The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

M r. P I T T.

S I R,

NEVER poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication,

than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the

kingdom, and in a retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in a constant

endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other

evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man

smiles,——but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this

Fragment of Life.

I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it—(not

under your Protection,—it must protect itself, but)—into the country

with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or can

conceive it has beguiled you of one moment’s pain—I shall think myself

as happy as a minister of state;——perhaps much happier than any one

(one only excepted) that I have read or heard of.

_I am, GREAT SIR,

(and, what is more to your Honour)

I am, GOOD SIR,

Your Well-wisher, and

most humble Fellow-subject_,

T H E A U T H O R.

THE

LIFE and OPINIONS

OF

TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gent.

C H A P. I

I WISH either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they

were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about

when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon

what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational

Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and

temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his

mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of

his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions

which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all

this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have

made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the

reader is likely to see me.—Believe me, good folks, this is not so

inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;—you have all, I

dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from

father to son, &c. &c.—and a great deal to that purpose:—Well, you may

take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense,

his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions

and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so

that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a

half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by

treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road

of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are

once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive

them off it.

_Pray my Dear_, quoth my mother, _have you not forgot to wind up the

clock?—Good G—!_ cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking

care to moderate his voice at the same time,——_Did ever woman, since

the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?_

Pray, what was your father saying?————Nothing.

C H A P. II

———Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see,

either good or bad.——Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very

unseasonable question at least,—because it scattered and dispersed the

animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in

hand with the _HOMUNCULUS_, and conducted him safe to the place

destined for his reception.

The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may

appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;—to the

eye of reason in scientific research, he stands confess’d—a BEING

guarded and circumscribed with rights.——The minutest philosophers, who

by the bye, have the most enlarged understandings, (their souls being

inversely as their enquiries) shew us incontestably, that the

HOMUNCULUS is created by the same hand,—engender’d in the same course

of nature,—endow’d with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with

us:—That he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins,

arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands,

genitals, humours, and articulations;—is a Being of as much

activity,—and in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our

fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of _England._—He may be

benefitted,—he may be injured,—he may obtain redress; in a word, he has

all the claims and rights of humanity, which _Tully, Puffendorf_, or

the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.

Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way

alone!—or that through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller,

my little Gentleman had got to his journey’s end miserably spent;—his

muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;—his own animal

spirits ruffled beyond description,—and that in this sad disorder’d

state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series

of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months

together.—I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a

thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the

physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly

to rights.

C H A P. III

TO my uncle Mr. _Toby Shandy_ do I stand indebted for the preceding

anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher,

and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft,

and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my

uncle _Toby_ well remember’d, upon his observing a most unaccountable

obliquity, (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting up my top, and

justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old gentleman

shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than

reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified

in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me,

That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s child:—_But

alas!_ continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a

tear which was trickling down his cheeks, _My Tristram’s misfortunes

began nine months before ever he came into the world._

—My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up, but she knew no more than

her backside what my father meant,—but my uncle, Mr. _Toby Shandy_, who

had been often informed of the affair,—understood him very well.

C H A P. IV

I KNOW there are readers in the world, as well as many other good

people in it, who are no readers at all,—who find themselves ill at

ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of

every thing which concerns you.

It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a

backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I

have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are

likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right,

will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men

whatever,—be no less read than the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ itself—and in

the end, prove the very thing which _Montaigne_ dreaded his Essays

should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window;—I find it

necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must

beg pardon for going on a little farther in the same way: For which

cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in the

way I have done; and that I am able to go on, tracing every thing in

it, as _Horace_ says, _ab Ovo._

_Horace_, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that

gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;—(I forget

which,) besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. _Horace’s_

pardon;—for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself

neither to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived.

To such however as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I

can give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part

of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the

curious and inquisitive.

——————Shut the door.—————— I was begot in the night betwixt the first

_Sunday_ and the first _Monday_ in the month of _March_, in the year of

our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I

was.—But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing

which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote

known only in our own family, but now made publick for the better

clearing up this point.

My father, you must know, who was originally a _Turkey_ merchant, but

had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die

upon, his paternal estate in the county of ——, was, I believe, one of

the most regular men in every thing he did, whether ’twas matter of

business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen

of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he

had made it a rule for many years of his life,—on the first

_Sunday-night_ of every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as

ever the _Sunday-night_ came,—to wind up a large house-clock, which we

had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands:—And being

somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been

speaking of,—he had likewise gradually brought some other little family

concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my

uncle _Toby_, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no

more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.

It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure,

fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me

to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which

have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor

mother could never hear the said clock wound up,——but the thoughts of

some other things unavoidably popped into her head—_& vice

versa:_——Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious _Locke_, who

certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men,

affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of

prejudice whatsoever.

But this by the bye.

Now it appears by a memorandum in my father’s pocket-book, which now

lies upon the table, “That on _Lady-day_, which was on the 25th of the

same month in which I date my geniture,——my father set upon his journey

to _London_, with my eldest brother _Bobby_, to fix him at

_Westminster_ school;” and, as it appears from the same authority,

“That he did not get down to his wife and family till the _second week_

in _May_ following,”—it brings the thing almost to a certainty.

However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it

beyond all possibility of a doubt.

———But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all _December, January_,

and _February?_——Why, Madam,—he was all that time afflicted with a

Sciatica.

C H A P. V

ON the fifth day of _November_, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as

near nine kalendar months as any husband could in reason have

expected,—was I _Tristram Shandy_, Gentleman, brought forth into this

scurvy and disastrous world of ours.—I wish I had been born in the

Moon, or in any of the planets, (except _Jupiter_ or _Saturn_, because

I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse

with me in any of them (though I will not answer for _Venus_) than it

has in this vile, dirty planet of ours,—which, o’ my conscience, with

reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and

clippings of the rest;——not but the planet is well enough, provided a

man could be born in it to a great title or to a great estate; or could

any how contrive to be called up to public charges, and employments of

dignity or power;——but that is not my case;——and therefore every man

will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it;———for which

cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever

was made;—for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my

breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an

asthma I got in scating against the wind in _Flanders;_—I have been the

continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not

wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great

or signal evil;——yet with all the good temper in the world I affirm it

of her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner

where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me

with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever

small HERO sustained.

C H A P. VI

IN the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly _when_ I

was born; but I did not inform you _how. No_, that particular was

reserved entirely for a chapter by itself;—besides, Sir, as you and I

are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been

proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself

all at once.

—You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write

not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your

knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the

one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed

farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning

betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that unless one of us is in

fault, will terminate in friendship.—_O diem praeclarum!_—then nothing

which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious

in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should

think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out—bear

with me,—and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:—Or, if I

should seem now and then to trifle upon the road,—or should sometimes

put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass

along,—don’t fly off,—but rather courteously give me credit for a

little more wisdom than appears upon my outside;—and as we jog on,

either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do any thing,—only keep

your temper.

C H A P. VII

IN the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a

thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with

the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment

in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own

efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature,—had acquired, in her

way, no small degree of reputation in the world:—by which word _world_,

need I in this place inform your worship, that I would be understood to

mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the circle of

the great world, of four _English_ miles diameter, or thereabouts, of

which the cottage where the good old woman lived is supposed to be the

centre?—She had been left it seems a widow in great distress, with

three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year; and as she was

at that time a person of decent carriage,—grave deportment,—a woman

moreover of few words and withal an object of compassion, whose

distress, and silence under it, called out the louder for a friendly

lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity; and

having often lamented an inconvenience to which her husband’s flock had

for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a

midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case have been

never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles riding; which

said seven long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the country

thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to

fourteen; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at

all; it came into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a

kindness to the whole parish, as to the poor creature herself, to get

her a little instructed in some of the plain principles of the

business, in order to set her up in it. As no woman thereabouts was

better qualified to execute the plan she had formed than herself, the

gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great influence

over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in

effecting it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson join’d

his interest with his wife’s in the whole affair, and in order to do

things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law

to practise, as his wife had given by institution,—he cheerfully paid

the fees for the ordinary’s licence himself, amounting in the whole, to

the sum of eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them

both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal

possession of her office, together with all its _rights, members, and

appurtenances whatsoever._

These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in

which such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like

cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was

according to a neat _Formula_ of _Didius_ his own devising, who having

a particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over again all

kind of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty

amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the

neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this

wham-wham of his inserted.

I own I never could envy _Didius_ in these kinds of fancies of his:—But

every man to his own taste.—Did not Dr. _Kunastrokius_, that great man,

at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing

of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though

he had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, Sir,

have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting _Solomon_

himself,—have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES;—their running

horses,—their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their

trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets,—their maggots and their

butterflies?—and so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and

quietly along the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get

up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

C H A P. VIII

—_De gustibus non est disputandum;_—that is, there is no disputing

against HOBBY-HORSES; and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with

any sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for

happening, at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both

fiddler and painter, according as the fly stings:—Be it known to you,

that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor

do I care who knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air;—though

sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies

than what a wise man would think altogether right.—But the truth is,—I

am not a wise man;—and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in

the world, it is not much matter what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at

all about it: Nor does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great

Lords and tall Personages as hereafter follow;—such, for instance, as

my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all

of a row, mounted upon their several horses,—some with large stirrups,

getting on in a more grave and sober pace;——others on the contrary,

tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring

and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils

astride a mortgage,—and as if some of them were resolved to break their

necks.——So much the better—say I to myself;—for in case the worst

should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well

without them; and for the rest,——why——God speed them——e’en let them

ride on without opposition from me; for were their lordships unhorsed

this very night—’tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse

mounted by one half before tomorrow morning.

Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my

rest.——But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard, and

that is, when I see one born for great actions, and what is still more

for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones;—when I

behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and conduct

are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that reason, a

corrupt world cannot spare one moment;—when I see such a one, my Lord,

mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my love to

my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his glory

wishes,—then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the first

transport of an honest impatience, I wish the HOBBY-HORSE, with all his

fraternity, at the Devil.

“My Lord,

I MAINTAIN this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in

the three great essentials of matter, form and place: I beg, therefore,

you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with

the most respectful humility, at your Lordship’s feet—when you are upon

them,—which you can be when you please;—and that is, my Lord, whenever

there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes too. I

have the honour to be,

_My Lord,

Your Lordship’s most obedient,

and most devoted_,

_and most humble servant_,

TRISTRAM SHANDY.”

C H A P. IX

I SOLEMNLY declare to all mankind, that the above dedication was made

for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate,—Duke, Marquis, Earl,

Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other Realm in Christendom;——nor

has it yet been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately,

directly or indirectly, to any one person or personage, great or small;

but is honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul

living.

I labour this point so particularly, merely to remove any offence or

objection which might arise against it from the manner in which I

propose to make the most of it;—which is the putting it up fairly to

public sale; which I now do.

——Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear;—for

my own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas in a

dark entry;—I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal

squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try

whether I should not come off the better by it.

If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron,

in these his Majesty’s dominions, who stands in need of a tight,

genteel dedication, and whom the above will suit, (for by the bye,

unless it suits in some degree, I will not part with it)——it is much at

his service for fifty guineas;——which I am positive is twenty guineas

less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius.

My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross

piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship

sees, is good,—the colouring transparent,—the drawing not amiss;—or to

speak more like a man of science,—and measure my piece in the painter’s

scale, divided into 20,—I believe, my Lord, the outlines will turn out

as 12,—the composition as 9,—the colouring as 6,—the expression 13 and

a half,—and the design,—if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my

own _design_, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be as

20,—I think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all this,—there is

keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the HOBBY-HORSE, (which is a

secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to the whole) give great

force to the principal lights in your own figure, and make it come off

wonderfully;—and besides, there is an air of originality in the _tout

ensemble._

Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of

Mr. _Dodsley_, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition

care shall be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship’s

titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of

the preceding chapter: All which, from the words, _De gustibus non est

disputandum_, and whatever else in this book relates to HOBBY-HORSES,

but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship.—The rest I

dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all the PATRONS or MATRONS I

can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world

run mad after it.

_Bright Goddess_,

If thou art not too busy with CANDID and Miss CUNEGUND’S affairs,—take

_Tristram Shandy’s_ under thy protection also.

C H A P. X

WHATEVER degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the

midwife might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested,—at

first sight seems not very material to this history;——certain however

it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson’s wife, did run away at that

time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking

but that the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit

upon the design first,—yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment

it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry

it into execution, had a claim to some share of it,—if not to a full

half of whatever honour was due to it.

The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise.

Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable

guess at the grounds of this procedure.

Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the

midwife’s licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an

account,—the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk

by a breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his

station, and his office;—and that was in never appearing better, or

otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jackass of a horse, value

about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of

him, was full brother to _Rosinante_, as far as similitude congenial

could make him; for he answered his description to a hair-breadth in

every thing,—except that I do not remember ’tis any where said, that

_Rosinante_ was broken-winded; and that, moreover, _Rosinante_, as is

the happiness of most _Spanish_ horses, fat or lean,—was undoubtedly a

horse at all points.

I know very well that the HERO’S horse was a horse of chaste

deportment, which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But

it is as certain at the same time that _Rosinante’_s continency (as may

be demonstrated from the adventure of the _Yanguesian_ carriers)

proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the

temperance and orderly current of his blood.—And let me tell you,

Madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in

behalf of which you could not say more for your life.

Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do exact justice to every

creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work,—I could not

stifle this distinction in favour of Don _Quixote’_s horse;——in all

other points, the parson’s horse, I say, was just such another, for he

was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as HUMILITY herself

could have bestrided.

In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was

greatly in the parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse

of his,—for he was master of a very handsome demi-peaked saddle,

quilted on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of

silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a

housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of

black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, _poudré

d’or_,—all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life,

together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it

should be.——But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these

up behind his study door: and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted

him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the figure and value

of such a steed might well and truly deserve.

In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits

to the gentry who lived around him,—you will easily comprehend, that

the parson, so appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his

philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a

village, but he caught the attention of both old and young.——Labour

stood still as he pass’d——the bucket hung suspended in the middle of

the well,—the spinning-wheel forgot its round,——even chuck-farthing and

shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight; and

as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough

upon his hands to make his observations,—to hear the groans of the

serious,—and the laughter of the light-hearted; all which he bore with

excellent tranquillity.—His character was,—he loved a jest in his

heart—and as he saw himself in the true point of ridicule, he would say

he could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light, in which

he so strongly saw himself: So that to his friends, who knew his foible

was not the love of money, and who therefore made the less scruple in

bantering the extravagance of his humour,—instead of giving the true

cause,—he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and as he

never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being

altogether as spare a figure as his beast,—he would sometimes insist

upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;—that they

were, centaur-like,—both of a piece. At other times, and in other

moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,—he

would say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with

great gravity, would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat

horse, without a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in his

pulse; and that he had made choice of the lean one he rode upon, not

only to keep himself in countenance, but in spirits.

At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons

for riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to

one of mettle;—for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and

meditate as delightfully _de vanitate mundi et fugâ sæculi_, as with

the advantage of a death’s-head before him;—that, in all other

exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along,—to as

much account as in his study;—that he could draw up an argument in his

sermon,—or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the

other;—that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and

judgment, were two incompatible movements.—But that upon his steed—he

could unite and reconcile every thing,—he could compose his sermon—he

could compose his cough,——and, in case nature gave a call that way, he

could likewise compose himself to sleep.—In short, the parson upon such

encounters would assign any cause but the true cause,—and he with-held

the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it did

honour to him.

But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this

gentleman’s life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle

were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it

what you will,—to run into the opposite extreme.—In the language of the

county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and

generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his

stable always ready for saddling: and as the nearest midwife, as I told

you, did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile

country,—it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week

together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he was

not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more

distressful than the last;—as much as he loved his beast, he had never

a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this; that his

horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d;—or he was

twitter-bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had

befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh;—so that he had every

nine or ten months a bad horse to get rid of,—and a good horse to

purchase in his stead.

What the loss in such a balance might amount to, _communibus annis_, I

would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to

determine;—but let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it

for many years without a murmur, till at length, by repeated ill

accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under

consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his

mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but

withal so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other

act of generosity in his parish: Besides this, he considered that with

half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much

good;—and what still weighed more with him than all other

considerations put together, was this, that it confined all his charity

into one particular channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least

wanted, namely, to the child-bearing and child-getting part of his

parish; reserving nothing for the impotent,—nothing for the

aged,—nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was hourly called

forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness and affliction dwelt

together.

For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there

appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it;—and

these were, either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his

steed upon any application whatever,—or else be content to ride the

last poor devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and

infirmities, to the very end of the chapter.

As he dreaded his own constancy in the first—he very chearfully betook

himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it,

as I said, to his honour,—yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit

above it; choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the

laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story,

which might seem a panegyrick upon himself.

I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this

reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I

think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight

of _La Mancha_, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more,

and would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the

greatest hero of antiquity.

But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to

shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair.—For you must

know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson

credit,—the devil a soul could find it out,—I suppose his enemies would

not, and that his friends could not.——But no sooner did he bestir

himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the

ordinary’s licence to set her up,—but the whole secret came out; every

horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all

the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly

remembered.—The story ran like wild-fire.—“The parson had a returning

fit of pride which had just seized him; and he was going to be well

mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, ’twas plain as the

sun at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the licence ten times

told, the very first year:—So that every body was left to judge what

were his views in this act of charity.”

What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life,—or

rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other

people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own,

and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound

asleep.

About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made

entirely easy upon that score,—it being just so long since he left his

parish,—and the whole world at the same time behind him,—and stands

accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain.

But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men: Order them as

they will, they pass thro’ a certain medium, which so twists and

refracts them from their true directions——that, with all the titles to

praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are

nevertheless forced to live and die without it.

Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example.——But to

know by what means this came to pass,—and to make that knowledge of use

to you, I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters,

which contain such a sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry

its moral along with it.—When this is done, if nothing stops us in our

way, we will go on with the midwife.

C H A P. XI

Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable in it, (as

appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong

vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt

for near,—I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years;——but I

would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however

indisputable in itself,——and therefore I shall content myself with only

saying——It had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or

transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which is

more than I would venture to say of one half of the best surnames in

the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as

many chops and changes as their owners.—Has this been owing to the

pride, or to the shame of the respective proprietors?—In honest truth,

I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other, just as the

temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day

so blend and confound us all together, that no one shall be able to

stand up and swear, “That his own great grandfather was the man who did

either this or that.”

This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of

the _Yorick’_s family, and their religious preservation of these

records I quote, which do farther inform us, That the family was

originally of _Danish_ extraction, and had been transplanted into

England as early as in the reign of _Horwendillus_, king of _Denmark_,

in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. _Yorick_’s, and from

whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of

his death. Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith

not;—it only adds, That, for near two centuries, it had been totally

abolished, as altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in

every other court of the Christian world.

It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than

that of the king’s chief Jester;—and that _Hamlet_’s _Yorick_, in our

_Shakespeare_, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon

authenticated facts, was certainly the very man.

I have not the time to look into _Saxo-Grammaticus_’s _Danish_ history,

to know the certainty of this;—but if you have leisure, and can easily

get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself.

I had just time, in my travels through _Denmark_ with Mr. _Noddy_’s

eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding

along with him at a prodigious rate thro’ most parts of Europe, and of

which original journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative

will be given in the progress of this work. I had just time, I say, and

that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long

sojourner in that country;——namely, “That nature was neither very

lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to

its inhabitants;—but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to

them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her

favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with

each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of

refined parts; but a great deal of good plain houshold understanding

amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;” which

is, I think, very right.

With us, you see, the case is quite different:—we are all ups and downs

in this matter;—you are a great genius;—or ’tis fifty to one, Sir, you

are a great dunce and a blockhead;—not that there is a total want of

intermediate steps,—no,—we are not so irregular as that comes to;—but

the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this

unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and dispositions of this

kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself not being more

so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she.

This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to _Yorick_’s

extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts

I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of

_Danish_ blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might

possibly have all run out:——I will not philosophize one moment with you

about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:—That instead of

that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would

have looked for, in one so extracted;—he was, on the contrary, as

mercurial and sublimated a composition,—as heteroclite a creature in

all his declensions;—with as much life and whim, and _gaité de cœur_

about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put

together. With all this sail, poor _Yorick_ carried not one ounce of

ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and at the age of

twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a

romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting

out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul

ten times in a day of somebody’s tackling; and as the grave and more

slow-paced were oftenest in his way,——you may likewise imagine, ’twas

with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For

aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom

of such _Fracas:_——For, to speak the truth, _Yorick_ had an invincible

dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;—not to gravity as

such;—for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or

serious of mortal men for days and weeks together;—but he was an enemy

to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it

appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it

fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it

much quarter.

Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that Gravity was

an errant scoundrel, and he would add,—of the most dangerous kind

too,—because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest,

well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in

one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In

the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was

no danger,—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of gravity was

design, and consequently deceit;—’twas a taught trick to gain credit of

the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that,

with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what

a _French_ wit had long ago defined it,—_viz. A mysterious carriage of

the body to cover the defects of the mind;_—which definition of

gravity, _Yorick_, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be

wrote in letters of gold.

But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the

world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other

subject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint.

_Yorick_ had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the

nature of the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually

translate into plain _English_ without any periphrasis;—and too oft

without much distinction of either person, time, or place;—so that when

mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding——he never

gave himself a moment’s time to reflect who was the hero of the

piece,——what his station,——or how far he had power to hurt him

hereafter;—but if it was a dirty action,—without more ado,—The man was

a dirty fellow,—and so on.—And as his comments had usually the ill fate

to be terminated either in a _bon mot_, or to be enlivened throughout

with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to _Yorick_’s

indiscretion. In a word, tho’ he never sought, yet, at the same time,

as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and

without much ceremony;——he had but too many temptations in life, of

scattering his wit and his humour,—his gibes and his jests about

him.——They were not lost for want of gathering.

What were the consequences, and what was _Yorick_’s catastrophe

thereupon, you will read in the next chapter.

C H A P. XII

THE _Mortgager_ and _Mortgagee_ differ the one from the other, not more

in length of purse, than the _Jester_ and _Jestee_ do, in that of

memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts

call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more

than some of the best of _Homer_’s can pretend to;—namely, That the one

raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and thinks no more

about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases;—the

periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the

memory of the affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour, pop

comes the creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot,

together with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the

full extent of their obligations.

As the reader (for I hate your _ifs_) has a thorough knowledge of human

nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my HERO could not go

on at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental

mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a

multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding

_Eugenius_’s frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that

as not one of them was contracted thro’ any malignancy;—but, on the

contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they

would all of them be cross’d out in course.

_Eugenius_ would never admit this; and would often tell him, that one

day or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often

add, in an accent of sorrowful apprehension,—to the uttermost mite. To

which _Yorick_, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often

answer with a pshaw!—and if the subject was started in the fields,—with

a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent up in the

social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado’d in, with a

table and a couple of arm-chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a

tangent,—_Eugenius_ would then go on with his lecture upon discretion

in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put together.

Trust me, dear _Yorick_, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or

later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can

extricate thee out of.——In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens,

that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person

injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and

when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends,

his family, his kindred and allies,——and musters up with them the many

recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;—’tis

no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast

got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm

of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou

wilt never be convinced it is so.

I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least

spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies—I believe

and know them to be truly honest and sportive:—But consider, my dear

lad, that fools cannot distinguish this,—and that knaves will not: and

thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make

merry with the other:——whenever they associate for mutual defence,

depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against

thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy

life too.

Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at

thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set

right.——The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which

led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith

questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled

on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and COWARDICE,

twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike

together at all thy infirmities and mistakes:——The best of us, my dear

lad, lie open there,——and trust me,——trust me, _Yorick, when to gratify

a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an

helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to pick up

sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to

offer it up with._

_Yorick_ scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read

over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory

look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride

his tit with more sobriety.—But, alas, too late!—a grand confederacy

with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before the first

prediction of it.—The whole plan of the attack, just as _Eugenius_ had

foreboded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on

the side of the allies,—and so little suspicion in _Yorick_, of what

was carrying on against him,—that when he thought, good easy man! full

surely preferment was o’ripening,—they had smote his root, and then he

fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him.

_Yorick_, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some

time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the

calamities of the war,—but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which

it was carried on,—he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his

spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was

generally thought, quite broken-hearted.

What inclined _Eugenius_ to the same opinion was as follows:

A few hours before _Yorick_ breathed his last, _Eugenius_ stept in with

an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his

drawing _Yorick_’s curtain, and asking how he felt himself, _Yorick_

looking up in his face took hold of his hand,—and after thanking him

for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it

was their fate to meet hereafter,—he would thank him again and

again,—he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the

slip for ever.—I hope not, answered _Eugenius_, with tears trickling

down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke.—I

hope not, _Yorick_, said he.——_Yorick_ replied, with a look up, and a

gentle squeeze of _Eugenius_’s hand, and that was all,—but it cut

_Eugenius_ to his heart.—Come,—come, _Yorick_, quoth _Eugenius_, wiping

his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad, be

comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this

crisis when thou most wants them;——who knows what resources are in

store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee!——_Yorick_ laid

his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;—For my part,

continued _Eugenius_, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—I

declare I know not, _Yorick_, how to part with thee, and would gladly

flatter my hopes, added _Eugenius_, chearing up his voice, that there

is still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to

see it.—I beseech thee, _Eugenius_, quoth _Yorick_, taking off his

night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,—his right being still

grasped close in that of _Eugenius_,—I beseech thee to take a view of

my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied _Eugenius._ Then, alas! my

friend, said _Yorick_, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised and

mis-shapened with the blows which ***** and *****, and some others have

so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with _Sancho

Pança_, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered to

rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit

it.”——_Yorick_’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready

to depart as he uttered this:——yet still it was uttered with something

of a _Cervantick_ tone;——and as he spoke it, _Eugenius_ could perceive

a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes;——faint

picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as _Shakespeare_ said of

his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!

_Eugenius_ was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was

broke: he squeezed his hand,——and then walked softly out of the room,

weeping as he walked. _Yorick_ followed _Eugenius_ with his eyes to the

door,—he then closed them, and never opened them more.

tombstone

He lies buried in the corner of his church-yard, in the parish of ———,

under a plain marble slab, which his friend _Eugenius_, by leave of his

executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of

inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy.

Alas, poor YORICK!

Ten times a day has _Yorick_’s ghost the consolation to hear his

monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive

tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him;——a foot-way

crossing the church-yard close by the side of his grave,—not a

passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it,—and sighing

as he walks on,

Alas, poor YORICK!

C H A P. XIII

IT is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted

from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him,

merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world,

and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at

present, I am going to introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh

matter may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt

the reader and myself, which may require immediate dispatch;——’twas

right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the mean

time;—because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her.

I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note

and consequence throughout our whole village and township;—that her

fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that

circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a

shirt to his back or no,——has one surrounding him;—which said circle,

by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a one is of great weight and

importance in the _world_,——I desire may be enlarged or contracted in

your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station, profession,

knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways) of the

personage brought before you.

In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five

miles, which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended

itself to two or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the

next parish; which made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That

she was, moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-house, and

some other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said,

from the smoke of her own chimney:——But I must here, once for all,

inform you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d

in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with many other

pieces and developements of this work, will be added to the end of the

twentieth volume,—not to swell the work,—I detest the thought of such a

thing;—but by way of commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to

such passages, incidents, or innuendos as shall be thought to be either

of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my

life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don’t forget the

meaning of the word) by all the _world_;——which, betwixt you and me,

and in spite of all the gentlemen-reviewers in _Great Britain_, and of

all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the

contrary,—I am determined shall be the case.—I need not tell your

worship, that all this is spoke in confidence.

C H A P. XIV

UPON looking into my mother’s marriage settlement, in order to satisfy

myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we

could proceed any farther in this history;—I had the good fortune to

pop upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half

straight forwards,—it might have taken me up a month;—which shews

plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history,—tho’ it be but

the history of _Jack Hickathrift_ or _Tom Thumb_, he knows no more than

his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his

way,—or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before

all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a

muleteer drives on his mule,—straight forward;——for instance, from

_Rome_ all the way to _Loretto_, without ever once turning his head

aside, either to the right hand or to the left,——he might venture to

foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end;——but

the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the

least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to

make with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways

avoid. He will have views and prospects to himself perpetually

soliciting his eye, which he can no more help standing still to look at

than he can fly; he will moreover have various

Accounts to reconcile:

Anecdotes to pick up:

Inscriptions to make out:

Stories to weave in:

Traditions to sift:

Personages to call upon:

Panegyricks to paste up at this door;

Pasquinades at that:——All which both the man and his mule are quite

exempt from. To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be

look’d into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies,

which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of:——In

short there is no end of it;——for my own part, I declare I have been at

it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could,—and am not

yet born:—I have just been able, and that’s all, to tell you _when_ it

happen’d, but not _how_;—so that you see the thing is yet far from

being accomplished.

These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I

first set out;—but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase than

diminish as I advance,—have struck out a hint which I am resolved to

follow;——and that is,—not to be in a hurry;—but to go on leisurely,

writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year;——which, if I

am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my

bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.

C H A P. XV

THE article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader

I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it,

I think proper to lay before him,—is so much more fully express’d in

the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be

barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand:—It is as follows.

“And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said _Walter Shandy_,

merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had,

and, by God’s blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consummated

between the said _Walter Shandy_ and _Elizabeth Mollineux_ aforesaid,

and divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him

thereunto specially moving,—doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent,

conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with _John Dixon_, and _James

Turner_, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, &c. &c.—to wit,—That in case

it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come to

pass,—That the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, shall have left off

business before the time or times, that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_

shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off

bearing and bringing forth children;—and that, in consequence of the

said _Walter Shandy_ having so left off business, he shall in despight,

and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said

_Elizabeth Mollineux_,—make a departure from the city of _London_, in

order to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at _Shandy Hall_, in the

county of ——, or at any other country-seat, castle, hall,

mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now purchased, or hereafter

to be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof:—That then, and as

often as the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_ shall happen to be enceint with

child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon

the body of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, during her said

coverture,—he the said _Walter Shandy_ shall, at his own proper cost

and charges, and out of his own proper monies, upon good and reasonable

notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six weeks of her the said

_Elizabeth Mollineux_’s full reckoning, or time of supposed and

computed delivery,—pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and

twenty pounds of good and lawful money, to _John Dixon_, and _James

Turner_, Esqrs. or assigns,—upon TRUST and confidence, and for and unto

the use and uses, intent, end, and purpose following:—That is to

say,—That the said sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid

into the hands of the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, or to be otherwise

applied by them the said Trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one

coach, with able and sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of

the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, and the child or children which she

shall be then and there enceint and pregnant with,—unto the city of

_London_; and for the further paying and defraying of all other

incidental costs, charges, and expences whatsoever,—in and about, and

for, and relating to, her said intended delivery and lying-in, in the

said city or suburbs thereof. And that the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_

shall and may, from time to time, and at all such time and times as are

here covenanted and agreed upon,—peaceably and quietly hire the said

coach and horses, and have free ingress, egress, and regress throughout

her journey, in and from the said coach, according to the tenor, true

intent, and meaning of these presents, without any let, suit, trouble,

disturbance, molestation, discharge, hinderance, forfeiture, eviction,

vexation, interruption, or incumbrance whatsoever.—And that it shall

moreover be lawful to and for the said _Elizabeth Mollineux_, from time

to time, and as oft or often as she shall well and truly be advanced in

her said pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and agreed

upon,—to live and reside in such place or places, and in such family or

families, and with such relations, friends, and other persons within

the said city of _London_, as she at her own will and pleasure,

notwithstanding her present coverture, and as if she was a _femme sole_

and unmarried,—shall think fit.—And this Indenture further witnesseth,

That for the more effectually carrying of the said covenant into

execution, the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, doth hereby grant,

bargain, sell, release, and confirm unto the said _John Dixon_, and

_James Turner_, Esqrs. their heirs, executors, and assigns, in their

actual possession now being, by virtue of an indenture of bargain and

sale for a year to them the said _John Dixon_, and _James Turner_,

Esqrs. by him the said _Walter Shandy_, merchant, thereof made; which

said bargain and sale for a year, bears date the day next before the

date of these presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for

transferring of uses into possession,—All that the manor and lordship

of _Shandy_, in the county of ——, with all the rights, members, and

appurtenances thereof; and all and every the messuages, houses,

buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts,

garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, commons,

woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and

water-courses;—together with all rents, reversions, services,

annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of frankpledge, escheats,

reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives,

felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, free warrens, and

all other royalties and seigniories, rights and jurisdictions,

privileges and hereditaments whatsoever.—And also the advowson,

donation, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or

parsonage of _Shandy_ aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tythes,

glebe-lands.”——In three words,——“My mother was to lay in, (if she chose

it) in _London._”

But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the

part of my mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too

manifestly opened a door to, and which indeed had never been thought of

at all, but for my uncle _Toby Shandy_;—a clause was added in security

of my father which was this:—“That in case my mother hereafter should,

at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a _London_

journey, upon false cries and tokens;——that for every such instance,

she should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant gave her

to the next turn;——but to no more,—and so on, _toties quoties_, in as

effectual a manner, as if such a covenant betwixt them had not been

made.”—This, by the way, was no more than what was reasonable;—and yet,

as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it hard that the whole

weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon

myself.

But I was begot and born to misfortunes;—for my poor mother, whether it

was wind or water—or a compound of both,—or neither;—or whether it was

simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her;—or how far a

strong wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment;—in

short, whether she was deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way

becomes me to decide. The fact was this, That in the latter end of

September 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having

carried my father up to town much against the grain,—he peremptorily

insisted upon the clause;—so that I was doom’d, by marriage-articles,

to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had

actually spun me without one.

How this event came about,—and what a train of vexatious

disappointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from

the mere loss, or rather compression, of this one single member,—shall

be laid before the reader all in due time.

C H A P. XVI

MY father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother

into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty

or five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze

himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he

said might every shilling of it have been saved;—then what vexed him

more than every thing else was, the provoking time of the year,—which,

as I told you, was towards the end of _September_, when his wall-fruit

and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just

ready for pulling:——“Had he been whistled up to _London_, upon a _Tom

Fool_’s errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not

have said three words about it.”

For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy

blow he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had

fully reckon’d upon in his mind, and register’d down in his

pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case _Bobby_ should

fail him. “The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a

wise man, than all the money which the journey, &c. had cost him, put

together,—rot the hundred and twenty pounds,——he did not mind it a

rush.”

From _Stilton_, all the way to _Grantham_, nothing in the whole affair

provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish

figure they should both make at church, the first _Sunday_;——of which,

in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpen’d a little by

vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking

descriptions,—and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights

and attitudes in the face of the whole congregation;—that my mother

declared, these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did

nothing but laugh and cry in a breath, from one end to the other of

them all the way.

From _Grantham_, till they had cross’d the _Trent_, my father was out

of all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he

fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair—“Certainly,” he would

say to himself, over and over again, “the woman could not be deceived

herself——if she could,——“what weakness!”—tormenting word!—which led his

imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, play’d the duce

and all with him;——for sure as ever the word _weakness_ was uttered,

and struck full upon his brain—so sure it set him upon running

divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were;——that there was

such a thing as weakness of the body,——as well as weakness of the

mind,—and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a

stage or two together, How far the cause of all these vexations might,

or might not, have arisen out of himself.

In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out

of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose

up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an

uneasy journey of it down.——In a word, as she complained to my uncle

_Toby_, he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive.

C H A P. XVII

THOUGH my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the

best of moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the

complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to

himself;—which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the

justice, which my uncle _Toby_’s clause in the marriage-settlement

empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was begot,

which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of

his design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little

chagrin’d and out of temper,——took occasion as they lay chatting

gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to come,——to let her

know that she must accommodate herself as well as she could to the

bargain made between them in their marriage-deeds; which was to lye-in

of her next child in the country, to balance the last year’s journey.

My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of

that in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.—’Tis

known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,—and of obstinacy in

a bad one: Of this my mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas

to no purpose to make any remonstrance,—so she e’en resolved to sit

down quietly, and make the most of it.

C H A P. XVIII

AS the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my

mother should lye-in of me in the country, she took her measures

accordingly; for which purpose, when she was three days, or

thereabouts, gone with child, she began to cast her eyes upon the

midwife, whom you have so often heard me mention; and before the week

was well got round, as the famous Dr. _Manningham_ was not to be had,

she had come to a final determination in her mind,——notwithstanding

there was a scientific operator within so near a call as eight miles of

us, and who, moreover, had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon

the subject of midwifery, in which he had exposed, not only the

blunders of the sisterhood itself,——but had likewise super-added many

curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the fœtus in cross

births, and some other cases of danger, which belay us in getting into

the world; notwithstanding all this, my mother, I say, was absolutely

determined to trust her life, and mine with it, into no soul’s hand but

this old woman’s only.—Now this I like;——when we cannot get at the very

thing we wish——never to take up with the next best in degree to it:—no;

that’s pitiful beyond description;—it is no more than a week from this

very day, in which I am now writing this book for the edification of

the world;—which is _March_ 9, 1759,——that my dear, dear _Jenny_,

observing I looked a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of

five-and-twenty shillings a yard,—told the mercer, she was sorry she

had given him so much trouble;—and immediately went and bought herself

a yard-wide stuff of ten-pence a yard.—’Tis the duplication of one and

the same greatness of soul; only what lessened the honour of it,

somewhat, in my mother’s case, was, that she could not heroine it into

so violent and hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation might have

wished, because the old midwife had really some little claim to be

depended upon,—as much, at least, as success could give her; having, in

the course of her practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought

every mother’s son of them into the world without any one slip or

accident which could fairly be laid to her account.

These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy

some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father’s spirits

in relation to this choice.—To say nothing of the natural workings of

humanity and justice—or of the yearnings of parental and connubial

love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible

in a case of this kind;——he felt himself concerned in a particular

manner, that all should go right in the present case;—from the

accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and

child in lying-in at _Shandy-Hall_.——He knew the world judged by

events, and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by

loading him with the whole blame of it.——“Alas o’day;—had Mrs.

_Shandy_, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in going up to town just

to lye-in and come down again;—which they say, she begged and prayed

for upon her bare knees,——and which, in my opinion, considering the

fortune which Mr. _Shandy_ got with her,—was no such mighty matter to

have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been

alive at this hour.”

This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable;—and yet, it was not

merely to shelter himself,—nor was it altogether for the care of his

offspring and wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this

point;—my father had extensive views of things,——and stood moreover, as

he thought, deeply concerned in it for the publick good, from the dread

he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance might be put to.

He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had

unanimously agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen

_Elizabeth_’s reign down to his own time, that the current of men and

money towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or another,—set

in so strong,—as to become dangerous to our civil rights,—though, by

the bye,——a _current_ was not the image he took most delight in,—a

_distemper_ was here his favourite metaphor, and he would run it down

into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was identically the same in

the body national as in the body natural, where the blood and spirits

were driven up into the head faster than they could find their ways

down;——a stoppage of circulation must ensue, which was death in both

cases.

There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by

_French_ politicks or _French_ invasions;——nor was he so much in pain

of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated

humours in our constitution, which he hoped was not so bad as it was

imagined;—but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go

off, all at once, in a state-apoplexy;—and then he would say, _The Lord

have mercy upon us all._

My father was never able to give the history of this distemper,—without

the remedy along with it.

“Was I an absolute prince,” he would say, pulling up his breeches with

both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, “I would appoint able

judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of

every fool’s business who came there;—and if, upon a fair and candid

hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home,

and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer’s

sons, &c. &c. at his backside, they should be all sent back, from

constable to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of

their legal settlements. By this means I shall take care, that my

metropolis totter’d not thro’ its own weight;—that the head be no

longer too big for the body;—that the extremes, now wasted and pinn’d

in, be restored to their due share of nourishment, and regain with it

their natural strength and beauty:—I would effectually provide, That

the meadows and corn fields of my dominions, should laugh and

sing;—that good chear and hospitality flourish once more;—and that such

weight and influence be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of

my kingdom, as should counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now

taking from them.”

“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s seats,” he would ask,

with some emotion, as he walked across the room, “throughout so many

delicious provinces in _France_? Whence is it that the few remaining

_Chateaus_ amongst them are so dismantled,—so unfurnished, and in so

ruinous and desolate a condition?——Because, Sir” (he would say) “in

that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support;—the little

interest of any kind which any man has any where in it, is concentrated

in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of

whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every _French_

man lives or dies.”

Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard

against the least evil accident in my mother’s lying-in in the

country,——was, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance

of power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in

his own, or higher stations;——which, with the many other usurped rights

which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing,—would, in

the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestick government

established in the first creation of things by God.

In this point he was entirely of Sir _Robert Filmer_’s opinion, That

the plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern

parts of the world, were, originally, all stolen from that admirable

pattern and prototype of this houshold and paternal power;—which, for a

century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a

mix’d government;——the form of which, however desirable in great

combinations of the species,——was very troublesome in small ones,—and

seldom produced any thing, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion.

For all these reasons, private and publick, put together,—my father was

for having the man-midwife by all means,—my mother, by no means. My

father begg’d and intreated, she would for once recede from her

prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her;—my

mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privilege in this matter, to

choose for herself,—and have no mortal’s help but the old woman’s.—What

could my father do? He was almost at his wit’s end;——talked it over

with her in all moods;—placed his arguments in all lights;—argued the

matter with her like a christian,—like a heathen,—like a husband,—like

a father,—like a patriot,—like a man:—My mother answered every thing

only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her;—for as she could

not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of characters,—’twas

no fair match:—’twas seven to one.—What could my mother do?—She had the

advantage (otherwise she had been certainly overpowered) of a small

reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom, which bore her up, and

enabled her to dispute the affair with my father with so equal an

advantage,——that both sides sung _Te Deum._ In a word, my mother was to

have the old woman,—and the operator was to have licence to drink a

bottle of wine with my father and my uncle _Toby Shandy_ in the back

parlour,—for which he was to be paid five guineas.

I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in

the breast of my fair reader;—and it is this,——Not to take it

absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have

dropp’d in it,——“That I am a married man.”—I own, the tender

appellation of my dear, dear _Jenny_,—with some other strokes of

conjugal knowledge, interspersed here and there, might, naturally

enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a

determination against me.—All I plead for, in this case, Madam, is

strict justice, and that you do so much of it, to me as well as to

yourself,—as not to prejudge, or receive such an impression of me, till

you have better evidence, than, I am positive, at present can be

produced against me.—Not that I can be so vain or unreasonable, Madam,

as to desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear _Jenny_ is

my kept mistress;—no,—that would be flattering my character in the

other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has

no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the utter impossibility, for

some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth,

should know how this matter really stands.—It is not impossible, but

that my dear, dear _Jenny!_ tender as the appellation is, may be my

child.—Consider,—I was born in the year eighteen.—Nor is there any

thing unnatural or extravagant in the supposition, that my dear _Jenny_

may be my friend.—Friend!—My friend.—Surely, Madam, a friendship

between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported without———Fy! Mr.

_Shandy:_—Without any thing, Madam, but that tender and delicious

sentiment which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference

of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of

the best _French_ Romances;—it will really, Madam, astonish you to see

with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment,

which I have the honour to speak of, is dress’d out.

C H A P. XIX

I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry,

than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great

good sense,——knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious

too in philosophy,—wise also in political reasoning,—and in polemical

(as he will find) no way ignorant,—could be capable of entertaining a

notion in his head, so out of the common track,—that I fear the reader,

when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick

temper, will immediatly throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh

most heartily at it;—and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he

will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant;

and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of christian

names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what

superficial minds were capable of conceiving.

His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of

magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly

impressed upon our characters and conduct.

The hero of _Cervantes_ argued not the point with more

seriousness,——nor had he more faith,——or more to say on the powers of

necromancy in dishonouring his deeds,—or on DULCINEA’s name, in

shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS

or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand—or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How

many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the

names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add,

are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not

their characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICODEMUS’D

into nothing?

I see plainly, Sir, by your looks, (or as the case happened) my father

would say—that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of

mine,—which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it

to the bottom,—I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning

in it;——and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character,

I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you,

not as a party in the dispute,—but as a judge, and trusting my appeal

upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this

matter;——you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of

education as most men;—and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into

you,—of a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely

because it wants friends. Your son,—your dear son,—from whose sweet and

open temper you have so much to expect.—Your BILLY, Sir!—would you, for

the world, have called him JUDAS?—Would you, my dear Sir, he would say,

laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,—and in

that soft and irresistible _piano_ of voice, which the nature of the

_argumentum ad hominem_ absolutely requires,—Would you, Sir, if a _Jew_

of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered you

his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration

of him?——O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know your temper

right, Sir,—you are incapable of it;——you would have trampled upon the

offer;—you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter’s head with

abhorrence.

Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that

generous contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction,

is really noble;—and what renders it more so, is the principle of

it;—the workings of a parent’s love upon the truth and conviction of

this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS,—the

forbid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have

accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a

miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example.

I never knew a man able to answer this argument.—But, indeed, to speak

of my father as he was;—he was certainly irresistible;—both in his

orations and disputations;—he was born an

orator;—Θεοδίδακτος.—Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of

Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,—and, withal, he had so

shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent,——that

NATURE might have stood up and said,—“This man is eloquent.”—In short,

whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas

hazardous in either case to attack him.—And yet, ’tis strange, he had

never read _Cicero_, nor _Quintilian de Oratore_, nor _Isocrates_, nor

_Aristotle_, nor _Longinus_, amongst the antients;—nor _Vossius_, nor

_Skioppius_, nor _Ramus_, nor _Farnaby_, amongst the moderns;—and what

is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or

spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon

_Crackenthorp_ or _Burgersdicius_ or any _Dutch_ logician or

commentator;—he knew not so much as in what the difference of an

argument _ad ignorantiam_, and an argument _ad hominem_ consisted; so

that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at

_Jesus College_ in ****,—it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy

tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,—that a man who

knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work

after that fashion with them.

To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was,

however, perpetually forced upon;——for he had a thousand little

sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend——most of which notions,

I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and

of a _vive la Bagatelle_; and as such he would make merry with them for

half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss

them till another day.

I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the

progress and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions,—but as a

warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such

guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance, for some years,

into our brains,—at length claim a kind of settlement there,——working

sometimes like yeast;—but more generally after the manner of the gentle

passion, beginning in jest,—but ending in downright earnest.

Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions—or

that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;—or how far,

in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;—the

reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here,

is, that in this one, of the influence of christian names, however it

gained footing, he was serious;—he was all uniformity;—he was

systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both

heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to

support his hypothesis. In a word I repeat it over again;—he was

serious;—and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience

whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known

better,——as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed

upon their child,—or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_

for their puppy-dog.

This, he would say, look’d ill;—and had, moreover, this particular

aggravation in it, viz. That when once a vile name was wrongfully or

injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character,

which, when wrong’d, might hereafter be cleared;——and, possibly, some

time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least after his death,—be,

somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this,

he would say, could never be undone;—nay, he doubted even whether an

act of parliament could reach it:——He knew as well as you, that the

legislature assumed a power over surnames;—but for very strong reasons,

which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, to go a

step farther.

It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion,

had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards

certain names;—that there were still numbers of names which hung so

equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely

indifferent to him. _Jack, Dick_, and _Tom_ were of this class: These

my father called neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satire,

That there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and

good men, since the world began, who had indifferently borne them;—so

that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary

directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each other’s effects;

for which reason, he would often declare, He would not give a

cherry-stone to choose amongst them. _Bob_, which was my brother’s

name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which

operated very little either way; and as my father happen’d to be at

_Epsom_, when it was given him,—he would oft-times thank Heaven it was

no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a negative quantity in Algebra

with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.—_William_ stood pretty

high:——_Numps_ again was low with him:—and _Nick_, he said, was the

DEVIL.

But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion

for TRISTRAM;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of

any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in

_rerum natura_, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the

midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was

frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and

spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and sometimes

a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it

categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say,

he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,—or even whether he

had ever heard tell of a man, called _Tristram_, performing any thing

great or worth recording?—No,—he would say,—TRISTRAM!—The thing is

impossible.

What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish

this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle

speculatist to stand single in his opinions,—unless he gives them

proper vent:—It was the identical thing which my father did:—for in the

year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the

pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word

_Tristram_,—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the

grounds of his great abhorrence to the name.

When this story is compared with the title-page,—Will not the gentle

reader pity my father from his soul?—to see an orderly and

well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular,—yet inoffensive in his

notions,—so played upon in them by cross purposes;——to look down upon

the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little systems

and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out against

him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had purposedly been

plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.——In

a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles,

ten times in a day suffering sorrow;—ten times in a day calling the

child of his prayers TRISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which,

to his ears, was unison to _Nincompoop_, and every name vituperative

under heaven.——By his ashes! I swear it,—if ever malignant spirit took

pleasure, or busied itself in traversing the purposes of mortal man,—it

must have been here;—and if it was not necessary I should be born

before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account

of it.

C H A P. XX

——How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter?

I told you in it, _That my mother was not a papist._——Papist! You told

me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that

I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could

tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, I must have miss’d a page.—No, Madam,

you have not miss’d a word.—Then I was asleep, Sir.—My pride, Madam,

cannot allow you that refuge.—Then, I declare, I know nothing at all

about the matter.—That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge;

and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately

turn back, that is as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read

the whole chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the

lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of

motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she

returns back:—’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into

thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest

of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a

book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly

impart with them——The mind should be accustomed to make wise

reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the

habitude of which made _Pliny_ the younger affirm, “That he never read

a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of

_Greece_ and _Rome_, run over without this turn and application,—do

less service, I affirm it, than the history of _Parismus_ and

_Parismenus_, or of the Seven Champions of _England_, read with it.

———But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter,

Madam, as I desired you?—You have: And did you not observe the passage,

upon the second reading, which admits the inference?—Not a word like

it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the

chapter, where I take upon me to say, “It was _necessary_ I should be

born before I was christen’d.” Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist,

that consequence did not follow.[1]

It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to

the Republick of letters;—so that my own is quite swallowed up in the

consideration of it,—that this self-same vile pruriency for fresh

adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and

humour,—and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of

our concupiscence that way,—that nothing but the gross and more carnal

parts of a composition will go down:—The subtle hints and sly

communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,—the heavy

moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much

lost to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the

ink-horn.

I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and

curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I

wish it may have its effects;—and that all good people, both male and

female, from example, may be taught to think as well as read.

MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les

Docteurs de SORBONNE[2]

_UN Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de_

SORBONNE, _qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne

sçauroit accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le

sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce

qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous

condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le

moyen d’une_ petite canulle, _de pouvoir baptiser immediatement

l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere.——Il demand si ce moyen,

qu’il vient de proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir

dans les cas qu’il vient d’exposer._

R E P O N S E

_LE Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes

difficultés. Les Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le

baptême, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere

naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour renaître en_ Jesus

Christ, _comme ils l’enseignent. S._ Thomas, 3 part. quæst. 88 artic.

11. _suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit

ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renférmes dans le sein de

leurs meres, & S._ Thomas _est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont

point nés, & ne peuvent être comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il

conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet d’une action extérieure, pour

reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens nécessaires au salut:_ Pueri

in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis

hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni humanæ, ut per

eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. _Les rituels

ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les

mêmes matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de

baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres,

s’ils ne sont paroître quelque partie de leurs corps. Le concours des

théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des diocéses, paroit

former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le

conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des

théologiens est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la

deffense des rituels suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement

les enfans ainsi renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est

contre la supposition presente; & d’un autre côté, considerant que lés

mêmes théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les sacremens que_

Jesus Christ _a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires pour

sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés

dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut,

parcequ’ils sont capables de damnation;—pour ces considerations, & en

egard à l’expose, suivant lequel on assure avoir trouvé un moyen

certain de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans faire aucun tort à

la mere, le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen

proposé, dans la confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces

sortes d’enfans sans aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé,

que le moyen dont il s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême;

cependant comme il s’agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposée, de

changer une regle universellement établie, le Conseil croit que celui

qui consulte doit s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il appartient de

juger de l’utilité, & du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le bon

plaisir de l’evêque, le Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape,

qui a le droit d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans

le cas, ou la loi ne sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que

paroisse la maniére de baptiser dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit

l’approver sans le concours de ces deux autorités. On conseile au moins

à celui qui consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque, & de lui faire part

de la presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les raisons

sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être

autorisé dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que

la permission fût demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose

si avantageux au salut de l’enfant. Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant

que l’on pourroit s’en servir, croit cependant, que si les enfans dont

il s’agit, venoient au monde, contre l’esperance de ceux qui se

seroient servis du méme moyen, il seroit nécessaire de les baptiser_

sous condition; _& en cela le Conseil se conforme à tous les rituels,

qui en autorisant le baptême d’un enfant qui fait paroître quelque

partie de son corps, enjoignent néantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser_

sous condition, _s’il vient heureusement au monde._

Déliberé en _Sorbonne_, le 10 _Avril_, 1733.

A. LE MOYNE.

L. DE ROMIGNY.

DE MARCILLY.

Mr. _Tristram Shandy_’s compliments to Messrs. _Le Moyne, De Romigny_,

and _De Marcilly_; hopes they all rested well the night after so

tiresome a consultation.—He begs to know, whether after the ceremony of

marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the

HOMUNCULI at once, slapdash, by _injection_, would not be a shorter and

safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the HOMUNCULI do well,

and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of them

shall be baptized again (_sous condition_)——And provided, in the second

place, That the thing can be done, which Mr. _Shandy_ apprehends it

may, _par le moyen d’une_ petite canulle, and _sans faire aucune tort

au pere._

[1] The _Romish_ Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases

of danger, _before_ it is born;—but upon this proviso, That some part

or other of the child’s body be seen by the baptizer:——But the Doctors

of the _Sorbonne_, by a deliberation held amongst them, _April_ 10,

1733,—have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That

though no part of the child’s body should appear,—that baptism shall,

nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,—_par le moyen d’une

petite canulle_,—Anglicè _a squirt._—’Tis very strange that St.

_Thomas Aquinas_, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying

and untying the knots of school-divinity,—should, after so much pains

bestowed upon this,—give up the point at last, as a second _La chose

impossible_,—“Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St.

_Thomas!_) baptizari possunt _nullo modo._”—O _Thomas! Thomas!_

If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism

_by injection_, as presented to the Doctors of the _Sorbonne_, with

their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.

[2] Vide Deventer. Paris Edit. 4to, 1734, p. 366.

C H A P. XXI

——I WONDER what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards

for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour

and a half’s silence, to my uncle _Toby_,——who, you must know, was

sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoaking his social pipe all

the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush-breeches

which he had got on:—What can they be doing, brother?—quoth my

father,—we can scarce hear ourselves talk.

I think, replied my uncle _Toby_, taking his pipe from his mouth, and

striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left

thumb, as he began his sentence,——I think, says he:——But to enter

rightly into my uncle _Toby_’s sentiments upon this matter, you must be

made to enter first a little into his character, the out-lines of which

I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father

will go on as well again.

Pray what was that man’s name,—for I write in such a hurry, I have no

time to recollect or look for it,——who first made the observation,

“That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?” Whoever he

was, ’twas a just and good observation in him.—But the corollary drawn

from it, namely, “That it is this which has furnished us with such a

variety of odd and whimsical characters;”—that was not his;—it was

found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then

again,—that this copious store-house of original materials, is the true

and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of

_France_, or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the

Continent:——that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of

King _William_’s reign,—when the great _Dryden_, in writing one of his

long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed

toward the latter end of queen _Anne_, the great _Addison_ began to

patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in one

or two of his Spectators;—but the discovery was not his.—Then, fourthly

and lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so

strange an irregularity in our characters,——doth thereby, in some sort,

make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the

weather will not suffer us to go out of doors,—that observation is my

own;—and was struck out by me this very rainy day, _March_ 26, 1759,

and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning.

Thus—thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of

our learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps

of casual increase, that our knowledge physical, metaphysical,

physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical,

technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with

fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending as these do, in _ical_)

have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping

upwards towards that Ἀκμὴ of their perfections, from which, if we may

form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we

cannot possibly be far off.

When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of

writings whatsoever;—the want of all kind of writing will put an end to

all kind of reading;—and that in time, _As war begets poverty; poverty

peace_,——must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge,—and

then——we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be

exactly where we started.

———Happy! Thrice happy times! I only wish that the æra of my begetting,

as well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter’d,—or

that it could have been put off, with any convenience to my father or

mother, for some twenty or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in

the literary world might have stood some chance.——

But I forget my uncle _Toby_, whom all this while we have left knocking

the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe.

His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our

atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst

one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too

many strong lines in it of a family-likeness, which shewed that he

derived the singularity of his temper more from blood, than either wind

or water, or any modifications or combinations of them whatever: And I

have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho’ I believe he

had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity,

in my course, when I was a boy,—should never once endeavour to account

for them in this way: for all the SHANDY FAMILY were of an original

character throughout:——I mean the males,—the females had no character

at all,—except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about sixty years

ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my

father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would often

say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.

It will seem strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle

in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon

guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many

years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of

the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my

father and my uncle _Toby._ One would have thought, that the whole

force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the

family at first,—as is generally the case.—But nothing ever wrought

with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this

happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as

afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done

the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times

and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its

office.——Observe, I determine nothing upon this.——My way is ever to

point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at

the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic

_Fescue_,—or in the decisive manner or _Tacitus_, who outwits himself

and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to

the assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,——and by them

I shall be read,——if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold

out so long,—to the very end of the world.

Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father

and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it

exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between

them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with

great exactness, and is as follows:

My uncle TOBY SHANDY, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues

which usually constitute the character of a man of honour and

rectitude,—possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or

never put into the catalogue; and that was a most extreme and

unparallel’d modesty of nature;——though I correct the word nature, for

this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly come to

a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or

acquir’d.——Whichever way my uncle _Toby_ came by it, ’twas nevertheless

modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to

words, for he was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,—but

to things;——and this kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to

such a height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could be,

even the modesty of a woman: That female nicety, Madam, and inward

cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which makes you so much the

awe of ours.

You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle _Toby_ had contracted all this

from this very source;—that he had spent a great part of his time in

converse with your sex, and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and

the force of imitation which such fair examples render irresistible, he

had acquired this amiable turn of mind.

I wish I could say so,—for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my

father’s wife and my mother——my uncle _Toby_ scarce exchanged three

words with the sex in as many years;——no, he got it, Madam, by a

blow.——A blow!—Yes, Madam, it was owing to a blow from a stone, broke

off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-work at the siege of Namur,

which struck full upon my uncle _Toby_’s groin.—Which way could that

effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;—but it

would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.——’Tis

for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its

proper place, shall be faithfully laid before you:—’Till then, it is

not in my power to give farther light into this matter, or say more

than what I have said already,——That my uncle _Toby_ was a gentleman of

unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat subtilized and

rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,——they both so

wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the

affair of my aunt DINAH touch’d upon, but with the greatest

emotion.——The least hint of it was enough to make the blood fly into

his face;—but when my father enlarged upon the story in mixed

companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently obliged

him to do,—the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the

family, would set my uncle _Toby_’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and

he would often take my father aside, in the greatest concern

imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give him any thing in

the world, only to let the story rest.

My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle

_Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done

any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of

another, to have made my uncle _Toby_’s heart easy in this, or any

other point. But this lay out of his power.

——My father, as I told you was a philosopher in

grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt _Dinah_’s affair was a

matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the

planets to _Copernicus_:—The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit

fortified the _Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the

backslidings of my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in

establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever

hereafter be called the _Shandean System_, after his.

In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a

sense of shame as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say,

_Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have

taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they

owed, as they thought, to truth.—_Amicus Plato_, my father would say,

construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus

Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt;—_sed magis amica veritas_—but TRUTH

is my sister.

This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the

source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the

tale of family disgrace recorded,——and the other would scarce ever let

a day pass to an end without some hint at it.

For God’s sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry,——and for my sake, and for

all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_,—do let this story of our

aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;——how can you,——how can you have so

little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?——What is

the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would

reply.——Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family?——The

life of a family!—my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself back in

his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg——Yes,

the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many

thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all

civilized countries at least)——and considered as nothing but common

air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my

uncle _Toby_ would answer,—every such instance is downright MURDER, let

who will commit it.——There lies your mistake, my father would

reply;——for, in _Foro Scientiæ_ there is no such thing as MURDER,——’tis

only DEATH, brother.

My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of

argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of

_Lillebullero._——You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his

passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him:——but

especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offered.

As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon

them, that I remember, have thought proper to give a name to this

particular species of argument.—I here take the liberty to do it

myself, for two reasons. First, That, in order to prevent all confusion

in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for ever, from every

other species of argument———as the _Argumentum ad Verecundiam, ex

Absurdo, ex Fortiori_, or any other argument whatsoever:——And,

secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head

is laid to rest,——that their learn’d grandfather’s head had been busied

to as much purpose once, as other people’s;—That he had invented a

name, and generously thrown it into the TREASURY of the _Ars Logica_,

for one of the most unanswerable arguments in the whole science. And,

if the end of disputation is more to silence than convince,—they may

add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.

I do, therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it

be known and distinguished by the name and title of the _Argumentum

Fistulatorium_, and no other;—and that it rank hereafter with the

_Argumentum Baculinum_ and the _Argumentum ad Crumenam_, and for ever

hereafter be treated of in the same chapter.

As for the _Argumentum Tripodium_, which is never used but by the woman

against the man;—and the _Argumentum ad Rem_, which, contrarywise, is

made use of by the man only against the woman;—As these two are enough

in conscience for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best

answer to the other,—let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of

in a place by themselves.

C H A P. XXII

THE learned Bishop _Hall_, I mean the famous Dr. _Joseph Hall_, who was

Bishop of _Exeter_ in King _James_ the First’s reign, tells us in one

of _Decads_, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at

_London_, in the year 1610, by _John Beal_, dwelling in

_Aldersgate-street_, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to

commend himself;”——and I really think it is so.

And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind

of a fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;—I think it is

full as abominable, that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out

of the world with the conceit of it rotting in his head.

This is precisely my situation.

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in

all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of

digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been

over-looked by my reader,—not for want of penetration in him,—but

because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a

digression;—and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all fair, as

you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as

often too, as any writer in _Great Britain_; yet I constantly take care

to order affairs so that my main business does not stand still in my

absence.

I was just going, for example, to have given you the great out-lines of

my uncle _Toby_’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt _Dinah_ and

the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles

into the very heart of the planetary system: Notwithstanding all this,

you perceive that the drawing of my uncle _Toby_’s character went on

gently all the time;—not the great contours of it,—that was

impossible,—but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it,

were here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much

better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before.

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself;

two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were

thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is

digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.

This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving

round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her

elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that

variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though I own it suggested

the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and

discoveries have come from such trifling hints.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the

soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as

well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign

in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a

bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite

to fail.

All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as

to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author,

whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a

digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock

still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—then there is an end of

his digression.

——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you

see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it

with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the

digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that

the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what’s more,

it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain

of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

C H A P. XXIII

I HAVE a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very

nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.—Accordingly I set off

thus:

If the fixture of _Momus_’s glass in the human breast, according to the

proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,——first, This

foolish consequence would certainly have followed,—That the very wisest

and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid

window-money every day of our lives.

And, secondly, that had the said glass been there set up, nothing more

would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but

to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical

bee-hive, and look’d in,—view’d the soul stark naked;—observed all her

motions,—her machinations;—traced all her maggots from their first

engendering to their crawling forth;—watched her loose in her frisks,

her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn

deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.——then taken your pen and

ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn

to:—But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this

planet;—in the planet _Mercury_ (belike) it may be so, if not better

still for him;——for there the intense heat of the country, which is

proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than

equal to that of red-hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified

the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them

for the climate (which is the final cause;) so that betwixt them both,

all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing

else, for aught the soundest philosophy can shew to the contrary, but

one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot)—so

that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled, whereby the

rays of light, in passing through them, become so monstrously

refracted,——or return reflected from their surfaces in such transverse

lines to the eye, that a man cannot be seen through;—his soul might as

well, unless for mere ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the

umbilical point gave her,—might, upon all other accounts, I say, as

well play the fool out o’doors as in her own house.

But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this

earth;—our minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in a

dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would

come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to

work.

Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to

take, to do this thing with exactness.

Some, for instance, draw all their characters with

wind-instruments.—_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of

_Dido_ and _Æneas_;—but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame;—and,

moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the

_Italians_ pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of

one particular sort of character among them, from the _forte_ or

_piano_ of a certain wind-instrument they use,—which they say is

infallible.—I dare not mention the name of the instrument in this

place;—’tis sufficient we have it amongst us,—but never think of making

a drawing by it;—this is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at least

_ad populum_:—And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you

read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about

it.

There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other

helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations;—but this often

gives a very incorrect outline,—unless, indeed, you take a sketch of

his repletions too; and by correcting one drawing from the other,

compound one good figure out of them both.

I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must

smell too strong of the lamp,—and be render’d still more operose, by

forcing you to have an eye to the rest of his _Non-naturals._—Why the

most natural actions of a man’s life should be called his

Non-naturals,—is another question.

There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these

expedients;—not from any fertility of their own, but from the various

ways of doing it, which they have borrowed from the honourable devices

which the Pentagraphic Brethren[3] of the brush have shewn in taking

copies.—These, you must know, are your great historians.

One of these you will see drawing a full length character _against the

light_;—that’s illiberal,—dishonest,—and hard upon the character of the

man who sits.

Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the

_Camera_;—that is most unfair of all, because, _there_ you are sure to

be represented in some of your most ridiculous attitudes.

To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle

_Toby_’s character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help

whatever;—nor shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument

which ever was blown upon, either on this, or on the other side of the

_Alps_;—nor will I consider either his repletions or his discharges,—or

touch upon his Non-naturals; but, in a word, I will draw my uncle

_Toby_’s character from his HOBBY-HORSE.

[3] Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures

mechanically, and in any proportion.

C H A P. XXIV

IF I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience

for my uncle _Toby_’s character,——I would here previously have

convinced him that there is no instrument so fit to draw such a thing

with, as that which I have pitch’d upon.

A man and his HOBBY-HORSE, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act

exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each

other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some

kind; and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of

the manner of electrified bodies,—and that, by means of the heated

parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back

of the HOBBY-HORSE,—by long journies and much friction, it so happens,

that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of

HOBBY-HORSICAL matter as it can hold;—so that if you are able to give

but a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty

exact notion of the genius and character of the other.

Now the HOBBY-HORSE which my uncle _Toby_ always rode upon, was in my

opinion an HOBBY-HORSE well worth giving a description of, if it was

only upon the score of his great singularity;—for you might have

travelled from _York_ to _Dover_,—from _Dover_ to _Penzance_ in

_Cornwall_, and from _Penzance_ to _York_ back again, and not have seen

such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one, whatever

haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a

view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so

utterly unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the

whole species, that it was now and then made a matter of

dispute,——whether he was really a HOBBY-HORSE or no: But as the

Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who disputed

with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his

legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle _Toby_ use no

other argument to prove his HOBBY-HORSE was a HOBBY-HORSE indeed, but

by getting upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after

that, to determine the point as it thought fit.

In good truth, my uncle _Toby_ mounted him with so much pleasure, and

he carried my uncle _Toby_ so well,——that he troubled his head very

little with what the world either said or thought about it.

It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:—But

to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you

first, how my uncle _Toby_ came by him.

C H A P. XXV

THE wound in my uncle _Toby_’s groin, which he received at the siege of

_Namur_, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient

he should return to _England_, in order, if possible, to be set to

rights.

He was four years totally confined,—part of it to his bed, and all of

it to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time

in hand, suffer’d unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of

exfoliations from the _os pubis_, and the outward edge of that part of

the _coxendix_ called the _os illium_,——both which bones were dismally

crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was

broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho’ it was pretty large) which

inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it

had done my uncle _Toby_’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the

stone itself, than to the projectile force of it,—which he would often

tell him was a great happiness.

My father at that time was just beginning business in _London_, and had

taken a house;—and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted

between the two brothers,—and that my father thought my uncle _Toby_

could no where be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own

house,——he assign’d him the very best apartment in it.—And what was a

much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a

friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any occasion, but

he would take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his

brother _Toby_, and chat an hour by his bed-side.

The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it;—my uncle’s

visitors at least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from

the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would frequently turn the

discourse to that subject,—and from that subject the discourse would

generally roll on to the siege itself.

These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle _Toby_ received

great relief from them, and would have received much more, but that

they brought him into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three

months together, retarded his cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon

an expedient to extricate himself out of them, I verily believe they

would have laid him in his grave.

What these perplexities of my uncle _Toby_ were,——’tis impossible for

you to guess;—if you could,—I should blush; not as a relation,—not as a

man,—nor even as a woman,—but I should blush as an author; inasmuch as

I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader

has never yet been able to guess at any thing. And in this, Sir, I am

of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to

form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was

to come in the next page,—I would tear it out of my book.

C H A P. XXVI

I HAVE begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to

explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle _Toby_ was

involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege

of _Namur_, where he received his wound.

I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King

_William_’s wars,—but if he has not,—I then inform him, that one of the

most memorable attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the

_English_ and _Dutch_ upon the point of the advanced counterscarp,

between the gate of _St. Nicolas_, which inclosed the great sluice or

water-stop, where the _English_ were terribly exposed to the shot of

the counter-guard and demi-bastion of _St. Roch_: The issue of which

hot dispute, in three words, was this; That the _Dutch_ lodged

themselves upon the counter-guard,—and that the _English_ made

themselves masters of the covered-way before _St. Nicolas_-gate,

notwithstanding the gallantry of the _French_ officers, who exposed

themselves upon the glacis sword in hand.

As this was the principal attack of which my uncle _Toby_ was an

eye-witness at _Namur_,——the army of the besiegers being cut off, by

the confluence of the _Maes_ and _Sambre_, from seeing much of each

other’s operations,——my uncle _Toby_ was generally more eloquent and

particular in his account of it; and the many perplexities he was in,

arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found in telling

his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences

and distinctions between the scarp and counterscarp,—the glacis and

covered-way,—the half-moon and ravelin,—as to make his company fully

comprehend where and what he was about.

Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you

will the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in

opposition to many misconceptions, that my uncle _Toby_ did oft-times

puzzle his visitors, and sometimes himself too.

To speak the truth, unless the company my father led up stairs were

tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle _Toby_ was in one of his

explanatory moods, ’twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep

the discourse free from obscurity.

What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle

_Toby_, was this,—that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the

gate of _St. Nicolas_, extending itself from the bank of the _Maes_,

quite up to the great water-stop,—the ground was cut and cross cut with

such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all

sides,—and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst them,

that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his

life; and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very

account only.

These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle _Toby Shandy_ more perturbations

than you would imagine; and as my father’s kindness to him was

continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh enquirers,——he had but

a very uneasy task of it.

No doubt my uncle _Toby_ had great command of himself,—and could guard

appearances, I believe, as well as most men;—yet any one may imagine,

that when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into

the half-moon, or get out of the covered-way without falling down the

counterscarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the

ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly:—He did so;—and

the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling and of no

account to the man who has not read _Hippocrates_, yet, whoever has

read _Hippocrates_, or Dr. _James Mackenzie_, and has considered well

the effects which the passions and affections of the mind have upon the

digestion—(Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner?)—may easily

conceive what sharp paroxysms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle

_Toby_ must have undergone upon that score only.

—My uncle _Toby_ could not philosophize upon it;—’twas enough he felt

it was so,—and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three

months together, he was resolved some way or other to extricate

himself.

He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and

nature of the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other

position, when a thought came into his head, that if he could purchase

such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, as a large map of

the fortification of the town and citadel of _Namur_, with its

environs, it might be a means of giving him ease.—I take notice of his

desire to have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this

reason,—because my uncle _Toby_’s wound was got in one of the

traverses, about thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench,

opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of _St. Roch_:——so

that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical

spot of ground where he was standing on when the stone struck him.

All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world

of sad explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you

will read, of procuring my uncle _Toby_ his HOBBY-HORSE.

C H A P. XXVII

THERE is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an

entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your

criticks and gentry of refined taste run it down: Nor is there any

thing so likely to make them do it, as that of leaving them out of the

party, or, what is full as offensive, of bestowing your attention upon

the rest of your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such

thing as a critick (by occupation) at table.

——I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a

dozen places purposely open for them;—and in the next place, I pay them

all court.—Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company could

give me half the pleasure,—by my soul I am glad to see you———I beg only

you will make no strangers of yourselves, but sit down without any

ceremony, and fall on heartily.

I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my

complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them,—and in

this very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho’ not by

occupation,—but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, I

shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the mean time, that I shall be

able to make a great deal of more room next year.

———How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle _Toby_, who, it seems,

was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,—be at the

same time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, fellow, as—Go

look.

So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it.—’Tis language

unurbane,—and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and

satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first

causes of human ignorance and confusion. It is moreover the reply

valiant—and therefore I reject it; for tho’ it might have suited my

uncle _Toby_’s character as a soldier excellently well,—and had he not

accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle the _Lillabullero_, as

he wanted no courage, ’tis the very answer he would have given; yet it

would by no means have done for me. You see as plain as can be, that I

write as a man of erudition;—that even my similies, my allusions, my

illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite,—and that I must sustain my

character properly, and contrast it properly too,—else what would

become of me? Why, Sir, I should be undone;—at this very moment that I

am going here to fill up one place against a critick,—I should have

made an opening for a couple.

——Therefore I answer thus:

Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever

read such a book as _Locke_’s Essay upon the Human

Understanding?——Don’t answer me rashly—because many, I know, quote the

book, who have not read it—and many have read it who understand it

not:—If either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will

tell you in three words what the book is.—It is a history.—A history!

of who? what? where? when? Don’t hurry yourself—It is a history-book,

Sir, (which may possibly recommend it to the world) of what passes in a

man’s own mind; and if you will say so much of the book, and no more,

believe me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysick

circle.

But this by the way.

Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the

bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and

confusion, in the mind of a man, is threefold.

Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and

transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not

dull. And thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what

it has received.—Call down _Dolly_ your chamber-maid, and I will give

you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain

that _Dolly_ herself should understand it as well as _Malbranch._——When

_Dolly_ has indited her epistle to _Robin_, and has thrust her arm into

the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side;—take that

opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception

can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by

that one thing which _Dolly_’s hand is in search of.—Your organs are

not so dull that I should inform you—’tis an inch, Sir, of red

seal-wax.

When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if _Dolly_ fumbles too

long for her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not

receive the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont

to imprint it. Very well. If _Dolly_’s wax, for want of better, is

bees-wax, or of a temper too soft,—tho’ it may receive,—it will not

hold the impression, how hard soever _Dolly_ thrusts against it; and

last of all, supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied

thereto in careless haste, as her Mistress rings the bell;——in any one

of these three cases the print left by the thimble will be as unlike

the prototype as a brass-jack.

Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the

confusion in my uncle _Toby_’s discourse; and it is for that very

reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great

physiologists—to shew the world, what it did _not_ arise from.

What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of

obscurity it is,—and ever will be,—and that is the unsteady uses of

words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted

understandings.

It is ten to one (at _Arthur_’s) whether you have ever read the

literary histories of past ages;—if you have, what terrible battles,

’yclept logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much

gall and ink-shed,—that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of

them without tears in his eyes.

Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within

thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has

been pestered and disordered, at one time or other, by this, and this

only:—What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about χδια and υωοςασις; and

in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit;—about

essences, and about quintessences;——about substances, and about

space.——What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little

meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this, thou

wilt not wonder at my uncle _Toby_’s perplexities,—thou wilt drop a

tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp;—his glacis and his

covered way;—his ravelin and his half- moon: ’Twas not by ideas,—by

Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words.

C H A P. XXVIII

WHEN my uncle _Toby_ got his map of _Namur_ to his mind, he began

immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the

study of it; for nothing being of more importance to him than his

recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the

passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest

care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to

talk upon it without emotion.

In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did

my uncle _Toby_’s wound, upon his groin, no good,—he was enabled, by

the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant,

together with _Gobesius_’s military architecture and pyroballogy,

translated from the _Flemish_, to form his discourse with passable

perspicuity; and before he was two full months gone,—he was right

eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced

counterscarp with great order;—but having, by that time, gone much

deeper into the art, than what his first motive made necessary, my

uncle _Toby_ was able to cross the _Maes_ and _Sambre_; make diversions

as far as _Vauban_’s line, the abbey of _Salsines_, &c. and give his

visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of

the gate of _St. Nicolas_, where he had the honour to receive his

wound.

But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with

the acquisition of it. The more my uncle _Toby_ pored over his map, the

more he took a liking to it!—by the same process and electrical

assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of

connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the

happiness, at length, to get all

be-virtu’d—be-pictured,—be-butterflied, and be-fiddled.

The more my uncle _Toby_ drank of this sweet fountain of science, the

greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the

first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a

fortified town in _Italy_ or _Flanders_, of which, by one means or

other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and

carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their

demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read

with that intense application and delight, that he would forget

himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner.

In the second year my uncle _Toby_ purchased _Ramelli_ and _Cataneo_,

translated from the _Italian_;—likewise _Stevinus, Moralis_, the

Chevalier _de Ville, Lorini, Cochorn, Sheeter_, the Count _de Pagan_,

the Marshal _Vauban_, Mons. _Blondel_, with almost as many more books

of military architecture, as Don _Quixote_ was found to have of

chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library.

Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in _August_,

ninety-nine, my uncle _Toby_ found it necessary to understand a little

of projectiles:—and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from

the fountain-head, he began with _N. Tartaglia_, who it seems was the

first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball’s doing all that

mischief under the notion of a right line—This _N. Tartaglia_ proved to

my uncle _Toby_ to be an impossible thing.

——Endless is the search of Truth.

No sooner was my uncle _Toby_ satisfied which road the cannon-ball did

not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to

enquire and find out which road the ball did go: For which purpose he

was obliged to set off afresh with old _Maltus_, and studied him

devoutly.—He proceeded next to _Galileo_ and _Torricellius_, wherein,

by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the

precise path to be a PARABOLA—or else an HYPERBOLA,—and that the

parameter, or _latus rectum_, of the conic section of the said path,

was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct _ratio_, as the whole

line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breech

upon an horizontal plane;—and that the semiparameter,——stop! my dear

uncle _Toby_——stop!—go not one foot farther into this thorny and

bewildered track,—intricate are the steps! intricate are the mazes of

this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this

bewitching phantom KNOWLEDGE will bring upon thee.—O my

uncle;—fly—fly,—fly from it as from a serpent.——Is it fit——goodnatured

man! thou should’st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights

baking thy blood with hectic watchings?——Alas! ’twill exasperate thy

symptoms,—check thy perspirations—evaporate thy spirits—waste thy

animal strength, dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive

habit of body,——impair thy health,——and hasten all the infirmities of

thy old age.—O my uncle! my uncle _Toby._

C H A P. XXIX

I WOULD not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pen-craft, who

does not understand this,——That the best plain narrative in the world,

tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle

_Toby_——would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s

palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was

in the middle of my story.

——Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where

an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less

evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than

beauty. This is to be understood _cum grano salis_; but be it as it

will,—as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the

apostrophe cool, than any thing else,—’tis not very material whether

upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.

In the latter end of the third year, my uncle _Toby_ perceiving that

the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his

wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and

betook himself to the practical part of fortification only; the

pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with

redoubled force.

It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily

regularity of a clean shirt,——to dismiss his barber unshaven,——and to

allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning

himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times

dressing, how it went on: when, lo!—all of a sudden, for the change was

quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his

recovery,——complained to my father, grew impatient with the

surgeon:——and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he

shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to

expostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told

him, might surely have been accomplished at least by that time:—He

dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his

four years melancholy imprisonment;——adding, that had it not been for

the kind looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,—he had

long since sunk under his misfortunes.——My father was by. My uncle

_Toby_’s eloquence brought tears into his eyes;——’twas unexpected:——My

uncle _Toby_, by nature was not eloquent;—it had the greater

effect:——The surgeon was confounded;——not that there wanted grounds for

such, or greater marks of impatience,—but ’twas unexpected too; in the

four years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in

my uncle _Toby_’s carriage; he had never once dropped one fretful or

discontented word;——he had been all patience,—all submission.

—We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;—but we

often treble the force:—The surgeon was astonished; but much more so,

when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his

healing up the wound directly,—or sending for Monsieur _Ronjat_, the

king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for him.

The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature;——the love

of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle

_Toby_ had in common with his species—and either of them had been

sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of

doors;——but I have told you before, that nothing wrought with our

family after the common way;——and from the time and manner in which

this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating

reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my

uncle _Toby_’s head:——There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next

chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet was. I own, when

that’s done, ’twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side,

where we left my uncle _Toby_ in the middle of his sentence.

C H A P. XXX

WHEN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or,

in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows headstrong,——farewell cool

reason and fair discretion!

My uncle _Toby_’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon

recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much——he told

him, ’twas just beginning to incarnate; and that if no fresh

exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of,—it would be dried up

in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours

before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle

_Toby_’s mind.——The succession of his ideas was now rapid,—he broiled

with impatience to put his design in execution;——and so, without

consulting farther with any soul living,—which, by the bye, I think is

right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s advice,——he

privately ordered _Trim_, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and

dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at the door exactly by

twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon

’Change.——So leaving a bank-note upon the table for the surgeon’s care

of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s—he packed up

his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c. and by the

help of a crutch on one side, and _Trim_ on the other,——my uncle _Toby_

embarked for _Shandy-Hall._

The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as

follows:

The table in my uncle _Toby_’s room, and at which, the night before

this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c. about him—being

somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small

instruments of knowledge which usually lay crowded upon it—he had the

accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his

compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses up, with his sleeve he

threw down his case of instruments and snuffers;—and as the dice took a

run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in

falling,——he thrust Monsieur _Blondel_ off the table, and Count _de

Pagon_ o’top of him.

’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle _Toby_ was, to think of

redressing these evils by himself,—he rung his bell for his man

_Trim_;——_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, prithee see what confusion I

have here been making—I must have some better contrivance,

_Trim._—Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and

breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big

again?——Yes, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim_, making a bow; but

I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your

country-seat, where,—as your Honour takes so much pleasure in

fortification, we could manage this matter to a T.

I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle _Toby_’s, who

went by the name of _Trim_, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own

company,—his real name was _James Butler_,—but having got the nick-name

of _Trim_, in the regiment, my uncle _Toby_, unless when he happened to

be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name.

The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his

left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of _Landen_, which was two

years before the affair of _Namur_;—and as the fellow was well-beloved

in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle _Toby_

took him for his servant; and of an excellent use was he, attending my

uncle _Toby_ in the camp and in his quarters as a valet, groom, barber,

cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon

him and served him with great fidelity and affection.

My uncle _Toby_ loved the man in return, and what attached him more to

him still, was the similitude of their knowledge.——For Corporal _Trim_,

(for so, for the future, I shall call him) by four years occasional

attention to his Master’s discourse upon fortified towns, and the

advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans,

&c. exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a

body-servant, _Non Hobby Horsical per se_;——had become no mean

proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and

chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strong-holds as my uncle

_Toby_ himself.

I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal _Trim_’s

character,——and it is the only dark line in it.—The fellow loved to

advise,—or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so

perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him

so; but set his tongue a-going,—you had no hold of him—he was

voluble;—the eternal interlardings of _your Honour_, with the

respectfulness of Corporal _Trim_’s manner, interceding so strong in

behalf of his elocution,—that though you might have been

incommoded,——you could not well be angry. My uncle _Toby_ was seldom

either the one or the other with him,—or, at least, this fault, in

_Trim_, broke no squares with them. My uncle _Toby_, as I said, loved

the man;——and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant,—but

as an humble friend,—he could not bear to stop his mouth.——Such was

Corporal _Trim._

If I durst presume, continued _Trim_, to give your Honour my advice,

and speak my opinion in this matter.—Thou art welcome, _Trim_, quoth my

uncle _Toby_—speak,——speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man,

without fear.—Why then, replied _Trim_, (not hanging his ears and

scratching his head like a country-lout, but) stroking his hair back

from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division,—I think,

quoth _Trim_, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little

forwards,—and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of

_Dunkirk_, which was pinned against the hangings,——I think, quoth

Corporal _Trim_, with humble submission to your Honour’s better

judgment,——that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make

but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon

paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in

the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of

ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued

_Trim_, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the

nography—(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle,)——of the town or

citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before,—and I will be shot

by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your

Honour’s mind.——I dare say thou would’st, _Trim_, quoth my uncle.—For

if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the polygon,

with its exact lines and angles—That I could do very well, quoth my

uncle.—I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me

the proper depth and breadth—I can to a hair’s breadth, _Trim_, replied

my uncle.—I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town

for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the

counterscarp.—Very right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_:—And when I had

sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the

glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in _Flanders_, with

sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the

walls and parapets with sods too.—The best engineers call them gazons,

_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby._—Whether they are gazons or sods, is not

much matter, replied _Trim_; your Honour knows they are ten times

beyond a facing either of brick or stone.——I know they are, _Trim_ in

some respects,——quoth my uncle _Toby_, nodding his head;—for a

cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any

rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at

_St. Nicolas_’s gate) and facilitate the passage over it.

Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal _Trim_, better

than any officer in his Majesty’s service;——but would your Honour

please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into

the country, I would work under your Honour’s directions like a horse,

and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their

batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all

the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.

My uncle _Toby_ blushed as red as scarlet as _Trim_ went on;—but it was

not a blush of guilt,—of modesty,—or of anger,—it was a blush of

joy;—he was fired with Corporal _Trim_’s project and

description.—_Trim!_ said my uncle _Toby_, thou hast said enough.—We

might begin the campaign, continued _Trim_, on the very day that his

Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town

as fast as—_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, say no more. Your Honour,

continued _Trim_, might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this

fine weather, giving me your orders, and I would——Say no more, _Trim_,

quoth my uncle _Toby_——Besides, your Honour would get not only pleasure

and good pastime—but good air, and good exercise, and good health,—and

your Honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough,

_Trim_,—quoth my uncle _Toby_ (putting his hand into his

breeches-pocket)——I like thy project mightily.—And if your Honour

pleases, I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down

with us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of——Say

no more, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, leaping up upon one leg, quite

overcome with rapture,—and thrusting a guinea into _Trim_’s

hand,—_Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_, say no more;—but go down, _Trim_,

this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.

_Trim_ ran down and brought up his master’s supper,—to no

purpose:—_Trim_’s plan of operation ran so in my uncle _Toby_’s head,

he could not taste it.—_Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, get me to

bed.—’Twas all one.—Corporal _Trim_’s description had fired his

imagination,—my uncle _Toby_ could not shut his eyes.—The more he

considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him;—so that,

two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination

and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal _Trim_’s

decampment.

My uncle _Toby_ had a little neat country-house of his own, in the

village where my father’s estate lay at _Shandy_, which had been left

him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds

a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden

of about half an acre, and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off

from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about

as much ground as Corporal _Trim_ wished for;—so that as _Trim_ uttered

the words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would

with,”—this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and

became curiously painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle

_Toby_’s fancy;—which was the physical cause of making him change

colour, or at least of heightening his blush, to that immoderate degree

I spoke of.

Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and

expectation, than my uncle _Toby_ did, to enjoy this self-same thing in

private;—I say in private;—for it was sheltered from the house, as I

told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the other three

sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly and thick-set flowering

shrubs:—so that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute

to the idea of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle _Toby_’s mind.—Vain

thought! however thick it was planted about,——or private soever it

might seem,—to think, dear uncle _Toby_, of enjoying a thing which took

up a whole rood and a half of ground,—and not have it known!

How my uncle _Toby_ and Corporal _Trim_ managed this matter,—with the

history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,——may

make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this

drama.—At present the scene must drop,—and change for the parlour

fire-side.

C H A P. XXXI

——WHAT can they be doing? brother, said my father.—I think, replied my

uncle _Toby_,—taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and

striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence;——I think,

replied he,—it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell.

Pray, what’s all that racket over our heads, _Obadiah?_——quoth my

father;——my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak.

Sir, answered _Obadiah_, making a bow towards his left shoulder,—my

Mistress is taken very badly.—And where’s _Susannah_ running down the

garden there, as if they were going to ravish her?——Sir, she is running

the shortest cut into the town, replied _Obadiah_, to fetch the old

midwife.—Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go directly

for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife, with all our services,——and let him

know your mistress is fallen into labour——and that I desire he will

return with you with all speed.

It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle

_Toby_, as _Obadiah_ shut the door,——as there is so expert an operator

as Dr. _Slop_ so near,—that my wife should persist to the very last in

this obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of my child, who

has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old woman;——and

not only the life of my child, brother,——but her own life, and with it

the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have begot out of

her hereafter.

Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, my sister does it to save the

expence:—A pudding’s end,—replied my father,——the Doctor must be paid

the same for inaction as action,—if not better,—to keep him in temper.

——Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle

_Toby_, in the simplicity of his heart,—but MODESTY.—My sister, I dare

say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her ****. I will

not say whether my uncle _Toby_ had completed the sentence or not;—’tis

for his advantage to suppose he had,——as, I think, he could have added

no ONE WORD which would have improved it.

If, on the contrary, my uncle _Toby_ had not fully arrived at the

period’s end—then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of

my father’s tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that

ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the

_Aposiopesis._——Just Heaven! how does the _Poco piu_ and the _Poco

meno_ of the _Italian_ artists;—the insensible MORE OR LESS, determine

the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue!

How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the

fiddle-stick, _et cætera_,—give the true swell, which gives the true

pleasure!—O my countrymen:—be nice; be cautious of your language; and

never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your

eloquence and your fame depend.

——“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “does not choose to let a

man come so near her ****” Make this dash,—’tis an Aposiopesis,—Take

the dash away, and write _Backside_,—’tis Bawdy.—Scratch Backside out,

and put _Cover’d way_ in, ’tis a Metaphor;—and, I dare say, as

fortification ran so much in my uncle _Toby_’s head, that if he had

been left to have added one word to the sentence,——that word was it.

But whether that was the case or not the case;—or whether the snapping

of my father’s tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident

or anger, will be seen in due time.

C H A P. XXXII

THO’ my father was a good natural philosopher,—yet he was something of

a moral philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe

snapp’d short in the middle,—he had nothing to do, as such, but to have

taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown them gently upon the back of

the fire.——He did no such thing;——he threw them with all the violence

in the world;—and, to give the action still more emphasis,—he started

upon both his legs to do it.

This looked something like heat;—and the manner of his reply to what my

uncle _Toby_ was saying, proved it was so.

—“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle _Toby_’s words) “to

let a man come so near her!”——By Heaven, brother _Toby!_ you would try

the patience of _Job_;—and I think I have the plagues of one already

without it.——Why?——Where?——Wherein?——Wherefore?——Upon what account?

replied my uncle _Toby_: in the utmost astonishment.—To think, said my

father, of a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little

about women!——I know nothing at all about them,—replied my uncle

_Toby_: And I think, continued he, that the shock I received the year

after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in my affair with widow

_Wadman_;—which shock you know I should not have received, but from my

total ignorance of the sex,—has given me just cause to say, That I

neither know nor do pretend to know any thing about ’em or their

concerns either.—Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at

least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.

It is said in _Aristotle’s Master Piece_, “That when a man doth think

of any thing which is past,—he looketh down upon the ground;——but that

when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards

the heavens.”

My uncle _Toby_, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d

horizontally.—Right end! quoth my uncle _Toby_, muttering the two words

low to himself, and fixing his two eyes insensibly as he muttered them,

upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint in the chimney-piece——Right

end of a woman!——I declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is

than the man in the moon;——and if I was to think, continued my uncle

_Toby_ (keeping his eyes still fixed upon the bad joint) this month

together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out.

Then, brother _Toby_, replied my father, I will tell you.

Every thing in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh

pipe)—every thing in this world, my dear brother _Toby_, has two

handles.——Not always, quoth my uncle _Toby._——At least, replied my

father, every one has two hands,——which comes to the same thing.——Now,

if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider within himself the make,

the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all

the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and

compare them analogically—I never understood rightly the meaning of

that word,—quoth my uncle _Toby._—

ANALOGY, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which

different——Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s

definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two,—and, at the same time,

crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was

engendered in the womb of speculation;—it was some months before my

father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it:—And, at

this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the

dissertation itself,—(considering the confusion and distresses of our

domestick misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back

of another) whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third

volume or not.

C H A P. XXXIII

IT is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle

_Toby_ rung the bell, when _Obadiah_ was ordered to saddle a horse, and

go for Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife;—so that no one can say, with

reason, that I have not allowed _Obadiah_ time enough, poetically

speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and

come;——though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce

had time to get on his boots.

If the hypercritick will go upon this; and is resolved after all to

take a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of

the bell, and the rap at the door;—and, after finding it to be no more

than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three-fifths,—should take upon

him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather

probability of time;—I would remind him, that the idea of duration, and

of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of our

ideas——and is the true scholastic pendulum,——and by which, as a

scholar, I will be tried in this matter,—abjuring and detesting the

jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever.

I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight

miles from _Shandy-Hall_ to Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife’s house:—and

that whilst _Obadiah_ has been going those said miles and back, I have

brought my uncle _Toby_ from _Namur_, quite across all _Flanders_, into

_England_:—That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years;—and

have since travelled him and Corporal _Trim_ in a chariot-and-four, a

journey of near two hundred miles down into _Yorkshire._—all which put

together, must have prepared the reader’s imagination for the entrance

of Dr. _Slop_ upon the stage,—as much, at least (I hope) as a dance, a

song, or a concerto between the acts.

If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and

thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen

seconds,—when I have said all I can about them; and that this plea,

though it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically,

rendering my book from this very moment, a professed ROMANCE, which,

before, was a book apocryphal:——If I am thus pressed—I then put an end

to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once,——by

acquainting him, that _Obadiah_ had not got above threescore yards from

the stable-yard, before he met with Dr. _Slop_;—and indeed he gave a

dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a

tragical one too.

Imagine to yourself;—but this had better begin a new chapter.

C H A P. XXXIV

IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor

_Slop_, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a

breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done

honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards.

Such were the out-lines of Dr. _Slop_’s figure, which—if you have read

_Hogarth_’s analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you

would;——you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to

the mind by three strokes as three hundred.

Imagine such a one,—for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. _Slop_’s

figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the dirt upon

the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour——but of

strength,——alack!——scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such

a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition.——They were

not.——Imagine to yourself, _Obadiah_ mounted upon a strong monster of a

coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable

speed the adverse way.

Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.

Had Dr. _Slop_ beheld _Obadiah_ a mile off, posting in a narrow lane

directly towards him, at that monstrous rate,—splashing and plunging

like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a

phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it,

round its axis,—have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr.

_Slop_ in his situation, than the _worst_ of _Whiston_’s comets?—To say

nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of _Obadiah_ and the coach-horse.—In

my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved and

carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with

it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr.

_Slop_ have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that

he was advancing thus warily along towards _Shandy-Hall_, and had

approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a

sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden-wall,—and in the

dirtiest part of a dirty lane,—when _Obadiah_ and his coach-horse

turned the corner, rapid, furious,—pop,—full upon him!—Nothing, I

think, in nature, can be supposed more terrible than such a

rencounter,—so imprompt! so ill prepared to stand the shock of it as

Dr. _Slop_ was.

What could Dr. _Slop_ do?——he crossed himself +—Pugh!—but the doctor,

Sir, was a Papist.—No matter; he had better have kept hold of the

pummel.—He had so;—nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing

at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip,——and in attempting

to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it

slipped, he lost his stirrup,——in losing which he lost his seat;——and

in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews what

little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his

presence of mind. So that without waiting for _Obadiah_’s onset, he

left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in

the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other

consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have

been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in

the mire.

_Obadiah_ pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. _Slop_;—once as he was

falling,—and then again when he saw him seated.——Ill-timed

complaisance;—had not the fellow better have stopped his horse, and got

off and help’d him?—Sir, he did all that his situation would allow;—but

the MOMENTUM of the coach-horse was so great, that _Obadiah_ could not

do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times round Dr. _Slop_,

before he could fully accomplish it any how;—and at the last, when he

did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion of mud, that

_Obadiah_ had better have been a league off. In short, never was a Dr.

_Slop_ so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came

into fashion.

C H A P. XXXV

WHEN Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle

_Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women,——it was hard to

determine whether Dr. _Slop_’s figure, or Dr. _Slop_’s presence,

occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near

the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount

him,——_Obadiah_ had led him in as he was, _unwiped, unappointed,

unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him.—He stood like

_Hamlet_’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a

half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all

the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his

fall, totally besmeared,——and in every other part of him, blotched over

in such a manner with _Obadiah_’s explosion, that you would have sworn

(without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.

Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over

my father in his turn;—for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in that

pickle, could have dissented from so much, at least, of my uncle

_Toby_’s opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a

Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****” But it was the _Argumentum ad

hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may

think, he might not care to use it.——No; the reason was,—’twas not his

nature to insult.

Dr. _Slop_’s presence at that time, was no less problematical than the

mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father

might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week

before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had

heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to

have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how

matters went on.

But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the

investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the

ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,—measuring their

distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have

power to think of nothing else,——common-place infirmity of the greatest

mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and

so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them

to draw the corollary, to do good with.

The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise

strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_,—but it excited a very

different train of thoughts;—the two irreconcileable pulsations

instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into

my uncle _Toby_’s mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair,—is

the greatest problem of all:——It shall be solved,—but not in the next

chapter.

C H A P. XXXVI

WRITING, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is

but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is

about in good company, would venture to talk all;——so no author, who

understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would

presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the

reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him

something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind,

and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my

own.

’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. _Slop_’s

sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour;—his

imagination must now go on with it for a while.

Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. _Slop_ has told his tale—and in

what words, and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses;—Let him

suppose, that _Obadiah_ has told his tale also, and with such rueful

looks of affected concern, as he thinks best will contrast the two

figures as they stand by each other.—Let him imagine, that my father

has stepped up stairs to see my mother.—And, to conclude this work of

imagination,—let him imagine the doctor washed,—rubbed down, and

condoled,—felicitated,—got into a pair of _Obadiah_’s pumps, stepping

forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action.

Truce!—truce, good Dr. _Slop!_—stay thy obstetrick hand;——return it

safe into thy bosom to keep it warm;——little dost thou know what

obstacles,——little dost thou think what hidden causes, retard its

operation!——Hast thou, Dr. _Slop_,—hast thou been entrusted with the

secret articles of the solemn treaty which has brought thee into this

place?—Art thou aware that at this instant, a daughter of _Lucina_ is

put obstetrically over thy head? Alas!—’tis too true.—Besides, great

son of _Pilumnus!_ what canst thou do? Thou hast come forth

unarm’d;—thou hast left thy _tire-téte_,—thy new-invented

_forceps_,—thy _crotchet_,—thy _squirt_, and all thy instruments of

salvation and deliverance, behind thee,—By Heaven! at this moment they

are hanging up in a green bays bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the

bed’s head!—Ring;—call;—send _Obadiah_ back upon the coach-horse to

bring them with all speed.

——Make great haste, _Obadiah_, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a

crown! and quoth my uncle _Toby_, I’ll give him another.

C H A P. XXXVII

YOUR sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing

himself to Dr. _Slop_, (all three of them sitting down to the fire

together, as my uncle _Toby_ began to speak)—instantly brought the

great _Stevinus_ into my head, who, you must know, is a favourite

author with me.—Then, added my father, making use of the argument _Ad

Crumenam_,—I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece (which

will serve to give away to _Obadiah_ when he gets back) that this same

_Stevinus_ was some engineer or other—or has wrote something or other,

either directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.

He has so,—replied my uncle _Toby._—I knew it, said my father, though,

for the soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be

betwixt Dr. _Slop_’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon

fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what we will, brother,——or let

the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,—you are sure

to bring it in. I would not, brother _Toby_, continued my father,——I

declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and

horn-works.—That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. _Slop_,

interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun.

_Dennis_ the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the

insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow

testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious

discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose;——he saw

no difference.

Sir, quoth my uncle _Toby_, addressing himself to Dr. _Slop_,—the

curtins my brother _Shandy_ mentions here, have nothing to do with

beadsteads;—tho’, I know _Du Cange_ says, “That bed-curtains, in all

probability, have taken their name from them;”—nor have the horn-works

he speaks of, any thing in the world to do with the horn-works of

cuckoldom: But the _Curtin_, Sir, is the word we use in fortification,

for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two

bastions and joins them—Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their

attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason, because they are

so well _flanked._ ( ’Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. _Slop_,

laughing.) However, continued my uncle _Toby_, to make them sure, we

generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to

extend them beyond the fossé or ditch:——The common men, who know very

little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon

together,—tho’ they are very different things;—not in their figure or

construction, for we make them exactly alike, in all points; for they

always consist of two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges,

not straight, but in form of a crescent;——Where then lies the

difference? (quoth my father, a little testily.)—In their situations,

answered my uncle _Toby:_—For when a ravelin, brother, stands before

the curtin, it is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a

bastion, then the ravelin is not a ravelin;—it is a half-moon;—a

half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so long as it stands

before its bastion;——but was it to change place, and get before the

curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is

not a half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.——I think, quoth my

father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sides——as well

as others.

—As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my

uncle _Toby_, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable

part of an outwork;——they are called by the _French_ engineers,

_Ouvrage à corne_, and we generally make them to cover such places as

we suspect to be weaker than the rest;—’tis formed by two epaulments or

demi-bastions—they are very pretty,—and if you will take a walk, I’ll

engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.—I own, continued my

uncle _Toby_, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then they

are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in my

opinion, they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp;

otherwise the double tenaille—By the mother who bore us!——brother

_Toby_, quoth my father, not able to hold out any longer,——you would

provoke a saint;——here have you got us, I know not how, not only souse

into the middle of the old subject again:—But so full is your head of

these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment in the pains

of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to

carry off the man-midwife.——_Accoucheur_,—if you please, quoth Dr.

_Slop._—With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they

call you,—but I wish the whole science of fortification, with all its

inventors, at the devil;—it has been the death of thousands,—and it

will be mine in the end.—I would not, I would not, brother _Toby_, have

my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, pallisadoes,

ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of _Namur_,

and of all the towns in _Flanders_ with it.

My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of

courage,—I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of

courage:”—And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or

called it forth,—I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner

taken shelter;——nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness

of his intellectual parts;—for he felt this insult of my father’s as

feelingly as a man could do;—but he was of a peaceful, placid

nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up so kindly within

him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed

about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which

after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I’ll

not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going

across the room, with the fly in his hand,—I’ll not hurt a hair of thy

head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he

spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I

hurt thee?——This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that

the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity,

which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most

pleasurable sensation;—or how far the manner and expression of it might

go towards it;—or in what degree, or by what secret magick,—a tone of

voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage

to my heart, I know not;—this I know, that the lesson of universal

good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_, has never since

been worn out of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the

study of the _Literæ humaniores_, at the university, have done for me

in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education

bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;—yet I often think that

I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.

This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume

upon the subject.

I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle _Toby_’s picture,

by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,—that taking

in no more than the mere HOBBY-HORSICAL likeness:—this is a part of his

moral character. My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, which

I mention, was very different, as the reader must long ago have noted;

he had a much more acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with

a little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him to any

thing which looked like malignancy:—yet in the little rubs and

vexations of life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty

kind of peevishness:——He was, however, frank and generous in his

nature;——at all times open to conviction; and in the little ebullitions

of this subacid humour towards others, but particularly towards my

uncle _Toby_, whom he truly loved:——he would feel more pain, ten times

told (except in the affair of my aunt _Dinah_, or where an hypothesis

was concerned) than what he ever gave.

The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected

light upon each other, and appeared with great advantage in this affair

which arose about _Stevinus._

I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HOBBY-HORSE,—that a man’s

HOBBY-HORSE is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these

unprovoked strokes at my uncle _Toby_’s could not be unfelt by

him.——No:——as I said above, my uncle _Toby_ did feel them, and very

sensibly too.

Pray, Sir, what said he?—How did he behave?—O, Sir!—it was great: For

as soon as my father had done insulting his HOBBY-HORSE,——he turned his

head without the least emotion, from Dr. _Slop_, to whom he was

addressing his discourse, and looking up into my father’s face, with a

countenance spread over with so much good-nature;——so placid;——so

fraternal;——so inexpressibly tender towards him:—it penetrated my

father to his heart: He rose up hastily from his chair, and seizing

hold of both my uncle _Toby_’s hands as he spoke:—Brother _Toby_, said

he:—I beg thy pardon;——forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour which my

mother gave me.——My dear, dear brother, answered my uncle _Toby_,

rising up by my father’s help, say no more about it;—you are heartily

welcome, had it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis ungenerous,

replied my father, to hurt any man;——a brother worse;——but to hurt a

brother of such gentle manners,—so unprovoking,—and so

unresenting;——’tis base:——By Heaven, ’tis cowardly.—You are heartily

welcome, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_,——had it been fifty times as

much.——Besides, what have I to do, my dear _Toby_, cried my father,

either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless it was in my

power (which it is not) to increase their measure?

——Brother _Shandy_, answered my uncle _Toby_, looking wistfully in his

face,——you are much mistaken in this point:—for you do increase my

pleasure very much, in begetting children for the _Shandy_ family at

your time of life.—But, by that, Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop_, Mr. _Shandy_

increases his own.—Not a jot, quoth my father.

C H A P. XXXVIII

MY brother does it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, out of _principle._——In a

family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. _Slop._——Pshaw!—said my father,—’tis

not worth talking of.

C H A P. XXXIX

AT the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle _Toby_ were left

both standing, like _Brutus_ and _Cassius_, at the close of the scene,

making up their accounts.

As my father spoke the three last words,——he sat down;—my uncle _Toby_

exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he

rung the bell, to order Corporal _Trim_, who was in waiting, to step

home for _Stevinus_:—my uncle _Toby_’s house being no farther off than

the opposite side of the way.

Some men would have dropped the subject of _Stevinus_;—but my uncle

_Toby_ had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject,

to shew my father that he had none.

Your sudden appearance, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my uncle, resuming the

discourse, instantly brought _Stevinus_ into my head. (My father, you

may be sure, did not offer to lay any more wagers upon _Stevinus_’s

head.)——Because, continued my uncle _Toby_, the celebrated sailing

chariot, which belonged to Prince _Maurice_, and was of such wonderful

contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty

_German_ miles, in I don’t know how few minutes,——was invented by

_Stevinus_, that great mathematician and engineer.

You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. _Slop_ (as

the fellow is lame) of going for _Stevinus_’s account of it, because in

my return from _Leyden_ thro’ the _Hague_, I walked as far as

_Schevling_, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it.

That’s nothing, replied my uncle _Toby_, to what the learned

_Peireskius_ did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning

from _Paris_ to _Schevling_, and from _Schevling_ to _Paris_ back

again, in order to see it,—and nothing else.

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.

The more fool _Peireskius_, replied Dr. _Slop._ But mark, ’twas out of

no contempt of _Peireskius_ at all;——but that _Peireskius_’s

indefatigable labour in trudging so far on foot, out of love for the

sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. _Slop_, in that affair, to

nothing:—the more fool _Peireskius_, said he again.—Why so?—replied my

father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast

as he could for the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my

father’s mind;——but partly, that my father began really to interest

himself in the discourse.——Why so?——said he. Why is _Peireskius_, or

any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or any other

morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of the

chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a

very mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of

philosophy he has atchieved it;—yet certainly his machine has been

constructed upon solid ones, be they what they will, or it could not

have answered at the rate my brother mentions.

It answered, replied my uncle _Toby_, as well, if not better; for, as

_Peireskius_ elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its

motion, _Tam citus erat, quam erat ventus_; which, unless I have forgot

my Latin, is, _that it was as swift as the wind itself._

But pray, Dr. _Slop_, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho’ not

without begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles

was this self-same chariot set a-going?—Upon very pretty principles to

be sure, replied Dr. _Slop_:—And I have often wondered, continued he,

evading the question, why none of our gentry, who live upon large

plains like this of ours,—(especially they whose wives are not past

child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be

infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is

subject,—if the wind only served,—but would be excellent good husbandry

to make use of the winds, which cost nothing, and which eat nothing,

rather than horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a

great deal.

For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing,

and because they eat nothing,”—the scheme is bad;—it is the consumption

of our products, as well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread

to the hungry, circulates trade,—brings in money, and supports the

value of our lands;—and tho’, I own, if I was a Prince, I would

generously recompense the scientifick head which brought forth such

contrivances;—yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them.

My father here had got into his element,—and was going on as

prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle _Toby_ had

before, upon his of fortification;—but to the loss of much sound

knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no

dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father that day,——for as

he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence,

C H A P. XL

IN popped Corporal _Trim_ with _Stevinus_:—But ’twas too late,—all the

discourse had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new

channel.

—You may take the book home again, _Trim_, said my uncle _Toby_,

nodding to him.

But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,—look first into it,

and see if thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it.

Corporal _Trim_, by being in the service, had learned to obey,—and not

to remonstrate,—so taking the book to a side-table, and running over

the leaves; An’ please your Honour, said _Trim_, I can see no such

thing;—however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn,

I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your Honour;—so taking hold of

the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves

fall down as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good sound

shake.

There is something falling out, however, said _Trim_, an’ please your

Honour;—but it is not a chariot, or any thing like one:—Prithee,

Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?—I think, answered

_Trim_, stooping to take it up,——’tis more like a sermon,——for it

begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;—and then

goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly.

The company smiled.

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle _Toby_, for such a

thing as a sermon to have got into my _Stevinus._

I think ’tis a sermon, replied _Trim_:—but if it please your Honours,

as it is a fair hand, I will read you a page;—for _Trim_, you must

know, loved to hear himself read almost as well as talk.

I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things

which cross my way, by such strange fatalities as these;—and as we have

nothing better to do, at least till _Obadiah_ gets back, I shall be

obliged to you, brother, if Dr. _Slop_ has no objection to it, to order

the Corporal to give us a page or two of it,—if he is as able to do it,

as he seems willing. An’ please your honour, quoth _Trim_, I officiated

two whole campaigns, in _Flanders_, as clerk to the chaplain of the

regiment.——He can read it, quoth my uncle _Toby_, as well as I

can.——_Trim_, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and

should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s misfortune.

Corporal _Trim_ laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to

his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the

sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,—he

advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could

best see, and be best seen by his audience.

C H A P. XLI

—IF you have any objection,—said my father, addressing himself to Dr.

_Slop._ Not in the least, replied Dr. _Slop_;—for it does not appear on

which side of the question it is wrote,—it may be a composition of a

divine of our church, as well as yours,—so that we run equal

risques.——’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth _Trim_, for ’tis only

upon _Conscience_, an’ please your Honours.

_Trim_’s reason put his audience into good humour,—all but Dr. _Slop_,

who turning his head about towards _Trim_, looked a little angry.

Begin, _Trim_,—and read distinctly, quoth my father.—I will, an’ please

your Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking

attention with a slight movement of his right hand.

C H A P. XLII

——BUT before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description

of his attitude;——otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by

your imagination, in an uneasy posture,—stiff,—perpendicular,—dividing

the weight of his body equally upon both legs;——his eye fixed, as if on

duty;—his look determined,—clenching the sermon in his left hand, like

his firelock.——In a word, you would be apt to paint _Trim_, as if he

was standing in his platoon ready for action,—His attitude was as

unlike all this as you can conceive.

He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so

far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the

horizon;—which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to

be the true persuasive angle of incidence;—in any other angle you may

talk and preach;—’tis certain;—and it is done every day;—but with what

effect,—I leave the world to judge!

The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a

mathematical exactness,——does it not shew us, by the way, how the arts

and sciences mutually befriend each other?

How the duce Corporal _Trim_, who knew not so much as an acute angle

from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;——or whether it was

chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c. shall be commented

upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the

instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the

bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under

consideration.

He stood,——for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view,

with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,—his right leg from

under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,——the foot of

his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude,

advanced a little,—not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt

them;—his knee bent, but that not violently,—but so as to fall within

the limits of the line of beauty;—and I add, of the line of science

too;—for consider, it had one eighth part of his body to bear up;—so

that in this case the position of the leg is determined,—because the

foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what

would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth part of his whole

weight under it, and to carry it too.

=> This I recommend to painters;—need I add,—to orators!—I think not;

for unless they practise it,——they must fall upon their noses.

So much for Corporal _Trim_’s body and legs.——He held the sermon

loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his

stomach, and detached a little from his breast;——his right arm falling

negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered

it,——but with the palm of it open and turned towards his audience,

ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need.

Corporal _Trim_’s eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony

with the other parts of him;—he looked frank,—unconstrained,—something

assured,—but not bordering upon assurance.

Let not the critic ask how Corporal _Trim_ could come by all

this.——I’ve told him it should be explained;—but so he stood before my

father, my uncle _Toby_, and Dr. _Slop_,—so swayed his body, so

contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the

whole figure,——a statuary might have modelled from it;——nay, I doubt

whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the _Hebrew_ Professor

himself, could have much mended it.

_Trim_ made a bow, and read as follows:

The S E R M O N.

HEBREWS xiii. 18.

———_For we_ trust _we have a

good Conscience._

“TRUST!——Trust we have a good conscience!”

[Certainly, _Trim_, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that

sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and

read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse

the Apostle.

He is, an’ please your Honour, replied _Trim._ Pugh! said my father,

smiling.

Sir, quoth Dr. _Slop, Trim_ is certainly in the right; for the writer

(who I perceive is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he

takes up the apostle, is certainly going to abuse him;—if this

treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my

father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. _Slop_, that the writer is of

our church?—for aught I can see yet,—he may be of any church.——Because,

answered Dr. _Slop_, if he was of ours,—he durst no more take such a

licence,—than a bear by his beard:—If, in our communion, Sir, a man was

to insult an apostle,——a saint,——or even the paring of a saint’s

nail,—he would have his eyes scratched out.—What, by the saint? quoth

my uncle _Toby._ No, replied Dr. _Slop_, he would have an old house

over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building, answered my

uncle _Toby_, or is it a modern one?—I know nothing of architecture,

replied Dr. _Slop._—An’ please your Honours, quoth _Trim_, the

Inquisition is the vilest——Prithee spare thy description, _Trim_, I

hate the very name of it, said my father.—No matter for that, answered

Dr. _Slop_,—it has its uses; for tho’ I’m no great advocate for it,

yet, in such a case as this, he would soon be taught better manners;

and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be flung into the

Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my uncle _Toby._

Amen, added _Trim_; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor brother who

has been fourteen years a captive in it.—I never heard one word of it

before, said my uncle _Toby_, hastily:—How came he there, _Trim_?——O,

Sir, the story will make your heart bleed,—as it has made mine a

thousand times;—but it is too long to be told now;—your Honour shall

hear it from first to last some day when I am working beside you in our

fortifications;—but the short of the story is this;—That my brother

_Tom_ went over a servant to _Lisbon_,—and then married a Jew’s widow,

who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was

the cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed,

where he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried

directly to the Inquisition, where, God help him, continued _Trim_,

fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart,—the poor honest lad lies

confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, added _Trim_, (pulling

out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.——

—The tears trickled down _Trim_’s cheeks faster than he could well wipe

them away.—A dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.—Certain

proof of pity!

Come _Trim_, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow’s grief had

got a little vent,—read on,—and put this melancholy story out of thy

head:—I grieve that I interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon

again;—for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou

sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the

apostle has given.

Corporal _Trim_ wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his

pocket, and, making a bow as he did it,—he began again.]

The S E R M O N.

HEBREWS xiii. 18.

——_For we_ trust _we have a good

Conscience.—_

“TRUST! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing

in this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which

he is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must

be this very thing,—whether he has a good conscience or no.”

[I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. _Slop._]

“If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state

of this account:——he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;—he

must remember his past pursuits, and know “certainly the true springs

and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.”

[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. _Slop._]

“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the

wise man complains, _hardly do we guess aright at the things that are

upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before

us._ But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within

herself;——is conscious of the web she has wove;——knows its texture and

fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working

upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.”

[The language is good, and I declare _Trim_ reads very well, quoth my

father.]

“Now,—as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind

has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or

censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our

lives; ’tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the

proposition,—whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he

stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man.—And, on

the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart

condemns him not:—that it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle

intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is

good, and that the man must be good also.”

[Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr.

_Slop_, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience,

replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. _Paul_

and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.—As nearly so, quoth

Dr. _Slop_, as east is to west;—but this, continued he, lifting both

hands, comes from the liberty of the press.

It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle _Toby_, than the liberty

of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or

ever likely to be.

Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father.]

“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I

make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly

impressed upon the mind of man,—that did no such thing ever happen, as

that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the

scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;—and, like some tender

parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by

degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature

endowed it:—Did this never happen;—or was it certain that self-love

could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;—or that the little

interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper

regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick

darkness:——Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this

sacred Court—Did WIT disdain “to take a bribe in it;—or was ashamed to

shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or,

lastly, were we assured that INTEREST stood always unconcerned whilst

the cause was hearing—and that Passion never got into the

judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is

supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:—Was this truly

so, as the objection must suppose;—no doubt then the religious and

moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it:—and

the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general,

by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and

censure.

“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it

seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty;—and unless in melancholy

and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is

always sufficient grounds for the accusation.

“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;—namely, that

whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does

not, that a man is therefore innocent.——This is not fact——So that the

common consolation which some good christian or other is hourly

administering to himself,—that he thanks God his mind does not misgive

him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he hath

a quiet one,—is fallacious;—and as current as the inference is, and as

infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer

to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,——you see it

liable to so much error from a false application;——the principle upon

which it goes so often perverted;——the whole force of it lost, and

sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common

examples from human life, which confirm the account.

“A man shall be vicious and utterly “debauched in his

principles;—exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live

shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence

can justify,——a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity,

he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob her of her

best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour;—but involve

a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you

will think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can

have no rest night and day from its reproaches.

“Alas! Conscience had something else to do all this time, than break in

upon him; as _Elijah_ reproached the god _Baal_,——this domestic god

_was either talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure

he slept and could not be awoke._

“Perhaps HE was gone out in company with HONOUR to fight a duel: to pay

off some debt at play;——or “dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust;

Perhaps CONSCIENCE all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud

against petty larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny

crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all

temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily;”——[If he was of

our church, tho’, quoth Dr. _Slop_, he could not]—“sleeps as soundly in

his bed;—and at last meets death unconcernedly;—perhaps much more so,

than a much better man.”

[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. _Slop_, turning to my

father,—the case could not happen in our church.—It happens in ours,

however, replied my father, but too often.——I own, quoth Dr. _Slop_,

(struck a little with my father’s frank acknowledgment)—that a man in

the _Romish_ church may live as badly;—but then he cannot easily die

so.——’Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of

indifference,—how a rascal dies.—I mean, answered Dr. _Slop_, he would

be denied the benefits of the last sacraments.—Pray how many have you

in all, said my uncle _Toby_,——for I always forget?——Seven, answered

Dr. _Slop._——Humph!—said my uncle _Toby_; tho’ not accented as a note

of acquiescence,—but as an interjection of that particular species of

surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer, finds more of a thing

than he expected.——Humph! replied my uncle _Toby._ Dr. _Slop_, who had

an ear, understood my uncle _Toby_ as well as if he had wrote a whole

volume against the seven sacraments.——Humph! replied Dr. _Slop_,

(stating my uncle _Toby_’s argument over again to him)——Why, Sir, are

there not seven cardinal virtues?——Seven mortal sins?——Seven golden

candlesticks?——Seven heavens?—’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle

_Toby._——Are there not seven wonders of the world?——Seven days of the

creation?——Seven planets?——Seven plagues?——That there are, quoth my

father with a most affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on

with the rest of thy characters, _Trim._]

“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here _Trim_ waved his right hand) “a

strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship

or public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in

their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human life

without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your honours, cried _Trim_, I

think this a viler man than the other.]

“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?——No;

thank God there is no occasion, _I pay every man his own;—I have no

fornication to answer to my conscience;—no faithless vows or promises

to make up;—I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am

not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who

stands before me._

“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole

life;—’tis nothing but a cunning contexture “of dark arts and

unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all

laws,——plain dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several

properties.——You will see such a one working out a frame of little

designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy

man;—shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the

unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his

life.

“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this

black account, and state it over again with his conscience—CONSCIENCE

looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE;—finds no express law broken by what

he has done;—perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels

incurred;—sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his

gates upon him:—What is there to affright his conscience?—Conscience

has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits “there

invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all

sides;—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.”

[Here Corporal _Trim_ and my uncle _Toby_ exchanged looks with each

other.—Aye, Aye, _Trim!_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, shaking his

head,——these are but sorry fortifications, _Trim._———O! very poor work,

answered _Trim_, to what your Honour and I make of it.——The character

of this last man, said Dr. _Slop_, interrupting _Trim_, is more

detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some

pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us, a man’s conscience could

not possibly continue so long _blinded_,——three times in a year, at

least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth

my uncle _Toby_,——Go on, _Trim_, quoth my father, or _Obadiah_ will

have got back before thou has got to the end of thy sermon.——’Tis a

very short one, replied _Trim._—I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle

_Toby_, for I like it hugely.—_Trim_ went on.]

“A fourth man shall want even this refuge;—shall break through all

their ceremony of slow chicane;—scorns the doubtful workings of secret

plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:——See the

bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs,

murders!—Horrid!—But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the

present case—the poor man was in the dark!——his priest had got the

keeping of his conscience;——and all he would let him know of it, was,

That he must believe in the Pope;—go to Mass;—cross himself;—tell his

beads;—be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough

to carry him to heaven. What;—if he perjures?—Why;—he had a mental

reservation in it.—But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you

represent him;—if he robs,—if he stabs, will not conscience, “on every

such act, receive a wound itself?—Aye,—but the man has carried it to

confession;—the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a

short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou

to answer for!——when not content with the too many natural and fatal

ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to

itself above all things;—thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of

deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to

go astray of himself, and confidently speak peace to himself, when

there is no peace.

“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too

notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of

them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to

himself,—I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will

then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.

“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of

wicked actions stand _there_, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own

natures;—he will soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and

custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and

painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand

can give them;—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity,

appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true

circumstances of folly and dishonour.

“When _David_ surprized _Saul_ sleeping in the cave, and cut off the

skirt of his robe—we read his heart smote him for what he had

done:——But in the matter of _Uriah_, where a faithful and gallant

servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for

his lust,—where conscience had so much greater reason to take the

alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed “from

first commission of that crime, to the time _Nathan_ was sent to

reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of

heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had done.

“Thus conscience, this once able monitor,——placed on high as a judge

within us, and intended by our maker as a just and equitable one

too,—by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such

imperfect cognizance of what passes,——does its office so

negligently,——sometimes so corruptly,—that it is not to be trusted

alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute

necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern,

its determinations.

“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite

importance to you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real

merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful

subject to your king, “or a good servant to your God,——call in religion

and morality.—Look, What is written in the law of God?——How readest

thou?—Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice

and truth;——what say they?

“Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports;——and then if

thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle

supposes,——the rule will be infallible;”—[Here Dr. _Slop_ fell

asleep]—“_thou wilt have confidence towards God_;——that is, have just

grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the

judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous

sentence which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to

whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions.

“_Blessed is the man_, indeed, then, as the author of the book of

_Ecclesiasticus_ expresses it, _who is not pricked with the multitude

of his sins: Blessed is the man_ “_whose heart hath not condemned him;

whether he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart_ (a

heart thus guided and informed) _he shall at all times rejoice in a

chearful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men

that sit above upon a tower on high.”_—[A tower has no strength, quoth

my uncle _Toby_, unless ’tis flank’d.]—“in the darkest doubts it shall

conduct him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives

in, a better security for his behaviour than all the causes and

restrictions put together, which law-makers are forced to

multiply:—_Forced_, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a

matter of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence

against the mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law

unto themselves; well intending, by the many provisions made,—that in

all such corrupt and misguided cases, where principles and the checks

of conscience will not make us upright,—to supply their “force, and, by

the terrors of gaols and halters, oblige us to it.”

[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to

be preached at the Temple,——or at some Assize.—I like the

reasoning,—and am sorry that Dr. _Slop_ has fallen asleep before the

time of his conviction:—for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I

thought at first, never insulted St. _Paul_ in the least;—nor has there

been, brother, the least difference between them.——A great matter, if

they had differed, replied my uncle _Toby_,—the best friends in the

world may differ sometimes.——True,—brother _Toby_ quoth my father,

shaking hands with him,—we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then _Trim_

shall go on.

Well,——what dost thou think of it? said my father, speaking to Corporal

_Trim_, as he reached his tobacco-box.

I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the

tower, who, I suppose, are all centinels there,—are more, an’ please

your Honour, than were necessary;—and, to go on at that rate, would

harrass a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves

his men, will never do, if he can help it, because two centinels, added

the Corporal, are as good as twenty.—I have been a commanding officer

myself in the _Corps de Garde_ a hundred times, continued _Trim_,

rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,—and all the time I

had the honour to serve his Majesty King _William_, in relieving the

most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my life.——Very

right, _Trim_, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—but you do not consider, _Trim_,

that the towers, in _Solomon_’s days, were not such things as our

bastions, flanked and defended by other works;—this, _Trim_, was an

invention since _Solomon_’s death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins

before the curtin, in his time;——or such a fossé as we make with a

cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps

pallisadoed along it, to guard against a _Coup de main_:—So that the

seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the _Corps de

Garde_, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.—They could

be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s Guard.—My father

smiled inwardly, but not outwardly—the subject being rather too

serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.—So putting

his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted,—he contented

himself with ordering _Trim_ to read on. He read on as follows:

“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings

with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right

and wrong:——The first of these will comprehend the duties of

religion;—the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably

connected together, that you cannot divide these two _tables_, even in

imagination, (tho’ the attempt is often made in practice) without

breaking and mutually destroying them both.

“I said the attempt is often made; and so it is;——there being nothing

“more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and

indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as

the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral

character,——or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous

to the uttermost mite.

“When there is some appearance that it is so,—tho’ one is unwilling

even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty,

yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am

persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of

his motive.

“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will

be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest,

his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will

give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great

distress.

“I will illustrate this by an example.

“I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call

in,”—[There is no need, cried Dr. _Slop_, (waking) to call in any

physician in this case]—“to be neither of them men of much religion: I

hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with

so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well;—notwithstanding

this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one:—and what is dearer

still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.

“Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why,

in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of

them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage;—I

consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life:—I know their

success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters.—In

a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting

themselves more.

“But put it otherwise, namely, “that interest lay, for once, on the

other side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain

to his reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the

world;—or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate

by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art:—In this case,

what hold have I of either of them?—Religion, the strongest of all

motives, is out of the question;—Interest, the next most powerful

motive in the world, is strongly against me:——What have I left to cast

into the opposite scale to balance this temptation?——Alas! I have

nothing,——nothing but what is lighter than a bubble——I must lie at the

mercy of HONOUR, or some such capricious principle—Strait security for

two of the most valuable blessings!—my property and myself.

“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without

religion;—so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected

from “religion without morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy to see a

man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the

highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man.

“He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,—but even

wanting in points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud

against the infidelity of the age,——is zealous for some points of

religion,——goes twice a day to church,—attends the sacraments,—and

amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of religion,—shall cheat

his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a religious man,

and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find that such a

man, through force of this delusion, generally looks down with

spiritual pride upon every other man who has less affectation of

piety,—though, perhaps, ten times more real honesty than himself.

“_This likewise is a sore evil under the sun_; and I believe, there

is no one mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more

serious mischiefs.——For a general proof of this,—examine the history of

the _Romish_ church;”—[Well what can you make of that? cried Dr.

_Slop_]—“see what scenes of cruelty, murder, rapine, bloodshed,”——[They

may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr. _Slop_]——have all been

sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality.

“In how many kingdoms of the world”—[Here _Trim_ kept waving his

right-hand from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it

backwards and forwards to the conclusion of the paragraph.]

“In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this

misguided saint-errant, spared neither age or merit, or sex, or

condition?—and, as he fought under the banners of a religion which set

him loose from justice and humanity, he shewed none; mercilessly

trampled upon both,—“heard neither the cries of the unfortunate, nor

pitied their distresses.”

[I have been in many a battle, an’ please your Honour, quoth _Trim_,

sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this,—I would not have

drawn a tricker in it against these poor souls,——to have been made a

general officer.——Why? what do you understand of the affair? said Dr.

_Slop_, looking towards _Trim_, with something more of contempt than

the Corporal’s honest heart deserved.——What do you know, friend, about

this battle you talk of?—I know, replied _Trim_, that I never refused

quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it;——but to a woman or

a child, continued _Trim_, before I would level my musket at them, I

would lose my life a thousand times.——Here’s a crown for thee, _Trim_,

to drink with _Obadiah_ to-night, quoth my uncle _Toby_, and I’ll give

_Obadiah_ another too.—God bless your Honour, replied _Trim_,——I had

rather these poor women and children had it.——thou art an honest

fellow, quoth my uncle _Toby._——My father nodded his head, as much as

to say—and so he is.——

But prithee, _Trim_, said my father, make an end,—for I see thou hast

but a leaf or two left.

Corporal _Trim_ read on.]

“If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not

sufficient,—consider at this instant, how the votaries of that religion

are every day thinking to do service and honour to God, by actions

which are a dishonour and scandal to themselves.

“To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of

the Inquisition.”—[God help my poor brother _Tom._]—“Behold _Religion_,

with _Mercy_ and _Justice_ chained down under her feet,——there sitting

ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks and instruments of

torment. Hark!—hark! what a piteous groan!”—[Here _Trim_’s face turned

as pale as ashes.]——“See the melancholy wretch who uttered it”—[Here

the tears began to trickle down]——“just brought forth to undergo the

anguish of a mock trial, and endure the utmost pains that a studied

system of cruelty has been able to invent.”—[D—n them all, quoth

_Trim_, his colour returning into his face as red as blood.]—“Behold

this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted

with sorrow and confinement.”—[Oh! ’tis my brother, cried poor _Trim_

in a most passionate exclamation, dropping the sermon upon the ground,

and clapping his hands together—I fear ’tis poor _Tom._ My father’s and

my uncle _Toby_’s heart yearned with sympathy for the poor fellow’s

distress; even _Slop_ himself acknowledged pity for him.——Why, _Trim_,

said my father, this is not a history,——’tis a sermon thou art reading;

prithee begin the sentence again.]——“Behold this helpless victim

delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted with sorrow and

confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers.

“Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!”—[I would rather face

a cannon, quoth _Trim_, stamping.)—“See what convulsions it has thrown

him into!——Consider the nature of the posture in which he how lies

stretched,—what exquisite tortures he endures by it!”—[I hope ’tis not

in _Portugal._]—“’Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how it keeps

his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips!” [I would not read

another line of it, quoth _Trim_ for all this _world_;—I fear, an’

please your Honours, all this is in _Portugal_, where my poor brother

_Tom_ is. I tell thee, _Trim_, again, quoth my father, ’tis not an

historical account,—’tis a description.—’Tis only a description, honest

man, quoth _Slop_, there’s not a word of truth in it.——That’s another

story, replied my father.—However, as _Trim_ reads it with so much

concern,—’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.—Give me hold of

the sermon, _Trim_,—I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st go. I must

stay and hear it too, replied _Trim_, if your Honour will allow

me;—tho’ I would not read it myself for a Colonel’s pay.——Poor Trim!

quoth my uncle _Toby._ My father went on.]

“——Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies

stretched,—what exquisite torture he endures by it!—’Tis all nature can

bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his

trembling lips,—willing to take its leave,——but not suffered to

depart!—Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!”——[Then, thank

God, however, quoth _Trim_, they have not killed him.]—“See him dragged

out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last

agonies, which this principle,—this principle, that there can be

religion without mercy, has prepared for him.”——[Then, thank God,——he

is dead, quoth _Trim_,—he is out of his pain,—and they have done their

worst at him.—O Sirs!—Hold your peace, _Trim_, said my father, going on

with the sermon, lest _Trim_ should incense Dr. _Slop_,—we shall never

have done at this rate.]

“The surest way to try the merit of “any disputed notion is, to trace

down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with

the spirit of Christianity;——’tis the short and decisive rule which our

Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth a

thousand arguments——_By their fruits ye shall know them._

“I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or

three short and independent rules deducible from it.

“_First_, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect

that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better

of his CREED. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and

troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, ’tis

for no other cause but quietness sake.

“_Secondly_, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular

instance,——That such a thing goes “against his conscience,——always

believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a

thing goes _against_ his stomach;—a present want of appetite being

generally the true cause of both.

“In a word,—trust that man in nothing, who has not a CONSCIENCE in

every thing.

“And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in

which has ruined thousands,—that your conscience is not a law;—No, God

and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to

determine;——not, like an _Asiatic_ Cadi, according to the ebbs and

flows of his own passions,—but like a _British_ judge in this land of

liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares

that law which he knows already written.”

_F I N I S._

Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, _Trim_, quoth my father.—If

he had spared his comments, replied Dr. _Slop_,——he would have read it

much better.

I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered _Trim_, but that

my heart was so full.—That was the very reason, _Trim_, replied my

father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done;

and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing

himself to Dr. _Slop_, would take part in what they deliver as deeply

as this poor fellow has done,—as their compositions are fine;—[I deny

it, quoth Dr. _Slop_]—I maintain it,—that the eloquence of our pulpits,

with such subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole

world:——But alas! continued my father, and I own it, Sir, with sorrow,

that, like _French_ politicians in this respect, what they gain in the

cabinet they lose in the field.——’Twere a pity, quoth my uncle, that

this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father,——’tis

dramatick,—and there is something in that way of writing, when

skilfully managed, which catches the attention.——We preach much in that

way with us, said Dr. _Slop._—I know that very well, said my

father,—but in a tone and manner which disgusted Dr. _Slop_, full as

much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.——But in this, added

Dr. _Slop_, a little piqued,—our sermons have greatly the advantage,

that we never introduce any character into them below a patriarch or a

patriarch’s wife, or a martyr or a saint.—There are some very bad

characters in this, however, said my father, and I do not think the

sermon a jot the worse for ’em.——But pray, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—who’s

can this be?—How could it get into my _Stevinus_? A man must be as

great a conjurer as _Stevinus_, said my father, to resolve the second

question:—The first, I think, is not so difficult;—for unless my

judgment greatly deceives me,——I know the author, for ’tis wrote,

certainly, by the parson of the parish.

The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father

constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of

his conjecture,—proving it as strongly, as an argument _à priori_ could

prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was _Yorick_’s and no

one’s else:—It was proved to be so, _à posteriori_, the day after, when

_Yorick_ sent a servant to my uncle _Toby_’s house to enquire after it.

It seems that _Yorick_, who was inquisitive after all kinds of

knowledge, had borrowed _Stevinus_ of my uncle _Toby_, and had

carelesly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle

of _Stevinus_; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever

subject, he had sent _Stevinus_ home, and his sermon to keep him

company.

Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second

time, dropped thru’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down

into a treacherous and a tattered lining,—trod deep into the dirt by

the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as

thou falledst;—buried ten days in the mire,——raised up out of it by a

beggar,—sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,——transferred to his

parson,——lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,—nor

restored to his restless MANES till this very moment, that I tell the

world the story.

Can the reader believe, that this sermon of _Yorick_’s was preached at

an assize, in the cathedral of _York_, before a thousand witnesses,

ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and

actually printed by him when he had done,——and within so short a space

as two years and three months after _Yorick_’s death?—_Yorick_ indeed,

was never better served in his life;——but it was a little hard to

maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.

However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with

_Yorick_,—and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give

away;—and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one

himself, had he thought fit,—I declare I would not have published this

anecdote to the world;——nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his

character and advancement in the church;—I leave that to others;——but I

find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.

The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to _Yorick_’s

ghost;——which—as the country-people, and some others believe,——_still

walks._

The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I

gain an opportunity of informing it,—That in case the character of

parson _Yorick_, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,——there are

now in the possession of the _Shandy_ family, as many as will make a

handsome volume, at the world’s service,——and much good may they do it.

C H A P. XLIII

OBADIAH gained the two crowns without dispute;—for he came in jingling,

with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, flung

across his body, just as Corporal _Trim_ went out of the room.

It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. _Slop_, (clearing up his looks) as

we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. _Shandy_, to send

up stairs to know how she goes on.

I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us

upon the least difficulty;—for you must know, Dr. _Slop_, continued my

father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by

express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no

more than an auxiliary in this affair,—and not so much as that,—unless

the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without

you.—Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature,

continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so

much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the

species,—they claim a right of deciding, _en Souveraines_, in whose

hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it.

They are in the right of it,——quoth my uncle _Toby._ But Sir, replied

Dr. _Slop_, not taking notice of my uncle _Toby_’s opinion, but turning

to my father,—they had better govern in other points;——and a father of

a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange

this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of

it.——I know not, quoth my father, answering a letter too testily, to be

quite dispassionate in what he said,—I know not, quoth he, what we have

left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the

world, unless that,—of who shall beget them.——One would almost give up

any thing, replied Dr. _Slop._—I beg your pardon,——answered my uncle

_Toby._—Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, it would astonish you to know what

improvements we have made of late years in all branches of obstetrical

knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and

expeditious extraction of the _fœtus_,——which has received such lights,

that, for my part (holding up his hand) I declare I wonder how the

world has——I wish, quoth my uncle _Toby_, you had seen what prodigious

armies we had in _Flanders._

C H A P. XLIV

I HAVE dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,——to remind you

of one thing,——and to inform you of another.

What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due

course;——for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago,

but that I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more

advantage here than elsewhere.——Writers had need look before them, to

keep up the spirit and connection of what they have in hand.

When these two things are done,—the curtain shall be drawn up again,

and my uncle _Toby_, my father, and Dr. _Slop_, shall go on with their

discourse, without any more interruption.

First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this;——that

from the specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point

of Christian-names, and that other previous point thereto,—you was led,

I think, into an opinion,—(and I am sure I said as much) that my father

was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other

opinions. In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the

very first act of his begetting,——down to the lean and slippered

pantaloon in his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion

to himself, springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the

high-way of thinking, as these two which have been explained.

—Mr. _Shandy_, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which

others placed it;—he placed things in his own light;—he would weigh

nothing in common scales;—no, he was too refined a researcher to lie

open to so gross an imposition.—To come at the exact weight of things

in the scientific steel-yard, the fulcrum, he would say, should be

almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets;—without

this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn the balance,

will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm,

was divisible _in infinitum_;——that the grains and scruples were as

much a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world.—In a word, he

would say, error was error,—no matter where it fell,——whether in a

fraction,——or a pound,—’twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept

down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust

of a butterfly’s wing,——as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all

the stars of heaven put together.

He would often lament that it was for want of considering this

properly, and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to

speculative truths, that so many things in this world were out of

joint;——that the political arch was giving way;——and that the very

foundations of our excellent constitution in church and state, were so

sapped as estimators had reported.

You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he

would ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of _Zeno_ and

_Chrysippus_, without knowing it belonged to them.—Why? why are we a

ruined people?—Because we are corrupted.—Whence is it, dear Sir, that

we are corrupted?——Because we are needy;——our poverty, and not our

wills, consent.——And wherefore, he would add, are we needy?—From the

neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence:—Our bank

notes, Sir, our guineas,—nay our shillings take care of themselves.

’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the

sciences;—the great, the established points of them, are not to be

broke in upon.—The laws of nature will defend themselves;—but

error——(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)——error, Sir,

creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices which human nature

leaves unguarded.

This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:—The

point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for this

place, is as follows.

Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged

my mother to accept of Dr. _Slop_’s assistance preferably to that of

the old woman,——there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he

had done arguing the matter with her as a Christian, and came to argue

it over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength

to, depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor.——It failed him, tho’

from no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could, he

was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of

it.——Cursed luck!——said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out

of the room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to

her, to no manner of purpose;—cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as

he shut the door,——for a man to be master of one of the finest chains

of reasoning in nature,——and have a wife at the same time with such a

head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of

it, to save his soul from destruction.

This argument, though it was entirely lost upon my mother,——had more

weight with him, than all his other arguments joined together:—I will

therefore endeavour to do it justice,—and set it forth with all the

perspicuity I am master of.

My father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms:

_First_, That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other

people’s; and,

_Secondly_, (Which by the bye, was the ground-work of the first

axiom,——tho’ it comes last) That every man’s wit must come from every

man’s own soul,——and no other body’s.

Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature

equal,——and that the great difference between the most acute and the

most obtuse understanding——was from no original sharpness or bluntness

of one thinking substance above or below another,——but arose merely

from the lucky or unlucky organization of the body, in that part where

the soul principally took up her residence,——he had made it the subject

of his enquiry to find out the identical place.

Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he

was satisfied it could not be where _Des Cartes_ had fixed it, upon the

top of the _pineal_ gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized,

formed a cushion for her about the size of a marrow pea; tho’ to speak

the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all in that one place,—’twas

no bad conjecture;——and my father had certainly fallen with that great

philosopher plumb into the centre of the mistake, had it not been for

my uncle _Toby_, who rescued him out of it, by a story he told him of a

_Walloon_ officer at the battle of _Landen_, who had one part of his

brain shot away by a musket-ball,—and another part of it taken out

after by a _French_ surgeon; and after all, recovered, and did his duty

very well without it.

If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the

separation of the soul from the body;—and if it is true that people can

walk about and do their business without brains,—then certes the soul

does not inhabit there. Q.E.D.

As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which

_Coglionissimo Borri_, the great _Milaneze_ physician affirms, in a

letter to _Bartholine_, to have discovered in the cellulæ of the

occipital parts of the cerebellum, and which he likewise affirms to be

the principal seat of the reasonable soul, (for, you must know, in

these latter and more enlightened ages, there are two souls in every

man living,—the one, according to the great _Metheglingius_, being

called the _Animus_, the other, the _Anima_;)—as for the opinion, I say

of _Borri_,—my father could never subscribe to it by any means; the

very idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial, and so exalted a

being as the _Anima_, or even the _Animus_, taking up her residence,

and sitting dabbling, like a tad-pole all day long, both summer and

winter, in a puddle,——or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin

soever, he would say, shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the

doctrine a hearing.

What, therefore, seemed the least liable to objections of any, was that

the chief sensorium, or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place

all intelligences were referred, and from whence all her mandates were

issued,—was in, or near, the cerebellum,—or rather somewhere about the

_medulla oblongata_, wherein it was generally agreed by _Dutch_

anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the organs of the seven

senses concentered, like streets and winding alleys, into a square.

So far there was nothing singular in my father’s opinion,—he had the

best of philosophers, of all ages and climates, to go along with

him.——But here he took a road of his own, setting up another _Shandean_

hypothesis upon these corner-stones they had laid for him;——and which

said hypothesis equally stood its ground; whether the subtilty and

fineness of the soul depended upon the temperature and clearness of the

said liquor, or of the finer net-work and texture in the cerebellum

itself; which opinion he favoured.

He maintained, that next to the due care to be taken in the act of

propagation of each individual, which required all the thought in the

world, as it laid the foundation of this incomprehensible contexture,

in which wit, memory, fancy, eloquence, and what is usually meant by

the name of good natural parts, do consist;—that next to this and his

Christian-name, which were the two original and most efficacious causes

of all;——that the third cause, or rather what logicians call the _Causa

sina qua non_, and without which all that was done was of no manner of

significance,——was the preservation of this delicate and fine-spun web,

from the havock which was generally made in it by the violent

compression and crush which the head was made to undergo, by the

nonsensical method of bringing us into the world by that foremost.

——This requires explanation.

My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into

_Lithopædus Senonesis de Portu difficili_,[4] published by _Adrianus

Smelvgot_, had found out, that the lax and pliable state of a child’s

head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that

time, was such,——that by force of the woman’s efforts, which, in strong

labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 pounds

avoirdupois acting perpendicularly upon it;—it so happened, that in 49

instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into the

shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook

generally rolls up in order to make a pye of.—Good God! cried my

father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely

fine and tender texture of the cerebellum!—Or if there is such a juice

as _Borri_ pretends—is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in the

world both seculent and mothery?

But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that

this force acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured

the brain itself, or cerebrum,—but that it necessarily squeezed and

propelled the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate

seat of the understanding!——Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

cried my father,——can any soul withstand this shock?—No wonder the

intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and that so many

of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk,——all

perplexity,——all confusion within-side.

But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a

child was turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and

was extracted by the feet;—that instead of the cerebrum being propelled

towards the cerebellum, the cerebellum, on the contrary, was propelled

simply towards the cerebrum, where it could do no manner of hurt:——By

heavens! cried he, the world is in conspiracy to drive out what little

wit God has given us,——and the professors of the obstetric art are

listed into the same conspiracy.—What is it to me which end of my son

comes foremost into the world, provided all goes right after, and his

cerebellum escapes uncrushed?

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it,

that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and,

from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the

stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand. This is of

great use.

When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a

phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve

by it;—it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in

the family.——Poor devil, he would say,—he made way for the capacity of

his younger brothers.——It unriddled the observations of drivellers and

monstrous heads,——shewing _à priori_, it could not be

otherwise,——unless **** I don’t know what. It wonderfully explained and

accounted for the acumen of the _Asiatic_ genius, and that sprightlier

turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates;

not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a

more perpetual sunshine, &c.—which for aught he knew, might as well

rarefy and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one

extreme,—as they are condensed in colder climates by the other;——but he

traced the affair up to its spring-head;—shewed that, in warmer

climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the

creation;—their pleasures more;—the necessity of their pains less,

insomuch that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so

slight, that the whole organization of the cerebellum was

preserved;——nay, he did not believe, in natural births, that so much as

a single thread of the network was broke or displaced,——so that the

soul might just act as she liked.

When my father had got so far,——what a blaze of light did the accounts

of the _Caesarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had come

safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he

would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium;—no pressure of

the head against the pelvis;——no propulsion of the cerebrum towards the

cerebellum, either by the _os pubis_ on this side, or _os coxygis_ on

that;——and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your

_Julius Caesar_, who gave the operation a name;—and your _Hermes

Trismegistus_, who was born so before ever the operation had a

name;——your _Scipio Africanus_; your _Manlius Torquatus_; our _Edward_

the Sixth,—who, had he lived, would have done the same honour to the

hypothesis:——These, and many more who figured high in the annals of

fame,—all came _side-way_, Sir, into the world.

The incision of the _abdomen_ and _uterus_ ran for six weeks together

in my father’s head;——he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in

the _epigastrium_, and those in the _matrix_, were not mortal;—so that

the belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a

passage to the child.—He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my

mother,——merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as

ashes at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his

hopes,—he thought it as well to say no more of it,——contenting himself

with admiring,—what he thought was to no purpose to propose.

This was my father Mr. _Shandy_’s hypothesis; concerning which I have

only to add, that my brother _Bobby_ did as great honour to it

(whatever he did to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke

of: For happening not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be

born too, when my father was at _Epsom_,——being moreover my mother’s

first child,—coming into the world with his head _foremost_,—and

turning out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts,——my father spelt

all these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one

end,—he was determined to try the other.

This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not

easily to be put out of their way,——and was therefore one of my

father’s great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could

better deal with.

Of all men in the world, Dr. _Slop_ was the fittest for my father’s

purpose;——for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had

proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of

deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book,

in favour of the very thing which ran in my father’s fancy;——tho’ not

with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my

father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical.

This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_,

in the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle

_Toby._——In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense,

could bear up against two such allies in science,—is hard to

conceive.—You may conjecture upon it, if you please,——and whilst your

imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover

by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my

uncle _Toby_ got his modesty by the wound he received upon his

groin.—You may raise a system to account for the loss of my nose by

marriage-articles,—and shew the world how it could happen, that I

should have the misfortune to be called TRISTRAM, in opposition to my

father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family, Godfathers and

Godmothers not excepted.—These, with fifty other points left yet

unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time;——but I tell

you beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage _Alquise_, the

magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor the no less famous

_Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive) could pretend to

come within a league of the truth.

The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these

matters till the next year,——when a series of things will be laid open

which he little expects.

[4] The author is here twice mistaken; for _Lithopædus_ should be

wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon._ The second mistake is, that

this _Lithopædus_ is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified

child. The account of this, published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen

at the end of _Cordæus_’s works in _Spachius._ Mr. _Tristram Shandy_

has been led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus_’s name

of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ——, or by mistaking

_Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_,—from the too great similitude of

the names.

C H A P. XLV

——“I _WISH_, Dr. _Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish

for Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and

earnestness in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at

first[5])——“_I wish, Dr. Slop,”_ quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen

what prodigious armies we had in_ Flanders.”

My uncle _Toby_’s wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart

never intended any man,—Sir, it confounded him——and thereby putting his

ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them

again for the soul of him.

In all disputes,——male or female, —whether for honour, for profit, or

for love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more

dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner

upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the

wish, is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs—and

wish the _wisher_ something in return, of pretty near the same

value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you

were—nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.

This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.—

Dr. _Slop_ did not understand the nature of this defence;—he was

puzzled with it, and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four

minutes and a half;—five had been fatal to it:—my father saw the

danger—the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the

world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be born

without a head or with one:”—he waited to the last moment, to allow Dr.

_Slop_, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning it;

but perceiving, I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking

with that perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare

with—first in my uncle _Toby_’s face—then in his—then up—then down—then

east—east and by east, and so on,——coasting it along by the plinth of

the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point of the compass,——and

that he had actually begun to count the brass nails upon the arm of his

chair,—my father thought there was no time to be lost with my uncle

_Toby_, so took up the discourse as follows.

[5] Vide page 260.

C H A P. XLVI

“—WHAT prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”—

Brother _Toby_, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head

with his right hand, and with his _left_ pulling out a striped _India_

handkerchief from his right coat pocket, in order to rub his head, as

he argued the point with my uncle _Toby._——

——Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give you

my reasons for it.

Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “_Whether my

father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his

left_,”—have divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of the

monarchs who governed them, to totter upon their heads.——But need I

tell you, Sir, that the circumstances with which every thing in this

world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape!—and

by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to

be, what it is—great—little—good—bad—indifferent or not indifferent,

just as the case happens?

As my father’s _India_ handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he

should by no means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on

the contrary, instead of taking off his wig with it, as he did, he

ought to have committed that entirely to the left; and then, when the

natural exigency my father was under of rubbing his head, called out

for his handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have

done, but to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and

taken it out;——which he might have done without any violence, or the

least ungraceful twist in any one tendon or muscle of his whole body.

In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a

fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand——or by making

some nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or armpit)—his

whole attitude had been easy—natural—unforced: _Reynolds_ himself, as

great and gracefully as he paints, might have painted him as he sat.

Now as my father managed this matter,—consider what a devil of a figure

my father made of himself.

In the latter end of Queen _Anne_’s reign, and in the beginning of the

reign of King _George_ the first—“_Coat pockets were cut very low down

in the skirt._”—I need say no more—the father of mischief, had he been

hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion for

one in my father’s situation.

C H A P. XLVII

IT was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean

a subject as myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across

your whole body, so as to gain the bottom of your opposite coat

pocket.——In the year one thousand seven hundred and eighteen, when this

happened, it was extremely difficult; so that when my uncle _Toby_

discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s approaches towards

it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in,

before the gate of _St. Nicolas_;—the idea of which drew off his

attention so intirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his

right hand to the bell to ring up _Trim_ to go and fetch his map of

_Namur_, and his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the

returning angles of the traverses of that attack,—but particularly of

that one, where he received his wound upon his groin.

My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his

body seemed to rush up into his face——my uncle _Toby_ dismounted

immediately.

——I did not apprehend your uncle _Toby_ was o’horseback.——

C H A P. XLVIII

A MAN’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak

it, are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining;—rumple the

one,—you rumple the other. There is one certain exception however in

this case, and that is, when you are so fortunate a fellow, as to have

had your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the body-lining to it of a

sarcenet, or thin persian.

_Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes Babylonius, Dionysius, Heracleotes,

Antipater, Panætius_, and _Possidonius_ amongst the _Greeks_;——_Cato_

and _Varro_ and _Seneca_ amongst the _Romans_;——_Pantenus_ and _Clemens

Alexandrinus_ and _Montaigne_ amongst the Christians; and a score and a

half of good, honest, unthinking _Shandean_ people as ever lived, whose

names I can’t recollect,—all pretended that their jerkins were made

after this fashion,—you might have rumpled and crumpled, and doubled

and creased, and fretted and fridged the outside of them all to

pieces;——in short, you might have played the very devil with them, and

at the same time, not one of the insides of them would have been one

button the worse, for all you had done to them.

I believe in my conscience that mine is made up somewhat after this

sort:——for never poor jerkin has been tickled off at such a rate as it

has been these last nine months together,——and yet I declare, the

lining to it,——as far as I am a judge of the matter,——is not a

three-penny piece the worse;—pell-mell, helter-skelter, ding-dong, cut

and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long-way, have

they been trimming it for me:—had there been the least gumminess in my

lining,—by heaven! it had all of it long ago been frayed and fretted to

a thread.

——You Messrs. the Monthly Reviewers!——how could you cut and slash my

jerkin as you did?——how did you know but you would cut my lining too?

Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will

injure none of us, do I recommend you and your affairs,—so God bless

you;—only next month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and

storm and rage at me, as some of you did last MAY (in which I remember

the weather was very hot)—don’t be exasperated, if I pass it by again

with good temper,—being determined as long as I live or write) which in

my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a

worse word or a worse wish than my uncle _Toby_ gave the fly which

buzz’d about his nose all _dinner-time_,——“Go,—go, poor devil,” quoth

he,—“get thee gone,—why should I hurt thee! This world is surely wide

enough to hold both thee and me.”

C H A P. XLIX

ANY man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious

suffusion of blood in my father’s countenance,—by means of which (as

all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his face, as I told you)

he must have reddened, pictorically and scientifically speaking, six

whole tints and a half, if not a full octave above his natural

colour:—any man, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, who had observed this,

together with the violent knitting of my father’s brows, and the

extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair,—would have

concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted,—had he been

a lover of such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments

being put in exact tune,—he would instantly have skrew’d up his, to the

same pitch;—and then the devil and all had broke loose—the whole piece,

Madam, must have been played off like the sixth of Avison

Scarlatti—_con furia_,—like mad.—Grant me patience!——What has _con

furia_,——_con strepito_,——or any other hurly burly whatever to do with

harmony?

Any man, I say, Madam, but my uncle _Toby_, the benignity of whose

heart interpreted every motion of the body in the kindest sense the

motion would admit of, would have concluded my father angry, and blamed

him too. My uncle _Toby_ blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the

pocket-hole;——so sitting still till my father had got his handkerchief

out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with inexpressible

good-will——my father, at length, went on as follows.

C H A P. L

“WHAT prodigious armies you had in _Flanders!_”

——Brother _Toby_, quoth my father, I do believe thee to be as honest a

man, and with as good and as upright a heart as ever God created;—nor

is it thy fault, if all the children which have been, may, can, shall,

will, or ought to be begotten, come with their heads foremost into the

world:——but believe me, dear _Toby_, the accidents which unavoidably

way-lay them, not only in the article of our begetting ’em——though

these, in my opinion, are well worth considering,——but the dangers and

difficulties our children are beset with, after they are got forth into

the world, are enow—little need is there to expose them to unnecessary

ones in their passage to it.——Are these dangers, quoth my uncle _Toby_,

laying his hand upon my father’s knee, and looking up seriously in his

face for an answer,——are these dangers greater now o’days, brother,

than in times past? Brother _Toby_, answered my father, if a child was

but fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the mother did well

after it,—our forefathers never looked farther.——My uncle _Toby_

instantly withdrew his hand from off my father’s knee, reclined his

body gently back in his chair, raised his head till he could just see

the cornice of the room, and then directing the buccinatory muscles

along his cheeks, and the orbicular muscles around his lips to do their

duty—he whistled _Lillabullero._

C H A P. LI

WHILST my uncle _Toby_ was whistling _Lillabullero_ to my father,—Dr.

_Slop_ was stamping, and cursing and damning at _Obadiah_ at a most

dreadful rate,——it would have done your heart good, and cured you, Sir,

for ever of the vile sin of swearing, to have heard him, I am

determined therefore to relate the whole affair to you.

When Dr. _Slop_’s maid delivered the green baize bag with her master’s

instruments in it, to _Obadiah_, she very sensibly exhorted him to put

his head and one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across

his body: so undoing the bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him,

without any more ado, she helped him on with it. However, as this, in

some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag, lest any thing should

bolt out in galloping back, at the speed _Obadiah_ threatened, they

consulted to take it off again: and in the great care and caution of

their hearts, they had taken the two strings and tied them close

(pursing up the mouth of the bag first) with half a dozen hard knots,

each of which _Obadiah_, to make all safe, had twitched and drawn

together with all the strength of his body.

This answered all that _Obadiah_ and the maid intended; but was no

remedy against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The

instruments, it seems, as tight as the bag was tied above, had so much

room to play in it, towards the bottom (the shape of the bag being

conical) that _Obadiah_ could not make a trot of it, but with such a

terrible jingle, what with the _tire téte, forceps_, and _squirt_, as

would have been enough, had _Hymen_ been taking a jaunt that way, to

have frightened him out of the country; but when _Obadiah_ accelerated

his motion, and from a plain trot assayed to prick his coach-horse into

a full gallop——by Heaven! Sir, the jingle was incredible.

As _Obadiah_ had a wife and three children——the turpitude of

fornication, and the many other political ill consequences of this

jingling, never once entered his brain,——he had however his objection,

which came home to himself, and weighed with him, as it has oft-times

done with the greatest patriots.——“_The poor fellow, Sir, was not able

to hear himself whistle._”

C H A P. LII

AS _Obadiah_ loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music

he carried with him,—he very considerately set his imagination to work,

to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a

condition of enjoying it.

In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted,

nothing is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band:——the

philosophy of this is so near the surface——I scorn to enter into it.

As _Obadiah_’s was a mixed case——mark, Sirs,——I say, a mixed case; for

it was obstetrical,——_scrip_-tical, squirtical, papistical——and as far

as the coach-horse was concerned in it,——caballistical——and only partly

musical;—_Obadiah_ made no scruple of availing himself of the first

expedient which offered; so taking hold of the bag and instruments, and

griping them hard together with one hand, and with the finger and thumb

of the other putting the end of the hat-band betwixt his teeth, and

then slipping his hand down to the middle of it,—he tied and cross-tied

them all fast together from one end to the other (as you would cord a

trunk) with such a multiplicity of round-abouts and intricate cross

turns, with a hard knot at every intersection or point where the

strings met,—that Dr. _Slop_ must have had three fifths of _Job_’s

patience at least to have unloosed them.—I think in my conscience, that

had NATURE been in one of her nimble moods, and in humour for such a

contest——and she and Dr. _Slop_ both fairly started together——there is

no man living which had seen the bag with all that _Obadiah_ had done

to it,——and known likewise the great speed the Goddess can make when

she thinks proper, who would have had the least doubt remaining in his

mind—which of the two would have carried off the prize. My mother,

Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag infallibly——at

least by twenty _knots._——Sport of small accidents, _Tristram Shandy!_

that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been for thee, and it

was fifty to one but it had,——thy affairs had not been so depress’d—(at

least by the depression of thy nose) as they have been; nor had the

fortunes of thy house and the occasions of making them, which have so

often presented themselves in the course of thy life, to thee, been so

often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so irrecoverably abandoned—as thou

hast been forced to leave them;——but ’tis over,——all but the account of

’em, which cannot be given to the curious till I am got out into the

world.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME

Tristram Shandy

_Tristram Shandy_

THE

LIFE AND OPINIONS

OF

TRISTRAM SHANDY,

GENTLEMAN

Volume the Second

Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia, meis tamen, rogo, parcant

opusculis——in quibus fuit propositi semper, a jocis ad seria, in seriis

vicissim ad jocos transire.

JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS,

_Episcopus Lugdun._

C H A P. I

GREAT wits jump: for the moment Dr. _Slop_ cast his eyes upon his bag

(which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle _Toby_ about

mid-wifery put him in mind of it)—the very same thought occurred.—’Tis

God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. _Shandy_ has had so bad a

time of it,——else she might have been brought to bed seven times told,

before one half of these knots could have got untied.——But here you

must distinguish—the thought floated only in Dr. _Slop_’s mind, without

sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as

your worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the

thin juice of a man’s understanding, without being carried backwards or

forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest drive them to

one side.

A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother’s bed, did the

proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that’s

unfortunate, quoth Dr. _Slop_, unless I make haste, the thing will

actually befall me as it is.

C H A P. II

IN the case of _knots_,—by which, in the first place, I would not be

understood to mean slip-knots—because in the course of my life and

opinions—my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I

mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. _Hammond Shandy_,—a

little man,—but of high fancy:—he rushed into the duke of _Monmouth_’s

affair:——nor, secondly, in this place, do I mean that particular

species of knots called bow-knots;—there is so little address, or

skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below

my giving any opinion at all about them.—But by the knots I am speaking

of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest,

devilish tight, hard knots, made _bona fide_, as _Obadiah_ made

his;——in which there is no quibbling provision made by the duplication

and return of the two ends of the strings thro’ the annulus or noose

made by the second _implication_ of them—to get them slipp’d and undone

by.——I hope you apprehend me.

In the case of these _knots_ then, and of the several obstructions,

which, may it please your reverences, such knots cast in our way in

getting through life——every hasty man can whip out his pen-knife and

cut through them.——’Tis wrong. Believe me, Sirs, the most virtuous way,

and which both reason and conscience dictate——is to take our teeth or

our fingers to them.——Dr. _Slop_ had lost his teeth—his favourite

instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some

misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a

hard labour, knock’d out three of the best of them with the handle of

it:——he tried his fingers—alas; the nails of his fingers and thumbs

were cut close.—The duce take it! I can make nothing of it either way,

cried Dr. _Slop._——The trampling over head near my mother’s bed-side

increased.—Pox take the fellow! I shall never get the knots untied as

long as I live.——My mother gave a groan.——Lend me your penknife—I must

e’en cut the knots at last——pugh!——psha!—Lord! I have cut my thumb

quite across to the very bone——curse the fellow—if there was not

another man-midwife within fifty miles——I am undone for this bout—I

wish the scoundrel hang’d—I wish he was shot——I wish all the devils in

hell had him for a blockhead!——

My father had a great respect for _Obadiah_, and could not bear to hear

him disposed of in such a manner—he had moreover some little respect

for himself—and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself

in it.

Had Dr. _Slop_ cut any part about him, but his thumb——my father had

pass’d it by—his prudence had triumphed: as it was, he was determined

to have his revenge.

Small curses, Dr. _Slop_, upon great occasions, quoth my father

(condoling with him first upon the accident) are but so much waste of

our strength and soul’s health to no manner of purpose.—I own it,

replied Dr. _Slop._—They are like sparrow-shot, quoth my uncle _Toby_

(suspending his whistling) fired against a bastion.——They serve,

continued my father, to stir the humours——but carry off none of their

acrimony:—for my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all—I hold it

bad——but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much

presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle _Toby_) as to make it answer my

purpose——that is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wife and a just

man however would always endeavour to proportion the vent given to

these humours, not only to the degree of them stirring within

himself—but to the size and ill intent of the offence upon which they

are to fall.—“_Injuries come only from the heart_,”—quoth my uncle

_Toby._ For this reason, continued my father, with the most

_Cervantick_ gravity, I have the greatest veneration in the world for

that gentleman, who, in distrust of his own discretion in this point,

sat down and composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of swearing

suitable to all cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which

could possibly happen to him——which forms being well considered by him,

and such moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the

chimney-piece, within his reach, ready for use.—I never apprehended,

replied Dr. _Slop_, that such a thing was ever thought of——much less

executed. I beg your pardon, answered my father; I was reading, though

not using, one of them to my brother _Toby_ this morning, whilst he

pour’d out the tea—’tis here upon the shelf over my head;—but if I

remember right, ’tis too violent for a cut of the thumb.—Not at all,

quoth Dr. _Slop_—the devil take the fellow.——Then, answered my father,

’Tis much at your service, Dr. _Slop_—on condition you will read it

aloud;——so rising up and reaching down a form of excommunication of the

church of _Rome_, a copy of which, my father (who was curious in his

collections) had procured out of the leger-book of the church of

_Rochester_, writ by ERNULPHUS the bishop——with a most affected

seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled ERNULPHUS

himself—he put it into Dr. _Slop_’s hands.——Dr. _Slop_ wrapt his thumb

up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with a wry face, though

without any suspicion, read aloud, as follows——my uncle _Toby_

whistling _Lillabullero_ as loud as he could all the time.

Textus de Ecclesiâ Roffensi, per Ernulfum Episcopum.

C A P. III

EXCOMMUNICATIO.[6]

EX auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus Sancti,

et sanctorum canonum, sanctæque et entemeratæ Virginis Dei genetricis

Mariae,—

——Atque omnium cœlestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum, thronorum,

dominationum, potestatuum, cherubin ac seraphin, & sanctorum

patriarchum, prophetarum, & omnium apolstolorum & evangelistarum, &

sanctorum innocentum, qui in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt

canticum cantare novum, et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum confessorum,

et sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et electorum

Dei,——Excommunicamus, et

       _vel_  os    s  _vel_ os

anathematizamus hunc furem, vel hunc

      s

malefactorem, N.N. et a liminibus sanctæ Dei ecclesiæ sequestramus, et

æternis

    _vel_ i     n

suppliciis excruciandus, mancipetur, cum Dathan et Abiram, et cum his

qui dixerunt Domino Deo, Recede à nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum

nolumus: et ficut aquâ ignis extinguatur lu-

  _vel_ eorum

cerna ejus in secula seculorum nisi resque-

 n                  n

rit, et ad satisfactionem venerit. Amen.

      os

Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui homi-

            os

nem creavit. Maledicat illum Dei Filius qui pro homine passus est.

Maledicat

 os

illum Spiritus Sanctus qui in baptismo ef-

            os

fusus est. Maledicat illum sancta crux, quam Christus pro nostrâ salute

hostem triumphans ascendit.

        os

Maledicat illum sancta Dei genetrix et

                     os

perpetua Virgo Maria. Maledicat illum sanctus Michael, animarum

susceptor sa-

            os

crarum. Maledicant illum omnes angeli et archangeli, principatus et

potestates, omnisque militia cœlestis.

       os

Maledicat illum patriarcharum et prophetarum laudabilis numerus.

Maledicat

  os

illum sanctus Johannes Præcursor et Baptista Christi, et sanctus

Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi

apostoli, simul et cæteri discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistæ, qui

sua prædicatione mundum universum converte-

           os

runt. Maledicat illum cuneus martyrum et confessorum mirificus, qui Deo

bonis operibus placitus inventus est.

      os

Maledicant illum sacrarum virginum chori, quæ mundi vana causa honoris

Christi respuenda contempserunt. Male-

     os

dicant illum omnes sancti qui ab initio mundi usque in finem seculi Deo

dilecti inveniuntur.

        os

Maledicant illum cœli et terra, et omnia sancta in eis manentia.

     i  n          n

Maledictus sit ubicunque, fuerit, sive in domo, sive in agro, sive in

viâ, sive in semitâ, sive in silvâ, sive in aquâ, sive in ecclesiâ.

     i  n

Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo,——

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

———      ———      ———

manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando,

dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando,

quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, flebotomando.

      i  n

Maledictus sit in totis viribus corporis.

      i  n

Maledictus sit intus et exterius.

      i  n           i

Maledictus sit in capillis; maledictus

n              i  n

sit in cerebro. Maledictus sit in vertice, in temporibus, in fronte, in

auriculis, in superciliis, in oculis, in genis, in maxillis, in

naribus, in dentibus, mordacibus, in labris sive molibus, in labiis, in

guttere, in humeris, in harnis, in brachiis, in manubus, in digitis, in

pectore, in corde, et in omnibus interioribus stomacho tenus, in

renibus, in inguinibus, in femore, in genitalibus, in coxis, in

genubus, in cruribus, in pedibus, et in unguibus.

Maledictus sit in totis compagibus membrorum, a vertice capitis, usque

ad plantam pedis—non sit in eo sanitas.

Maledicat illum Christus Filius Dei vivi toto suæ majestatis imperio——

—et insurgat adversus illum cœlum cum omnibus virtutibus quæ in eo

moventur ad _damnandum_ eum, nisi penituerit et ad satisfactionem

venerit.  Amen.

Fiat, fiat.  Amen.

[6] As the geniuneness of the consultation of the Sorbonne upon the

question of baptism, was doubted by some, and denied by others——’twas

thought proper to print the original of this excommunication; for the

copy of which Mr. _Shandy_ returns thanks to the chapter clerk of the

dean and chapter of _Rochester._

C H A P. IV

“BY the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and

of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and

patroness of our Saviour.” I think there is no necessity, quoth Dr.

_Slop_, dropping the paper down to his knee, and addressing himself to

my father——as you have read it over, Sir, so lately, to read it

aloud——and as Captain _Shandy_ seems to have no great inclination to

hear it——I may as well read it to myself. That’s contrary to treaty,

replied my father:——besides, there is something so whimsical,

especially in the latter part of it, I should grieve to lose the

pleasure of a second reading. Dr. _Slop_ did not altogether like

it,——but my uncle _Toby_ offering at that instant to give over

whistling, and read it himself to them;——Dr. _Slop_ thought he might as

well read it under the cover of my uncle _Toby_’s whistling——as suffer

my uncle _Toby_ to read it alone;——so raising up the paper to his face,

and holding it quite parallel to it, in order to hide his chagrin——he

read it aloud as follows——my uncle _Toby_ whistling _Lillabullero_,

though not quite so loud as before.

“By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and

of the undefiled Virgin _Mary_, mother and patroness of our Saviour,

and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones,

dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy

patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of

the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy

to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of

the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and

elect of God,—May he” (_Obadiah_) “be damn’d” (for tying these

knots)——“We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the

thresholds of the holy “church of God Almighty we sequester him, that

he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with _Dathan_ and

_Abiram_, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we

desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the

light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him”

(_Obadiah_, of the knots which he has tied) “and make satisfaction”

(for them) “Amen.”

“May the Father who created man, curse him.——May the Son who suffered

for us curse him.——May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism,

curse him” (_Obadiah_)——“May the holy cross which Christ, for our

salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him.

“May the holy and eternal Virgin _Mary_, mother of God, curse him.——May

St. _Michael_, the advocate of holy souls, curse him.——May all the

angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly

armies, curse him.” [Our armies swore terribly in _Flanders_, cried my

uncle _Toby_,——but nothing to this.——For my own part I could not have a

heart to curse my dog so.]

“May St. John, the Præcursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter

and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ’s apostles, together

curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who

by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and

wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are

found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him’ (_Obadiah_.)

“May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ

have despised the things of the world, damn him——May all the saints,

who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be

beloved of God, damn him—

“May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein,

damn him,” (_Obadiah_) “or her,” (or whoever else had a hand in tying

these knots.)

“May he (_Obadiah_) be damn’d wherever he be——whether in the house or

the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path,

or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.——May he be cursed in

living, in dying.” [Here my uncle _Toby_, taking the advantage of a

_minim_ in the second bar of his tune, kept whistling one continued

note to the end of the sentence.——Dr. _Slop_, with his division of

curses moving under him, like a running bass all the way.] “May he be

cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in

fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in

sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and

in blood-letting!

“May he” (_Obadiah_) “be cursed in all the faculties of his body!

“May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly!——May he be cursed in the hair

of his head!——May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex,” (that

is a sad curse, quoth my father) “in his temples, in his forehead, in

his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his

nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat,

in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his

fingers!

“May he be damn’d in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and

purtenance, down to the very stomach!

“May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin,” (God in heaven

forbid! quoth my uncle _Toby_) “in his thighs, in his genitals,” (my

father shook his head) “and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs,

and feet, and toe- nails!

“May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members,

from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no

soundness in him!

“May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his

Majesty”——(Here my uncle _Toby_, throwing back his head, gave a

monstrous, long, loud Whew—w—w———something betwixt the interjectional

whistle of _Hay-day!_ and the word itself.——

——By the golden beard of _Jupiter_—and of _Juno_ (if her majesty wore

one) and by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by

the bye was no small number, since what with the beards of your

celestial gods, and gods aerial and aquatick—to say nothing of the

beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the celestial goddesses

your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and concubines

(that is in case they wore them)——all which beards, as _Varro_ tells

me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less

than thirty thousand effective beards upon the Pagan

establishment;——every beard of which claimed the rights and privileges

of being stroken and sworn by—by all these beards together then——I vow

and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I

would have given the better of them, as freely as ever _Cid Hamet_

offered his——to have stood by, and heard my uncle _Toby_’s

accompanyment.

——“curse him!”—continued Dr. _Slop_,—“and may heaven, with all the

powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him”

(_Obadiah_) “unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,—so

be it. Amen.”

I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, my heart would not let me curse the

devil himself with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses,

replied Dr. _Slop_.——So am not I, replied my uncle.——But he is cursed,

and damn’d already, to all eternity, replied Dr. _Slop_.

I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle _Toby_.

Dr. _Slop_ drew up his mouth, and wasjust beginning to return my uncle

_Toby_ the compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle——when

the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one——put an end to the

affair.

C H A P. V

NOW don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the

oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own;

and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had

the wit to invent them too.

I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except

to a connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in

swearing,——as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the

whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and

trinkets of criticism,——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a

pity——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;—their

heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that

eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of

genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and

tortured to death by ’em.

—And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all

rule, my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the

adjective, which should agree together in _number, case_, and _gender_,

he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and

betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern

the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three

seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.—Admirable

grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended

likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the

chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?——I look’d only at

the stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer!

And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh!

’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of

the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and

compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critick!

——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the

length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon

an exact scale of _Bossu_’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its

dimensions.—Admirable connoisseur!

——And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way

back?—’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid

in any one group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the

colouring of _Titian_—the expression of _Rubens_—the grace of

_Raphael_—the purity of _Dominichino_—the _corregiescity_ of

_Corregio_—the learning of _Poussin_—the airs of _Guido_—the taste of

the _Carrachis_—or the grand contour of _Angelo._—Grant me patience,

just Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting

world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst——the cant of

criticism is the most tormenting!

I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on,

to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the

reins of his imagination into his author’s hands——be pleased he knows

not why, and cares not wherefore.

Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour—give me—I ask no more,

but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire

along with it——and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if

he can be spared, with my compliments to—no matter.

Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and

imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these

two hundred and fifty years last past as originals——except _St. Paul’s

thumb_——_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical,

and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths,

’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;—else I say, there

is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been

copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times: but,

like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of

the original!—it is thought to be no bad oath——and by itself passes

very well—“_G—d damn you._”—Set it beside _Ernulphus_’s——“God almighty

the Father damn you—God the Son damn you—God the Holy Ghost damn

you”—you see ’tis nothing.—There is an orientality in his, we cannot

rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention—possess’d more

of the excellencies of a swearer——had such a thorough knowledge of the

human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints,

and articulations,—that when _Ernulphus_ cursed—no part escaped

him.—’Tis true there is something of a _hardness_ in his manner——and,

as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of grace——but then there is such a

greatness of _gusto!_

My father, who generally look’d upon every thing in a light very

different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an

original.——He considered rather _Ernulphus_’s anathema, as an institute

of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of _swearing_

in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the succeeding

pope, had with great learning and diligence collected together all the

laws of it;—for the same reason that _Justinian_, in the decline of the

empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to collect the _Roman_

or civil laws all together into one code or digest——lest, through the

rust of time——and the fatality of all things committed to oral

tradition—they should be lost to the world for ever.

For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath

from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the conqueror (_By the

splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your

eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus._—In short, he would

add—I defy a man to swear _out_ of it.

The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious

too;——nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.

C H A P. VI

——BLESS my soul!—my poor mistress is ready to faint——and her pains are

gone—and the drops are done—and the bottle of julap is broke——and the

nurse has cut her arm—(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. _Slop_,) and the

child is where it was, continued _Susannah_,—and the midwife has fallen

backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip as black as

your hat.—I’ll look at it, quoth Dr _Slop_.—There is no need of that,

replied _Susannah_,—you had better look at my mistress—but the midwife

would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you

would go up stairs and speak to her this moment.

Human nature is the same in all professions.

The midwife had just before been put over Dr. _Slop_’s head—He had not

digested it.—No, replied Dr. _Slop_, ’twould be full as proper if the

midwife came down to me.—I like subordination, quoth my uncle

_Toby_,—and but for it, after the reduction of _Lisle_, I know not what

might have become of the garrison of _Ghent_, in the mutiny for bread,

in the year Ten.—Nor, replied Dr. _Slop_, (parodying my uncle _Toby_’s

hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical himself)——do I

know, Captain _Shandy_, what might have become of the garrison above

stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at

present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to ******——the

application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so _à

propos_, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by

the _Shandy_ family, as long as the _Shandy_ family had a name.

C H A P. VII

LET us go back to the ******——in the last chapter.

It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when

eloquence flourished at _Athens_ and _Rome_, and would be so now, did

orators wear mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had

the thing about you _in petto_, ready to produce, pop, in the place you

want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a

pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle

pot—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.—Tho’ if it was

too young, and the oration as long as _Tully_’s second _Philippick_—it

must certainly have beshit the orator’s mantle.—And then again, if too

old,—it must have been unwieldly and incommodious to his action—so as

to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by

it.—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the precise age to a

minute——hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could

smell it——and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it

came in by head and shoulders—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders—It has

open’d the sluices, and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles,

and unhinged the politicks of half a nation.

These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and

times, I say, where orators wore mantles——and pretty large ones too, my

brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple,

superfine, marketable cloth in them—with large flowing folds and

doubles, and in a great style of design.—All which plainly shews, may

it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little

good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is

owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of

_trunk-hose._—We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.

C H A P. VIII

DR. _Slop_ was within an ace of being an exception to all this

argumentation: for happening to have his green baize bag upon his

knees, when he began to parody my uncle _Toby_—’twas as good as the

best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the

sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into

the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, when your reverences

took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed——my uncle _Toby_

had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the argument in that

case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the

salient angle of a ravelin,——Dr. _Slop_ would never have given them

up;—and my uncle _Toby_ would as soon have thought of flying, as taking

them by force: but Dr. _Slop_ fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it

took off the whole effect, and what was a ten times worse evil (for

they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his _forceps_, his

_forceps_ unfortunately drew out the _squirt_ along with it.

When a proposition can be taken in two senses—’tis a law in

disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he

pleases, or finds most convenient for him.——This threw the advantage of

the argument quite on my uncle _Toby_’s side.—“Good God!” cried my

uncle _Toby_, “_are children brought into the world with a squirt?_”

C H A P. IX

—UPON my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the

back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle _Toby_—and you

have crush’d all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly.

’Tis your own fault, said Dr. _Slop_——you should have clinch’d your two

fists together into the form of a child’s head as I told you, and sat

firm.—I did so, answered my uncle _Toby_.——Then the points of my

forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing—or

else the cut on my thumb has made me a little aukward—or possibly—’Tis

well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities—that

the experiment was not first made upon my child’s head-piece.——It would

not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. _Slop_.—I maintain

it, said my uncle _Toby_, it would have broke the cerebellum (unless

indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turn’d it all into

a perfect posset.——Pshaw! replied Dr. _Slop_, a child’s head is

naturally as soft as the pap of an apple;—the sutures give way—and

besides, I could have extracted by the feet after.—Not you, said

she.——I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father.

Pray do, added my uncle _Toby_.

C H A P. X

——AND pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it

may not be the child’s hip, as well as the child’s head?——’Tis most

certainly the head, replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. _Slop_

(turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally

are—’tis a point very difficult to know—and yet of the greatest

consequence to be known;——because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for the

head—there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps * * * * *

* * * * * * * * *

——What the possibility was, Dr. _Slop_ whispered very low to my father,

and then to my uncle _Toby_.——There is no such danger, continued he,

with the head.—No, in truth quoth my father—but when your possibility

has taken place at the hip—you may as well take off the head too.

——It is morally impossible the reader should understand this——’tis

enough Dr. _Slop_ understood it;——so taking the green baize bag in his

hand, with the help of _Obadiah_’s pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for

a man of his size, across the room to the door——and from the door was

shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother’s apartments.

C H A P. XI

IT is two hours, and ten minutes—and no more—cried my father, looking

at his watch, since Dr. _Slop_ and _Obadiah_ arrived—and I know not how

it happens, Brother _Toby_—but to my imagination it seems almost an

age.

——Here—pray, Sir, take hold of my cap—nay, take the bell along with it,

and my pantoufles too.

Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present

of ’em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter.

Though my father said, “_he knew not how it happen’d_,”—yet he knew

very well how it happen’d;——and at the instant he spoke it, was

pre-determined in his mind to give my uncle _Toby_ a clear account of

the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of _duration

and its simple modes_, in order to shew my uncle _Toby_ by what

mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid

succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse

from one thing to another, since Dr. _Slop_ had come into the room, had

lengthened out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent.——“I

know not how it happens—cried my father,—but it seems an age.”

——’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle _Toby_, to the succession of our

ideas.

My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of

reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it

too—proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of

ideas, and had not the least apprehension of having it snatch’d out of

his hands by my uncle _Toby_, who (honest man!) generally took every

thing as it happened;——and who, of all things in the world, troubled

his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and

space—or how we came by those ideas—or of what stuff they were made——or

whether they were born with us—or we picked them up afterwards as we

went along—or whether we did it in frocks——or not till we had got into

breeches—with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about INFINITY

PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth, upon whose desperate and

unconquerable theories so many fine heads have been turned and

cracked——never did my uncle _Toby_’s the least injury at all; my father

knew it—and was no less surprized than he was disappointed, with my

uncle’s fortuitous solution.

Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.

Not I, quoth my uncle.

—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?

No more than my horse, replied my uncle _Toby_.

Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two

hands together——there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother

_Toby_——’twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll

tell thee.——

To understand what time is aright, without which we never can

comprehend _infinity_, insomuch as one is a portion of the other——we

ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of

_duration_, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by

it.——What is that to any body? quoth my uncle _Toby_.[7] _For if you

will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind_, continued my father, _and

observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I

are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we

receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and

so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of

ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succession of any

ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing

co-existing with our thinking——and so according to that

preconceived_——You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle _Toby_.

——’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of

time, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months——and of

clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out

their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us——that

’twill be well, if in time to come, the _succession of our ideas_ be of

any use or service to us at all.

Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound

man’s head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or

other, which follow each other in train just like——A train of

artillery? said my uncle _Toby_——A train of a fiddle-stick!—quoth my

father—which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain

distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned

round by the heat of a candle.—I declare, quoth my uncle _Toby_, mine

are more like a smoke-jack.——Then, brother _Toby_, I have nothing more

to say to you upon that subject, said my father.

[7] Vide Locke.

C H A P. XII

——WHAT a conjuncture was here lost!——My father in one of his best

explanatory moods—in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the

very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have

encompassed it about;—my uncle _Toby_ in one of the finest dispositions

for it in the world;—his head like a smoke-jack;——the funnel unswept,

and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and

darkened over with fuliginous matter!—By the tomb-stone of _Lucian_——if

it is in being——if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear

_Rabelais_, and dearer _Cervantes!_——my father and my uncle _Toby_’s

discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY——was a discourse devoutly to be wished

for! and the petulancy of my father’s humour, in putting a stop to it

as he did, was a robbery of the _Ontologic Treasury_ of such a jewel,

as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to

restore to it again.

C H A P. XIII

THO’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse—yet he

could not get my uncle _Toby_’s smoke-jack out of his head—piqued as he

was at first with it;—there was something in the comparison at the

bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon

the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of

his hand——but looking first stedfastly in the fire——he began to commune

with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out

with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant

exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken

their turn in the discourse——the idea of the smoke jack soon turned all

his ideas upside down—so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what

he was about.

As for my uncle _Toby_, his smoke-jack had not made a dozen

revolutions, before he fell asleep also.——Peace be with them both!——Dr.

_Slop_ is engaged with the midwife and my mother above stairs.——_Trim_

is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars,

to be employed in the siege of _Messina_ next summer—and is this

instant boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker.——All my

heroes are off my hands;—’tis the first time I have had a moment to

spare—and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface.

The A U T H O R ’s P R E F A C E

NO, I’ll not say a word about it——here it is;—in publishing it—I have

appealed to the world——and to the world I leave it;—it must speak for

itself.

All I know of the matter is—when I sat down, my intent was to write a

good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold

out—a wise, aye, and a discreet—taking care only, as I went along, to

put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the

great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give

me——so that, as your worships see—’tis just as God pleases.

Now, _Agalastes_ (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be

some wit in it, for aught he knows——but no judgment at all. And

_Triptolemus_ and _Phutatorius_ agreeing thereto, ask, How is it

possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go

together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other

as wide as east from west——So, says _Locke_——so are farting and

hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, _Didius_ the great church

lawyer, in his code _de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis_, doth

maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no

argument——nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean to be a

syllogism;—but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for

it——so that the main good these things do is only to clarify the

understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in

order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular matter,

which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil

all.

Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and

fellow-labourers (for to you I write this Preface)——and to you, most

subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do—pull off your beards)

renowned for gravity and wisdom;——_Monopolus_, my politician—_Didius_,

my counsel; _Kysarcius_, my friend;—_Phutatorius_, my

guide;——_Gastripheres_, the preserver of my life; _Somnolentius_, the

balm and repose of it——not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as

waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no

resentment to you, I lump all together.——Believe me, right worthy,

My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own

too, in case the thing is not done already for us——is, that the great

gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with every thing which

usually goes along with them——such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence,

quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without stint or

measure, let or hindrance, be poured down warm as each of us could bear

it—scum and sediment and all (for I would not have a drop lost) into

the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories,

refectories, and spare places of our brains——in such sort, that they

might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according to the true

intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great

and small, be so replenish’d, saturated, and filled up therewith, that

no more, would it save a man’s life, could possibly be got either in or

out.

Bless us!—what noble work we should make!——how should I tickle it

off!——and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for

such readers!——and you—just heaven!——with what raptures would you sit

and read—but oh!—’tis too much——I am sick——I faint away deliciously at

the thoughts of it—’tis more than nature can bear!—lay hold of me——I am

giddy—I am stone blind—I’m dying—I am gone.—Help! Help! Help!—But

hold—I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when

this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits—we

should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an end:——there would

be so much satire and sarcasm——scoffing and flouting, with raillying

and reparteeing of it—thrusting and parrying in one corner or

another——there would be nothing but mischief among us——Chaste stars!

what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should

make, what with breaking of heads, rapping of knuckles, and hitting of

sore places—there would be no such thing as living for us.

But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we

should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we

should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or

devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy

and kindness, milk and honey—’twould be a second land of promise—a

paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had—so that upon

the whole we should have done well enough.

All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at

present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships

well know, that of these heavenly emanations of _wit_ and _judgment_,

which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and

myself—there is but a certain _quantum_ stored up for us all, for the

use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of

’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and

there in one bye corner or another—and in such narrow streams, and at

such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it

holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so

many great estates, and populous empires.

Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in _Nova Zembla, North

Lapland_, and in all those cold and dreary tracks of the globe, which

lie more directly under the arctick and antartick circles, where the

whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months

together within the narrow compass of his cave—where the spirits are

compressed almost to nothing—and where the passions of a man, with

every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone

itself—there the least quantity of _judgment_ imaginable does the

business——and of _wit_——there is a total and an absolute saving—for as

not one spark is wanted—so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers

of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have been to have

governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a

match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter

there, with so _plentiful a lack_ of wit and judgment about us! For

mercy’s sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as

we can southwards into _Norway_—crossing over _Swedeland_, if you

please, through the small triangular province of _Angermania_ to the

lake of _Bothmia_; coasting along it through east and west _Bothnia_,

down to _Carelia_, and so on, through all those states and provinces

which border upon the far side of the _Gulf_ of _Finland_, and the

north-east of the _Baltick_, up to _Petersbourg_, and just stepping

into _Ingria_;—then stretching over directly from thence through the

north parts of the _Russian_ empire—leaving _Siberia_ a little upon the

left hand, till we got into the very heart of _Russian_ and _Asiatick

Tartary._

Now through this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good

people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have

just left:—for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very

attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of

wit, with a comfortable provision of good plain houshold judgment,

which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very

good shift with——and had they more of either the one or the other, it

would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am satisfied

moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.

Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more

luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and

humours runs high——where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy,

and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and

subject to reason——the _height_ of our wit, and the _depth_ of our

judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the _length_ and

_breadth_ of our necessities——and accordingly we have them sent down

amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and creditable plenty, that

no one thinks he has any cause to complain.

It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot

and cold—wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular

and settled way;—so that sometimes for near half a century together,

there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard

of amongst us:——the small channels of them shall seem quite dried

up——then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of

running again like fury——you would think they would never stop:——and

then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant

things, we drive all the world before us.

It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that

kind of argumentative process, which _Suidas_ calls _dialectick

induction_——that I draw and set up this position as most true and

veritable;

That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered

from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom

which dispenses every thing in exact weight and measure, knows will

just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so

that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment

longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in

your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first

insinuating _How d’ye_ of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as

a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could

this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium

wished it—I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted

travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and

blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives——running their

heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting

to their journies end;——some falling with their noses perpendicularly

into sinks——others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one

half of a learned profession tilting full but against the other half of

it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like

hogs.—Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in

opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild

geese, all in a row the same way.—What confusion!—what

mistakes!——fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and

ears—admirable!—trusting to the passions excited—in an air sung, or a

story painted to the heart——instead of measuring them by a quadrant.

In the fore-ground of this picture, a _statesman_ turning the political

wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round——_against_ the stream of

corruption—by Heaven!——instead of _with_ it.

In this corner, a son of the divine _Esculapius_, writing a book

against predestination; perhaps worse—feeling his patient’s pulse,

instead of his apothecary’s——a brother of the Faculty in the

back-ground upon his knees in tears—drawing the curtains of a mangled

victim to beg his forgiveness;—offering a fee—instead of taking one.

In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of

it, driving a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all

their might and main, the wrong way!——kicking it _out_ of the great

doors, instead of, _in_——and with such fury in their looks, and such a

degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had

been originally made for the peace and preservation of

mankind:——perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still——a

litigated point fairly hung up;——for instance, Whether _John o’Nokes_

his nose could stand in _Tom o’Stiles_ his face, without a trespass, or

not—rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with

the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might

have taken up as many months——and if carried on upon a military plan,

as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems

practicable therein,——such as feints,—forced

marches,—surprizes—ambuscades—mask-batteries, and a thousand other

strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on

both sides——might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding

food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.

As for the Clergy——No——if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.——I

have no desire; and besides, if I had—I durst not for my soul touch

upon the subject——with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the

condition I am in at present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth,

to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account—and

therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as

fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to

clear up——and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least

_wit_ are reported to be men of most _judgment._——But mark—I say,

_reported to be_—for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and

which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to

be a vile and a malicious report into the bargain.

This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope

already weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall

forthwith make appear.

I hate set dissertations——and above all things in the world, ’tis one

of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by

placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right

line, betwixt your own and your reader’s conception—when in all

likelihood, if you had looked about, you might have seen something

standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point at

once—“for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of

knowledge bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool,

a winter-mittain, a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s

crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper, or a cane chair?”—I am this

moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustrate this

affair of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top of the back of

it?—they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into

two gimlet-holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a

light, as to let you see through the drift and meaning of my whole

preface, as plainly as if every point and particle of it was made up of

sun-beams.

I enter now directly upon the point.

—Here stands _wit_—and there stands _judgment_, close beside it, just

like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same

chair on which I am sitting.

—You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its

_frame_—as wit and judgment are of _ours_—and like them too,

indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in

all such cases of duplicated embellishments——_to answer one another._

Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating

this matter—let us for a moment take off one of these two curious

ornaments (I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it

now stands on—nay, don’t laugh at it,—but did you ever see, in the

whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made

of it?—Why, ’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there

is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the

other:——do——pray, get off your seats only to take a view of it,——Now

would any man who valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of

work out of his hand in such a condition?——nay, lay your hands upon

your hearts, and answer this plain question, Whether this one single

knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any

purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the

other?—and let me farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you

would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it

would be ten times better without any knob at all?

Now these two knobs——or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown

the whole entablature——being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all

others, as I have proved it, are the most needful——the most priz’d—the

most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest to come

at—for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal among us,

so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding——or so ignorant of what

will do him good therein—who does not wish and stedfastly resolve in

his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of the one or

the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems any way

feasible, or likely to be brought to pass.

Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at

the one—unless they laid hold of the other,——pray what do you think

would become of them?——Why, Sirs, in spite of all their _gravities_,

they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides

naked——this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to

be supposed in the case we are upon——so that no one could well have

been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they

could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great

perriwigs, had they not raised a _hue_ and _cry_ at the same time

against the lawful owners.

I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning

and artifice——that the great _Locke_, who was seldom outwitted by false

sounds——was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep

and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces,

and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one against

the _poor wits_ in this matter, that the philosopher himself was

deceived by it—it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a

thousand vulgar errors;——but this was not of the number; so that

instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done,

to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it—on

the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the

cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest.

This has been made the _Magna Charta_ of stupidity ever since——but your

reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that the

title to it is not worth a groat:——which by-the-bye is one of the many

and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer for

hereafter.

As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind

too freely——I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said

to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration —That I

have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great

wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and

let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture—for any

purpose——peace be with them!— =>mark only——I write not for them.

C H A P. XIV

EVERY day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have

it mended—’tis not mended yet;—no family but ours would have borne with

it an hour——and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in

the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of

door-hinges.——And yet at the same time, he was certainly one of the

greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce: his

rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs.—Never did the

parlour-door open—but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to

it;——three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer,

had saved his honour for ever.

——Inconsistent soul that man is!——languishing under wounds, which he

has the power to heal!—his whole life a contradiction to his

knowledge!—his reason, that precious gift of God to him—(instead of

pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen his sensibilities—to multiply

his pains, and render him more melancholy and uneasy under them!—Poor

unhappy creature, that he should do so!——Are not the necessary causes

of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his

stock of sorrow;—struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and

submit to others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him

would remove from his heart for ever?

By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be

got, and a hammer to be found within ten miles of _Shandy Hall_——the

parlour door hinge shall be mended this reign.

C H A P. XV

WHEN Corporal _Trim_ had brought his two mortars to bear, he was

delighted with his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a

pleasure it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to

resist the desire he had of carrying them directly into his parlour.

Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of

_hinges_, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it

is this.

Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door

should do—

Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its

hinges——(that is, in case things have all along gone well with your

worship,—otherwise I give up my simile)—in this case, I say, there had

been no danger either to master or man, in corporal _Trim_’s peeping

in: the moment he had beheld my father and my uncle _Toby_ fast

asleep—the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have

retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs,

dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally

speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this

hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly

grievances my father submitted to upon its account—this was one; that

he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts

of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should open the

door, was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly

stepp’d in betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to

rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets of it.

“_When things move upon bad hinges_, an’ please your lordships, _how

can it be otherwise?”_

Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the

moment the door began to creak.——I wish the smith would give a peep at

that confounded hinge.——’Tis nothing, an please your honour, said

_Trim_, but two mortars I am bringing in.—They shan’t make a clatter

with them here, cried my father hastily.—If Dr. _Slop_ has any drugs to

pound, let him do it in the kitchen.—May it please your honour, cried

_Trim_, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which I

have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which _Obadiah_ told me

your honour had left off wearing.—By Heaven! cried my father, springing

out of his chair, as he swore——I have not one appointment belonging to

me, which I set so much store by as I do by these jack-boots——they were

our great grandfather’s brother _Toby_—they were _hereditary._ Then I

fear, quoth my uncle _Toby, Trim_ has cut off the entail.—I have only

cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried _Trim_——I hate

perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father——but these

jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time)

have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil wars;——Sir

_Roger Shandy_ wore them at the battle of _Marston-Moor._—I declare I

would not have taken ten pounds for them.——I’ll pay you the money,

brother _Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking at the two mortars

with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches pocket

as he viewed them——I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment with all my

heart and soul.——

Brother _Toby_, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what

money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but

upon a SIEGE.——Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides

my half pay? cried my uncle _Toby_.—What is that—replied my father

hastily—to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots?—twelve guineas for your

_pontoons_?—half as much for your _Dutch_ draw-bridge?—to say nothing

of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last week, with

twenty other preparations for the siege of _Messina_: believe me, dear

brother _Toby_, continued my father, taking him kindly by the

hand—these military operations of yours are above your strength;—you

mean well brother——but they carry you into greater expences than you

were first aware of;—and take my word, dear _Toby_, they will in the

end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you.—What signifies

it if they do, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, so long as we know

’tis for the good of the nation?——

My father could not help smiling for his soul—his anger at the worst

was never more than a spark;—and the zeal and simplicity of _Trim_—and

the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle _Toby_,

brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant.

Generous souls!—God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth

my father to himself.

C H A P. XVI

ALL is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs—I hear

not one foot stirring.—Prithee _Trim_, who’s in the kitchen? There is

no one soul in the kitchen, answered _Trim_, making a low bow as he

spoke, except Dr. _Slop_.—Confusion! cried my father (getting upon his

legs a second time)—not one single thing has gone right this day! had I

faith in astrology, brother, (which, by the bye, my father had) I would

have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate

house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its

place.——Why, I thought Dr. _Slop_ had been above stairs with my wife,

and so said you.——What can the fellow be puzzling about in the

kitchen!—He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied _Trim_, in making

a bridge.——’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle _Toby_:——pray,

give my humble service to Dr. _Slop, Trim_, and tell him I thank him

heartily.

You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge—as widely as my

father mistook the mortars:——but to understand how my uncle _Toby_

could mistake the bridge—I fear I must give you an exact account of the

road which led to it;—or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more

dishonest in an historian than the use of one)——in order to conceive

the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must give

you some account of an adventure of _Trim_’s, though much against my

will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense,

is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in,

either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby_’s amours with widow

_Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor—or else in the

middle of his and my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns on the bowling-green—for

it will do very well in either place;—but then if I reserve it for

either of those parts of my story——I ruin the story I’m upon;——and if I

tell it here——I anticipate matters, and ruin it there.

—What would your worship have me to do in this case?

—Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means.—You are a fool, _Tristram_, if

you do.

O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)—which enable

mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing——that kindly shew him,

where he is to begin it—and where he is to end it——what he is to put

into it——and what he is to leave out—how much of it he is to cast into

a shade—and whereabouts he is to throw his light!—Ye, who preside over

this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes

and plunges your subjects hourly fall into;——will you do one thing?

I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that

wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three

several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here——that at

least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity,

to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take.

C H A P. XVII

THO’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition

of _Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a

resolution never more to think of the sex—or of aught which belonged to

it;—yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed

in my uncle _Toby_’s case there was a strange and unaccountable

concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay

siege to that fair and strong citadel.——In _Trim_’s case there was a

concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the

kitchen;—though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master

was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had

my uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points——I am

persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and

followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat

down before the mistress—corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground

before the maid.

Now, my dear friend _Garrick_, whom I have so much cause to esteem and

honour—(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)—can it escape your

penetration—I defy it—that so many play-wrights, and opificers of

chit-chat have ever since been working upon _Trim_’s and my uncle

_Toby_’s pattern.——I care not what _Aristotle_, or _Pacuvius_, or

_Bossu_, or _Ricaboni_ say—(though I never read one of them)——there is

not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam

_Pompadour_’s _vis-a-vis;_ than betwixt a single amour, and an amour

thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a

grand drama——Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind—is quite

lost in five acts—but that is neither here nor there.

After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my

uncle _Toby_’s quarter, a most minute account of every particular of

which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle _Toby_, honest man!

found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat

indignantly.

Corporal _Trim_, as I said, had made no such bargain either with

himself——or with any one else——the fidelity however of his heart not

suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with

disgust——he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a

blockade;—that is, he kept others off;—for though he never after went

to the house, yet he never met _Bridget_ in the village, but he would

either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her—or (as

circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand—or ask her

lovingly how she did—or would give her a ribbon—and now-and-then,

though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give

_Bridget_ a—

Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years;

that is from the demolition of _Dunkirk_ in the year 13, to the latter

end of my uncle _Toby_’s campaign in the year 18, which was about six

or seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of.——When _Trim_, as his

custom was, after he had put my uncle _Toby_ to bed, going down one

moon-shiny night to see that every thing was right at his

fortifications——in the lane separated from the bowling-green with

flowering shrubs and holly—he espied his _Bridget._

As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth

shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle _Toby_ had made,

_Trim_ courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in:

this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of

Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s,

with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle _Toby_’s

curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the _Dutch_ fashion,

and which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and somehow or

other crushed all to pieces that very night.

My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle

_Toby_’s hobby-horse; he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever

gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle _Toby_ vexed him about

it, could never think of it once, without smiling at it——so that it

could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my

father’s imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much

more to his humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an

inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him——Well——but dear _Toby!_ my

father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge

happened.——How can you teaze me so much about it? my uncle _Toby_ would

reply—I have told it you twenty times, word for word as _Trim_ told it

me.—Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, turning to

_Trim._—It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour;——I was

shewing Mrs. _Bridget_ our fortifications, and in going too near the

edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in——Very well, _Trim!_ my

father would cry——(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod—but without

interrupting him)——and being link’d fast, an’ please your honour, arm

in arm with Mrs. _Bridget_, I dragg’d her after me, by means of which

she fell backwards soss against the bridge——and _Trim_’s foot (my uncle

_Toby_ would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the

cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.—It was a thousand to

one, my uncle _Toby_ would add, that the poor fellow did not break his

leg.——Ay truly, my father would say——a limb is soon broke, brother

_Toby_, in such encounters.——And so, an’ please your honour, the

bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down

betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.

At other times, but especially when my uncle _Toby_ was so unfortunate

as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards—my father would

exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great)

in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients—the VINEA which

_Alexander_ made use of at the siege of Troy.—He would tell my uncle

_Toby_ of the CATAPULTÆ of the _Syrians_, which threw such monstrous

stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from

their very foundation:—he would go on and describe the wonderful

mechanism of the BALLISTA which _Marcellinus_ makes so much rout

about!—the terrible effects of the PYRABOLI, which cast fire;—the

danger of the TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins.——But what are

these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal

_Trim_?—Believe me, brother _Toby_, no bridge, or bastion, or

sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out

against such artillery.

My uncle _Toby_ would never attempt any defence against the force of

this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his

pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after

supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a

suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle _Toby_ leap’d up without

feeling the pain upon his groin—and, with infinite pity, stood beside

his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his

head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean

cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket.——The

affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle _Toby_ did these

little offices—cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just

been giving him.——May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram or

a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself—if ever I

insult this worthy soul more!

C H A P. XVIII

THE draw-bridge being held irreparable, _Trim_ was ordered directly to

set about another——but not upon the same model: for cardinal

_Alberoni_’s intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle

_Toby_ rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out

betwixt _Spain_ and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing

campaign must in all likelihood be either in _Naples_ or _Sicily_——he

determined upon an _Italian_ bridge—(my uncle _Toby_, by-the-bye, was

not far out of his conjectures)——but my father, who was infinitely the

better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle _Toby_ in the

cabinet, as my uncle _Toby_ took it of him in the field——convinced him,

that if the king of _Spain_ and the Emperor went together by the ears,

_England_ and _France_ and _Holland_ must, by force of their

pre-engagements, all enter the lists too;——and if so, he would say, the

combatants, brother _Toby_, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it

again, pell-mell, upon the old prize-fighting stage of _Flanders;_—then

what will you do with your _Italian_ bridge?

—We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle _Toby_.

When corporal _Trim_ had about half finished it in that style——my uncle

_Toby_ found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly

considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it,

opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the

fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was this,

that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it

impowered my uncle _Toby_ to raise it up or let it down with the end of

his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as

much as he could well spare—but the disadvantages of such a

construction were insurmountable;——for by this means, he would say, I

leave one half of my bridge in my enemy’s possession——and pray of what

use is the other?

The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only

at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together,

and stand bolt upright——but that was rejected for the reason given

above.

For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of

that particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally,

to hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage—of

which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at _Spires_

before its destruction—and one now at _Brisac_, if I mistake not;—but

my father advising my uncle _Toby_, with great earnestness, to have

nothing more to do with thrusting bridges—and my uncle foreseeing

moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal’s

misfortune—he changed his mind for that of the marquis _d’Hôpital_ ’s

invention, which the younger _Bernouilli_ has so well and learnedly

described, as your worships may see——_Act. Erud. Lips._ an. 1695—to

these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a

couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve

line approximating to a cycloid——if not a cycloid itself.

My uncle _Toby_ understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man

in _England_—but was not quite such a master of the cycloid;——he talked

however about it every day——the bridge went not forwards.——We’ll ask

somebody about it, cried my uncle _Toby_ to _Trim._

C H A P. XIX

WHEN _Trim_ came in and told my father, that Dr. _Slop_ was in the

kitchen, and busy in making a bridge—my uncle _Toby_——the affair of the

jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his

brain——took it instantly for granted that Dr. _Slop_ was making a model

of the marquis _d’Hôpital_ ’s bridge.——’tis very obliging in him, quoth

my uncle _Toby_;—pray give my humble service to Dr. _Slop_, _Trim_, and

tell him I thank him heartily.

Had my uncle _Toby_’s head been a _Savoyard_ ’s box, and my father

peeping in all the time at one end of it——it could not have given him a

more distinct conception of the operations of my uncle _Toby_’s

imagination, than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and

battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just

beginning to triumph——

When _Trim_’s answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows,

and twisted it to pieces.

C H A P. XX

——THIS unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father——God bless

your honour, cried _Trim_, ’tis a bridge for master’s nose.——In

bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed

his nose, _Susannah_ says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is

making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of

whalebone out of _Susannah_ ’s stays, to raise it up.

——Lead me, brother _Toby_, cried my father, to my room this instant.

C H A P. XXI

FROM the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of

the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly

been gathering over my father.——A tide of little evils and distresses

has been setting in against him.—Not one thing, as he observed himself,

has gone right: and now is the storm thicken’d and going to break, and

pour down full upon his head.

I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy

frame of mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with.——My nerves

relax as I tell it.——Every line I write, I feel an abatement of the

quickness of my pulse, and of that careless alacrity with it, which

every day of my life prompts me to say and write a thousand things I

should not——And this moment that I last dipp’d my pen into my ink, I

could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and

solemnity there appear’d in my manner of doing it.——Lord! how different

from the rash jerks and hair-brain’d squirts thou art wont, _Tristram_,

to transact it with in other humours—dropping thy pen——spurting thy ink

about thy table and thy books—as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and

furniture cost thee nothing!

C H A P. XXII

——I WON’T go about to argue the point with you—’tis so——and I am

persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman

bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a

horizontal position.”

The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself

prostrate across his bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the

same time in the most lamentable attitude of a man borne down with

sorrows, that ever the eye of pity dropp’d a tear for.——The palm of his

right hand, as he fell upon the bed, receiving his forehead, and

covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk down with his

head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the

quilt;——his left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his

knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out

beyond the valance—his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his

body) hung half over the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon

his shin bone—He felt it not. A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took

possession of every line of his face.—He sigh’d once——heaved his breast

often—but uttered not a word.

An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with party

coloured worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the side

where my father’s head reclined.—My uncle _Toby_ sat him down in it.

Before an affliction is digested—consolation ever comes too soon;—and

after it is digested—it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there

is but a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a

comforter to take aim at:—my uncle _Toby_ was always either on this

side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in his heart

he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down

in the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear

at every one’s service——he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief——gave a

low sigh——but held his peace.

C H A P. XXIII

——“_ALL is not gain that is got into the purse._”—So that

notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books

in the universe, and had moreover, in himself, the oddest way of

thinking that ever man in it was bless’d with, yet it had this drawback

upon him after all——that it laid him open to some of the oddest and

most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk

under at present, is as strong an example as can be given.

No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child’s nose, by the

edge of a pair of forceps—however scientifically applied—would vex any

man in the world, who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as my

father was—yet it will not account for the extravagance of his

affliction, nor will it justify the un-christian manner he abandoned

and surrendered himself up to.

To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour—and my

uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair sitting beside him.

C H A P. XXIV

——I THINK it a very unreasonable demand—cried my great-grandfather,

twisting up the paper, and throwing it upon the table.——By this

account, madam, you have but two thousand pounds fortune, and not a

shilling more—and you insist upon having three hundred pounds a year

jointure for it.—

—“Because,” replied my great-grandmother, “you have little or no nose,

Sir.”—

Now before I venture to make use of the word _Nose_ a second time—to

avoid all confusion in what will be said upon it, in this interesting

part of my story, it may not be amiss to explain my own meaning, and

define, with all possible exactness and precision, what I would

willingly be understood to mean by the term: being of opinion, that

’tis owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising

this precaution, and to nothing else——that all the polemical writings

in divinity are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon _a Will o’

the Wisp_, or any other sound part of philosophy, and natural pursuit;

in order to which, what have you to do, before you set out, unless you

intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment——but to give the world

a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most

occasion for——changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small

coin?—which done—let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can; or

put a different idea either into your head, or your reader’s head, if

he knows how.

In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as I am engaged

in—the neglect is inexcusable; and Heaven is witness, how the world has

revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings to equivocal

strictures—and for depending so much as I have done, all along, upon

the cleanliness of my readers imaginations.

——Here are two senses, cried _Eugenius_, as we walk’d along, pointing

with the fore finger of his right hand to the word _Crevice_, in the

one hundred and seventy-eighth page of the first volume of this book of

books,——here are two senses—quoth he.—And here are two roads, replied

I, turning short upon him——a dirty and a clean one——which shall we

take?—The clean, by all means, replied _Eugenius. Eugenius_, said I,

stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his breast——to define—is

to distrust.——Thus I triumph’d over _Eugenius;_ but I triumph’d over

him as I always do, like a fool.——’Tis my comfort, however, I am not an

obstinate one: therefore

I define a nose as follows—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching

my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and

condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard

against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by

no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put

into my definition—For by the word _Nose_, throughout all this long

chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word

_Nose_ occurs—I declare, by that word I mean a nose, and nothing more,

or less.

C H A P. XXV

——“BECAUSE,” quoth my great grandmother, repeating the words again—“you

have little or no nose, Sir.”——

S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his

nose,—’tis not so small as that comes to;——’tis a full inch longer than

my father’s.—Now, my great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world

like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom

_Pantagruel_ found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN.——By the way, if

you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so flat-nosed a

people——you must read the book;——find it out yourself, you never can.——

—’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs.

—’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of

his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion——’tis a

full inch longer, madam, than my father’s——You must mean your uncle’s,

replied my great-grandmother.

——My great-grandfather was convinced.—He untwisted the paper, and

signed the article.

C H A P. XXVI

——WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small

estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.

My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving

the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand.

—Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather

twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and

fifty pounds half-yearly—(on _Michaelmas_ and _Lady-day_,)—during all

that time.

No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my

father.——And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon

the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest

welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to

fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he

generally gave a loud _Hem!_ rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with

the flat part of his fore finger——inserted his hand cautiously betwixt

his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea

as he parted with it——and seldom could get to the end of the fifty

pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no

allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down

in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the

force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from

ancestors!

For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had

gradually been taking root in our family.——TRADITION was all along on

its side, and INTEREST was every half-year stepping in to strengthen

it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having

the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange

notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this in

with his mother’s milk. He did his part however.——If education planted

the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it

to perfection.

He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that

he did not conceive how the greatest family in _England_ could stand it

out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short

noses.—And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it

must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same

number of long and jolly noses, following one another in a direct line,

did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the

kingdom.——He would often boast that the _Shandy_ family rank’d very

high in king _Harry_ the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state

engine—he would say—but to that only;——but that, like other families,

he would add——it had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never

recovered the blow of my great-grandfather’s nose.——It was an ace of

clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head—and as vile a one for an

unfortunate family as ever turn’d up trumps.

——Fair and softly, gentle reader!——where is thy fancy carrying

thee!——If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather’s nose, I mean

the external organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands

prominent in his face——and which painters say, in good jolly noses and

well-proportioned faces, should comprehend a full third——that is,

measured downwards from the setting on of the hair.

——What a life of it has an author, at this pass!

C H A P. XXVII

IT is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with

the same happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is

observed in old dogs—“of not learning new tricks.”

What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever

existed be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe

such facts, and think such thoughts, as would eternally be making him

change sides!

Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this—He pick’d up

an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple.—It

becomes his own—and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life

rather than give it up.

I am aware that _Didius_, the great civilian, will contest this point;

and cry out against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple?

_ex confesso_, he will say—things were in a state of nature—The apple,

is as much _Frank_’s apple as _John_’s. Pray, Mr. _Shandy_, what patent

has he to shew for it? and how did it begin to be his? was it, when he

set his heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he chew’d it? or

when he roasted it? or when he peel’d, or when he brought it home? or

when he digested?——or when he——?——For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first

picking up of the apple, made it not his—that no subsequent act could.

Brother _Didius_, _Tribonius_ will answer—(now _Tribonius_ the civilian

and church lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three

eighths longer than _Didius_ his beard—I’m glad he takes up the cudgels

for me, so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer.)—Brother

_Didius, Tribonius_ will say, it is a decreed case, as you may find it

in the fragments of _Gregorius_ and _Hermogines_’s codes, and in all

the codes from _Justinian_’s down to the codes of _Louis_ and _Des

Eaux_—That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations of a man’s

brains, are as much a man’s own property as the breeches upon his

backside;—which said exsudations, &c. being dropp’d upon the said apple

by the labour of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover

indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annex’d, by the picker up, to

the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d, eaten, digested,

and so on;——’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so doing,

has mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not

his own, by which means he has acquired a property;—or, in other words,

the apple is _John_’s apple.

By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his

opinions; he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they

lay out of the common way, the better still was his title.——No mortal

claimed them; they had cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and

digesting as in the case above, so that they might well and truly be

said to be of his own goods and chattels.—Accordingly he held fast by

’em, both by teeth and claws—would fly to whatever he could lay his

hands on—and, in a word, would intrench and fortify them round with as

many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle _Toby_ would a

citadel.

There was one plaguy rub in the way of this——the scarcity of materials

to make any thing of a defence with, in case of a smart attack;

inasmuch as few men of great genius had exercised their parts in

writing books upon the subject of great noses: by the trotting of my

lean horse, the thing is incredible! and I am quite lost in my

understanding, when I am considering what a treasure of precious time

and talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects—and how many

millions of books in all languages and in all possible types and

bindings, have been fabricated upon points not half so much tending to

the unity and peace-making of the world. What was to be had, however,

he set the greater store by; and though my father would oft-times sport

with my uncle _Toby_’s library—which, by-the-bye, was ridiculous

enough—yet at the very same time he did it, he collected every book and

treatise which had been systematically wrote upon noses, with as much

care as my honest uncle _Toby_ had done those upon military

architecture.——’Tis true, a much less table would have held them—but

that was not thy transgression, my dear uncle.——

Here——but why here——rather than in any other part of my story——I am not

able to tell:——but here it is——my heart stops me to pay to thee, my

dear uncle _Toby_, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness.—Here

let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the ground, whilst I

am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for thee, and veneration

for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and nature

kindled in a nephew’s bosom.——Peace and comfort rest for evermore upon

thy head!—Thou enviedst no man’s comforts——insultedst no man’s

opinions——Thou blackenedst no man’s character—devouredst no man’s

bread: gently, with faithful _Trim_ behind thee, didst thou amble round

the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy

way:—for each one’s sorrows, thou hadst a tear,—for each man’s need,

thou hadst a shilling.

Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder—thy path from thy door to thy

bowling-green shall never be grown up.——Whilst there is a rood and a

half of land in the _Shandy_ family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle

_Toby_, shall never be demolish’d.

C H A P. XXVIII

MY father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was

curious; and consequently he was some time in making it; he had the

great good fortune hewever, to set off well, in getting

_Bruscambille_’s prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing—for he

gave no more for _Bruscambille_ than three half-crowns; owing indeed to

the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the

moment he laid his hands upon it.——There are not three _Bruscambilles_

in _Christendom_—said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the

libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as

lightning——took _Bruscambille_ into his bosom——hied home from

_Piccadilly_ to _Coleman_-street with it, as he would have hied home

with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from _Bruscambille_

all the way.

To those who do not yet know of which gender _Bruscambille_

is——inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by

either——’twill be no objection against the simile—to say, That when my

father got home, he solaced himself with _Bruscambille_ after the

manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with

your first mistress——that is, from morning even unto night: which,

by-the-bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato—is of

little or no entertainment at all to by-standers.——Take notice, I go no

farther with the simile—my father’s eye was greater than his

appetite—his zeal greater than his knowledge—he cool’d—his affections

became divided——he got hold of _Prignitz_—purchased _Scroderus, Andrea

Paraeus, Bouchet_’s Evening Conferences, and above all, the great and

learned _Hafen Slawkenbergius_; of which, as I shall have much to say

by-and-bye—I will say nothing now.

C H A P. XXIX

OF all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in

support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more

cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between

_Pamphagus_ and _Cocles_, written by the chaste pen of the great and

venerable _Erasmus_, upon the various uses and seasonable applications

of long noses.——Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter,

take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your

imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to

slip on—let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, _to frisk it, to

squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it—and to kick it, with

long kicks and short kicks_, till like _Tickletoby_’s mare, you break a

strap or a crupper, and throw his worship into the dirt.—You need not

kill him.—

—And pray who was _Tickletoby_’s mare?—’tis just as discreditable and

unscholar-like a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (_ab. urb.

con._) the second Punic war broke out.—Who was _Tickletoby_’s

mare!—Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read—or by the

knowledge of the great saint _Paraleipomenon_—I tell you before-hand,

you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading,

by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more

be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem

of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to

unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie

mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.

Marble image

Marble image

C H A P. XXX

“_NIHIL me paenitet hujus nasi_,” quoth _Pamphagus_;——that is—“My nose

has been the making of me.”——“_Nec est cur poeniteat_,” replies

_Cocles_; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?”

The doctrine, you see, was laid down by _Erasmus_, as my father wished

it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in

finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself;

without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of

argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to

investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.——My father pish’d

and pugh’d at first most terribly——’tis worth something to have a good

name. As the dialogue was of _Erasmus_, my father soon came to himself,

and read it over and over again with great application, studying every

word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and

literal interpretation—he could still make nothing of it, that way.

Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my

father.——Learned men, brother _Toby_, don’t write dialogues upon long

noses for nothing.——I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick

sense——here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother.

My father read on.——

Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that

besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by _Erasmus_,

the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic

conveniences also; for that in a case of distress—and for want of a

pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to

stir up the fire.)

Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and

had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had

done the seeds of all other knowledge——so that he had got out his

penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he

could not scratch some better sense into it.——I’ve got within a single

letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic

meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all

conscience.——Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on——I might as well be

seven miles off.—I’ve done it—said my father, snapping his fingers—See,

my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense.——But you have

marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_.—My father put on his

spectacles——bit his lip——and tore out the leaf in a passion.

C H A P. XXXI

O _SLAWKENBERGIUS!_ thou faithful analyzer of my _Disgrazias_—thou sad

foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which on one stage

or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my

nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.—Tell me,

_Slawkenbergius!_ what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice?

whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?——art thou sure thou

heard’st it?——which first cried out to thee——go——go, _Slawkenbergius!_

dedicate the labours of thy life—neglect thy pastimes——call forth all

the powers and faculties of thy nature——macerate thyself in the service

of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject of their

noses.

How the communication was conveyed into _Slawkenbergius_’s

sensorium——so that _Slawkenbergius_ should know whose finger touch’d

the key—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows—as _Hafen

Slawkenbergius_ has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and

ten years——we can only raise conjectures.

_Slawkenbergius_ was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of

_Whitefield_’s disciples——that is, with such a distinct intelligence,

Sir, of which of the two masters it was that had been practising upon

his _instrument_——as to make all reasoning upon it needless.

——For in the account which _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ gives the world of

his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of

his life upon this one work—towards the end of his prolegomena, which

by-the-bye should have come first——but the bookbinder has most

injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book,

and the book itself—he informs his reader, that ever since he had

arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down cooly, and

consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and

distinguish the main end and design of his being;——or—to shorten my

translation, for _Slawkenbergius_’s book is in _Latin_, and not a

little prolix in this passage—ever since I understood, quoth

_Slawkenbergius_, any thing—or rather _what was what_——and could

perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by

all who had gone before;——have I _Slawkenbergius_, felt a strong

impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird up

myself to this undertaking.

And to do justice to _Slawkenbergius_, he has entered the list with a

stronger lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man

who had ever entered it before him——and indeed, in many respects,

deserves to be _en-nich’d_ as a prototype for all writers, of

voluminous works at least, to model their books by——for he has taken

in, Sir, the whole subject—examined every part of it

_dialectically_——then brought it into full day; dilucidating it with

all the light which either the collision of his own natural parts could

strike—or the profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him

to cast upon it—collating, collecting, and compiling——begging,

borrowing, and stealing, as he went along, all that had been wrote or

wrangled thereupon in the schools and porticos of the learned: so that

_Slawkenbergius_ his book may properly be considered, not only as a

model—but as a thorough-stitched DIGEST and regular institute of

_noses_, comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known

about them.

For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise)

valuable books and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either,

plump upon noses——or collaterally touching them;——such for instance as

_Prignitz_, now lying upon the table before me, who with infinite

learning, and from the most candid and scholar-like examination of

above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty

charnel-houses in _Silesia_, which he had rummaged——has informed us,

that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of

human noses, in any _given_ tract of country, except _Crim Tartary_,

where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can

be formed upon them—are much nearer alike, than the world imagines;—the

difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking

notice of;——but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and

by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is

owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts

and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by

the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it

(bating the case of idiots, whom _Prignitz_, who had lived many years

in _Turky_, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)—it so

happens, and ever must, says _Prignitz_, that the excellency of the

nose is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the

wearer’s fancy.

It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in

_Slawkenbergius_, that I say nothing likewise of _Scroderus (Andrea)_

who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn _Prignitz_ with great

violence—proving it in his own way, first _logically_, and then by a

series of stubborn facts, “That so far was _Prignitz_ from the truth,

in affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary—the

nose begat the fancy.”

—The learned suspected _Scroderus_ of an indecent sophism in this—and

_Prignitz_ cried out aloud in the dispute, that _Scroderus_ had shifted

the idea upon him——but _Scroderus_ went on, maintaining his thesis.

My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he

should take in this affair; when _Ambrose Paræus_ decided it in a

moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of _Prignitz_ and

_Scroderus_, drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at

once.

Be witness——

I don’t acquaint the learned reader—in saying it, I mention it only to

shew the learned, I know the fact myself——

That this _Ambrose Paræus_ was chief surgeon and nose-mender to

_Francis_ the ninth of _France_, and in high credit with him and the

two preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)—and that, except

in the slip he made in his story of _Taliacotius_’s noses, and his

manner of setting them on—he was esteemed by the whole college of

physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any

one who had ever taken them in hand.

Now _Ambrose Paræus_ convinced my father, that the true and efficient

cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon

which _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_ had wasted so much learning and fine

parts——was neither this nor that——but that the length and goodness of

the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse’s

breast——as the flatness and shortness of _puisne_ noses was to the

firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the

hale and lively—which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of the

child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated,

and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive _ad mensuram suam

legitimam_;——but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the

nurse or mother’s breast—by sinking into it, quoth _Paraeus_, as into

so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up,

refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing for ever.

I have but two things to observe of _Paraeus_; first, That he proves

and explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of

expression:—for which may his soul for ever rest in peace!

And, secondly, that besides the systems of _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_,

which _Ambrose Paræus_ his hypothesis effectually overthrew—it

overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our

family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between

my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and every

thing in it, except my uncle _Toby_, quite upside down.

Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never

surely in any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a

street-door.

My mother, you must know———but I have fifty things more necessary to

let you know first—I have a hundred difficulties which I have promised

to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick misadventures

crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck of another.

A cow broke in (tomorrow morning) to my uncle _Toby_’s fortifications,

and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up the sods

with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.——_Trim_ insists

upon being tried by a court-martial—the cow to be shot—_Slop_ to be

_crucifix’d_—myself to be _tristram’d_ and at my very baptism made a

martyr of;——poor unhappy devils that we all are!——I want swaddling——but

there is no time to be lost in exclamations——I have left my father

lying across his bed, and my uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair,

sitting beside him, and promised I would go back to them in half an

hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are laps’d already.——Of all the

perplexities a mortal author was ever seen in—this certainly is the

greatest, for I have _Hafen Slawkenbergius_’s folio, Sir, to finish——a

dialogue between my father and my uncle _Toby_, upon the solution of

_Prignitz, Scroderus, Ambrose Paræus, Panocrates_, and _Grangousier_ to

relate—a tale out of _Slawkenbergius_ to translate, and all this in

five minutes less than no time at all;——such a head!—would to Heaven my

enemies only saw the inside of it!

C H A P. XXXII

THERE was not any one scene more entertaining in our family—and to do

it justice in this point;——and I here put off my cap and lay it upon

the table close beside my ink-horn, on purpose to make my declaration

to the world concerning this one article the more solemn——that I

believe in my soul (unless my love and partiality to my understanding

blinds me) the hand of the supreme Maker and first Designer of all

things never made or put a family together (in that period at least of

it which I have sat down to write the story of)——where the characters

of it were cast or contrasted with so dramatick a felicity as ours was,

for this end; or in which the capacities of affording such exquisite

scenes, and the powers of shifting them perpetually from morning to

night, were lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a confidence, as in

the SHANDY FAMILY.

Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical

theatre of ours——than what frequently arose out of this self-same

chapter of long noses——especially when my father’s imagination was

heated with the enquiry, and nothing would serve him but to heat my

uncle _Toby_’s too.

My uncle _Toby_ would give my father all possible fair play in this

attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoking his pipe for

whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head,

and trying every accessible avenue to drive _Prignitz_ and

_Scroderus_’s solutions into it.

Whether they were above my uncle _Toby_’s reason——or contrary to it——or

that his brain was like _damp_ timber, and no spark could possibly take

hold——or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such

military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into _Prignitz_ and

_Scroderus_’s doctrines——I say not—let schoolmen—scullions, anatomists,

and engineers, fight for it among themselves——

’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father

had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle _Toby_,

and render out of _Slawkenbergius_’s _Latin_, of which, as he was no

great master, his translation was not always of the purest——and

generally least so where ’twas most wanted.—This naturally open’d a

door to a second misfortune;——that in the warmer paroxysms of his zeal

to open my uncle _Toby_’s eyes——my father’s ideas ran on as much faster

than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle

_Toby_’s——neither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of

my father’s lecture.

C H A P. XXXIII

THE gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms——I mean in man—for in

superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits——’tis all done,

may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION;—and beings

inferior, as your worships all know——syllogize by their noses: though

there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its

ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so

wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and

oft-times to make very well out too:——but that’s neither here nor

there——

The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or—the great and

principal act of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the

finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with

another, by the intervention of a third (called the _medius terminus_);

just as a man, as _Locke_ well observes, by a yard, finds two mens

nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought

together, to measure their equality, by _juxta-position._

Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his

systems of noses, and observed my uncle _Toby_’s deportment—what great

attention he gave to every word—and as oft as he took his pipe from his

mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of

it——surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his

thumb——then fore-right——then this way, and then that, in all its

possible directions and fore-shortenings——he would have concluded my

uncle _Toby_ had got hold of the _medius terminus_, and was syllogizing

and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in

order, as my father laid them before him. This, by-the-bye, was more

than my father wanted——his aim in all the pains he was at in these

philosophick lectures—was to enable my uncle _Toby_ not to

_discuss_——but _comprehend_—to _hold_ the grains and scruples of

learning——not to _weigh_ them.——My uncle _Toby_, as you will read in

the next chapter, did neither the one or the other.

C H A P. XXXIV

’TIS a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours

painful translation of _Slawkenbergius_——’tis a pity, cried my father,

putting my mother’s threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he

spoke——that truth, brother _Toby_, should shut herself up in such

impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself

sometimes up upon the closest siege.——

Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle

_Toby_’s fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of

_Prignitz_ to him——having nothing to stay it there, had taken a short

flight to the bowling-green;——his body might as well have taken a turn

there too—so that with all the semblance of a deep school-man intent

upon the _medius terminus_——my uncle _Toby_ was in fact as ignorant of

the whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been

translating _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ from the _Latin_ tongue into the

_Cherokee._ But the word _siege_, like a talismanic power, in my

father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle _Toby_’s fancy, quick as a

note could follow the touch—he open’d his ears——and my father observing

that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer

the table, as with a desire to profit—my father with great pleasure

began his sentence again——changing only the plan, and dropping the

metaphor of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father

apprehended from it.

’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side,

brother _Toby_——considering what ingenuity these learned men have all

shewn in their solutions of noses.——Can noses be dissolved? replied my

uncle _Toby_.

——My father thrust back his chair——rose up—put on his hat——took four

long strides to the door——jerked it open——thrust his head half way

out——shut the door again——took no notice of the bad hinge—returned to

the table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of _Slawkenbergius_’s

book——went hastily to his bureau—walked slowly back—twisted my mother’s

thread-paper about his thumb—unbutton’d his waistcoat—threw my mother’s

thread-paper into the fire——bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d

his mouth with bran—confounded it;—but mark!—the oath of confusion was

levell’d at my uncle _Toby_’s brain—which was e’en confused enough

already——the curse came charged only with the bran—the bran, may it

please your honours, was no more than powder to the ball.

’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they

did last, they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most

unaccountable problems that ever I met with in my observations of human

nature, that nothing should prove my father’s mettle so much, or make

his passions go off so like gun-powder, as the unexpected strokes his

science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle _Toby_’s

questions.——Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many

different places all at one time—he could not have exerted more

mechanical functions in fewer seconds——or started half so much, as with

one single _quære_ of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him

in his hobby-horsical career.

’Twas all one to my uncle _Toby_——he smoked his pipe on with unvaried

composure——his heart never intended offence to his brother—and as his

head could seldom find out where the sting of it lay——he always gave my

father the credit of cooling by himself.——He was five minutes and

thirty-five seconds about it in the present case.

By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself,

and taking the oath out of _Ernulphus_’s digest of curses——(though to

do my father justice it was a fault (as he told Dr. _Slop_ in the

affair of _Ernulphus_) which he as seldom committed as any man upon

earth)——By all that’s good and great! brother _Toby_, said my father,

if it was not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as

they do—you would put a man beside all temper.——Why, by the _solutions_

of noses, of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known,

had you favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts

which learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world

of the causes of short and long noses.——There is no cause but one,

replied my uncle _Toby_——why one man’s nose is longer than another’s,

but because that God pleases to have it so.——That is _Grangousier_’s

solution, said my father.—’Tis he, continued my uncle _Toby_, looking

up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us all, and

frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such

ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom,.——’Tis a pious account,

cried my father, but not philosophical—there is more religion in it

than sound science. ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle _Toby_’s

character——that he feared God, and reverenced religion.——So the moment

my father finished his remark——my uncle _Toby_ fell a whistling

_Lillabullero_ with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.—

What is become of my wife’s thread-paper?

C H A P. XXXV

NO matter—as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of

some consequence to my mother—of none to my father, as a mark in

_Slawkenbergius. Slawkenbergius_ in every page of him was a rich

treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father—he could not open him

amiss; and he would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts

and sciences in the world, with the books which treated of them, were

lost—should the wisdom and policies of governments, he would say,

through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had

wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of

courts and kingdoms, should they be forgot also—and _Slawkenbergius_

only left——there would be enough in him in all conscience, he would

say, to set the world a-going again. A treasure therefore was he

indeed! an institute of all that was necessary to be known of noses,

and every thing else—at _matin_, noon, and vespers was _Hafen

Slawkenbergius_ his recreation and delight: ’twas for ever in his

hands——you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s prayer-book—so

worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with

thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the other.

I am not such a bigot to _Slawkenbergius_ as my father;——there is a

fund in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the

most profitable, but the most amusing part of _Hafen Slawkenbergius_,

is his tales——and, considering he was a _German_, many of them told not

without fancy:——these take up his second book, containing nearly one

half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad

containing ten tales——Philosophy is not built upon tales; and therefore

’twas certainly wrong in _Slawkenbergius_ to send them into the world

by that name!——there are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth

decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive, than

speculative—but in general they are to be looked upon by the learned as

a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning round

somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject, and added to his

work as so many illustrations upon the doctrines of noses.

As we have leisure enough upon our hands——if you give me leave, madam,

I’ll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad.

S L A W K E N B E R G I I

F A B E L L A[8]

_VESPERA quâdam frigidula, posteriori in parte mensis_ Augusti,

_peregrinus, mulo fusco colore incidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis

indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta_,

Argentoratum _ingressus est._

_Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum

promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu

ad fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo, reversurum._

_Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit——Di boni, nova forma nasi!_

_At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, e

quo pependit acinaces: Loculo manum inseruit; et magna cum urbanitate,

pilei parte anteriore tactâ manu sinistrâ, ut extendit dextram, militi

florinum dedit et processit._

_Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum

adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse: itinerari haud poterit nudâ acinaci;

neque vaginam toto_ Argentorato, _habilem inveniet.——Nullam unquam

habui, respondit peregrinus respiciens——seque comiter inclinans—hoc

more gesto, nudam acinacem elevans, mulo lentò progrediente, ut nasum

tueri possim._

_Non immerito, benigne peregrine, respondit miles._

_Nihili aestimo, ait ille tympanista, e pergamenâ factitius est._

_Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major fit,

meo esset conformis._

_Crepitare audivi ait tympanista._

_Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, respondit miles._

_Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui non ambo tetigimus!_

_Eodem temporis puncto, quo hæc res argumentata fuit inter militem et

tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem tubicine et uxore suâ qui tunc

accesserunt, et peregrino prætereunte, restiterunt._

_Quantus nasus! æque longus est, ait tubicina, ac tuba._

_Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, velut sternutamento audias._

_Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod fistulam dulcedine vincit._

_Æneus est, ait tubicen._

_Nequaquam, respondit uxor._

_Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod æneus est._

_Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim digito tangam, ait uxor, quam

dormivero._

_Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum

controversiæ, non tantum inter militem et tympanistam, verum etiam

inter tubicinem et uxorum ejus, audiret._

_Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fræna demittens, et manibus

ambabus in pectus positis, (mulo lentè progrediente) nequaquam, ait

ille respiciens, non necesse est ut res isthæc dilucidata foret. Minime

gentium! meus nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget artus—Ad

quid agendum? air uxor burgomagistri._

_Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto

Nicolao; quo facto, sinum dextrum inserens, e quâ negligenter pependit

acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati latam quæ ad

diversorium templo ex adversum ducit._

_Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri

jussit: quâ apertâ et coccineis sericis femoralibus extractis cum

argento laciniato_ Περιζομαυτε, _his sese induit, statimque, acinaci in

manu, ad forum deambulavit._

_Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem

aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur,

atque ad diversorium regressus est—exuit se vestibus; braccas coccineas

sericas manticæ imposuit mulumque educi jussit._

_Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc

hebdomadis revertar._

_Bene curasti hoc jumentam? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcens—me,

manticamque meam, plus sexcentis mille passibus portavit._

_Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset negoti.—Enimvero,

ait peregrinus, a Nasorum promontorio redii, et nasum speciosissimum,

egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam sortitus est, acquisivi?_

_Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor

ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini nasum contemplantur——Per sanctos

sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto

Argentorato major est!—estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans,

nonne est nasus prægrandis?_

_Dolus inest, anime mi, ait hospes—nasus est falsus._

_Verus est, respondit uxor——_

_Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, terebinthinum olet—_

_Carbunculus inest, ait uxor._

_Mortuus est nasus, respondit hospes._

_Vivus est ait illa,—et si ipsa vivam tangam._

_Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore

usque ad—Quodnam tempus? illico respondit illa._

_Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque ad

illam horam——Quam horam? ait illa——Nullam, respondit peregrinus, donec

pervenio ad—Quem locum,—obsecro? ait illa——Peregrinus nil respondens

mulo conscenso discessit._

S L A W K E N B E R G I U S’s

T A L E

IT was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day,

in the latter end of the month of _August_, when a stranger, mounted

upon a dark mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few

shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered

the town of _Strasburg._

He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that

he had been at the Promontory of NOSES—was going on to _Frankfort_——and

should be back again at _Strasburg_ that day month, in his way to the

borders of _Crim Tartary._

The centinel looked up into the stranger’s face——he never saw such a

Nose in his life!

—I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the stranger—so slipping

his wrist out of the loop of a black ribbon, to which a short scymetar

was hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy

touching the fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended

his right——he put a florin into the centinel’s hand, and passed on.

It grieves, me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish bandy-

legg’d drummer, that so courteous a soul should have lost his

scabbard——he cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not be

able to get a scabbard to fit it in all _Strasburg._——I never had one,

replied the stranger, looking back to the centinel, and putting his

hand up to his cap as he spoke——I carry it, continued he, thus——holding

up his naked scymetar, his mule moving on slowly all the time—on

purpose to defend my nose.

It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the centinel.

——’Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg’d drummer——’tis a

nose of parchment.

As I am a true catholic—except that it is six times as big—’tis a nose,

said the centinel, like my own.

—I heard it crackle, said the drummer.

By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it bleed.

What a pity, cried the bandy-legg’d drummer, we did not both touch it!

At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and

the drummer—was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a

trumpeter’s wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see

the stranger pass by.

_Benedicity!_——What a nose! ’tis as long, said the trumpeter’s wife, as

a trumpet.

And of the same metal said the trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing.

’Tis as soft as a flute, said she.

—’Tis brass, said the trumpeter.

—’Tis a pudding’s end, said his wife.

I tell thee again, said the trumpeter, ’tis a brazen nose,

I’ll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter’s wife, for I will touch

it with my finger before I sleep.

The stranger’s mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every

word of the dispute, not only betwixt the centinel and the drummer, but

betwixt the trumpeter and trumpeter’s wife.

No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule’s neck, and laying both

his hands upon his breast, the one over the other in a saint-like

position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking

up—I am not such a debtor to the world——slandered and disappointed as I

have been—as to give it that conviction——no! said he, my nose shall

never be touched whilst Heaven gives me strength——To do what? said a

burgomaster’s wife.

The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster’s wife——he was making a

vow to _Saint Nicolas_; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the

same solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his

bridle with his left-hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom,

with the scymetar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as

slowly as one foot of the mule could follow another, thro’ the

principal streets of _Strasburg_, till chance brought him to the great

inn in the market-place over-against the church.

The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into

the stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought in; then opening, and

taking out of it his crimson-sattin breeches, with a

silver-fringed—(appendage to them, which I dare not translate)—he put

his breeches, with his fringed cod-piece on, and forth-with, with his

short scymetar in his hand, walked out to the grand parade.

The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he

perceived the trumpeter’s wife at the opposite side of it—so turning

short, in pain lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went

back to his inn—undressed himself, packed up his crimson-sattin

breeches, &c. in his cloak- bag, and called for his mule.

I am going forwards, said the stranger, for _Frankfort_——and shall be

back at _Strasburg_ this day month.

I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with

his left hand as he was going to mount it, that you have been kind to

this faithful slave of mine—it has carried me and my cloak-bag,

continued he, tapping the mule’s back, above six hundred leagues.

——’Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn——unless a man

has great business.——Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the

promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank

Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot.

Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master

of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the

stranger’s nose——By saint _Radagunda_, said the inn-keeper’s wife to

herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put

together in all _Strasburg!_ is it not, said she, whispering her

husband in his ear, is it not a noble nose?

’Tis an imposture, my dear, said the master of the inn——’tis a false

nose.

’Tis a true nose, said his wife.

’Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell the turpentine.——

There’s a pimple on it, said she.

’Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-keeper.

’Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the inn-keeper’s,

wife, I will touch it.

I have made a vow to saint _Nicolas_ this day, said the stranger, that

my nose shall not be touched till—Here the stranger suspending his

voice, looked up.——Till when? said she hastily.

It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing

them close to his breast, till that hour—What hour? cried the inn

keeper’s wife.—Never!—never! said the stranger, never till I am got—For

Heaven’s sake, into what place? said she——The stranger rode away

without saying a word.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards _Frankfort_

before all the city of _Strasburg_ was in an uproar about his nose. The

_Compline_ bells were just ringing to call the _Strasburgers_ to their

devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer:—no soul in all

_Strasburg_ heard ’em—the city was like a swarm of bees——men, women,

and children, (the _Compline_ bells tinkling all the time) flying here

and there—in at one door, out at another——this way and that way—long

ways and cross ways—up one street, down another street——in at this

alley, out of that——did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O!

did you see it?——who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw

it?

Alack o’day! I was at vespers!—I was washing, I was starching, I was

scouring, I was quilting——God help me! I never saw it——I never touch’d

it!——would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter,

a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street

and corner of _Strasburg._

Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great

city of _Strasburg_, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon

his mule in his way to _Frankfort_, as if he had no concern at all in

the affair——talking all the way he rode in broken sentences, sometimes

to his mule—sometimes to himself—sometimes to his Julia.

O Julia, my lovely Julia!—nay I cannot stop to let thee bite that

thistle——that ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed

me of enjoyment when I was upon the point of tasting it.——

——Pugh!—’tis nothing but a thistle—never mind it—thou shalt have a

better supper at night.

——Banish’d from my country——my friends——from thee.——

Poor devil, thou’rt sadly tired with thy journey!——come—get on a little

faster—there’s nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts——a crimson-sattin

pair of breeches, and a fringed——Dear Julia!

——But why to _Frankfort?_—is it that there is a hand unfelt, which

secretly is conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected

tracts?

——Stumbling! by saint _Nicolas!_ every step—why at this rate we shall

be all night in getting in——

——To happiness——or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander—destined

to be driven forth unconvicted——unheard——untouch’d——if so, why did I

not stay at _Strasburg_, where justice—but I had sworn! Come, thou

shalt drink—to _St. Nicolas_—O Julia!——What dost thou prick up thy ears

at?——’tis nothing but a man, &c.

The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and

Julia—till he arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he

alighted——saw his mule, as he had promised it, taken good care of——took

off his cloak-bag, with his crimson-sattin breeches, &c. in it—called

for an omelet to his supper, went to his bed about twelve o’clock, and

in five minutes fell fast asleep.

It was about the same hour when the tumult in _Strasburg_ being abated

for that night,—the _Strasburgers_ had all got quietly into their

beds—but not like the stranger, for the rest either of their minds or

bodies; queen _Mab_, like an elf as she was, had taken the stranger’s

nose, and without reduction of its bulk, had that night been at the

pains of slitting and dividing it into as many noses of different cuts

and fashions, as there were heads in _Strasburg_ to hold them. The

abbess of _Quedlingberg_, who with the four great dignitaries of her

chapter, the prioress, the deaness, the sub-chantress, and senior

canonness, had that week come to _Strasburg_ to consult the university

upon a case of conscience relating to their placket- holes——was ill all

the night.

The courteous stranger’s nose had got perched upon the top of the

pineal gland of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of

the four great dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of

sleep the whole night thro’ for it——there was no keeping a limb still

amongst them——in short, they got up like so many ghosts.

The penitentiaries of the third order of saint _Francis_——the nuns of

mount _Calvary_——the _Præmonstratenses_——the _Clunienses_[9]——the

_Carthusians_, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that night

in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than the

abbess of _Quedlingberg_—by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and

tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night

long——the several sisterhoods had scratch’d and maul’d themselves all

to death——they got out of their beds almost flay’d alive—every body

thought saint _Antony_ had visited them for probation with his

fire——they had never once, in short, shut their eyes the whole night

long from vespers to matins.

The nuns of saint _Ursula_ acted the wisest—they never attempted to go

to bed at all.

The dean of _Strasburg_, the prebendaries, the capitulars and

domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case

of butter’d buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint

_Ursula_’s example.——

In the hurry and confusion every thing had been in the night before,

the bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven—there were no butter’d

buns to be had for breakfast in all _Strasburg_—the whole close of the

cathedral was in one eternal commotion——such a cause of restlessness

and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into that cause of the

restlessness, had never happened in _Strasburg_, since _Martin Luther_,

with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down.

If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into

the dishes[10] of religious orders, &c. what a carnival did his nose

make of it, in those of the laity!—’tis more than my pen, worn to the

stump as it is, has power to describe; tho’, I acknowledge, (_cries_

Slawkenbergius _with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected

from him_) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world

which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of

such a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent

the greatest part of my life——tho’ I own to them the simile is in

being, yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have

either time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say,

that the riot and disorder it occasioned in the _Strasburgers_

fantasies was so general—such an overpowering mastership had it got of

all the faculties of the _Strasburgers_ minds—so many strange things,

with equal confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all

places, were spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole

stream of all discourse and wonder towards it—every soul, good and

bad—rich and poor—learned and unlearned——doctor and student——mistress

and maid——gentle and simple——nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in

_Strasburg_ spent their time in hearing tidings about it—every eye in

_Strasburg_ languished to see it——every finger——every thumb in

_Strasburg_ burned to touch it.

Now what might add, if any thing may be thought necessary to add, to so

vehement a desire—was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d

drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgomaster’s widow,

the master of the inn, and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely

soever they all differed every one from another in their testimonies

and description of the stranger’s nose—they all agreed together in two

points—namely, that he was gone to _Frankfort_, and would not return to

_Strasburg_ till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was

true or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect

paragons of beauty—the finest-made man—the most genteel!—the most

generous of his purse—the most courteous in his carriage, that had ever

entered the gates of _Strasburg_—that as he rode, with scymetar slung

loosely to his wrist, thro’ the streets—and walked with his

crimson-sattin breeches across the parade—’twas with so sweet an air of

careless modesty, and so manly withal——as would have put the heart in

jeopardy (had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had

cast her eyes upon him.

I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and

yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of

_Quedlingberg_, the prioress, the deaness, and sub-chantress, for

sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the

streets of _Strasburg_ with her husband’s trumpet in her hand,——the

best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the

illustration of her theory—she staid no longer than three days.

The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer!——nothing on this side of old

_Athens_ could equal them! they read their lectures under the

city-gates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a _Chrysippus_ and

a _Crantor_ in their porticos.

The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also

in the same stile—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard—his

wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their

lectures; not promiscuously—but to this or that, as is ever the way, as

faith and credulity marshal’d them——in a word, each _Strasburger_ came

crouding for intelligence—and every _Strasburger_ had the intelligence

he wanted.

’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural

philosophy, &c. that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the

abbess of _Quedlingberg_’s private lecture, and had begun to read in

public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great

parade,——she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining

incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of _Strasburg_ for

her auditory—But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries

_Slawkenbergius_) has a _trumpet_ for an apparatus, pray what rival in

science can pretend to be heard besides him?

Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all

busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRUTH keeps her

little court——were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up

thro’ the conduits of dialect induction——they concerned themselves not

with facts——they reasoned——

Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the

Faculty—had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of

_Wens_ and œdematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for

their bloods and souls——the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either

with wens or œdematous swellings.

It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous

mass of heterogenous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to

the nose, whilst the infant was _in Utera_, without destroying the

statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine

months before the time.——

——The opponents granted the theory——they denied the consequences.

And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c. said they, was not

laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first

stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world

(bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained

afterwards.

This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect

which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and

prolongation of the muscular parts to the greatest growth and expansion

imaginable—In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to

affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to

the size of the man himself.

The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to

them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs——For

the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception

of food, and turning it into chyle—and the lungs the only engine of

sanguification—it could possibly work off no more, than what the

appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s

overloading his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs—the

engine was of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a

certain quantity in a given time——that is, it could produce just as

much blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that,

if there was as much nose as man——they proved a mortification must

necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for

both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man

inevitably fall off from his nose.

Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the

opponents—else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach—a whole

pair of lungs, and but half a man, when both his legs have been

unfortunately shot off?

He dies of a plethora, said they—or must spit blood, and in a fortnight

or three weeks go off in a consumption.——

——It happens otherwise—replied the opponents.——

It ought not, said they.

The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings,

though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided

about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself.

They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical

arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to

its several destinations, offices, and functions, which could not be

transgressed but within certain limits—that nature, though she

sported——she sported within a certain circle;—and they could not agree

about the diameter of it.

The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of

the classes of the literati;——they began and ended with the word Nose;

and had it not been for a _petitio principii_, which one of the ablest

of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole

controversy had been settled at once.

A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood—and not only

blood—but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a

succession of drops—(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops,

that is included, said he.)——Now death, continued the logician, being

nothing but the stagnation of the blood——

I deny the definition——Death is the separation of the soul from the

body, said his antagonist——Then we don’t agree about our weapons, said

the logician—Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the

antagonist.

The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in

the nature of a decree——than a dispute.

Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not

possibly have been suffered in civil society——and if false—to impose

upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater

violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shewn it.

The only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved

the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false.

This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the

advocates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit

a decree, since the stranger _ex mero motu_ had confessed he had been

at the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, &c.

&c.——To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a

place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it

lay. The commissary of the bishop of _Strasburg_ undertook the

advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases,

shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick

expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long

nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten

authorities,[11] which had decided the point incontestably, had it not

appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands

had been determined by it nineteen years before.

It happened——I must say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving

her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of

_Strasburg_——the _Lutheran_, founded in the year 1538 by _Jacobus

Surmis_, counsellor of the senate,——and the _Popish_, founded by

_Leopold_, arch-duke of _Austria_, were, during all this time,

employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the

affair of the abbess of _Quedlingberg_’s placket-holes required)——in

determining the point of _Martin Luther_’s damnation.

The _Popish_ doctors had undertaken to demonstrate _à priori_, that

from the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of

_October_ 1483——when the moon was in the twelfth house, _Jupiter,

Mars_, and _Venus_ in the third, the _Sun, Saturn_, and _Mercury_, all

got together in the fourth—that he must in course, and unavoidably, be

a damn’d man—and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be

damn’d doctrines too.

By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition

all at once with Scorpio[12] (in reading this my father would always

shake his head) in the ninth house, with the _Arabians_ allotted to

religion—it appeared that _Martin Luther_ did not care one stiver about

the matter——and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of

_Mars_—they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and

blaspheming——with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt)

sailed before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire.

The little objection of the _Lutheran_ doctors to this, was, that it

must certainly be the soul of another man, born _Oct._ 22, 83. which

was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner—inasmuch as it

appeared from the register of _Islaben_ in the county of _Mansfelt_,

that _Luther_ was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the

22d day of _October_, but on the 10th of _November_, the eve of

_Martinmas_ day, from whence he had the name of _Martin._

[——I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I

know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess

of _Quedlingberg_——It is to tell the reader; that my father never read

this passage of _Slawkenbergius_ to my uncle _Toby_, but with

triumph——not over my uncle _Toby_, for he never opposed him in it——but

over the whole world.

—Now you see, brother _Toby_, he would say, looking up, “that christian

names are not such indifferent things;”——had _Luther_ here been called

by any other name but _Martin_, he would have been damn’d to all

eternity——Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good

name——far from it——’tis something better than a neutral, and but a

little——yet little as it is you see it was of some service to him.

My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as

the best logician could shew him——yet so strange is the weakness of man

at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but

make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there

are many stories in _Hafen Slawkenbergius_’s Decades full as

entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst

them which my father read over with half the delight——it flattered two

of his strangest hypotheses together——his NAMES and his NOSES.——I will

be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the _Alexandrian_

Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a

book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head

at one stroke.]

The two universities of _Strasburg_ were hard tugging at this affair of

_Luther_’s navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he

had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had

pretended; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth

of it—they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points

he was off; whether _Martin_ had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a

lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at

least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on

with it in spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size

of the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world from what

they were about—it was their business to follow.

The abbess of _Quedlingberg_ and her four dignitaries was no stop; for

the enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their

fancies as their case of conscience——the affair of their placket-holes

kept cold—in a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their

types——all controversies dropp’d.

’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it—to a

nut-shell—to have guessed on which side of the nose the two

universities would split.

’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side.

’Tis below reason, cried the others.

’Tis faith, cried one.

’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.

’Tis possible, cried the one.

’Tis impossible, said the other.

God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do any thing.

He can do nothing, replied the Anti-nosarians, which implies

contradictions.

He can make matter think, said the Nosarians.

As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied

the Anti-nosarians.

He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors.——’Tis

false, said their other opponents.——

Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the

_reality_ of the nose.—It extends only to all possible things, replied

the _Lutherans._

By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he

thinks fit, as big as the steeple of _Strasburg._

Now the steeple of _Strasburg_ being the biggest and the tallest

church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Anti-nosarians denied

that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least

by a middle-siz’d man——The Popish doctors swore it could—The _Lutheran_

doctors said No;—it could not.

This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way,

upon the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of

God—That controversy led them naturally into _Thomas Aquinas_, and

_Thomas Aquinas_ to the devil.

The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute—it just served

as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity——and then

they all sailed before the wind.

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

The controversy about the attributes, &c. instead of cooling, on the

contrary had inflamed the _Strasburgers_ imaginations to a most

inordinate degree——The less they understood of the matter the greater

was their wonder about it—they were left in all the distresses of

desire unsatisfied——saw their doctors, the _Parchmentarians_, the

_Brassarians_, the _Turpentarians_, on one side—the Popish doctors on

the other, like _Pantagruel_ and his companions in quest of the oracle

of the bottle, all embarked out of sight.

——The poor _Strasburgers_ left upon the beach!

——What was to be done?—No delay—the uproar increased——every one in

disorder——the city gates set open.——

Unfortunate _Strasbergers!_ was there in the store-house of nature——was

there in the lumber-rooms of learning——was there in the great arsenal

of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to torture your

curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not pointed by the

hand of Fate to play upon your hearts?——I dip not my pen into my ink to

excuse the surrender of yourselves—’tis to write your panegyrick. Shew

me a city so macerated with expectation——who neither eat, or drank, or

slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or

nature, for seven-and-twenty days together, who could have held out one

day longer.

On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to

_Strasburg._

Seven thousand coaches (_Slawkenbergius_ must certainly have made some

mistake in his numeral characters) 7000 coaches——15000 single-horse

chairs—20000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with

senators, counsellors, syndicks—beguines, widows, wives, virgins,

canons, concubines, all in their coaches—The abbess of _Quedlingberg_,

with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress, leading the

procession in one coach, and the dean of _Strasburg_, with the four

great dignitaries of his chapter, on her left-hand—the rest following

higglety-pigglety as they could; some on horseback——some on foot——some

led——some driven——some down the _Rhine_——some this way——some that——all

set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous stranger on the road.

Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale——I say _Catastrophe_

(cries _Slawkenbergius_) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly

disposed, not only rejoiceth (_gaudet_) in the _Catastrophe_ and

_Peripeitia_ of a DRAMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential

and integrant parts of it——it has its _Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis_,

its _Catastrophe_ or _Peripeitia_ growing one out of the other in it,

in the order _Aristotle_ first planted them——without which a tale had

better never be told at all, says _Slawkenbergius_, but be kept to a

man’s self.

In all my ten tales, in all my ten decades, have I _Slawkenbergius_

tied down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done

this of the stranger and his nose.

——From his first parley with the centinel, to his leaving the city of

_Strasburg_, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is

the _Protasis_ or first entrance——where the characters of the _Personæ

Dramatis_ are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun.

The _Epitasis_, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and

heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the

_Catastasis_, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included

within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night’s uproar

about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures

upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking

of the learned in the dispute—to the doctors finally sailing away, and

leaving the _Strasburgers_ upon the beach in distress, is the

_Catastasis_ or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their

bursting forth in the fifth act.

This commences with the setting out of the _Strasburgers_ in the

_Frankfort_ road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and

bringing the hero out of a state of agitation (as _Aristotle_ calls it)

to a state of rest and quietness.

This, says _Hafen Slawkenbergius_, constitutes the _Catastrophe_ or

_Peripeitia_ of my tale—and that is the part of it I am going to

relate.

We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep——he enters now upon the

stage.

—What dost thou prick up thy ears at?—’tis nothing but a man upon a

horse——was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not

proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master’s word

for it; and without any more _ifs_ or _ands_, let the traveller and his

horse pass by.

The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to _Strasburg_

that night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he

had rode about a league farther, to think of getting into _Strasburg_

this night.—_Strasburg!_——the great _Strasburg!_——_Strasburg_, the

capital of all _Alsatia!_ _Strasburg_, an imperial city! _Strasburg_, a

sovereign state! _Strasburg_, garrisoned with five thousand of the best

troops in all the world!—Alas! if I was at the gates of _Strasburg_

this moment, I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat—nay a

ducat and half—’tis too much—better go back to the last inn I have

passed——than lie I know not where——or give I know not what. The

traveller, as he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse’s

head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted

into his chamber, he arrived at the same inn.

——We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread——and till eleven

o’clock this night had three eggs in it——but a stranger, who arrived an

hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have nothing.——

Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a

bed.——I have one as soft as is in _Alsatia_, said the host.

——The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for ’tis my best

bed, but upon the score of his nose.——He has got a defluxion, said the

traveller.——Not that I know, cried the host.——But ’tis a camp-bed, and

_Jacinta_, said he, looking towards the maid, imagined there was not

room in it to turn his nose in.——Why so? cried the traveller, starting

back.—It is so long a nose, replied the host.——The traveller fixed his

eyes upon _Jacinta_, then upon the ground—kneeled upon his right

knee—had just got his hand laid upon his breast——Trifle not with my

anxiety, said he rising up again.——’Tis no trifle, said _Jacinta_, ’tis

the most glorious nose!——The traveller fell upon his knee again—laid

his hand upon his breast—then, said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast

conducted me to the end of my pilgrimage—’Tis _Diego._