----But pray, quoth my +uncle _Toby_, --who’s can this be? --How could it get into my +_Stevinus?_ A man must be as great a conjurer as _Stevinus_, said my +father, to resolve the second question: --The first, I think, is not so +difficult; --for unless my judgment greatly deceives me, ----I know the +author, for ’tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish. + +The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father +constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of +his conjecture, --proving it as strongly, as an argument _à priori_ +could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was _Yorick’s_ +and no one’s else: --It was proved to be so, _à posteriori_, the day +after, when _Yorick_ sent a servant to my uncle _Toby’s_ house to +enquire after it. + +It seems that _Yorick_, who was inquisitive after all kinds of +knowledge, had borrowed _Stevinus_ of my uncle _Toby_, and had +carelessly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle +of _Stevinus_; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever +subject, he had sent _Stevinus_ home, and his sermon to keep him +company. + +Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second +time, dropped thro’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down +into a treacherous and a tattered lining, --trod deep into the dirt by +the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou +falledst; --buried ten days in the mire, ----raised up out of it by a +beggar, --sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk, ----transferred to his +parson, ----lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days, ----nor +restored to his restless MANES till this very moment, that I tell the +world the story. + +Can the reader believe, that this sermon of _Yorick’s_ was preached at +an assize, in the cathedral of _York_, before a thousand witnesses, +ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and +actually printed by him when he had done, ----and within so short a +space as two years and three months after _Yorick’s_ death? --_Yorick_ +indeed, was never better served in his life; ------but it was a little +hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his +grave. + +However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with +_Yorick_, --and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give +away; --and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one +himself, had he thought fit, --I declare I would not have published this +anecdote to the world; ----nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt +his character and advancement in the church; ----I leave that to others; +--but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand. + +The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to _Yorick’s_ +ghost; ----which--as the country-people, and some others, believe, +----_still walks_. + +The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, +I gain an opportunity of informing it, --That in case the character of +parson _Yorick_, and this sample of his sermons, is liked, ----there are +now in the possession of the _Shandy_ family, as many as will make a +handsome volume, at the world’s service, ----and much good may they do +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute; for he came in jingling, +with all the instruments in the green bays bag we spoke of, slung across +his body, just as Corporal _Trim_ went out of the room. + +It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (clearing up his looks), as +we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. _Shandy_, to send +upstairs to know how she goes on. + +I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us +upon the least difficulty; --for you must know, Dr. _Slop_, continued my +father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by +express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no +more than an auxiliary in this affair, --and not so much as that, +--unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without +you. --Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this +nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and +suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the +good of the species, --they claim a right of deciding, _en Souveraines_, +in whose hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it. + +They are in the right of it, ----quoth my uncle _Toby_. But, Sir, +replied Dr. _Slop_, not taking notice of my uncle _Toby’s_ opinion, but +turning to my father, --they had better govern in other points; ----and +a father of a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had +better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other +rights in lieu of it. ----I know not, quoth my father, answering a +little too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said, --I know +not, quoth he, what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring +our children into the world, unless that, --of who shall beget them. +------One would almost give up anything, replied Dr. _Slop_. --I beg +your pardon, ----answered my uncle _Toby_. --Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, it +would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years +in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one +single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the _fœtus_, +----which has received such lights, that, for my part (holding up his +hands) I declare I wonder how the world has ----I wish, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in _Flanders_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute, ----to remind +you of one thing, ----and to inform you of another. + +What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course; +----for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that +I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage +here than elsewhere. --Writers had need look before them, to keep up the +spirit and connection of what they have in hand. + +When these two things are done, --the curtain shall be drawn up again, +and my uncle _Toby_, my father, and Dr. _Slop_, shall go on with their +discourse, without any more interruption. + +First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this; ----that +from the specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point of +christian-names, and that other previous point thereto, --you was led, +I think, into an opinion (and I am sure I said as much), that my father +was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other opinions. +In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the very first +act of his begetting, ----down to the lean and slippered pantaloon in +his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion to himself, +springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the highway of +thinking, as these two which have been explained. + +--Mr. _Shandy_, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which +others placed it; --he placed things in his own light; --he would weigh +nothing in common scales; --no, he was too refined a researcher to lie +open to so gross an imposition. --To come at the exact weight of things +in the scientific steel-yard, the fulcrum, he would say, should be +almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets; --without +this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn the balance, +will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm, was +divisible _in infinitum_; ----that the grains and scruples were as much +a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world. --In a word, he +would say, error was error, --no matter where it fell, ----whether in a +fraction, --or a pound, --’twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept +down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust +of a butterfly’s wings, ----as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all +the stars of heaven put together. + +He would often lament that it was for want of considering this properly, +and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to speculative +truths, that so many things in this world were out of joint; ----that +the political arch was giving way; ----and that the very foundations of +our excellent constitution, in church and state, were so sapped as +estimators had reported. + +You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would +ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of _Zeno_ and _Chrysippus_, +without knowing it belonged to them. --Why? why are we a ruined people? +--Because we are corrupted. --Whence is it, dear Sir, that we are +corrupted? ----Because we are needy; ----our poverty, and not our wills, +consent. ----And wherefore, he would add, are we needy? --From the +neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence: --Our bank +notes, Sir, our guineas, --nay, our shillings take care of themselves. + +’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the +sciences; --the great, the established points of them, are not to be +broke in upon. --The laws of nature will defend themselves; --but +error----(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)----error, Sir, +creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices which human nature +leaves unguarded. + +This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of: +--The point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for +this place, is as follows. + +Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged +my mother to accept of Dr. _Slop’s_ assistance preferably to that of the +old woman, ----there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he +had done arguing the manner with her as a Christian, and came to argue +it over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength +to, depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor. ----It failed him; +tho’ from no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could, +he was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of it. +----Cursed luck! ----said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out +of the room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to her, +to no manner of purpose; --cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as he +shut the door, ----for a man to be master of one of the finest chains of +reasoning in nature, --and have a wife at the same time with such a +headpiece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, +to save his soul from destruction. + +This argument, though it was entirely lost upon my mother, ----had more +weight with him, than all his other arguments joined together: --I will +therefore endeavour to do it justice, --and set it forth with all the +perspicuity I am master of. + +My father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms: + +_First_, That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other +people’s; and, + +_Secondly_ (Which by the bye, was the ground-work of the first axiom, +----tho’ it comes last), That every man’s wit must come from every man’s +own soul, ----and no other body’s. + +Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal, +----and that the great difference between the most acute and the most +obtuse understanding----was from no original sharpness or bluntness of +one thinking substance above or below another, ----but arose merely from +the lucky or unlucky organisation of the body, in that part where the +soul principally took up her residence, ----he had made it the subject +of his enquiry to find out the identical place. + +Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he +was satisfied it could not be where _Des Cartes_ had fixed it, upon the +top of the _pineal_ gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized, +formed a cushion for her about the size of a marrow pea; tho’, to speak +the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all in that one place, +--’twas no bad conjecture; ----and my father had certainly fallen with +that great philosopher plumb into the centre of the mistake, had it not +been for my uncle _Toby_, who rescued him out of it, by a story he told +him of a _Walloon_ officer at the battle of _Landen_, who had one part +of his brain shot away by a musket-ball, --and another part of it taken +out after by a _French_ surgeon; and after all, recovered, and did his +duty very well without it. + +If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the +separation of the soul from the body; and if it is true that people can +walk about and do their business without brains, --then certes the soul +does not inhabit there. Q. E. D. + +As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which +_Coglionissimo Borri_, the great _Milanese_ physician affirms, in a +letter to _Bartholine_, to have discovered in the cellulæ of the +occipital parts of the cerebellum, and which he likewise affirms to be +the principal seat of the reasonable soul (for, you must know, in these +latter and more enlightened ages, there are two souls in every man +living, --the one, according to the great _Metheglingius_, being called +the _Animus_, the other, the _Anima_;)--as for the opinion, I say, of +_Borri_, --my father could never subscribe to it by any means; the very +idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial, and so exalted a being as +the _Anima_, or even the _Animus_, taking up her residence, and sitting +dabbling, like a tadpole all day long, both summer and winter, in a +puddle, ----or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin soever, he +would say, shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the doctrine a +hearing. + +What, therefore, seemed the least liable to objections of any, was that +the chief sensorium, or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place +all intelligences were referred, and from whence all her mandates were +issued, --was in, or near, the cerebellum, --or rather somewhere about +the _medulla oblongata_, wherein it was generally agreed by _Dutch_ +anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the organs of the seven +senses concentered, like streets and winding alleys, into a square. + +So far there was nothing singular in my father’s opinion, --he had the +best of philosophers, of all ages and climates, to go along with him. +----But here he took a road of his own, setting up another _Shandean_ +hypothesis upon these corner-stones they had laid for him; ----and which +said hypothesis equally stood its ground; whether the subtilty and +fineness of the soul depended upon the temperature and clearness of the +said liquor, or of the finer network and texture in the cerebellum +itself; which opinion he favoured. + +He maintained, that next to the due care to be taken in the act of +propagation of each individual, which required all the thought in the +world, as it laid the foundation of this incomprehensible contexture, in +which wit, memory, fancy, eloquence, and what is usually meant by the +name of good natural parts, do consist; --that next to this and his +christian-name, which were the two original and most efficacious causes +of all; ----that the third cause, or rather what logicians call the +_Causa sine quâ non_, and without which all that was done was of no +manner of significance, ----was the preservation of this delicate and +fine-spun web, from the havock which was generally made in it by the +violent compression and crush which the head was made to undergo, by the +nonsensical method of bringing us into the world by that foremost. + +----This requires explanation. + +My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into +_Lithopædus Senonesis de Partu difficili_,[2.1] published by _Adrianus +Smelvgot_, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child’s +head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that +time, was such, ----that by force of the woman’s efforts, which, in +strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 +pounds averdupois acting perpendicularly upon it; --it so happened, that +in 49 instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into +the shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook +generally rolls up in order to make a pye of. --Good God! cried my +father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely +fine and tender texture of the cerebellum! --Or if there is such a juice +as _Borri_ pretends, --is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in +the world both feculent and mothery? + +But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that +this force acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured the +brain itself, or cerebrum, --but that it necessarily squeezed and +propelled the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate +seat of the understanding! ----Angels and ministers of grace defend us! +cried my father, ----can any soul withstand this shock? --No wonder the +intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and that so many +of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk, ----all +perplexity, ----all confusion within-side. + +But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a +child was turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and +was extracted by the feet; --that instead of the cerebrum being +propelled towards the cerebellum, the cerebellum, on the contrary, was +propelled simply towards the cerebrum, where it could do no manner of +hurt: ----By heavens! cried he, the world is in conspiracy to drive out +what little wit God has given us, ----and the professors of the +obstetric art are lifted into the same conspiracy. --What is it to me +which end of my son comes foremost into the world, provided all goes +right after, and his cerebellum escapes uncrushed? + +It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, +that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, +from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the +stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand. This is of +great use. + +When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a +phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve +by it; --it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in +the family. ----Poor devil, he would say, --he made way for the capacity +of his younger brothers. ----It unriddled the observations of drivellers +and monstrous heads, ----shewing _à priori_, it could not be otherwise, +----unless **** I don’t know what. It wonderfully explained and +accounted for the acumen of the _Asiatic_ genius, and that sprightlier +turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; not +from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more +perpetual sunshine, &c. --which for aught he knew, might as well rarefy +and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme, --as +they are condensed in colder climates by the other; ----but he traced +the affair up to its spring-head; --shewed that, in warmer climates, +nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the creation; +--their pleasures more; --the necessity of their pains less, insomuch +that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the +whole organisation of the cerebellum was preserved; ----nay, he did not +believe, in natural births, that so much as a single thread of the +net-work was broke or displaced, ----so that the soul might just act as +she liked. + +When my father had got so far, ------what a blaze of light did the +accounts of the _Cæsarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had +come safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, +he would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium; --no pressure +of the head against the pelvis; ----no propulsion of the cerebrum +towards the cerebellum, either by the _os pubis_ on this side, or the +_os coxygis_ on that; ------and pray, what were the happy consequences? +Why, Sir, your _Julius Cæsar_, who gave the operation a name; --and your +_Hermes Trismegistus_, who was born so before ever the operation had a +name; ----your _Scipio Africanus_; your _Manlius Torquatus_; our +_Edward_ the Sixth, --who, had he lived, would have done the same honour +to the hypothesis: ----These, and many more who figured high in the +annals of fame, --all came _side-way_, Sir, into the world. + +The incision of the _abdomen_ and _uterus_ ran for six weeks together in +my father’s head; ----he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in the +_epigastrium_, and those in the _matrix_, were not mortal; --so that the +belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a passage to +the child. --He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my mother, +------merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as ashes +at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his hopes, +--he thought it as well to say no more of it, ----contenting himself +with admiring, --what he thought was to no purpose to propose. + +This was my father Mr. _Shandy’s_ hypothesis; concerning which I have +only to add, that my brother _Bobby_ did as great honour to it (whatever +he did to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke of: For +happening not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be born too, +when my father was at _Epsom_, ----being moreover my mother’s _first_ +child, --coming into the world with his head _foremost_, --and turning +out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts, ----my father spelt all +these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one end, --he +was determined to try the other. + +This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not +easily to be put out of their way, ----and was therefore one of my +father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could +better deal with. + +Of all men in the world, Dr. _Slop_ was the fittest for my father’s +purpose; ----for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had +proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of +deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book, +in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy; ----tho’ not +with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my +father’s system, --but for reasons merely obstetrical. + +This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_, in +the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle _Toby_. +----In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, could +bear up against two such allies in science, --is hard to conceive. --You +may conjecture upon it, if you please, ----and whilst your imagination +is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes +and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle _Toby_ got +his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin. --You may raise a +system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles, --and +shew the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to +be called TRISTAM, in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish +of the whole family, Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted. --These, +with fifty other points left yet unravelled, you may endeavour to solve +if you have time; ----but I tell you beforehand it will be in vain, for +not the sage _Alquife_, the magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor +the no less famous _Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive), +could pretend to come within a league of the truth. + +The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these +matters till the next year, ----when a series of things will be laid +open which he little expects. + + [Footnote 2.1: The author is here twice mistaken; for + _Lithopædus_ should be wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon_. + The second mistake is, that this _Lithopædus_ is not an author, + but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, + published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen at the end of + _Cordæus’s_ works in _Spachius_. Mr. _Tristram Shandy_ has been + led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus’s_ name of + late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ----, or by + mistaking _Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_, ----from the too + great similitude of the names.] + + + + +BOOK III + + + Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia; meis tamen, rogo, + parcant opusculis------in quibus fuit propositi semper, + a jocis ad seria, a seriis vicissim ad jocos transire. + + --JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS, _Episcopus Lugdun._ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +----“_I WISH, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish for +Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness +in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at first[3.1])---- “_I +wish, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen what prodigious +armies we had in_ Flanders.” + +My uncle _Toby’s_ wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart never +intended any man, --Sir, it confounded him----and thereby putting his +ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them +again for the soul of him. + +In all disputes, ----male or female, ----whether for honour, for profit, +or for love, --it makes no difference in the case; --nothing is more +dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner +upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the wish, +is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs--and wish the +_wisher_ something in return, of pretty near the same value, ----so +balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were--nay +sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it. + +This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.-- + +Dr. _Slop_ did not understand the nature of this defence; --he was +puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four +minutes and a half; --five had been fatal to it: --my father saw the +danger--the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the +world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born +without a head or with one:” --he waited to the last moment, to allow +Dr. _Slop_, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning +it; but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking +with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare +with--first in my uncle _Toby’s_ face--then in his--then up--then +down--then east--east and by east, and so on, ----coasting it along by +the plinth of the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the +compass, ----and that he had actually begun to count the brass nails +upon the arm of his chair, --my father thought there was no time to be +lost with my uncle _Toby_, so took up the discourse as follows. + + [Footnote 3.1: Vide page 105.] [[end of ch. II.XVIII]] + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +“--What prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”---- + +Brother _Toby_, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with +his right hand, and with his _left_ pulling out a striped _India_ +handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as he +argued the point with my uncle _Toby_.---- + +----Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give +you my reasons for it. + +Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “_Whether my +father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his +left_,” ----have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of +the monarchs who governed them, to totter upon their heads. ----But need +I tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which every thing in this +world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape! +--and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing +to be, what it is--great--little--good--bad--indifferent or not +indifferent, just as the case happens? + +As my father’s _India_ handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he +should by no means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on +the contrary, instead of taking off his wig with it, as he did, he ought +to have committed that entirely to the left; and then, when the natural +exigency my father was under of rubbing his head, called out for his +handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have done, but +to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and taken it out; +----which he might have done without any violence, or the least +ungraceful twist in any one tendon or muscle of his whole body + +In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a +fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand----or by +making some nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or +arm-pit)--his whole attitude had been easy--natural--unforced: +_Reynolds_ himself, as great and gracefully as he paints, might have +painted him as he sat. + +Now as my father managed this matter, --consider what a devil of a +figure my father made of himself. + +In the latter end of Queen _Anne’s_ reign, and in the beginning of the +reign of King _George_ the first-- “_Coat pockets were cut very low down +in the skirt_.” --I need say no more--the father of mischief, had he +been hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion +for one in my father’s situation. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +It was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean a +subject as myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across +your whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat pocket. +----In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this +happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle _Toby_ +discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s approaches towards +it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, before +the gate of _St. Nicolas_; ----the idea of which drew off his attention +so entirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand +to the bell to ring up _Trim_ to go and fetch his map of _Namur_, and +his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the returning angles +of the traverses of that attack, --but particularly of that one, where +he received his wound upon his groin. + +My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his body +seemed to rush up into his face----my uncle _Toby_ dismounted +immediately. + +----I did not apprehend your uncle _Toby_ was o’ horseback.------ + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A man’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, +are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining; --rumple the one, +--you rumple the other. There is one certain exception however in this +case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have had +your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a +sarcenet, or thin persian. + +_Zeno_, _Cleanthes_, _Diogenes Babylonius_, _Dionysius_, _Heracleotes_, +_Antipater_, _Panætius_, and _Posidonius_ amongst the _Greeks_; +----_Cato_ and _Varro_ and _Seneca_ amongst the _Romans_; +----_Pantæonus_ and _Clemens Alexandrinus_ and _Montaigne_ amongst the +Christians; and a score and a half of good, honest, unthinking +_Shandean_ people as ever lived, whose names I can’t recollect, --all +pretended that their jerkins were made after this fashion, --you might +have rumpled and crumpled, and doubled and creased, and fretted and +fridged the outside of them all to pieces; ----in short, you might have +played the very devil with them, and at the same time, not one of the +insides of them would have been one button the worse, for all you had +done to them. + +I believe in my conscience that mine is made up somewhat after this +sort: ----for never poor jerkin has been tickled off at such a rate as +it has been these last nine months together, ----and yet I declare, the +lining to it, ------as far as I am a judge of the matter, ----is not a +three-penny piece the worse; --pell-mell, helter-skelter, ding-dong, cut +and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long way, have +they been trimming it for me: --had there been the least gumminess in my +lining, --by heaven! it had all of it long ago been frayed and fretted +to a thread. + +------You Messrs. the Monthly reviewers! ------how could you cut and +slash my jerkin as you did? ----how did you know but you would cut my +lining too? + +Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will +injure none of us, do I recommend you and your affairs, --so God bless +you; --only next month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and +storm and rage at me, as some of you did last MAY (in which I remember +the weather was very hot)--don’t be exasperated, if I pass it by again +with good temper, --being determined as long as I live or write (which +in my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a +worse word or a worse wish than my uncle _Toby_ gave the fly which +buzz’d about his nose all _dinner-time_, ------“Go, --go, poor devil,” +quoth he, --“get thee gone, --why should I hurt thee? This world is +surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.” + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Any man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious +suffusion of blood in my father’s countenance, --by means of which +(as all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his face, as I told +you) he must have reddened, pictorically and scientifically speaking, +six whole tints and a half, if not a full octave above his natural +colour: --any man, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, who had observed this, +together with the violent knitting of my father’s brows, and the +extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair, --would have +concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted, --had he +been a lover of such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments +being put in exact tune, --he would instantly have skrew’d up his, to +the same pitch; --and then the devil and all had broke loose--the whole +piece, Madam, must have been played off like the sixth of Avison +Scarlatti--_con furia_, --like mad. --Grant me patience! ----What has +_con furia_, ----_con strepito_, ----or any other hurly burly whatever +to do with harmony? + +Any man, I say, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, the benignity of whose heart +interpreted every motion of the body in the kindest sense the motion +would admit of, would have concluded my father angry, and blamed him +too. My uncle _Toby_ blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the +pocket-hole; ----so sitting still till my father had got his +handkerchief out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with +inexpressible good-will----my father, at length, went on as follows. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +“What prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_” ----Brother _Toby_, quoth +my father, I do believe thee to be as honest a man, and with as good and +as upright a heart as ever God created; --nor is it thy fault, if all +the children which have been, may, can, shall, will, or ought to be +begotten, come with their heads foremost into the world: ----but believe +me, dear _Toby_, the accidents which unavoidably waylay them, not only +in the article of our begetting ’em----though these, in my opinion, are +well worth considering, ----but the dangers and difficulties our +children are beset with, after they are got forth into the world, are +enow--little need is there to expose them to unnecessary ones in their +passage to it. ----Are these dangers, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying his +hand upon my father’s knee, and looking up seriously in his face for an +answer, ----are these dangers greater now o’ days, brother, than in +times past? Brother _Toby_, answered my father, if a child was but +fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the mother did well after +it, --our forefathers never looked farther. ----My uncle _Toby_ +instantly withdrew his hand from off my father’s knee, reclined his body +gently back in his chair, raised his head till he could just see the +cornice of the room, and then directing the buccinatory muscles along +his cheeks, and the orbicular muscles around his lips to do their +duty--he whistled _Lillabullero_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Whilst my uncle _Toby_ was whistling _Lillabullero_ to my father, --Dr. +_Slop_ was stamping, and cursing and damning at _Obadiah_ at a most +dreadful rate, ------it would have done your heart good, and cured you, +Sir, for ever of the vile sin of swearing, to have heard him; I am +determined therefore to relate the whole affair to you. + +When Dr. _Slop’s_ maid delivered the green bays bag with her master’s +instruments in it, to _Obadiah_, she very sensibly exhorted him to put +his head and one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across +his body: so undoing the bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him, +without any more ado, she helped him on with it. However, as this, in +some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag, lest anything should bolt +out in galloping back, at the speed _Obadiah_ threatened, they consulted +to take it off again: and in the great care and caution of their hearts, +they had taken the two strings and tied them close (pursing up the mouth +of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, each of which _Obadiah_, +to make all safe, had twitched and drawn together with all the strength +of his body. + +This answered all that _Obadiah_ and the maid intended; but was no +remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The +instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much +room to play in it, towards the bottom (the shape of the bag being +conical) that _Obadiah_ could not make a trot of it, but with such a +terrible jingle, what with the _tire tête_, _forceps_, and _squirt_, as +would have been enough, had _Hymen_ been taking a jaunt that way, to +have frightened him out of the country; but when _Obadiah_ accelerated +his motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coach-horse into +a full gallop----by Heaven! Sir, the jingle was incredible. + +As _Obadiah_ had a wife and three children----the turpitude of +fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this +jingling, never once entered his brain, ----he had however his +objection, which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has +oft-times done with the greatest patriots. ----“_The poor fellow, Sir, +was not able to hear himself whistle._” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +As _Obadiah_ loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music +he carried with him, --he very considerately set his imagination to +work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a +condition of enjoying it. + +In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing +is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band: ----the philosophy of +this is so near the surface ----I scorn to enter into it. + +As _Obadiah’s_ was a mix’d case----mark, Sirs, ----I say, a mixed case; +for it was obstetrical, ----_scrip_tical, squirtical, papistical----and +as far as the coach-horse was concerned in it, ----caballistical----and +only partly musical; --_Obadiah_ made no scruple of availing himself of +the first expedient which offered; so taking hold of the bag and +instruments, and griping them hard together with one hand, and with the +finger and thumb of the other putting the end of the hat-band betwixt +his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of it, --he +tied and cross-tied them all fast together from one end to the other +(as you would cord a trunk) with such a multiplicity of roundabouts and +intricate cross turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point +where the strings met, --that Dr. _Slop_ must have had three-fifths of +_Job’s_ patience at least to have unloosed them. --I think in my +conscience, that had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in +humour for such a contest----and she and Dr. _Slop_ both fairly started +together----there is no man living who had seen the bag with all that +_Obadiah_ had done to it, ----and known likewise the great speed the +Goddess can make when she thinks proper, who would have had the least +doubt remaining in his mind--which of the two would have carried off the +prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag +infallibly----at least by twenty _knots_. ----Sport of small accidents, +_Tristram Shandy!_ that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been +for thee, and it was fifty to one but it had, ----thy affairs had not +been so depress’d--(at least by the depression of thy nose) as they have +been; nor had the fortunes of thy house and the occasions of making +them, which have so often presented themselves in the course of thy +life, to thee, been so often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so +irrecoverably abandoned--as thou hast been forced to leave them; ----but +’tis over, ----all but the account of ’em, which cannot be given to the +curious till I am got out into the world. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Great wits jump: for the moment Dr. _Slop_ cast his eyes upon his bag +(which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle _Toby_ about +midwifery put him in mind of it)--the very same thought occurred. --’Tis +God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. _Shandy_ has had so bad a +time of it, ----else she might have been brought to bed seven times +told, before one half of these knots could have got untied. ----But here +you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. _Slop’s_ mind, +without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of +which, as your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the +middle of the thin juice of a man’s understanding, without being carried +backwards or forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest +drive them to one side. + +A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother’s bed, did the +proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that’s +unfortunate, quoth Dr. _Slop_, unless I make haste, the thing will +actually befall me as it is. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +In the case of _knots_, --by which, in the first place, I would not be +understood to mean slip-knots--because in the course of my life and +opinions--my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I +mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. _Hammond Shandy_, --a +little man, --but of high fancy: --he rushed into the duke of +_Monmouth’s_ affair: ----nor, secondly, in this place, do I mean that +particular species of knots called bow-knots; --there is so little +address, or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they +are below my giving any opinion at all about them. --But by the knots I +am speaking of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean +good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots, made _bona fide_, as _Obadiah_ +made his; ----in which there is no quibbling provision made by the +duplication and return of the two ends of the strings thro’ the annulus +or noose made by the second _implication_ of them--to get them slipp’d +and undone by. --I hope you apprehend me. + +In the case of these _knots_ then, and of the several obstructions, +which, may it please your reverences, such knots cast in our way in +getting through life----every hasty man can whip out his penknife and +cut through them. ----’Tis wrong. Believe me, Sirs, the most virtuous +way, and which both reason and conscience dictate----is to take our +teeth or our fingers to them. ----Dr. _Slop_ had lost his teeth--his +favourite instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some +misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a hard +labour, knock’d out three of the best of them with the handle of it: +------he tried his fingers--alas; the nails of his fingers and thumbs +were cut close. ----The duce take it! I can make nothing of it either +way, cried Dr. _Slop_. ----The trampling overhead near my mother’s +bedside increased. --Pox take the fellow! I shall never get the knots +untied as long as I live. ----My mother gave a groan. ----Lend me your +penknife ----I must e’en cut the knots at last----pugh! ----psha! +--Lord! I have cut my thumb quite across to the very bone----curse the +fellow--if there was not another man-midwife within fifty miles ----I am +undone for this bout --I wish the scoundrel hang’d --I wish he was +shot ----I wish all the devils in hell had him for a blockhead!------ + +My father had a great respect for _Obadiah_, and could not bear to hear +him disposed of in such a manner--he had moreover some little respect +for himself--and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself +in it. + +Had Dr. _Slop_ cut any part about him, but his thumb----my father had +pass’d it by--his prudence had triumphed: as it was, he was determined +to have his revenge. + +Small curses, Dr. _Slop_, upon great occasions, quoth my father +(condoling with him first upon the accident), are but so much waste of +our strength and soul’s health to no manner of purpose. --I own it, +replied Dr. _Slop_. --They are like sparrow-shot, quoth my uncle _Toby_ +(suspending his whistling), fired against a bastion. ----They serve, +continued my father, to stir the humours----but carry off none of their +acrimony: --for my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all --I hold it +bad----but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much +presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle _Toby_) as to make it answer my +purpose----that is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wise and a +just man however would always endeavour to proportion the vent given to +these humours, not only to the degree of them stirring within +himself--but to the size and ill intent of the offence upon which they +are to fall. --“_Injuries come only from the heart_,” --quoth my uncle +_Toby_. For this reason, continued my father, with the most _Cervantick_ +gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world for that gentleman, +who, in distrust of his own discretion in this point, sat down and +composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of swearing suitable to all +cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which could possibly +happen to him----which forms being well considered by him, and such +moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the +chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use. --I never apprehended, +replied Dr. _Slop_, that such a thing was ever thought of----much less +executed. I beg your pardon, answered my father; I was reading, though +not using, one of them to my brother _Toby_ this morning, whilst he +pour’d out the tea--’tis here upon the shelf over my head; --but if I +remember right, ’tis too violent for a cut of the thumb. --Not at all, +quoth Dr. _Slop_--the devil take the fellow. ----Then, answered my +father, ’Tis much at your service, Dr. _Slop_--on condition you will +read it aloud; ----so rising up and reaching down a form of +excommunication of the church of _Rome_, a copy of which, my father (who +was curious in his collections) had procured out of the leger-book of +the church of _Rochester_, writ by ERNULPHUS the bishop----with a most +affected seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled +ERNULPHUS himself--he put it into Dr. _Slop’s_ hands. ----Dr. _Slop_ +wrapt his thumb up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with a wry +face, though without any suspicion, read aloud, as follows------my uncle +_Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_ as loud as he could all the time. + + + Textus de Ecclesiâ Roffensi, per Ernulfum Episcopum. + + + + +[Transcriber’s Note: + +The following section was printed on facing pages, Latin and English. +For this e-text it has been broken into alternating paragraphs. The +letters inserted between Latin lines are alternative endings determined +by the number and gender of the person(s) being excommunicated.] + + + CAP. XI + + EXCOMMUNICATIO[3.2] + + + Ex auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus + Sancti, et sanctorum canonum, sanctæque et intemeratæ Virginis Dei + genetricis Mariæ,-- + + +CHAPTER XI + + +“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and +of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and +patroness of our Saviour.” I think there is no necessity, quoth Dr. +_Slop_, dropping the paper down to his knee, and addressing himself to +my father----as you have read it over, Sir, so lately, to read it +aloud----and as Captain _Shandy_ seems to have no great inclination to +hear it ------I may as well read it to myself. That’s contrary to treaty, +replied my father: ------besides, there is something so whimsical, +especially in the latter part of it, I should grieve to lose the +pleasure of a second reading. Dr. _Slop_ did not altogether like it, +------but my uncle _Toby_ offering at that instant to give over +whistling, and read it himself to them; ------Dr. _Slop_ thought he +might as well read it under the cover of my uncle _Toby’s_ +whistling------as suffer my uncle _Toby_ to read it alone; ----so +raising up the paper to his face, and holding it quite parallel to it, +in order to hide his chagrin------he read it aloud as follows--------my +uncle _Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_, though not quite so loud as +before. + + ------Atque omnium cœlestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum, + thronorum, dominationum, potestatuum, cherubin + ac seraphin, & sanctorum patriarchum, prophetarum, & omnium + apostolorum & evangelistarum, & sanctorum innocentum, qui + in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt canticum cantare + novum, et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum confessorum, et + sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et electorum + _vel_ os + Dei, ----Excommunicamus, et anathematizamus hunc + s _vel_ os s + furem, vel hunc malefactorem, N. N. et a liminibus sanctæ Dei + _vel_ i n + ecclesiæ sequestramus, et æternis suppliciis excruciandus, mancipetur, + cum Dathan et Abiram, et cum his qui dixerunt Domino + Deo, Recede à nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus: et + _vel_ eorum + sicut aquâ ignis extinguitur, sic extinguatur lucerna ejus in + n n + secula seculorum nisi resipuerit, et ad satisfactionem venerit. + Amen. + +“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and +of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and +of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, +powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, +prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy +innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing +the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy +virgins, and of all the saints, together with the holy and elect of God, +----May he” (_Obadiah_) “be damn’d” (for tying these knots)---- “We +excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy +church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented, +disposed, and delivered over with _Dathan_ and _Abiram_, and with those +who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. +And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out +for evermore, unless it shall repent him” (_Obadiah_, of the knots which +he has tied) “and make satisfaction” (for them) “Amen.” + + os + Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui hominem creavit. Maledicat + os os + illum Dei Filius qui pro homine passus est. Maledicat illum + os + Spiritus Sanctus qui in baptismo effusus est. Maledicat illum + sancta crux, quam Christus pro nostrâ salute hostem triumphans + ascendit. + +“May the Father who created man, curse him. ----May the Son who suffered +for us, curse him. ----May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in +baptism, curse him (_Obadiah_) ----May the holy cross which Christ, +for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. + + os + Maledicat illum sancta Dei genetrix et perpetua Virgo Maria. + os + Maledicat illum sanctus Michael, animarum susceptor sacrarum. + os + Maledicant illum omnes angeli et archangeli, principatus et + potestates, omnisque militia cœlestis. + +“May the holy and eternal Virgin _Mary_, mother of God, curse him. +------May St. _Michael_, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. ----May +all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the +heavenly armies, curse him.” [Our armies swore terribly in _Flanders_, +cried my uncle _Toby_, ------but nothing to this. ------For my own part +I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] + + os + Maledicat illum patriarcharum et prophetarum laudabilis + os + numerus. Maledicat illum sanctus Johannes Præcusor et + Baptista Christi, et sanctus Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque + sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi apostoli, simul et cæteri + discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistæ, qui sua prædicatione + os + mundum universum converterunt. Maledicat illum cuneus + martyrum et confessorum mirificus, qui Deo bonis operibus + placitus inventus est. + +“May St. John, the Præcursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter +and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ’s apostles, together +curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who +by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and +wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are +found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him” (_Obadiah_). + + os + Maledicant illum sacrarum virginum chori, quæ mundi vana + causa honoris Christi respuenda contempserunt. Maledicant + os + illum omnes sancti qui ab initio mundi usque in finem seculi + Deo dilecti inveniuntur. + + os + Maledicant illum cœli et terra, et omnia sancta in eis manentia. + +“May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ +have despised the things of the world, damn him ----May all the saints, +who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be +beloved of God, damn him ------May the heavens and earth, and all the +holy things remaining therein, damn him” (_Obadiah_) “or her” +(or whoever else had a hand in tying these knots). + + i n n + Maledictus sit ubicunque fuerit, sive in domo, sive in agro, + sive in viâ, sive in semitâ, sive in silvâ, sive in aquâ, sive in + ecclesiâ. + + i n + Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, ---------------------------- + ------ ------ ------ + ------ ------ ------ + ------ ------ ------ + manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, + dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, + jacendo, operando, quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, flebotomando. + +“May he (_Obadiah_) be damn’d wherever he be----whether in the house or +the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or +in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. ----May he be cursed in +living, in dying.” [Here my uncle _Toby_, taking the advantage of a +_minim_ in the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued note +to the end of the sentence. ----Dr. _Slop_, with his division of curses +moving under him, like a running bass all the way.] “May he be cursed in +eating, and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in +sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, +in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting!” + + i n + Maledictus sit in totis viribus corporis, + +“May he” (_Obadiah_) “be cursed in all the faculties of his body! + + i n + Maledictus sit intus et exterius. + + i n i n i + Maledictus sit in capillis; maledictus sit in cerebro. Maledictus + n + sit in vertice, in temporibus, in fronte, in auriculis, in + superciliis, in oculis, in genis, in maxillis, in naribus, in + dentibus, mordacibus, sive molaribus, in labiis, in guttere, in + humeris, in harnis, in brachiis, in manubus, in digitis, in pectore, + in corde, et in omnibus interioribus stomacho tenus, in renibus, + in inguinibus, in femore, in genitalibus, in coxis, in genubus, + in cruribus, in pedibus, et in inguibus. + +“May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! ------May he be cursed in the +hair of his head! ----May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex” +(that is a sad curse, quoth my father), “in his temples, in his +forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his +jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, +in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his +hands, in his fingers! + +“May he be damn’d in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and +purtenance, down to the very stomach! + +“May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin” (God in heaven forbid! +quoth my uncle _Toby_), “in his thighs, in his genitals” (my father +shook his head), “and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, +and toe-nails! + + Maledictus sit in totis compagibus membrorum, a vertice + capitis, usque ad plantam pedis--non sit in eo sanitas. + +“May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of his members, +from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no +soundness in him! + + Maledicat illum Christus Filius Dei vivi toto suæ majestatis + imperio.---- + +“May the Son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty” +----[Here my uncle _Toby_, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous, +long, loud Whew--w--w--------something betwixt the interjectional +whistle of _Hay-day!_ and the word itself.------ + +----By the golden beard of _Jupiter_--and of _Juno_ (if her majesty wore +one) and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by +the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your +celestial gods, and gods aerial and aquatick--to say nothing of the +beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses your +wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines (that is +in case they wore them)------all which beards, as _Varro_ tells me, upon +his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than thirty +thousand effective beards upon the Pagan establishment; ----every beard +of which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroken and sworn +by--by all these beards together then ----I vow and protest, that of the +two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better +of them, as freely as ever _Cid Hamet_ offered his----to have stood by, +and heard my uncle _Toby’s_ accompanyment.] + + ----et insurgat adversus illum cœlum cum omnibus virtutibus + quæ in eo moventur ad _damnandum_ eum, nisi penituerit et ad + satisfactionem venerit. Amen. Fiat, fiat. Amen. + +----“curse him!” continued Dr. _Slop_, --“and may heaven, with all the +powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him” +(_Obadiah_) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it, +--so be it. Amen.” + +I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, my heart would not let me curse the +devil himself with so much bitterness. --He is the father of curses, +replied Dr. _Slop_. ----So am not I, replied my uncle. ----But he is +cursed, and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. _Slop_. + +I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle _Toby_. + +Dr. _Slop_ drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle +_Toby_ the compliment of his Whu--u--u--or interjectional +whistle----when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but +one----put an end to the affair. + + [Footnote 3.2: As the genuineness of the consultation of the + _Sorbonne_ upon the question of baptism, was doubted by some, + and denied by others----’twas thought proper to print the + original of this excommunication; for the copy of which Mr. + _Shandy_ returns thanks to the chapter clerk of the dean and + chapter of _Rochester_.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Now don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the +oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and +because we have the spirit to swear them, ----imagine that we have had +the wit to invent them too. + +I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except +to a connoisseur: ----though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in +swearing, ----as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c., &c., the +whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and +trinkets of criticism, ----or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a +pity, ----for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_; +--their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have +that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of +genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and +tortured to death by ’em. + +--And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night? --Oh, against +all rule, my lord, --most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and +the adjective, which should agree together in _number_, _case_, and +_gender_, he made a breach thus, --stopping, as if the point wanted +settling; --and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows +should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen +times three seconds and three-fifths by a stop-watch, my lord, each +time, --Admirable grammarian! ----But in suspending his voice----was the +sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance +fill up the chasm? ----Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look? +------I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord. --Excellent observer! + +And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about? +----Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord, ----quite an irregular thing! +--not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. --I had +my rule and compasses, &c., my lord, in my pocket. --Excellent critick! + +----And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at----upon taking +the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home +upon an exact scale of _Bossu’s_----’tis out, my lord, in every one of +its dimensions. --Admirable connoisseur! + +----And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way +back? --’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the +_pyramid_ in any one group! ----and what a price! ----for there is +nothing of the colouring of _Titian_--the expression of _Rubens_--the +grace of _Raphael_--the purity of _Dominichino_--the _corregiescity_ of +_Corregio_--the learning of _Poussin_--the airs of _Guido_--the taste of +the _Carrachis_--or the grand contour of _Angela_. --Grant me patience, +just Heaven! --Of all the cants which are canted in this canting +world--though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst----the cant of +criticism is the most tormenting! + +I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, +to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins +of his imagination into his author’s hands----be pleased he knows not +why, and cares not wherefore. + +Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour--give me --I ask no more, +but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire +along with it----and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if +he can be spared, with my compliments to--no matter. + +Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and +imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two +hundred and fifty years last past as originals----except St. _Paul’s +thumb_----_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical, +and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings’ oaths, +’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh; --else I say, +there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not +been copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times: +but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit +of the original! --It is thought to be no bad oath----and by itself +passes very well-- “_G--d damn you._” --Set it beside _Ernulphus’s_---- +“God Almighty the Father damn you --God the Son damn you --God the Holy +Ghost damn you”--you see ’tis nothing. --There is an orientality in his, +we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his +invention--possess’d more of the excellencies of a swearer----had such a +thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, +knittings of the joints, and articulations, ----that when _Ernulphus_ +cursed--no part escaped him. --’Tis true there is something of a +_hardness_ in his manner----and, as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of +_grace_----but then there is such a greatness of _gusto!_ + +My father, who generally look’d upon everything in a light very +different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an +original. ----He considered rather, _Ernulphus’s_ anathema, as an +institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of +_swearing_ in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the +succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence collected +together all the laws of it; --for the same reason that _Justinian_, in +the decline of the empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to +collect the _Roman_ or civil laws all together into one code or +digest----lest, through the rust of time----and the fatality of all +things committed to oral tradition--they should be lost to the world for +ever. + +For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath, +from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the Conqueror (_By the +splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your +eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus_. --In short, he would +add --I defy a man to swear _out_ of it. + +The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious too; +----nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +----Bless my soul! --my poor mistress is ready to faint----and her pains +are gone--and the drops are done--and the bottle of julap is +broke----and the nurse has cut her arm--(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. +_Slop_,) and the child is where it was, continued _Susannah_, --and the +midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised +her hip as black as your hat. --I’ll look at it, quoth Dr. _Slop_. +--There is no need of that, replied _Susannah_, --you had better look at +my mistress--but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how +things are, so desires you would go up stairs and speak to her this +moment. + +Human nature is the same in all professions. + +The midwife had just before been put over Dr. _Slop’s_ head --He had not +digested it, --No, replied Dr. _Slop_, ’twould be full as proper, if the +midwife came down to me. --I like subordination, quoth my uncle _Toby_, +--and but for it, after the reduction of _Lisle_, I know not what might +have become of the garrison of _Ghent_, in the mutiny for bread, in the +year Ten. --Nor, replied Dr. _Slop_, (parodying my uncle _Toby’s_ +hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical +himself)------do I know, Captain _Shandy_, what might have become of the +garrison above stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are +in at present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to +******------the application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine, +comes in so _à propos_, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might +have been felt by the _Shandy_ family, as long as the _Shandy_ family +had a name. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Let us go back to the ******----in the last chapter. + +It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence +flourished at _Athens_ and _Rome_, and would be so now, did orators wear +mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing +about you _in petto_, ready to produce, pop, in the place you want it. +A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a +half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle pot--but above +all, a tender infant royally accoutred. --Tho’ if it was too young, and +the oration as long as _Tully’s_ second _Philippick_--it must certainly +have beshit the orator’s mantle. --And then again, if too old, --it must +have been unwieldy and incommodious to his action--so as to make him +lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it. --Otherwise, +when a state orator has hit the precise age to a minute----hid his +BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it----and +produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by head +and shoulders --Oh Sirs! it has done wonders --It has open’d the sluices, +and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the +politicks of half a nation. + +These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and +times, I say, where orators wore mantles----and pretty large ones too, +my brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple, +superfine, marketable cloth in them--with large flowing folds and +doubles, and in a great style of design. --All which plainly shews, may +it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little +good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing +to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of +_trunk-hose_. ----We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth +shewing. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Dr. _Slop_ was within an ace of being an exception to all this +argumentation: for happening to have his green bays bag upon his knees, +when he began to parody my uncle _Toby_--’twas as good as the best +mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the +sentence would end in his new-invented _forceps_, he thrust his hand +into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, when your +reverences took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed----my +uncle _Toby_ had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the +argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two +lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin, ----Dr. _Slop_ would +never have given them up; --and my uncle _Toby_ would as soon have +thought of flying, as taking them by force: but Dr. _Slop_ fumbled so +vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a +ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in +pulling out his _forceps_, his _forceps_ unfortunately drew out the +_squirt_ along with it. + +When a proposition can be taken in two senses--’tis a law in +disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he +pleases, or finds most convenient for him. ----This threw the advantage +of the argument quite on my uncle _Toby’s_ side. ----“Good God!” cried +my uncle _Toby_, “_are children brought into the world with a squirt?_” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +--Upon my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the +back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle _Toby_--and you +have crush’d all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly. ’Tis +your own fault, said Dr. _Slop_----you should have clinch’d your two +fists together into the form of a child’s head as I told you, and sat +firm. I did so, answered my uncle _Toby_. ----Then the points of my +forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing--or +else the cut in my thumb has made me a little aukward--or possibly--’Tis +well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities--that +the experiment was not first made upon my child’s head-piece. ------It +would not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. _Slop_. --I +maintain it, said my uncle _Toby_, it would have broke the cerebellum +(unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turn’d it +all into a perfect posset. ------Pshaw! replied Dr. _Slop_, a child’s +head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple; --the sutures give +way--and besides, I could have extracted by the feet after. --Not you, +said she. ----I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father. + +Pray do, added my uncle _Toby_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +----And pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it +may not be the child’s hip, as well as the child’s head? ------’Tis most +certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. _Slop_ +(turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally +are--’tis a point very difficult to know--and yet of the greatest +consequence to be known; ----because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for +the head--there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps +* * * * * * + +----What the possibility was, Dr. _Slop_ whispered very low to my +father, and then to my uncle _Toby_. ----There is no such danger, +continued he, with the head. --No, in truth, quoth my father--but when +your possibility has taken place at the hip--you may as well take off +the head too. + +----It is morally impossible the reader should understand this----’tis +enough Dr. _Slop_ understood it; ----so taking the green bays bag in his +hand, with the help of _Obadiah’s_ pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for +a man of his size, across the room to the door------and from the door +was shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother’s apartments. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +It is two hours, and ten minutes--and no more--cried my father, looking +at his watch, since Dr. _Slop_ and _Obadiah_ arrived--and I know not how +it happens, brother _Toby_--but to my imagination it seems almost an +age. + +----Here--pray, Sir, take hold of my cap--nay, take the bell along with +it, and my pantoufles too. + +Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present +of ’em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter. + +Though my father said, “_he knew not how it happen’d_,” --yet he knew +very well how it happen’d; ----and at the instant he spoke it, was +pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle _Toby_ a clear account of +the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of _duration +and its simple modes_, in order to shew my uncle _Toby_ by what +mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid +succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse +from one thing to another, since Dr. _Slop_ had come into the room, had +lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent. ----“I +know not how it happens--cried my father, --but it seems an age.” + +----’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to the succession of our +ideas. + +My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of +reasoning upon everything which happened, and accounting for it +too--proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of +ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of +his hands by my uncle _Toby_, who (honest man!) generally took +everything as it happened; ----and who, of all things in the world, +troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking; --the ideas of time +and space--or how we came by those ideas--or of what stuff they were +made----or whether they were born with us--or we picked them up +afterwards as we went along--or whether we did it in frocks----or not +till we had got into breeches--with a thousand other inquiries and +disputes about INFINITY, PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth, +upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine heads have +been turned and cracked----never did my uncle _Toby’s_ the least injury +at all; my father knew it--and was no less surprized than he was +disappointed, with my uncle’s fortuitous solution. + +Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father. + +Not I, quoth my uncle. + +--But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?-- + +No more than my horse, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two +hands together----there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother +_Toby_----’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge. --But +I’ll tell thee.---- + +To understand what _time_ is aright, without which we never can +comprehend _infinity_, insomuch as one is a portion of the other----we +ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of +_duration_, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it. +----What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle _Toby_. [3.3]_For if you +will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind_, continued my father, _and +observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I +are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we +receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and +so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of +ourselves, or anything else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas +in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing +co-existing with our thinking----and so according to that +preconceived_ ------You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle _Toby_. + +------’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of +_time_, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months----and of +clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out +their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us----that +’twill be well, if in time to come, the _succession of our ideas_ be of +any use or service to us at all. + +Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound +man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, +which follow each other in train just like ------A train of artillery? +said my uncle _Toby_ ----A train of a fiddle-stick! --quoth my +father--which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain +distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round +by the heat of a candle. --I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, mine are +more like a smoak-jack. ------Then, brother _Toby_, I have nothing more +to say to you upon that subject, said my father. + + [Footnote 3.3: Vide Locke.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +----What a conjecture was here lost! ----My father in one of his best +explanatory moods--in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the +very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have +encompassed it about; --my uncle _Toby_ in one of the finest +dispositions for it in the world; --his head like a smoak-jack; ----the +funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all +obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter! --By the tomb-stone +of _Lucian_----if it is in being----if not, why then by his ashes! by +the ashes of my dear _Rabelais_, and dearer _Cervantes!_------my father +and my uncle _Toby’s_ discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY----was a +discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father’s +humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the +_Ontologic Treasury_ of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions +and great men are ever likely to restore to it again. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Tho’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse--yet he +could not get my uncle _Toby’s_ smoak-jack out of his head--piqued as he +was at first with it; --there was something in the comparison at the +bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon +the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his +hand----but looking first stedfastly in the fire----he began to commune +with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out +with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion +of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their +turn in the discourse------the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all +his ideas upside down--so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what +he was about. + +As for my uncle _Toby_, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, +before he fell asleep also. ----Peace be with them both! ----Dr. _Slop_ +is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs. ----_Trim_ is +busy in turning an old pair of jackboots into a couple of mortars, to be +employed in the siege of _Messina_ next summer--and is this instant +boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker. ----All my heroes +are off my hands; --’tis the first time I have had a moment to +spare--and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface. + + + + +THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE + + +No, I’ll not say a word about it----here it is; --in publishing it --I +have appealed to the world----and to the world I leave it; --it must +speak for itself. + +All I know of the matter is--when I sat down, my intent was to write a +good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold +out--a wise, aye, and a discreet--taking care only, as I went along, to +put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the +great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give +me------so that, as your worships see--’tis just as God pleases. + +Now, _Agelastes_ (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some +wit in it, for aught he knows----but no judgment at all. And +_Triptolemus_ and _Phutatorius_ agreeing thereto, ask, How is it +possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go +together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other +as wide as east from west ------So, says _Locke_----so are farting and +hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, _Didius_ the great church +lawyer, in his code _de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis_, doth +maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no +argument----nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean to be +a syllogism; ----but you all, may it please your worships, see the +better for it------so that the main good these things do is only to +clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument +itself, in order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular +matter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and +spoil all. + +Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and +fellow-labourers (for to you I write this Preface)------and to you, +most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do--pull off your beards) +renowned for gravity and wisdom; ----_Monopolus_, my politician-- +_Didius_, my counsel; _Kysarcius_, my friend; --_Phutatorius_, my guide; +----_Gastripheres_, the preserver of my life; _Somnolentius_, the balm +and repose of it----not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as +waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no +resentment to you, I lump all together. ------Believe me, right worthy, + +My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own +too, in case the thing is not done already for us----is, that the great +gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with everything which +usually goes along with them------such as memory, fancy, genius, +eloquence, quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without +stint or measure, let or hindrance, be poured down warm as each of us +could bear it--scum and sediment and all (for I would not have a drop +lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, +dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains------in such +sort, that they might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according +to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, +both great and small, be so replenish’d, saturated, and filled up +therewith, that no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be +got either in or out. + +Bless us! --what noble work we should make! ----how should I tickle it +off! ----and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away +for such readers! ----and you--just heaven! ----with what raptures would +you sit and read--but oh! --’tis too much ----I am sick ----I faint away +deliciously at the thoughts of it--’tis more than nature can bear! --lay +hold of me ----I am giddy --I am stone blind --I’m dying --I am gone. +--Help! Help! Help! --But hold --I grow something better again, for I am +beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us +continue to be great wits--we should never agree amongst ourselves, one +day to an end: ----there would be so much satire and sarcasm----scoffing +and flouting, with raillying and reparteeing of it--thrusting and +parrying in one corner or another----there would be nothing but mischief +among us ----Chaste stars! what biting and scratching, and what a racket +and a clatter we should make, what with breaking of heads, rapping of +knuckles, and hitting of sore places--there would be no such thing as +living for us. + +But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we +should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we +should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or +devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy +and kindness, milk and honey--’twould be a second land of promise--a +paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had--so that upon +the whole we should have done well enough. + +All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at +present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships +well know, that of these heavenly emanations of _wit_ and _judgment_, +which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and +myself--there is but a certain _quantum_ stored up for us all, for the +use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small _modicums_ +of ’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and +there in one bye corner or another--and in such narrow streams, and at +such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it +holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so +many great estates, and populous empires. + +Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in _Nova Zembla_, +_North Lapland_, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, +which lie more directly under the arctick and antarctick circles, where +the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months +together within the narrow compass of his cave--where the spirits are +compressed almost to nothing--and where the passions of a man, with +everything which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone +itself--there the least quantity of _judgment_ imaginable does the +business--and of _wit_----there is a total and an absolute saving--for +as not one spark is wanted--so not one spark is given. Angels and +ministers of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have been to +have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or +run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial +chapter there, with so _plentiful a lack_ of wit and judgment about us! +For mercy’s sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast +as we can southwards into _Norway_--crossing over _Swedeland_, if you +please, through the small triangular province of _Angermania_ to the +lake of _Bothnia_; coasting along it through east and west _Bothnia_, +down to _Carelia_, and so on, through all those states and provinces +which border upon the far side of the _Gulf of Finland_, and the +north-east of the _Baltick_, up to _Petersbourg_, and just stepping into +_Ingria_; --then stretching over directly from thence through the north +parts of the _Russian_ empire--leaving _Siberia_ a little upon the left +hand, till we got into the very heart of _Russian_ and _Asiatick +Tartary_. + +Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good +people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have +just left: --for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very +attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of +wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain _household_ judgment, +which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very +good shift with------and had they more of either the one or the other, +it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied +moreover they would want occasions to put them to use. + +Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more +luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and +humours runs high------where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, +and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and +subject to reason------the _height_ of our wit, and the _depth_ of our +judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the _length_ and +_breadth_ of our necessities------and accordingly we have them sent down +amongst us in such a flowing kind of descent and creditable plenty, that +no one thinks he has any cause to complain. + +It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot +and cold--wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular +and settled way; --so that sometimes for near half a century together, +there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of +amongst us: ----the small channels of them shall seem quite dried +up----then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit +of running again like fury----you would think they would never stop: +----and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other +gallant things, we drive all the world before us. + +It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that +kind of argumentative process, which _Suidas_ calls _dialectick +induction_------that I draw and set up this position as most true and +veritable; + +That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered +from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom +which dispenses everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just +serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that +your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in +my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf +with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating _How d’ye_ +of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does +a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light +have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it --I tremble to +think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned +sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all +the nights of their lives----running their heads against posts, and +knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end; +----some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks----others +horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned +profession tilting full but against the other half of it, and then +tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs. --Here +the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to +each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a +row the same way. --What confusion! --what mistakes! ----fiddlers and +painters judging by their eyes and ears--admirable! --trusting to the +passions excited--in an air sung, or a story painted to the +heart----instead of measuring them by a quadrant. + +In the fore-ground of this picture, a _statesman_ turning the political +wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round----_against_ the stream of +corruption--by Heaven! ----instead of _with_ it. + +In this corner, a son of the divine _Esculapius_, writing a book against +predestination; perhaps worse--feeling his patient’s pulse, instead of +his apothecary’s----a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his +knees in tears--drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his +forgiveness; --offering a fee--instead of taking one. + +In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, +driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their +might and main, the wrong way! ----kicking it _out_ of the great doors, +instead of _in_----and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree +of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been +originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind: ----perhaps a +more enormous mistake committed by them still------a litigated point +fairly hung up; ------for instance, Whether _John o’Nokes_ his nose +could stand in _Tom o’Stiles_ his face, without a trespass, or +not--rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with +the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might +have taken up as many months----and if carried on upon a military plan, +as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems +practicable therein, ------such as feints, ----forced marches, +----surprizes----ambuscades----mask-batteries, and a thousand other +strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on +both sides------might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding +food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession. + +As for the Clergy ------No----if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot. +----I have no desire; --and besides, if I had --I durst not for my soul +touch upon the subject----with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the +condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth, +to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account--and +therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as +fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to +clear up----and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least +_wit_ are reported to be men of most judgment. ----But mark --I say, +_reported to be_--for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and +which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to +be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain. + +This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already +weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith +make appear. + +I hate set dissertations----and above all things in the world, ’tis one +of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by +placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right +line, betwixt your own and your reader’s conception--when in all +likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something +standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at once-- +“for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of knowledge +bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, +a winter-mittain, a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s +crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair?” --I am this +moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustrate this +affair of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top of the back of +it? --they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into +two gimlet-holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a light, +as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole preface, as +plainly as if every point and particle of it was made up of sun-beams. + +I enter now directly upon the point. + +--Here stands _wit_--and there stands _judgment_, close beside it, just +like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same +chair on which I am sitting. + +--You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its +_frame_--as wit and judgment are of _ours_--and like them too, +indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in +all such cases of duplicated embellishments--------_to answer one +another_. + +Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this +matter--let us for a moment take off one of these two curious ornaments +(I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it now stands +on--nay, don’t laugh at it, --but did you ever see, in the whole course +of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made of it? --Why, +’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there is just as +much sense and symmetry in the one as in the other: ----do----pray, get +off your seats only to take a view of it. ----Now would any man who +valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of work out of his +hand in such a condition? --nay, lay your hands upon your hearts, and +answer this plain question, Whether this one single knob, which now +stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any purpose upon +earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the other? --and let me +farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your +consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it would be ten times +better without any knob at all? + +Now these two knobs------or top ornaments of the mind of man, which +crown the whole entablature----being, as I said, wit and judgment, which +of all others, as I have proved it, are the most needful----the most +priz’d--the most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest +to come at--for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal +among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding----or so +ignorant of what will do him good therein--who does not wish and +stedfastly resolve in his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, +master of the one or the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing +seems any way feasible, or likely to be brought to pass. + +Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at +the one--unless they laid hold of the other, ----pray what do you think +would become of them? ----Why, Sirs, in spite of all their _gravities_, +they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides +naked----this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to +be supposed in the case we are upon----so that no one could well have +been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they +could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great +perriwigs, had they not raised a _hue_ and _cry_ at the same time +against the lawful owners. + +I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning +and artifice----that the great _Locke_, who was seldom outwitted by +false sounds------was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was +so deep and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave +faces, and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one +against the _poor wits_ in this matter, that the philosopher himself was +deceived by it--it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a +thousand vulgar errors; ----but this was not of the number; so that +instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done, +to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon +it----on the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in +with the cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest. + +This has been made the _Magna Charta_ of stupidity ever since----but +your reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that +the title to it is not worth a groat: ----which by the bye is one of the +many and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer +for hereafter. + +As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind +too freely ------I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly +said to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration ----That +I have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great +wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and +let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture--for any +purpose----peace be with them! --[-->] mark only ----I write not for +them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Every day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have +it mended--’tis not mended yet; --no family but ours would have borne +with it an hour----and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject +in the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of +door-hinges. ----And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the +greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his +rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs. --Never did the +parlour-door open--but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to +it; ----three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a +hammer, had saved his honour for ever. + +----Inconsistent soul that man is! ----languishing under wounds, which +he has the power to heal! --his whole life a contradiction to his +knowledge! --his reason, that precious gift of God to him--(instead of +pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities--to multiply +his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them --Poor +unhappy creature, that he should do so! ----Are not the necessary causes +of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his stock +of sorrow; --struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit +to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him would +remove from his heart for ever? + +By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be +got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of _Shandy Hall_------the +parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +When Corporal _Trim_ had brought his two mortars to bear, he was +delighted with his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a pleasure +it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to resist the +desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour. + +Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of +_hinges_, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is +this. + +Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door should +do-- + +Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its +hinges----(that is, in case things have all along gone well with your +worship, --otherwise I give up my simile)--in this case, I say, there +had been no danger either to master or man, in Corporal _Trim’s_ peeping +in: the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle _Toby_ fast +asleep--the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have +retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs, +dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally +speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this +hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances +my father submitted to upon its account--this was one; that he never +folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being +unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the door, was +always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly stepp’d in +betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as +he often declared, of the whole sweets of it. + +“_When things move upon bad hinges_, an’ please your lordships, _how can +it be otherwise?_” + +Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the +moment the door began to creak. ----I wish the smith would give a peep +at that confounded hinge. ----’Tis nothing, an’ please your honour, said +_Trim_, but two mortars I am bringing in. --They shan’t make a clatter +with them here, cried my father hastily. --If Dr. _Slop_ has any drugs +to pound, let him do it in the kitchen. --May it please your honour, +cried _Trim_, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which +I have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which _Obadiah_ told me +your honour had left off wearing. --By Heaven! cried my father, +springing out of his chair, as he swore ----I have not one appointment +belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these +jack-boots----they were our great grandfather’s, brother _Toby_--they +were _hereditary_. Then I fear, quoth my uncle _Toby_, _Trim_ has cut +off the entail. --I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, +cried _Trim_ ----I hate _perpetuities_ as much as any man alive, cried my +father----but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry +at the same time) have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil +wars; ----Sir _Roger Shandy_ wore them at the battle of _Marston-Moor_. +--I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for them. ----I’ll pay you +the money, brother _Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking at the two +mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches +pocket as he viewed them ----I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment +with all my heart and soul.---- + +Brother _Toby_, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what +money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but +upon a SIEGE. ----Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, +besides my half pay? cried my uncle _Toby_. --What is that--replied my +father hastily--to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots? --twelve guineas +for your _pontoons?_ --half as much for your _Dutch_ draw-bridge? --to +say nothing of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last +week, with twenty other preparations for the siege of _Messina_: believe +me, dear brother _Toby_, continued my father, taking him kindly by the +hand--these military operations of yours are above your strength; --you +mean well, brother----but they carry you into greater expences than you +were first aware of; --and take my word, dear _Toby_, they will in the +end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you. --What signifies +it if they do, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, so long as we know ’tis +for the good of the nation?---- + +My father could not help smiling for his soul--his anger at the worst +was never more than a spark; --and the zeal and simplicity of +_Trim_--and the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle +_Toby_, brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant. + +Generous souls! --God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! +quoth my father to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs --I hear +not one foot stirring. --Prithee, _Trim_, who’s in the kitchen? There is +no one soul in the kitchen, answered _Trim_, making a low bow as he +spoke, except Dr. _Slop_. --Confusion! cried my father (getting up upon +his legs a second time)--not one single thing was gone right this day! +had I faith in astrology, brother (which, by the bye, my father had), +I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this +unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out +of its place. ----Why, I thought Dr. _Slop_ had been above stairs with +my wife, and so said you. ----What can the fellow be puzzling about in +the kitchen! --He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied _Trim_, in +making a bridge. ----’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle _Toby_: +------pray, give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_, and tell him I +thank him heartily. + +You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge--as widely as my +father mistook the mortars; ----but to understand how my uncle _Toby_ +could mistake the bridge --I fear I must give you an exact account of +the road which led to it; --or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing +more dishonest in an historian than the use of one)----in order to +conceive the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must +give you some account of an adventure of _Trim’s_, though much against +my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one +sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come +in, either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby’s_ amours with widow +_Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor--or else in the +middle of his and my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns on the bowling-green--for +it will do very well in either place; --but then if I reserve it for +either of those parts of my story ----I ruin the story I’m upon; ----and +if I tell it here --I anticipate matters, and ruin it there. + +--What would your worships have me to do in this case? + +--Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means. --You are a fool, _Tristram_, if +you do. + +O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)--which enable +mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing------that kindly shew him, +where he is to begin it--and where he is to end it----what he is to put +into it----and what he is to leave out--how much of it he is to cast +into a shade--and whereabouts he is to throw his light! --Ye, who +preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how +many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into; ----will you do +one thing? + +I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that +wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three +several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here----that at +least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to +direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Tho’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition of +_Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a +resolution never more to think of the sex--or of aught which belonged to +it; --yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed +in my uncle _Toby’s_ case there was a strange and unaccountable +concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay siege +to that fair and strong citadel. ----In _Trim’s_ case there was a +concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the +kitchen; --though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master +was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had my +uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points ----I am +persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and +followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat +down before the mistress--corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground +before the maid. + +Now, my dear friend _Garrick_, whom I have so much cause to esteem and +honour--(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)--can it escape your +penetration --I defy it--that so many playwrights, and opificers of +chit-chat have ever since been working upon _Trim’s_ and my uncle +_Toby’s_ pattern. ----I care not what _Aristotle_, or _Pacuvius_, or +_Bossu_, or _Ricaboni_ say--(though I never read one of them)----there +is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam +_Pompadour’s_ _vis-à-vis_; than betwixt a single amour, and an amour +thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand +drama ----Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind--is quite +lost in five acts; --but that is neither here nor there. + +After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my +uncle _Toby’s_ quarter, a most minute account of every particular of +which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle _Toby_, honest man! +found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat +indignantly. + +Corporal _Trim_, as I said, had made no such bargain either with +himself----or with any one else----the fidelity however of his heart not +suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with +disgust----he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into +a blockade; --that is, he kept others off; --for though he never after +went to the house, yet he never met _Bridget_ in the village, but he +would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her--or +(as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand--or ask her +lovingly how she did--or would give her a ribbon--and now-and-then, +though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give +_Bridget_ a-- + +Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that +is, from the demolition of _Dunkirk_ in the year 13, to the latter end +of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaign in the year 18, which was about six or +seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of. ----When _Trim_, as his +custom was, after he had put my uncle _Toby_ to bed, going down one +moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his +fortifications----in the lane separated from the bowling-green with +flowering shrubs and holly--he espied his _Bridget_. + +As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth +shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle _Toby_ had made, +_Trim_ courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: +this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of +Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s, +with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle _Toby’s_ +curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the _Dutch_ fashion, +and which went quite across the ditch--was broke down, and somehow or +other crushed all to pieces that very night. + +My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle +_Toby’s_ hobby-horse, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever +gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle _Toby_ vexed him about it, +could never think of it once, without smiling at it----so that it could +never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father’s +imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his +humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an +inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him. ----Well----but dear _Toby!_ +my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge +happened. ----How can you tease me so much about it? my uncle _Toby_ +would reply --I have told it you twenty times, word for word as _Trim_ +told it me. --Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, +turning to _Trim_. --It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour; +----I was shewing Mrs. _Bridget_ our fortifications, and in going too +near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in ----Very well, +_Trim!_ my father would cry----(smiling mysteriously, and giving a +nod--but without interrupting him)----and being link’d fast, an’ please +your honour, arm in arm with Mrs. _Bridget_, I dragg’d her after me, by +means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge----and +_Trim’s_ foot (my uncle _Toby_ would cry, taking the story out of his +mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too. +--It was a thousand to one, my uncle _Toby_ would add, that the poor +fellow did not break his leg. ------Ay truly, my father would say---- +a limb is soon broke, brother _Toby_, in such encounters. ----And so, +an’ please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very +slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces. + +At other times, but especially when my uncle _Toby_ was so unfortunate +as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards--my father would +exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) +in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients--the VINEA which +_Alexander_ made use of at the siege of _Troy_. --He would tell my uncle +_Toby_ of the CATAPULTÆ of the _Syrians_, which threw such monstrous +stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their +very foundation: --he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism +of the BALLISTA which _Marcellinus_ makes so much rout about! --the +terrible effects of the PYROBOLI, which cast fire; ----the danger of the +TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins. ----But what are these, would +he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal _Trim?_ ----Believe me, +brother _Toby_, no bridge, or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was +constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery. + +My uncle _Toby_ would never attempt any defence against the force of +this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his +pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after +supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a +suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle _Toby_ leap’d up without +feeling the pain upon his groin--and, with infinite pity, stood beside +his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his +head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean +cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket. ----The +affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle _Toby_ did these +little offices--cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just +been giving him. ----May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram +or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself--if ever I +insult this worthy soul more! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The draw-bridge being held irreparable, _Trim_ was ordered directly to +set about another------but not upon the same model: for cardinal +_Alberoni’s_ intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle +_Toby_ rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out +betwixt _Spain_ and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing +campaign must in all likelihood be either in _Naples_ or _Sicily_----he +determined upon an _Italian_ bridge--(my uncle _Toby_, by the bye, was +not far out of his conjectures)----but my father, who was infinitely the +better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle _Toby_ in the +cabinet, as my uncle _Toby_ took it of him in the field------convinced +him, that if the king of _Spain_ and the Emperor went together by the +ears, _England_ and _France_ and _Holland_ must, by force of their +pre-engagements, all enter the lists too; ----and if so, he would say, +the combatants, brother _Toby_, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it +again, pell-mell, upon the old prizefighting stage of _Flanders_; --then +what will you do with your _Italian_ bridge? + +--We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle _Toby_. + +When Corporal _Trim_ had about half finished it in that style----my +uncle _Toby_ found out a capital defect in it, which he had never +thoroughly considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both +ends of it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side +of the fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was +this, that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, +it impowered my uncle _Toby_ to raise it up or let it down with the end +of his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was +as much as he could well spare--but the disadvantages of such a +construction were insurmountable; ----for by this means, he would say, +I leave one half of my bridge in my enemy’s possession----and pray of +what use is the other? + +The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only +at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together, +and stand bolt upright------but that was rejected for the reason given +above. + +For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that +particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to +hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage--of +which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at _Spires_ +before its destruction--and one now at _Brisac_, if I mistake not; --but +my father advising my uncle _Toby_, with great earnestness, to have +nothing more to do with thrusting bridges--and my uncle foreseeing +moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal’s +misfortune--he changed his mind for that of the marquis _d’Hôpital’s_ +invention, which the younger _Bernouilli_ has so well and learnedly +described, as your worships may see------_Act. Erud. Lips._ an. 1695--to +these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a +couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve +line approximating to a cycloid------if not a cycloid itself. + +My uncle _Toby_ understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man +in _England_--but was not quite such a master of the cycloid; ----he +talked however about it every day----the bridge went not forwards. +----We’ll ask somebody about it, cried my uncle _Toby_ to _Trim_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +When _Trim_ came in and told my father, that Dr. _Slop_ was in the +kitchen, and busy in making a bridge--my uncle _Toby_----the affair of +the jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his +brain----took it instantly for granted that Dr. _Slop_ was making a +model of the marquis _d’Hôpital’s_ bridge. ----’Tis very obliging in +him, quoth my uncle _Toby_; --pray give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_, +_Trim_, and tell him I thank him heartily. + +Had my uncle _Toby’s_ head been a _Savoyard’s_ box, and my father +peeping in all the time at one end of it----it could not have given him +a more distinct conception of the operations of my uncle _Toby’s_ +imagination, than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and +battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just +beginning to triumph---- + +When _Trim’s_ answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and +twisted it to pieces. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +----This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father ----God bless +your honour, cried _Trim_, ’tis a bridge for master’s nose. ----In +bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed +his nose, _Susannah_ says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is +making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of +whalebone out of _Susannah’s_ stays, to raise it up. + +----Lead me, brother _Toby_, cried my father, to my room this instant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of +the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly +been gathering over my father. ----A tide of little evils and distresses +has been setting in against him. --Not one thing, as he observed +himself, has gone right: and now is the storm thicken’d and going to +break, and pour down full upon his head. + +I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy +frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with. ----My +nerves relax as I tell it. ----Every line I write, I feel an abatement +of the quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, +which every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things +I should not. ----And this moment that I last dipp’d my pen into my ink, +I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and +solemnity there appear’d in my manner of doing it. ----Lord! how +different from the rash jerks and hair-brain’d squirts thou art wont, +_Tristram_, to transact it with in other humours--dropping thy +pen----spurting thy ink about thy table and thy books--as if thy pen and +thy ink, thy books and furniture cost thee nothing! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +----I won’t go about to argue the point with you--’tis so----and I am +persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman bear +pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a +horizontal position.” + +The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate +across the bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the same time +in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with sorrows, that +ever the eye of pity dropp’d a tear for. ----The palm of his right hand, +as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and covering the +greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his head (his +elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the quilt; ----his +left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his knuckles +reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out beyond +the valance--his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his body) +hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon his +shin-bone --He felt it not. A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took possession of +every line of his face. --He sigh’d once----heaved his breast often--but +uttered not a word. + +An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with +party-coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the +side where my father’s head reclined. --My uncle _Toby_ sat him down in +it. + +Before an affliction is digested--consolation ever comes too soon; --and +after it is digested--it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there +is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a +comforter to take aim at: my uncle _Toby_ was always either on this +side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart he +could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down in +the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear at +every one’s service----he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief----gave a +low sigh----but held his peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +----“_All is not gain that is got into the purse._” --So that +notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books +in the universe, and had moreover, in himself, the oddest way of +thinking that ever man in it was bless’d with, yet it had this drawback +upon him after all------that it laid him open to some of the oddest and +most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk +under at present, is as strong an example as can be given. + +No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child’s nose, by the edge +of a pair of forceps--however scientifically applied--would vex any man +in the world, who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as my +father was--yet it will not account for the extravagance of his +affliction, nor will it justify the unchristian manner he abandoned and +surrendered him self up to. + +To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour--and my +uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair sitting beside him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +----I think it a very unreasonable demand--cried my great-grandfather, +twisting up the paper, and throwing it upon the table. ----By this +account, madam, you have but two thousand pounds fortune, and not a +shilling more--and you insist upon having three hundred pounds a year +jointure for it.------ + +--“Because,” replied my great-grandmother, “you have little or no nose, +Sir.”-- + +Now before I venture to make use of the word _Nose_ a second time--to +avoid all confusion in what will be said upon it, in this interesting +part of my story, it may not be amiss to explain my own meaning, and +define, with all possible exactness and precision, what I would +willingly be understood to mean by the term: being of opinion, that ’tis +owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising this +precaution, and to nothing else----that all the polemical writings in +divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon _a Will o’ the +Wisp_, or any other sound part of philosophy, and natural pursuit; in +order to which, what have you to do, before you set out, unless you +intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment----but to give the world +a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most +occasion for----changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small +coin? --which done--let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can; +or put a different idea either into your head, or your reader’s head, if +he knows how. + +In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as this I am +engaged in--the neglect is inexcusable; and Heaven is witness, how the +world has revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings to +equivocal strictures--and for depending so much as I have done, all +along, upon the cleanliness of my readers’ imaginations. + +----Here are two senses, cried _Eugenius_, as we walk’d along, pointing +with the forefinger of his right hand to the word _Crevice_, in the one +hundred and seventy-eighth page of the first volume of this book of +books; ------here are two senses--quoth he --And here are two roads, +replied I, turning short upon him----a dirty and a clean one----which +shall we take? --The clean, by all means, replied _Eugenius_. +_Eugenius_, said I, stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his +breast----to define--is to distrust. ----Thus I triumph’d over +_Eugenius_; but I triumph’d over him as I always do, like a fool. +----’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one: therefore + +I define a nose as follows--intreating only beforehand, and beseeching +my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition +soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the +temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or +wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my +definition --For by the word _Nose_, throughout all this long chapter of +noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word _Nose_ +occurs --I declare, by that word I mean a nose, and nothing more, or +less. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +----“Because,” quoth my great-grandmother, repeating the words again-- +“you have little or no nose, Sir.”------ + +S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose, +--’tis not so small as that comes to; ----’tis a full inch longer than +my father’s. --Now, my great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world +like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom +_Pantagruel_ found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN. ------By the +way, if you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so +flat-nosed a people----you must read the book; ----find it out yourself, +you never can.---- + +--’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs. + +--’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of +his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion----’tis +a full inch longer, madam, than my father’s ----You must mean your +uncle’s, replied my great-grandmother. + +------My great-grandfather was convinced. --He untwisted the paper, and +signed the article. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +----What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this +small estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather. + +My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the +mark, than there is upon the back of my hand. + +--Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather +twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and +fifty pounds half-yearly--(on _Michaelmas_ and _Lady-day_), --during all +that time. + +No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my +father. ------And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it +upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest +welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to +fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty--he +generally gave a loud _Hem!_ rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with +the flat part of his fore finger----inserted his hand cautiously betwixt +his head and the cawl of his wig--look’d at both sides of every guinea +as he parted with it----and seldom could get to the end of the fifty +pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples. + +Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no +allowances for these workings within us. --Never --O never may I lay +down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the +force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from +ancestors! + +For three generations at least this _tenet_ in favour of long noses had +gradually been taking root in our family. ------TRADITION was all along +on its side, and INTEREST was every half-year stepping in to strengthen +it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having +the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange +notions. --For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this +in with his mother’s milk. He did his part however. ----If education +planted the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and +ripened it to perfection. + +He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that +he did not conceive how the greatest family in _England_ could stand it +out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses. +--And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it must be +one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same number of +long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line, did not +raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom. ------He +would often boast that the _Shandy_ family rank’d very high in King +_Harry_ the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state engine--he +would say--but to that only; ----but that, like other families, he would +add----it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never recovered the +blow of my great-grandfather’s nose. ----It was an ace of clubs indeed, +he would cry, shaking his head--and as vile a one for an unfortunate +family as ever turn’d up trumps. + +------Fair and softly, gentle reader! ------where is thy fancy carrying +thee? ----If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather’s nose, +I mean the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands +prominent in his face----and which painters say, in good jolly noses and +well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third----that is, +measured downwards from the setting on of the hair.---- + +----What a life of it has an author, at this pass! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +It is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with +the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is +observed in old dogs-- “of not learning new tricks.” + +What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever +existed be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe +such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him +change sides! + +Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this --He pick’d up +an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple. --It +becomes his own--and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life +rather than give it up. + +I am aware that _Didius_, the great civilian, will contest this point; +and cry out against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple? _ex +confesso_, he will say--things were in a state of nature --The apple, as +much _Frank’s_ apple as _John’s_. Pray, Mr. _Shandy_, what patent has he +to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it, when he set his +heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he chew’d it? or when he +roasted it? or when he peel’d, or when he brought it home? or when he +digested? --or when he----? ----For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first +picking up of the apple, made it not his--that no subsequent act could. + +Brother _Didius_, _Tribonius_ will answer--(now _Tribonius_ the civilian +and church lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three +eighths longer than _Didius_ his beard --I’m glad he takes up the cudgels +for me, so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer). --Brother +_Didius_, _Tribonius_ will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it +in the fragments of _Gregorius_ and _Hermogines’s_ codes, and in all the +codes from _Justinian’s_ down to the codes of _Louis_ and _Des +Eaux_ --That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations of a man’s +brains, are as much a man’s own property as the breeches upon his +backside; --which said exsudations, &c., being dropp’d upon the said +apple by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover +indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annex’d, by the picker up, to +the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d, eaten, digested, and +so on; ----’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing, has +mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not his +own, by which means he has acquired a property; --or, in other words, +the apple is _John’s_ apple. + +By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his +opinions; he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they +lay out of the common way, the better still was his title. ----No mortal +claimed them; they had cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and +digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truly be +said to be of his own goods and chattles. --Accordingly he held fast by +’em, both by teeth and claws--would fly to whatever he could lay his +hands on--and, in a word, would intrench and fortify them round with as +many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle _Toby_ would a +citadel. + +There was one plaguy rub in the way of this----the scarcity of materials +to make anything of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; inasmuch +as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books +upon the subject of great noses: by the trotting of my lean horse, the +thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my understanding, when I am +considering what a treasure of precious time and talents together has +been wasted upon worse subjects--and how many millions of books in all +languages, and in all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated +upon points not half so much tending to the unity and peace-making of +the world. What was to be had, however, he set the greater store by; and +though my father would oft-times sport with my uncle _Toby’s_ +library--which, by the bye, was ridiculous enough--yet at the very same +time he did it, he collected every book and treatise which had been +systematically wrote upon noses, with as much care as my honest uncle +_Toby_ had done those upon military architecture. ----’Tis true, a much +less table would have held them--but that was not thy transgression, my +dear uncle.-- + +Here----but why here----rather than in any other part of my story ----I +am not able to tell: ------but here it is------my heart stops me to pay +to thee, my dear uncle _Toby_, once for all, the tribute I owe thy +goodness. ----Here let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the +ground, whilst I am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for +thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy character, that ever +virtue and nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom. ----Peace and comfort +rest for evermore upon thy head! --Thou enviedst no man’s +comforts----insultedst no man’s opinions ----Thou blackenedst no man’s +character--devouredst no man’s bread: gently, with faithful _Trim_ +behind thee, didst thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, +jostling no creature in thy way: --for each one’s sorrow thou hadst a +tear, --for each man’s need, thou hadst a shilling. + +Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder--thy path from thy door to thy +bowling-green shall never be grown up. ----Whilst there is a rood and a +half of land in the _Shandy_ family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle +_Toby_, shall never be demolish’d. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +My father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was +curious; and consequently he was some time in making it; he had the +great good fortune however, to set off well, in getting _Bruscambille’s_ +prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing--for he gave no more for +_Bruscambille_ than three half-crowns; owing indeed to the strong fancy +which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the moment he laid +his hands upon it. ----There are not three _Bruscambilles_ in +_Christendom_--said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the +libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as +lightning----took _Bruscambille_ into his bosom----hied home from +_Piccadilly_ to _Coleman_-street with it, as he would have hied home +with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from _Bruscambille_ +all the way. + +To those who do not yet know of which gender _Bruscambille_ +is------inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by +either------’twill be no objection against the simile--to say, That when +my father got home, he solaced himself with _Bruscambille_ after the +manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with +your first mistress------that is, from morning even unto night: which, +by the bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato--is of +little or no entertainment at all to by-standers. ----Take notice, I go +no farther with the simile--my father’s eye was greater than his +appetite--his zeal greater than his knowledge--he cool’d--his affections +became divided----he got hold of _Prignitz_--purchased _Scroderus_, +_Andrea Paræus_, _Bouchet’s_ Evening Conferences, and above all, the +great and learned _Hafen Slawkenbergius_; of which, as I shall have much +to say by and by --I will say nothing now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Of all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in +support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more +cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between +_Pamphagus_ and _Cocles_, written by the chaste pen of the great and +venerable _Erasmus_, upon the various uses and seasonable applications +of long noses. ------Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, +take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your +imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to +slip on--let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, _to frisk it, to +squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it--and to kick it, with +long kicks and short kicks_, till, like _Tickletoby’s_ mare, you break +a strap or a crupper and throw his worship into the dirt. --You need +not kill him.-- + +--And pray who was _Tickletoby’s_ mare? --’tis just as discreditable and +unscholarlike a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (_ab. urb. +con._) the second Punic war broke out. --Who was _Tickletoby’s_ mare? +----Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read--or by the +knowledge of the great saint _Paraleipomenon_ --I tell you before-hand, +you had better throw down the book at once; for without _much reading_, +by which your reverence knows I mean _much knowledge_, you will no more +be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of +my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel +the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically +hid under the dark veil of the black one. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +“_Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi_,” quoth _Pamphagus_; ----that is-- “My +nose has been the making of me.” ----------“_Nec est cur pœniteat_,” +replies _Cocles_; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?” + +The doctrine, you see, was laid down by _Erasmus_, as my father wished +it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in +finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; +without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of +argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to +investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides. ----My father pish’d +and pugh’d at first most terribly------’tis worth something to have a +good name. As the dialogue was of _Erasmus_, my father soon came to +himself, and read it over and over again with great application, +studying every word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most +strict and literal interpretation--he could still make nothing of it, +that way. Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my +father. ----Learned men, brother _Toby_, don’t write dialogues upon long +noses for nothing. ------I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick +sense----here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother. + +My father read on. ------Now I find it needful to inform your reverences +and worships, that besides the many nautical uses of long noses +enumerated by _Erasmus_, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not +without its domestic conveniencies also; for that in a case of +distress--and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently +well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to stir up the fire). + +Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and +had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had +done the seeds of all other knowledge------so that he had got out his +penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he +could not scratch some better sense into it. ----I’ve got within a +single letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic +meaning. --You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all +conscience. ------Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on ----I might as +well be seven miles off. --I’ve done it--said my father, snapping his +fingers --See, my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense. +----But you have marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_. ----My father +put on his spectacles----bit his lip------and tore out the leaf in a +passion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +_O Slawkenbergius!_ thou faithful analyzer of my _Disgrazias_--thou sad +foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which in one stage or +other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, +and no other cause, that I am conscious of. --Tell me, _Slawkenbergius!_ +what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it? +how did it sound in thy ears? ----art thou sure thou heard’st it? +----which first cried out to thee------go------go, _Slawkenbergius!_ +dedicate the labours of thy life----neglect thy pastimes------call forth +all the powers and faculties of thy nature----macerate thyself in the +service of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject +of their noses. + +How the communication was conveyed into _Slawkenbergius’s_ +sensorium----so that _Slawkenbergius_ should know whose finger touch’d +the key--and whose hand it was that blew the bellows----as _Hafen +Slawkenbergius_ has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and +ten years------we can only raise conjectures. + +_Slawkenbergius_ was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of +_Whitefield’s_ disciples----that is, with such a distinct intelligence, +Sir, of which of the two _masters_ it was that had been practising upon +his _instrument_------as to make all reasoning upon it needless. + +------For in the account which _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ gives the world of +his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his +life upon this one work--towards the end of his prolegomena, which by +the bye should have come first----but the bookbinder has most +injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book, and +the book itself--he informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived +at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down coolly, and consider +within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the +main end and design of his being; ----or--to shorten my translation, for +_Slawkenbergius’s_ book is in _Latin_, and not a little prolix in this +passage--ever since I understood, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, any +thing----or rather _what was what_----and could perceive that the point +of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before; +----have I, _Slawkenbergius_, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and +unresistible call within me, to gird up myself to this undertaking. + +And to do justice to _Slawkenbergius_, he has entered the list with a +stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man +who had ever entered it before him----and indeed, in many respects, +deserves to be _en-nich’d_ as a prototype for all writers, of voluminous +works at least, to model their books by----for he has taken in, Sir, the +whole subject--examined every part of it _dialectically_------then +brought it into full day; dilucidating it with all the light which +either the collision of his own natural parts could strike--or the +profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him to cast upon +it--collating, collecting, and compiling------begging, borrowing, and +stealing, as he went along, all that had been wrote or wrangled +thereupon in the schools and porticos of the learned: so that +_Slawkenbergius_ his book may properly be considered, not only as a +model--but as a thorough-stitched DIGEST and regular institute of +_noses_, comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known +about them. + +For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise) +valuable books and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either, +plump upon noses----or collaterally touching them; ------such for +instance as _Prignitz_, now lying upon the table before me, who with +infinite learning, and from the most candid and scholar-like examination +of above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty +charnel-houses in _Silesia_, which he had rummaged------has informed us, +that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of +human noses, in any _given_ tract of country, except _Crim Tartary_, +where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be +formed upon them--are much nearer alike, than the world imagines; --the +difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking +notice of; ----but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, +and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is +owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts +and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by +the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it +(bating the case of idiots, whom _Prignitz_, who had lived many years in +_Turky_, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)--it so +happens, and ever must, says _Prignitz_, that the excellency of the nose +is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s +fancy. + +It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in +_Slawkenbergius_, that I say nothing likewise of _Scroderus_ (_Andrea_) +who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn _Prignitz_ with great +violence--proving it in his own way, first _logically_, and then by a +series of stubborn facts, “That so far was _Prignitz_ from the truth, in +affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary--the nose +begat the fancy.” + +--The learned suspected _Scroderus_ of an indecent sophism in this--and +_Prignitz_ cried out aloud in the dispute, that _Scroderus_ had shifted +the idea upon him----but _Scroderus_ went on, maintaining his thesis. + +My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he +should take in this affair; when _Ambrose Paræus_ decided it in a +moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of _Prignitz_ and +_Scroderus_, drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at +once. + +Be witness------ + +I don’t acquaint the learned reader--in saying it, I mention it only to +shew the learned, I know the fact myself------ + +That this _Ambrose Paræus_ was chief surgeon and nose-mender to +_Francis_ the ninth of _France_, and in high credit with him and the two +preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)--and that, except in +the slip he made in his story of _Taliacotius’s_ noses, and his manner +of setting them on--he was esteemed by the whole college of physicians +at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any one who had +ever taken them in hand. + +Now _Ambrose Paræus_ convinced my father, that the true and efficient +cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon +which _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_ had wasted so much learning and fine +parts----was neither this nor that----but that the length and goodness +of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the +nurse’s breast------as the flatness and shortness of _puisne_ noses was +to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in +the hale and lively--which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of +the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated, +and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive _ad mensuram suam +legitimam_; ----but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the +nurse or mother’s breast--by sinking into it, quoth _Paræus_, as into so +much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up, refresh’d, +refocillated, and set a growing for ever. + +I have but two things to observe of _Paræus_; first, That he proves and +explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression: +--for which may his soul for ever rest in peace! + +And, secondly, that besides the systems of _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_, +which _Ambrose Paræus_ his hypothesis effectually overthrew--it +overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our +family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between +my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and +everything in it, except my uncle _Toby_, quite upside down. + +Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never +surely in any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a +street-door. + +My mother, you must know------but I have fifty things more necessary to +let you know first ----I have a hundred difficulties which I have +promised to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick +misadventures crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck +of another. A cow broke in (to-morrow morning) to my uncle _Toby’s_ +fortifications, and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, +tearing up the sods with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way. +----_Trim_ insists upon being tried by a court-martial--the cow to be +shot--_Slop_ to be _crucifix’d_--myself to be _tristram’d_ and at my +very baptism made a martyr of; ----poor unhappy devils that we all are! +----I want swaddling------but there is no time to be lost in +exclamations ------I have left my father lying across his bed, and my +uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him, and promised +I would go back to them in half an hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are +laps’d already. ------Of all the perplexities a mortal author was ever +seen in----this certainly is the greatest, for I have _Hafen +Slawkenbergius’s_ folio, Sir, to finish----a dialogue between my father +and my uncle _Toby_, upon the solution of _Prignitz_, _Scroderus_, +_Ambrose Paræus_, _Ponocrates_, and _Grangousier_ to relate--a tale out +of _Slawkenbergius_ to translate, and all this in five minutes less than +no time at all; ------such a head! --would to Heaven my enemies only saw +the inside of it! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +There was not any one scene more entertaining in our family--and to do +it justice in this point; ----and I here put off my cap and lay it upon +the table close beside my ink-horn, on purpose to make my declaration to +the world concerning this one article the more solemn----that I believe +in my soul (unless my love and partiality to my understanding blinds me) +the hand of the supreme Maker and first Designer of all things never +made or put a family together (in that period at least of it which I +have sat down to write the story of)----where the characters of it were +cast or contrasted with so dramatick a felicity as ours was, for this +end; or in which the capacities of affording such exquisite scenes, and +the powers of shifting them perpetually from morning to night, were +lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a confidence, as in the SHANDY +FAMILY. + +Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical +theatre of ours----than what frequently arose out of this self-same +chapter of long noses------especially when my father’s imagination was +heated with the enquiry, and nothing would serve him but to heat my +uncle _Toby’s_ too. + +My uncle _Toby_ would give my father all possible fair play in this +attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoaking his pipe for +whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, and +trying every accessible avenue to drive _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus’s_ +solutions into it. + +Whether they were above my uncle _Toby’s_ reason------or contrary to +it------or that his brain was like _damp_ timber, and no spark could +possibly take hold----or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, +curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into +_Prignitz_ and _Scroderus’s_ doctrines ----I say not--let +schoolmen--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it among +themselves---- + +’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father +had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle _Toby_, +and render out of _Slawkenbergius’s_ _Latin_, of which, as he was no +great master, his translation was not always of the purest----and +generally least so where ’twas most wanted. --This naturally open’d a +door to a second misfortune; ----that in the warmer paroxysms of his +zeal to open my uncle _Toby’s_ eyes------my father’s ideas ran on as +much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle +_Toby’s_------ neither the one or the other added much to the +perspicuity of my father’s lecture. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms ----I mean in man--for in +superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits----’tis all done, +may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION; --and beings +inferior, as your worships all know----syllogize by their noses: though +there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its +ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so +wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and +oft-times to make very well out too: ------but that’s neither here nor +there------ + +The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or--the great and +principal act of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the +finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with another, +by the intervention of a third (called the _medius terminus_); just as a +man, as _Locke_ well observes, by a yard, finds two men’s +nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought +together, to measure their equality, by _juxta-position_. + +Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his +systems of noses, and observed my uncle _Toby’s_ deportment--what great +attention he gave to every word--and as oft as he took his pipe from his +mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of +it----surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his +thumb------then fore-right------then this way, and then that, in all its +possible directions and foreshortenings------he would have concluded my +uncle _Toby_ had got hold of the _medius terminus_, and was syllogizing +and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in +order, as my father laid them before him. This, by the bye, was more +than my father wanted----his aim in all the pains he was at in these +philosophick lectures--was to enable my uncle _Toby_ not to +_discuss_----but _comprehend_----to _hold_ the grains and scruples of +learning----not to _weigh_ them. ----My uncle _Toby_, as you will read +in the next chapter, did neither the one or the other. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +’Tis a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours’ +painful translation of _Slawkenbergius_----’tis a pity, cried my father, +putting my mother’s thread-paper into the book for a mark, as he +spoke----that truth, brother _Toby_, should shut herself up in such +impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself +sometimes up upon the closest siege.---- + +Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle +_Toby’s_ fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of _Prignitz_ +to him------having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to +the bowling-green! ------his body might as well have taken a turn there +too--so that with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent upon the +_medius terminus_------my uncle _Toby_ was in fact as ignorant of the +whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been +translating _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ from the _Latin_ tongue into the +_Cherokee_. But the word _siege_, like a talismanic power, in my +father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle _Toby’s_ fancy, quick as a note +could follow the touch--he open’d his ears----and my father observing +that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer +the table, as with a desire to profit--my father with great pleasure +began his sentence again----changing only the plan, and dropping the +metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father +apprehended from it. + +’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother +_Toby_------considering what ingenuity these learned men have all shewn +in their solutions of noses. ----Can noses be dissolved? replied my +uncle _Toby_. + +------My father thrust back his chair------rose up--put on his +hat------took four long strides to the door------jerked it +open----thrust his head half way out----shut the door again----took no +notice of the bad hinge----returned to the table--pluck’d my mother’s +thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius’s_ book------went hastily to his +bureau--walked slowly back--twisted my mother’s thread-paper about his +thumb--unbutton’d his waistcoat--threw my mother’s thread-paper into the +fire----bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d his mouth with +bran--confounded it; --but mark! --the oath of confusion was levell’d at +my uncle _Toby’s_ brain--which was e’en confused enough already----the +curse came charged only with the bran--the bran, may it please your +honours, was no more than powder to the ball. + +’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they did +last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most +unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human +nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make +his passions go off so like gunpowder, as the unexpected strokes his +science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby’s_ +questions. ----Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many +different places all at one time--he could not have exerted more +mechanical functions in fewer seconds------or started half so much, as +with one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon +him in his hobby-horsical career. + +’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_------he smoaked his pipe on with +unvaried composure----his heart never intended offence to his +brother--and as his head could seldom find out where the sting of it +lay----he always gave my father the credit of cooling by himself. ----He +was five minutes and thirty-five seconds about it in the present case. + +By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself, and +taking the oath out of _Ernulphus’s_ digest of curses----(though to do +my father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. _Slop_ in the affair of +_Ernulphus_) which he as seldom committed as any man upon earth) ------By +all that’s good and great! brother _Toby_, said my father, if it was not +for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as they do--you +would put a man beside all temper. ----Why, by the _solutions_ of noses, +of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known, had you +favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts which +learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world of the +causes of short and long noses. ----There is no cause but one, replied +my uncle _Toby_----why one man’s nose is longer than another’s, but +because that God pleases to have it so. ----That is _Grangousier’s_ +solution, said my father. --’Tis he, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking +up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us all, and +frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such +ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom. ----’Tis a pious account, +cried my father, but not philosophical----there is more religion in it +than sound science. ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle _Toby’s_ +character----that he feared God, and reverenced religion. ----So the +moment my father finished his remark----my uncle _Toby_ fell a whistling +_Lillabullero_ with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.-- + +What is become of my wife’s thread-paper? + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +No matter--as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of +some consequence to my mother--of none to my father, as a mark in +_Slawkenbergius_. _Slawkenbergius_ in every page of him was a rich +treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father--he could not open him +amiss; and he would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts +and sciences in the world, with the books which treated of them, were +lost--should the wisdom and policies of governments, he would say, +through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had +wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of +courts and kingdoms, should they be forgot also--and _Slawkenbergius_ +only left----there would be enough in him in all conscience, he would +say, to set the world a-going again. A treasure therefore was he indeed! +an institute of all that was necessary to be known of noses, and +everything else--at _matin_, noon, and vespers was _Hafen +Slawkenbergius_ his recreation and delight: ’twas for ever in his +hands----you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s +prayer-book--so worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with +fingers and with thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the +other. + +I am not such a bigot to _Slawkenbergius_ as my father; ----there is a +fund in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the most +profitable, but the most amusing part of _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, is his +tales------and, considering he was a _German_, many of them told not +without fancy: ------these take up his second book, containing nearly +one half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad +containing ten tales ------Philosophy is not built upon tales; and +therefore ’twas certainly wrong in _Slawkenbergius_ to send them into +the world by that name! ----there are a few of them in his eighth, +ninth, and tenth decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive, +than speculative--but in general they are to be looked upon by the +learned as a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning +round somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject, and +collected by him with great fidelity, and added to his work as so many +illustrations upon the doctrines of noses. + +As we have leisure enough upon our hands----if you give me leave, madam, +I’ll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad. + + + + +[Transcriber’s Note: + +Like the Excommunication, the following section was printed on facing +pages. For this e-text it is given in consecutive paragraphs, with the +Latin text inset.] + + +BOOK IV + + + SLAWKENBERGII FABELLA[4.1] + +SLAWKENBERGIUS’S TALE + + + _Vespera quâdam frigidulâ, posteriori in parte mensis _Augusti_, + peregrinus, mulo fusco colore insidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis + indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta, + _Argentoratum_ ingressus est._ + +It was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day, +in the latter end of the month of _August_, when a stranger, mounted +upon a dark mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few +shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered +the town of _Strasburg_. + + _Militi eum percontanti, quum portas intraret dixit, se apud + Nasorum promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et + Argentoratum, transitu ad fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo, + reversurum._ + +He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that +he had been at the Promontory of NOSES--was going on to +_Frankfort_----and should be back again at _Strasburg_ that day month, +in his way to the borders of _Crim Tartary_. + + _Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit ----Dî boni, nova forma nasi!_ + +The centinel looked up into the stranger’s face----he never saw such a +Nose in his life! + + _At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, + e quo pependit acinaces: Loculo manum inseruit; et magnâ cum + urbanitate, pilei parte anteriore tactâ manu sinistrâ, ut extendit + dextram, militi florinum dedit et processit._ + +--I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the stranger--so slipping +his wrist out of the loop of a black ribbon, to which a short scymetar +was hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy +touching the fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended his +right----he put a florin into the centinel’s hand, and passed on. + + _Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum + adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse: itinerari haud poterit nudâ + acinaci; neque vaginam toto _Argentorato_, habilem + inveniet. ------Nullam unquam habui, respondit peregrinus + respiciens------seque comiter inclinans--hoc more gesto, nudam + acinacem elevans, mulo lentò progrediente, ut nasum tueri possim._ + +It grieves me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish +bandy-legg’d drummer, that so courteous a soul should have lost his +scabbard------he cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not +be able to get a scabbard to fit it in all _Strasburg_. ----I never had +one, replied the stranger, looking back to the centinel, and putting his +hand up to his cap as he spoke ----I carry it, continued he, +thus----holding up his naked scymetar, his mule moving on slowly all the +time--on purpose to defend my nose. + + _Non immerito, benigne peregrine, respondit miles._ + +It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the centinel. + + _Nihili æstimo, ait ille tympanista, e pergamenâ factitius est._ + +----’Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg’d +drummer----’tis a nose of parchment. + + _Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major + sit, meo esset conformis._ + +As I am a true catholic--except that it is six times as big--’tis a +nose, said the centinel, like my own. + + _Crepitare audivi ait tympanista._ + +--I heard it crackle, said the drummer. + + _Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, respondit miles._ + +By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it bleed. + + _Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui non ambo tetigimus!_ + +What a pity, cried the bandy-legg’d drummer, we did not both touch it! + + _Eodem temporis puncto, quo hæc res argumentata fuit inter militem + et tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem tubicine et uxore suâ qui tunc + accesserunt, et peregrino prætereunte, restiterunt._ + +At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and +the drummer--was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a +trumpeter’s wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see +the stranger pass by. + + _Quantus nasus! æque longus est, ait tubicina, ac tuba._ + +_Benedicity!_ ------What a nose! ’tis as long, said the trumpeter’s wife, +as a trumpet. + + _Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, velut sternutamento audias._ + +And of the same metal, said the trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing. + + _Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod fistulam dulcedine vincit._ + +’Tis as soft as a flute, said she. + + _Æneus est, ait tubicen._ + +--’Tis brass, said the trumpeter. + + _Nequaquam, respondit uxor._ + +--’Tis a pudding’s end, said his wife. + + _Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod æneus est._ + +I tell thee again, said the trumpeter, ’tis a brazen nose. + + _Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim digito tangam, ait uxor, quam + dormivero._ + +I’ll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter’s wife, for I will touch +it with my finger before I sleep. + + _Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum + controversiæ, non tantum inter militem et tympanistam, verum etiam + inter tubicinem et uxorem ejus, audiret._ + +The stranger’s mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every word +of the dispute, not only betwixt the centinel and the drummer, but +betwixt the trumpeter and trumpeter’s wife. + + _Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fræna demittens, et manibus + ambabus in pectus positis, (mulo lentè progrediente) nequaquam, ait + ille respiciens, non necesse est ut res isthæc dilucidata foret. + Minime gentium! meus nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget + artus --Ad quid agendum? ait uxor burgomagistri._ + +No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule’s neck, and laying both +his hands upon his breast, the one over the other, in a saint-like +position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking +up --I am not such a debtor to the world----slandered and disappointed as +I have been--as to give it that conviction----no! said he, my nose shall +never be touched whilst Heaven gives me strength ----To do what? said a +burgomaster’s wife. + + _Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto + Nicolao; quo facto, in sinum dextrum inserens, e quâ negligenter + pependit acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati + latam quæ ad diversorium templo ex adversum ducit._ + +The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster’s wife------he was making +a vow to _Saint Nicolas_; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the +same solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his +bridle with his left hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom, +with his scymetar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as +slowly as one foot of the mule could follow another, thro’ the principal +streets of _Strasburg_, till chance brought him to the great inn in the +market-place over against the church. + + _Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri + jussit: quâ apertâ et coccineis sericis femoralibus extractis cum + argenteo laciniato Περιζώματα, his sese induit, statimque, acinaci + in manu, ad forum deambulavit._ + +The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into the +stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought in; then opening, and taking out +of it his crimson-sattin breeches, with a silver-fringed--(appendage to +them, which I dare not translate)--he put his breeches, with his fringed +codpiece on, and forthwith, with his short scymetar in his hand, walked +out on to the grand parade. + + _Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem + aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur, + atque ad diversorium regressus est--exuit se vestibus; braccas + coccineas sericas manticæ imposuit mulumque educi jussit._ + +The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he +perceived the trumpeter’s wife at the opposite side of it--so turning +short, in pain lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went back +to his inn--undressed himself, packed up his crimson-sattin breeches, +&c., in his cloak-bag, and called for his mule. + + _Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc + hebdomadis revertar._ + +I am going forwards, said the stranger, for _Frankfort_----and shall be +back at _Strasburg_ this day month. + + _Bene curasti hoc jumentum? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcens--me, + manticamque mean, plus sexcentis mille passibus portavit._ + +I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with +his left hand as he was going to mount it, that you have been kind to +this faithful slave of mine--it has carried me and my cloak-bag, +continued he, tapping the mule’s back, above six hundred leagues. + + _Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset + negoti. --Enimvero, ait peregrinus, a Nasorum promontorio redii, et + nasum speciosissimum, egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam + sortitus est, acquisivi._ + +----’Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn----unless a +man has great business. ----Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at +the Promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank +Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot. + + _Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor + ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini nasum contemplantur ----Per sanctos + sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto + Argentorato major est! --estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans, + nonne est nasus prægrandis?_ + +Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master +of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the +stranger’s nose ----By saint _Radagunda_, said the inn-keeper’s wife to +herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put +together in all _Strasburg!_ is it not, said she, whispering her husband +in his ear, is it not a noble nose? + + _Dolus inest, anime mî, ait hospes--nasus est falsus._ + +’Tis an imposture, my dear, said the master of the inn----’tis a false +nose. + + _Verus est, respondit uxor----_ + +’Tis a true nose, said his wife. + + _Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet------_ + +’Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell the turpentine.------ + + _Carbunculus inest, ait uxor._ + +There’s a pimple on it, said she. + + _Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes._ + +’Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-keeper. + + _Vivus est ait illa, --et si ipsa vivam tangam._ + +’Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the inn-keeper’s wife, +I will touch it. + + _Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore + usque ad --Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa._ + +I have made a vow to saint _Nicolas_ this day, said the stranger, that +my nose shall not be touched till --Here the stranger, suspending his +voice, looked up. ------Till when? said she hastily. + + _Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque + ad illam horam ------Quam horam? ait illa ------Nullam, respondit + peregrinus, donec pervenio ad --Quem locum, --obsecro? ait + illa ----Peregrinus nil respondens mulo conscenso discessit._ + +It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing them +close to his breast, till that hour --What hour? cried the inn-keeper’s +wife. --Never! --never! said the stranger, never till I am got --For +Heaven’s sake, into what place? said she ------The stranger rode away +without saying a word. + +The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards _Frankfort_ +before all the city of _Strasburg_ was in an uproar about his nose. The +_Compline_ bells were just ringing to call the _Strasburgers_ to their +devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer: --no soul in all +_Strasburg_ heard ’em--the city was like a swarm of bees------men, +women, and children (the _Compline_ bells tinkling all the time) flying +here and there--in at one door, out at another----this way and that +way--long ways and cross ways--up one street, down another street----in +at this alley, out of that------did you see it? did you see it? did you +see it? O! did you see it? ------who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s +sake, who saw it? + +Alack o’day! I was at vespers! --I was washing, I was starching, I was +scouring, I was quilting ----God help me! I never saw it ----I never +touch’d it! ----would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, +a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in +every street and corner of _Strasburg_. + +Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great +city of _Strasburg_, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon +his mule in his way to _Frankfort_, as if he had no concern at all in +the affair------talking all the way he rode in broken sentences, +sometimes to his mule--sometimes to himself--sometimes to his Julia. + +O Julia, my lovely Julia! --nay, I cannot stop to let thee bite that +thistle----that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed +me of enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.---- + +----Pugh! --’tis nothing but a thistle--never mind it----thou shalt have +a better supper at night. + +----Banish’d from my country----my friends----from thee.---- + +Poor devil, thou’rt sadly tired with thy journey! ----come--get on a +little faster--there’s nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts----a +crimson-sattin pair of breeches, and a fringed ----Dear Julia. + +----But why to _Frankfort_--is it that there is a hand unfelt, which +secretly is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected tracts? + +----Stumbling! by saint _Nicolas!_ every step--why, at this rate we +shall be all night in getting in------ + +----To happiness----or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander-- +destined to be driven forth unconvicted----unheard----untouch’d----if +so, why did I not stay at _Strasburg_, where justice--but I had sworn! +Come, thou shalt drink--to _St. Nicolas_ --O Julia! ------What dost thou +prick up thy ears at? ----’tis nothing but a man, &c. + +The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and +Julia--till he arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he +alighted------saw his mule, as he had promised it, taken good care +of----took off his cloak-bag, with his crimson-sattin breeches, &c., in +it--called for an omelet to his supper, went to his bed about twelve +o’clock, and in five minutes fell fast asleep. + +It was about the same hour when the tumult in _Strasburg_ being abated +for that night, --the _Strasburgers_ had all got quietly into their +beds--but not like the stranger, for the rest either of their minds or +bodies; queen _Mab_, like an elf as she was, had taken the stranger’s +nose, and without reduction of its bulk, had that night been at the +pains of slitting and dividing it into as many noses of different cuts +and fashions, as there were heads in _Strasburg_ to hold them. The +abbess of _Quedlingberg_, who with the four great dignitaries of her +chapter, the prioress, the deaness, the sub-chantress, and senior +canoness, had that week come to _Strasburg_ to consult the university +upon a case of conscience relating to their placket-holes------was ill +all the night. + +The courteous stranger’s nose had got perched upon the top of the pineal +gland of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of the +four great dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of +sleep the whole night thro’ for it----there was no keeping a limb still +amongst them----in short, they got up like so many ghosts. + +The penitentiaries of the third order of saint _Francis_----the nuns +of mount _Calvary_----the _Præmonstratenses_----the _Clunienses_[4.2] +----the _Carthusians_, and all the severer orders of nuns who lay that +night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than +the abbess of _Quedlingberg_--by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and +tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night +long----the several sisterhoods had scratch’d and maul’d themselves all +to death----they got out of their beds almost flay’d alive--everybody +thought saint _Antony_ had visited them for probation with his fire---- +they had never once, in short, shut their eyes the whole night long from +vespers to matins. + +The nuns of saint _Ursula_ acted the wisest--they never attempted to go +to bed at all. + +The dean of _Strasburg_, the prebendaries, the capitulars and +domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case +of butter’d buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint +_Ursula’s_ example.------ + +In the hurry and confusion everything had been in the night before, the +bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven--there were no butter’d buns +to be had for breakfast in all _Strasburg_--the whole close of the +cathedral was in one eternal commotion----such a cause of restlessness +and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into the cause of that +restlessness, had never happened in _Strasburg_, since _Martin Luther_, +with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down. + +If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into +the dishes[4.3] of religious orders, &c., what a carnival did his nose +make of it, in those of the laity! --’tis more than my pen, worn to the +stump as it is, has power to describe; tho’ I acknowledge, (_cries +_Slawkenbergius_, with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected +from him_) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world +which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of such +a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the +greatest part of my life----tho’ I own to them the simile is in being, +yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have either +time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say, that the +riot and disorder it occasioned in the _Strasburgers’_ fantasies was so +general--such an overpowering mastership had it got of all the faculties +of the _Strasburgers’_ minds--so many strange things, with equal +confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all places, were +spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole stream of all +discourse and wonder towards it--every soul, good and bad--rich and +poor--learned and unlearned----doctor and student----mistress and +maid----gentle and simple----nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in +_Strasburg_ spent their time in hearing tidings about it--every eye in +_Strasburg_ languished to see it----every finger----every thumb in +_Strasburg_ burned to touch it. + +Now what might add, if anything may be thought necessary to add, to so +vehement a desire--was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d +drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgomaster’s widow, +the master of the inn, and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely +soever they all differed every one from another in their testimonies and +description of the stranger’s nose--they all agreed together in two +points--namely, that he was gone to _Frankfort_, and would not return to +_Strasburg_ till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was true +or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect paragons +of beauty--the finest-made man--the most genteel! --the most generous of +his purse--the most courteous in his carriage that had ever entered the +gates of _Strasburg_--that as he rode, with scymetar slung loosely to +his wrist, thro’ the streets--and walked with his crimson-sattin +breeches across the parade--’twas with so sweet an air of careless +modesty, and so manly withal----as would have put the heart in jeopardy +(had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had cast her +eyes upon him. + +I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and +yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of +_Quedlingberg_, the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for +sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the +streets of _Strasburg_ with her husband’s trumpet in her hand, ----the +best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the +illustration of her theory--she staid no longer than three days. + +The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer! ----nothing on this side of old +_Athens_ could equal them! they read their lectures under the city-gates +to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a _Chrysippus_ and a _Crantor_ +in their porticos. + +The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also +in the same stile--under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard--his +wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; +not promiscuously--but to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and +credulity marshal’d them----in a word, each _Strasburger_ came crouding +for intelligence----and every _Strasburger_ had the intelligence he +wanted. + +’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural +philosophy, &c., that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the +abbess of _Quedlingberg’s_ private lecture, and had begun to read in +public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great parade, +----she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining +incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of _Strasburg_ for +her auditory ----But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries +_Slawkenbergius_) has a _trumpet_ for an apparatus, pray what rival in +science can pretend to be heard besides him? + +Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all +busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRUTH keeps her +little court------were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her +up thro’ the conduits of dialect induction----they concerned themselves +not with facts------they reasoned------ + +Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the +Faculty--had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of +_Wens_ and œdematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for +their bloods and souls------the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either +with wens or œdematous swellings. + +It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous +mass of heterogeneous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to +the nose, whilst the infant was _in Utero_, without destroying the +statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine +months before the time.------ + +----The opponents granted the theory----they denied the consequences. + +And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c., said they, was not +laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first +stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world +(bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained +afterwards. + +This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect +which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and +prolongation of the muscular parts of the greatest growth and expansion +imaginable --In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to +affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to +the size of the man himself. + +The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to +them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs ----For +the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception +of food, and turning it into chyle--and the lungs the only engine of +sanguification--it could possibly work off no more, than what the +appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s overloading +his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs--the engine was +of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a certain +quantity in a given time------that is, it could produce just as much +blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that, if +there was as much nose as man----they proved a mortification must +necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for +both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man +inevitably fall off from his nose. + +Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the +opponents--else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach--a whole +pair of lungs, and but _half_ a man, when both his legs have been +unfortunately shot off? + +He dies of a plethora, said they--or must spit blood, and in a fortnight +or three weeks go off in a consumption.------ + +----It happens otherwise--replied the opponents.---- + +It ought not, said they. + +The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings, +though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided +about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself. + +They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical +arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to +its several destinations, offices, and functions which could not be +transgressed but within certain limits--that nature, though she +sported----she sported within a certain circle; --and they could not +agree about the diameter of it. + +The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of the +classes of the literati; ------they began and ended with the word Nose; +and had it not been for a _petitio principii_, which one of the ablest +of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole +controversy had been settled at once. + +A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood--and not only +blood--but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a +succession of drops--(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops, +that is included, said he). ----Now death, continued the logician, being +nothing but the stagnation of the blood---- + +I deny the definition ----Death is the separation of the soul from the +body, said his antagonist ----Then we don’t agree about our weapons, +said the logician --Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the +antagonist. + +The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in +the nature of a decree----than a dispute. + +Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not +possibly have been suffered in civil society----and if false--to impose +upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater +violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shewn it. + +The only objection to this was, that if it proved anything, it proved +the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false. + +This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the +advocates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit a +decree, since the stranger _ex mero motu_ had confessed he had been at +the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, &c. &c. +------To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a +place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it +lay. The commissary of the bishop of _Strasburg_ undertook the +advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases, +shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick +expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long +nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten +authorities,[4.4] which had decided the point incontestably, had it not +appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands +had been determined by it nineteen years before. + +It happened ----I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were +giving her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of +_Strasburg_----the _Lutheran_, founded in the year 1538 by _Jacobus +Surmis_, counsellor of the senate, ----and the _Popish_, founded by +_Leopold_, arch-duke of _Austria_, were, during all this time, employing +the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the affair of the +abbess of _Quedlingberg’s_ placket-holes required)----in determining the +point of _Martin Luther’s_ damnation. + +The _Popish_ doctors had undertaken to demonstrate _à priori_, that from +the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of +_October_ 1483------when the moon was in the twelfth house, _Jupiter_, +_Mars_, and _Venus_ in the third, the _Sun_, _Saturn_, and _Mercury_, +all got together in the fourth--that he must in course, and unavoidably, +be a damn’d man--and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be +damn’d doctrines too. + +By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all +at once with Scorpio[4.5] (in reading this my father would always shake +his head) in the ninth house, which the _Arabians_ allotted to +religion--it appeared that _Martin Luther_ did not care one stiver about +the matter------and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction +of _Mars_--they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and +blaspheming----with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) +sailed before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire. + +The little objection of the _Lutheran_ doctors to this, was, that it +must certainly be the soul of another man, born _Oct._ 22, 83, which was +forced to sail down before the wind in that manner--inasmuch as it +appeared from the register of _Islaben_ in the county of _Mansfelt_, +that _Luther_ was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the +22d day of _October_, but on the 10th of _November_, the eve of +_Martinmas_ day, from whence he had the name of _Martin_. + +[----I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, +I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess +of _Quedlingberg_ ----It is to tell the reader, that my father never +read this passage of _Slawkenbergius_ to my uncle _Toby_, but with +triumph------not over my uncle _Toby_, for he never opposed him in +it----but over the whole world. + +--Now you see, brother _Toby_, he would say, looking up, “that christian +names are not such indifferent things;” ------had _Luther_ here been +called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all +eternity ------Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good +name----far from it----’tis something better than a neutral, and but a +little----yet little as it is, you see it was of some service to him. + +My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as +the best logician could shew him----yet so strange is the weakness of +man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life +but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though +there are many stories in _Hafen Slawkenbergius’s_ Decads full as +entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them +which my father read over with half the delight------it flattered two of +his strangest hypotheses together----his NAMES and his NOSES. ----I will +be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the _Alexandrian_ +Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a +book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head +at one stroke.] + +The two universities of _Strasburg_ were hard tugging at this affair of +_Luther’s_ navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he +had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had +pretended; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth +of it--they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points +he was off; whether _Martin_ had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a +lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at +least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on +with it in spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size of +the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world from what they +were about----it was their business to follow. + +The abbess of _Quedlingberg_ and her four dignitaries was no stop; for +the enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their +fancies as their case of conscience----the affair of their placket-holes +kept cold--in a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their +types----all controversies dropp’d. + +’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it--to a +nut-shell--to have guessed on which side of the nose the two +universities would split. + +’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side. + +’Tis below reason, cried the others. + +’Tis faith, cried one. + +’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other. + +’Tis possible, cried the one. + +’Tis impossible, said the other. + +God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do anything. + +He can do nothing, replied the Antinosarians, which implies +contradictions. + +He can make matter think, said the Nosarians. + +As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied +the Antinosarians. + +He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors. ----’Tis +false, said their other opponents.---- + +Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the +_reality_ of the nose. --It extends only to all possible things, replied +the _Lutherans_. + +By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he +thinks fit, as big as the steeple of _Strasburg_. + +Now the steeple of _Strasburg_ being the biggest and the tallest +church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied +that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least by +a middle-siz’d man ----The Popish doctors swore it could --The _Lutheran_ +doctors said No; --it could not. + +This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, upon +the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of +God --That controversy led them naturally into _Thomas Aquinas_, and +_Thomas Aquinas_ to the devil. + +The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute--it just served +as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity----and +then they all sailed before the wind. + +Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge. + +The controversy about the attributes, &c., instead of cooling, on the +contrary had inflamed the _Strasburgers’_ imaginations to a most +inordinate degree ----The less they understood of the matter, the greater +was their wonder about it--they were left in all the distresses of +desire unsatisfied----saw their doctors, the _Parchmentarians_, the +_Brassarians_, the _Turpentarians_, on one side--the Popish doctors on +the other, like _Pantagruel_ and his companions in quest of the oracle +of the bottle, all embarked out of sight. + +----The poor _Strasburgers_ left upon the beach! + +----What was to be done? --No delay--the uproar increased----every one +in disorder----the city gates set open.---- + +Unfortunate _Strasburgers!_ was there in the storehouse of +nature------was there in the lumber-rooms of learning------was there in +the great arsenal of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to +torture your curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not +pointed by the hand of Fate to play upon your hearts? ----I dip not my +pen into my ink to excuse the surrender of yourselves--’tis to write +your panegyrick. Shew me a city so macerated with expectation----who +neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls +either of religion or nature for seven-and-twenty days together, who +could have held out one day longer. + +On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to +_Strasburg_. + +Seven thousand coaches (_Slawkenbergius_ must certainly have made some +mistake in his numerical characters) 7000 coaches----15,000 single-horse +chairs--20,000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with +senators, counsellors, syndicks--beguines, widows, wives, virgins, +canons, concubines, all in their coaches --The abbess of _Quedlingberg_, +with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress, leading the procession +in one coach, and the dean of _Strasburg_, with the four great +dignitaries of his chapter, on her left-hand--the rest following +higglety-pigglety as they could; some on horseback----some on +foot----some led----some driven----some down the _Rhine_----some this +way----some that----all set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous +stranger on the road. + +Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale ------I say _Catastrophe_ +(cries _Slawkenbergius_) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly +disposed, not only rejoiceth (_gaudet_) in the _Catastrophe_ and +_Peripetia_ of a DRAMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and +integrant parts of it----it has its _Protasis_, _Epitasis_, +_Catastasis_, its _Catastrophe_ or _Peripetia_ growing one out of the +other in it, in the order _Aristotle_ first planted them----without +which a tale had better never be told at all, says _Slawkenbergius_, but +be kept to a man’s self. + +In all my ten tales, in all my ten decads, have I _Slawkenbergius_ tied +down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of +the stranger and his nose. + +----From his first parley with the sentinel, to his leaving the city of +_Strasburg_, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is +the _Protasis_ or first entrance----where the characters of the _Personæ +Dramatis_ are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun. + +The _Epitasis_, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and +heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the +_Catastasis_, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included +within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night’s uproar +about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures +upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking +of the learned in the dispute--to the doctors finally sailing away, and +leaving the _Strasburgers_ upon the beach in distress, is the +_Catastasis_ or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their +bursting forth in the fifth act. + +This commences with the setting out of the _Strasburgers_ in the +_Frankfort_ road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing +the hero out of a state of agitation (as _Aristotle_ calls it) to a +state of rest and quietness. + +This, says _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, constitutes the _Catastrophe_ or +_Peripetia_ of my tale--and that is the part of it I am going to relate. + +We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep----he enters now upon the +stage. + +--What dost thou prick up thy ears at? --’tis nothing but a man upon a +horse----was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not +proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master’s word for +it; and without any more _ifs_ or _ands_, let the traveller and his +horse pass by. + +The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to _Strasburg_ +that night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had +rode about a league farther, to think of getting into _Strasburg_ this +night. --_Strasburg!_----the great _Strasburg!_----_Strasburg_, the +capital of all _Alsatia!_ _Strasburg_, an imperial city! _Strasburg_, a +sovereign state! _Strasburg_, garrisoned with five thousand of the best +troops in all the world! --Alas! if I was at the gates of _Strasburg_ +this moment, I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat--nay a +ducat and half--’tis too much----better go back to the last inn I have +passed----than lie I know not where----or give I know not what. The +traveller, as he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse’s +head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted into +his chamber, he arrived at the same inn. + +------We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread------and till +eleven o’clock this night had three eggs in it----but a stranger, who +arrived an hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have +nothing.------ + +Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a bed. +------I have one as soft as is in _Alsatia_, said the host. + +----The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for ’tis my +best bed, but upon the score of his nose. --------He has got a +defluxion, said the traveller. ----Not that I know, cried the host. +----But ’tis a camp-bed, and _Jacinta_, said he, looking towards the +maid, imagined there was not room in it to turn his nose in. ------Why +so? cried the traveller, starting back. --It is so long a nose, replied +the host. ----The traveller fixed his eyes upon _Jacinta_, then upon the +ground--kneeled upon his right knee--had just got his hand laid upon his +breast ------Trifle not with my anxiety, said he, rising up again. +----’Tis no trifle, said _Jacinta_, ’tis the most glorious nose! ----The +traveller fell upon his knee again--laid his hand upon his breast--then, +said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast conducted me to the end of my +pilgrimage. --’Tis _Diego_. + +The traveller was the brother of the _Julia_, so often invoked that +night by the stranger as he rode from _Strasburg_ upon his mule; and was +come, on her part, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from +_Valadolid_ across the _Pyrenean_ mountains through _France_, and had +many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit of him through the many +meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover’s thorny tracks. + +----_Julia_ had sunk under it------and had not been able to go a step +farther than to _Lyons_, where, with the many disquietudes of a tender +heart, which all talk of----but few feel--she sicken’d, but had just +strength to write a letter to _Diego_; and having conjured her brother +never to see her face till he had found him out, and put the letter into +his hands, _Julia_ took to her bed. + +_Fernandez_ (for that was her brother’s name)----tho’ the camp-bed was +as soft as any one in _Alsace_, yet he could not shut his eyes in it. +----As soon as it was day he rose, and hearing _Diego_ was risen too, he +entered his chamber, and discharged his sister’s commission. + +The letter was as follows: + + +“Seig. DIEGO, + +“Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not------’tis +not now to inquire--it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to +farther tryal. + +“How could I know so little of myself, when I sent my _Duenna_ to forbid +your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you, +_Diego_, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in _Valadolid_ +to have given ease to my doubts? --Was I to be abandoned, _Diego_, +because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether my +suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey to much +uncertainty and sorrow? + +“In what manner _Julia_ has resented this----my brother, when he puts +this letter into your hands, will tell you; He will tell you in how few +moments she repented of the rash message she had sent you----in what +frantic haste she flew to her lattice, and how many days and nights +together she leaned immoveably upon her elbow, looking through it +towards the way which _Diego_ was wont to come. + +“He will tell you, when she heard of your departure--how her spirits +deserted her----how her heart sicken’d----how piteously she +mourned----how low she hung her head. O _Diego!_ how many weary steps +has my brother’s pity led me by the hand languishing to trace out yours; +how far has desire carried me beyond strength----and how oft have I +fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry +out --O my _Diego!_ + +“If the gentleness of your carriage has not belied your heart, you will +fly to me, almost as fast as you fled from me--haste as you will----you +will arrive but to see me expire. ------’Tis a bitter draught, _Diego_, +but oh! ’tis embitter’d still more by dying _un_--------” + + +She could proceed no farther. + +_Slawkenbergius_ supposes the word intended was _unconvinced_, but her +strength would not enable her to finish her letter. + +The heart of the courteous _Diego_ overflowed as he read the +letter------he ordered his mule forthwith and _Fernandez’s_ horse to be +saddled; and as no vent in prose is equal to that of poetry in such +conflicts----chance, which as often directs us to remedies as to +_diseases_, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the window----_Diego_ +availed himself of it, and whilst the hostler was getting ready his +mule, he eased his mind against the wall as follows. + + ODE + + _Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love, + Unless my _Julia_ strikes the key, + Her hand alone can touch the part, + Whose dulcet move- + ment charms the heart, + And governs all the man with sympathetick sway._ + + 2d + +O Julia! + +The lines were very natural----for they were nothing at all to the +purpose, says _Slawkenbergius_, and ’tis a pity there were no more of +them; but whether it was that Seig. _Diego_ was slow in composing +verses--or the hostler quick in saddling mules----is not averred; +certain it was, that _Diego’s_ mule and _Fernandez’s_ horse were ready +at the door of the inn, before _Diego_ was ready for his second stanza; +so without staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth, +passed the _Rhine_, traversed _Alsace_, shaped their course towards +_Lyons_, and before the _Strasburgers_ and the abbess of _Quedlingberg_ +had set out on their cavalcade, had _Fernandez_, _Diego_, and his +_Julia_, crossed the _Pyrenean_ mountains, and got safe to _Valadolid_. + +’Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that when _Diego_ was +in _Spain_, it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the +_Frankfort_ road; it is enough to say, that of all restless desires, +curiosity being the strongest----the _Strasburgers_ felt the full force +of it; and that for three days and nights they were tossed to and fro in +the _Frankfort_ road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion, before +they could submit to return home. ----When alas! an event was prepared +for them, of all other, the most grievous that could befal a free +people. + +As this revolution of the _Strasburgers’_ affairs is often spoken of, +and little understood, I will, in ten words, says _Slawkenbergius_, give +the world an explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale. + +Every body knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by +order of Mons. _Colbert_, and put in manuscript into the hands of +_Lewis_ the fourteenth, in the year 1664. + +’Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system, was the +getting possession of _Strasburg_, to favour an entrance at all times +into _Suabia_, in order to disturb the quiet of _Germany_----and that in +consequence of this plan, _Strasburg_ unhappily fell at length into +their hands. + +It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such +like revolutions --The vulgar look too high for them --Statesmen look +too low ----Truth (for once) lies in the middle. + +What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one +historian --The _Strasburgers_ deemed it a diminution of their freedom +to receive an imperial garrison----so fell a prey to a _French_ one. + +The fate, says another, of the _Strasburgers_, may be a warning to all +free people to save their money. ------They anticipated their +revenues----brought themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength, +and in the end became so weak a people, they had not strength to keep +their gates shut, and so the _French_ pushed them open. + +Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, ’twas not the _French_, ----’twas +CURIOSITY pushed them open ------The _French_ indeed, who are ever upon +the catch, when they saw the _Strasburgers_, men, women, and children, +all marched out to follow the stranger’s nose----each man followed his +own, and marched in. + +Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever +since--but not from any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for +it is owing to this only, that Noses have ever so run in their heads, +that the _Strasburgers_ could not follow their business. + +Alas! alas! cries _Slawkenbergius_, making an exclamation--it is not the +first----and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either +won----or lost by NOSES. + + The End Of + + _Slawkenbergius’s_ TALE + + + [Footnote 4.1: As _Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis_ is extremely + scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see + the specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no + reflection upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much + more concise than his philosophic--and, I think, has more of + Latinity in it.] + + [Footnote 4.2: _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ means the Benedictine nuns + of _Cluny_, founded in the year 940, by _Odo_, abbé de _Cluny_.] + + [Footnote 4.3: Mr. _Shandy’s_ compliments to orators----is very + sensible that _Slawkenbergius_ has here changed his + metaphor------which he is very guilty of: ----that as a + translator, Mr. _Shandy_ has all along done what he could to + make him stick to it--but that here ’twas impossible.] + + [Footnote 4.4: Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formulâ + utun. Quinimo & Logistæ & Canonistæ ----Vid. Parce Barne Jas in + d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. + 1. n. 7. quâ etiam in re conspir. Om de Promontorio Nas. + Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de + contrahend. empt, &c. necnon J. Scrudr, in cap. § refut. per + totum. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. cap. 9. + ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras. + Belg. ad finem, cum comment, N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. + Argentotarens. de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc. Archiv. fid coll. per + Von Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583. præcip. ad finem. + Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de + jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. aliena feud. per federa, test. + Joha. Luxius in prolegom, quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, + 2, 3. Vid. Idea.] + + [Footnote 4.5: Hæc mira, satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio + sub Scorpio Asterismo in nona cœli statione, quam Arabes + religioni deputabant efficit _Martinum Lutherum_ sacrilegum + hereticum, Christianæ religionis hostem acerrimum atque + prophanum, ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum, + religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad infernos + navigavit--ab Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara flagellis igneis + cruciata perenniter. + + ----Lucas Gaurieus in Tractatu astrologico de præteritis + multorum hominum accidentibus per genituras examinatis.] + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s +fancy----with so many family prejudices--and ten decads of such tales +running on for ever along with them----how was it possible with such +exquisite----was it a true nose? ----That a man with such exquisite +feelings as my father had, could bear the shock at all below +stairs----or indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the very +posture I have described? + +----Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times----taking care only +to place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you +do it --But was the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one? + +To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the +best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth +decad, which immediately follows this. + +This tale, cried _Slawkenbergius_, somewhat exultingly, has been +reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right +well, that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it +thro’--’twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book; +inasmuch, continues _Slawkenbergius_, as I know of no tale which could +possibly ever go down after it. + + ’Tis a tale indeed! + +This sets out with the first interview in the inn at _Lyons_, when +_Fernandez_ left the courteous stranger and his sister _Julia_ alone in +her chamber, and is over-written + + _THE INTRICACIES_ + of + _Diego_ and _Julia_ + +Heavens! thou art a strange creature, _Slawkenbergius!_ what a whimsical +view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this +can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of _Slawkenbergius’s_ +tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the +world--translated shall a couple of volumes be. ------Else, how this can +ever be translated into good _English_, I have no sort of conception. +--There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do it rightly. +----What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat, +five notes below the natural tone----which you know, madam, is little +more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive +an attempt towards a vibration in the strings, about the region of the +heart. ------The brain made no acknowledgment. ----There’s often no good +understanding betwixt ’em --I felt as if I understood it. ----I had no +ideas. ----The movement could not be without cause. --I’m lost. I can +make nothing of it--unless, may it please your worships, the voice, in +that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes +to approach not only within six inches of each other--but to look into +the pupils--is not that dangerous? ----But it can’t be avoided--for to +look up to the ceiling, in that case the two chins unavoidably +meet----and to look down into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to +immediate contact, which at once puts an end to the conference ----I mean +to the sentimental part of it. ----What is left, madam, is not worth +stooping for. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +My father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death +had pushed him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play +upon the floor with the toe of that foot which hung over the bed-side; +my uncle _Toby’s_ heart was a pound lighter for it. ------In a few +moments, his left-hand, the knuckles of which had all the time reclined +upon the handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling--he thrust it a +little more within the valance--drew up his hand, when he had done, into +his bosom--gave a hem! My good uncle _Toby_, with infinite pleasure, +answered it; and full gladly would have ingrafted a sentence of +consolation upon the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I +said, that way, and fearing moreover that he might set out with +something which might make a bad matter worse, he contented himself with +resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his crutch. + +Now whether the compression shortened my uncle _Toby’s_ face into a more +pleasurable oval--or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his +brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had +braced up his muscles----so that the compression upon his chin only +doubled the benignity which was there before, is not hard to decide. +----My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam of +sunshine in his face, as melted down the sullenness of his grief in a +moment. + +He broke silence as follows. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Did ever man, brother _Toby_, cried my father, raising himself upon his +elbow, and turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where +my uncle _Toby_ was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin +resting upon his crutch----did ever a poor unfortunate man, brother +_Toby_, cried my father, receive so many lashes? ----The most I ever saw +given, quoth my uncle _Toby_ (ringing the bell at the bed’s head for +_Trim_) was to a grenadier, I think in _Mackay’s_ regiment. + +------Had my uncle _Toby_ shot a bullet through my father’s heart, he +could not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly. + +Bless me! said my uncle _Toby_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Was it _Mackay’s_ regiment, quoth my uncle _Toby_, where the poor +grenadier was so unmercifully whipp’d at _Bruges_ about the ducats? --O +Christ! he was innocent! cried _Trim_, with a deep sigh. --And he was +whipp’d, may it please your honour, almost to death’s door. --They had +better have shot him outright, as he begg’d, and he had gone directly to +heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour. ------I thank thee, +_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----I never think of his, continued +_Trim_, and my poor brother _Tom’s_ misfortunes, for we were all three +school-fellows, but I cry like a coward. ----Tears are no proof of +cowardice, _Trim_. --I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle +_Toby_. ----I know your honour does, replied _Trim_, and so am not +ashamed of it myself. --But to think, may it please your honour, +continued _Trim_, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he +spoke--to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their +bodies, and as honest as God could make them--the children of honest +people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the +world--and fall into such evils! --poor _Tom!_ to be tortured upon a +rack for nothing--but marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages--honest +_Dick Johnson’s_ soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats +another man put into his knapsack! --O! --these are misfortunes, cried +_Trim_, --pulling out his handkerchief--these are misfortunes, may it +please your honour, worth lying down and crying over. + +--My father could not help blushing. + +’Twould be a pity, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, thou shouldst ever +feel sorrow of thy own--thou feelest it so tenderly for others. +--Alack-o-day, replied the corporal, brightening up his face------your +honour knows I have neither wife or child ----I can have no sorrows in +this world. ----My father could not help smiling. --As few as any man, +_Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light +heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age--when +thou art passed all services, _Trim_--and hast outlived thy friends. +----An’ please your honour, never fear, replied _Trim_, chearily. +----But I would have thee never fear, _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_, +and therefore, continued my uncle _Toby_, throwing down his crutch, and +getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word _therefore_--in +recompence, _Trim_, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy +heart I have had such proofs of--whilst thy master is worth a +shilling----thou shalt never ask elsewhere, _Trim_, for a penny. _Trim_ +attempted to thank my uncle _Toby_--but had not power----tears trickled +down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off --He laid his hands +upon his breast----made a bow to the ground, and shut the door. + +----I have left _Trim_ my bowling-green, cried my uncle _Toby_. ----My +father smiled. ------I have left him moreover a pension, continued my +uncle _Toby_. ----My father looked grave. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of PENSIONS and +GRENADIERS? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +When my uncle _Toby_ first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, +fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my +uncle _Toby_ had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb +and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same +precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when corporal +_Trim_ left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off +the bed--he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, +before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam----’tis the +transition from one attitude to another----like the preparation and +resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all. + +For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe +upon the floor----pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within +the valance--gave a hem--raised himself up upon his elbow--and was just +beginning to address himself to my uncle _Toby_--when recollecting the +unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude----he got upon his +legs, and in making the third turn across the room, he stopped short +before my uncle _Toby_: and laying the three first fingers of his +right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed +himself to my uncle _Toby_ as follows: + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +When I reflect, brother _Toby_, upon MAN; and take a view of that dark +side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of +trouble--when I consider, brother _Toby_, how oft we eat the bread of +affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our +inheritance ------I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle _Toby_, +interrupting my father--but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did +not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year? ------What +could I have done without it? replied my uncle _Toby_ ------That’s +another concern, said my father testily --But I say, _Toby_, when one +runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful +_Items_ with which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful by +what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself +up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature. ------’Tis +by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle _Toby_, looking up, +and pressing the palms of his hands close together----’tis not from our +own strength, brother _Shandy_----a centinel in a wooden centry-box +might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men. +----We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings. + +----That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it. +----But give me leave to lead you, brother _Toby_, a little deeper into +the mystery. + +With all my heart, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which +_Socrates_ is so finely painted by _Raffael_ in his school of _Athens_; +which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even +the particular manner of the reasoning of _Socrates_ is expressed by +it--for he holds the forefinger of his left hand between the forefinger +and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the +libertine he is reclaiming------ “_You grant me_ this----and this: and +this, and this, I don’t ask of you--they follow of themselves in +course.” + +So stood my father, holding fast his forefinger betwixt his finger and +his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle _Toby_ as he sat in his old +fringed chair, valanced around with party-coloured worsted bobs ----O +_Garrick!_--what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! +and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy +immortality, and secure my own behind it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, +yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put +together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets +with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen +times a day----was it not, brother _Toby_, that there is a secret spring +within us. --Which spring, said my uncle _Toby_, I take to be Religion. +--Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his +finger, and striking one hand against the other. ----It makes everything +straight for us, answered my uncle _Toby_. ----Figuratively speaking, +dear _Toby_, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I +am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of +counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered +machine, though it can’t prevent the shock----at least it imposes upon +our sense of it. + +Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his forefinger, as he +was coming closer to the point----had my child arrived safe into the +world, unmartyr’d in that precious part of him--fanciful and extravagant +as I may appear to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of +that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress upon our +characters and conducts --Heaven is witness! that in the warmest +transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once +wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than what GEORGE or +EDWARD would have spread around it. + +But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen +him ----I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good. + +He shall be christened _Trismegistus_, brother. + +I wish it may answer----replied my uncle _Toby_, rising up. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon +the first landing, as he and my uncle _Toby_ were going downstairs--what +a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! +Take pen and ink in hand, brother _Toby_, and calculate it fairly ----I +know no more of calculation than this balluster, said my uncle _Toby_ +(striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate +blow souse upon his shin-bone)----’Twas a hundred to one--cried my uncle +_Toby_ --I thought, quoth my father (rubbing his shin), you had known +nothing of calculations, brother _Toby_. ’Tis a mere chance, said my +uncle _Toby_. ------Then it adds one to the chapter----replied my +father. + +The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his +shin at once--it was well it so fell out--(chance! again)--or the world +to this day had never known the subject of my father’s calculation----to +guess it--there was no chance ----What a lucky chapter of chances has +this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, +and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it. --Have not +I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and +the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon +wishes? ----a chapter of noses? --No, I have done that--a chapter upon +my uncle _Toby’s_ modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, +which I will finish before I sleep--by my great-grandfather’s whiskers, +I shall never get half of ’em through this year. + +Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother _Toby_, said +my father, and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts +of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill luck just to +fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the +fortunes of our house with it. + +It might have been worse, replied my uncle _Toby_. ----I don’t +comprehend, said my father. ------Suppose the hip had presented, replied +my uncle _Toby_, as Dr. _Slop_ foreboded. + +My father reflected half a minute--looked down----touched the middle of +his forehead slightly with his finger------ + +--True, said he. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one +pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, +and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I +know, as my father and my uncle _Toby_ are in a talking humour, there +may be as many chapters as steps: ----let that be as it will, Sir, I can +no more help it than my destiny: --A sudden impulse comes across +me----drop the curtain, _Shandy_ ----I drop it --Strike a line here +across the paper, _Tristram_ --I strike it--and hey for a new chapter. + +The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this +affair--and if I had one--as I do all things out of all rule --I would +twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had +done --Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it----a pretty story! is a +man to follow rules------or rules to follow him? + +Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I +promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my +conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew +about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out +dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world +a story of a roasted horse----that chapters relieve the mind--that they +assist--or impose upon the imagination--and that in a work of this +dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes----with +fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted +him? --O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of +_Diana’s_ temple--you must read _Longinus_--read away--if you are not a +jot the wiser by reading him the first time over--never fear--read him +again--_Avicenna_ and _Licetus_ read _Aristotle’s_ metaphysicks forty +times through apiece, and never understood a single word. --But mark the +consequence--_Avicenna_ turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of +writing--for he wrote books _de omni scribili_; and for _Licetus_ +(_Fortunio_) though all the world knows he was born a fœtus,[4.6] of no +more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that +astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a +title as long as himself------the learned know I mean his +_Gonopsychanthropologia_, upon the origin of the human soul. + +So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best +chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as +well employed, as in picking straws. + + [Footnote 4.6: _Ce Fœtus_ n’étoit pas plus grand que la paume de + la main; mais son pere l’ayant éxaminé en qualité de Médecin, & + ayant trouvé que c’etoit quâlque chose de plus qu’un Embryon, le + fit transporter tout vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à + Jerôme Bardi & à d’autres Médecins du lieu. On trouva qu’il ne + lui manquoit rien d’essentiel à la vie; & son pere pour faire + voir un essai de son experience, entreprit d’achever l’ouvrage + de la Nature, & de travailler à la formation de l’Enfant avec le + même artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire écclorre les + Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce qu’elle + avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour + proprement accommodé, il reussit à l’élever & à lui faire + prendre ses accroissemens necessaires, par l’uniformité d’une + chaleur étrangere mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d’un + Thermométre, ou d’un autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich. + Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri à Cart. 223. 488.) + + On auroit toujours été très satisfait de l’industrie d’un pere + si experimenté dans l’Art de la Generation, quand il n’auroit pû + prolonger la vie à son fils que pour quelques mois, ou pour peu + d’années. + + Mais quand on se represente que l’Enfant a vecu près de + quatre-vingts ans, & qu’il a composé quatre-vingts Ouvrages + differents tous fruits d’une longue lecture--il faut convenir + que tout ce qui est incroyable n’est pas toujours faux, & que la + _Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du côté de la Verité_. + + Il n’avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu’il composa + Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animæ humanæ. + + (Les Enfans celebres, revûs & corrigés par M. de la Monnoye de + l’Academie Françoise.)] + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +We shall bring all things to rights, said my father, setting his foot +upon the first step from the landing. --This _Trismegistus_, continued +my father, drawing his leg back and turning to my uncle _Toby_----was +the greatest (_Toby_) of all earthly beings--he was the greatest +king----the greatest law-giver----the greatest philosopher----and the +greatest priest----and engineer--said my uncle _Toby_. + +------In course, said my father. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +--And how does your mistress? cried my father, taking the same step over +again from the landing, and calling to _Susannah_, whom he saw passing +by the foot of the stairs with a huge pincushion in her hand--how does +your mistress? As well, said _Susannah_, tripping by, but without +looking up, as can be expected. --What a fool am I! said my father, +drawing his leg back again--let things be as they will, brother _Toby_, +’tis ever the precise answer ----And how is the child, pray? ----No +answer. And where is Dr. _Slop?_ added my father, raising his voice +aloud, and looking over the ballusters--_Susannah_ was out of hearing. + +Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, crossing the +landing in order to set his back against the wall, whilst he propounded +it to my uncle _Toby_----of all the puzzling riddles, said he, in a +marriage state, ----of which you may trust me, brother _Toby_, there are +more asses loads than all _Job’s_ stock of asses could have +carried----there is not one that has more intricacies in it than +this--that from the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to +bed, every female in it, from my lady’s gentlewoman down to the +cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for it; and give themselves more +airs upon that single inch, than all their other inches put together. + +I think rather, replied my uncle _Toby_, that ’tis we who sink an inch +lower. --If I meet but a woman with child --I do it. --’Tis a heavy tax +upon that half of our fellow-creatures, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle +_Toby_--’Tis a piteous burden upon ’em, continued he, shaking his +head --Yes, yes, ’tis a painful thing--said my father, shaking his head +too----but certainly since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did +two heads shake together, in concert, from two such different springs. + + God bless } ’em all------said my uncle _Toby_ and my + Deuce take } father, each to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Holla! ----you, chairman! ----here’s sixpence----do step into that +bookseller’s shop, and call me a _day-tall_ critick. I am very willing +to give any one of ’em a crown to help me with his tackling, to get my +father and my uncle _Toby_ off the stairs, and to put them to bed. + +--’Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got +whilst _Trim_ was boring the jack-boots--and which, by the bye, did my +father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hinge--they have not +else shut their eyes, since nine hours before the time that Dr. _Slop_ +was led into the back parlour in that dirty pickle by _Obadiah_. + +Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this--and to take +up --Truce. + +I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon the +strange state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as things +stand at present--an observation never applicable before to any one +biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to myself--and +I believe, will never hold good to any other, until its final +destruction--and therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it must be +worth your worships attending to. + +I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; +and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth +volume[4.7]--and no farther than to my first day’s life--’tis +demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to +write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, +as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it--on the +contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back--was every day of my +life to be as busy a day as this --And why not? ----and the transactions +and opinions of it to take up as much description --And for what reason +should they be cut short? as at this rate I should just live 364 times +faster than I should write --It must follow, an’ please your worships, +that the more I write, the more I shall have to write--and consequently, +the more your worships read, the more your worships will have to read. + +Will this be good for your worships’ eyes? + +It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my OPINIONS will be the +death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this +self-same life of mine; or, in other words, shall lead a couple of fine +lives together. + +As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it no +way alters my prospect--write as I will, and rush as I may into the +middle of things, as _Horace_ advises --I shall never overtake myself +whipp’d and driven to the last pinch; at the worst I shall have one day +the start of my pen--and one day is enough for two volumes----and two +volumes will be enough for one year.-- + +Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, +which is now opened to us----as I trust its providence will prosper +everything else in it that is taken in hand.---- + +As for the propagation of Geese --I give myself no concern --Nature is +all bountiful --I shall never want tools to work with. + +--So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle _Toby_ off the +stairs, and seen them to bed? ------And how did you manage it? ----You +dropp’d a curtain at the stair-foot --I thought you had no other way for +it ------Here’s a crown for your trouble. + + [Footnote 4.7: According to the original Editions.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +--Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to _Susannah_. +----There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried +_Susannah_--the child is as black in the face as my ----As your what? +said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into +comparisons. --Bless me, Sir, said _Susannah_, the child’s in a fit. +--And where’s Mr. _Yorick?_ --Never where he should be, said _Susannah_, +but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, +waiting for the name--and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to +know, as captain _Shandy_ is the godfather, whether it should not be +called after him. + +Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that +the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother _Toby_ +as not--and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a +name as _Trismegistus_ upon him----but he may recover. + +No, no, ----said my father to _Susannah_, I’ll get up ------There is no +time, cried _Susannah_, the child’s as black as my shoe. _Trismegistus_, +said my father ------But stay--thou art a leaky vessel, _Susannah_, added +my father; canst thou carry _Trismegistus_ in thy head, the length of +the gallery without scattering? ------Can I? cried _Susannah_, shutting +the door in a huff. ----If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, +bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches. + +_Susannah_ ran with all speed along the gallery. + +My father made all possible speed to find his breeches. + +_Susannah_ got the start, and kept it--’Tis _Tris_--something, cried +_Susannah_ --There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, +beginning with _Tris_--but _Tristram_. Then ’tis _Tristram-gistus_, +quoth _Susannah_. + +----There is no _gistus_ to it, noodle! --’tis my own name, replied the +curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason--_Tristram!_ said +he, &c. &c. &c. &c., so _Tristram_ was I called, and _Tristram_ shall I +be to the day of my death. + +My father followed _Susannah_, with his night-gown across his arm, with +nothing more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a +single button, and that button through haste thrust only half into the +button-hole. + +----She has not forgot the name? cried my father, half opening the door. +----No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence. ----And the +child is better, cried _Susannah_. ----And how does your mistress? As +well, said _Susannah_, as can be expected. --Pish! said my father, the +button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole --So that whether +the interjection was levelled at _Susannah_, or the button-hole--whether +Pish was an interjection of contempt or an interjection of modesty, is a +doubt, and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three +following favourite chapters, that is, my chapter of _chamber-maids_, my +chapter of _pishes_, and my chapter of _button-holes_. + +All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, that the +moment my father cried Pish! he whisk’d himself about--and with his +breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm +of the other, he turned along the gallery to bed, something slower than +he came. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep. + +A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this +moment offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn--the +candles put out--and no creature’s eyes are open but a single one, for +the other has been shut these twenty years, of my mother’s nurse. + +It is a fine subject! + +And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters +upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single +chapter upon this. + +Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of +’em----and trust me, when I get amongst ’em ----You gentry with great +beards----look as grave as you will ------I’ll make merry work with my +button-holes --I shall have ’em all to myself--’tis a maiden subject +--I shall run foul of no man’s wisdom or fine sayings in it. + +But for sleep ----I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin +--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, +I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the +world--’tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of +the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the +broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by +affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, +by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to +recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure +has wearied us----that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten +of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and +passions of the day are over, and he lies down upon his back, that his +soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her +eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or +fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present, +or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in +that sweet secession. + +“God’s blessing,” said _Sancho Pança_, “be upon the man who first +invented this self-same thing called sleep--it covers a man all over +like a cloak.” Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to +my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeez’d out of the +heads of the learned together upon the subject. + +--Not that I altogether disapprove of what _Montaigne_ advances upon +it--’tis admirable in its way--(I quote by memory). + +The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep, +without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by. --We should +study and ruminate upon it, in order to render proper thanks to him who +grants it to us. --For this end I cause myself to be disturbed in my +sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it. ----And yet I +see few, says he again, who live with less sleep, when need requires; my +body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and sudden agitation --I +evade of late all violent exercises ----I am never weary with +walking----but from my youth, I never liked to ride upon pavements. +I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife ----This last word +may stagger the faith of the world----but remember, “La Vraisemblance +(as _Bayle_ says in the affair of _Liceti_) n’est pas toujours du Côté +de la Verité.” And so much for sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +If my wife will but venture him--brother _Toby_, _Trismegistus_ shall be +dress’d and brought down to us, whilst you and I are getting our +breakfasts together.------ + +----Go, tell _Susannah_, _Obadiah_, to step here. + +She is run upstairs, answered _Obadiah_, this very instant, sobbing and +crying, and wringing her hands as if her heart would break. + +We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from +_Obadiah_, and looking wistfully in my uncle _Toby’s_ face for some +time--we shall have a devilish month of it, brother _Toby_, said my +father, setting his arms a-kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, +women, wind--brother _Toby!_--’Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle +_Toby_. ----That it is, cried my father--to have so many jarring +elements breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a +gentleman’s house --Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother +_Toby_, that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and +unmoved----whilst such a storm is whistling over our heads.------ + +And what’s the matter, _Susannah?_ They have called the child +_Tristram_----and my mistress is just got out of an hysterick fit about +it ----No----’tis not my fault, said _Susannah_ --I told him it was +_Tristram-gistus_. + +----Make tea for yourself, brother _Toby_, said my father, taking down +his hat----but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice +and members which a common reader would imagine! + +--For he spake in the sweetest modulation--and took down his hat with +the genteelest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and +attuned together. + +----Go to the bowling-green for corporal _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, +speaking to _Obadiah_, as soon as my father left the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +When the misfortune of my NOSE fell so heavily upon my father’s head; +--the reader remembers that he walked instantly up stairs, and cast +himself down upon his bed; and from hence, unless he has a great insight +into human nature, he will be apt to expect a rotation of the same +ascending and descending movements from him, upon his misfortune of my +NAME; ----no. + +The different weight, dear Sir----nay even the different package of two +vexations of the same weight----makes a very wide difference in our +manner of bearing and getting through with them. ----It is not half an +hour ago, when (in the great hurry and precipitation of a poor devil’s +writing for daily bread) I threw a fair sheet, which I had just +finished, and carefully wrote out, slap into the fire, instead of the +foul one. + +Instantly I snatch’d off my wig, and threw it perpendicularly, with all +imaginable violence, up to the top of the room--indeed I caught it as it +fell----but there was an end of the matter; nor do I think anything else +in _Nature_ would have given such immediate ease: She, dear Goddess, by +an instantaneous impulse, in all _provoking cases_, determines us to a +sally of this or that member--or else she thrusts us into this or that +place or posture of body, we know not why ----But mark, madam, we live +amongst riddles and mysteries----the most obvious things, which come in +our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate +into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us +find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature’s +works: so that this, like a thousand other things, falls out for us in a +way, which tho’ we cannot reason upon it--yet we find the good of it, +may it please your reverences and your worships----and that’s enough for +us. + +Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction for his +life----nor could he carry it up stairs like the other--he walked +composedly out with it to the fish-pond. + +Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which +way to have gone------reason, with all her force, could not have +directed him to anything like it: there is something, Sir, in +fish-ponds----but what it is, I leave to system-builders and +fish-pond-diggers betwixt ’em to find out--but there is something, under +the first disorderly transport of the humours, so unaccountably +becalming in an orderly and a sober walk towards one of them, that I +have often wondered that neither _Pythagoras_, nor _Plato_, nor _Solon_, +nor _Lycurgus_, nor _Mahomet_, nor any one of your noted lawgivers, ever +gave order about them. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Your honour, said _Trim_, shutting the parlour-door before he began to +speak, has heard, I imagine, of this unlucky accident ----O yes, _Trim_, +said my uncle _Toby_, and it gives me great concern. --I am heartily +concerned too, but I hope your honour, replied _Trim_, will do me the +justice to believe, that it was not in the least owing to me. ----To +thee--_Trim?_ --cried my uncle _Toby_, looking kindly in his +face------’twas _Susannah’s_ and the curate’s folly betwixt them. +------What business could they have together, an’ please your honour, in +the garden? ----In the gallery thou meanest, replied my uncle _Toby_. + +_Trim_ found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low +bow ----Two misfortunes, quoth the corporal to himself, are twice as many +at least as are needful to be talked over at one time; ----the mischief +the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his +honour hereafter. ----_Trim’s_ casuistry and address, under the cover of +his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle _Toby_, so he went on +with what he had to say to _Trim_ as follows: + +------For my own part, _Trim_, though I can see little or no difference +betwixt my nephew’s being called _Tristram_ or _Trismegistus_--yet as +the thing sits so near my brother’s heart, _Trim_ ------I would freely +have given a hundred pounds rather than it should have happened. ----A +hundred pounds, an’ please your honour! replied _Trim_, ----I would not +give a cherry-stone to boot. ----Nor would I, _Trim_, upon my own +account, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --------but my brother, whom there is no +arguing with in this case--maintains that a great deal more depends, +_Trim_, upon christian-names, than what ignorant people imagine----for +he says there never was a great or heroic action performed since the +world began by one called _Tristram_--nay, he will have it, _Trim_, that +a man can neither be learned, or wise, or brave. ----’Tis all fancy, an’ +please your honour --I fought just as well, replied the corporal, when +the regiment called me _Trim_, as when they called me _James Butler_. +----And for my own part, said my uncle _Toby_, though I should blush to +boast of myself, _Trim_----yet had my name been _Alexander_, I could +have done no more at _Namur_ than my duty. --Bless your honour! cried +_Trim_, advancing three steps as he spoke, does a man think of his +christian-name when he goes upon the attack? ------Or when he stands in +the trench, _Trim?_ cried my uncle _Toby_, looking firm. ----Or when he +enters a breach? said _Trim_, pushing in between two chairs. ----Or +forces the lines? cried my uncle, rising up, and pushing his crutch like +a pike. ----Or facing a platoon? cried _Trim_, presenting his stick like +a fire-lock. ----Or when he marches up the glacis? cried my uncle +_Toby_, looking warm and setting his foot upon his stool.------ + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +My father was returned from his walk to the fish-pond----and opened the +parlour-door in the very height of the attack, just as my uncle _Toby_ +was marching up the glacis----_Trim_ recovered his arms----never was my +uncle _Toby_ caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life! +Alas! my uncle _Toby!_ had not a weightier matter called forth all the +ready eloquence of my father--how hadst thou then and thy poor +HOBBY-HORSE too been insulted! + +My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and after +giving a slight look at the disorder of the room, he took hold of one of +the chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and placing it +over-against my uncle _Toby_, he sat down in it, and as soon as the +tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out in a +lamentation as follows. + + +MY FATHER’S LAMENTATION + +It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to +_Ernulphus’s_ curse, which was laid upon the corner of the +chimney-piece----as to my uncle _Toby_ who sat under it----it is in vain +longer, said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to +struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human +persuasions ----I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother +_Toby_, or the sins and follies of the _Shandy_ family, Heaven has +thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and +that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force +of it is directed to play. ------Such a thing would batter the whole +universe about our ears, brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_--if it +was so --Unhappy _Tristram_: child of wrath! child of decrepitude! +interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or disaster +in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or +entangle thy filaments! which has not fallen upon thy head, or ever thou +camest into the world----what evils in thy passage into it! ------what +evils since! ----produced into being, in the decline of thy father’s +days----when the powers of his imagination and of his body were waxing +feeble----when radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which +should have temper’d thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found +thy stamina in, but negations--’tis pitiful------brother _Toby_, at the +best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention on +both sides could give it. But how were we defeated! You know the event, +brother _Toby_----’tis too melancholy a one to be repeated now----when +the few animal spirits I was worth in the world, and with which memory, +fancy, and quick parts should have been convey’d------were all +dispersed, confused, confounded, scattered, and sent to the +devil. +------ + +Here then was the time to have put a stop to this persecution against +him; ------and tried an experiment at least------whether calmness and +serenity of mind in your sister, with a due attention, brother _Toby_, +to her evacuations and repletions------and the rest of her non-naturals, +might not, in a course of nine months gestation, have set all things to +rights. ------My child was bereft of these! ------What a teazing life +did she lead herself, and consequently her fœtus too, with that +nonsensical anxiety of hers about lying-in in town? I thought my sister +submitted with the greatest patience, replied my uncle _Toby_ --------I +never heard her utter one fretful word about it. ------She fumed +inwardly, cried my father; and that, let me tell you, brother, was ten +times worse for the child--and then! what battles did she fight with me, +and what perpetual storms about the midwife. ------There she gave vent, +said my uncle _Toby_. ------Vent! cried my father, looking up. + +But what was all this, my dear _Toby_, to the injuries done us by my +child’s coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished, in this +general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket +unbroke, unrifled.------ + +With all my precautions, how was my system turned topside-turvy in the +womb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a +pressure of 470 pounds avoirdupois weight acting so perpendicularly upon +its apex--that at this hour ’tis ninety _per Cent._ insurance, that the +fine net-work of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a thousand +tatters. + +----Still we could have done. ----Fool, coxcomb, puppy----give him but a +NOSE ----Cripple, Dwarf, Driveller, Goosecap------(shape him as you will) +the door of fortune stands open--_O Licetus!_ _Licetus!_ had I been +blest with a fœtus five inches long and a half, like thee --Fate might +have done her worst. + +Still, brother _Toby_, there was one cast of the dye left for our child +after all--_O Tristram!_ _Tristram!_ _Tristram!_ + +We will send for Mr. _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_. + +----You may send for whom you will, replied my father. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +What a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and frisking it away, two up +and two down for four volumes[4.8] together, without looking once +behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon! --I’ll tread +upon no one----quoth I to myself when I mounted ------I’ll take a good +rattling gallop; but I’ll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road. +----So off I set----up one lane------down another, through this +turnpike----over that, as if the arch-jockey of jockeys had got behind +me. + +Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you +may----’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not +yourself ------He’s flung--he’s off--he’s lost his hat--he’s +down------he’ll break his neck----see! ----if he has not galloped full +among the scaffolding of the undertaking criticks! ----he’ll knock his +brains out against some of their posts--he’s bounced out! --look--he’s +now riding like a mad-cap full tilt through a whole crowd of painters, +fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players, +schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, +prelates, popes, and engineers. --Don’t fear, said I --I’ll not hurt the +poorest jack-ass upon the king’s highway. --But your horse throws dirt; +see you’ve splash’d a bishop. ----I hope in God, ’twas only _Ernulphus_, +said I. ------But you have squirted full in the faces of Mess. _Le +Moyne_, _De Romigny_, and _De Marcilly_, doctors of the _Sorbonne_. +------That was last year, replied I. --But you have trod this moment +upon a king. ----Kings have bad times on’t, said I, to be trod upon by +such people as me. + +You have done it, replied my accuser. + +I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my +bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story. +------And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter. + + [Footnote 4.8: According to the original Editions.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +As _Francis_ the first of _France_ was one winterly night warming +himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first +minister of sundry things for the good of the state[4.9] --It would not +be amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this +good understanding betwixt ourselves and _Switzerland_ was a little +strengthened. --There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving +money to these people--they would swallow up the treasury of _France_. +--Poo! poo! answered the king--there are more ways, Mons. _le Premier_, +of bribing states, besides that of giving money --I’ll pay _Switzerland_ +the honour of standing godfather for my next child. ----Your majesty, +said the minister, in so doing, would have all the grammarians in +_Europe_ upon your back; ----_Switzerland_, as a republick, being a +female, can in no construction be godfather. --She may be godmother, +replied _Francis_ hastily--so announce my intentions by a courier +to-morrow morning. + +I am astonished, said _Francis_ the First, (that day fortnight) speaking +to his minister as he entered the closet, that we have had no answer +from _Switzerland_. ----Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said Mons. +_le Premier_, to lay before you my dispatches upon that business. --They +take it kindly, said the king. --They do, Sire, replied the minister, +and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done +them----but the republick, as godmother, claims her right, in this case, +of naming the child. + +In all reason, quoth the king----she will christen him _Francis_, or +_Henry_, or _Lewis_, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to +us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the minister ----I have this hour +received a dispatch from our resident, with the determination of the +republick on that point also. ----And what name has the republick fixed +upon for the Dauphin? ----_Shadrach_, _Meshech_, _Abed-nego_, replied +the minister. --By Saint _Peter’s_ girdle, I will have nothing to do +with the _Swiss_, cried _Francis_ the First, pulling up his breeches and +walking hastily across the floor. + +Your majesty, replied the minister calmly, cannot bring yourself off. + +We’ll pay them in money------said the king. + +Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the +minister. ----I’ll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth _Francis_ the +First. + +Your honour stands pawn’d already in this matter, answered Monsieur _le +Premier_. + +Then, Mons. _le Premier_, said the king, by------we’ll go to war with +’em. + + [Footnote 4.9: Vide Menagiana, Vol. I.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Albeit, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavoured +carefully (according to the measure of such a slender skill as God has +vouchsafed me, and as convenient leisure from other occasions of needful +profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books +which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger +books--yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of +careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to intreat thy lenity +seriously------in beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in the story +of my father and his christian-names --I have no thoughts of treading +upon _Francis_ the First----nor in the affair of the nose--upon +_Francis_ the Ninth--nor in the character of my uncle _Toby_----of +characterizing the militiating spirits of my country--the wound upon his +groin, is a wound to every comparison of that kind--nor by _Trim_--that +I meant the duke of _Ormond_----or that my book is wrote against +predestination, or free-will, or taxes --If ’tis wrote against any thing, +----’tis wrote, an’ please your worships, against the spleen! in order, +by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the +diaphragm, and the succussations of the intercostal and abdominal +muscles in laughter, to drive the _gall_ and other _bitter juices_ from +the gallbladder, liver, and sweet-bread of his majesty’s subjects, with +all the inimicitious passions which belong to them, down into their +duodenums. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +--But can the thing be undone, _Yorick?_ said my father--for in my +opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a vile canonist, replied +_Yorick_--but of all evils, holding suspense to be the most tormenting, +we shall at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these great +dinners----said my father --The size of the dinner is not the point, +answered _Yorick_----we want, Mr. _Shandy_, to dive into the bottom of +this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not--and as the beards of +so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and of +the most eminent of our school-divines, and others, are all to meet in +the middle of one table, and _Didius_ has so pressingly invited you--who +in your distress would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite, +continued _Yorick_, is to apprize _Didius_, and let him manage a +conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject. --Then my +brother _Toby_, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall +go with us. + + +----Let my old tye-wig, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and my laced regimentals, +be hung to the fire all night, _Trim_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +--No doubt, Sir, --there is a whole chapter wanting here--and a chasm of +ten pages made in the book by it--but the bookbinder is neither a fool, +or a knave, or a puppy--nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least +upon that score)----but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and +complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate +to your reverences in this manner. --I question first, by the bye, +whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon +sundry other chapters------but there is no end, an’ please your +reverences, in trying experiments upon chapters------we have had enough +of it ----So there’s an end of that matter. + + +But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the +chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have +been reading just now, instead of this----was the description of my +father’s, my uncle _Toby’s_, _Trim’s_, and _Obadiah’s_ setting out and +journeying to the visitation at ****. + +We’ll go in the coach, said my father --Prithee, have the arms been +altered, _Obadiah?_ --It would have made my story much better to have +begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to +the _Shandy’s_, when the coach was re-painted upon my father’s marriage, +it had so fallen out, that the coach-painter, whether by performing all +his works with the left-hand, like _Turpilius_ the _Roman_, or _Hans +Holbein_ of _Basil_----or whether ’twas more from the blunder of his +head than hand----or whether, lastly, it was from the sinister turn +which every thing relating to our family was apt to take----it so fell +out, however, to our reproach, that instead of the _bend-dexter_, which +since _Harry_ the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due------a +_bend-sinister_, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite +across the field of the _Shandy_ arms. ’Tis scarce credible that the +mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with +so small a matter. The word coach--let it be whose it would--or +coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the +family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of +illegitimacy upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step +into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to take a view of +the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time +he would ever set his foot in it again, till the _bend-sinister_ was +taken out--but like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many +things which the _Destinies_ had set down in their books ever to be +grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours)----but never to be mended. + +--Has the _bend-sinister_ been brush’d out, I say? said my father. +----There has been nothing brush’d out, Sir, answered _Obadiah_, but the +lining. We’ll go o’horseback, said my father, turning to _Yorick_. +----Of all things in the world, except politicks, the clergy know the +least of heraldry, said _Yorick_. --No matter for that, cried my +father ----I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon +before them. --Never mind the _bend-sinister_, said my uncle _Toby_, +putting on his tye-wig. ----No, indeed, said my father--you may go with +my aunt _Dinah_ to a visitation with a _bend-sinister_, if you think +fit --My poor uncle _Toby_ blush’d. My father was vexed at himself. +------No----my dear brother _Toby_, said my father, changing his +tone----but the damp of the coach-lining about my loins, may give me the +sciatica again, as it did _December_, _January_, and _February_ last +_winter_--so if you please you shall ride my wife’s pad----and as you +are to preach, _Yorick_, you had better make the best of your way +before----and leave me to take care of my brother _Toby_, and to follow +at our own rates. + +Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this +cavalcade, in which Corporal _Trim_ and _Obadiah_, upon two coach-horses +a-breast, led the way as slow as a patrole----whilst my uncle _Toby_, in +his laced regimentals and tye-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep +roads and dissertations alternately upon the advantage of learning and +arms, as each could get the start. + +--But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so +much above the stile and manner of anything else I have been able to +paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without +depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that +necessary equipoise and balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt +chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the +whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the +business, so know little about it--but, in my opinion, to write a book +is for all the world like humming a song--but in tune with yourself, +madam, ’tis no matter how high or how low you take it. + +--This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the +lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well----(as _Yorick_ told +my uncle _Toby_ one night) by siege. ----My uncle _Toby_ looked brisk at +the sound of the word _siege_, but could make neither head or tail of +it. + +I’m to preach at court next Sunday, said _Homenas_----run over my +notes----so I humm’d over doctor _Homenas’s_ notes--the modulation’s +very well----’twill do, _Homenas_, if it holds on at this rate----so on +I humm’d----and a tolerable tune I thought it was; and to this hour, may +it please your reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how +spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an +air in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly, --it carried my +soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as _Montaigne_ +complained in a parallel accident)--had I found the declivity easy, or +the ascent accessible------certes I had been outwitted. ------Your +notes, _Homenas_, I should have said, are good notes; ----but it was so +perpendicular a precipice------so wholly cut off from the rest of the +work, that by the first note I humm’d I found myself flying into the +other world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so +deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend +into it again. + +[-->] A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own +size--take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one. --And so much +for tearing out of chapters. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +----See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to +light their pipes! ----’Tis abominable, answered _Didius_; it should not +go unnoticed, said doctor _Kysarcius_------ [-->] he was of the +_Kysarcii_ of the Low Countries. + +Methinks, said _Didius_, half rising from his chair, in order to remove +a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him +and _Yorick_----you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have +hit upon a more proper place, Mr. _Yorick_--or at least upon a more +proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of what we have been about: +If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with----’twas +certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; +and if ’twas good enough to be preached before so learned a +body----’twas certainly, Sir, too good to light their pipes with +afterwards. + +----I have got him fast hung up, quoth _Didius_ to himself, upon one of +the two horns of my dilemma----let him get off as he can. + +I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this +sermon, quoth _Yorick_, upon this occasion------that I declare, +_Didius_, I would suffer martyrdom--and if it was possible my horse with +me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such +another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me----it came from my +head instead of my heart------and it is for the pain it gave me, both in +the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this +manner --To preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or the subtleties +of our wit--to parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly +accounts of a little learning, tinsel’d over with a few words which +glitter, but convey little light and less warmth----is a dishonest use +of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands--’Tis +not preaching the gospel--but ourselves ----For my own part, continued +_Yorick_, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.-- + +As _Yorick_ pronounced the word _point-blank_, my uncle _Toby_ rose up +to say something upon projectiles----when a single word and no more +uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one’s ears +towards it--a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that +place to be expected--a word I am ashamed to write--yet must be +written----must be read--illegal--uncanonical--guess ten thousand +guesses, multiplied into themselves--rack--torture your invention for +ever, you’re where you was --------In short, I’ll tell it in the next +chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Zounds! ------------------------------------------------------------- +-------------------------------------------------------------------- +------------Z------ds! cried _Phutatorius_, partly to himself----and yet +high enough to be heard--and what seemed odd, ’twas uttered in a +construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a +man in amazement and one in bodily pain. + +One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression +and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a _third_ or a _fifth_, or +any other chord in musick--were the most puzzled and perplexed with +it--the concord was good in itself--but then ’twas quite out of the key, +and no way applicable to the subject started; ----so that with all their +knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it. + +Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their +ears to the plain import of the _word_, imagined that _Phutatorius_, who +was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels +out of _Didius’s_ hands, in order to bemaul _Yorick_ to some +purpose--and that the desperate monosyllable Z------ds was the exordium +to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a +rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle _Toby’s_ good-nature +felt a pang for what _Yorick_ was about to undergo. But seeing +_Phutatorius_ stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on--a +third party began to suppose, that it was no more than an involuntary +respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a twelve-penny +oath--without the sin or substance of one. + +Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on +the contrary as a real and substantial oath, propensly formed against +_Yorick_, to whom he was known to bear no good liking--which said oath, +as my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at +that very time in the upper regions of _Phutatorius’s_ purtenance; and +so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first +squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the +right ventricle of _Phutatorius’s_ heart, by the stroke of surprize +which so strange a theory of preaching had excited. + +How finely we argue upon mistaken facts! + +There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the +monosyllable which _Phutatorius_ uttered----who did not take this for +granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that +_Phutatorius’s_ mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was +arising between _Didius_ and _Yorick_; and indeed as he looked first +towards the one and then towards the other, with the air of a man +listening to what was going forwards--who would not have thought the +same? But the truth was, that _Phutatorius_ knew not one word or one +syllable of what was passing--but his whole thoughts and attention were +taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at that very +instant within the precincts of his own _Galligaskins_, and in a part of +them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch accidents: +So that notwithstanding he looked with all the attention in the world, +and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his face, to the +utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it was thought, to +give a sharp reply to _Yorick_, who sat over-against him----yet, I say, +was _Yorick_ never once in any one domicile of _Phutatorius’s_ +brain----but the true cause of his exclamation lay at least a yard +below. + +This I will endeavour to explain to you with all imaginable decency. + +You must be informed then, that _Gastripheres_, who had taken a turn +into the kitchen a little before dinner, to see how things went +on--observing a wicker-basket of fine chesnuts standing upon the +dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and +sent in, as soon as dinner was over---- _Gastripheres_ inforcing his +orders about them, that _Didius_, but _Phutatorius_ especially, were +particularly fond of ’em. + +About two minutes before the time that my uncle _Toby_ interrupted +_Yorick’s_ harangue--_Gastripheres’s_ chesnuts were brought in--and as +_Phutatorius’s_ fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he +laid them directly before _Phutatorius_, wrapt up hot in a clean damask +napkin. + +Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all +thrust into the napkin at a time--but that some one chesnut, of more +life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion--it so fell out, +however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as +_Phutatorius_ sat straddling under----it fell perpendicularly into that +particular aperture of _Phutatorius’s_ breeches, for which, to the shame +and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word +throughout all _Johnson’s_ dictionary----let it suffice to say----it was +that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of +decorum do strictly require, like the temple of _Janus_ (in peace at +least) to be universally shut up. + +The neglect of this punctilio in _Phutatorius_ (which by the bye should +be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident.---- + +Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of +speaking------but in no opposition to the opinion either of _Acrites_ or +_Mythogeras_ in this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and +fully persuaded of it--and are so to this hour, That there was nothing +of accident in the whole event----but that the chesnut’s taking that +particular course and in a manner of its own accord--and then falling +with all its heat directly into that one particular place, and no +other----was a real judgment upon _Phutatorius_, for that filthy and +obscene treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_, which _Phutatorius_ had +published about twenty years ago----and was that identical week going to +give the world a second edition of. + +It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy----much +undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of the question--all that +concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and +render it credible to the reader, that the hiatus in _Phutatorius’s_ +breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut; ----and that the +chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly and piping hot into +it, without _Phutatorius’s_ perceiving it, or any one else at that time. + +The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for +the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds----and did no more than +gently solicit _Phutatorius’s_ attention towards the part: ------But the +heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the +point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the +regions of pain, the soul of _Phutatorius_, together with all his ideas, +his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, +deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of +animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles +and circuits, to the place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as +you may imagine, as empty as my purse. + +With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him +back, _Phutatorius_ was not able to dive into the secret of what was +going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the +devil was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true +cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was +in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the +help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly +accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter; ----but the sallies +of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind--a thought +instantly darted into his mind, that tho’ the anguish had the sensation +of glowing heat--it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a +burn; and if so, that possibly a _Newt_ or an _Asker_, or some such +detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth----the +horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant +from the chesnut, seized _Phutatorius_ with a sudden panick, and in the +first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done +the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard: ----the effect of +which was this, that he leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that +interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the aposiopestic +break after it, marked thus, Z------ds--which, though not strictly +canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the +occasion; ------and which, by the bye, whether canonical or not, +_Phutatorius_ could no more help than he could the cause of it. + +Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little +more time in the transaction, than just to allow for _Phutatorius_ to +draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the +floor--and for _Yorick_ to rise from his chair, and pick the chesnut up. + +It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind: +----What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our +opinions, both of men and things----that trifles, light as air, shall +waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within +it----that _Euclid’s_ demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it +in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it. + +_Yorick_, I said, picked up the chesnut which _Phutatorius’s_ wrath had +flung down----the action was trifling ----I am ashamed to account for +it--he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot +worse for the adventure--and that he held a good chesnut worth stooping +for. ------But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in +_Phutatorius’s_ head: He considered this act of _Yorick’s_ in getting +off his chair and picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in +him, that the chesnut was originally his--and in course, that it must +have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have +played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this +opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very +narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for _Yorick_, who sat directly +over against _Phutatorius_, of slipping the chesnut in----and +consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, +which _Phutatorius_ cast full upon _Yorick_ as these thoughts arose, too +evidently spoke his opinion----and as _Phutatorius_ was naturally +supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion +at once became the general one; ----and for a reason very different from +any which have been yet given----in a little time it was put out of all +manner of dispute. + +When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this +sublunary world----the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of +substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the +cause and first spring of them. --The search was not long in this +instance. + +It was well known that _Yorick_ had never a good opinion of the treatise +which _Phutatorius_ had wrote _de Concubinis retinendis_, as a thing +which he feared had done hurt in the world----and ’twas easily found +out, that there was a mystical meaning in _Yorick’s_ prank--and that his +chucking the chesnut hot into _Phutatorius’s_ ***----*****, was a +sarcastical fling at his book--the doctrines of which, they said, had +enflamed many an honest man in the same place. + +This conceit awaken’d _Somnolentus_----made _Agelastes_ smile----and if +you can recollect the precise look and air of a man’s face intent in +finding out a riddle------it threw _Gastripheres’s_ into that form--and +in short was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit. + +This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as +groundless as the dreams of philosophy: _Yorick_, no doubt, as +_Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor------ “_was a man of jest_,” but it +was temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other +ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame; --but it +was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying +and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his +nature was incapable. All I blame him for----or rather, all I blame and +alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which +would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the +world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted +precisely as in the affair of his lean horse----he could have explained +it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and besides, he ever +looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal +report alike so injurious to him--he could not stoop to tell his story +to them--and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him. + +This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects--in the +present it was followed by the fixed resentment of _Phutatorius_, who, +as _Yorick_ had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair +a second time, to let him know it--which indeed he did with a smile; +saying only--that he would endeavour not to forget the obligation. + +But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two +things in your mind. + +----The smile was for the company. + +----The threat was for _Yorick_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +--Can you tell me, quoth _Phutatorius_, speaking to _Gastripheres_ who +sat next to him----for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an +affair----can you tell me, _Gastripheres_, what is best to take out the +fire? ----Ask _Eugenius_, said _Gastripheres_. ----That greatly depends, +said _Eugenius_, pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature +of the part ----If it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently +be wrapt up ------It is both the one and the other, replied +_Phutatorius_, laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod of +his head, upon the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the +same time to ease and ventilate it. ------If that is the case, said +_Eugenius_, I would advise you, _Phutatorius_, not to tamper with it by +any means; but if you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure +to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the +press--you need do nothing more than twist it round. --The damp paper, +quoth _Yorick_ (who sat next to his friend _Eugenius_) though I know it +has a refreshing coolness in it--yet I presume is no more than the +vehicle--and that the oil and lamp-black with which the paper is so +strongly impregnated, does the business. --Right, said _Eugenius_, and +is, of any outward application I would venture to recommend, the most +anodyne and safe. + +Was it my case, said _Gastripheres_, as the main thing is the oil and +lamp-black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on +directly. ------That would make a very devil of it, replied _Yorick_. +----And besides, added _Eugenius_, it would not answer the intention, +which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription, which +the Faculty hold to be half in half; ----for consider, if the type is a +very small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come +into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so +infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs +and large capitals excepted) as no art or management of the spatula can +come up to. ------It falls out very luckily, replied _Phutatorius_, that +the second edition of my treatise _de Concubinis retinendis_ is at this +instant in the press. ------You may take any leaf of it, said +_Eugenius_------no matter which. ----Provided, quoth _Yorick_, there is +no bawdry in it.------ + +They are just now, replied _Phutatorius_, printing off the ninth +chapter----which is the last chapter but one in the book. ----Pray what +is the title of that chapter? said _Yorick_; making a respectful bow to +_Phutatorius_ as he spoke. ------I think, answered _Phutatorius_, ’tis +that _de re concubinariâ_. + +For Heaven’s sake keep out of that chapter, quoth _Yorick_. + +----By all means--added _Eugenius_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +--Now, quoth _Didius_, rising up, and laying his right hand with his +fingers spread upon his breast----had such a blunder about a +christian-name happened before the Reformation ------[It happened the +day before yesterday, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself] and when baptism +was administer’d in _Latin_ --[’Twas all in _English_, said my +uncle]------ many things might have coincided with it, and upon the +authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, +with a power of giving the child a new name --Had a priest, for instance, +which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the _Latin_ tongue, +baptized a child of Tom-o’Stiles, _in nomine patriæ & filia & spiritum +sanctos_--the baptism was held null. ----I beg your pardon, replied +_Kysarcius_----in that case, as the mistake was only the _terminations_, +the baptism was valid----and to have rendered it null, the blunder of +the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each +noun------and not, as in your case, upon the last. + +My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with +infinite attention. + +_Gastripheres_, for example, continued _Kysarcius_, baptizes a child of +_John Stradling’s_ in _Gomine_ gatris, &c., &c., instead of _in Nomine_ +patris, &c. ----Is this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as +much as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and +meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for +_Gomine_ does not signify a name, nor _gatris_ a father. --What do they +signify? said my uncle _Toby_. --Nothing at all------quoth _Yorick_. +----Ergo, such a baptism is null, said _Kysarcius_.---- + +In course, answered _Yorick_, in a tone two parts jest and one part +earnest.---- + +But in the case cited, continued _Kysarcius_, where _patriæ_ is put for +_patris_, _filia_ for _filii_, and so on----as it is a fault only in the +declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch’d, the +inflections of their branches either this way or that, does not in any +sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the +words as before. ----But then, said _Didius_, the intention of the +priest’s pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have +gone along with it. ------------Right, answered _Kysarcius_; and of +this, brother _Didius_, we have an instance in a decree of the decretals +of Pope _Leo_ the IIId. ----But my brother’s child, cried my uncle +_Toby_, has nothing to do with the Pope------’tis the plain child of a +Protestant gentleman, christen’d _Tristram_ against the wills and wishes +both of his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.---- + +If the wills and wishes, said _Kysarcius_, interrupting my uncle _Toby_, +of those only who stand related to Mr. _Shandy’s_ child, were to have +weight in this matter, Mrs. _Shandy_, of all people, has the least to do +in it. ----My uncle _Toby_ lay’d down his pipe, and my father drew his +chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an +introduction. + +----It has not only been a question, Captain _Shandy_, amongst the[4.10] +best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued _Kysarcius_, +“_Whether the mother be of kin to her child_,” --but, after much +dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides--it +has been abjudged for the negative--namely, “_That the mother is not of +kin to her child_.”[4.11] My father instantly clapp’d his hand upon my +uncle _Toby’s_ mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear; --the truth +was, he was alarmed for _Lillabullero_--and having a great desire to +hear more of so curious an argument--he begg’d my uncle _Toby_, for +Heaven’s sake, not to disappoint him in it. --My uncle _Toby_ gave a +nod--resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling +_Lillabullero_ inwardly----_Kysarcius_, _Didius_, and _Triptolemus_ went +on with the discourse as follows. + +This determination, continued _Kysarcius_, how contrary soever it may +seem to run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on +its side; and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous +case, known commonly by the name of the Duke of _Suffolk’s_ case. +------It is cited in _Brook_, said _Triptolemus_ ------And taken notice +of by Lord _Coke_, added _Didius_. --And you may find it in _Swinburn_ +on Testaments, said _Kysarcius_. + +The case, Mr. _Shandy_, was this. + +In the reign of _Edward_ the Sixth, _Charles_ duke of _Suffolk_ having +issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his +last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose +death the son died also----but without will, without wife, and without +child--his mother and his sister by the father’s side (for she was born +of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration of +her son’s goods, according to the statute of the 21st of _Harry_ the +Eighth, whereby it is enacted, That in case any person die intestate the +administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin. + +The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, +the sister by the father’s side commenced a suit before the +Ecclesiastical Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; +and 2dly, That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; +and therefore prayed the court, that the administration granted to the +mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to +the deceased, by force of the said statute. + +Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its +issue--and many causes of great property likely to be decided in times +to come, by the precedent to be then made----the most learned, as well +in the laws of this realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, +whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no. --Whereunto not only +the temporal lawyers----but the church lawyers--the juris-consulti--the +juris-prudentes--the civilians--the advocates--the commissaries--the +judges of the consistory and prerogative courts of _Canterbury_ and +_York_, with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of +opinion, That the mother was not of[4.12] kin to her child.---- + +And what said the duchess of _Suffolk_ to it? said my uncle _Toby_. + +The unexpectedness of my uncle _Toby’s_ question, confounded _Kysarcius_ +more than the ablest advocate ----He stopp’d a full minute, looking in +my uncle _Toby’s_ face without replying----and in that single minute +_Triptolemus_ put by him, and took the lead as follows. + +’Tis a ground and principle in the law, said _Triptolemus_, that things +do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt ’tis for this +cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and +seed of its parents----that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the +blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the +child, but the child by the parents --For so they write, _Liberi sunt de +sanguine patris & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine +liberorum_. + +----But this, _Triptolemus_, cried _Didius_, proves too much--for from +this authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on +all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child--but the father +likewise. ----It is held, said _Triptolemus_, the better opinion; +because the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three +persons, yet are they but (_una caro_[4.13]) one flesh; and consequently +no degree of kindred----or any method of acquiring one _in nature_. +----There you push the argument again too far, cried _Didius_----for +there is no prohibition _in nature_, though there is in the Levitical +law----but that a man may beget a child upon his grandmother----in which +case, supposing the issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both +of ----But who ever thought, cried _Kysarcius_, of lying with his +grandmother? ------The young gentleman, replied _Yorick_, whom _Selden_ +speaks of----who not only thought of it, but justified his intention to +his father by the argument drawn from the law of retaliation. --“You +lay, Sir, with my mother,” said the lad-- “why may not I lie with +yours?” ----’Tis the _Argumentum commune_, added _Yorick_. ----’Tis as +good, replied _Eugenius_, taking down his hat, as they deserve. + +The company broke up. + + [Footnote 4.10: Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7, §8.] + + [Footnote 4.11: Vide Brook, Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.] + + [Footnote 4.12: Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. + in ult. C. de Verb. signific.] + + [Footnote 4.13: Vide Brook, Abridg. tit. Administr. N. 47.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +--And pray, said my uncle _Toby_, leaning upon _Yorick_, as he and my +father were helping him leisurely down the stairs----don’t be terrified, +madam, this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last ----And +pray, _Yorick_, said my uncle _Toby_, which way is this said affair of +_Tristram_ at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, +replied _Yorick_; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it----for Mrs. +_Shandy_ the mother is nothing at all a-kin to him----and as the +mother’s is the surest side ----Mr. _Shandy_, in course, is still less +than nothing ------In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as I +am.---- + +----That may well be, said my father, shaking his head. + +----Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my +uncle _Toby_, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess +of _Suffolk_ and her son. + +The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth _Yorick_, to this hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Though my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned +discourses------’twas still but like the anointing of a broken +bone ------The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned +upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we +lean on slips from under us. --He became pensive--walked frequently +forth to the fish-pond--let down one loop of his hat----sigh’d +often----forbore to snap--and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which +occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and digestion, as +_Hippocrates_ tells us--he had certainly fallen ill with the extinction +of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health +rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a +thousand pounds, by my aunt _Dinah_. + +My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right +end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out +mostly to the honour of his family. --A hundred-and-fifty odd projects +took possession of his brains by turns--he would do this, and that, and +t’other --He would go to _Rome_----he would go to law----he would buy +stock----he would buy _John Hobson’s_ farm--he would new fore-front his +house, and add a new wing to make it even ----There was a fine water-mill +on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other side of the +river in full view to answer it --But above all things in the world, he +would inclose the great _Ox-moor_, and send out my brother _Bobby_ +immediately upon his travels. + +But as the sum was _finite_, and consequently could not do +everything----and in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the +projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last +seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have +determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at +above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour +either of the one or the other. + +This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though ’tis certain my +father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my +brother’s education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to +carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the +second creation of actions in the _Missisippi_-scheme, in which he was +an adventurer----yet the _Ox-moor_, which was a fine, large, whinny, +undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the _Shandy_-estate, had +almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his +heart upon turning it likewise to some account. + +But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of +things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of +their claims----like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice +or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every +other project at this crisis------the two old projects, the OX-MOOR and +my BROTHER, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each +other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old +gentleman’s mind--which of the two should be set o’going first. + +----People may laugh as they will--but the case was this. + +It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was +almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should +have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before +marriage--not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by +the benefit of exercise and change of so much air--but simply for the +mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of +having been abroad--_tantum valet_, my father would say, _quantum +sonat_. + +Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian +indulgence----to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore----and +thereby make an example of him, as the first _Shandy_ unwhirl’d about +_Europe_ in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad----would +be using him ten times worse than a Turk. + +On the other hand, the case of the _Ox-moor_ was full as hard. + +Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred +pounds----it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit +about fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and +vexation. + +It had been moreover in possession of the _Shandy_-family ever since the +middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the +house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by +the projected wind-mill, spoken of above--and for all these reasons +seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care +and protection of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common +to men, as well as the ground they tread on----it had all along most +shamefully been overlook’d; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered +so much by it, that it would have made any man’s heart have bled +(_Obadiah_ said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode over +it, and only seen the condition it was in. + +However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground----nor indeed +the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, +of my father’s doing----he had never thought himself any way concerned +in the affair------till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out +of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its +boundaries)------which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it +naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing +them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he +was bound to do something for it----and that now or never was the time. + +I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, that +the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by +each other; for though my father weigh’d them in all humours and +conditions------spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and +abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done--reading books of +farming one day------books of travels another----laying aside all +passion whatever--viewing the arguments on both sides in all their +lights and circumstances--communing every day with my uncle +_Toby_--arguing with _Yorick_, and talking over the whole affair of the +_Ox-moor_ with _Obadiah_------yet nothing in all that time appeared so +strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable +to the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration +of equal weight, as to keep the scales even. + +For to be sure, with proper helps, and in the hands of some people, tho’ +the _Ox-moor_ would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the +world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay----yet +every tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother _Bobby_----let +_Obadiah_ say what he would.------ + +In point of interest----the contest, I own, at first sight, did not +appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and +ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and +burning, and fencing in the _Ox-moor_ &c. &c. --with the certain profit +it would bring him in return----the latter turned out so prodigiously in +his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the _Ox-moor_ +would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a +hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first +year----besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following----and the +year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred----but in all +likelihood, a hundred and fifty------if not two hundred quarters of +pease and beans----besides potatoes without end. ----But then, to think +he was all this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat +them----knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old +gentleman in such a state of suspence----that, as he often declared to +my uncle _Toby_----he knew no more than his heels what to do. + +No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it +is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, +both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for +to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is +unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which +you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart +to the head, and so on----it is not to be told in what a degree such a +wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid parts, +wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time as it +goes backwards and forwards. + +My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had +done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME----had he not been rescued out of +it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil------the misfortune of my +brother _Bobby’s_ death. + +What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? +------from sorrow to sorrow? ------to button up one cause of +vexation------and unbutton another? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +From this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the _Shandy_ +family----and it is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE +and my OPINIONS sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have +but been clearing the ground to raise the building----and such a +building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as +never was executed since _Adam_. In less than five minutes I shall have +thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is +left remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it --I have but half +a score things to do in the time ----I have a thing to name----a thing +to lament----a thing to hope----a thing to promise, and a thing to +threaten --I have a thing to suppose--a thing to declare----a thing to +conceal----a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for ------This chapter, +therefore, I _name_ the chapter of THINGS------and my next chapter to +it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my +chapter upon WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my +works. + +The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, +that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards +which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; +and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle _Toby_, +the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a +cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the same impressions +to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves excite in my +own --I will answer for it the book shall make its way in the world, +much better than its master has done before it. ----Oh _Tristram!_ +_Tristram!_ can this but be once brought about----the credit, which will +attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils which have +befallen thee as a man----thou wilt feast upon the one----when thou hast +lost all sense and remembrance of the other!---- + +No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours --They are the +choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em----assure +yourselves, good folks--(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes +offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words! +----and that’s the thing I have to _declare_. ------I shall never get +all through in five minutes, that I fear----and the thing I _hope_ is, +that your worships and reverences are not offended--if you are, depend +upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be offended +at----that’s my dear _Jenny’s_ way--but who my _Jenny_ is--and which is +the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be +_concealed_--it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my +chapter of Button-holes----and not one chapter before. + +And now that you have just got to the end of these[4.14] four +volumes----the thing I have to _ask_ is, how you feel your heads? my own +akes dismally! ------as for your healths, I know, they are much better. +--True _Shandeism_, think what you will against it, opens the heart and +lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it +forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely +through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and chearfully +round. + +Was I left, like _Sancho Panca_, to choose my kingdom, it should not be +maritime--or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of; --no, it should be +a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more +saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have +as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politick as body +natural----and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those +passions, and subject them to reason ------I should add to my +prayer--that God would give my subjects grace to be as WISE as they were +MERRY; and then should I be the happiest monarch, and they the happiest +people under heaven. + +And so, with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and +your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, +when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the meantime) I’ll have +another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you +little dream of. + + [Footnote 4.14: According to the original Editions.] + + + + + THE LIFE AND OPINIONS + OF + TRISTRAM SHANDY + GENTLEMAN + + + Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris + Cum venia dabis. ---- HOR. + + --Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut + mordacius quam deceat Christianum--non Ego, sed Democritus dixit. -- + ERASMUS. + + Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, + sciebat, anathema esto. -- SECOND COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE. + + + + + TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + + JOHN, + + LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER + + + MY LORD, + +I humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes;[D.1] they are the +best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce: --had +Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much +more proper present to your Lordship. + +I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate +this work to you, I join Lady SPENCER, in the liberty I take of +inscribing the story of _Le Fever_ to her name; for which I have no +other motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a +humane one. + + + I am, + + MY LORD, + + Your Lordship’s most devoted + and most humble Servant, + + LAUR. STERNE. + + [Footnote D.1: Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition.] + + + + +BOOK V + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +If it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a +postillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had +never entered my head. He flew like lightning----there was a slope of +three miles and a half----we scarce touched the ground----the motion was +most rapid----most impetuous------’twas communicated to my brain--my +heart partook of it---- “By the great God of day,” said I, looking +towards the sun, and thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the +chaise, as I made my vow, “I will lock up my study-door the moment I get +home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the +earth, into the draw-well at the back of my house.” + +The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon +the hill, scarce progressive, drag’d--drag’d up by eight _heavy +beasts_-- “by main strength! ----quoth I, nodding----but your betters +draw the same way----and something of everybody’s! ----O rare!” + +Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the +_bulk_--so little to the _stock?_ + +Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by +pouring only out of one vessel into another? + +Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever +in the same track--for ever at the same pace? + +Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as +working-days, to be shewing the _relicks of learning_, as monks do the +relicks of their saints--without working one--one single miracle with +them? + +Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a +moment--that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the +world--the _miracle_ of nature, as Zoroaster in his book περι φύσεως +called him--the SHEKINAH of the divine presence, as Chrysostom----the +_image_ of God, as Moses----the _ray_ of divinity, as Plato--the +_marvel_ of _marvels_, as Aristotle--to go sneaking on at this +pitiful--pimping--pettifogging rate? + +I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion------but if there +is no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, +that every imitator in _Great Britain_, _France_, and _Ireland_, had the +farcy for his pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large +enough to hold--aye--and sublimate them, _shag rag and bob-tail_, male +and female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of +_Whiskers_----but, by what chain of ideas --I leave as a legacy in +_mort-main_ to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of. + + +UPON WHISKERS + +I’m sorry I made it----’twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered +a man’s head ----A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear +it--’tis a delicate world----but I knew not of what mettle it was +made--nor had I ever seen the underwritten fragment; otherwise, as +surely as noses are noses, and whiskers are whiskers still (let the +world say what it will to the contrary); so surely would I have steered +clear of this dangerous chapter. + + +THE FRAGMENT + + * * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * * ------You are +half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking hold of the +old lady’s hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze, as he pronounced the +word _Whiskers_----shall we change the subject? By no means, replied the +old lady --I like your account of those matters; so throwing a thin gauze +handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back upon the chair with her +face turned towards him, and advancing her two feet as she reclined +herself ----I desire, continued she, you will go on. + +The old gentleman went on as follows: ------Whiskers! cried the queen of +_Navarre_, dropping her knotting ball, as _La Fosseuse_ uttered the +word ----Whiskers, madam, said _La Fosseuse_, pinning the ball to the +queen’s apron, and making a courtesy as she repeated it. + +_La Fosseuse’s_ voice was naturally soft and low, yet ’twas an +articulate voice: and every letter of the word _Whiskers_ fell +distinctly upon the queen of _Navarre’s_ ear --Whiskers! cried the +queen, laying a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still +distrusted her ears ----Whiskers! replied _La Fosseuse_, repeating the +word a third time ----There is not a cavalier, madam, of his age in +_Navarre_, continued the maid of honour, pressing the page’s interest +upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair ----Of what? cried _Margaret_, +smiling --Of whiskers, said _La Fosseuse_, with infinite modesty. + +The word _Whiskers_ still stood its ground, and continued to be made use +of in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of +_Navarre_, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which _La Fosseuse_ had +made of it: the truth was, _La Fosseuse_ had pronounced the word, not +only before the queen, but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an +accent which always implied something of a mystery --And as the court of +_Margaret_, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of +gallantry and devotion----and whiskers being as applicable to the one, +as the other, the word naturally stood its ground----it gain’d full as +much as it lost; that is, the clergy were for it----the laity were +against it----and for the women, ----_they_ were divided. + +The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur _De Croix_, was +at that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honour +towards the terrace before the palace gate, where the guard was mounted. +The lady _De Baussiere_ fell deeply in love with him, ----_La +Battarelle_ did the same--it was the finest weather for it, that ever +was remembered in _Navarre_----_La Guyol_, _La Maronette_, _La +Sabatiere_, fell in love with the Sieur _De Croix_ also----_La Rebours_ +and _La Fosseuse_ knew better----_De Croix_ had failed in an attempt to +recommend himself to _La Rebours_; and _La Rebours_ and _La Fosseuse_ +were inseparable. + +The queen of _Navarre_ was sitting with her ladies in the painted +bow-window, facing the gate of the second court, as _De Croix_ passed +through it --He is handsome, said the Lady _Baussiere_. ----He has a +good mien, said _La Battarelle_ ----He is finely shaped, said _La Guyol_ +--I never saw an officer of the horse-guards in my life, said _La +Maronette_, with two such legs ----Or who stood so well upon them, said +_La Sabatiere_ ------But he has no whiskers, cried _La Fosseuse_ ----Not +a pile, said _La Rebours_. + +The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as she +walked through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it this way and +that way in her fancy--_Ave Maria!_------what can _La Fosseuse_ mean? +said she, kneeling down upon the cushion. + +_La Guyol_, _La Battarelle_, _La Maronette_, _La Sabatiere_, retired +instantly to their chambers ------Whiskers! said all four of them to +themselves, as they bolted their doors on the inside. + +The Lady _Carnavallette_ was counting her beads with both hands, +unsuspected, under her farthingal----from St. _Antony_ down to St. +_Ursula_ inclusive, not a saint passed through her fingers without +whiskers; St. _Francis_, St. _Dominick_, St. _Bennet_, St. _Basil_, St. +_Bridget_, had all whiskers. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ had got into a wilderness of conceits, with +moralizing too intricately upon _La Fosseuse’s_ text ----She mounted her +palfrey, her page followed her----the host passed by--the Lady +_Baussiere_ rode on. + +One denier, cried the order of mercy--one single denier, in behalf of a +thousand patient captives, whose eyes look towards heaven and you for +their redemption. + +----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly +holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered hands ----I beg for +the unfortunate--good my Lady, ’tis for a prison--for an hospital--’tis +for an old man--a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by +fire ----I call God and all his angels to witness----’tis to clothe the +naked----to feed the hungry----’tis to comfort the sick and the +broken-hearted. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground. + +----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by +the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, etc. +----Cousin, aunt, sister, mother, ----for virtue’s sake, for your own, +for mine, for Christ’s sake, remember me----pity me. + +----The Lady _Baussiere_ rode on. + +Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady _Baussiere_ ----The page took +hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace. + +There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves +about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it, +somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the +stronger--we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary. + +Ha, ha! he, hee! cried _La Guyol_ and _La Sabatiere_, looking close at +each other’s prints ----Ho, ho! cried _La Battarelle_ and _Maronette_, +doing the same: --Whist! cried one--st, st, --said a second--hush, quoth +a third--poo, poo, replied a fourth--gramercy! cried the Lady +_Carnavallette_; ----’twas she who bewhisker’d St. _Bridget_. + +_La Fosseuse_ drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having +traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon +one side of her upper lip, put it into _La Rebours’_ hand--_La Rebours_ +shook her head. + +The Lady _Baussiere_ coughed thrice into the inside of her muff--_La +Guyol_ smiled --Fy, said the Lady _Baussiere_. The queen of _Navarre_ +touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger--as much as to say, +I understand you all. + +’Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: _La Fosseuse_ had +given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all +these defiles ----It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by +the expiration of which, the Sieur _De Croix_, finding it high time to +leave _Navarre_ for want of whiskers----the word in course became +indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use. + +The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have +suffered under such combinations. ------The curate of _d’Estella_ wrote +a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and +warning the _Navarois_ against them. + +Does not all the world know, said the curate _d’Estella_ at the +conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate some centuries ago +in most parts of _Europe_, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom +of _Navarre?_ --The evil indeed spread no farther then--but have not +beds and bolsters, and nightcaps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink +of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and +pump-handles--and spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same +association? ----Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all +affections--give it but its head----’tis like a ramping and a roaring +lion. + +The drift of the curate _d’Estella’s_ argument was not understood. +--They ran the scent the wrong way. --The world bridled his ass at the +tail. --And when the _extremes_ of DELICACY, and the _beginnings_ of +CONCUPISCENCE, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may +decree that bawdy also. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +When my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy +account of my brother _Bobby’s_ death, he was busy calculating the +expence of his riding post from _Calais_ to _Paris_, and so on to +_Lyons_. + +’Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it +to travel over again, and his calculation to begin afresh, when he had +almost got to the end of it, by _Obadiah’s_ opening the door to acquaint +him the family was out of yeast--and to ask whether he might not take +the great coach-horse early in the morning and ride in search of some. +--With all my heart, _Obadiah_, said my father (pursuing his +journey)--take the coach-horse, and welcome. ----But he wants a shoe, +poor creature! said _Obadiah_. ----Poor creature! said my uncle _Toby_, +vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison. Then ride the +_Scotch_ horse, quoth my father hastily. --He cannot bear a saddle upon +his back, quoth _Obadiah_, for the whole world. ----The devil’s in that +horse; then take PATRIOT, cried my father, and shut the door. +----PATRIOT is sold, said _Obadiah_. Here’s for you! cried my father, +making a pause, and looking in my uncle _Toby’s_ face, as if the thing +had not been a matter of fact. --Your worship ordered me to sell him +last _April_, said _Obadiah_. --Then go on foot for your pains, cried my +father ----I had much rather walk than ride, said _Obadiah_, shutting +the door. + +What plagues, cried my father, going on with his calculation. ----But +the waters are out, said _Obadiah_, --opening the door again. + +Till that moment, my father, who had a map of _Sanson’s_, and a book of +the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his +compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon _Nevers_, the last stage he +had paid for--purposing to go on from that point with his journey and +calculation, as soon as _Obadiah_ quitted the room: but this second +attack of _Obadiah’s_, in opening the door and laying the whole country +under water, was too much. ----He let go his compasses--or rather with a +mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table; +and then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to _Calais_ +(like many others) as wise as he had set out. + +When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news +of my brother’s death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey +to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of _Nevers_. +----By your leave, Mons. _Sanson_, cried my father, striking the point +of his compasses through _Nevers_ into the table--and nodding to my +uncle _Toby_ to see what was in the letter--twice of one night, is too +much for an _English_ gentleman and his son, Mons. _Sanson_, to be +turned back from so lousy a town as _Nevers_ --What think’st thou, +_Toby?_ added my father in a sprightly tone. ----Unless it be a garrison +town, said my uncle _Toby_----for then ----I shall be a fool, said my +father, smiling to himself, as long as I live. --So giving a second +nod--and keeping his compasses still upon _Nevers_ with one hand, and +holding his book of the post-roads in the other--half calculating and +half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as +my uncle _Toby_ hummed over the letter. + + ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- + ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- + ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +---- ---- ---- --he’s gone! said my uncle _Toby_. ----Where ----Who? +cried my father. ----My nephew, said my uncle _Toby_. ----What--without +leave--without money--without governor? cried my father in amazement. +No: ----he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_. --Without +being ill? cried my father again. --I dare say not, said my uncle +_Toby_, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his +heart, he has been ill enough, poor lad! I’ll answer for him----for he +is dead. + +When _Agrippina_ was told of her son’s death, _Tacitus_ informs us, +that, not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she +abruptly broke off her work. --My father stuck his compasses into +_Nevers_, but so much the faster. --What contrarieties! his, indeed, was +matter of calculation! --_Agrippina’s_ must have been quite a different +affair; who else could pretend to reason from history? + +How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.-- + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +---- ----And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too--so look +to yourselves. + +’Tis either _Plato_, or _Plutarch_, or _Seneca_, or _Xenophon_, or +_Epictetus_, or _Theophrastus_, or _Lucian_--or some one perhaps of +later date--either _Cardan_, or _Budæus_, or _Petrarch_, or _Stella_--or +possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. _Austin_, or +St. _Cyprian_, or _Barnard_, who affirms that it is an irresistible and +natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children--and +_Seneca_ (I’m positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate +themselves best by that particular channel --And accordingly we find, +that _David_ wept for his son _Absalom_--_Adrian_ for his +_Antinous_--_Niobe_ for her children, and that _Apollodorus_ and _Crito_ +both shed tears for _Socrates_ before his death. + +My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from +most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the +_Hebrews_ and the _Romans_--or slept it off, as the _Laplanders_--or +hanged it, as the _English_, or drowned it, as the _Germans_--nor did he +curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or lillabullero +it.---- + +----He got rid of it, however. + +Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two +pages? + +When _Tully_ was bereft of his dear daughter _Tullia_, at first he laid +it to his heart, --he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his +own unto it. --O my _Tullia!_ my daughter! my child! --still, still, +still, --’twas O my _Tullia!_--my _Tullia!_ Methinks I see my _Tullia_, +I hear my _Tullia_, I talk with my _Tullia_. --But as soon as he began +to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent +things might be said upon the occasion--nobody upon earth can conceive, +says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me. + +My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could +be for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at +present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength--and his +weakness too. ----His strength--for he was by nature eloquent; and his +weakness--for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in +life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise +thing, a witty, or a shrewd one--(bating the case of a systematic +misfortune)--he had all he wanted. --A blessing which tied up my +father’s tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, +were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of +the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as _ten_, +and the pain of the misfortune but as _five_--my father gained half in +half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never +befallen him. + +This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my +father’s domestic character; and it is this, that, in the provocations +arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps +unavoidable in a family, his anger or rather the duration of it, +eternally ran counter to all conjecture. + +My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a +most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his +own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad +every day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke, +--and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some +neglect or other in _Obadiah_, it so fell out, that my father’s +expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly +a beast of the kind as ever was produced. + +My mother and my uncle _Toby_ expected my father would be the death of +_Obadiah_--and that there never would be an end of the disaster. ----See +here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have +done! ----It was not me, said _Obadiah_. ----How do I know that? replied +my father. + +Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee--the _Attic_ salt +brought water into them--and so _Obadiah_ heard no more about it. + +Now let us go back to my brother’s death. + +Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. --For _Death_ it has an +entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father’s +head, that ’twas difficult to string them together, so as to make +anything of a consistent show out of them. --He took them as they came. + +“’Tis an inevitable chance--the first statute in _Magna Charta_--it is +an everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother, ----_All must die._ + +“If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder, --not that +he is dead. + +“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us. + +“--_To die_, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and +monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and +the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have erected, +has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller’s horizon.” +(My father found he got great ease, and went on)-- “Kingdoms and +provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when +those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them +together, have performed their several evolutions, they fall back.” +--Brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, laying down his pipe at the +word _evolutions_ --Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father, --by heaven! +I meant revolutions, brother _Toby_--evolutions is nonsense. ----’Tis +not nonsense, --said my uncle _Toby_. ----But is it not nonsense to +break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my +father--do not--dear _Toby_, continued he, taking him by the hand, do +not--do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis. ----My uncle +_Toby_ put his pipe into his mouth. + +“Where is _Troy_ and _Mycenæ_, and _Thebes_ and _Delos_, and +_Persepolis_ and _Agrigentum?_” --continued my father, taking up his +book of post-cards, which he had laid down. --“What is become, brother +_Toby_, of _Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, of _Cizicum_ and _Mitylenæ?_ The +fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names +only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling +themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be +forgotten, and involved with everything in a perpetual night: the world +itself, brother _Toby_, must--must come to an end. + +“Returning out of _Asia_, when I sailed from _Ægina_ towards _Megara_,” +(_when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby_) “I began to view the +country round about. _Ægina_ was behind me, _Megara_ was before, +_Pyræus_ on the right hand, _Corinth_ on the left. --What flourishing +towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that +man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as +this lies awfully buried in his presence ----Remember, said I to myself +again--remember thou art a man.”-- + +Now my uncle _Toby_ knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of +_Servius Sulpicius’s_ consolatory letter to _Tully_. --He had as little +skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of +antiquity. --And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the _Turkey_ +trade, had been three or four different times in the _Levant_, in one of +which he had staid a whole year and an half at _Zant_, my uncle _Toby_ +naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had taken a +trip across the _Archipelago_ into _Asia_; and that all this sailing +affair with _Ægina_ behind, and _Megara_ before, and _Pyræus_ on the +right hand, &c., &c., was nothing more than the true course of my +father’s voyage and reflections. --’Twas certainly in his _manner_, and +many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon +worse foundations. --And pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying +the end of his pipe upon my father’s hand in a kindly way of +interruption--but waiting till he finished the account--what year of our +Lord was this? --’Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father. --That’s +impossible, cried my uncle _Toby_. --Simpleton! said my father, --’twas +forty years before Christ was born. + +My uncle _Toby_ had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother +to be the wandering _Jew_, or that his misfortunes had disordered his +brain. --“May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore +him,” said my uncle _Toby_, praying silently for my father, and with +tears in his eyes. + +--My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his +harangue with great spirit. + +“There is not such great odds, brother _Toby_, betwixt good and evil, as +the world imagines”----(this way of setting off, by the bye, was not +likely to cure my uncle _Toby’s_ suspicions.)---- “Labour, sorrow, +grief, sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life.” --Much good may +it do them--said my uncle _Toby_ to himself.------ + +“My son is dead! --so much the better; --’tis a shame in such a tempest +to have but one anchor.” + +“But he is gone for ever from us! --be it so. He is got from under the +hands of his barber before he was bald--he is but risen from a feast +before he was surfeited--from a banquet before he had got drunken.” + +“The _Thracians_ wept when a child was born”--(and we were very near it, +quoth my uncle _Toby_)-- “and feasted and made merry when a man went out +of the world; and with reason. ----Death opens the gate of fame, and +shuts the gate of envy after it, --it unlooses the chain of the captive, +and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands.” + +“Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll shew +thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.” + +Is it not better, my dear brother _Toby_, (for mark--our appetites are +but diseases)--is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat? --not +to thirst, than to take physic to cure it? + +Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and +melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled +traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey +afresh? + +There is no terrour, brother _Toby_, in its looks, but what it borrows +from groans and convulsions--and the blowing of noses and the wiping +away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s room. +--Strip it of these, what is it? --’Tis better in battle than in bed, +said my uncle _Toby_. --Take away its herses, its mutes, and its +mourning, --its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aids --What is +it? ----_Better in battle!_ continued my father, smiling, for he had +absolutely forgot my brother _Bobby_--’tis terrible no way--for +consider, brother _Toby_, --when we _are_--death is _not_; --and when +death _is_--we are _not_. My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to consider +the proposition; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for any +man--away it went, --and hurried my uncle _Toby’s_ ideas along with +it.---- + +For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to recollect how +little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made. +--_Vespasian_ died in a jest upon his close-stool--_Galba_ with a +sentence--_Septimus Severus_ in a dispatch--_Tiberius_ in dissimulation, +and _Cæsar Augustus_ in a compliment. --I hope ’twas a sincere +one--quoth my uncle _Toby_. + +--’Twas to his wife, --said my father. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +----And lastly--for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce +of this matter, continued my father, --this, like the gilded dome which +covers in the fabric--crowns all.-- + +’Tis of _Cornelius Gattus_, the prætor--which, I dare say, brother +_Toby_, you have read, --I dare say I have not, replied my uncle. ----He +died, said my father, as *************** --And if it was with his wife, +said my uncle _Toby_--there could be no hurt in it --That’s more than I +know--replied my father. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which +led to the parlour, as my uncle _Toby_ pronounced the word _wife_. +--’Tis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and _Obadiah_ had helped it +by leaving the door a little a-jar, so that my mother heard enough of it +to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge +of her finger across her two lips--holding in her breath, and bending +her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neck--(not towards the +door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink)--she +listened with all her powers: ----the listening slave, with the Goddess +of Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an +intaglio. + +In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till +I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as _Rapin_ does those of the +church) to the same period. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Though in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it +consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it, +that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and +acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and +impulses----that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour +and advantages of a complex one, ----and a number of as odd movements +within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a _Dutch_ silk-mill. + +Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, +it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this, +that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or +dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally +another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel +along with it in the kitchen. + +Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, +was delivered in the parlour--or a discourse suspended till a servant +went out--or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the +brows of my father or mother--or, in short, when anything was supposed +to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to +leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar--as it stands +just now, --which, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly +might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended), it was not +difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was +generally left, not indeed as wide as the _Dardanelles_, but wide +enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this wind-ward trade, as +was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house; +--my mother at this moment stands profiting by it. --_Obadiah_ did the +same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which +brought the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had +well got over his surprise, and entered upon this harangue, --had _Trim_ +got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject. + +A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all +Job’s stock--though by the by, _your curious observers are seldom worth +a groat_--would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal _Trim_ +and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, +haranguing over the same bier. + +My father--a man of deep reading--prompt memory--with _Cato_, and +_Seneca_, and _Epictetus_, at his fingers ends.-- + +The corporal--with nothing--to remember--of no deeper reading than his +muster-roll--or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of +it. + +The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and +striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with +the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images. + +The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or +that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, +going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. +O _Trim!_ would to heaven thou had’st a better historian! --would thy +historian had a better pair of breeches! ----O ye critics! will nothing +melt you? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +------My young master in _London_ is dead! said _Obadiah_.-- + +------A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s which had been twice +scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah’s_ exclamation brought into +_Susannah’s_ head. --Well might _Locke_ write a chapter upon the +imperfection of words. --Then, quoth _Susannah_, we must all go into +mourning. --But note a second time: the word _mourning_, notwithstanding +_Susannah_ made use of it herself--failed also of doing its office; it +excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black, --all was +green. ----The green sattin night-gown hung there still. + +--O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah_. --My +mother’s whole wardrobe followed. --What a procession! her red damask, +--her orange tawney, --her white and yellow lutestrings, --her brown +taffata, --her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable +under-petticoats. --Not a rag was left behind. --“_No, --she will never +look up again_,” said _Susannah_. + +We had a fat, foolish scullion--my father, I think, kept her for her +simplicity; --she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy. --He is +dead, said _Obadiah_, --he is certainly dead! --So am not I, said the +foolish scullion. + +----Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as +_Trim_ stepp’d into the kitchen, --master _Bobby_ is dead and +_buried_--the funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah’s_--we shall +have all to go into mourning, said _Susannah_. + +I hope not, said _Trim_. --You hope not! cried _Susannah_ earnestly. +--The mourning ran not in _Trim’s_ head, whatever it did in +_Susannah’s_. --I hope--said _Trim_, explaining himself, I hope in God +the news is not true. --I heard the letter read with my own ears, +answered _Obadiah_; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in +stubbing the Ox-moor. --Oh! he’s dead, said _Susannah_. --As sure, said +the scullion, as I’m alive. + +I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said _Trim_, fetching a +sigh. --Poor creature! --poor boy! --poor gentleman. + +--He was alive last _Whitsontide!_ said the coachman. --_Whitsontide!_ +alas! cried _Trim_, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into +the same attitude in which he read the sermon, --what is _Whitsontide_, +_Jonathan_ (for that was the coachman’s name), or _Shrovetide_, or any +tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal +(striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to +give an idea of health and stability)--and are we not--(dropping his hat +upon the ground) gone! in a moment! --’Twas infinitely striking! +_Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears. --We are not stocks and stones. +--_Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, the cook-maid, all melted. --The foolish fat +scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was +rous’d with it. --The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. + +Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in +church and state, --and possibly the preservation of the whole world--or +what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and +power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding +of this stroke of the corporal’s eloquence --I do demand your +attention--your worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, +take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for +it at your ease. + +I said, “we were not stocks and stones”--’tis very well. I should have +added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, --but men clothed with bodies, +and governed by our imaginations; --and what a junketing piece of work +of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of +them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice +to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the +touch, though most of your _Barbati_, I know, are for it) has the +quickest commerce with the soul, --gives a smarter stroke, and leaves +something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either +convey--or sometimes, get rid of. + +--I’ve gone a little about--no matter, ’tis for health--let us only +carry it back in our mind to the mortality of _Trim’s_ hat. --“Are we +not here now, --and gone in a moment?” --There was nothing in the +sentence--’twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of +hearing every day; and if _Trim_ had not trusted more to his hat than +his head--he had made nothing at all of it. + +------“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we +not”--(dropping his hat plump upon the ground--and pausing, before he +pronounced the word)-- “gone! in a moment?” The descent of the hat was +as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneeded into the crown of it. +----Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it +was the type and fore-runner, like it, --his hand seemed to vanish from +under it, --it fell dead, --the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a +corpse, --and _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears. + +Now --Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and +motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the +ground, without any effect. ----Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast +it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any +possible direction under heaven, --or in the best direction that could +be given to it, --had he dropped it like a goose--like a puppy--like an +ass--or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a +fool--like a ninny--like a nincompoop--it had fail’d, and the effect +upon the heart had been lost. + +Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the +_engines_ of eloquence, --who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and +mollify it, ----and then harden it again to _your purpose_---- + +Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having +done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet-- + +Ye, lastly, who drive----and why not, Ye also who are driven, like +turkeys to market with a stick and a red clout--meditate--meditate, +I beseech you, upon _Trim’s_ hat. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Stay ----I have a small account to settle with the reader before _Trim_ +can go on with his harangue. --It shall be done in two minutes. + +Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in due +time, --I own myself a debtor to the world for two items, --a chapter +upon _chamber-maids and button-holes_, which, in the former part of my +work, I promised and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of +your worships and reverences telling me, that the two subjects, +especially so connected together, might endanger the morals of the +world, --I pray the chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes may be +forgiven me, --and that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of +it; which is nothing, an’t please your reverences, but a chapter of +_chamber-maids, green gowns, and old hats_. + +_Trim_ took his off the ground, --put it upon his head, --and then went +on with his oration upon death, in manner and form following. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +------To us, _Jonathan_, who know not what want or care is--who live +here in the service of two of the best of masters--(bating in my own +case his majesty King _William_ the Third, whom I had the honour to +serve both in _Ireland_ and _Flanders_) --I own it, that from +_Whitsontide_ to within three weeks of _Christmas_, --’tis not +long--’tis like nothing; --but to those, _Jonathan_, who know what death +is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can well +wheel about--’tis like a whole age. --O _Jonathan!_ ’twould make a +good-natured man’s heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal +(standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has +been laid since that time! --And trust me, _Susy_, added the corporal, +turning to _Susannah_, whose eyes were swimming in water, --before that +time comes round again, --many a bright eye will be dim. --_Susannah_ +placed it to the right side of the page--she wept--but she court’sied +too. --Are we not, continued _Trim_, looking still at _Susannah_ --are +we not like a flower of the field--a tear of pride stole in betwixt +every two tears of humiliation--else no tongue could have described +_Susannah’s_ affliction--is not all flesh grass? --’Tis clay, --’tis +dirt. --They all looked directly at the scullion, --the scullion had +just been scouring a fish-kettle. --It was not fair.---- + +--What is the finest face that ever man looked at! --I could hear _Trim_ +talk so for ever, cried _Susannah_, --what is it! (_Susannah_ laid her +hand upon _Trim’s_ shoulder)--but corruption? ----_Susannah_ took it +off. + +Now I love you for this--and ’tis this delicious mixture within you +which makes you dear creatures what you are--and he who hates you for +it------all I can say of the matter is --That he has either a pumpkin +for his head--or a pippin for his heart, --and whenever he is dissected +’twill be found so. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Whether _Susannah_, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the +corporal’s shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions)----broke a +little the chain of his reflexions---- + +Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into the +doctor’s quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than +himself------ + +Or whether - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Or +whether----for in all such cases a man of invention and parts may with +pleasure fill a couple of pages with suppositions----which of all these +was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curious anybody +determine----’tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his +harangue. + +For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at +all: --not this ... added the corporal, snapping his fingers, --but with +an air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment. +--In battle, I value death not this . . . and let him not take me +cowardly, like poor _Joe Gibbins_, in scouring his gun --What is he? +A pull of a trigger--a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that--makes +the difference. --Look along the line--to the right--see! _Jack’s_ down! +well, --’tis worth a regiment of horse to him. --No--’tis _Dick_. Then +_Jack’s_ no worse. --Never mind which, --we pass on, --in hot pursuit +the wound itself which brings him is not felt, --the best way is to +stand up to him, --the man who flies, is in ten times more danger than +the man who marches up into his jaws. --I’ve look’d him, added the +corporal, an hundred times in the face, --and know what he is. --He’s +nothing, _Obadiah_, at all in the field. --But he’s very frightful in a +house, quoth _Obadiah_. ----I never mind it myself, said _Jonathan_, +upon a coach-box. --It must, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, +replied _Susannah_. --And could I escape him by creeping into the worst +calf’s skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it +there--said _Trim_--but that is nature. + +----Nature is nature, said _Jonathan_. --And that is the reason, cried +_Susannah_, I so much pity my mistress. --She will never get the better +of it. --Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family, +answered _Trim_. ----Madam will get ease of heart in weeping, --and the +Squire in talking about it, --but my poor master will keep it all in +silence to himself, --I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month +together, as he did for lieutenant _Le Fever_. --An’ please your honour, +do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him. +I cannot help it, _Trim_, my master would say, ----’tis so melancholy an +accident --I cannot get it off my heart. --Your honour fears not death +yourself. --I hope, _Trim_, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing +a wrong thing. ----Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take +care of _Le Fever’s_ boy. --And with that, like a quieting draught, his +honour would fall asleep. + +I like to hear _Trim’s_ stories about the captain, said _Susannah_. --He +is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said _Obadiah_, as ever lived. --Aye, and +as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a platoon. +--There never was a better officer in the king’s army, --or a better man +in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though +he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole, --and yet, for all +that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people. ----He would +not hurt a chicken. ----I would sooner, quoth _Jonathan_, drive such a +gentleman for seven pounds a year--than some for eight. --Thank thee, +_Jonathan!_ for thy twenty shillings, --as much, _Jonathan_, said the +corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into +my own pocket. ----I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. +He is a friend and a brother to me, --and could I be sure my poor +brother _Tom_ was dead, --continued the corporal, taking out his +handkerchief, --was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every +shilling of it to the captain. ----_Trim_ could not refrain from tears +at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master. +----The whole kitchen was affected. --Do tell us the story of the poor +lieutenant, said _Susannah_. ----With all my heart, answered the +corporal. + +_Susannah_, the cook, _Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, and corporal _Trim_, formed +a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the +kitchen door, --the corporal begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +I am a _Turk_ if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had +plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river +_Nile_, without one. ----Your most obedient servant, Madam --I’ve cost +you a great deal of trouble, --I wish it may answer; --but you have left +a crack in my back, --and here’s a great piece fallen off here before, +--and what must I do with this foot? ----I shall never reach _England_ +with it. + +For my own part, I never wonder at any thing; --and so often has my +judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or +wrong, --at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, +I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a +man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as +for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without, +--I’ll go to the world’s end with him: ----But I hate disputes, --and +therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society) I would +almost subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first +passage, rather than be drawn into one. ----But I cannot bear +suffocation, ----and bad smells worst of all. ----For which reasons, +I resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to +be augmented, --or a new one raised, --I would have no hand in it, one +way or t’other. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +----But to return to my mother. + + +My uncle _Toby’s_ opinion, Madam, “that there could be no harm in +_Cornelius Gallus_, the _Roman_ prætor’s lying with his wife;” ----or +rather the last word of that opinion, --(for it was all my mother heard +of it) caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex: ----You +shall not mistake me, --I mean her curiosity, --she instantly concluded +herself the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession +upon her fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said, was +accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns. + +----Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live, who would not have +done the same? + +From the strange mode of _Cornelius’s_ death, my father had made a +transition to that of _Socrates_, and was giving my uncle _Toby_ an +abstract of his pleading before his judges; ----’twas irresistible: +----not the oration of _Socrates_, --but my father’s temptation to it. +----He had wrote the Life of _Socrates_[5.1] himself the year before he +left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it; +----so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so +swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. +Not a period in _Socrates’s_ oration, which closed with a shorter word +than _transmigration_, or _annihilation_, --or a worse thought in the +middle of it than _to be--or not to be_, --the entering upon a new and +untried state of things, --or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful +sleep, without dreams, without disturbance? ----_That we and our +children were born to die, --but neither of us born to be slaves_. +----No--there I mistake; that was part of _Eleazer’s_ oration, as +recorded by _Josephus_ (_de Bell. Judaic._)----_Eleazer_ owns he had it +from the philosophers of _India_; in all likelihood _Alexander_ the +Great, in his irruption into _India_, after he had over-run _Persia_, +amongst the many things he stole, --stole that sentiment also; by which +means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he +died at _Babylon_), at least by some of his maroders, into _Greece_, +--from _Greece_ it got to _Rome_, --from _Rome_ to _France_, --and from +_France_ to _England_: ----So things come round.---- + +By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.---- + +By water the sentiment might easily have come down the _Ganges_ into the +_Sinus Gangeticus_, or _Bay of Bengal_, and so into the _Indian Sea_; +and following the course of trade (the way from _India_ by the _Cape of +Good Hope_ being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and +spices up the _Red Sea_ to _Joddah_, the port of _Mekka_, or else to +_Tor_ or _Sues_, towns at the bottom of the gulf; and from thence by +karrawans to _Coptos_, but three days’ journey distant, so down the +_Nile_ directly to _Alexandria_, where the SENTIMENT would be landed at +the very foot of the great stair-case of the _Alexandrian_ library, +----and from that store-house it would be fetched. ------Bless me! what +a trade was driven by the learned in those days! + + [Footnote 5.1: This book my father would never consent to + publish; ’tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in + the family, all, or most of which will be printed in due time.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +----Now my father had a way, a little like that of _Job’s_ (in case +there ever was such a man----if not, there’s an end of the matter.---- + +Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in +fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived; --whether, for +instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c. ----to vote, therefore, +that he never lived _at all_, is a little cruel, --’tis not doing as +they would be done by, --happen that as it may) ----My father, I say, +had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon +the first sally of his impatience, --of wondering why he was begot, +--wishing himself dead; --sometimes worse: ----And when the provocation +ran high, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary +powers --Sir, you scarce could have distinguished him from _Socrates_ +himself. ----Every word would breathe the sentiments of a soul +disdaining life, and careless about all its issues; for which reason, +though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the abstract of +_Socrates’s_ oration, which my father was giving my uncle _Toby_, was +not altogether new to her. --She listened to it with composed +intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter, had not +my father plunged (which he had no occasion to have done) into that part +of the pleading where the great philosopher reckons up his connections, +his alliances, and children; but renounces a security to be so won by +working upon the passions of his judges. --“I have friends --I have +relations, --I have three desolate children,” --says _Socrates_.-- + +----Then, cried my mother, opening the door, ----you have one more, Mr. +_Shandy_, than I know of. + +By heaven! I have one less, --said my father, getting up and walking out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +----They are _Socrates’s_ children, said my uncle _Toby_. He has been +dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother. + +My uncle _Toby_ was no chronologer--so not caring to advance one step +but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the table, +and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without +saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out after my +father, that he might finish the ecclaircissement himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Had this volume been a farce, which, unless every one’s life and +opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no +reason to suppose--the last chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of +it, and then this chapter must have set off thus. + +Ptr..r..r..ing--twing--twang--prut--trut----’tis a cursed bad fiddle. +--Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or no? --trut..prut.. --They +should be _fifths_. ----’Tis wickedly strung--tr...a.e.i.o.u.-twang. +--The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down, +--else--trut . . prut--hark! ’tis not so bad a tone. --Diddle diddle, +diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before +good judges, --but there’s a man there--no--not him with the bundle +under his arm--the grave man in black. --’Sdeath! not the gentleman with +the sword on. --Sir, I had rather play a _Caprichio_ to _Calliope_ +herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet +I’ll stake my _Cremona_ to a _Jew’s_ trump, which is the greatest +musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three +hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing +one single nerve that belongs to him --Twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle, +--twiddle diddle, ----twoddle diddle, --twuddle diddle, ----prut +trut--krish--krash--krush. --I’ve undone you, Sir, --but you see he’s no +worse, --and was _Apollo_ to take his fiddle after me, he can make him +no better. + +Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle--hum--dum--drum. + +--Your worships and your reverences love music--and God has made you all +with good ears--and some of you play delightfully yourselves--trut-prut, +--prut-trut. + +O! there is--whom I could sit and hear whole days, --whose talents lie +in making what he fiddles to be felt, --who inspires me with his joys +and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion. +--If you would borrow five guineas of me, Sir, --which is generally ten +guineas more than I have to spare--or you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, +want your bills paying, --that’s your time. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The first thing which entered my father’s head, after affairs were a +little settled in the family, and _Susannah_ had got possession of my +mother’s green sattin night-gown, --was to sit down coolly, after the +example of _Xenophon_, and write a TRISTRA-pædia, or system of education +for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, +counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an +INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my +father’s last stake--he had lost my brother _Bobby_ entirely, --he had +lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me--that is, he had +been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me--my geniture, +nose, and name, --there was but this one left; and accordingly my father +gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle _Toby_ had +done to his doctrine of projectils. --The difference between them was, +that my uncle _Toby_ drew his whole knowledge of projectils from +_Nicholas Tartaglia_ --My father spun his, every thread of it, out of +his own brain, --or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and +spinsters had spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture +to him. + +In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced +almost into the middle of his work. --Like all other writers, he met +with disappointments. --He imagined he should be able to bring whatever +he had to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and +bound, it might be rolled up in my mother’s hussive. --Matter grows +under our hands. --Let no man say, --“Come --I’ll write a duodecimo.” + +My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful +diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of +caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious +a principle) as was used by _John de la Casse_, the lord archbishop of +_Benevento_, in compassing his _Galatea_; in which his Grace of +_Benevento_ spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came +out, it was not of above half the size or the thickness of a _Rider’s_ +Almanack. --How the holy man managed the affair, unless he spent the +greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at +_primero_ with his chaplain, --would pose any mortal not let into the +true secret; --and therefore ’tis worth explaining to the world, was it +only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to +be fed--as to be famous. + +I own had _John de la Casse_, the archbishop of _Benevento_, for whose +memory (notwithstanding his _Galatea_) I retain the highest veneration, +--had he been, Sir, a slender clerk--of dull wit--slow parts--costive +head, and so forth, --he and his _Galatea_ might have jogged on together +to the age of _Methuselah_ for me, --the phænomenon had not been worth a +parenthesis.-- + +But the reverse of this was the truth: _John de la Casse_ was a genius +of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these advantages of +nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his _Galatea_, he +lay under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and +a half in the compass of a whole summer’s day: this disability in his +Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted with, --which opinion was +this, --_viz._ that whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his +private amusement, but) where his intent and purpose was, _bonâ fide_, +to print and publish it to the world, his first thoughts were always the +temptations of the evil one. --This was the state of ordinary writers: +but when a personage of venerable character and high station, either in +church or state, once turned author, --he maintained, that from the very +moment he took pen in hand--all the devils in hell broke out of their +holes to cajole him. --’Twas Term-time with them, --every thought, first +and last, was captious; --how specious and good soever, --’twas all one; +--in whatever form or colour it presented itself to the imagination, +--’twas still a stroke of one or other of ’em levell’d at him, and was +to be fenced off. --So that the life of a writer, whatever he might +fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of _composition_, as a +state of _warfare_; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other +man militant upon earth, --both depending alike, not half so much upon +the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE. + +My father was hugely pleased with this theory of _John de la Casse_, +archbishop of _Benevento_; and (had it not cramped him a little in his +creed) I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the _Shandy_ +estate, to have been the broacher of it. --How far my father actually +believed in the devil, will be seen, when I come to speak of my father’s +religious notions, in the progress of this work: ’tis enough to say +here, as he could not have the honour of it, in the literal sense of the +doctrine--he took up with the allegory of it; and would often say, +especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good +meaning, truth, and knowledge, couched under the veil of _John de la +Casse’s_ parabolical representation, --as was to be found in any one +poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity. --Prejudice of education, +he would say, _is the devil_, --and the multitudes of them which we suck +in with our mother’s milk--_are the devil and all_. ----We are haunted +with them, brother _Toby_, in all our lucubrations and researches; and +was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they obtruded upon him, +--what would his book be? Nothing, --he would add, throwing his pen away +with a vengeance, --nothing but a farrago of the clack of nurses, and of +the nonsense of the old women (of both sexes) throughout the kingdom. + +This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my +father made in his _Tristra-pædia_; at which (as I said) he was three +years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, had +scarce completed, by his own reckoning, one half of his undertaking: the +misfortune was, that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned +to my mother: and what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first +part of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains, +was rendered entirely useless, ----every day a page or two became of no +consequence.---- + +----Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human +wisdom, That the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and +eternally forego our purposes, in the intemperate act of pursuing them. + +In short, my father was so long in all his acts of resistance, --or in +other words, --he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to +live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened, +----which, when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not +be concealed a moment from the reader ----I verily believe, I had put by +my father, and left him drawing a sun-dial, for no better purpose than +to be buried underground. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +----’Twas nothing, --I did not lose two drops of blood by it---- +----’twas not worth calling in a surgeon, had he lived next door to +us----thousands suffer by choice, what I did by accident. ----Doctor +_Slop_ made ten times more of it, than there was occasion: ----some men +rise, by the art of hanging great weights upon small wires, --and I am +this day (_August_ the 10th, 1761) paying part of the price of this +man’s reputation. ----O ’twould provoke a stone, to see how things are +carried on in this world! ----The chamber-maid had left no ******* *** +under the bed: ----Cannot you contrive, master, quoth _Susannah_, +lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into +the window-seat with the other, --cannot you manage, my dear, for a +single time, to **** *** ** *** ******? + +I was five years old. ----_Susannah_ did not consider that nothing was +well hung in our family, ----so slap came the sash down like lightning +upon us; --Nothing is left, --cried _Susannah_, --nothing is left--for +me, but to run my country.---- + +My uncle _Toby’s_ house was a much kinder sanctuary; and so _Susannah_ +fled to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +When _Susannah_ told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all +the circumstances which attended the _murder_ of me, --(as she +called it)-- the blood forsook his cheeks, --all accessaries in murder +being principals, --_Trim’s_ conscience told him he was as much to blame +as _Susannah_, --and if the doctrine had been true, my uncle _Toby_ had +as much of the bloodshed to answer for to heaven, as either of ’em; --so +that neither reason or instinct, separate or together, could possibly +have guided _Susannah’s_ steps to so proper an asylum. It is in vain to +leave this to the Reader’s imagination: --to form any kind of hypothesis +that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains +sore, --and to do it without, --he must have such brains as no reader +ever had before him. ----Why should I put them either to trial or to +torture? ’Tis my own affair: I’ll explain it myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +’Tis a pity, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, resting with his hand upon +the corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works, +--that we have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in the gorge of +that new redoubt; ----’twould secure the lines all along there, and make +the attack on that side quite complete: ----get me a couple cast, +_Trim_. + +Your honour shall have them, replied _Trim_, before to-morrow morning. + +It was the joy of _Trim’s_ heart, --nor was his fertile head ever at a +loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle _Toby_ in his +campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last +crown, he would have sate down and hammered it into a paderero, to have +prevented a single wish in his Master. The corporal had already, --what +with cutting off the ends of my uncle _Toby’s_ spouts--hacking and +chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters, --melting down his pewter +shaving-bason, --and going at last, like _Lewis_ the Fourteenth, on to +the top of the church, for spare ends, &c. ----he had that very campaign +brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three +demi-culverins, into the field; my uncle _Toby’s_ demand for two more +pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no +better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the +nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of +no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels +for one of their carriages. + +He had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle _Toby’s_ house long +before, in the very same way, --though not always in the same order; for +sometimes the pullies have been wanted, and not the lead, --so then he +began with the pullies, --and the pullies being picked out, then the +lead became useless, --and so the lead went to pot too. + +----A great MORAL might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not +time--’tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, ’twas equally +fatal to the sash window. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of +artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to +himself, and left _Susannah_ to have sustained the whole weight of the +attack, as she could; --true courage is not content with coming off so. +----The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of the train, +--’twas no matter, ----had done that, without which, as he imagined, the +misfortune could never have happened, --_at least in_ Susannah’s +_hands_; ----How would your honours have behaved? ----He determined at +once, not to take shelter behind _Susannah_, --but to give it; and with +this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to +lay the whole _manœuvre_ before my uncle _Toby_. + +My uncle _Toby_ had just then been giving _Yorick_ an account of the +battle of _Steenkirk_, and of the strange conduct of count _Solmes_ in +ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not +act; which was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the +loss of the day. + +There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is +going to follow, --they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a +dramatic writer; --I mean of ancient days.------ + +_Trim_, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the +edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a shift to +tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it; +--and the story being told, --the dialogue went on as follows. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +----I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded +_Susannah’s_ story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm, +--’twas my fault, an’ please your honour, --not hers. + +Corporal _Trim_, replied my uncle _Toby_, putting on his hat which lay +upon the table, ----if anything can be said to be a fault, when the +service absolutely requires it should be done, --’tis I certainly who +deserve the blame, ----you obeyed your orders. + +Had count _Solmes_, _Trim_, done the same at the battle of _Steenkirk_, +said _Yorick_, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run +over by a dragoon in the retreat, ----he had saved thee; ----Saved! +cried _Trim_, interrupting _Yorick_, and finishing the sentence for him +after his own fashion, ----he had saved five battalions, an’ please your +reverence, every soul of them: ----there was _Cutts’s_--continued the +corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of +his left, and counting round his hand, ----there was _Cutts’s_, +----_Mackay’s_, ----_Angus’s_, ----_Graham’s_, ----and _Leven’s_, all +cut to pieces; ----and so had the _English_ life-guards too, had it not +been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their +relief, and received the enemy’s fire in their faces, before any one of +their own platoons discharged a musket, ----they’ll go to heaven for it, +--added _Trim_. --_Trim_ is right, said my uncle _Toby_, nodding to +_Yorick_, ----he’s perfectly right. What signified his marching the +horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so straight, that +the _French_ had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and +fell’d trees laid this way and that to cover them; (as they always +have). ----Count _Solmes_ should have sent us, ----we would have fired +muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives. ----There was nothing to be +done for the horse: ----he had his foot shot off however for his pains, +continued the corporal, the very next campaign at _Landen_. --Poor +_Trim_ got his wound there, quoth my uncle _Toby_. ----’Twas owing, an’ +please your honour, entirely to count _Solmes_, ----had he drubb’d them +soundly at _Steenkirk_, they would not have fought us at _Landen_. +----Possibly not, ----_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_; ----though if they +have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment’s time to +intrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever +at you. ----There is no way but to march coolly up to them, ----receive +their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell ----Ding dong, added _Trim_. +----Horse and foot, said my uncle _Toby_. ----Helter skelter, said +_Trim_. ----Right and left, cried my uncle _Toby_. ----Blood an’ ounds, +shouted the corporal; ----the battle raged, ----_Yorick_ drew his chair +a little to one side for safety, and after a moment’s pause, my uncle +_Toby_ sinking his voice a note, --resumed the discourse as follows. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +King _William_, said my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to _Yorick_, +was so terribly provoked at count _Solmes_ for disobeying his orders, +that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months +after. ----I fear, answered _Yorick_, the squire will be as much +provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count. ----But ’twould be +singularly hard in this case, continued he, if corporal _Trim_, who has +behaved so diametrically opposite to count _Solmes_, should have the +fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace: ----too oft in this world, +do things take that train. ----I would spring a mine, cried my uncle +_Toby_, rising up, ----and blow up my fortifications, and my house with +them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and +see it. ----_Trim_ directed a slight, ----but a grateful bow towards his +master, ----and so the chapter ends. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +----Then, _Yorick_, replied my uncle _Toby_, you and I will lead the way +abreast, ----and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us. ----And +_Susannah_, an’ please your honour, said _Trim_, shall be put in the +rear. ----’Twas an excellent disposition, --and in this order, without +either drums beating, or colours flying, they marched slowly from my +uncle _Toby’s_ house to _Shandy-hall_. + +----I wish, said _Trim_, as they entered the door, --instead of the sash +weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have done. +--You have cut off spouts enow, replied _Yorick_.---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in +different airs and attitudes, --not one, or all of them, can ever help +the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, +speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life. --There +was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by +which handle he would take a thing, --it baffled, Sir, all calculations. +----The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that +wherein most men travelled, --that every object before him presented a +face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the +plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind. --In other words, +’twas a different object, and in course was differently considered: + +This is the true reason, that my dear _Jenny_ and I, as well as all the +world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing. --She looks +at her outside, --I, at her in--. How is it possible we should agree +about her value? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +’Tis a point settled, --and I mention it for the comfort of +_Confucius_,[5.2] who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain +story--that provided he keeps along the line of his story, --he may go +backwards and forwards as he will, --’tis still held to be no +digression. + +This being premised, I take the benefit of the _act of going backwards_ +myself. + + [Footnote 5.2: Mr. _Shandy_ is supposed to mean ******** *** + Esq.; member for ******, ----and not the _Chinese_ Legislator.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils--(not of the Archbishop of +_Benevento’s_, --I mean of _Rabelais’s_ devils) with their tails chopped +off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as +I did--when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly +into the nursery, --so that _Susannah_ had but just time to make her +escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore. + +Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself, --and young +enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet _Susannah_, in +passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in shorthand +with the cook--the cook had told it with a commentary to _Jonathan_, and +_Jonathan_ to _Obadiah_; so that by the time my father had rung the bell +half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above, --was _Obadiah_ +enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened. +--I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown; --and so +walked up stairs. + +One would imagine from this----(though for my own part I somewhat +question it)--that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that +remarkable character in the _Tristra-pædia_, which to me is the most +original and entertaining one in the whole book; --and that is the +_chapter upon sash-windows_, with a bitter _Philippick_ at the end of +it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids. --I have but two reasons +for thinking otherwise. + +First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event +happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for +good an’ all; --which, considering with what difficulty he composed +books, --he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could +have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his +writing a chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the +second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support +of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon +sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed, --and it is this. + +----That, in order to render the _Tristra-pædia_ complete, --I wrote the +chapter myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +My father put on his spectacles--looked, --took them off, --put them +into the case--all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening +his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother +imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him +return with a couple of folios under his arm, and _Obadiah_ following +him with a large reading-desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, +and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the +case at his ease. + +----If it be but right done, --said my father, turning to the +_Section--de sede vel subjecto circumcisionis_, ----for he had brought +up _Spenser de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus_--and _Maimonides_, in order +to confront and examine us altogether.-- + +----If it be but right done, quoth he: --only tell us, cried my mother, +interrupting him, what herbs? ----For that, replied my father, you must +send for Dr. _Slop_. + +My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as +follows, + + * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * + * * * * ------Very well, --said my father, + * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * + * * --nay, if it has that convenience----and so without +stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the _Jews_ had +it from the _Egyptians_, or the _Egyptians_ from the _Jews_, --he rose +up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of +his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has +trod lighter upon us than we foreboded, --he shut the book, and walked +down stairs. --Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great +nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it--if the EGYPTIANS, +--the SYRIANS, --the PHOENICIANS, --the ARABIANS, --the CAPPADOCIANS, +----if the COLCHI, and TROGLODYTES did it----if SOLON and PYTHAGORAS +submitted, --what is TRISTRAM? ----Who am I, that I should fret or fume +one moment about the matter? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Dear _Yorick_, said my father, smiling (for _Yorick_ had broke his rank +with my uncle _Toby_ in coming through the narrow entry, and so had +stept first into the parlour)--this _Tristram_ of ours, I find, comes +very hardly by all his religious rites. --Never was the son of _Jew_, +_Christian_, _Turk_, or _Infidel_ initiated into them in so oblique and +slovenly a manner. --But he is no worse, I trust, said _Yorick_. --There +has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some +part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed. +--That, you are a better judge of than I, replied _Yorick_. +--Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both: --the trine +and sextil aspects have jumped awry, --or the opposite of their +ascendants have not hit it, as they should, --or the lords of the +genitures (as they call them) have been at _bo-peep_, --or something has +been wrong above, or below with us. + +’Tis possible, answered _Yorick_. --But is the child, cried my uncle +_Toby_, the worse? --The _Troglodytes_ say not, replied my father. And +your theologists, _Yorick_, tell us --Theologically? said _Yorick_, --or +speaking after the manner of apothecaries?[5.3]--statesmen?[5.4]--or +washer-women?[5.5] + +----I’m not sure, replied my father, --but they tell us, brother _Toby_, +he’s the better for it. ----Provided, said _Yorick_, you travel him into +_Egypt_. ----Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, +when he sees the _Pyramids_.---- + +Now every word of this, quoth my uncle _Toby_, is _Arabick_ to me. ----I +wish, said _Yorick_, ’twas so, to half the world. + +----ILUS,[5.6] continued my father, circumcised his whole army one +morning. --Not without a court martial? cried my uncle _Toby_. +----Though the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle +_Toby’s_ remark, but turning to _Yorick_, --are greatly divided still +who _Ilus_ was; --some say _Saturn_; --some the Supreme Being; --others, +no more than a brigadier general under _Pharaoh-neco_. ----Let him be +who he will, said my uncle _Toby_, I know not by what article of war he +could justify it. + +The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different +reasons for it: --others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the +opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the +greatest part of them. --But then again, our best polemic divines --I +wish there was not a polemic divine, said _Yorick_, in the kingdom; +--one ounce of practical divinity--is worth a painted ship-load of all +their reverences have imported these fifty years. --Pray, Mr. _Yorick_, +quoth my uncle _Toby_, --do tell me what a polemic divine is? ----The +best description, captain _Shandy_, I have ever read, is of a couple of +’em, replied _Yorick_, in the account of the battle fought single hands +betwixt _Gymnast_ and captain _Tripet_; which I have in my pocket. ----I +beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle _Toby_ earnestly. --You shall, said +_Yorick_. --And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door, --and I +know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than +his supper, --I beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in. --With +all my soul, said my father. ----_Trim_ came in, erect and happy as an +emperor; and having shut the door, _Yorick_ took a book from his +right-hand coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows. + + [Footnote 5.3: Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν, ἣν ἄνθρακα + καλοῦσιν. --PHILO.] + + [Footnote 5.4: Τὰ τεμνόμενα τῶν ἐθνῶν τολυγονώτατα, καὶ + πολυανθρωπότατα εἶναι.] + + [Footnote 5.5: Καθαριότητος εἵνεκεν. --BOCHART.] + + [Footnote 5.6: Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ + τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμάχους καταναγκάσας. --SANCHUNIATHO.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +----“which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, +divers of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room +for the assailant: all this did _Gymnast_ very well remark and consider; +and therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, +as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his +short sword by his thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and +performing the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his +body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and +placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with +his back turned towards his horse’s head, --Now (said he) my case goes +forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a +gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry +his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing +one jot. ----Ha! said _Tripet_, I will not do that at this time, --and +not without cause. Well, said _Gymnast_, I have failed, --I will undo +this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards +the right-hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which +done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised +himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole +weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and +whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, +and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without _touching +anything_, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then +giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper----” + +(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle _Toby_. ----The corporal shook +his head at it. ----Have patience, said _Yorick_.) + +“Then (_Tripet_) pass’d his right leg over his saddle, and placed +himself _en croup_. --But, said he, ’twere better for me to get into the +saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before +him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his +body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait +found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then +springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a +wind-mill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.” +--Good God! cried _Trim_, losing all patience, --one home thrust of a +bayonet is worth it all. ----I think so too, replied _Yorick_.---- + +I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +----No, --I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making +answer to a question which _Yorick_ had taken the liberty to put to him, +--I have advanced nothing in the _Tristra-pædia_, but what is as clear +as any one proposition in _Euclid_. --Reach me, _Trim_, that book from +off the scrutoir: ----it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my +father, to have read it over both to you, _Yorick_, and to my brother +_Toby_, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done +it long ago: ----shall we have a short chapter or two now, --and a +chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get +through the whole? My uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_ made the obeisance which +was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the +compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same +time. ----The company smiled. _Trim_, quoth my father, has paid the full +price for staying out the _entertainment_. ----He did not seem to relish +the play, replied _Yorick_. ----’Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your +reverence, of captain _Tripet’s_ and that other officer, making so many +summersets, as they advanced; ----the _French_ come on capering now and +then in that way, --but not quite so much. + +My uncle _Toby_ never felt the consciousness of his existence with more +complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him +do at that moment; ----he lighted his pipe, ----_Yorick_ drew his chair +closer to the table, --_Trim_ snuff’d the candle, --my father stirr’d up +the fire, --took up the book, --cough’d twice, and begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves, --are a +little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject, +----for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory introduction, +continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined +which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the +foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and +female, for procreation of the species ----I was insensibly led into it. +----’Twas natural, said _Yorick_. + +The original of society, continued my father, I’m satisfied is, what +_Politian_ tells us, _i.e._, merely conjugal; and nothing more than the +getting together of one man and one woman; --to which, (according to +_Hesiod_) the philosopher adds a servant: ----but supposing in the first +beginning there were no men servants born----he lays the foundation of +it, in a man, --a woman--and a bull. ----I believe ’tis an ox, quoth +_Yorick_, quoting the passage (οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα, γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’ +ἀροτῆρα). ----A bull must have given more trouble than his head was +worth. ----But there is a better reason still, said my father (dipping +his pen into his ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and +the most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment, +--was the properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined +couple, that the creation could have associated with them. --And there +is a stronger reason, added my uncle _Toby_, than them all for the ox. +--My father had not power to take his pen out of his ink-horn, till he +had heard my uncle _Toby’s_ reason. --For when the ground was tilled, +said my uncle _Toby_, and made worth inclosing, then they began to +secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification. +----True, true, dear _Toby_, cried my father, striking out the bull, and +putting the ox in his place. + +My father gave _Trim_ a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his +discourse. + +----I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half +shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the +natural relation between a father and his child; the right and +jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways-- + +1st, by marriage. + +2d, by adoption. + +3d, by legitimation. + +And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order. + +I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied _Yorick_----the act, +especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation +upon the child, as it conveys power to the father. --You are wrong, +--said my father argutely, and for this plain reason * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * --I own, added my +father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power +and jurisdiction of the mother. --But the reason, replied _Yorick_, +equally holds good for her. ----She is under authority herself, said my +father: --and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying +his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason, --_she +is not the principal agent, _Yorick_._ --In what, quoth my uncle _Toby?_ +stopping his pipe. --Though by all means, added my father (not attending +to my uncle _Toby_) “_The son ought to pay her respect_,” as you may +read, _Yorick_, at large in the first book of the Institutes of +_Justinian_, at the eleventh title and the tenth section, --I can read +it as well, replied _Yorick_, in the Catechism. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle _Toby_. +--Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with _Trim’s_ +saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle _Toby_. +--Ask him, Mr. _Yorick_, any question you please.---- + +--The fifth Commandment, _Trim_--said _Yorick_, speaking mildly, and +with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent. +--You don’t ask him right, said my uncle _Toby_, raising his voice, and +giving it rapidly like the word of command: ----The fifth--------cried +my uncle _Toby_. --I must begin with the first, an’ please your honour, +said the corporal.---- + +--_Yorick_ could not forbear smiling. --Your reverence does not +consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and +marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position, --that +’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.-- + +“_Join your right-hand to your firelock_,” cried the corporal, giving +the word of command, and performing the motion.-- + +“_Poise your firelock_,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both +of adjutant and private man. + +“_Rest your firelock_;” --one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see +leads into another. --If his honour will begin but with the _first_-- + +THE FIRST--cried my uncle _Toby_, setting his hand upon his side-- + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * + +THE SECOND--cried my uncle _Toby_, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would +have done his sword at the head of a regiment. --The corporal went +through his _manual_ with exactness! and having _honoured his father and +mother_, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room. + +Everything in this world, said my father, is big with jest, --and has +wit in it, and instruction too, --if we can but find it out. + +--Here is the _scaffold work_ of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, +without the BUILDING behind it. + +--Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, +gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true +dimensions.-- + +Oh! there is a husk and shell, _Yorick_, which grows up with learning, +which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away! + +--SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE, BUT WISDOM NOT. + +_Yorick_ thought my father inspired. --I will enter into obligations +this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt _Dinah’s_ legacy in +charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), +if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he +has repeated. --Prythee, _Trim_, quoth my father, turning round to him, +--What dost thou mean, by “_honouring thy father and mother?_” + +Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three half-pence a day out of my +pay, when they grow old. --And didst thou do that, _Trim?_ said +_Yorick_. --He did indeed, replied my uncle _Toby_. --Then, _Trim_, said +_Yorick_, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the +hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the _Decalogue_; +and I honour thee more for it, corporal _Trim_, than if thou hadst had a +hand in the _Talmud_ itself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +O blessed health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned +over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art above all gold and +treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul, --and openest all its powers +to receive instruction and to relish virtue. --He that has thee, has +little more to wish for; --and he that is so wretched as to want thee, +--wants everything with thee. + +I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said +my father, into a very little room, therefore we’ll read the chapter +quite through. + +My father read as follows: + +“The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for +mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture” --You have +proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said _Yorick_. +Sufficiently, replied my father. + +In saying this, my father shut the book, --not as if he resolved to read +no more of it, for he kept his forefinger in the chapter: ----nor +pettishly, --for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had +done it, upon the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers +supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive +violence.---- + +I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to +_Yorick_, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter. + +Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote +a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health +depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the _radical heat_ +and the _radical moisture_, --and that he had managed the point so well, +that there was not one single word wet or dry upon radical heat or +radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter, --or a single syllable +in it, _pro_ or _con_, directly or indirectly, upon the contention +betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal œconomy---- + +“O thou eternal Maker of all beings!” --he would cry, striking his +breast with his right hand (in case he had one)-- “Thou whose power and +goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite +degree of excellence and perfection, --What have we MOONITES done?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +With two strokes, the one at _Hippocrates_, the other at Lord _Verulam_, +did my father achieve it. + +The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more +than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the _Ars longa_, +--and _Vita brevis_. ----Life short, cried my father, --and the art of +healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, +but the ignorance of quacks themselves, --and the stage-loads of +chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they +have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it? + +----O my lord _Verulam!_ cried my father, turning from _Hippocrates_, +and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of +nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest, +----What shall I say to thee, my great lord _Verulam?_ What shall I say +to thy internal spirit, --thy opium, --thy salt-petre, ----thy greasy +unctions, --thy daily purges, --thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums? + +----My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any +subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man +breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion, ----you shall see; +----but when --I know not; ----we must first see what his lordship’s +opinion was. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +“The two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, +says lord _Verulam_, are first---- + +“The internal spirit, which, like a gentle flame, wastes the body down +to death: --And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to +ashes: --which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies +together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry +on the functions of life.” + +This being the state of the case, the road to Longevity was plain; +nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste +committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more +thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by +refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of +salt-petre every morning before you got up.---- + +Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of +the air without; --but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy +unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no +spicula could enter; ----nor could any one get out. ----This put a stop +to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of +so many scurvy distempers--a course of clysters was requisite to carry +off redundant humours, --and render the system complete. + +What my father had to say to my lord of _Verulam’s_ opiates, his +salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read, --but not +to-day--or to-morrow: time presses upon me, --my reader is impatient --I +must get forwards. ----You shall read the chapter at your leisure +(if you chuse it), as soon as ever the _Tristra-pædia_ is +published.---- + +Sufficeth it at present, to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with +the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and +established his own.---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence +again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical +heat and radical moisture within us; --the least imaginable skill had +been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the schoolmen confounded +the talk, merely (as _Van Helmont_, the famous chymist, has proved) by +all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of +animal bodies. + +Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an +oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm +or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a +lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of +_Aristotle_, “_Quod omne animal post coitum est _triste_._” + +Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, +but whether _vice versâ_, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the +other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which +causes an unnatural dryness----or an unnatural moisture, which causes +dropsies. ----So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to +avoid running into fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his +destruction, ----’twill be all that is needful to be done upon that +head.---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +The description of the siege of _Jericho_ itself, could not have engaged +the attention of my uncle _Toby_ more powerfully than the last chapter; +--his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it; --he never mentioned +radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle _Toby_ took his pipe out +of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was +finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, +to ask him the following question, --_aside_. ---- * * + * * * * * * * It was at +the siege of _Limerick_, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, +making a bow. + +The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to my +father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the +siege of _Limerick_ was raised, upon the very account you mention. +----Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear +brother _Toby?_ cried my father, mentally. ----By Heaven! continued he, +communing still with himself, it would puzzle an _Œdipus_ to bring it in +point.---- + +I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had +not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the +claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off; --And the +geneva, _Trim_, added my uncle _Toby_, which did us more good than +all ----I verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an’ please +your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them +too. ----The noblest grave, corporal! cried my uncle _Toby_, his eyes +sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in. ----But +a pitiful death for him! an’ please your honour, replied the corporal. + +All this was as much _Arabick_ to my father, as the rites of the +_Colchi_ and _Troglodites_ had been before to my uncle _Toby_; my father +could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile.---- + +My uncle _Toby_, turning to _Yorick_, resumed the case at _Limerick_, +more intelligibly than he had begun it, --and so settled the point for +my father at once. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +It was undoubtedly, said my uncle _Toby_, a great happiness for myself +and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a +most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was +upon us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical +moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better. ----My +father drew in his lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth +again, as slowly as he possibly could.---- + +------It was Heaven’s mercy to us, continued my uncle _Toby_, which put +it into the corporal’s head to maintain that due contention betwixt the +radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforcing the fever, as he +did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up +(as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its +ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the +moisture, terrible as it was. ----Upon my honour, added my uncle _Toby_, +you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother _Shandy_, +twenty toises. --If there was no firing, said _Yorick_. + +Well--said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after +the word --Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one +permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided +they had had their clergy-------- ----_Yorick_, foreseeing the sentence +was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father’s +breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked +the corporal a question. ----Prithee, _Trim_, said _Yorick_, without +staying for my father’s leave, --tell us honestly--what is thy opinion +concerning this self-same radical heat and radical moisture? + +With humble submission to his honour’s better judgment, quoth the +corporal, making a bow to my uncle _Toby_ --Speak thy opinion freely, +corporal, said my uncle _Toby_. --The poor fellow is my servant, --not +my slave, --added my uncle _Toby_, turning to my father.---- + +The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging +upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the +knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; +then touching his under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right-hand +before he opened his mouth, ----he delivered his notion thus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Just as the corporal was humming, to begin--in waddled Dr. _Slop_. +--’Tis not two-pence matter--the corporal shall go on in the next +chapter, let who will come in.---- + +Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of +his passions were unaccountably sudden, --and what has this whelp of +mine to say to the matter? + +Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a +puppy-dog--he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system +which Dr. _Slop_ had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed +of such a mode of enquiry. --He sat down. + +Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in a manner which could not go +unanswered, --in what condition is the boy? --’Twill end in a +_phimosis_, replied Dr. _Slop_. + +I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle _Toby_--returning his pipe into +his mouth. ----Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his +medical lecture. --The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. +_Slop_, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and +radical moisture, in the following words. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +The city of _Limerick_, the siege of which was begun under his majesty +king _William_ himself, the year after I went into the army--lies, an’ +please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country. +--’Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle _Toby_, with the _Shannon_, and +is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in +_Ireland_.---- + +I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. _Slop_, of beginning a medical +lecture. --’Tis all true, answered _Trim_. --Then I wish the faculty +would follow the cut of it, said _Yorick_. --’Tis all cut through, an’ +please your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and +besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the +whole country was like a puddle, --’twas that, and nothing else, which +brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour +and myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, +continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without +cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water; --nor was that enough, +for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire +every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of +the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.------ + +And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal _Trim_, cried my father, +from all these premises? + +I infer, an’ please your worship, replied _Trim_, that the radical +moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water--and that the radical +heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy, --the +radical heat and moisture of a private man, an’ please your honour, is +nothing but ditch-water--and a dram of geneva----and give us but enough +of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the +vapours--we know not what it is to fear death. + +I am at a loss, Captain _Shandy_, quoth Dr. _Slop_, to determine in +which branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in physiology +or divinity. --_Slop_ had not forgot _Trim’s_ comment upon the +sermon.-- + +It is but an hour ago, replied _Yorick_, since the corporal was examined +in the latter, and pass’d muster with great honour.---- + +The radical heat and moisture, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my father, +you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being--as the root of +a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation. --It is inherent +in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but +principally in my opinion by _consubstantials_, _impriments_, and +_occludents_. ----Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. _Slop_, pointing +to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial +empiric discourse upon this nice point. ----That he has, --said my +father. ----Very likely, said my uncle. --I’m sure of it--quoth +_Yorick_.---- + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +Doctor _Slop_ being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it +gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the +_Tristra-pædia_. ----Come! cheer up, my lads; I’ll shew you +land------for when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall +not be opened again this twelve-month. --Huzza!-- + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +----Five years with a bib under his chin; + +Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to _Malachi_; + +A year and a half in learning to write his own name; + +Seven long years and more τυπτω-ing it, at Greek and Latin; + +Four years at his _probations_ and his _negations_--the fine statue +still lying in the middle of the marble block, --and nothing done, but +his tools sharpened to hew it out! --’Tis a piteous delay! --Was not the +great _Julius Scaliger_ within an ace of never getting his tools +sharpened at all? ------Forty-four years old was he before he could +manage his Greek; --and _Peter Damianus_, lord bishop of _Ostia_, as all +the world knows, could not so much as read, when he was of man’s estate. +--And _Baldus_ himself, as eminent as he turned out after, entered upon +the law so late in life, that everybody imagined he intended to be an +advocate in the other world: no wonder, when _Eudamidas_, the son of +_Archidamas_, heard _Xenocrates_ at seventy-five disputing about +_wisdom_, that he asked gravely, --_If the old man be yet disputing and +enquiring concerning wisdom, --what time will he have to make use of +it?_ + +_Yorick_ listened to my father with great attention; there was a +seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims, and +he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as +almost atoned for them: --be wary, Sir, when you imitate him. + +I am convinced, _Yorick_, continued my father, half reading and half +discoursing, that there is a North-west passage to the intellectual +world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in +furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take +with it. ----But, alack! all fields have not a river or a spring running +besides them; --every child, _Yorick_, has not a parent to point it out. + +----The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a low voice, upon +the _auxiliary verbs_, Mr. _Yorick_. + +Had _Yorick_ trod upon _Virgil’s_ snake, he could not have looked more +surprised. --I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it, --and I +reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the +republic of letters, That those who have been entrusted with the +education of our children, and whose business it was to open their +minds, and stock them early with ideas, in order to set the imagination +loose upon them, have made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing +it, as they have done ----So that, except _Raymond Lullius_, and the +elder _Pelegrini_, the last of which arrived to such perfection in the +use of ’em, with his topics, that, in a few lessons, he could teach a +young gentleman to discourse with plausibility upon any subject, _pro_ +and _con_, and to say and write all that could be spoken or written +concerning it, without blotting a word, to the admiration of all who +beheld him. --I should be glad, said _Yorick_, interrupting my father, +to be made to comprehend this matter. You shall, said my father. + +The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of, is a +high metaphor, ----for which, in my opinion, the idea is generally the +worse, and not the better; ----but be that as it may, --when the mind +has done that with it--there is an end, --the mind and the idea are at +rest, --until a second idea enters; ----and so on. + +Now the use of the _Auxiliaries_ is, at once to set the soul a-going by +herself upon the materials as they are brought her; and by the +versability of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open +new tracts of enquiry, and make every idea engender millions. + +You excite my curiosity greatly, said _Yorick_. + +For my own part, quoth my uncle _Toby_, I have given it up. ----The +_Danes_, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, who were on the +left at the siege of _Limerick_, were all auxiliaries. ----And very good +ones, said my uncle _Toby_. --But the auxiliaries, _Trim_, my brother is +talking about, --I conceive to be different things.---- + +----You do? said my father, rising up. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +My father took a single turn across the room, then sat down, and +finished the chapter. + +The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my father, are, +_am_; _was_; _have_; _had_; _do_; _did_; _make_; _made_; _suffer_; +_shall_; _should_; _will_; _would_; _can_; _could_; _owe_; _ought_; +_used_; or _is wont_. --And these varied with tenses, _present_, _past_, +_future_, and conjugated with the verb _see_, --or with these questions +added to them; --_Is it?_ _Was it?_ _Will it be?_ _Would it be?_ _May it +be?_ _Might it be?_ And these again put negatively, _Is it not?_ _Was it +not?_ _Ought it not?_ --Or affirmatively, --_It is_; _It was_; _It ought +to be_. Or chronologically, --_Has it been always?_ _Lately?_ _How long +ago?_ --Or hypothetically, --_If it was?_ _If it was not?_ What would +follow? ----If the _French_ should beat the _English?_ If the _Sun_ go +out of the _Zodiac?_ + +Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in +which a child’s memory should be exercised, there is no one idea can +enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and +conclusions may be drawn forth from it. ----Didst thou ever see a white +bear? cried my father, turning his head round to _Trim_, who stood at +the back of his chair: --No, an’ please your honour, replied the +corporal. ----But thou couldst discourse about one, _Trim_, said my +father, in case of need? --How is it possible, brother, quoth my uncle +_Toby_, if the corporal never saw one? ----’Tis the fact I want, replied +my father, --and the possibility of it is as follows. + +A WHITE BEAR! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen +one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever +see one? + +Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?) + +If I should see a white bear, what would I say? If I should never see a +white bear, what then? + +If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever +seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted? --described? Have I +never dreamed of one? + +Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a +white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the +white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth? + +--Is the white bear worth seeing?-- + +--Is there no sin in it?-- + +Is it better than a BLACK ONE? + + + + +BOOK VI + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +----We’ll not stop two moments, my dear Sir, --only, as we have got +through these five volumes,[6.1] (do, Sir, sit down upon a set----they +are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have +pass’d through.---- + +----What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not +both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it! + +Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack +Asses? ----How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the rivulet +at the bottom of that little valley! ----and when we climbed over that +hill, and were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did +they all set up together! + +----Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses? * * * + +----Heaven be their comforter ----What! are they never curried? ----Are +they never taken in in winter? ----Bray bray--bray. Bray on, --the world +is deeply your debtor; ----louder still--that’s nothing: --in good +sooth, you are ill-used: ----Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, +I would bray in G-fol-re-ut from morning, even unto night. + + [Footnote 6.1: In the first edition, the sixth volume began with + this chapter.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +When my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through +half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good an’ all, --and in a kind +of triumph redelivered it into _Trim’s_ hand, with a nod to lay it upon +the ’scrutoire, where he found it. ----_Tristram_, said he, shall be +made to conjugate every word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards +the same way; ----every word, _Yorick_, by this means, you see, is +converted into a thesis or an hypothesis; --every thesis and hypothesis +have an offspring of propositions; --and each proposition has its own +consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on +again, into fresh tracks of enquiries and doubtings. ----The force of +this engine, added my father, is incredible in opening a child’s head. +----’Tis enough, brother _Shandy_, cried my uncle _Toby_, to burst it +into a thousand splinters.---- + +I presume, said _Yorick_, smiling, --it must be owing to this, ----(for +let logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted for +sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments) ----That the +famous _Vincent Quirino_, amongst the many other astonishing feats of +his childhood, of which the Cardinal _Bembo_ has given the world so +exact a story, --should be able to paste up in the public schools at +_Rome_, so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four +thousand five hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most abstruse +points of the most abstruse theology; --and to defend and maintain them +in such sort, as to cramp and dumbfound his opponents. ----What is that, +cried my father, to what is told us of _Alphonsus Tostatus_, who, almost +in his nurse’s arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts without +being taught any one of them? ----What shall we say of the great +_Piereskius?_ --That’s the very man, cried my uncle _Toby_, I once told +you of, brother _Shandy_, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, +reckoning from _Paris_ to _Shevling_, and from _Shevling_ back again, +merely to see _Stevinus’s_ flying chariot. ----He was a very great man! +added my uncle _Toby_ (meaning _Stevinus_) --He was so, brother _Toby_, +said my father (meaning _Piereskius_)----and had multiplied his ideas so +fast, and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if +we may give credit to an anecdote concerning him, which we cannot +withhold here, without shaking the authority of all anecdotes +whatever--at seven years of age, his father committed entirely to his +care the education of his younger brother, a boy of five years old, +--with the sole management of all his concerns. --Was the father as wise +as the son? quoth my uncle _Toby_: --I should think not, said _Yorick_: +--But what are these, continued my father--(breaking out in a kind of +enthusiasm)--what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in +_Grotius_, _Scioppius_, _Heinsius_, _Politian_, _Pascal_, _Joseph +Scaliger_, _Ferdinand de Cordouè_, and others--some of which left off +their _substantial forms_ at nine years old, or sooner, and went on +reasoning without them; --others went through their classics at seven; +--wrote tragedies at eight; --_Ferdinand de Cordouè_ was so wise at +nine, --’twas thought the Devil was in him; --and at _Venice_ gave such +proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he was +_Antichrist_, or nothing. ----Others were masters of fourteen languages +at ten, --finished the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic, and +ethics, at eleven, --put forth their commentaries upon _Servius_ and +_Martianus Capella_ at twelve, --and at thirteen received their degrees +in philosophy, laws, and divinity: ----But you forget the great +_Lipsius_, quoth _Yorick_, who composed a work[6.2] the day he was born: +----They should have wiped it up, said my uncle _Toby_, and said no more +about it. + + [Footnote 6.2: Nous aurions quelque interêt, says _Baillet_, de + montrer qu’il n’a rien de ridicule s’il étoit veritable, au + moins dans le sens énigmatique que _Nicius Erythræus_ a tâché de + lui donner. Cet auteur dit que pour comprendre comme _Lipse_, il + a pû composer un ouvrage le premier jour de sa vie, il faut + s’imaginer, que ce premier jour n’est pas celui de sa naissance + charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commencé d’user de la raison; + il veut que ç’ait été à l’âge de _neuf_ ans; et il nous veut + persuader que ce fut en cet âge, que _Lipse_ fit un poëme. ----Le + tour est ingénieux, &c. &c.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of _decorum_ had unseasonably +rose up in _Susannah’s_ conscience about holding the candle, whilst +_Slop_ tied it on; _Slop_ had not treated _Susannah’s_ distemper with +anodynes, --and so a quarrel had ensued betwixt them. + +----Oh! oh! ----said _Slop_, casting a glance of undue freedom in +_Susannah’s_ face, as she declined the office; ----then, I think I know +you, madam ----You know me, Sir! cried _Susannah_ fastidiously, and with +a toss of her head, levelled evidently, not at his profession, but at +the doctor himself, ----you know me! cried _Susannah_ again. ----Doctor +_Slop_ clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his nostrils; +----_Susannah’s_ spleen was ready to burst at it; ----’Tis false, said +_Susannah_. --Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said _Slop_, not a little elated +with the success of his last thrust, ----If you won’t hold the candle, +and look--you may hold it and shut your eyes: --That’s one of your +popish shifts, cried _Susannah_: --’Tis better, said _Slop_, with a nod, +than no shift at all, young woman; ----I defy you, Sir, cried +_Susannah_, pulling her shift sleeve below her elbow. + +It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in a +surgical case with a more splenetic cordiality. + +_Slop_ snatched up the cataplasm, ----_Susannah_ snatched up the candle; +----a little this way, said _Slop_; _Susannah_ looking one way, and +rowing another, instantly set fire to _Slop’s_ wig, which being somewhat +bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled. +------You impudent whore! cried _Slop_, --(for what is passion, but a +wild beast?)--you impudent whore, cried _Slop_, getting upright, with +the cataplasm in his hand; ----I never was the destruction of anybody’s +nose, said _Susannah_, --which is more than you can say: ----Is it? +cried _Slop_, throwing the cataplasm in her face; ----Yes, it is, cried +_Susannah_, returning the compliment with what was left in the pan. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Doctor _Slop_ and _Susannah_ filed cross-bills against each other in the +parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into the +kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me; --and whilst that was doing, my +father determined the point as you will read. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +You see ’tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my +uncle _Toby_ and _Yorick_, to take this young creature out of these +women’s hands, and put him into those of a private governor. _Marcus +Antoninus_ provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his +son _Commodus’s_ education, --and in six weeks he cashiered five of +them; --I know very well, continued my father, that _Commodus’s_ mother +was in love with a gladiator at the time of her conception, which +accounts for a great many of _Commodus’s_ cruelties when he became +emperor; --but still I am of opinion, that those five whom _Antoninus_ +dismissed, did _Commodus’s_ temper, in that short time, more hurt than +the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long. + +Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror in +which he is to view himself from morning to night, and by which he is to +adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the inmost sentiments of his +heart; --I would have one, _Yorick_, if possible, polished at all +points, fit for my child to look into. ----This is very good sense, +quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself. + +----There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body +and all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man _well +within_; and I am not at all surprised that _Gregory_ of _Nazianzum_, +upon observing the hasty and untoward gestures of _Julian_, should +foretel he would one day become an apostate; ----or that St. _Ambrose_ +should turn his _Amanuensis_ out of doors, because of an indecent motion +of his head, which went backwards and forwards like a flail; ----or that +_Democritus_ should conceive _Protagoras_ to be a scholar, from seeing +him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs +inwards. ----There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my +father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man’s soul; and I +maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in +coming into a room, --or take it up in going out of it, but something +escapes, which discovers him. + +It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make +choice of shall neither[6.3] lisp, or squint, or wink, or talk loud, or +look fierce, or foolish; ----or bite his lips, or grind his teeth, or +speak through his nose, or pick it, or blow it with his fingers.---- + +He shall neither walk fast, --or slow, or fold his arms, --for that is +laziness; --or hang them down, --for that is folly; or hide them in his +pocket, for that is nonsense.---- + +He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle, --or bite, or cut his +nails, or hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his feet or fingers in +company; ----nor (according to _Erasmus_) shall he speak to any one in +making water, --nor shall he point to carrion or excrement. ----Now this +is all nonsense again, quoth my uncle _Toby_ to himself.---- + +I will have him, continued my father, chearful, faceté, jovial; at the +same time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, argute, +inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions; ----he +shall be wise, and judicious, and learned: ----And why not humble, and +moderate, and gentle-tempered, and good? said _Yorick_: ----And why not, +cried my uncle _Toby_, free, and generous, and bountiful, and brave? +----He shall, my dear _Toby_, replied my father, getting up and shaking +him by the hand. --Then, brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_, +raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of +my father’s other hand, --I humbly beg I may recommend poor _Le Fever’s_ +son to you; ----a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in my uncle +_Toby’s_ eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal’s, as the +proposition was made; ----you will see why when you read _Le Fever’s_ +story: ----fool that I was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you) +without turning back to the place, what it was that hindered me from +letting the corporal tell it in his own words; --but the occasion is +lost, --I must tell it now in my own. + + [Footnote 6.3: Vid. _Pellegrina_.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER + + +It was some time in the summer of that year in which _Dendermond_ was +taken by the allies, --which was about seven years before my father came +into the country, --and about as many, after the time, that my uncle +_Toby_ and _Trim_ had privately decamped from my father’s house in town, +in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest +fortified cities in _Europe_----when my uncle _Toby_ was one evening +getting his supper, with _Trim_ sitting behind him at a small sideboard, +--I say, sitting--for in consideration of the corporal’s lame knee +(which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)--when my uncle _Toby_ dined or +supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand; and the poor +fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper +artillery, my uncle _Toby_ could have taken _Dendermond_ itself, with +less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a +time when my uncle _Toby_ supposed the corporal’s leg was at rest, he +would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most +dutiful respect: this bred more little squabbles betwixt them, than all +other causes for five-and-twenty years together --But this is neither +here nor there--why do I mention it? ----Ask my pen, --it governs me, +--I govern not it. + +He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a +little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in +his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; ’Tis for a poor gentleman, --I +think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my +house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a +desire to taste anything, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass +of sack and a thin toast, ----_I think_, says he, taking his hand from +his forehead, _it would comfort me_. + +----If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing--added the +landlord, --I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so +ill. ----I hope in God he will still mend, continued he, --we are all of +us concerned for him. + +Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle +_Toby_; and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of +sack thyself, --and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell +him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do +him good. + +Though I am persuaded, said my uncle _Toby_, as the landlord shut the +door, he is a very compassionate fellow--_Trim_, --yet I cannot help +entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something +more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon +the affections of his host; ----And of his whole family, added the +corporal, for they are all concerned for him. ----Step after him, said +my uncle _Toby_, --do, _Trim_, --and ask if he knows his name. + +----I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into +the parlour with the corporal, --but I can ask his son again: ----Has he +a son with him then? said my uncle _Toby_. --A boy, replied the +landlord, of about eleven or twelve years of age; --but the poor +creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but +mourn and lament for him night and day: ----He has not stirred from the +bed-side these two days. + +My uncle _Toby_ laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from +before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and _Trim_, without +being ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes +after brought him his pipe and tobacco. + +----Stay in the room a little, said my uncle _Toby_. + +_Trim!_----said my uncle _Toby_, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak’d +about a dozen whiffs. ----_Trim_ came in front of his master, and made +his bow; --my uncle _Toby_ smoak’d on, and said no more. ----Corporal! +said my uncle _Toby_----the corporal made his bow. ----My uncle _Toby_ +proceeded no farther, but finished his pipe. + +_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, I have a project in my head, as it is a +bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a +visit to this poor gentleman. ----Your honour’s roquelaure, replied the +corporal, has not once been had on, since the night before your honour +received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the +gate of St. _Nicolas_; ----and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, +that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, ’twill be +enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your honour’s +torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle _Toby_; but I am not +at rest in my mind, _Trim_, since the account the landlord has given me. +----I wish I had not known so much of this affair, --added my uncle +_Toby_, --or that I had known more of it: ----How shall we manage it? +Leave it, an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the corporal; ----I’ll +take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act +accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour. +----Thou shalt go, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, and here’s a shilling +for thee to drink with his servant. ----I shall get it all out of him, +said the corporal, shutting the door. + +My uncle _Toby_ filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now +and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not +full as well to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line, as a +crooked one, --he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor +_Le Fever_ and his boy the whole time he smoaked it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + + +It was not till my uncle _Toby_ had knocked the ashes out of his third +pipe, that corporal _Trim_ returned from the inn, and gave him the +following account. + +I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back +your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick +lieutenant --Is he in the army, then? said my uncle _Toby_ ----He is, +said the corporal ----And in what regiment? said my uncle _Toby_ +----I’ll tell your honour, replied the corporal, everything straight +forwards, as I learnt it. --Then, _Trim_, I’ll fill another pipe, said +my uncle _Toby_, and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down +at thy ease, _Trim_, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The +corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could +speak it--_Your honour is good_: ----And having done that, he sat down, +as he was ordered, --and began the story to my uncle _Toby_ over again +in pretty near the same words. + +I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any +intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his son; for when +I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing +everything which was proper to be asked, --That’s a right distinction, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_ --I was answered, an’ please your honour, +that he had no servant with him; ----that he had come to the inn with +hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, +I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he came. +--If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to +pay the man, --we can hire horses from hence. ----But alas! the poor +gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to me, --for I +heard the death-watch all night long; ----and when he dies, the youth, +his son, will certainly die with him, for he is broken-hearted already. + +I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came +into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of; ----but +I will do it for my father myself, said the youth. ----Pray let me save +you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the +purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst +I did it. ----I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him +best myself. ----I am sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast +the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. ----The youth took hold +of my hand, and instantly burst into tears. ----Poor youth! said my +uncle _Toby_, --he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the +name of a soldier, _Trim_, sounded in his ears like the name of a +friend; --I wish I had him here. + +----I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a +mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company: --What could be +the matter with me, an’ please your honour? Nothing in the world, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, blowing his nose, --but that thou art a +good-natured fellow. + +When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was +proper to tell him I was captain _Shandy’s_ servant, and that your +honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father; --and +that if there was any thing in your house or cellar----(And thou +might’st have added my purse too, said my uncle _Toby_)----he was +heartily welcome to it: ----He made a very low bow (which was meant to +your honour), but no answer--for his heart was full--so he went up +stairs with the toast; --I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the +kitchen-door, your father will be well again. ----Mr. _Yorick’s_ curate +was smoaking a pipe by the kitchen fire, --but said not a word good or +bad to comfort the youth. ----I thought it wrong; added the +corporal ----I think so too, said my uncle _Toby_. + +When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt +himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to let me +know, that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up +stairs. ----I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his +prayers, ----for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bed-side, +and as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion.---- + +I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. _Trim_, +never said your prayers at all. ----I heard the poor gentleman say his +prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own +ears, or I could not have believed it. ----Are you sure of it? replied +the curate. ----A soldier, an’ please your reverence, said I, prays as +often (of his own accord) as a parson; ----and when he is fighting for +his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most +reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world----’Twas well said +of thee, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. ----But when a soldier, said I, +an’ please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together +in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water, --or engaged, said I, +for months together in long and dangerous marches; --harassed, perhaps, +in his rear to-day; --harassing others to-morrow; --detached here; +--countermanded there; --resting this night out upon his arms; --beat up +in his shirt the next; --benumbed in his joints; --perhaps without straw +in his tent to kneel on; --must say his prayers _how_ and _when_ he can. +--I believe, said I, --for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the +reputation of the army, --I believe, an’ please your reverence, said I, +that when a soldier gets time to pray, --he prays as heartily as a +parson, --though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. ----Thou shouldst +not have said that, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, --for God only knows +who is a hypocrite, and who is not: ----At the great and general review +of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then)--it will +be seen who has done their duties in this world, --and who has not; and +we shall be advanced, _Trim_, accordingly. ----I hope we shall, said +_Trim_. ----It is in the Scripture, said my uncle _Toby_; and I will +shew it thee to-morrow: --In the mean time we may depend upon it, +_Trim_, for our comfort, said my uncle _Toby_, that God Almighty is so +good and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our +duties in it, --it will never be enquired into, whether we have done +them in a red coat or a black one: ----I hope not, said the +corporal ----But go on, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, with thy story. + +When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant’s room, +which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, --he was +lying in his bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon +the pillow, and a clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it: ----The +youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I +supposed he had been kneeling, --the book was laid upon the bed, --and, +as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his +other to take it away at the same time. ----Let it remain there, my +dear, said the lieutenant. + +He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his +bed-side: --If you are captain _Shandy’s_ servant, said he, you must +present my thanks to your master, with my little boy’s thanks along with +them, for his courtesy to me; --if he was of _Leven’s_--said the +lieutenant. --I told him your honour was --Then, said he, I served three +campaigns with him in _Flanders_, and remember him, --but ’tis most +likely, as I had not the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he +knows nothing of me. ----You will tell him, however, that the person his +good-nature has laid under obligations to him, is one _Le Fever_, a +lieutenant in _Angus’s_----but he knows me not, --said he, a second +time, musing; ----possibly he may my story--added he--pray tell the +captain, I was the ensign at _Breda_, whose wife was most unfortunately +killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent. ----I +remember the story, an’t please your honour, said I, very well. ----Do +you so? said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, --then well may +I. --In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which +seemed tied with a black ribband about his neck, and kiss’d it +twice ----Here, _Billy_, said he, ----the boy flew across the room to the +bed-side, --and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand, +and kissed it too, --then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed +and wept. + +I wish, said my uncle _Toby_, with a deep sigh, --I wish, _Trim_, I was +asleep. + +Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned; --shall I pour +your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe? ----Do, _Trim_, said my +uncle _Toby_. + +I remember, said my uncle _Toby_, sighing again, the story of the ensign +and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted; --and +particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other +(I forget what) was universally pitied by the whole regiment; --but +finish the story thou art upon: --’Tis finished already, said the +corporal, --for I could stay no longer, --so wished his honour a good +night; young _Le Fever_ rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom +of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come from +_Ireland_, and were on their route to join the regiment in _Flanders_. +----But alas! said the corporal, --the lieutenant’s last day’s march is +over. --Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle _Toby_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + + +It was to my uncle _Toby’s_ eternal honour, ----though I tell it only +for the sake of those, who, when coop’d in betwixt a natural and a +positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn +themselves ----That notwithstanding my uncle _Toby_ was warmly engaged +at that time in carrying on the siege of _Dendermond_, parallel with the +allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed +him time to get his dinner----that nevertheless he gave up _Dendermond_, +though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp; --and bent +his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except +that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be +said to have turned the siege of _Dendermond_ into a blockade, --he left +_Dendermond_ to itself--to be relieved or not by the _French_ king, as +the _French_ king thought good; and only considered how he himself +should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son. + +----That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence +thee for this. + +Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle _Toby_ to the corporal, +as he was putting him to bed, ----and I will tell thee in what, _Trim_. +----In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to _Le +Fever_, ----as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou +knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as +himself out of his pay, --that thou didst not make an offer to him of my +purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, _Trim_, he had been +as welcome to it as myself. ----Your honour knows, said the corporal, +I had no orders; ----True, quoth my uncle _Toby_, --thou didst very +right, _Trim_, as a soldier, --but certainly very wrong as a man. + +In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, +continued my uncle _Toby_, ----when thou offeredst him whatever was in +my house, ----thou shouldst have offered him my house too: ----A sick +brother officer should have the best quarters, _Trim_, and if we had him +with us, --we could tend and look to him: ----Thou art an excellent +nurse thyself, _Trim_, --and what with thy care of him, and the old +woman’s, and his boy’s, and mine together, we might recruit him again at +once, and set him upon his legs.------ + +----In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle _Toby_, smiling, +----he might march. ----He will never march; an’ please your honour, in +this world, said the corporal: ----He will march; said my uncle _Toby_, +rising up, from the side of the bed, with one shoe off: ----An’ please +your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave: +----He shall march, cried my uncle _Toby_, marching the foot which had a +shoe on, though without advancing an inch, --he shall march to his +regiment. ----He cannot stand it, said the corporal; ----He shall be +supported, said my uncle _Toby_; ----He’ll drop at last, said the +corporal, and what will become of his boy? ----He shall not drop, said +my uncle _Toby_, firmly. ----A-well-o’-day, --do what we can for him, +said _Trim_, maintaining his point, --the poor soul will die: ----He +shall not die, by G--, cried my uncle _Toby_. + +--The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, +blush’d as he gave it in; --and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it +down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +----My uncle _Toby_ went to his bureau, --put his purse into his +breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the +morning for a physician, --he went to bed, and fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE STORY OF LE FEVER CONTINUED + + +The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but +_Le Fever’s_ and his afflicted son’s; the hand of death press’d heavy +upon his eye-lids, ----and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn +round its circle, --when my uncle _Toby_, who had rose up an hour before +his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, and without preface or +apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, +independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner +an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how +he did, --how he had rested in the night, --what was his complaint, +--where was his pain, --and what he could do to help him: ----and +without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on, and +told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the +corporal the night before for him.---- + +----You shall go home directly, _Le Fever_, said my uncle _Toby_, to my +house, --and we’ll send for a doctor to see what’s the matter, --and +we’ll have an apothecary, --and the corporal shall be your nurse; +----and I’ll be your servant, _Le Fever_. + +There was a frankness in my uncle _Toby_, --not the _effect_ of +familiarity, --but the _cause_ of it, --which let you at once into his +soul, and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was +something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which +eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under +him; so that before my uncle _Toby_ had half finished the kind offers he +was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his +knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it +towards him. ----The blood and spirits of _Le Fever_, which were waxing +cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the +heart--rallied back, --the film forsook his eyes for a moment, --he +looked up wishfully in my uncle _Toby’s_ face, --then cast a look upon +his boy, ----and that _ligament_, fine as it was, --was never +broken.------ + +Nature instantly ebb’d again, --the film returned to its place, ----the +pulse fluttered----stopp’d----went on----throbb’d----stopp’d +again----moved----stopp’d----shall I go on? ----No. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +I am so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young +_Le Fever’s_, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my +uncle _Toby_ recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very +few words in the next chapter. --All that is necessary to be added to +this chapter is as follows.-- + +That my uncle _Toby_, with young _Le Fever_ in his hand, attended the +poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave. + +That the governor of _Dendermond_ paid his obsequies all military +honours, --and that _Yorick_, not to be behind-hand--paid him all +ecclesiastic--for he buried him in his chancel: --And it appears +likewise, he preached a funeral sermon over him ----I say it _appears_, +--for it was _Yorick’s_ custom, which I suppose a general one with those +of his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed, +to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being +preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short comment or +stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit: +--For instance, _This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation --I don’t like +it at all; --Though I own there is a world of WATER-LANDISH knowledge in +it, --but ’tis all tritical, and most tritically put together. +------This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my head +when I made it?_ + +----N. B. _The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any sermon, +--and of this sermon, ----that it will suit any text. ------_ + +_ ----For this sermon I shall be hanged, --for I have stolen the greatest +part of it. Doctor _Paidagunes_ found me out. [-->] Set a thief to catch +a thief. ------_ + +On the back of half a dozen I find written, _So, so_, and no more----and +upon a couple _Moderato_; by which, as far as one may gather from +_Altieri’s_ _Italian_ dictionary, --but mostly from the authority of a +piece of green whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of +_Yorick’s_ whip-lash, with which he has left us the two sermons marked +_Moderato_, and the half dozen of _So, so_, tied fast together in one +bundle by themselves, --one may safely suppose he meant pretty near the +same thing. + +There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is +this, that the _moderato’s_ are five times better than the _so, so’s_; +--show ten times more knowledge of the human heart; --have seventy times +more wit and spirit in them; --(and, to rise properly in my +climax)--discovered a thousand times more genius; --and to crown all, +are infinitely more entertaining than those tied up with them: --for +which reason, whene’er _Yorick’s_ _dramatic_ sermons are offered to the +world, though I shall admit but one out of the whole number of the _so, +so’s_, I shall, nevertheless, adventure to print the two _moderato’s_ +without any sort of scruple. + +What _Yorick_ could mean by the words _lentamente_, --_tenutè_, +--_grave_, --and sometimes _adagio_, --as applied to _theological_ +compositions, and with which he has characterised some of these sermons, +I dare not venture to guess. ----I am more puzzled still upon finding +_a l’octava alta!_ upon one; ----_Con strepito_ upon the back of +another; ----_Siciliana_ upon a third; ----_Alla capella_ upon a fourth; +----_Con l’arco_ upon this; ----_Senza l’arco_ upon that. ----All I know +is, that they are musical terms, and have a meaning; ----and as he was a +musical man, I will make no doubt, but that by some quaint application +of such metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impressed very +distinct ideas of their several characters upon his fancy, --whatever +they may do upon that of others. + +Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably +led me into this digression ----The funeral sermon upon poor _Le Fever_, +wrote out very fairly, as if from a hasty copy. --I take notice of it +the more, because it seems to have been his favourite composition ----It +is upon mortality; and is tied lengthways and cross-ways with a yarn +thrum, and then rolled up and twisted round with a half-sheet of dirty +blue paper, which seems to have been once the cast cover of a general +review, which to this day smells horribly of horse drugs. ----Whether +these marks of humiliation were designed, --I something doubt; +----because at the end of the sermon (and not at the beginning +of it)--very different from his way of treating the rest, he had +wrote---- + + Bravo! + +----Though not very offensively, ----for it is at two inches, at least, +and a half’s distance from, and below the concluding line of the sermon, +at the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it, +which, you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it +justice, it is wrote besides with a crow’s quill so faintly in a small +_Italian_ hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether +your thumb is there or not, --so that from the _manner of it_, it stands +half excused; and being wrote moreover with very pale ink, diluted +almost to nothing, --’tis more like a _ritratto_ of the shadow of +vanity, than of VANITY herself--of the two; resembling rather a faint +thought of transient applause, secretly stirring up in the heart of the +composer; than a gross mark of it, coarsely obtruded upon the world. + +With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do +no service to _Yorick’s_ character as a modest man; --but all men have +their failings! and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes it +away, is this; that the word was struck through sometime afterwards +(as appears from a different tint of the ink) with a line quite across +it in this manner, [BRAVO]----as if he had retracted, or was ashamed of +the opinion he had once entertained of it. + +These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in +this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon, which served as a +cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned towards +the text; --but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he had five +or six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a whole score to turn himself in, +--he took a large circuit, and, indeed, a much more mettlesome one; --as +if he had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more +frolicksome strokes at vice, than the straitness of the pulpit allowed. +--These, though hussar-like, they skirmish lightly and out of all order, +are still auxiliaries on the side of virtue; --tell me then, Mynheer +Vander Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not be printed +together? + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +When my uncle _Toby_ had turned everything into money, and settled all +accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and _Le Fever_, and betwixt +_Le Fever_ and all mankind, ----there remained nothing more in my uncle +_Toby’s_ hands, than an old regimental coat and a sword; so that my +uncle _Toby_ found little or no opposition from the world in taking +administration. The coat my uncle _Toby_ gave the corporal; ----Wear it, +_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, as long as it will hold together, for the +sake of the poor lieutenant ----And this, ----said my uncle _Toby_, +taking up the sword in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as +he spoke----and this, _Le Fever_, I’ll save for thee, --’tis all the +fortune, continued my uncle _Toby_, hanging it up upon a crook, and +pointing to it, --’tis all the fortune, my dear _Le Fever_, which God +has left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way with it +in the world, --and thou doest it like a man of honour, --’tis enough +for us. + +As soon as my uncle _Toby_ had laid a foundation, and taught him to +inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, he sent him to a public school, +where, excepting _Whitsontide_ and _Christmas_, at which times the +corporal was punctually dispatched for him, --he remained to the spring +of the year, seventeen; when the stories of the emperor’s sending his +army into _Hungary_ against the _Turks_, kindling a spark of fire in his +bosom, he left his _Greek_ and _Latin_ without leave, and throwing +himself upon his knees before my uncle _Toby_, begged his father’s +sword, and my uncle _Toby’s_ leave along with it, to go and try his +fortune under _Eugene_. --Twice did my uncle _Toby_ forget his wound and +cry out, _Le Fever!_ I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside +me ----And twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head +in sorrow and disconsolation.---- + +My uncle _Toby_ took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung +untouched ever since the lieutenant’s death, and delivered it to the +corporal to brighten up; ----and having detained _Le Fever_ a single +fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to _Leghorn_, --he +put the sword into his hand. ----If thou art brave, _Le Fever_, said my +uncle _Toby_, this will not fail thee, ----but Fortune, said he (musing +a little), ----Fortune may ----And if she does, --added my uncle _Toby_, +embracing him, come back again to me, _Le Fever_, and we will shape thee +another course. + +The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of _Le Fever_ +more than my uncle _Toby’s_ paternal kindness; ----he parted from my +uncle _Toby_, as the best of sons from the best of fathers----both +dropped tears----and as my uncle _Toby_ gave him his last kiss, he +slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his father’s, in which +was his mother’s ring, into his hand,---- and bid God bless him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal +his sword was made of, at the defeat of the _Turks_ before _Belgrade_; +but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, +and trod close upon his heels for four years together after; he had +withstood these buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at +_Marseilles_, from whence he wrote my uncle _Toby_ word, he had lost his +time, his services, his health, and, in short, everything but his sword; +----and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him. + +As this letter came to hand about six weeks before _Susannah’s_ +accident, _Le Fever_ was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle +_Toby’s_ mind all the time my father was giving him and _Yorick_ a +description of what kind of a person he would chuse for a preceptor to +me: but as my uncle _Toby_ thought my father at first somewhat fanciful +in the accomplishments he required, he forebore mentioning _Le Fever’s_ +name, ----till the character, by _Yorick’s_ interposition, ending +unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle-tempered, and generous, and +good, it impressed the image of _Le Fever_, and his interest, upon my +uncle _Toby_ so forcibly, he rose instantly off his chair; and laying +down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father’s hands ----I beg, +brother _Shandy_, said my uncle _Toby_, I may recommend poor _Le +Fever’s_ son to you ----I beseech you do, added _Yorick_ ----He has a +good heart, said my uncle _Toby_ ----And a brave one too, an’ please +your honour, said the corporal. + +----The best hearts, _Trim_, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle +_Toby_. ----And the greatest cowards, an’ please your honour, in our +regiment, were the greatest rascals in it. ----There was serjeant +_Kumber_, and ensign------ + +----We’ll talk of them, said my father, another time. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your +worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, +want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and +lies! + +Doctor _Slop_, like a son of a w----, as my father called him for it, +--to exalt himself, --debased me to death, --and made ten thousand times +more of _Susannah’s_ accident, than there was any grounds for; so that +in a week’s time, or less, it was in everybody’s mouth, _That poor +Master Shandy_ * * * * * * + * * entirely. --And FAME, who loves to double everything, --in +three days more, had sworn, positively she saw it, --and all the world, +as usual, gave credit to her evidence---- “That the nursery window had +not only * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * ;----but that * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * ’s also.” + +Could the world have been sued like a BODY-CORPORATE, --my father had +brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to +fall foul of individuals about it----as every soul who had mentioned the +affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable; ----’twas like flying +in the very face of his best friends: ----And yet to acquiesce under the +report, in silence--was to acknowledge it openly, --at least in the +opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in +contradicting it, --was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the +other half.------ + +----Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my +father. + +I would shew him publickly, said my uncle _Toby_, at the market cross. + +----’Twill have no effect, said my father. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +----I’ll put him, however, into breeches, said my father, --let the +world say what it will. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well +as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern; --which though they +have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and entered +upon in a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, +notwithstanding this (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or +stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so), weighed, +poized, and perpended----argued upon--canvassed through----entered into, +and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS of +COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could +neither have wished it, or done it better. + +Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of putting me into +breeches; which, though determined at once, --in a kind of huff, and a +defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been _pro’d_ and _conn’d_, +and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month +before, in two several _beds of justice_, which my father had held for +that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my +next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you shall step with me, +Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my father +and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the breeches, +--from which you may form an idea, how they debated all lesser matters. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The ancient _Goths_ of _Germany_, who (the learned _Cluverius_ is +positive) were first seated in the country between the _Vistula_ and the +_Oder_, and who afterwards incorporated the _Herculi_, the _Bugians_, +and some other _Vandallick_ clans to ’em--had all of them a wise custom +of debating everything of importance to their state, twice; that is, +--once drunk, and once sober: ----Drunk, --that their councils might not +want vigour; ----and sober--that they might not want discretion. + +Now my father being entirely a water-drinker, --was a long time +gravelled almost to death, in turning this as much to his advantage, as +he did every other thing which the ancients did or said; and it was not +till the seventh year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless +experiments and devices, that he hit upon an expedient which answered +the purpose; ----and that was, when any difficult and momentous point +was to be settled in the family, which required great sobriety, and +great spirit too, in its determination, ----he fixed and set apart the +first _Sunday_ night in the month, and the _Saturday_ night which +immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in bed, with my mother: By +which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself, * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * + +These my father, humorously enough, called his _beds of justice_; +----for from the two different counsels taken in these two different +humours, a middle one was generally found out which touched the point of +wisdom as well, as if he had got drunk and sober a hundred times. + +It must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as +well in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it +is not every author that can try the experiment as the _Goths_ and +_Vandals_ did it----or, if he can, may it be always for his body’s +health; and to do it, as my father did it, --am I sure it would be +always for his soul’s. + +My way is this:---- + +In all nice and ticklish discussions--(of which, heaven knows, there are +but too many in my book), --where I find I cannot take a step without +the danger of having either their worships or their reverences upon my +back ----I write one-half _full_, --and t’other _fasting_; ----or write +it all full, --and correct it fasting: ----or write it fasting, --and +correct it full, for they all come to the same thing: ----So that with a +less variation from my father’s plan, than my father’s from the +_Gothick_ ----I feel myself upon a par with him in his first bed of +justice, --and no way inferior to him in his second. ----These different +and almost irreconcileable effects, flow uniformly from the wise and +wonderful mechanism of nature, --of which, --be her’s the honour. +----All that we can do, is to turn and work the machine to the +improvement and better manufactory of the arts and sciences.---- + +Now, when I write full, --I write as if I was never to write fasting +again as long as I live; ----that is, I write free from the cares as +well as the terrors of the world. ----I count not the number of my +scars, --nor does my fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to +antedate my stabs. ----In a word, my pen takes its course; and I write +on as much from the fulness of my heart, as my stomach.---- + +But when, an’ please your honours, I indite fasting, ’tis a different +history. ----I pay the world all possible attention and respect, --and +have as great a share (whilst it lasts) of that under-strapping virtue +of discretion as the best of you. ----So that betwixt both, I write a +careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured _Shandean_ book, +which will do all your hearts good------ + +----And all your heads too, --provided you understand it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +We should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and +shifting his pillow a little towards my mother’s, as he opened the +debate ----We should begin to think, Mrs. _Shandy_, of putting this boy +into breeches.---- + +We should so, --said my mother. ----We defer it, my dear, quoth my +father, shamefully.------ + +I think we do, Mr. _Shandy_, --said my mother. + +----Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests +and tunicks.------ + +------He does look very well in them, --replied my mother.------ + +----And for that reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to +take him out of ’em.---- + +----It would so, --said my mother: ----But indeed he is growing a very +tall lad, --rejoined my father. + +----He is very tall for his age, indeed, --said my mother.---- + +----I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who +the deuce he takes after.---- + +I cannot conceive, for my life, --said my mother.---- + +Humph! ----said my father. + +(The dialogue ceased for a moment.) + +----I am very short myself, --continued my father gravely. + +You are very short, Mr. _Shandy_, --said my mother. + +Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, he +plucked his pillow a little further from my mother’s--and turning about +again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half. + +----When he gets these breeches made, cried my father in a higher tone, +he’ll look like a beast in ’em. + +He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother.---- + +----And ’twill be lucky, if that’s the worst on’t, added my father. + +It will be very lucky, answered my mother. + +I suppose, replied my father, --making some pause first, --he’ll be +exactly like other people’s children.---- + +Exactly, said my mother.------ + +----Though I shall be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate +stopp’d again. + +----They should be of leather, said my father, turning him about +again.-- + +They will last him, said my mother, the longest. + +But he can have no linings to ’em, replied my father.------ + +He cannot, said my mother. + +’Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my father. + +Nothing can be better, quoth my mother.------ + +--Except dimity, --replied my father: ----’Tis best of all, --replied my +mother. + +----One must not give him his death, however, --interrupted my father. + +By no means, said my mother: ----and so the dialogue stood still again. + +I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth +time, he shall have no pockets in them.-- + +----There is no occasion for any, said my mother.------ + +I mean in his coat and waistcoat, --cried my father. + +----I mean so too, --replied my mother. + +----Though if he gets a gig or top ----Poor souls! it is a crown and a +sceptre to them, --they should have where to secure it.------ + +Order it as you please, Mr. _Shandy_, replied my mother.------ + +----But don’t you think it right? added my father, pressing the point +home to her. + +Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. _Shandy_.------ + +----There’s for you! cried my father, losing temper ----Pleases me! +----You never will distinguish, Mrs. _Shandy_, nor shall I ever teach +you to do it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience. +----This was on the _Sunday_ night: ----and further this chapter sayeth +not. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother, +--he consulted _Albertus Rubenius_ upon it; and _Albertus Rubenius_ used +my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my +father had used my mother: For as _Rubenius_ had wrote a quarto +_express_, _De re Vestiaria Veterum_, --it was _Rubenius’s_ business to +have given my father some lights. --On the contrary, my father might as +well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long +beard, --as of extracting a single word out of _Rubenius_ upon the +subject. + +Upon every other article of ancient dress, _Rubenius_ was very +communicative to my father; --gave him a full and satisfactory account +of + + The Toga, or loose gown. + The Chlamys. + The Ephod. + The Tunica, or Jacket. + The Synthesis. + The Pænula. + The Lacema, with its Cucullus. + The Paludamentum. + The Prætexta. + The Sagum, or soldier’s jerkin. + The Trabea: of which, according to _Suetonius_, there were three +kinds.-- + +----But what are all these to the breeches? said my father. + +_Rubenius_ threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had +been in fashion with the _Romans_.------ + +There was, + + The open shoe. + The close shoe. + The slip shoe. + The wooden shoe. + The soc. + The buskin. + And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which _Juvenal_ + takes notice of. + There were, The clogs. + The pattins. + The pantoufles. + The brogues. + The sandals, with latchets to them. + There was, The felt shoe. + The linen shoe. + The laced shoe. + The braided shoe. + The calceus incisus. + And The calceus rostratus. + +_Rubenius_ shewed my father how well they all fitted, --in what manner +they laced on, --with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands, +jaggs, and ends.------ + +----But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father. + +_Albertus Rubenius_ informed my father that the _Romans_ manufactured +stuffs of various fabrics, ----some plain, --some striped, --others +diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and +gold ----That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the +declension of the empire, when the _Egyptians_ coming to settle amongst +them, brought it into vogue. + +----That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the +fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple, +which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and +wore on their birthdays and public rejoicings. ----That it appeared from +the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their +clothes to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened: ----but that the +inferior people, to avoid that expence, generally wore brown clothes, +and of a something coarser texture, --till towards the beginning of +_Augustus’s_ reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost +every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the _Latus Clavus_. + +And what was the _Latus Clavus?_ said my father. + +_Rubenius_ told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the +learned: ----That _Egnatius_, _Sigonius_, _Bossius Ticinensis_, +_Bayfius_, _Budæus_, _Salmasius_, _Lipsius_, _Lazius_, _Isaac Casaubon_, +and _Joseph Scaliger_, all differed from each other, --and he from them: +That some took it to be the button, --some the coat itself, --others +only the colour of it: --That the great _Bayfius_, in his Wardrobe of +the Ancients, chap. 12--honestly said, he knew not what it was, +--whether a tibula, --a stud, --a button, --a loop, --a buckle, --or +clasps and keepers.------ + +----My father lost the horse, but not the saddle ----They are _hooks and +eyes_, said my father----and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches +to be made. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +We are now going to enter upon a new scene of events.------ + +----Leave we then the breeches in the taylor’s hands, with my father +standing over him with his cane, reading him as he sat at work a lecture +upon the _latus clavus_, and pointing to the precise part of the +waistband, where he was determined to have it sewed on.---- + +Leave we my mother--(truest of all the _Pococurantes_ of her +sex!)--careless about it, as about everything else in the world which +concerned her; --that is, --indifferent whether it was done this way or +that, --provided it was but done at all.---- + +Leave we _Slop_ likewise to the full profits of all my dishonours.------ + +Leave we poor _Le Fever_ to recover, and get home from _Marseilles_ as +he can. ----And last of all, --because the hardest of all---- + +Let us leave, if possible, _myself_: ----But ’tis impossible, --I must +go along with you to the end of the work. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of +ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle _Toby’s_ kitchen-garden, and +which was the scene of so many of his delicious hours, --the fault is +not in me, --but in his imagination; --for I am sure I gave him so +minute a description, I was almost ashamed of it. + +When FATE was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great +transactions of future times, --and recollected for what purposes this +little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined, +---she gave a nod to NATURE, --’twas enough --Nature threw half a spade +full of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so _much_ clay in it, +as to retain the forms of angles and indentings, --and so _little_ of it +too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works of so much glory, +nasty in foul weather. + +My uncle _Toby_ came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans +along with him, of almost every fortified town in _Italy_ and +_Flanders_; so let the Duke of _Marlborough_, or the allies, have set +down before what town they pleased, my uncle _Toby_ was prepared for +them. + +His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as soon as +ever a town was invested--(but sooner when the design was known) to take +the plan of it (let it be what town it would), and enlarge it upon a +scale to the exact size of his bowling-green; upon the surface of which, +by means of a large role of packthread, and a number of small piquets +driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he transferred +the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the place, with its +works, to determine the depths and slopes of the ditches, --the talus of +the glacis, and the precise height of the several banquets, parapets, +&c. --he set the corporal to work----and sweetly went it on: ----The +nature of the soil, --the nature of the work itself, --and above all, +the good-nature of my uncle _Toby_ sitting by from morning to night, and +chatting kindly with the corporal upon past-done deeds, --left LABOUR +little else but the ceremony of the name. + +When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper +posture of defence, --it was invested, --and my uncle _Toby_ and the +corporal began to run their first parallel. ----I beg I may not be +interrupted in my story, by being told, _That the first parallel should +be at least three hundred toises distant from the main body of the +place, --and that I have not left a single inch for it_; ------for my +uncle _Toby_ took the liberty of incroaching upon his kitchen-garden, +for the sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green, and for that +reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt two rows of +his cabbages and his cauliflowers; the conveniences and inconveniences +of which will be considered at large in the history of my uncle _Toby’s_ +and the corporal’s campaigns, of which, this I’m now writing is but a +sketch, and will be finished, if I conjecture right, in three pages (but +there is no guessing) ----The campaigns themselves will take up as many +books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a weight +of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to rhapsodize +them, as I once intended, into the body of the work----surely they had +better be printed apart, ----we’ll consider the affair----so take the +following sketch of them in the meantime. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle _Toby_ and the +corporal began to run their first parallel----not at random, or any +how----but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to +run theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks, by the accounts +my uncle _Toby_ received from the daily papers, --they went on, during +the whole siege, step by step with the allies. + +When the duke of _Marlborough_ made a lodgment, ----my uncle _Toby_ made +a lodgment too, ----And when the face of a bastion was battered down, or +a defence ruined, --the corporal took his mattock and did as much, --and +so on; ----gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works +one after another, till the town fell into their hands. + +To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others, --there could not +have been a greater sight in the world, than, on a post-morning, in +which a practicable breach had been made by the duke of _Marlborough_, +in the main body of the place, --to have stood behind the horn-beam +hedge, and observed the spirit with which my uncle _Toby_, with _Trim_ +behind him, sallied forth; ----the one with the _Gazette_ in his hand, +--the other with a spade on his shoulder to execute the contents. +----What an honest triumph in my uncle _Toby’s_ looks as he marched up +to the ramparts! What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood +over the corporal, reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as he +was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too +wide, --or leave it an inch too narrow. ----But when the _chamade_ was +beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed with the +colours in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts --Heaven! Earth! Sea! +----but what avails apostrophes? ----with all your elements, wet or dry, +ye never compounded so intoxicating a draught. + +In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to +it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a +week or ten days together, which detained the _Flanders_ mail, and kept +them so long in torture, --but still ’twas the torture of the +happy ----In this track, I say, did my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ move for +many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the +invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new +conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened +fresh springs of delight in carrying them on. + +The first year’s campaign was carried on from beginning to end, in the +plain and simple method I’ve related. + +In the second year, in which my uncle _Toby_ took _Liege_ and +_Ruremond_, he thought he might afford the expence of four handsome +draw-bridges, of two of which I have given an exact description in the +former part of my work. + +At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates with +portcullises: ----These last were converted afterwards into orgues, as +the better thing; and during the winter of the same year, my uncle +_Toby_, instead of a new suit of clothes, which he always had at +_Christmas_, treated himself with a handsome sentry-box, to stand at the +corner of the bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of the +glacis, there was left a little kind of an esplanade for him and the +corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon. + +----The sentry-box was in case of rain. + +All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which +enabled my uncle _Toby_ to take the field with great splendour. + +My father would often say to _Yorick_, that if any mortal in the whole +universe had done such a thing, except his brother _Toby_, it would have +been looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires upon +the parade and prancing manner in which _Lewis_ XIV. from the beginning +of the war, but particularly that very year, had taken the field ----But +’tis not my brother _Toby’s_ nature, kind soul! my father would add, to +insult any one. + +----But let us go on. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +I must observe, that although in the first year’s campaign, the word +_town_ is often mentioned, --yet there was no town at that time within +the polygon; that addition was not made till the summer following the +spring in which the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the +third year of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns, --when upon his taking +_Amberg_, _Bonn_, and _Rhinberg_, and _Huy_ and _Limbourg_, one after +another, a thought came into the corporal’s head, that to talk of taking +so many towns, _without one TOWN to shew for it_, --was a very +nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my uncle _Toby_, +that they should have a little model of a town built for them, --to be +run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within the +interior polygon to serve for all. + +My uncle _Toby_ felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly +agreed to it, but with the addition of two singular improvements, of +which he was almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of +the project itself. + +The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of +which it was most likely to be the representative: ----with grated +windows, and the gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c. +--as those in _Ghent_ and _Bruges_, and the rest of the towns in +_Brabant_ and _Flanders_. + +The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal +proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off, so as +to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put +directly into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation +was exchanged between my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal, as the carpenter +did the work. + +----It answered prodigiously the next summer----the town was a perfect +_Proteus_ ----It was _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Santvliet_, and +_Drusen_, and _Hagenau_, --and then it was _Ostend_ and _Menin_, and +_Aeth_ and _Dendermond_. + +----Surely never did any TOWN act so many parts, since _Sodom_ and +_Gomorah_, as my uncle _Toby’s_ town did. + +In the fourth year, my uncle _Toby_ thinking a town looked foolishly +without a church, added a very fine one with a steeple. ----_Trim_ was +for having bells in it; ----my uncle _Toby_ said, the metal had better +be cast into cannon. + +This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass field-pieces, +to be planted three and three on each side of my uncle _Toby’s_ +sentry-box; and in a short time, these led the way for a train of +somewhat larger, --and so on--(as must always be the case in +hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch bore, till it came +at last to my father’s jack boots. + +The next year, which was that in which _Lisle_ was besieged, and at the +close of which both _Ghent_ and _Bruges_ fell into our hands, --my uncle +_Toby_ was sadly put to it for _proper_ ammunition; ----I say proper +ammunition----because his great artillery would not bear powder; and +’twas well for the _Shandy_ family they would not ----For so full were +the papers, from the beginning to the end of the siege, of the incessant +firings kept up by the besiegers, ----and so heated was my uncle +_Toby’s_ imagination with the accounts of them, that he had infallibly +shot away all his estate. + +SOMETHING therefore was wanting as a _succedaneum_, especially in one or +two of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something +like a continual firing in the imagination, ----and this _something_, +the corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an +entire new system of battering of his own, --without which, this had +been objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of +the great _desiderata_ of my uncle _Toby’s_ apparatus. + +This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally +do, at a little distance from the subject. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great +regard, which poor _Tom_, the corporal’s unfortunate brother, had sent +him over, with the account of his marriage with the _Jew’s_ +widow----there was + +A _Montero_-cap and two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes. + +The _Montero_-cap I shall describe by and bye. ----The _Turkish_ +tobacco-pipes had nothing particular in them, they were fitted up and +ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of _Morocco_ leather and gold +wire, and mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory, --the other +with black ebony, tipp’d with silver. + +My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the +world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two +presents more as tokens of his brother’s nicety, than his affection. +----_Tom_ did not care, _Trim_, he would say, to put on the cap, or to +smoke in the tobacco-pipe of a _Jew_. ----God bless your honour, the +corporal would say, (giving a strong reason to the contrary)--how can +that be? + +The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine _Spanish_ cloth, dyed in +grain, and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the +front, which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered, --and +seemed to have been the property of a _Portuguese_ quartermaster, not of +foot, but of horse, as the word denotes. + +The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as +the sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon GALA-days; +and yet never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all +controverted points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal +was sure he was in the right, --it was either his _oath_, --his _wager_, +--or his _gift_. + +----’Twas his gift in the present case. + +I’ll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to _give_ away my +Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door, if I do not +manage this matter to his honour’s satisfaction. + +The completion was no further off than the very next morning; which was +that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the _Lower Deule_, to the +right, and the gate _St. Andrew_, --and on the left, between St. +_Magdalen’s_ and the river. + +As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war, --the most +gallant and obstinate on both sides, --and I must add the most bloody +too, for it cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred +men, --my uncle _Toby_ prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary +solemnity. + +The eve which preceded, as my uncle _Toby_ went to bed, he ordered his +ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years in the corner of +an old compaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out +and laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning; --and the very first +thing he did in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle +_Toby_, after he had turned the rough side outwards, --put it on: +----This done, he proceeded next to his breeches, and having buttoned +the waistband, he forthwith buckled on his sword-belt, and had got his +sword half way in, --when he considered he should want shaving, and that +it would be very inconvenient doing it with his sword on, --so took it +off: ----In assaying to put on his regimental coat and waistcoat, my +uncle _Toby_ found the same objection in his wig, --so that went off +too: --So that what with one thing and what with another, as always +falls out when a man is in the most haste, --’twas ten o’clock, which +was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle _Toby_ +sallied out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +My uncle _Toby_ had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which +separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived +the corporal had begun the attack without him.------ + +Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal’s apparatus; and of +the corporal himself in the height of his attack, just as it struck my +uncle _Toby_, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal +was at work, ----for in nature there is not such another, ----nor can +any combination of all that is grotesque and whimsical in her works +produce its equal. + +The corporal------ + +----Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, ----for he was your +kinsman: + +Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness, --for he was your brother. +--Oh corporal! had I thee, but now, --now, that I am able to give thee a +dinner and protection, --how would I cherish thee! thou should’st wear +thy Montero-cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week, --and +when it was worn out, I would purchase thee a couple like it: ----But +alas! alas! alas! now that I can do this in spite of their +reverences--the occasion is lost--for thou art gone; --thy genius fled +up to the stars from whence it came; --and that warm heart of thine, +with all its generous and open vessels, compressed into a _clod of the +valley!_ + +----But what----what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I +look towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy +master--the first--the foremost of created beings; ----where, I shall +see thee, faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a +trembling hand across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to +the door, to take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his +hearse, as he directed thee; ----where--all my father’s systems shall be +baffled by his sorrows; and, in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold +him, as he inspects the lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from +off his nose, to wipe away the dew which nature has shed upon +them ----When I see him cast in the rosemary with an air of +disconsolation, which cries through my ears, ----O _Toby!_ in what +corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow? + +----Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his +distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain----when I +shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a +stinted hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply +the grand _desideratum_, of keeping up something like an incessant +firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack, --had no further +idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco +against the town, out of one of my uncle _Toby’s_ six field-pieces, +which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of +effecting which occurring to his fancy at the time same, though he had +pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from the miscarriage of his +projects. + +Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began +to find out, that by means of his two _Turkish_ tobacco-pipes, with the +supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their lower +ends, to be tagg’d by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the +touch-holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied +hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the +_Morocco_ tube, --he should be able to fire the six field-pieces all +together, and with the same ease as to fire one.------ + +----Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out +for the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my +father’s first and second _beds of justice_, ever rise up and say again, +from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck +out, to carry the arts and sciences up to perfection. ----Heaven! thou +knowest how I love them; ----thou knowest the secrets of my heart, and +that I would this moment give my shirt ----Thou art a fool, _Shandy_, +says _Eugenius_, for thou hast but a dozen in the world, --and ’twill +break thy set.---- + +No matter for that, _Eugenius_; I would give the shirt off my back to be +burned into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer, how +many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into +the tail of it. ----Think ye not that in striking these _in_, --he +might, peradventure, strike something _out?_ as sure as a gun.---- + +----But this project, by the bye. + +The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing _his_ to +perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with +charging them to the top with tobacco, --he went with contentment to +bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle _Toby_, +in order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two +before my uncle _Toby_ came. + +He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together in +front of my uncle _Toby’s_ sentry-box, leaving only an interval of about +a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the +convenience of charging, &c. --and the sake possibly of two batteries, +which he might think double the honour of one. + +In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the +sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his +post: ----He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the +right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand, --and the ebony +pipe tipp’d with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, +betwixt the finger and thumb of the other----and with his right knee +fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was +the corporal with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off +his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard, +which faced the counter-scarp, where the attack was to be made that +morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the +enemy a single puff or two; --but the pleasure of the _puffs_, as well +as the _puffing_, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him +on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time my +uncle _Toby_ joined him. + +’Twas well for my father, that my uncle _Toby_ had not his will to make +that day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +My uncle _Toby_ took the ivory pipe out of the corporal’s hand, --looked +at it for half a minute, and returned it. + +In less than two minutes, my uncle _Toby_ took the pipe from the +corporal again, and raised it half way to his mouth----then hastily gave +it back a second time. + +The corporal redoubled the attack, ----my uncle _Toby_ smiled, ----then +looked grave, ----then smiled for a moment, ----then looked serious for +a long time; ----Give me hold of the ivory pipe, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_----my uncle _Toby_ put it to his lips, ----drew it back directly, +--gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge; ----never did my uncle _Toby’s_ +mouth water so much for a pipe in his life. ----My uncle _Toby_ retired +into the sentry-box with the pipe in his hand.------ + +----Dear uncle _Toby!_ don’t go into the sentry-box with the pipe, +--there’s no trusting a man’s self with such a thing in such a corner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +I beg the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle _Toby’s_ +ordnance behind the scenes, ----to remove his sentry-box, and clear the +theatre, _if possible_, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest +of his military apparatus out of the way; ----that done, my dear friend +_Garrick_, we’ll snuff the candles bright, --sweep the stage with a new +broom, --draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle _Toby_ dressed in a +new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will +act: and yet, if pity be a-kin to love, --and bravery no alien to it, +you have seen enough of my uncle _Toby_ in these, to trace these family +likenesses betwixt the two passions (in case there is one) to your +heart’s content. + +Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kind--and thou +puzzlest us in every one. + +There was, Madam, in my uncle _Toby_, a singleness of heart which misled +him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this +nature usually go on; you can--you can have no conception of it: with +this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an +unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman; +----and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you (when a siege +was out of his head), that you might have stood behind any one of your +serpentine walks, and shot my uncle _Toby_ ten times in a day, through +his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose. + +With all this, Madam, --and what confounded everything as much on the +other hand, my uncle _Toby_ had that unparalleled modesty of nature I +once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his +feelings, that you might as soon ----But where am I going? these +reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up +that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Of the few legitimate sons of _Adam_ whose breasts never felt what the +sting of love was, --(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be +bastards)--the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried +off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their +sakes I had the key of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five +minutes, to tell you their names--recollect them I cannot--so be content +to accept of these, for the present, in their stead.------ + +There was the great king _Aldrovandus_, and _Bosphorus_, and +_Cappadocius_, and _Dardanus_, and _Pontus_, and _Asius_, ----to say +nothing of the iron-hearted _Charles_ the XIIth, whom the Countess of +K***** herself could make nothing of. ----There was _Babylonicus_, and +_Mediterraneus_, and _Polixenes_, and _Persicus_, and _Prusicus_, not +one of whom (except _Cappadocius_ and _Pontus_, who were both a little +suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess ----The truth +is, they had all of them something else to do--and so had my uncle +_Toby_--till Fate--till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being +handed down to posterity with _Aldrovandus’s_ and the rest, --she basely +patched up the peace of _Utrecht_. + +----Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she did that year. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of _Utrecht_, it was +within a point of giving my uncle _Toby_ a surfeit of sieges; and though +he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet _Calais_ itself left not a +deeper scar in _Mary’s_ heart, than _Utrecht_ upon my uncle _Toby’s_. To +the end of his life he never could hear _Utrecht_ mentioned upon any +account whatever, --or so much as read an article of news extracted out +of the _Utrecht Gazette_, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would +break in twain. + +My father, who was a great MOTIVE-MONGER, and consequently a very +dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying, --for +he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew +it yourself--would always console my uncle _Toby_ upon these occasions, +in a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle _Toby_ grieved for +nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his _hobby-horse_. +----Never mind, brother _Toby_, he would say, --by God’s blessing we +shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it +does, --the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot +keep us out of play. ----I defy ’em, my dear _Toby_, he would add, to +take countries without taking towns, ----or towns without sieges. + +My uncle _Toby_ never took this back-stroke of my father’s at his +hobby-horse kindly. ----He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more +so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most +dishonourable part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he +always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend +himself than common. + +I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle _Toby_ was not +eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary: +----I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again. +--He was not eloquent, --it was not easy to my uncle _Toby_ to make long +harangues, --and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where +the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, +that in some parts my uncle _Toby_, for a time, was at least equal to +_Tertullus_----but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him. + +My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations +of my uncle _Toby’s_, which he had delivered one evening before him and +_Yorick_, that he wrote it down before he went to bed. + +I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father’s papers, +with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus +[ ], and is endorsed, + +MY BROTHER TOBY’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS OWN PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT IN +WISHING TO CONTINUE THE WAR + + +I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle +_Toby’s_ a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence, --and +shows so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, +that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I +find it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +MY UNCLE TOBY’S APOLOGETICAL ORATION + + +I am not insensible, brother _Shandy_, that when a man whose profession +is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war, --it has an ill aspect to the +world; ----and that, how just and right soever his motives and +intentions may be, --he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating +himself from private views in doing it. + +For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without +being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the +hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe +him. ----He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend, --lest he may +suffer in his esteem: ----But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret +sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a +brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true +notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I _hope_, I +have been in all these, brother _Shandy_, would be unbecoming in me to +say: ----much worse, I know, have I been than I ought, --and something +worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear brother +_Shandy_, who have sucked the same breasts with me, --and with whom I +have been brought up from my cradle, --and from whose knowledge, from +the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed +no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it ----Such as I am, +brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and with all +my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my +understanding. + +Tell me then, my dear brother _Shandy_, upon which of them it is, that +when I condemned the peace of _Utrecht_, and grieved the war was not +carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother +did it upon unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad +enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slain, --more slaves made, +and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his +own pleasure: ----Tell me, brother _Shandy_, upon what one deed of mine +do you ground it? [_The devil a deed do I know of, dear _Toby_, but one +for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed +sieges._] + +If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart +beat with it--was it my fault? Did I plant the propensity there? ----Did +I sound the alarm within, or Nature? + +When _Guy_, Earl of _Warwick_, and _Parismus_ and _Parismenus_, and +_Valentine_ and _Orson_, and the _Seven Champions of England_, were +handed around the school, --were they not all purchased with my own +pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother _Shandy?_ When we read over the +siege of _Troy_, which lasted ten years and eight months, ----though +with such a train of artillery as we had at _Namur_, the town might have +been carried in a week--was I not as much concerned for the destruction +of the _Greeks_ and _Trojans_ as any boy of the whole school? Had I not +three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my +left, for calling _Helena_ a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more +tears for _Hector?_ And when king _Priam_ came to the camp to beg his +body, and returned weeping back to _Troy_ without it, --you know, +brother, I could not eat my dinner.------ + +----Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother _Shandy_, my blood +flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war, --was it a proof it +could not ache for the distresses of war too? + +O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels, --and ’tis +another to scatter cypress. ----[_Who told thee, my dear _Toby_, that +cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_] + +----’Tis one thing, brother _Shandy_, for a soldier to hazard his own +life--to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in +pieces: ----’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to +enter the breach the first man, --To stand in the foremost rank, and +march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his +ears: ----’Tis one thing, I say, brother _Shandy_, to do this, --and +’tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war; --to view the +desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues +and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, +is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo. + +Need I be told, dear _Yorick_, as I was by you, in _Le Fever’s_ funeral +sermon, _That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and +kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?_ ----But why did you not +add, _Yorick_, --if not by NATURE--that he is so by NECESSITY? ----For +what is war? what is it, _Yorick_, when fought as ours has been, upon +principles of _liberty_, and upon principles of _honour_----what is it, +but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords +in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? +And heaven is my witness, brother _Shandy_, that the pleasure I have +taken in these things, --and that infinite delight, in particular, which +has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, and I +hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that in +carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our creation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +I told the Christian reader ----I say _Christian_----hoping he is +one----and if he is not, I am sorry for it----and only beg he will +consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon +this book---- + +I told him, Sir----for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in +the strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going +backwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader’s +fancy----which, for my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than +at first, there is so much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, +with so many breaks and gaps in it, --and so little service do the stars +afford, which, nevertheless, I hang up in some of the darkest passages, +knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights the +sun itself at noon-day can give it----and now you see, I am lost +myself!------ + +----But ’tis my father’s fault; and whenever my brains come to be +dissected, you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a +large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of +cambrick, running along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly, +you cannot so much as cut out a * *, (here I hang up a couple of lights +again)----or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt.------ + +_Quanto id diligentius in liberis procreandis cavendum_, sayeth +_Cardan_. All which being considered, and that you see ’tis morally +impracticable for me to wind this round to where I set out------ + +I begin the chapter over again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +I told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which +preceded my uncle _Toby’s_ apologetical oration, --though in a different +trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace of _Utrecht_ +was within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_ +and his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the +confederating powers. + +There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse, +which as good as says to him, “I’ll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my +life, before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.” Now my +uncle _Toby_ could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for +in strictness of language, he could not be said to dismount his horse at +all----his horse rather flung him----and somewhat _viciously_, which +made my uncle _Toby_ take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be +settled by state-jockies as they like. ----It created, I say, a sort of +shyness betwixt my uncle _Toby_ and his hobby-horse. ----He had no +occasion for him from the month of _March_ to _November_, which was the +summer after the articles were signed, except it was now and then to +take a short ride out, just to see that the fortifications and harbour +of _Dunkirk_ were demolished, according to stipulation. + +The _French_ were so backwards all that summer in setting about that +affair, and Monsieur _Tugghe_, the Deputy from the magistrates of +_Dunkirk_, presented so many affecting petitions to the queen, +--beseeching her majesty to cause only her thunder-bolts to fall upon +the martial works, which might have incurred her displeasure, --but to +spare--to spare the mole, for the mole’s sake; which, in its naked +situation, could be no more than an object of pity----and the queen (who +was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition, --and her ministers +also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for +these private reasons, * * * * + * * * * * * * ---- + + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * ; so that the whole went heavily on with my uncle +_Toby_; insomuch, that it was not within three full months, after he and +the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be +destroyed, that the several commandants, commissaries, deputies, +negociators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it. ----Fatal +interval of inactivity! + +The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the +ramparts, or main fortifications of the town ----No, --that will never +do, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, for in going that way to work with +the town, the _English_ garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because +if the _French_ are treacherous ----They are as treacherous as devils, +an’ please your honour, said the corporal ----It gives me concern always +when I hear it, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, --for they don’t want +personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may +enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please: +----Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s spade +in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it, --let +them enter, an’ please your honour, if they dare. ----In cases like +this, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, slipping his right hand down to +the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with +his forefinger extended, ----’tis no part of the consideration of a +commandant, what the enemy dare, --or what they dare not do; he must act +with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and +the land, and particularly with fort _Louis_, the most distant of them +all, and demolish it first, --and the rest, one by one, both on our +right and left, as we retreat towards the town; ----then we’ll demolish +the mole, --next fill up the harbour, --then retire into the citadel, +and blow it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we’ll +embark for _England_. ----We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting +himself ----Very true, said my uncle _Toby_--looking at the church. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle +_Toby_ and _Trim_, upon the demolition of _Dunkirk_, --for a moment +rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from +under him: ----still--still all went on heavily----the magic left the +mind the weaker --STILLNESS, with SILENCE at her back, entered the +solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle _Toby’s_ +head; ----and LISTLESSNESS, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat +quietly down beside him in his arm-chair. ----No longer _Amberg_ and +_Rhinberg_, and _Limbourg_, and _Huy_, and _Bonn_, in one year, --and +the prospect of _Landen_, and _Trerebach_, and _Drusen_, and +_Dendermond_, the next, --hurried on the blood: --No longer did saps, +and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair +enemy of man’s repose: ----No more could my uncle _Toby_, after passing +the _French_ lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into +the heart of _France_, --cross over the _Oyes_, and with all _Picardie_ +open behind him, march up to the gates of _Paris_, and fall asleep with +nothing but ideas of glory: ----No more was he to dream he had fixed the +royal standard upon the tower of the _Bastile_, and awake with it +streaming in his head. + +----Softer visions, --gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his +slumbers; --the trumpet of war fell out of his hands, --he took up the +lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most +difficult! ----how wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle _Toby?_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of +talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle _Toby’s_ +courtship of widow _Wadman_, whenever I got time to write them, would +turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and +practical part of love and love-making, that ever was addressed to the +world----are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a +description of _what love is?_ whether part God and part Devil, as +_Plotinus_ will have it---- + +----Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to +be as ten----to determine with _Ficinus_, “_How many parts of it--the +one, --and how many the other_;” --or whether it is _all of it one great +Devil_, from head to tail, as _Plato_ has taken upon him to pronounce; +concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion: --but my +opinion of _Plato_ is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have +been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with doctor +_Baynyard_, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half +a dozen of ’em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a +herse and six--rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in +the world, but one great bouncing _Canthari[di]s_.------ + +I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous +liberty in arguing, but what _Nazianzen_ cried out (_that is, +polemically_) to _Philagrius_---- + +“Εὖγε!” _O rare! ’tis fine reasoning, Sir, indeed!_-- “ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν +Πάθεσι”--_and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize +about it in your moods and passions._ + +Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire, +whether love is a disease, ----or embroil myself with _Rhasis_ and +_Dioscorides_, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver; +--because this would lead me on, to an examination of the two very +opposite manners, in which patients have been treated----the one, of +_Aætius_, who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and +bruised cucumbers; --and followed on with thin potations of +water-lillies and purslane--to which he added a pinch of snuff of the +herb _Hanea_; --and where _Aætius_ durst venture it, --his topaz-ring. + +----The other, that of _Gordonius_, who (in his cap. 15. _de Amore_) +directs they should be thrashed, “_ad putorem usque_,” ----till they +stink again. + +These are disquisitions, which my father, who had laid in a great stock +of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my +uncle _Toby’s_ affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his +theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my +uncle _Toby’s_ mind, almost as much as his amours themselves)--he took a +single step into practice; --and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, +which he found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he +was making my uncle _Toby_ a new pair of breeches, he produced +_Gordonius’s_ effect upon my uncle _Toby_ without the disgrace. + +What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that +is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this ----That whatever effect +it had upon my uncle _Toby_, ----it had a vile effect upon the house; +----and if my uncle _Toby_ had not smoaked it down as he did, it might +have had a vile effect upon my father too. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +----’Twill come out of itself by and bye. ----All I contend for is, that +I am not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is; and so +long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the +word itself, without any other idea to it, than what I have in common +with the rest of the world, why should I differ from it a moment before +the time? ----When I can get on no further, ----and find myself +entangled on all sides of this mystic labyrinth, --my Opinion will then +come in, in course, --and lead me out. + +At present, I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in telling the +reader, my uncle _Toby_ _fell in love_: + +--Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is +_fallen_ in love, --or that he is _deeply_ in love, --or up to the ears +in love, --and sometimes even _over head and ears in it_, --carries an +idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing _below_ a man: +--this is recurring again to _Plato’s_ opinion, which, with all his +divinityship, --I hold to be damnable and heretical: --and so much for +that. + +Let love therefore be what it will, --my uncle _Toby_ fell into it. + +----And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation--so wouldst +thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet anything +in this world, more concupiscible than widow _Wadman_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +To conceive this right, --call for pen and ink--here’s paper ready to +your hand. ----Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind----as like your +mistress as you can----as unlike your wife as your conscience will let +you--’tis all one to me----please but your own fancy in it. + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + +------Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet! --so exquisite! + +----Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle _Toby_ resist it? + +Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers, +which MALICE will not blacken, and which IGNORANCE cannot misrepresent. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +As _Susannah_ was informed by an express from Mrs. _Bridget_, of my +uncle _Toby’s_ falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it +happened, --the contents of which express, _Susannah_ communicated to my +mother the next day, --it has just given me an opportunity of entering +upon my uncle _Toby’s_ amours a fortnight before their existence. + +I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother, +which will surprise you greatly.---- + +Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and +was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother +broke silence.------ + +“----My brother _Toby_, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. +_Wadman_.” + +----Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie _diagonally_ in +his bed again as long as he lives. + +It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the +meaning of a thing she did not understand. + +----That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her +misfortune--but she might ask a question.-- + +My mother never did. ----In short, she went out of the world at last +without knowing whether it turned _round_, or stood _still_. ----My +father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was, +--but she always forgot. + +For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, +than a proposition, --a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it +generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the +breeches), and then went on again. + +If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us, --quoth my mother. + +Not a cherry-stone, said my father, --he may as well batter away his +means upon that, as any thing else. + +----To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition, --the +reply, --and the rejoinder, I told you of. + +It will be some amusement to him, too, ----said my father. + +A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.---- + +----Lord have mercy upon me, --said my father to himself---- + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a +vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I +shall be able to go on with my uncle _Toby’s_ story, and my own, in a +tolerable strait line. Now, + +[Illustration: + + _Inv. T. S._ _Scul. T. S._] + +These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, +and fourth volumes.[6.4] --In the fifth volume I have been very good, +----the precise line I have described in it being this: + +[Illustration] + +By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A, where I took a +trip to _Navarre_, --and the indented curve _B_, which is the short +airing when I was there with the Lady _Baussiere_ and her page, --I have +not taken the least frisk of a digression, till _John de la Casse’s_ +devils led me the round you see marked D. --for as for _c c c c c_ they +are nothing but parentheses, and the common _ins_ and _outs_ incident to +the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with +what men have done, --or with my own transgressions at the letters +A B D--they vanish into nothing. + +In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of _Le +Fever’s_ episode, to the beginning of my uncle _Toby’s_ campaigns, --I +have scarce stepped a yard out of my way. + +If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible----by the good leave of his +grace of _Benevento’s_ devils----but I may arrive hereafter at the +excellency of going on even thus: + + [Illustration (full-width line)] + +which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a +writing-master’s ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to +the right hand or to the left. + +This _right line_, --the path-way for Christians to walk in! say +divines---- + +----The emblem of moral rectitude! says _Cicero_---- + +----The _best line!_ say cabbage planters----is the shortest line, says +_Archimedes_, which can be drawn from one given point to another.---- + +I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next +birth-day suits! + +----What a journey! + +Pray can you tell me, --that is, without anger, before I write my +chapter upon straight lines----by what mistake----who told them so----or +how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along +confounded this line, with the line of GRAVITATION? + + [Footnote 6.4: Alluding to the first edition.] + + + + +BOOK VII + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +No ----I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided +the vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread +worse than the devil, would but give me leave--and in another +place--(but where, I can’t recollect now) speaking of my book as a +_machine_, and laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, +in order to gain the greater credit to it --I swore it should be kept a +going at that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of +life to bless me so long with health and good spirits. + +Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge--nay so very +little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool +with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on +the contrary, I have much--much to thank ’em for: cheerily have ye made +me tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares) +upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye +once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either +with sable, or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with +hope, and when DEATH himself knocked at my door--ye bad him come again; +and in so gay a tone of careless indifference did ye do it, that he +doubted of his commission---- + +“--There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,” quoth he. + +Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be +interrupted in a story----and I was that moment telling _Eugenius_ a +most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, +and of a monk damn’d for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the +grounds and justice of the procedure---- + +“--Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?” quoth +Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_, +taking hold of my hand as I finished my story---- + +But there is no _living_, _Eugenius_, replied I, at this rate; for as +this _son of a whore_ has found out my lodgings---- + +--You call him rightly, said _Eugenius_, --for by sin, we are told, he +enter’d the world ----I care not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided +he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him--for I have forty +volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body +in the world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest +he has got me by the throat (for _Eugenius_ could scarce hear me speak +across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had +I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits remain, and these two +spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support +me--had I not better, _Eugenius_, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my +dear _Tristram_, said _Eugenius_ --Then by heaven! I will lead him a +dance he little thinks of----for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking +once behind me, to the banks of the _Garonne_; and if I hear him +clattering at my heels ----I’ll scamper away to mount _Vesuvius_----from +thence to _Joppa_, and from _Joppa_ to the world’s end; where, if he +follows me, I pray God he may break his neck---- + +--He runs more risk _there_, said _Eugenius_, than thou. + +_Eugenius’s_ wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence +it had been some months banish’d----’twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; +he led me to my chaise----_Allons!_ said I; the postboy gave a crack +with his whip----off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds +got into _Dover_. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +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--! +everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +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_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +“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, dryshod, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +_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 masterpiece 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, from the time they +were set about by _Philip_ of _France_, Count of _Boulogne_, 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 out-works 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 withstood 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: + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +----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 unwordly 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_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +----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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +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 worst 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_. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +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 _Austerberte_ which has been transported +from _Artois_ hither--everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +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. + + [7.1]_de Montreuil à Nampont - poste et demi_ + _de Nampont_ à Bernay - - - poste + de Bernay à Nouvion - - - poste + de Nouvion à ABBEVILLE - - poste + +----but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed. + + [Footnote 7.1: Vid. Book of French post roads, page 36, edition + of 1762.] + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +“_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 _whereunto_, +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 “χωρισμὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ Σώματος, εἰς τὸ καλῶς +φιλοσοφεῖν”---- [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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +----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. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +------“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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +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----tho’ 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 priestess 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 postilion 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 everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +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 +postilion 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 villainously 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 cook’s +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_[7.2] 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 continue to do, to this day. + + [Footnote 7.2: Chief Magistrate in Toulouse, &c. &c. &c.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +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 everything_,” 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 argumentations, +_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, + + [7.3]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 everything that is Great; and +that is all can be said upon it. + + [Footnote 7.3: + Non orbis gentem, non urbem gens habet ullam + --------ulla parem.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +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 anything 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-- + + +SPLEEN + +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 +_Fontainbleau_ before the king---- + +--Was he going there? not that I know---- + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +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 gave 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--fell 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +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 obtain’d 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 shreads 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; and 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---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +----Get on with you, said the abbess. + +----Wh - - - - ysh----ysh----cried _Margarita_. + +Sh - - - a----suh - 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-- + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +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 +ravish’d---- + +----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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +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 ravish’d 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 everything existing, +with unpolluted lips, instruct me----guide me---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +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_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +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 _Mâconese_, 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 anything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +----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 chase--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 opiniatry--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 abby 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 abby of Saint _Germain_. + +Everything 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 everything 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 anything 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 abby ----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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +----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 everything; 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_,[7.4] 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. + + [Footnote 7.4: 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.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +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 _Rhone_, 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 _Côte 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 chuse 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 center---- + +----Everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +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 everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +O there is a sweet æra in the life of man, when (the brain being tender +and fibrillous, and more like pap than anything 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_ } + Is my _Amanda_ } still alive? + +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 across 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---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +----’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 +_Andoüillets’_--(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 pannier, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +----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 apostrophe. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +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 everything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +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----nobody 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +And 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 cherrystone 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +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 +Lillabullero! + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +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---- + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +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 chearfully----still he +pursued----but, like one who pursued his prey without hope----as he +lagg’d, every step he lost, soften’d 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +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 cover’d 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 drank 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 dutchesse! + +----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---- + + + + +BOOK VIII + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +----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_[8.1] 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. + + [Footnote 8.1: Vid. pp. 347-348.] [[Book VI, Chapter XL]] + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +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[8.2] 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. + + [Footnote 8.2: Vid. _Pope’s_ Portrait.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +----Bonjour! ----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, toothaches, 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 +was 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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +“It is with Love as with Cuckoldom”----the suffering party is at least +the _third_, but generally the last in the house who knows anything +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +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 centre of the current---- + +FANCY sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, +turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bowsprits ----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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +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[8.3] 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?------ + + [Footnote 8.3: Alluding to the first edition.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +----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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +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 anything 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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +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 anything 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 decemberly nights of a seven years widowhood, 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-cloaths 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_ +upstairs, 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_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +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 centre 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, + staragen, + salt, and + devil’s dung----by the great arch-cook 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 twelfth chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +----“Not touch it for the world,” did I say---- + +Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Which shows, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The Fates, who certainly all foreknew 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +----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 forefinger 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 repass, 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 its 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 attacked 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_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +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 anything), 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +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 moralise 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 anything +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 +anything 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 +everything 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_, show’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 gunpowder? God knows, said my uncle _Toby_----his providence +brings good out of everything--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 +gunpowder----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 gunpowder, 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 seaport 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; +_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 unfeigned 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 everything 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 +overflowings; ----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 of _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 +anything 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 up 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +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 show +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 anywhere 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 wished 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 bedside, holding back the 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +----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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +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---- + +Everything 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 forefinger of her right hand to rub +under my knee, guiding her forefinger 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 perceived, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +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 anything 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 +wicket-gate, when her genius sported with the change of circumstances. + +----She formed a new attack in a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +----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_[8.4] _Rodope’s_ beside 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 _Gallileo_ 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. + + [Footnote 8.4: _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.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +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_.”[8.5] + +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 coxcombs, 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;[8.6] 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. + + [Footnote 8.5: This will be printed with my father’s Life of + _Socrates_, &c. &c.] + + [Footnote 8.6: Mr. _Shandy_ must mean the poor _in spirit_; + inasmuch as they divided the money amongst themselves.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +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_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +In love! ----said the corporal--your honour was very well the day before +yesterday, when I was telling your honour 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 anything 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 the 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 cloaths +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +----Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword----’Twill be +only in your honour’s way, replied _Trim_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +----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 everything 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_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +If anything 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 _anything_, 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 +would 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +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. + +Everybody, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +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 women 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 show 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-- + +It 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 of 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +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 +stroke to remember him by in his turn--that if there 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 gain’d 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 clergywoman; said _Trim_. + +’Twas a _Beguine_, said my uncle _Toby_. + +Doctor _Slop_ was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my +father taking that very crisis to fall in helter-skelter upon the whole +order of Nuns and _Beguines_, a set of silly, fusty, baggages----_Slop_ +could not stand it----and my uncle _Toby_ having some measures to take +about his breeches--and _Yorick_ about his fourth general division--in +order for their several attacks next day--the company broke up: and my +father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt +that and bed-time; he called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote my uncle +_Toby_ the following letter of instructions: + + MY DEAR BROTHER _Toby_, + +What I am going to say to thee is upon the nature of women, and of +love-making to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee--tho’ not so +well for me--that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon +that head, and that I am able to write it to thee. + +Had it been the good pleasure of him who disposes of our lots--and thou +no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou +should’st have dipp’d the pen this moment into the ink, instead of +myself; but that not being the case ------------Mrs. _Shandy_ being now +close beside me, preparing for bed ----I have thrown together without +order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and documents +as I deem may be of use to thee; intending, in this, to give thee a +token of my love; not doubting, my dear _Toby_, of the manner in which +it will be accepted. + +In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the +affair----though I perceive from a glow in my cheek, that I blush as I +begin to speak to thee upon the subject, as well knowing, +notwithstanding thy unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou +neglectest--yet I would remind thee of one (during the continuance of +thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted; +and that is, never to go forth upon the enterprize, whether it be in the +morning or the afternoon, without first recommending thyself to the +protection of Almighty God, that he may defend thee from the evil one. + +Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once at least every four or five +days, but oftener if convenient; lest in taking off thy wig before her, +thro’ absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been +cut away by Time----how much by _Trim_. + +--’Twere better to keep ideas of baldness out of her fancy. + +Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it as a sure maxim, _Toby_---- + +“_That women are timid:_” And ’tis well they are----else there would be +no dealing with them. + +Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs, +like the trunk-hose of our ancestors. + +----A just medium prevents all conclusions. + +Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in +a low soft tone of voice. Silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves +dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: For this cause, if thou canst +help it, never throw down the tongs and poker. + +Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with +her, and do whatever lies in thy power at the same time, to keep from +her all books and writings which tend thereto: there are some devotional +tracts, which if thou canst entice her to read over--it will be well: +but suffer her not to look into _Rabelais_, or _Scarron_, or _Don +Quixote_---- + +----They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear +_Toby_, that there is no passion so serious as lust. + +Stick a pin in the bosom of thy shirt, before thou enterest her parlour. + +And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sopha with her, and she +gives thee occasion to lay thy hand upon hers--beware of taking +it----thou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper +of thine. Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite +undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her curiosity on thy side; and +if she is not conquered by that, and thy ASSE continues still kicking, +which there is great reason to suppose ----Thou must begin, with first +losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according to the practice +of the ancient _Scythians_, who cured the most intemperate fits of the +appetite by that means. + +_Avicenna_, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup +of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges----and I believe +rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat’s flesh, nor red +deer----nor even foal’s flesh by any means; and carefully +abstain----that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, +didappers, and water-hens---- + +As for thy drink --I need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of +VERVAIN and the herb HANEA, of which _Ælian_ relates such effects--but +if thy stomach palls with it--discontinue it from time to time, taking +cucumbers, melons, purslane, water-lillies, woodbine, and lettice, in +the stead of them. + +There is nothing further for thee, which occurs to me at present---- + +----Unless the breaking out of a fresh war ----So wishing everything, +dear _Toby_, for the best, + +I rest thy affectionate brother, + + WALTER SHANDY. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Whilst my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle _Toby_ +and the corporal were busy in preparing everything for the attack. As +the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for +the present), there was nothing which should put it off beyond the next +morning; so accordingly it was resolved upon, for eleven o’clock. + +Come, my dear, said my father to my mother--’twill be but like a brother +and sister, if you and I take a walk down to my brother _Toby’s_----to +countenance him in this attack of his. + +My uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had been accoutred both some time, when +my father and mother enter’d, and the clock striking eleven, were that +moment in motion to sally forth--but the account of this is worth more +than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth[8.7] volume of such a +work as this. ----My father had no time but to put the letter of +instructions into my uncle _Toby’s_ coat-pocket----and join with my +mother in wishing his attack prosperous. + +I could like, said my mother, to look through the key-hole out of +curiosity ----Call it by its right name, my dear, quoth my father-- + +_And look through the key-hole_ as long as you will. + + [Footnote 8.7: Alluding to the first edition.] + + + + +THE LIFE AND OPINIONS + +OF + +TRISTRAM SHANDY + +GENTLEMAN + + + Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est. + + PLIN. Lib. v. Epist. 6. + +Si quid urbaniusculè lusum a nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium +poëtarum Numina, Oro te, ne me malè capias. + + + + + A DEDICATION + + TO A GREAT MAN + + Having, _a priori_, intended to dedicate _The Amours of my Uncle + Toby_ to Mr. *** ----I see more reasons, _a posteriori_, for doing it + to Lord *******. + + I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of + their Reverences; because _a posteriori_, in Court-latin, signifies + the kissing hands for preferment--or anything else--in order to get + it. + + My opinion of Lord ******* is neither better nor worse, than it was + of Mr. ***. Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal + and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will + pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their + own weight. + + The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour’s + amusement to Mr. *** when out of place--operates more forcibly at + present, as half an hour’s amusement will be more serviceable and + refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical + repast. + + Nothing is so perfectly _amusement_ as a total change of ideas; no + ideas are so totally different as those of Ministers, and innocent + Lovers: for which reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and + Patriots, and set such marks upon them as will prevent confusion and + mistakes concerning them for the future --I propose to dedicate that + Volume to some gentle Shepherd, + + Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray, + Far as the Statesman’s walk or Patriot-way; + Yet _simple Nature_ to his hopes had given + Out of a cloud-capp’d head a humbler heaven; + Some _untam’d_ World in depths of wood embraced-- + Some happier Island in the watry-waste-- + And where admitted to that equal sky, + His _faithful Dog_ should bear him company. + + In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his + Imagination, I shall unavoidably give a _Diversion_ to his + passionate and love-sick Contemplations. In the meantime, + + I am + + THE AUTHOR. + + + + +BOOK IX + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I call all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in +our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet +get fairly to my uncle _Toby’s_ amours, till this very moment, that my +mother’s _curiosity_, as she stated the affair, ----or a different +impulse in her, as my father would have it----wished her to take a peep +at them through the key-hole. + +“Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through +the key-hole as long as you will.” + +Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have +often spoken of, in my father’s habit, could have vented such an +insinuation----he was however frank and generous in his nature, and at +all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word +of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him. + +My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under +his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the +back of his--she raised her fingers, and let them fall--it could scarce +be call’d a tap; or if it was a tap---- ’twould have puzzled a casuist +to say, whether ’twas a tap of remonstrance, or a tap of confession: +my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class’d it +right --Conscience redoubled her blow--he turn’d his face suddenly the +other way, and my mother supposing his body was about to turn with it in +order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping +her left as its centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he +turned his head, he met her eye ------Confusion again! he saw a thousand +reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself----a +thin, blue, chill, pellucid chrystal with all its humours so at rest, +the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom of +it, had it existed----it did not----and how I happen to be so lewd +myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal +equinoxes ----Heaven above knows ----My mother----madam----was so at no +time, either by nature, by institution, or example. + +A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months +of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night +alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the +manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no +meaning in them, nature is oft-times obliged to find one ----And as for +my father’s example! ’twas so far from being either aiding or abetting +thereunto, that ’twas the whole business of his life to keep all fancies +of that kind out of her head ----Nature had done her part, to have spared +him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew +it ----And here am I sitting, this 12th day of _August_ 1766, in a purple +jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on, a most +tragicomical completion of his prediction, “That I should neither think, +nor act like any other man’s child, upon that very account.” + +The mistake in my father, was in attacking my mother’s motive, instead +of the act itself; for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes; +and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true +proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it was------it became a +violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal. + +It is for this reason, an’ please your Reverences, That key-holes are +the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this +world put together. + +------which leads me to my uncle _Toby’s_ amours. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle +_Toby’s_ great ramallie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to +produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in +the corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy +to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well +understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. +The corporal with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back +perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if possible, with a +better air----had SPLEEN given a look at it, ’twould have cost her +ladyship a smile----it curl’d everywhere but where the corporal would +have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it +honour, he could as soon have raised the dead. + +Such it was----or rather such would it have seem’d upon any other brow; +but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle _Toby’s_, +assimilated everything around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature +had moreover wrote GENTLEMAN with so fair a hand in every line of his +countenance, that even his tarnish’d gold-laced hat and huge cockade of +flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves, +yet the moment my uncle _Toby_ put them on, they became serious objects, +and altogether seem’d to have been picked up by the hand of Science to +set him off to advantage. + +Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards +this, than my uncle _Toby’s_ blue and gold----_had not Quantity in some +measure been necessary to Grace_: in a period of fifteen or sixteen +years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle +_Toby’s_ life, for he seldom went further than the bowling-green--his +blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was +with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; +the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no advantage. ----They were +laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the +mode of King _William’s_ reign; and to shorten all description, they +shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallick and +doughty an air with them, that had my uncle _Toby_ thought of attacking +in armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination. + +As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp’d by the taylor +between the legs, and left at _sixes and sevens_---- + +----Yes, Madam, ----but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they +were held impracticable the night before, and as there was no +alternative in my uncle _Toby’s_ wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red +plush. + +The corporal had array’d himself in poor _Le Fever’s_ regimental coat; +and with his hair tuck’d up under his _Montero_-cap, which he had +furbish’d up for the occasion, march’d three paces distant from his +master: a whiff of military pride had puff’d out his shirt at the wrist; +and upon that in a black leather thong clipp’d into a tassel beyond the +knot, hung the corporal’s stick ----My uncle _Toby_ carried his cane +like a pike. + +----It looks well at least; quoth my father to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +My uncle _Toby_ turn’d his head more than once behind him, to see how he +was supported by the corporal; and the corporal as oft as he did it, +gave a slight flourish with his stick--but not vapouringly; and with the +sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid his honour “never +fear.” + +Now my uncle _Toby_ did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my +father had reproach’d him) so much as the right end of a Woman from the +wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of +them----unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor +would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least +upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman’s eye; and yet +excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. _Wadman_, he had +never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father in the +simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as +talking bawdy.---- + +----And suppose it is? my father would say. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She cannot, quoth my uncle _Toby_, halting, when they had march’d up to +within twenty paces of Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door--she cannot, corporal, take +it amiss.---- + +----She will take it, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, just as +the _Jew’s_ widow at _Lisbon_ took it of my brother _Tom_.---- + +----And how was that? quoth my uncle _Toby_, facing quite about to the +corporal. + +Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of _Tom’s_ misfortunes; but +this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if +_Tom_ had not married the widow----or had it pleased God after their +marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest +soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg’d to the +inquisition----’Tis a cursed place--added the corporal, shaking his +head, --when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an’ please your +honour, for ever. + +’Tis very true; said my uncle _Toby_, looking gravely at Mrs. _Wadman’s_ +house, as he spoke. + +Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for +life--or so sweet, an’ please your honour, as liberty. + +Nothing, _Trim_----said my uncle _Toby_, musing---- + +Whilst a man is free, --cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his +stick thus---- + +[Illustration] + +A thousand of my father’s most subtle syllogisms could not have said +more for celibacy. + +My uncle _Toby_ look’d earnestly towards his cottage and his +bowling-green. + +The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his +wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his +story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the +corporal do it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +As _Tom’s_ place, an’ please your honour, was easy--and the weather +warm--it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the +world; and as it fell out about that time, that a _Jew_ who kept a +sausage shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, +and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade----_Tom_ thought +(as everybody in _Lisbon_ was doing the best he could devise for +himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it +on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a +pound of sausages at her shop--_Tom_ set out--counting the matter thus +within himself, as he walk’d along; that let the worst come of it that +could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worth--but, +if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not +only a pound of sausages--but a wife and--a sausage shop, an’ please +your honour, into the bargain. + +Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish’d _Tom_ success; and +I can fancy, an’ please your honour, I see him this moment with his +white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o’ one side, +passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a +chearful word for everybody he met: ----But alas! _Tom!_ thou smilest no +more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as +if he apostrophised him in his dungeon. + +Poor fellow! said my uncle _Toby_, feelingly. + +He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an’ please your honour, as ever +blood warm’d---- + +----Then he resembled thee, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, rapidly. + +The corporal blush’d down to his fingers ends--a tear of sentimental +bashfulness--another of gratitude to my uncle _Toby_--and a tear of +sorrow for his brother’s misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran +sweetly down his cheek together; my uncle _Toby’s_ kindled as one lamp +does at another; and taking hold of the breast of _Trim’s_ coat (which +had been that of _Le Fever’s_) as if to ease his lame leg, but in +reality to gratify a finer feeling----he stood silent for a minute and a +half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal making +a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the _Jew’s_ widow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +When _Tom_, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in +it, but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied +to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies--not killing them. +----’Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle _Toby_--she had suffered +persecution, _Trim_, and had learnt mercy---- + +----She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature, as well as from +hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor +friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said _Trim_; and some +dismal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall +be told you with the rest of _Tom’s_ story, for it makes a part of +it---- + +Then do not forget, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_. + +A negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the corporal +(doubtingly). + +I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in things of that +kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than +thee or me---- + +----It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the +corporal. + +It would so; said my uncle _Toby_. Why then, an’ please your honour, is +a black wench to be used worse than a white one? + +I can give no reason, said my uncle _Toby_------ + +----Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one +to stand up for her---- + +----’Tis that very thing, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, ----which +recommends her to protection----and her brethren with her; ’tis the +fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands _now_----where it +may be hereafter, heaven knows! ----but be it where it will, the brave, +_Trim!_ will not use it unkindly. + +----God forbid, said the corporal. + +Amen, responded my uncle _Toby_, laying his hand upon his heart. + +The corporal returned to his story, and went on----but with an +embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world +will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all +along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far +on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave sense +and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not +please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating +spirits, and aiding nature at the same time with his left arm a-kimbo on +one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the +other--the corporal got as near the note as he could; and in that +attitude, continued his story. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +As _Tom_, an’ please your honour, had no business at that time with the +_Moorish_ girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the +_Jew’s_ widow about love----and this pound of sausages; and being, as I +have told your honour, an open cheary-hearted lad, with his character +wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much +apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to +her at the table, and sat down. + +There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an’ please your +honour, whilst she is making sausages ----So _Tom_ began a discourse +upon them; first, gravely, ----“as how they were made----with what meats, +herbs, and spices” --Then a little gayly, --as, “With what skins----and +if they never burst ----Whether the largest were not the best?” ----and +so on--taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say +upon sausages, rather under than over; ----that he might have room to +act in---- + +It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle +_Toby_, laying his hand upon _Trim’s_ shoulder, that Count _De la Motte_ +lost the battle of _Wynendale_: he pressed too speedily into the wood; +which if he had not done, _Lisle_ had not fallen into our hands, nor +_Ghent_ and _Bruges_, which both followed her example; it was so late in +the year, continued my uncle _Toby_, and so terrible a season came on, +that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have +perish’d in the open field.---- + +----Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your honour, as well as +marriages, be made in heaven? --My uncle _Toby_ mused---- + +Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military +skill tempted him to say another; so not being able to frame a reply +exactly to his mind----my uncle _Toby_ said nothing at all; and the +corporal finished his story. + +As _Tom_ perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and +that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he +went on to help her a little in making them. ----First, by taking hold +of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with +her hand----then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding +them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one----then, by +putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she +wanted them----and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured +to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.---- + +----Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband +as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled +in her mind before _Tom_ mentioned it. + +She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a +sausage: ----_Tom_ instantly laid hold of another------ + +But seeing _Tom’s_ had more gristle in it------ + +She signed the capitulation----and _Tom_ sealed it; and there was an end +of the matter. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +All womankind, continued _Trim_, (commenting upon his story) from the +highest to the lowest, an’ please your honour, love jokes; the +difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no +knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, +by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.---- + +----I like the comparison, said my uncle _Toby_, better than the thing +itself---- + +----Because your honour, quoth the corporal, loves glory, more than +pleasure. + +I hope, _Trim_, answered my uncle _Toby_, I love mankind more than +either; and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and +quiet of the world----and particularly that branch of it which we have +practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten +the strides of AMBITION, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the +_few_, from the plunderings of the _many_----whenever that drum beats in +our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much +humanity and fellow-feeling, as to face about and march. + +In pronouncing this, my uncle _Toby_ faced about, and march’d firmly as +at the head of his company----and the faithful corporal, shouldering his +stick, and striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took his first +step----march’d close behind him down the avenue. + +----Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my +mother----by all that’s strange, they are besieging Mrs. _Wadman_ in +form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of +circumvallation. + +I dare say, quoth my mother ------------But stop, dear Sir----for what +my mother dared to say upon the occasion----and what my father did say +upon it----with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, +paraphrased, commented, and descanted upon--or to say it all in a word, +shall be thumb’d over by Posterity in a chapter apart ----I say, by +Posterity--and care not, if I repeat the word again--for what has this +book done more than the Legation of _Moses_, or the Tale of a Tub, that +it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them? + +I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace +tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of +it, more precious, my dear _Jenny!_ than the rubies about thy neck, are +flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return +more----everything presses on----whilst thou art twisting that lock, +----see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and +every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation +which we are shortly to make.---- + +----Heaven have mercy upon us both! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Now, for what the world thinks of that ejaculation ----I would not give +a groat. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +My mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till +they had got to the fatal angle of the old garden wall, where Doctor +_Slop_ was overthrown by _Obadiah_ on the coach-horse: as this was +directly opposite to the front of Mrs. _Wadman’s_ house, when my father +came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle _Toby_ and the +corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn’d about---- “Let us just +stop a moment, quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother +_Toby_ and his man _Trim_ make their first entry----it will not detain +us, added my father, a single minute:” ----No matter, if it be ten +minutes, quoth my mother. + +----It will not detain us half one; said my father. + +The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother +_Tom_ and the _Jew’s_ widow: the story went on--and on----it had +episodes in it----it came back, and went on----and on again; there was +no end of it----the reader found it very long---- + +----G-- help my father! he pish’d fifty times at every new attitude, and +gave the corporal’s stick, with all its flourishings and dangling, to as +many devils as chose to accept of them. + +When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging +in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the +principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have +power to see it out. + +Curiosity governs the _first moment_; and the second moment is all +œconomy to justify the expence of the first----and for the third, +fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment--’tis +a point of HONOUR. + +I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to +Patience; but that VIRTUE, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient +of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled +castles which HONOUR has left him upon the earth. + +My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries +to the end of _Trim’s_ story; and from thence to the end of my uncle +_Toby’s_ panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, +that instead of marching up to Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door, they both faced +about and march’d down the avenue diametrically opposite to his +expectation--he broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of +humour which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from +that of all other men. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +----“Now what can their two noddles be about?” cried my father - - &c. +- - - - + +I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications---- + +------Not on Mrs. _Wadman’s_ premises! cried my father, stepping +back---- + +I suppose not: quoth my mother. + +I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of +fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines, +blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts------ + +----They are foolish things----said my mother. + +Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my +purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your +reverences would imitate--and that was, never to refuse her assent and +consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she +did not understand it, or had no ideas of the principal word or term of +art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself +with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her--but +no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years together--and +replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, +without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it. + +This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, +at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than +could have done the most petulant contradiction----the few which +survived were the better for the _cuvetts_---- + +--“They are foolish things;” said my mother. + +----Particularly the _cuvetts_; replied my father. + +’Tis enough--he tasted the sweet of triumph--and went on. + +--Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. _Wadman’s_ premises, said +my father, partly correcting himself--because she is but tenant for +life---- + +----That makes a great difference--said my mother---- + +--In a fool’s head, replied my father---- + +Unless she should happen to have a child--said my mother-- + +----But she must persuade my brother _Toby_ first to get her one-- + +----To be sure, Mr. _Shandy_, quoth my mother. + +----Though if it comes to persuasion--said my father --Lord have mercy +upon them. + +Amen: said my mother, _piano_. + +Amen: cried my father, _fortissimè_. + +Amen: said my mother again----but with such a sighing cadence of +personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my +father--he instantly took out his almanack; but before he could untie +it, _Yorick’s_ congregation coming out of church, became a full answer +to one half of his business with it--and my mother telling him it was a +sacrament day--left him as little in doubt, as to the other part --He +put his almanack into his pocket. + +The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of _ways and means_, could not +have returned home with a more embarrassed look. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the +texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and +the three following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted +to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a +book would not hold together a single year: nor is it a poor creeping +digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as well +going on in the king’s highway) which will do the business----no; if it +is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a frisky +subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be caught, but +by rebound. + +The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the +service: FANCY is capricious --WIT must not be searched for--and +PLEASANTRY (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was +an empire to be laid at her feet. + +----The best way for a man is to say his prayers---- + +Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well +ghostly as bodily--for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse +after he has said them than before--for other purposes, better. + +For my own part, there is not a way either moral or mechanical under +heaven that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in this +case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself, and +arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of her +own faculties---- + +----I never could make them an inch the wider---- + +Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the +body, by temperance, soberness, and chastity: These are good, quoth I, +in themselves--they are good, absolutely; --they are good, relatively; +--they are good for health--they are good for happiness in this +world--they are good for happiness in the next---- + +In short, they were good for everything but the thing wanted; and there +they were good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as heaven made +it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it +courage; but then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would +always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you +started. + +Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have +found to answer so well as this---- + +----Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not +blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me, +merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for +never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the +furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing +that all mankind should write as well as myself. + +----Which they certainly will, when they think as little. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Now in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts +rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen---- + +Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of +infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it _for my soul_; +so must be obliged to go on writing like a _Dutch_ commentator to the +end of the chapter, unless something be done---- + +----I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch +of snuff, or a stride or two across the room will not do the business +for me --I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon +the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first +lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a +hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt--put on a +better coat--send for my last wig--put my topaz ring upon my finger; and +in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best +fashion. + +Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider, +Sir, as every man chuses to be present at the shaving of his own beard +(though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits +over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand +in it--the Situation, like all others, has notions of her own to put +into the brain.---- + +----I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man, are seven years +more terse and juvenile for one single operation; and if they did not +run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual +shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity --How _Homer_ could write +with so long a beard, I don’t know----and as it makes against my +hypothesis, I as little care ----But let us return to the Toilet. + +_Ludovicus Sorbonensis_ makes this entirely an affair of the body +(ἐξωτερικὴ πρᾶξις) as he calls it----but he is deceived: the soul and +body are joint-sharers in everything they get: A man cannot dress, but +his ideas get cloath’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a +gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, +genteelized along with him--so that he has nothing to do, but take his +pen, and write like himself. + +For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I +writ clean and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by +looking into my Laundress’s bill, as my book: there was one single month +in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty shirts with +clean writing; and after all, was more abus’d, cursed, criticis’d, and +confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote +in that one month, than in all the other months of that year put +together. + +----But their honours and reverences had not seen my bills. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +As I never had any intention of beginning the Digression I am making all +this preparation for, till I come to the 15th chapter ----I have this +chapter to put to whatever use I think proper ----I have twenty this +moment ready for it ----I could write my chapter of Button-holes in +it---- + +Or my chapter of _Pishes_, which should follow them---- + +Or my chapter of _Knots_, in case their reverences have done with +them----they might lead me into mischief: the safest way is to follow +the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been +writing, tho’ I declare beforehand, I know no more than my heels how to +answer them. + +And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of _thersitical_ +satire, as black as the very ink ’tis wrote with----(and by the bye, +whoever says so, is indebted to the muster-master general of the +_Grecian_ army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouth’d a man +as _Thersites_ to continue upon his roll----for it has furnish’d him +with an epithet)----in these productions he will urge, all the personal +washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of +good----but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is, +the better generally he succeeds in it. + +To this, I have no other answer----at least ready----but that the +Archbishop of _Benevento_ wrote his _nasty_ Romance of the _Galatea_, as +all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of +breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the +book of the _Revelations_, as severe as it was look’d upon by one part +of the world, was far from being deem’d so by the other, upon the single +account of that _Investment_. + +Another objection, to all this remedy, is its want of universality; +forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid, +by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species +entirely from its use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether of +_England_, or of _France_, must e’en go without it------ + +As for the _Spanish_ ladies ----I am in no sort of distress---- + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The fifteenth chapter is come at last; and brings nothing with it but a +sad signature of “How our pleasures slip from under us in this world!” + +For in talking of my digression ----I declare before heaven I have made +it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she. + +’Tis very true, said I----but ’twere better to get all these things out +of our heads, and return to my uncle _Toby_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +When my uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had marched down to the bottom of +the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they +faced about and marched up straight to Mrs. _Wadman’s_ door. + +I warrant your honour; said the corporal, touching his _Montero_-cap +with his hand, as he passed him in order to give a knock at the +door ----My uncle _Toby_, contrary to his invariable way of treating his +faithful servant, said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not +altogether marshal’d his ideas; he wish’d for another conference, and as +the corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door--he hem’d +twice--a portion of my uncle _Toby’s_ most modest spirits fled, at each +expulsion, towards the corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door +suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. _Bridget_ +stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch, +benumb’d with expectation; and Mrs. _Wadman_, with an eye ready to be +deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her +bed-chamber, watching their approach. + +_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_----but as he articulated the word, the +minute expired, and _Trim_ let fall the rapper. + +My uncle _Toby_ perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knock’d +on the head by it------whistled Lillabullero. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +As Mrs. _Bridget’s_ finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal +did not knock as oft as perchance your honour’s taylor ----I might have +taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine, some five and +twenty pounds at least, and wonder at the man’s patience---- + +----But this is nothing at all to the world: only ’tis a cursed thing to +be in debt, and there seems to be a fatality in the exchequers of some +poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no Economy can bind +down in irons: for my own part, I’m persuaded there is not any one +prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small upon earth, more +desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I am---- +or who takes more likely means for it. I never give above half a +guinea----or walk with boots----or cheapen tooth-picks----or lay out a +shilling upon a band-box the year round; and for the six months I’m in +the country, I’m upon so small a scale, that with all the good temper in +the world, I outdo _Rousseau_, a bar length------for I keep neither man +or boy, or horse, or cow, or dog, or cat, or anything that can eat or +drink, except a thin poor piece of a Vestal (to keep my fire in), and +who has generally as bad an appetite as myself----but if you think this +makes a philosopher of me ----I would not my good people! give a rush +for your judgments. + +True philosophy----but there is no treating the subject whilst my uncle +is whistling Lillabullero. + +----Let us go into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + + * + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + ------ * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * + + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * *.------ + +----You shall see the very place, Madam; said my uncle _Toby_. + +Mrs. _Wadman_ blush’d----look’d towards the door----turn’d +pale----blush’d slightly again----recover’d her natural +colour----blush’d worse than ever; which, for the sake of the unlearned +reader, I translate thus---- + + “_L--d! I cannot look at it---- + What would the world say if I look’d at it? + I should drop down, if I look’d at it-- + I wish I could look at it---- + There can be no sin in looking at it. + ----I will look at it._” + +Whilst all this was running through Mrs. _Wadman’s_ imagination, my +uncle _Toby_ had risen from the sopha, and got to the other side of the +parlour door, to give _Trim_ an order about it in the passage---- + + * * * * * * * * * + + * * ----I believe it is in the garret, said my uncle _Toby_ +----I saw it there, an’ please your honour, this morning, answered +_Trim_ ----Then prithee, step directly for it, _Trim_, said my uncle +_Toby_, and bring it into the parlour. + +The corporal did not approve of the orders, but most chearfully obeyed +them. The first was not an act of his will--the second was; so he put on +his _Montero_-cap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My +uncle _Toby_ returned into the parlour, and sat himself down again upon +the sopha. + +----You shall lay your finger upon the place--said my uncle _Toby_. +----I will not touch it, however, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_ to herself. + +This requires a second translation: --it shews what little knowledge is +got by mere words--we must go up to the first springs. + +Now in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages, +I must endeavour to be as clear as possible myself. + +Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads--blow your noses--cleanse +your emunctories--sneeze, my good people! ----God bless you---- + +Now give me all the help you can. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +As there are fifty different ends (counting all ends in----as well civil +as religious) for which a woman takes a husband, she first sets about +and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes in her mind, +which of all that number of ends is hers: then by discourse, enquiry, +argumentation, and inference, she investigates and finds out whether she +has got hold of the right one----and if she has----then, by pulling it +gently this way and that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it +will not break in the drawing. + +The imagery under which _Slawkenbergius_ impresses this upon the +reader’s fancy, in the beginning of his third Decad, is so ludicrous, +that the honour I bear the sex, will not suffer me to quote +it----otherwise it is not destitute of humour. + +“She first, saith _Slawkenbergius_, stops the asse, and holding his +halter in her left hand (lest he should get away) she thrusts her right +hand into the very bottom of his pannier to search for it --For what? +--you’ll not know the sooner, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, for interrupting +me---- + +“I have nothing, good Lady, but empty bottles;” says the asse. + +“I’m loaded with tripes;” says the second. + +----And thou art little better, quoth she to the third; for nothing is +there in thy panniers but trunk-hose and pantofles--and so to the fourth +and fifth, going on one by one through the whole string, till coming to +the asse which carries it, she turns the pannier upside down, looks at +it--considers it--samples it--measures it--stretches it--wets it--dries +it--then takes her teeth both to the warp and weft of it. + +----Of what? for the love of Christ! + +I am determined, answered _Slawkenbergius_, that all the powers upon +earth shall never wring that secret from my breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +We live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles--and so +’tis no matter----else it seems strange, that Nature, who makes +everything so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs, +unless for pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes to whatever +passes through her hands, that whether she designs for the plough, the +caravan, the cart--or whatever other creature she models, be it but an +asse’s foal, you are sure to have the thing you wanted; and yet at the +same time should so eternally bungle it as she does, in making so simple +a thing as a married man. + +Whether it is in the choice of the clay----or that it is frequently +spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too +crusty (you know) on one hand----or not enough so, through defect of +heat, on the other----or whether this great Artificer is not so +attentive to the little Platonic exigences _of that part_ of the +species, for whose use she is fabricating _this_----or that her Ladyship +sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do ----I know not: we +will discourse about it after supper. + +It is enough, that neither the observation itself, or the reasoning upon +it, are at all to the purpose----but rather against it; since with +regard to my uncle _Toby’s_ fitness for the marriage state, nothing was +ever better: she had formed him of the best and kindliest clay----had +temper’d it with her own milk, and breathed into it the sweetest +spirit----she had made him all gentle, generous, and humane----she had +filled his heart with trust and confidence, and disposed every passage +which led to it, for the communication of the tenderest offices----she +had moreover considered the other causes for which matrimony was +ordained---- + +And accordingly * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * *. + +The DONATION was not defeated by my uncle _Toby’s_ wound. + +Now this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is the +great disturber of our faiths in this world, had raised scruples in Mrs. +_Wadman’s_ brain about it; and like a true devil as he was, had done his +own work at the same time, by turning my uncle _Toby’s_ Virtue thereupon +into nothing but _empty bottles_, _tripes_, _trunk-hose_, and +_pantofles_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Mrs. _Bridget_ had pawn’d all the little stock of honour a poor +chambermaid was worth in the world, that she would get to the bottom of +the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most +concessible _postulata_ in nature: namely, that whilst my uncle _Toby_ +was making love to her mistress, the corporal could find nothing better +to do, than make love to her---- “_And I’ll let him as much as he will_, +said _Bridget_, _to get it out of him_.” + +Friendship has two garments; an outer and an under one. _Bridget_ was +serving her mistress’s interests in the one--and doing the thing which +most pleased herself in the other; so had as many stakes depending upon +my uncle _Toby’s_ wound, as the Devil himself ----Mrs. _Wadman_ had but +one--and as it possibly might be her last (without discouraging Mrs. +_Bridget_, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her cards +herself. + +She wanted not encouragement: a child might have look’d into his +hand----there was such a plainness and simplicity in his playing out +what trumps he had----with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the +_ten-ace_----and so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sopha +with widow _Wadman_, that a generous heart would have wept to have won +the game of him. + +Let us drop the metaphor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +----And the story too--if you please: for though I have all along been +hastening towards this part of it, with so much earnest desire, as well +knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the +world, yet now that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen, +and go on with the story for me that will --I see the difficulties of +the descriptions I’m going to give--and feel my want of powers. + +It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of +blood this week in a most uncritical fever which attacked me at the +beginning of this chapter; so that I have still some hopes remaining, it +may be more in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the +subtile _aura_ of the brain----be it which it will--an Invocation can do +no hurt----and I leave the affair entirely to the _invoked_, to inspire +or to inject me according as he sees good. + + +THE INVOCATION + +Gentle Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of +my beloved CERVANTES; Thou who glided’st daily through his lattice, and +turned’st the twilight of his prison into noonday brightness by thy +presence----tinged’st his little urn of water with heaven-sent nectar, +and all the time he wrote of _Sancho_ and his master, didst cast thy +mystic mantle o’er his wither’d stump,[9.1] and wide extended it to all +the evils of his life------ + +----Turn in hither, I beseech thee! ----behold these breeches! ----they +are all I have in the world----that piteous rent was given them at +_Lyons_------ + +My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen’d amongst ’em--for the +laps are in _Lombardy_, and the rest of ’em here --I never had but six, +and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at _Milan_ cut me off the +_fore_-laps of five --To do her justice, she did it with some +consideration--for I was returning out of _Italy_. + +And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinderbox which was +moreover filch’d from me at _Sienna_, and twice that I pay’d five Pauls +for two hard eggs, once at _Raddicoffini_, and a second time at +_Capua_ --I do not think a journey through _France_ and _Italy_, provided +a man keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some people would +make you believe: there must be _ups_ and _downs_, or how the duce +should we get into vallies where Nature spreads so many tables of +entertainment. --’Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their +voitures to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve +sous for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to +his bread? --We really expect too much--and for the livre or two above +par for your suppers and bed--at the most they are but one shilling and +ninepence halfpenny----who would embroil their philosophy for it? for +heaven’s and for your own sake, pay it----pay it with both hands open, +rather than leave _Disappointment_ sitting drooping upon the eye of your +fair Hostess and her Damsels in the gateway, at your departure----and +besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of ’em worth a +pound----at least I did---- + +----For my uncle _Toby’s_ amours running all the way in my head, they +had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own ----I was in the +most perfect state of bounty and good-will; and felt the kindliest +harmony vibrating within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike; +so that whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference; +everything I saw or had to do with, touch’d upon some secret spring +either of sentiment or rapture. + +----They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down +the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly----’Tis _Maria_; said the +postillion, observing I was listening ----Poor _Maria_, continued he +(leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line +betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, +with her little goat beside her. + +The young fellow utter’d this with an accent and a look so perfectly in +tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a +four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to _Moulins_---- + +------And who is _poor Maria?_ said I. + +The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the +postillion----it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon +so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did _Maria_ +deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate +of the parish who published them---- + +He was going on, when _Maria_, who had made a short pause, put the pipe +to her mouth, and began the air again----they were the same notes; +----yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, +said the young man----but who has taught her to play it--or how she came +by her pipe, no one knows; we think that heaven has assisted her in +both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her +only consolation----she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but +plays that _service_ upon it almost night and day. + +The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural +eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above +his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor +_Maria_ taken such full possession of me. + +We had got up by this time almost to the bank where _Maria_ was sitting: +she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, +drawn up into a silk-net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little +fantastically on one side----she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the +full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her---- + +----God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the +postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents +around, for her, ----but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is +sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her +to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that +score, and think her senses are lost for ever. + +As the postillion spoke this, MARIA made a cadence so melancholy, so +tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and +found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my +enthusiasm. + +MARIA look’d wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat----and +then at me----and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately---- + +----Well, _Maria_, said I softly ----What resemblance do you find? + +I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the +humblest conviction of what a _Beast_ man is, ----that I asked the +question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable +pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all +the wit that ever _Rabelais_ scatter’d----and yet I own my heart smote +me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would +set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days----and +never----never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, +the longest day I had to live. + +As for writing nonsense to them ----I believe, there was a reserve--but +that I leave to the world. + +Adieu, _Maria!_--adieu, poor hapless damsel! ----some time, but not +_now_, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips----but I was deceived; +for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with +it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk’d softly to +my chaise. + +------What an excellent inn at _Moulins!_ + + [Footnote 9.1: He lost his hand at the battle of _Lepanto_.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all +turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my honour +has lain bleeding this half hour ----I stop it, by pulling off one of my +yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite +side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it---- + +----That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are +written in the world, or for aught I know may be now writing in it--that +it was as casual as the foam of _Zeuxis_ his horse; besides, I look upon +a chapter which has _only nothing in it_, with respect; and considering +what worse things there are in the world ----That it is no way a proper +subject for satire------ + +----Why then was it left so? And here without staying for my reply, +shall I be called as many blockheads, numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads, +ninny-hammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoops, and sh- -t-a-beds---- +and other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cake-bakers of _Lernè_ +cast in the teeth of King _Garangantan’s_ shepherds ----And I’ll let +them do it, as _Bridget_ said, as much as they please; for how was it +possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the +25th chapter of my book, before the 18th, &c.? + +------So I don’t take it amiss ----All I wish is, that it may be a lesson +to the world, “_to let people tell their stories their own way_.” + + + + +THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER + + +As Mrs. _Bridget_ opened the door before the corporal had well given the +rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle _Toby’s_ introduction into +the parlour, was so short, that Mrs. _Wadman_ had but just time to get +from behind the curtain----lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a +step or two towards the door to receive him. + +My uncle _Toby_ saluted Mrs. _Wadman_, after the manner in which women +were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thousand seven +hundred and thirteen----then facing about, he march’d up abreast with +her to the sopha, and in three plain words----though not before he was +sat down----nor after he was sat down----but as he was sitting down, +told her, “_he was in love_”----so that my uncle _Toby_ strained himself +more in the declaration than he needed. + +Mrs. _Wadman_ naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up +in her apron, in expectation every moment, that my uncle _Toby_ would go +on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love moreover of all +others being a subject of which he was the least a master ----When he +had told Mrs. _Wadman_ once that he loved her, he let it alone, and left +the matter to work after its own way. + +My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle _Toby’s_, +as he falsely called it, and would often say, that could his brother +_Toby_ to his process have added but a pipe of tobacco----he had +wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a _Spanish_ +proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe. + +My uncle _Toby_ never understood what my father meant; nor will I +presume to extract more from it, than a condemnation of an error which +the bulk of the world lie under----but the _French_ every one of ’em to +a man, who believe in it, almost, as much as the REAL PRESENCE, “_That +talking of love, is making it_.” + +------I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same +receipt. + +Let us go on: Mrs. _Wadman_ sat in expectation my uncle _Toby_ would do +so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one +side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a +little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub-blushing, as she +did it----she took up the gauntlet----or the discourse (if you like it +better) and communed with my uncle _Toby_, thus: + +The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_, +are very great. I suppose so--said my uncle _Toby_: and therefore when a +person, continued Mrs. _Wadman_, is so much at his ease as you are--so +happy, captain _Shandy_, in yourself, your friends and your +amusements --I wonder, what reasons can incline you to the state------ + +----They are written, quoth my uncle _Toby_, in the Common-Prayer Book. + +Thus far my uncle _Toby_ went on warily, and kept within his depth, +leaving Mrs. _Wadman_ to sail upon the gulph as she pleased. + +----As for children--said Mrs. _Wadman_--though a principal end perhaps +of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every +parent--yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very +uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the +heart-aches--what compensation for the many tender and disquieting +apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother who brings them into +life? I declare, said my uncle _Toby_, smit with pity, I know of none; +unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God---- + +A fiddlestick! quoth she. + + + + +CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH + + +Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, +looks, and accents with which the word _fiddlestick_ may be pronounced +in all such causes as this, every one of ’em impressing a sense and +meaning as different from the other, as _dirt_ from _cleanliness_ --That +Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that score) reckon up no +less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong. + +Mrs. _Wadman_ hit upon the _fiddlestick_, which summoned up all my uncle +_Toby’s_ modest blood into his cheeks--so feeling within himself that he +had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short; and without +entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he +laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they +were, and share them along with her. + +When my uncle _Toby_ had said this, he did not care to say it again; so +casting his eye upon the Bible which Mrs. _Wadman_ had laid upon the +table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of +all others the most interesting to him--which was the siege of +_Jericho_--he set himself to read it over--leaving his proposal of +marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after +its own way. Now it wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor +like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one drug which +nature had bestowed upon the world--in short, it work’d not at all in +her; and the cause of that was, that there was something working there +before ----Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen +times; but there is fire still in the subject----allons. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from _London_ to +_Edinburgh_, to enquire before he sets out, how many miles to _York_; +which is about the half way----nor does anybody wonder, if he goes on +and asks about the corporation, &c.-- + +It was just as natural for Mrs. _Wadman_, whose first husband was all +his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip +to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her +feelings, in the one case than in the other. + +She had accordingly read _Drake’s_ anatomy from one end to the other. +She had peeped into _Wharton_ upon the brain, and borrowed[9.2] _Graaf_ +upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it. + +She had reason’d likewise from her own powers----laid down +theorems----drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion. + +To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor _Slop_, “if poor captain +_Shandy_ was ever likely to recover of his wound----?” + +----He is recovered, Doctor _Slop_ would say---- + +What! quite? + +Quite: madam---- + +But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. _Wadman_ would say. + +Doctor _Slop_ was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. +_Wadman_ could get no knowledge: in short, there was no way to extract +it, but from my uncle _Toby_ himself. + +There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls +SUSPICION to rest----and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near +it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the sex to be +deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold +chat with the devil, without it ----But there is an accent of +humanity----how shall I describe it? --’tis an accent which covers the +part with a garment, and gives the enquirer a right to be as particular +with it, as your body-surgeon. + +“----Was it without remission?-- + +“----Was it more tolerable in bed? + +“----Could he lie on both sides alike with it? + +“--Was he able to mount a horse? + +“--Was motion bad for it?” _et cætera_, were so tenderly spoke to, and +so directed towards my uncle _Toby’s_ heart, that every item of them +sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves----but when Mrs. +_Wadman_ went round about by _Namur_ to get at my uncle _Toby’s_ groin; +and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and +_pêle mêle_ with the _Dutch_ to take the counterguard of St. _Roch_ +sword in hand--and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him +all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was +carried to his tent ----Heaven! Earth! Sea! --all was lifted up--the +springs of nature rose above their levels--an angel of mercy sat besides +him on the sopha--his heart glow’d with fire--and had he been worth a +thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. _Wadman_. + +--And whereabouts, dear Sir, quoth Mrs. _Wadman_, a little +categorically, did you receive this sad blow? ----In asking this +question, Mrs. _Wadman_ gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my +uncle _Toby’s_ red plush breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest +reply to it, that my uncle _Toby_ would lay his forefinger upon the +place ----It fell out otherwise----for my uncle _Toby_ having got his +wound before the gate of St. _Nicolas_, in one of the traverses of the +trench opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. _Roch_; +he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where +he was standing when the stone struck him: this struck instantly upon my +uncle _Toby’s_ sensorium----and with it, struck his large map of the +town and citadel of _Namur_ and its environs, which he had purchased and +pasted down upon a board, by the corporal’s aid, during his long +illness----it had lain with other military lumber in the garret ever +since, and accordingly the corporal was detached into the garret to +fetch it. + +My uncle _Toby_ measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. _Wadman’s_ +scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. _Nicolas_; and +with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the +goddess of Decency, if then in being--if not, ’twas her shade--shook her +head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes--forbid her to explain +the mistake. + +Unhappy Mrs. _Wadman!_ + +----For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an +apostrophe to thee----but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an +apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a +woman in distress--let the chapter go to the devil; provided any damn’d +critic _in keeping_ will be but at the trouble to take it with him. + + [Footnote 9.2: This must be a mistake in Mr. _Shandy_; for + _Graaf_ wrote upon the pancreatick juice, and the parts of + generation.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +My uncle _Toby’s_ Map is carried down into the kitchen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +----And here is the _Maes_--and this is the _Sambre_; said the corporal, +pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map and his +left upon Mrs. _Bridget’s_ shoulder----but not the shoulder next +him--and this, said he, is the town of _Namur_--and this the +citadel--and there lay the _French_--and here lay his honour and +myself----and in this cursed trench, Mrs. _Bridget_, quoth the corporal, +taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush’d him so +miserably _here_. ----In pronouncing which, he slightly press’d the back +of her hand towards the part he felt for----and let it fall. + +We thought, Mr. _Trim_, it had been more in the middle, ----said Mrs. +_Bridget_---- + +That would have undone us for ever--said the corporal. + +----And left my poor mistress undone too, said _Bridget_. + +The corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. _Bridget_ +a kiss. + +Come--come--said _Bridget_--holding the palm of her left hand parallel +to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over +it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least +wart or protuberance----’Tis every syllable of it false, cried the +corporal, before she had half finished the sentence---- + +--I know it to be fact, said _Bridget_, from credible witnesses. + +------Upon my honour, said the corporal, laying his hand upon his heart +and blushing, as he spoke, with honest resentment--’tis a story, Mrs. +_Bridget_, as false as hell ----Not, said _Bridget_, interrupting him, +that either I or my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether ’tis so +or no------only that when one is married, one would chuse to have such a +thing by one at least---- + +It was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. _Bridget_, that she had begun the +attack with her manual exercise; for the corporal instantly * +* * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * * * * * * * + * * * *. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It was like the momentary contest in the moist eye-lids of an _April_ +morning, “Whether _Bridget_ should laugh or cry.” + +She snatched up a rolling-pin----’twas ten to one, she had laugh’d---- + +She laid it down----she cried; and had one single tear of ’em but tasted +of bitterness, full sorrowful would the corporal’s heart have been that +he had used the argument; but the corporal understood the sex, a _quart +major to a terce_ at least, better than my uncle _Toby_, and accordingly +he assailed Mrs. _Bridget_ after this manner. + +I know, Mrs. _Bridget_, said the corporal, giving her a most respectful +kiss, that thou art good and modest by nature, and art withal so +generous a girl in thyself, that, if I know thee rightly, thou would’st +not wound an insect, much less the honour of so gallant and worthy a +soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a countess of----but thou +hast been set on, and deluded, dear _Bridget_, as is often a woman’s +case, “to please others more than themselves----” + +_Bridget’s_ eyes poured down at the sensations the corporal excited. + +----Tell me----tell me, then, my dear _Bridget_, continued the corporal, +taking hold of her hand, which hung down dead by her side, ----and, +giving a second kiss----whose suspicion has misled thee? + +_Bridget_ sobb’d a sob or two----then open’d her eyes----the corporal +wiped ’em with the bottom of her apron----she then open’d her heart and +told him all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +My uncle _Toby_ and the corporal had gone on separately with their +operations the greatest part of the campaign, and as effectually cut off +from all communication of what either the one or the other had been +doing, as if they had been separated from each other by the _Maes_ or +the _Sambre_. + +My uncle _Toby_, on his side, had presented himself every afternoon in +his red and silver, and blue and gold alternately, and sustained an +infinity of attacks in them, without knowing them to be attacks--and so +had nothing to communicate---- + +The corporal, on his side, in taking _Bridget_, by it had gain’d +considerable advantages----and consequently had much to +communicate----but what were the advantages----as well as what was the +manner by which he had seiz’d them, required so nice an historian, that +the corporal durst not venture upon it; and as sensible as he was of +glory, would rather have been contented to have gone bareheaded and +without laurels for ever, than torture his master’s modesty for a single +moment---- + +----Best of honest and gallant servants! ----But I have apostrophiz’d +thee, _Trim!_ once before----and could I apotheosize thee also (that is +to say) with good company ----I would do it _without ceremony_ in the +very next page. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Now my uncle _Toby_ had one evening laid down his pipe upon the table, +and was counting over to himself upon his finger ends (beginning at his +thumb) all Mrs. _Wadman’s_ perfections one by one; and happening two or +three times together, either by omitting some, or counting others twice +over, to puzzle himself sadly before he could get beyond his middle +finger ----Prithee, _Trim!_ said he, taking up his pipe again, ----bring +me a pen and ink: _Trim_ brought paper also. + +Take a full sheet----_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, making a sign with +his pipe at the same time to take a chair and sit down close by him at +the table. The corporal obeyed----placed the paper directly before +him----took a pen, and dipp’d it in the ink. + +--She has a thousand virtues, _Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_---- + +Am I to set them down, an’ please your honour? quoth the corporal. + +----But they must be taken in their ranks, replied my uncle _Toby_; for +of them all, _Trim_, that which wins me most, and which is a security +for all the rest, is the compassionate turn and singular humanity of her +character --I protest, added my uncle _Toby_, looking up, as he protested +it, towards the top of the ceiling ----That was I her brother, _Trim_, a +thousand fold, she could not make more constant or more tender enquiries +after my sufferings----though now no more. + +The corporal made no reply to my uncle _Toby’s_ protestation, but by a +short cough--he dipp’d the pen a second time into the inkhorn; and my +uncle _Toby_, pointing with the end of his pipe as close to the top of +the sheet at the left hand corner of it, as he could get it----the +corporal wrote down the word HUMANITY - - - - thus. + +Prithee, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, as soon as _Trim_ had done +it------how often does Mrs. _Bridget_ enquire after the wound on the cap +of thy knee, which thou received’st at the battle of _Landen?_ + +She never, an’ please your honour, enquires after it at all. + +That, corporal, said my uncle _Toby_, with all the triumph the goodness +of his nature would permit ----That shews the difference in the character +of the mistress and maid----had the fortune of war allotted the same +mischance to me, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have enquired into every +circumstance relating to it a hundred times ----She would have enquired, +an’ please your honour, ten times as often about your honour’s +groin ----The pain, _Trim_, is equally excruciating, ----and Compassion +has as much to do with the one as the other---- + +----God bless your honour! cried the corporal----what has a woman’s +compassion to do with a wound upon the cap of a man’s knee? had your +honour’s been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of +_Landen_, Mrs. _Wadman_ would have troubled her head as little about it +as _Bridget_; because, added the corporal, lowering his voice, and +speaking very distinctly, as he assigned his reason---- + +“The knee is such a distance from the main body----whereas the groin, +your honour knows, is upon the very _curtain_ of the _place_.” + +My uncle _Toby_ gave a long whistle----but in a note which could scarce +be heard across the table. + +The corporal had advanced too far to retire----in three words he told +the rest---- + +My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe as gently upon the fender, as if it +had been spun from the unravellings of a spider’s web---- + +------Let us go to my brother _Shandy’s_, said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +There will be just time, whilst my uncle _Toby_ and _Trim_ are walking +to my father’s, to inform you that Mrs. _Wadman_ had, some moons before +this, made a confident of my mother; and that Mrs. _Bridget_, who had +the burden of her own, as well as her mistress’s secret to carry, had +got happily delivered of both to _Susannah_ behind the garden-wall. + +As for my mother, she saw nothing at all in it, to make the least bustle +about----but _Susannah_ was sufficient by herself for all the ends and +purposes you could possibly have, in exporting a family secret; for she +instantly imparted it by signs to _Jonathan_----and _Jonathan_ by tokens +to the cook as she was basting a loin of mutton; the cook sold it with +some kitchen-fat to the postillion for a groat, who truck’d it with the +dairy maid for something of about the same value----and though whisper’d +in the hay-loft, FAME caught the notes with her brazen trumpet, and +sounded them upon the house-top --In a word, not an old woman in the +village or five miles round, who did not understand the difficulties of +my uncle _Toby’s_ siege, and what were the secret articles which had +delayed the surrender.---- + +My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an +hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he +did----had but just heard of the report as my uncle _Toby_ set out; and +catching fire suddenly at the trespass done his brother by it, was +demonstrating to _Yorick_, notwithstanding my mother was sitting +by----not only, “That the devil was in women, and that the whole of the +affair was lust;” but that every evil and disorder in the world, of what +kind or nature soever, from the first fall of _Adam_, down to my uncle +_Toby’s_ (inclusive), was owing one way or other to the same unruly +appetite. + +_Yorick_ was just bringing my father’s hypothesis to some temper, when +my uncle _Toby_ entering the room with marks of infinite benevolence and +forgiveness in his looks, my father’s eloquence rekindled against the +passion----and as he was not very nice in the choice of his words when +he was wroth----as soon as my uncle _Toby_ was seated by the fire, and +had filled his pipe, my father broke out in this manner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +----That provision should be made for continuing the race of so great, +so exalted and godlike a Being as man --I am far from denying--but +philosophy speaks freely of everything; and therefore I still think and +do maintain it to be a pity, that it should be done by means of a +passion which bends down the faculties, and turns all the wisdom, +contemplations, and operations of the soul backwards----a passion, my +dear, continued my father, addressing himself to my mother, which +couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us come out of our +caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts than +men. + +I know it will be said, continued my father (availing himself of the +_Prolepsis_), that in itself, and simply taken----like hunger, or +thirst, or sleep----’tis an affair neither good or bad--or shameful or +otherwise. ----Why then did the delicacy of _Diogenes_ and _Plato_ so +recalcitrate against it? and wherefore, when we go about to make and +plant a man, do we put out the candle? and for what reason is it, that +all the parts thereof--the congredients--the preparations--the +instruments, and whatever serves thereto, are so held as to be conveyed +to a cleanly mind by no language, translation, or periphrasis whatever? + +----The act of killing and destroying a man, continued my father, +raising his voice--and turning to my uncle _Toby_--you see, is +glorious--and the weapons by which we do it are honourable ----We +march with them upon our shoulders ----We strut with them by our +sides ----We gild them ----We carve them ----We in-lay them ----We +enrich them ----Nay, if it be but a _scoundrel_ cannon, we cast an +ornament upon the breach of it.-- + +----My uncle _Toby_ laid down his pipe to intercede for a better +epithet----and _Yorick_ was rising up to batter the whole hypothesis to +pieces---- + +----When _Obadiah_ broke into the middle of the room with a complaint, +which cried out for an immediate hearing. + +The case was this: + +My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor, or as impropriator of +the great tythes, was obliged to keep a Bull for the service of the +Parish, and _Obadiah_ had led his cow upon a _pop-visit_ to him one day +or other the preceding summer ----I say, one day or other--because as +chance would have it, it was the day on which he was married to my +father’s housemaid----so one was a reckoning to the other. Therefore +when _Obadiah’s_ wife was brought to bed--_Obadiah_ thanked God---- + +----Now, said _Obadiah_, I shall have a calf: so _Obadiah_ went daily to +visit his cow. + +She’ll calve on _Monday_--on _Tuesday_--on _Wednesday_ at the +farthest---- + +The cow did not calve----no--she’ll not calve till next week----the cow +put it off terribly----till at the end of the sixth week _Obadiah’s_ +suspicions (like a good man’s) fell upon the Bull. + +Now the parish being very large, my father’s Bull, to speak the truth of +him, was no way equal to the department; he had, however, got himself, +somehow or other, thrust into employment--and as he went through the +business with a grave face, my father had a high opinion of him. + +----Most of the townsmen, an’ please your worship, quoth _Obadiah_, +believe that ’tis all the Bull’s fault---- + +----But may not a cow be barren? replied my father, turning to Doctor +_Slop_. + +It never happens: said Dr. _Slop_, but the man’s wife may have come +before her time naturally enough ----Prithee has the child hair upon his +head? --added Dr. _Slop_------ + +----It is as hairy as I am; said _Obadiah_. ----_Obadiah_ had not been +shaved for three weeks ----Wheu - - u - - - - u - - - - - - - - cried my +father; beginning the sentence with an exclamatory whistle----and so, +brother _Toby_, this poor Bull of mine, who is as good a Bull as ever +p--ss’d, and might have done for _Europa_ herself in purer times----had +he but two legs less, might have been driven into Doctors Commons and +lost his character----which to a Town Bull, brother _Toby_, is the very +same thing as his life------ + +L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?---- + +A COCK and a BULL, said _Yorick_ ----And one of the best of its kind, +I ever heard. + + + [Decorative Text: + + The + Temple Press + LETCHWORTH + ENGLAND] + + + * * * * * + * * * * + * * * * * + +Errors and Inconsistencies + +Inconsistent capitalization of “Christian” or “christian” is unchanged. + +Intentional anomalies: + + BOOK IV: CHAPTER XXV: + --No doubt, Sir, --there is a whole chapter wanting here ... + [the text skips 10 pages (from 146 to 156 in this edition, with + a corresponding skip in signature numbers) and one chapter] + in this manner, [BRAVO] + [printed with a line through the word, as described] + please but your own fancy in it. // ------Was ever any thing + [these lines are separated by a blank page] + I leave this void space [printed with ⅓ line left blank] + BOOK IX: CHAPTER XVIII, CHAPTER XVIII + [each chapter heading is at the top of a blank page] + +Typographical Errors corrected by transcriber: + + this amiable turn of mind [or mind] + with what good intention and resolution you may [you way] + and a tolerable tune I thought it was [I though] + a dwarf in more articles than one. [drawf] + EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! [N O SUCH] + the sun in its meridian [meridan] + for doing it to Lord *******. [too] + towards the top of the ceiling [cieling; _the word occurs elsewhere + with “ei”_] + +Unchanged Forms: + + [Editor’s Introduction] + All but a quarter of a century had passed + [“all but” appears to mean “almost”, i.e. from 1736 to 1759] + + [Primary Text] + If thou art not too busy with CANDID [error for Candide?] + [Illustration (full-page black tombstone)] + [some editions have two consecutive black pages, positioned + immediately after the first “Alas, poor Yorick!”] + Footnote 1.3: Pentagraph, an instrument to copy ... + [expected form is Pantagraph] + between the scarp and counter-scarp + [anomalous hyphen may be intentional] + fee-farms, knights fees [may be error for “knights’ fees”] + 470 pounds averdupois [expected spelling is “avoirdupois”] + griping them hard together with one hand [expected “gripping”] + May he be cursed in his reins [not an error: _renibus_ = kidneys] + _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to stir up the fire) + [error for “excitandum”] + _Trim_ took his off the ground [missing “hat” may be intentional] + and many and many a look of mutual congratulation + [probably not an error] + in the corner of an old compaigning trunk [expected “campaigning”] + the one, of _Aætius_, [error for Æetius] + from _Tartary_ to _Terra del Fuogo_, [spelling unchanged] + +Hyphens and Spaces: + +Inconsistent hyphenization or spacing has not been regularized. Words +found only at line break were handled on a “best guess” basis. + + anywhere and any where [both forms occur] + beforehand and before-hand [both forms occur at mid-line] + hornworks and horn-works + [both forms occur at mid-line; line-end occurrences have hyphen] + christian (Christian) name and christian-name + [both forms occur more than once] + be-virtu’d [the only occurrence of this word is at line-break] + shall not be opened again this twelve-/month + [all other occurrences of this word are at mid-line: the three + preceding have a hyphen; the one following does not] + +Punctuation and Typography: + + [Editor’s Introduction] + for about five years. [years,] + + [Primary Text] + for a stage or two together, [the comma is intentional] + (quoth St. _Thomas!_) [. missing] + ’yclept logomachies [apostrophe in original] + rise up against him, [invisible , at line-end] + Because, continued Dr. _Slop_ [, missing] + for Mrs. _Shandy_ the mother is + [“Shandy” printed in Roman (non-italic) type] + ’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an obstinate one: therefore + [missing paragraph-final punctuation is intentional] + _Gordonius_, who (in his cap. 15. _de Amore_) + [closing parenthesis missing at line-end] + resumed the case at _Limerick_ + [“Limerick” printed in Roman (non-italic) type] + the child looks extremely well, said my father, + [final , invisible at line-end] + if the _French_ are treacherous + [“French” printed in Roman (non-italic) type] + --or up to the ears in love [expected italics missing] + I shall never, an’ please your honour, [first , missing at line-end] + which _Plato_, I am persuaded, never [second , missing at line-end] + I’ll see the rest of these good gentry to-morrow, [missing comma] + the abbess of _Andoüillets’_ itself-- [apostrophe in original] + and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven [prayers.] + greater than the pain of a wound in the knee----or + [the lack of paragraph-final punctuation is intentional] + +Greek: + + οὐσία [ούσία] + Περιζώματα [Περιζώμαυτὲ] + περι φύσεως [accent missing in original] + Footnote 5.3: Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν [ἀπαλλαγὴ] + Footnote 5.6: Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ + τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμάχους καταναγκάσας. + [diacritics as printed: Ὁ Ιλος, τὰ ἀιδοῖα περιτέμνεται, τἀυτὸ + ποῖησαι καὶ τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμὰχους καταναγκάσας.] + γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα [γυνᾶικα ... ἀροτὴρα] + Εὖγε! ὅτι φιλοσοφεῖς ἐν Πάθεσι [῏Ευγε! ... φιλοσοφεἶς] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRISTRAM SHANDY *** + +***** This file should be named 39270-0.txt or 39270-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/7/39270/ + +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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