. ATH OF STENE.E THE LAi1JRENCE $S E NE, WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR WRITTEN BY HIMISELF. ONLY COMPLETE EDITION. NEW YORK. DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU ST. CINCINNATI:-. W, DERBY & CO. 1857. WV. 11. TINsoN, Stereotyper, GEORGE RUSSELL & CO., Plinters, MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REVEREND IRi1 LAURENCE STERNE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, ROGER STERNE* (grandson to Archbishop Sterne), Lieutenant in Hanldaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow * Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215. SIMON STERNE, of Mansfield. Dr. Richard Sterne,=Elizabeth, daughter Archbishop of York, of Mr. Dickinson, ob. June, 1683. ob. 1670. 11 12 13 Richard Sterne, William Sterne, Simon Sterne,=Mary, daughter and of York and of Mansfield. of Elvington heiress of Roger Kilvington, andl Halifax, Jaques of ElvingEsq., 1700. ob. 17083. ton, near York.!1 12 13 14 15 16 Richard. ROGER. Jaques, LL. D. Mary. Elizabeth. Frances., ob. 1759. Richard. LAURENCE STERNE. The arms of the family, says Guillam, in his book of Heraldry, p. 77, are, Or, a chevron between three crosses flory, sable. The crest on a wreath of his colors, a stas'1isgsy propes. The trifling circumstances are worthy of notice, when connected with distinguished characters. The arms of Mr. Sterne's family are no otherwise important than on account of the crest having afforded a hint for -one of the finest stories in "The Spetimental Journey." 5 Vi MEMOIRS OF THE LIF OF of a Captain of good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle, though upon recollection, that was the name of her fatherin-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him), which was on September 25, 1711, old style. This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother —a fine person of a man, but a graceless whelp!-what became of him I know not. The The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south of Ireland; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk. IMy birth-day was omninous to my poor father, who was, the day of our arrival, with many other brhave officers, broke, and'sent adrift into the wide world, with a wife and two children-the elder of which was Mary. She was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July 10, 1712, new style. This child was the most unfortunate: she married one \Weemans, in Dublin, who used her most unmercifully-spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself; which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman, of a fine fig'ure, and deserved a better fate. The regiment in which nmy father served being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mnother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool, by land, to Plymouth. (Melancholy description of this journey, not necessary to be transmaitted hlere.) In twelve nmontlls, we were all sent back to Dublin. My mother, with three of us (for she lay-in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram) took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away, by a leak springing up in the vessel. At length, after mnany perils and struggles, we got to Dublin. There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a-half's time, spent a great deal of money. In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhinged again; the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in. order to embark for Spain in the Vigo Expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and were driven into Mlilford-Haven, but landed at Bristol; fiom thence, by land, to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight, where, I remember, we staid, encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops-(in this expedition, from Bristol to Hampshire, we lost poor Joram-a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox)-nymy mother, sister, and myself remained at the Isle of Wight, during the Vigo Expedition, and until the regiment got back to WTicklow, in Ireland; from whence my father sent for us. We had poor Joram's loss supplied, during Our stay in.the Isle of Wighlt, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen. This pretty blossom fell at the age of three years, in the barracks of Dublin: she was, as well as I remember, of a fine, delicate frame, not made to last long, as wele most of my father's babes. We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we staid a month, and at length got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow, where my father had for some weeks given us over for lost. We lived in the barracks at Wicklow one year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), when Devijeher (so called after Colonel Devijeher) was born; from thence we decanmped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, about seventy miles from Wicklow, who, being a relation of my mother's, invited us to his parsonage at Animo. It was,in this parish, during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt: the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the com Vili WIv E MO0 I R S OF THfE LIFE OF mon people floeked to see me. From hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the barracks a year. In this year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one), I learnt to write, &c. The regiment ordered in twenty-two to Carrickfergus, in the north of Ireland. WAe all decamped, but got no further than Drogheda; thence ordered to Mullengar, forty miles west, where, by Providence, we stumbled upon a kind relation, a collateral descendant of Archbishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle, and kindly entertained us for a year, and sent us to the regoiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, &c. A most rueful and tedious journey had we all (in March) to Carrickfergus, where we arrived in six or seven days. Little Devijeher here died; he was three years old: he had been left behind at nurse at a farm-house near Wicklow, but was fetched to us by my father, the summer after-another child sent to fill his place, Susan. This babe, too, left us behind in this weary journey. The autumnn of that year, or the spring afterwards (I forget which), my father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school, which he did near Halifax, with an able master; with whom I staid some time, till, by God's care of me, my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, and sent me to the university, &c., &c. ro pursue the thread of our story, miy fither's regiment was, the year after, ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was brought forth, Catherine, still living, but most unhappily estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness and her own folly. From this station the reg'iment was sent. to defend Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father was run through the body by Captain Phillips, in a duel (the quarrel began about a goose!) with much difficulty, he survived, though with an impaired constitution, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to; for he was sent to Jamaica, where he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made a child of him, and then, in a month or two, walking about continually without complaining, till the moment he sat down in an arm-chair, and breathed his last, which was at Port Antonio, on the north of the island. My TH REV. MR. STER NE. x father was a little smart man, active to the last degree in all exercises, most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of which it pleased God to give hinm fnll measure. Ite was, in his temper, somnewhat rapid and hasty, but of a kindly sweet disposition, void of all design, and so innocent in his own intentions that he suspected no one; so that you might have cheated him ten times a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose. My poor father died in March, 1731. I remained at Halifax till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself and schoolmaster. He had the ceiling of the room new whitewashed; the ladder remained there: I, one unlucky day, mlounted'it, and wrote with a brush, in large capital letters, LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to preferment. This expression made me forget the stripes I had received. In the year thirty-two,* my cousin sent me to the university, where I staid some time.'Twas there that I commenced a friendship with Mr. H-, which has been lasting on both sides. I then came to York, and my uncle got me the living of Sutton: and at York, I became acquainted with your mother, and courted her for two years; she owned she liked me; but thought herself not rich enough, or me too poor, to be joined together. She went to her sister's in S —; and I wrote to her often. I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but would not say so. At her return, she fell into a consumption; and one evening that I was sitting by her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, "My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live! but I have left you every shilling of my fortune." Upon that, she * He was admitted of Jesus' College, in the university of Cambridge, 6th July, 1733, under the tuition of IMr. Cannon. Matriculated 29th March, 1735. Admitted to the degree of B. A. in January, 1736. Admitted M. A. at the commencement of 1740. 1* X M M EMOIR S OF T1E LIFE OF showed me her will. This generosity overpowered me. It pleased God that she recovered, and I married her in the year 17410 My uncle* and myself were then upon very good terms; for he soon got me the Prebend of York; but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the nenwspapers: though he was a party-man, I was not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that period, he became my bitterest enemy.[ By my wife's means I got the living of Stillington: a fiiend of hers in the south had promised her, that if she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places. I had then very good health. Books, painting, fiddling, and shooting, were my amusements. As to the Squire of the Parish, I cannot say we were upon a very friendly footing: but at Stillington, the family of the C-s showed us every kindness;'twas most truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family, who were ever cordial friends. In the year 1760, I took a house at York for your mother and yourself, and went up to London to publish ~ my two first volumes of Shandy.ll In that year, Lord * Jaques Sterne, LL. D. Ie was Prebendary of Durham, Canon Residentiary, Prebendary of York, Rector of Rise, and Rector of Hlornseacum Riston, both in the East Riding of the county of York. He died June 9th, i759. t It hath, however, been insinuated, that he for some time wrote a periodical electioneering paper at York, in defence of the Whig interest.-.Aonsthly Review, vol. 53, p. 844. $ A specimen of Mr. Sterne's ability in the art of designing may be seen in Mr. Wodhul's Poem's, 8vo., 1772. ~ The first edition was printed in the preceding year at York. [ The following is the order in which Mr. Sterne's publications appeared: 1747. The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath considered, a Charity Sermon preached on Good Friday, April 17, 1747, for the support of two charity schools in Yorlk. 1750. The Abuses of Conscience. Set forth in a Sermon preached in the cathedral church of St. Peter, York, at the summer assizes, before the Hon. Mr. Baron Clive, and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smith, on Sunday, July 29, 1750. 1759. Vol. 1 and 2 of Tristram Shandy. 1760. Vol. 1 and 2 of Sermons. 1761. Vol. 3 and 4 of Tristram Shandy. 1762. vol. 5 and 6 of Tristram Shandy. THE REV. MR. STERNE. xi Falconbridge presented me with the curacy of Coxwold: a sweet retirement, in comparison of Sutton. In sixty-two, I went to France, before the peace was concluded; and you both followed me. I left you both in France,, and, in two years after, I went to Italy for the recovery of my health; and, when I called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return to England with me:* she and yourself are at length come, and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my girl everything I wished her. I have set down these particulars, relating to -my family and self, for my Lydia, in case hereafter she migqht have a curiosity, or a kizder motive, to know them..As Mr. Sterne, in the foregoing narrative, hath brought down the account of himself, until within a few months of his death, it remains only to mention that lie left Yorl about the end of the year 1767, and came to London, in order to publish The Sentivmental Jorourney, which he had written during the preceding summer at his favorite living of Coxwold. His health had been for some time declining; but he continued to visit his friends, and retained his usual flow of spirits. In February, 1768, he began to perceive the approaches of death; and with the concern of a good man, and the solicitude of an affectionate parent, devoted his attention to the future welfare of his daughter. His letters, at this period, reflect so much credit on his character, that it is to be lamented some others in the collection were permitted to see 1765. Vol. 7 and 8 of Tristram Shandy. 1766. Vol. 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Sermons. 1767. Vol. 9 of Tristram Shandy. 176S. The Sentimental Journey. The remainder of his works were published after his death. * From this passage it appears that the present account of Mr. Sterne's Life and Family was written about six months only before his death. X1i i ME O I R S OF THE REV.- MR. STERN E the light. After a short struggle iVith his disorder, his debilitated and worn-out frame submitted to fate on the eighteenth day of March, 1768, at his lodgings in Bond street. He was buried at the new burying-ground belonging to the parish of St. George, Hanover square, on the 22d of the same month, in the mrost private manner; and hath since been indebted to strangers for a monument very unworthy of his mnemory, on which the following lines are inscribed: "Near to this Place LIES THE BODY OF THE REVEREND LAURENCE STERNE, A. M. Died September 13th, 1168,* Aged 53 Years. Ah I mnolliter ossa qgsiescant. If a sound Head, warm Heart, and Breast humane, Unsullied Worth, and Soul without a Stain: If Mental Pow'rs could ever justly claim The well-won Tribute of immortal Fame, Sterne was thte man, who, with gigantic Stride, Mow'd down luxuriant Follies far and wide. Yet what tho' keenest Knowledge of Mankind Unseal'd to him the springs that move the Mind, What did it cost him? Ridicul'd, abus'd, By Fools insulted, and by Prudes accus'd! In his, mild Reader, view thy future fate; Like him despise what'twere a Sin to hate. This monumental Stone was erected by two brother masons; for though he did not live to be a member of their society, yet, as his all-incomparable performances evidently prove him to have acted by rule and square, they rejoice in this opportunity of perpetuating his high and irreproach able character to after-ages. lW. & S." It is scarcely necessary to observe that this date is erroneous. LIFE AND OPINIONS TRI N T RAM A NDY BO00K I. 10i, LIFE AND OPINION'S OF TR ISTRAM SHANDY, GE N T L E M A N. OHA PTER 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 considered 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 east of his mind; and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house, might take their turn from the humors 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 success and miscarriages in this world, depend upon their motions and activity, 15 16 LIFE AND OPINI O NS OF 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 halfpenny matter, away they go cluttering like heygo 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?l "Good G-d!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,'6 Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?" 6 Pray, what was your father saying?I 6 Nothing., CHAPTER II. TiEEN, 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 romulncuZs, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception. The HTonunculus, 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 confessed-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 inquiries) show us incontestably that the Homncutlus is created by the same hand, engendered in the same course of nature, endowed with the same locomotive powers and faculties with us: that he consists, as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals, humors, and articulations; is a being of as T I S TAM SIHANDYo 17 much activity, and, in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England. He may be benefited, he may be injured, he may obtain redress; in a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity which Tully, Puffendorf, or the best ethic writers, allow to arise out of that state and relation. Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone! or that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little gentleman had got to his journey's end miserably spent; his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread; his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description, and that in this sad disordered state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together, I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thorouglhly to rights. CHAPTER III. To mly 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 remembered, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity (as he called 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 fiom a thousand other observations he had made upon me, that I should neither think nor act like any other man's child: But aclas! continued he, shalking his head a second time, and wiping away a tear, which was trickling down his cheeks, 3AIy Tristrcam's nmisfortunes began nine.e months before ever 7ze came into the qworld! hMy mother, who was sitting by, looked up; but she knew no more 18 LIFE AND OPINI OiNS 01 than her backside what my father meant; but my uncle, Mbr. Toby Shandy, who had been often iniblmedl of the affair, understood him very well. CHAPTER IV, I KNow there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret, from first to last, of every thing which concerns you. It is in pure coimpliance with this humor of theirs, and from ta backwlardness 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 nmakle some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, w ill take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever, be no less read than the Pilglrim's Progress itself, and, in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded in his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for the parlor-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 I-orace says, acb oOe. IIorace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: but that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem, ol a tragedy-(I forget which;) besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. -Iorace'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 beforehand,'tis Wrote only for the curious and inquisitive. Shut the door. I was begot in the night betwixt the first Sunday and the first Mlonday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thl)usand seven hlundred and eighteen. I amr positive I TR ISTRAM SH A iDY. 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 macide public for the better clearing up of 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 it was a matter of business or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to Mwhich he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life, on0 the first Sunday night of every month throughout the whole year, as certain as ever the' Sunday night came, to wind up a large houseclock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands: and being somewhere between and fifty sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of, he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concerns 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 wolund up, but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head-et 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 mny father's pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, " That on Lady-day, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture, my father set out upon his journey to London, with my eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school;" and, as it appears from the same authority, "That li he did not get down to his wife and flamily till the second weelk in Mlay, following," it brings the thing almost to a cer 20 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF tainty. However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter puts it beyond all possibility of doubt. But pray, Sir, what was your father doing all December, January, and February? Why, Madalm, he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica. CHAPTER V. Ox the fifth day of lNTovember, 1718, which, to the era fixed on, was as near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected, was I, Tristram Shandy, gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and 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 tho 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 skating 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. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 21 CHAPTEIPR VI. IN the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly qohen I was born; but I did not inform you ho'qo. No; that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself; besides, Sir, as you and I are in a mannel 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. 0 ctien,)eclacrum! 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 ol's cap, with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass along, A't fly off, but rather courteously give me credit for a little more oiom than appears on my outside; and, as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me, or, in short, do any thing, only keep your temper. CHAPTER V II 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 damne INature had. ~22 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world. by which word oorlZcd, 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 Wt-ithal 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 ever 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 utnost of her wishes. In truth, the parson joined his interest with his wifei'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 license himself, amounting in the whlole to the sum of eighteen shillings and fourpence; so that, betwixt therm both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her office, together with all its rights, memzbe~rs, anrd calpurtenacnces o0hcatsoever. These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in which such licenses, faculties, and powers usually ran, which, in like cases, had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood; but it T R Ir STR A. 1 S E A N D Y 23 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 kinds of instruments in that way, not only hit -upon this dainty amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the neighborhood to open their faculties afiresh, in order to have this whimwham 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. Ktunastrokius, 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? NTay, if you come to that, Sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting Solomon himself, have they not had their -IOBBY-I-IonsES, 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 nor me to get up behind him, pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? CHAPTER VIII. De gulstinls non est dispztcandum; that is, there is no disputing against I-IOBEY-IlosrE; 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 journeys 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 person 24 L I IFE AN D OPIN IO NS O ages as hereafter folldw; such, for instance, as my lord A, 13, 7, D, E, F, G, H, I, K L, IM, N, 0) P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses; some with large stirrups, getting on with a more grave and sober pace; others, on the contrary, tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering away like so many little party-colored devils astride a mortgage, and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks. So much the better, say I to myself; for, in case the worst should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well without them; and for the rest, why, God speed them, e'en let them ride on without opposition from me; for, were their lordships unhorsed this very night- "tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse mounted by one half before to-morrow morning. Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my rest. But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard, and that is, when I see one born for great actions, and, what is still more for his honor, 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 momlent; when I see such a one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but f)r 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-HonsE, with all its fraternity, at the Devil. "M y 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 honor to be, My Lord,' Your Lordship's most obedient, and most devoted,'" And most humble servant, TRISTRAM SIHANDYo" TR I S TRAT A SIAND 25 CHAPTER IX. I SOLeMNLY declare to all mank-ind, 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 labor this point so particulariy, 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, Mfarquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, in these 1is lfajesty's dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel dledication, 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 mnan of genius. M[y 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 coloring transparent, the drawing not amiss; or01, 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 coloring as 7, 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 liOBBY-HORSE (which is a secondary- figure, and a kind of back9 26 LIFE AND OPINIO NS OF ground to the wlhole,) 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 toezt cnseeglnme. Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sumn to be paid into the hands of Mre. 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, fi'om the 7words ZDe gquStibs n02 est dis2zutcandutm and whatever else in this book relates to Hon-HIss-ionss but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship. The rest I dedicate to the lMooN, -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 CO-i X sU-D's affairs, take Tristram Shandy's under thy protection also. COHAPTERP X. WHATEVER degree of small merit the act of benignity in favor of the midwife mightI justly claim, or in whon that claim truly rested, at first sight seemls 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: andl 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 lie 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 a full half of whatever honor 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 license, of which you have had so circumstantial an T' R ITnA SHA N DY. 27 account, the parson we have to do with, had made himself a countrytalk by a breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his station, and his office: and that was in never appearing better, or otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jack-ass of a horse, value about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of him, was full brother to Rosinante, as far as similitude congenial could make him; for he answered his description to a hairbreadth in every thing, except that I do not remember'tis anywhere said that Rosinante was brokenwinded; and that, moi'eover, Rosinante, as it 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 mnay have given grounds for the contrary opinion: but it is as certain, at the same time, that Rosinante's continency (as may be demlonstrated fiom the adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded fiom no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and orderly current of his blood. And let me tell you, Mladam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of wThich 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 favor of Don Quixote's horse; in all other points, the parson's horse, I say, was just such another: for he was as leen, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as Humility herself could have bestrided. In the estimation of here and there a manl of weak judgment, it was greatly in the parson's power to have helped the figure of this horse of his, for he was mlaster of a very handsome demi-peak'd saddle, quilted on the seat with green plush, garnished -with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, wi'th an edging of black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fiinge, pocudr d'o' 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. 28 LIFE ANf D OPIN ItO S O d In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighboring 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. IabJor stood still as he passed, 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 lighthearted: all which he bore with excellent tranquillity. 1His 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 miade the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his humnor, 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 brokenwinded horse, preferably to one of mettle; for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as delightfully de vanitcate mundi et fcugy sceculi, 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 argamentation, like -wit TPRISTRA a.HANDnY 29 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 withheld the true one, only out of a nicety of telmper, because he thought it did honor to hilm. [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 ahat you will, to run into the opposite extreme. In the langluage of the country where he dwelt, he wTas 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 svcarce a whole week toge-ther witlhout some piteous application for his beast; and as hle Awas not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was mlore pressing and more distressful than the last, as much as he loved his beast, lie had never a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which wvas generally this, that his horse was either clapped, or spavined, or greazed; or hoe iwas twaitterboned, or brokenwinded, or somethinlg, in short, o' other had( befallen limm, which would let him carry no flesh; so tlhat he had every nline or ten montlhs a bad horse to get rid of, an.Cd a good horse to prlchiase in his stead. What the loss in such a balance miglht amosunt to, cornmcnizls annCis, I would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the samle traffic, to determine; but let it be what it wiould, the honest gentlesan bore it for many years without a lurlnmur, till at length, by repeatedc ill accildents of the kind, lie found it necessary to take the thing uncer consideration; and, upon w eisghing the wlhole, andl summing it up in his mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expelcsesO but withal so heavy an a aticle in itself as to disable him froiL'1 ay othe act of gencirosity isn his parishl; besides this, lihe considered that with half the sum thus galloped avway, hle could dol ten times as nruch g'ood; and what still wigheid more with lil thias all other considerationas put toget'cer, wvas tllis, that it confined all his charinty into onae particular chlasuc], anid whreore, as ho fancied, it was 80 I, F F AND OPINIONS OF the least -wanted; namely, to the ch id-bearing and child-getting part of his parish; reserving nothing for the impotent, nothing for the aged, nothing fobr 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 expense; and there appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it; and these were, either to make it an irrevocable lawv never niore 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 cheerfully betook himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it, as I said, to his honor, 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 unndergo the pain of telling a story which mig'ht seem a panegyric upon himself. I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverend gentleman, fiom this single stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless xknight 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 show the temper of the world in the whole of this affhir. For you must know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson credit, the devil a soul could iind 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 expenses of the ordinary's license 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 rmemnbered. The story ran like wildfire: " The parson had a returning fit of pride which had just seized him, and he was going to be well imounted once again in his life; and if it was so,'twas plain as the suni at noon-day, he would pocket the expense of the license ten tinles 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 andC 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 tei years ago, this gentleman had the good fortune to be nmade 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 lnen; order theim as they will, they pass through a certain muedium, 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.n are nevertheless'orced 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 wili carry its moral along with it. When this is done, if nothing stops us in our way, we shall go on with the midwife. CHAPTER XI. YorIice 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 vithin 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 has 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 Awould venture to say of one half of the best surnames in the king'dom; wahich, in a course of years, have gene 32.LI F E AND OPINIONS O F rally un dergone 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, anid will one day so blend and confouid 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 piudent care of the Yorick family; anln their religious preservation of these records I cquote, which do farther inform us, That the family was originally of Danish extraction, aicl had been transplanted into England as early as in the reign of 1H-orwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of this r r. Yorick, and from whom he wtas lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of lwhat nature this considerable post -was, this record saith not; it only adds, That for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished as altogether unnecessariy, not only in that court, but in every other court of the Christian w orld. It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than that of the Iking's chief jester, and that Hamlet's Yorick, in our Shakspeare, many of whose plays, you know, Iare founded upon authenticated facts, was certainly the very man. I have not the time to look into Saxo-.-Grammalticus'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 t ravels thro-ugh Denmark, with 3ir. Nioddy's eldest son, Vrhom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding a1ono with him ait a procdigious rate through most parts of Europe, and of which original journey performed by us -two, a most delectaoble narrative will be given in the progress of this work; I had just tihmel I say, and t.la;at wlas all, to prove the truth of an observation lade by a long' soJourner; in t1hat coun.try, njamaely,'That nature qs m neitller very lavish, nor mas she very stingy in her gifts of ouius'iand capacitcy to its inhabitants; but, like a discreet parent, was rmoderitely lind to thtme all; observing, sucli an equal tenor in the d.istributio of her favors, as to bring theml in those points, pretty nearly to a level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of refinied parts; but a good deal of plain TI S TRA S A N D Y o, 33 household 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 do-wns 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, Awe are not so irregular as that comes to; but the two extrelies are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where'lature, in her gifts and dislpositions 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 fhith 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 w ould, the fact was this: That instead of that cold phlegmn and exact regularity of sense and humnors 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 lucll life and whim, and gaiete de ccaur about him, as the kindliest climlate could have engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he w-as utterly unpractised in the worldl; and, at the age of twventy-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it as a romlping unsuspicious girl of thirteen; so that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spir'its, as you will imagifie, ran himn foul ten timnes in a day of somebody's tacldingl; and as the grave and mc ore slow-paced were ofenest in his Ts ay, you may likewise imagine,'twvas -with such he had generally the ill luck to get the niost entangled. For aught I know, there mlight be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such fiaCas: ifo, to speak the truth, Yorick had an nvincdible dslike and opposition in his nature to gravity; lnot to gravitsy as such; for whllere gravity was wanted, lie would be the u.sost 1'Tave or serious of mortal mlenl for days and weeks together; 1-ot he waas an enemy to the af.ectation of it, and declared open war.aosinst it, only as it appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, wihenever it fell in his w-;'', however sheltered an i prot-eeted, ise 1lro. rave it much qoarte' 34 T, T ANT, ) AD O P T 1 N T. O\, ( OF Sometimes, in his iwild -way of talking, he would say, that Gravity was an arrant scoundrel, and, he would add, of the most dangerous kind too, because a sly one, anlcd that he verily believed, more honest -well-mearningg people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twTelvemonlth, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper wihich a Iuerry heart discovered, he would say there Twas no danger, -whereas, the Very essence of gravity was design, and consecquently deceit; but to itself:'twas a taught tricl, to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man wTas worth; and that, with all his pretensions, it was no better, but often worse, than vwhat a French wtit had long ago defined it, Viz.: A yf/sucterious ccarriiage of te te ody, to cover the decfcts of the mzicnd: wvhich 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 unhackneyecd and unpractised in the worlld; 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 nwhat 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 niuch distinction of either person, time, or place; so that when mention was mnade of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding; he never gave himself a mloment's time to reflect who was the he ho of the piece, what his station, or how far he had poiver to hurt hhi' hereafter; but, if it was a dirty action, witllout more ado, the nian was a dirty fellows; and so on. And as his collmments had usually the ill fate to be terminated either in a bon:mot, or to be enlivened throughout with some drollery or humor of expression, it gave wvings to Yorick's indiscretion. In a word, though lie never sought, yet, at the same time, as lie seldoni shunned, occasions of saying lwhat camle uppermnost, vwithout much ceremony, lie had but too many temptations in life, of scattering his wvit and lls hunior-lhils gibes and his jests about him. They were not lost for wantl of gatherW~That were the consequences, and what was Yorick's catastroph.e thereupon, you wvill read in the next chapter. T RL T RA 1 A I S A Nv D YC CtIAPTER XIN. Tire MAor1tgager and Mortgagee differ the one froim the other not more in length of purase, than the Jester and Jestee do in that of memory. But in this the comperison between therm runs, as the scoliasts call it, upon all-fours; wThicll, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more than some of the best of I-omer's can pretend to; namely, that the one raises a sum, and the other a lhaugh at yourl expense, and thinks no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; the periodical or accidental payment of it, just serving to keep the memory of the affhir 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 hunlan nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my HIero could not go on at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental melientoes. To speak the truth, he had wantonly in volved himself in a nlultitude of small book-debts of this stamp, whi ch, notwithstanding Eugenius's firequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that as not one of theim was contracted through any mlalignancy, but, oil the contrary, friom an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of hunior, they would all of them be crossed out in COur'Se. Eugenius would nIever adnlit this; and would often tell him, that one clay or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and lihe ollcl often add, in an accent of sorrow-ful apprelhension, to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often answver with a pshllaw and if the subject was startedl in the fields, with a hop, skip and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent up in the social chinimney-corner, wh7ere the culprit was barricadoed 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 soimlewhlat better. put togethier: 86 RLiFE AN D O P NIONS O F Trust mne, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, wihich no after-wit can extricate thee out of. In these sallies, too oft, I see it happens, that a person lauglled at consiclers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou vie-west him in that light too, and reckonest up his friends, his famnily, his kindred and allies, and musterest up with them the many recruits which will list under him firom a sense of common danger, t;is 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 itruly honest and sportive: but consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not: and that thou knowest not -what it is either to provoke the one, or to snake menrrly with the other: whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner aoaihnst thee, my dear fiiend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of tLy life too. IRevenge from some baneiful corner shall level a tale of dishonor at thee, lwich no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right. The fortunes of thy house shall totterI; thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it; thy faith questioned, thy woriks belied, thy wit forgotteen, thy learning trampleci on. To rixnd up the last scene ofr thy traiedy, Cruelty at n d Cowrcardie, win rin m',ausn hired and se-t on by Jiaice in the idarlk shall strike togethelr at all thy inf.rlmities and mnistikes;'the beSt of 1S, ns y d ear lad, lie open theie, and trust ue, trust 1nc Yoric'i e, r ie/e ao ai9cfy a rivatce caipetite, it is OIce'eSOib;d qqpont, tc7Cat an iuiazoenzt anid uhelless cr eatauire scZal ble Socr i/~ec, i8 Cpe ectsy t m za. tter to 2sc:7 ic stics ez97],u, f aos;~. ac yd t and * at the head of it, was formed before thefirst prediction of it. The whole plan of 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 a' 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 calnmities of the war, but lmore 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 samne 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 into 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 Eug'enius'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 want'st them; who know'vs what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee? lYorick 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, cheering up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a Bishop, and that I may live to ses it. I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap, as well as he could with his left hansd-his right being still clasped close in thJiat of Eugenius, I beseech thee to take a view ~8 8 F I ] E, A. N n) P r N T 0 N S O E 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 misshlapen with the blows which *:***'*: and 1and some others have so unhlandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho PIani(,a thlat, should I recover, and I'mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down friom HIeaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit.' Yorickl's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart as hle uttered this; yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic 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 Shakspeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar! Eugenius Y-was convinced fr'om 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 themn, and never opened them more. Ile lies buried in the corner of his church-yard in the parish of un, lder a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than thes three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy: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 footway 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, POOIt YOtRIO]! TRISTRAM SHANDY 39 40 I.E r IFE A N D 0 OPI N I O N 0 a CHAPTER XIII. IT is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the worldl 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 dispatchll,'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 wiay 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; thlat her fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that circle of imiportance, of -which kind every soul living, whether he has a shirt to his back or not —has one surrounding hiim; which said circle, by the wray, wllenever it is said that such a one is of great wveight or importance in the wvorld, 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; whichli not only comnprehlended 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 grang'ehouse, and somle other odd houses and farms within two or three 1miles, s I saicd frion the smoke of her own chimney: but I must here once for all, informI you tlhat all this will be nore exactly delineated and explained'in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, whiich, i Aith manay other pieces and developments of this wcor], will be added to the end of the twentiethi volume; not to swxell the Twork, I detest the thouaght of such a thing; but by mafy of connmentary, scho1um, id lustrati, -idr. key to suchl as.e incideents a or i —nnuendces T PIR ISTRAM HA ND-Y. 41 as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my Life and Opinions shall have been read over (now don't forget the meaning of the word) by all the corld: ~ 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 contlrary, I am determined shall be the case. I need not tell your Worship that all this is spoke in confidence. C H APTER XIV. UPON looking into my mother's marriage-settlement, in ordle to satisfy myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any further 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 imight have taken me up a month; which shows plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history, thou'gh it be but the History of Jack IIickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no miore than his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet wvitlh in his way, or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all is over. Could a historiographer drlive on his history, as a muleteer drives on lis mule, straight forward; for instance, from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once turning his head aside, either to the riglht hand or to the lefthe mig'ht venture to foretell you to an hour when lie should get to his journey's end; but the thing is, morally spesaking, impossible; for if he is 1man of the least spirit, he will have fifty deviations fi om a straigl't line to make with this or that party as he goes along, which he cvan noweays avoid. He will have views and prospects to himself perupetually soliciting his eye. which he can no more help standing still to look at than lie can fly; he will, moreover, have various Lecounts to reconcile, Anecdotes to pick up, Inscriptions to make out, Stories to weave in, 4 LIFE IN, OPINIONS OiP Traditions to shift, Personages to call upon, Paniegyrics to paste up at this door, Pasquinades at that: all which both the man and the mule are exempt from. To sum up all, There are archives at every stage to be looked 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 is all, to tell you chken it happened, 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 shail continue to do as long as i live. CH APTER XV. TiRE 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 expressed 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: "fib lbiS -n)iactufri furirt hitnretzib, That the said Walter Shandy, merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be adC, and, by God's blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consuliumated between the said Walter Shandy and Elizabeth Mollineux'aforesaid, aind divers other good and valuable causes and considerations him thereunto especially moving, doth grant, covenant, condesacendi consent~ conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with -. A I S ITH A N D -Y. 48 John Dixon, and. James Turner, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees &e. &c., to -ift, That in case it should hereafte so fa.ll 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 conseqluence 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, lmake 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, messulage, or grange-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 enciente with child- or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten upon the body of the said Elizabeth -ollineux, during her said coverture, he, the said Walter Shandy shall, at his own 1w1oper costs and charges, and out of'his own proper moneys. u-oi:. cood and reasonable notice, which is hereby agreed to be wit]h, in six weeks of her the said Elizabeth ifollineux's full reckoning, or time of supposed annd computeld delivery, pay, or cause to be paid. the sum of one hundred and twentgy- Pe'an-,-' good and lawful monety2; to John Dixon, and James Turrnelr Esci-s.,:i, esigns, upon trunst and confidence, and for and unto the use a-utc' intent, end, and puipose following; fTat Lf to maq, That th,.e alci sum of one hundrcll aind'twenty pounds shall be paid into the hands of the said ElizabetJ. Mollineux, or to be otherwise applied by tl:,- t -._ — -aid Trustees, for the well and truly hir!ing of one coacij,'.witlb. -,a-d,:cl sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of the:ii;i i. Bi MollineuxS and the child or children vwhich she shall be t.i l ain >ietre enciente and pregnant with, unto the city of London; anc for the firther paying and defiaying of all other incidenltatl c:', charges, and expenses wrhatsoever, in and about, and for, and1 2i::ting to, her said intended delivery and lying-in, in the said a:il; y oe suburbs thereof; and that the said Elizabeth dIollineux shall ann vLay, from timlle to tine, and at all such tiine and times as are 11ere covehanuted and agtreed upon, peaceably and quietly hire the said coach and horsess and lave free inlgress, egress, and regress throghouo t h1er journey, in 44 LFn AND O P, T N o IIX S o V and from the said coach, according to the tenor, true intent, and meaning of these presents, without any let, suit, trouble, disturbance,.molestation, discharge, hindrance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation? interruption, or encumbrance, whatsoever: and that it shall moreover be lawful to and for the said Elizabeth Mollineux, from time to tihme, 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, andcl 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 fenzne sole and unmarried, shall think fit. ~tb ia[ filvnburzt ~ur~tbr Wfitem's5t,, 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 Jamles 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 transfierring of uses into possession, i(IT 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, common% woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and water-courses; together with all rents, reversions, services, annuities, fee-farms, knighllt's fees, views of frank-pledge, escheats, reliefs, mines, quatrlies, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, freewarrens, and all other royalties uacd seigniories, rights and jurisdictions, privileges and hereditaments whatsoever. lao aizs the advowson, donation, presentation, and fiee dislposition of the rectory or parsonage of Shandy aforesaid, and all and every thCe tenths, tythes, glebe-lands. In three words, Msy mother was to iie in (if she chose it) in Lolndon.:But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair plaly on the parti of m}~ mother, which a marriag'e-article of this 1nature too Ti iS T 5 S itANDYo 45 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: 6" That in case my mother hereafter should, at any time, put my father'to the trouble and expense 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 no more, and so on, toties qoties, 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 a thought it hard that ithe 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, 17,17 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 doomed, 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 even 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. CH APTER T XV I. Mv father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humor. The first twenty or five-and-twenty miles, he did nothing in the world but fret and tease himself, and indeed my mother too, about the /d LIFE AA-D OPI NIO NS 0 1' cursed expense, which he said miglht every shilling of it have been saved. Then, what vexed hin more than every thing else was, the provoking tile of the year, which, as I told you, was towards the end of September, wvlhen his waall-frni't, and green gages especially, in 17which he -=was very curious, were just ready for pulling. "Had he been iwhistled 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 sustained from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckoned upon in his mind, and registered down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him. "Thle disappointment of this (he said) was ten times more to a wise man than all the money which the journey, cic. had cost him, put together: rot the hundred and tiwenty pounds, he did not mind it a rush." From Stilton, all the way to Granthanm, nothing in the whole affair provoked him so much as the condolences of his fiiendls, and the foolish figure they should both make at church the first Sunday; of which, in the satirical vehemence of his writ, now sharpened a little'by vexatidn, he -wrould give so many humorous and provoling 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-comnical, 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 crossed the Trent, my father was out of all kind of patience at the vile trick and ilmposition which he fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair. " Certainly," hle would say to himself, over and over again, " the womlan could not be deceived herself-if she could, what wveakness! " tormenting word! which' led his imagination a thorny dance, and before all was over, played the deuce and all with him; for sure as ever the word vecTa7cness 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 lie 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 mlany little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one affair, all firetting 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 HAP T E XVIT THo-uG my father travelled homewvards, 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 nay 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 chagrined and out of temper, took occasion, as they lay chatting gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to cone, 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 lie-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 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. -~8 L x IFE AND OPINIONS 0).' CHIIAPTiER XVIII. As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother should lie-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 wvas well got round, as the famous Dr. Manninghamn 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-shilling book upon the subject of midwifery, in which he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself, but had likewise superadded many curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the fcetus 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 more than a week fiom this very day, in vwhich 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 honor 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. T R SHA NDT R 9 SZ These facts, though they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my fatherls 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 blame of it. "Alas o'day! had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman!) had but her wish in going up to town just to lie-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 Mtr. Shandy got w-ith her, -was no such mighty matter to have complied with, the lady and her babe nmight both of them have been alive at this hourl" 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 public 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 rig'hts, though, by the bye, a curvent was not the image he took the most delight in; a disteenper was here his favorite metaphor, and he would run it down into a perfect allegory, by mraintaining it swas 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 nmust ensue, which was death in both cases. There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by French poli-tcs or French invasions; nor was he so much in pain of fi0 6L Q T'IE AND OPI IO.*NO OF0 a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humors 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, Th/e Tord hiave mzercy u)pon is al2l. MFy father was never able to give the history of'this distemper, without the remnedy along with it. 6TWas I an absolute prinlce,t" he would say, pulling up his breeches with botl his hands, as he rose froiii his arm-chair, "I would,appoint able judges, at every avenue of my metropolis, wvho 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, etc., etc., at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable to constable, like vag'rants as they were, to the place of their legal settlements. By this means I should take care, that my-moetropolis totter'd not tihrough its own weight; that the head be no longer too big for the body; tlhat the extremes, now wasted and pinln'd in, be restored -to their due sha e of nourisinment, and r egain with it their natnural strength and beauty: I wouid effectually provide, That the meadows and corn-fields of my donilnions should laugh and sing; that good cheer and hospitality flourish once more; and that such wveight and influence be put thereby into Ithne hands of the Squiralty of my kingdom, as should counterpoise what-t I perceive my Nobility are now taking fromll them. "AWhy are there so few palaces and gentlemen's seats," he would ask with somle emotion, as he walked across the room,'"throughout so many delicious provinces in France? Whence is it that the few remaining chlateamx amnongst them are so dismuantled, so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate a condition? Because, *Sir," (be wvoulld say)'"ii that kingdom no man has any counltry-interest to support: the little interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is concentrated in the cour't, and the looks of the Granid MTonarch: by the sunshine of whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every Frelnchmanl lives or dies." Another political reason which promllpted rny father so strongly to guard against the least evil accide-nt in my mother's lying-in in the counitry was, Tkhat any suc.h instanee- w-ould infallibly throw a balance TI STRAM SiHAND~ o 51 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 domestic government established in the first creation of things by God. In this point he was entirely of Sir Robert Filmer's opinion, That the plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern parts of the world, were, originally, all stolen from that admirable pattern and prototype of this household and paternal power; which, for a century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a mixed government: the form of which, however desirable in great combinations of the species, was very troublesome in small ones, and seldomn produced anything, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion. For all these reasons, private and public, put together, mly father was for having the man-midwife by all means; my mother, by no means. ]My father begged and entreated she would for once recede fiom her prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her: my mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privileges in this matter, to choose for herself, and hlave 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: jMy mother answered every thing only like a woman; which wras 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 Deuen. In a word, my mother was to have the old woman, and the operator was to have license to drink a bottle of wine with nmy father and my uncle Toby Shandy in the back parlor, for which lie wNas to be paid five guineas. I must beg' leaver 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 unguard(le word o-r two which I have dropped .'2 L I iLFE AND OP INONW OF 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, Mradam, is strict justice, and that you do so mluch 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 clear, dear Jenny is mry 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 clear, 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, dear Jenny may be my friend! Friend! YMy fiiend. Surely, Madam, a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported without —Fy! lMr. Shandy. Without any thing, Mladam, but that tender and delicious sentiment which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference of sex. Let me entreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of the best French romances; it wvill realtj, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment which I have the honor to speak of, is dress'd out. CHAPTER XIX. I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in Geometry, than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father's great good sense, knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious too in philosophy, wise also in political reasoning' and in polemical (as he will find) no -way ignorant, could be capable of entertaining, a notion. in his head, so out of the common track', that itR I S T R A bt S TA A TDY 3 D3. fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a choleric temper, will immediately throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at it; and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he will at first sight absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving. His opinion in this matter was, That there was a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names, as he called tliem, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct. The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness, nor had he more faith, or nmore to say on the pow.ers of necromancy in dishonoring his deeds, or on Dulcinea's name, in shedding lustre upon themn, than my father had on those of Trismegistus or Archimedes on the one hand, or of Nyky and Sinlkin on the other. HrIow many Ccesars and Pompeys, lie would say, by mere inspiration of the nan, have been rendered worthy of them! And, how many, he would adcd, are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodenlus'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, nay 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 fiee 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 pianzo of voice which the nature of the argunzentu cd d'hoiminemn absolutely requires, —Would you, Sir, if a Jew of a godiather had pro 54 LIVE AND OPINIONS O posed the name for your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would have consented to such a desecration of hin m? 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 show me in the whole transaction, is really noble; and what renders it more so, is the principle of it: the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, that was your son called Judas, the sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable fiom 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; eofif daicroo. Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logic and Rhetoric were so blended up in him, and, withal, he had so shlrewd a guess at the weakness and passions of his respondent, that NATU2E 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 readl Cicero, not' Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus, amongst the antients; nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Pamus, 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 Burgersdicus or any Dutch logician or commentator; he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument acd ignorcntiac, and anr argument acd honinenz, consisted; so that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name in 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 comic kind to defend, most of which T R I S TR A SHA N DY.o notions, I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and of a sire ce Bcagtctl;e; and as such he w ould mnake 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 a matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the progress and establishment of mly 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 nanner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest, but ending in downright earnest. -Whether this was the case of the singularity of nay 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; hB was all uniformity; he was systematical, and, like all systenmatic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again, he was serious; and in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better, as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child, or more so, than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy-dog. This, he would say looked 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 wronged, might hereafterm be cleared; and possibly, some time or other, if not in the man's life, at least after his deathbe, 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 parlianment could reach it: He,knew as well as you, that the legislature assumed a powter over sulrnaes: but for very strong reasons, -which he could give, it had never yet adventured, lie would say, to go a step farther. It waas observabile, that thoiagh my father, in consequence of this 66 L [IFE AN D OPINI ONS OF opinion, had, as I have told you, the strongest liking 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 indiiferent to him~ Jack, Dick, and Tom, were of this class: these ny father called neutral names; affirming of them, without aS satire, That tthere 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 reasons, he would often declare, He would not give a cherrystone 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 happened to be at Epsom when it was given him, he would oftimes thank Heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something like a negative quantity in algebra with him;'twas worse, he said, than nothing. William stood pretty high: Numps again was low with him: and Nick, he said,was the Devil. But of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable aversion for ]Tristramn; he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world, thinking it could possibly produce nothing in reruni naturt, 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 LEpiphozemc, or rather _Eyrotesis, raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse, and demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever remembered, whether he had ever read, or even whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing anything great or worth recording? No, he would say, Tristrcm! 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 DYisse'tcation simply upon the word Tristram, showing the world, with great candor and modesty, the grounds of his great abhorrence to the name. T 3R T T R A i S H XDY. S y Trhen 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, though singular, yet inoffensive in his notions, so played upon in theml by cross-purposes-to look down upon the stauge, and see lhim baf ed 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 purposely been planned annd pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations! In a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, illfitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow! ten times in a day calling the child of his prayers, Tl7ristramc Melancholy cdissyllable 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. gHAPTER XX. How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That mnJy nother7 eoas not a Papist. Papist! you told me no such thing, Sir. MIadam, I take 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 missed a page. No, madam, you have not missed 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, Mradam, is the very fault I lay to your charge; and, as a punishmlent for it, I do insist upon it, that youl 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 .J, I. E A D O N 1 N I 0 wT,8 0 straight; foorwards, 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 ilnpart 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 affirms, "' 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 chapt;er, Madam, as I desired you? You have: and did you not observe the passage, upon the second reading, which admits the inference? BNot a word like it! Then, Miadam, 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 christened." Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that consequence did not follow.* It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but rmrore so to the 1Republic of Letters; so that my own1 is quite swallowed up in the consideration of it. that this self-same vile -pririency for fiesh adcventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and humor,7 and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of our concupiscence that way, that nothing bhut the gross and more carnal parts of a composition will'go down; the subtle h]ints and sly communications of science fly off, like spirits, pwards;; heavy imloral 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 ihl e ink-horn, I -wish the nmale reader has not passed by many a one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the felmale-reader has been detected. 0 The Romish IPituals 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 thle Sorbonne, by a deliberation held anmongst them, April 10, 1733, 1have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determnining, That thoungh no part of the child's body shoulld appear, that baptism shall, nevertheless, be administered to it by injection, penr le mnoo/z. cd',lze petite ec.zzzlle, Auglice, co sqzzirt:'tis very strange that St. Thomas Acquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of scilool divinity, should, after so much pains bestowed upon this, give up the point at last, as a second Lee caose i2o21ospsible, "1 Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Ti'omna.s) baptizari possunt slsslfo moolo." 0 Thomas! Thomas TRI S T R AiM SIIANDYo 59 I wish it may have its effects; and that all good people, both male amd female, from. example, may be taught to think as well as read, CH APTER L XXI. I WONDER what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for, above stairs? quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour and a half's silence, to my uncle Toby, who, you must know, was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush breeches which he had got on. What can they be doing, brother? quoth my father, we can scarce hear ourselves talk. i think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb as he began his sentence: I think, says he,-but to enter rightly into my uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on as well again. Pray, what was that man's name, for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to recollect or look for it, who first made the observation, 1" That there was great inconstancy in our air and climate?" Whoever he was,'twas a just and good observation in him. Butt 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 other 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 of his long prefaces (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed towa~rds the latter end of Queen Anne, the great Addison began to patronise the notion, and more fully explained it to the wNorld in one or trwo of his Spectators; but the GO iLIFE AND OPINiIONS OT discovery was not his. Then, fourthly and lastly, That this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an- irregularity in our characters, doth tlhereby, in some sort, make us amendls by giving us somewhat to make us merry with wlhen the weather -will not sufifer us to go out of doors; that observation is mly own; and w as struck out by me this very rainy day kMarch 26th, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the mlorningo Thus, thus, my fellow-laborers 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, matheimatical, enigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it (most of'erm ending, as these do, in. iccl), have, for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping up-wards towards that'Alc/ll of their perfections, from which, if weo may form a conjecture fiom 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 writings will put an end to all kind of reading; and tkhct in time, as wc2ar begets poverty; Poverty pecce, mUSt, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge, and then, nwe 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 era of my b-egetting, as well as the mnode 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 forgot my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe. His humor was of that particular species which does honor to our atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking himn amongst one of the first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many strong lines in it of a family likeness, which showed 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, oftentimes won T'R I S T R A AC u H A'nY. D 1 dered, that my father, though I believe he hadils reasons for it upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity in my course when I was a boy, should never once endeavor to account for them in this way; for all the Shandy Famiily were of an original character throughout: I mean the males, the females had no character at all, except, indeed, my great-aunt Dinah, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman; for which my father, according to his hypothesis of Christian names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers. It. will seem very strange, and I would as soon think of' dropping a riddle in the reader's way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace ancl 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 thiat as this had never done the Shandy Family any good at all, it might lie,waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its office. Observe, I determine nothing upon this. My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell; not with a pedantic Fescue, or in the decisive manner of Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader; but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive: to them I write, and by them I shall be read, if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long, to the very end of the world. Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle, is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself so as to become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows: My uncle, Toby Shlandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which usually constitute the character of a man of honor and rectitude, possessed one in a very eminent degree, which is sel B6 %:I.F A NT o p tPINIxo -NS OF dom or never put into the catalogue; and that wvas a most extreme and unparallel'd modesty of nature; though I correct the worcl 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 acquired? Whichever way my uncle Toby camie by it,'twas nevertheless modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Mladam, 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 iuagine, iMadam, that mly 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 wvish I could say so; for unless it was with his sister-in-law,v, 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, Mladam, 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 lNarmulr, which struck fill 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 solmewhat subtilized and rarefied by the constant heat of a little family pride, they both so wrought together within him that he could never bear to hear the afl-thir of my aunt Dinah touch'dl 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 hypothe;sis frequently obliged hi:i to do, the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the family, would set may uncle Toby's honor and mod TRiSTR A A n t AM. ANDY3 esty 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 fatherl 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. y 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-dishonor, 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 obligation they owed, as they thought, to truth. Aniceus 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 macgis amica veritas, but Truth is my sister. This contrariety of humors 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. I-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 flamily? 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 thousanids of'eal are there, every year that comes, cast away, B04 ALIVE A D OPX NIO S OF (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, ilmy father would reply; for, in Foiro Scientia, there is no such thing as Murder;'tis only Death, brother. BIy uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument than thaft of whistling half a dozen bars of Lillebullero. You must know it was the usual channel through which his passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprised 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 Vericlundiam, ez Absurdo, en 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 argumenlts 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 Argumentuvm Bcaculinumr and the Argumentun ad C rumzenan, 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 Argumnentuvm cad Rem, which, contrariwise, 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. T A S T A M - CHAITE R XXI I TIE learned Bishop Hall, I mean the famous Dr. Joseph HIall, who was Bishop of Exeter in King James the First's reign, tells us in one of his Decades, at the end of his Divine Art of -Meditation, imprinted in London, in the year 1610, by John Beal, dwelling in Aldersgatestreet, "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 honor 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 overlooked by my reader, not for want of penetration in him, but because'tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression: and it is this: That, though my digressions are all fair, as you observe, and that I fly off from what I am abopt, as far, and as often too, as any writer in Great Britain, yet I constantly take care to order affairs so, that my main business does not stand still in my absence. I was just going, for example, to have given you the great outlines of my uncle Toby's most whimsical character: when my aunt Dinah and the coachman came across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles into the very heart of the planetary system: notwithstanding all this, you perceive that the drawing of my uncle Toby's character went on gently all the time; not the great contours of it, that was impossible, but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, were here and there touch'd on, as we went along, so that you are much better acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before. By this contrivance, the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, '6 E LIVE AND OPIN-IONS o F 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 elliptic 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 lhave 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, fiom 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. iFor 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. CHA P TER X XIII. I uAvE a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically; and I will not balkanmy fancy; accordingly I set off thus: -If the fixtiure of 5Momus's glass in the human breast, according to the proposed emendation' of that arch-critic, had taken place, first, TRISTR A SHIA N D. 67.&his foolish consecquence would certainly have followed: That the very wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-nmoney 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, viewed 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 caprices; and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c., then taken your pen and ink, ancld 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 a-go 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 show to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the umbilical knot)-so that, till the inhabitants grow old andS 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, ulpon 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 uncrystallized flesh and blood; so that, if we would come to the specific characters of them, we must go some other way to work. lMany, 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. 38 L iFWiE AND OPINIO n*S OF Virgil takes notice of that way in the affair of Dido and IEneas: but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame; and., moreoverl bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the Italians pretend to a mathenmatical exactness in their designations of one particular sort of character among them, from the forte or piano of a certain windilnstrument 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 enignlatical, and intended to be so, at least actd pFouzlu:; and therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you'iead 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 drawling 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 disclaim 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 honorable devices which the Pentagraphic Brethren* of the brush have shown in taking copies. These, you must know, are your great historians. One of these you will see drawing a full-length character agaizst 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 Ccamera; that is most unfair of all, because t7bere 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 * Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures mechanically, and in any proportion, TRISTRAM S A D. 69 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 foby's character fronm his HoY-HoixoRsE. CHAPTER XX I V. 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-HonsE, though 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 the electrified bodies; and that, by means of the heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the HOBBsY —HoIsE, by long journeys and much friction, it so happens that the body of the rider is at length fill'd as full of HoBBY-IHIosIcAL 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 HI-IoBB-HoosR, which my uncle Toby always rode upon, was, in my opinion, a HoBBY-HonRS 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, fronm Dover to Penzance in Cornwall, and fiom 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 w"las 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 it was really a HOBBY-H-IosE 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 70 LIFT:E AND OPINIO NS OF up upon his legs, and walking across the room; so would my uncle Toby use no other argument to prove his HOB:BY-HORsE, was a 3HoB3HI-oRs indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him about; leaving the world after that to determine the point as it thougght fit. In good truth, my uncle Toby mounted him with so much pleasure, and he carried my uncle Toby so well, that he troubled his head very little with what the world either said or thought about it. It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him: but to go on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you first, how my uncle Toby came by him. CHAPTER XXV. THIE 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. lIe 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 thattinme in hand, suffer'd unspeakable miseries, owing to a succession of exfoliations firom the os lutbis, and the outward edge of that part of the coxenzdix, called the os iliMnum; 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, (though it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury wvhich 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 woulcl often tell him was a great happiness. MAly 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 nowhere be so well nursed and taken care of as in his own house, he assign'd him the best apartment in it; and, what was a much more sincere mark of his affection still, he would never suffler a friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any oc TR ISTR AM 5SHA DY. l casion, 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-sideo The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it; ny uncle's visitors at least thought so; and in their daily calls upon him, from the courtesy arising out of that belief, they would firequently 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 amn of so nice and singular a humor, that if I thought you was able to form the least judgment, or probable conjecture to yourself, of iwhat was to come in the next page, I would tear it out of my book. LIFE AND OPINIONS TRISTRAM S HANDYj GE& N T L IE M A N. BOOK IL, BOOK I J CHAPTER I. I nIXVE 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 cabout 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. Nicholas, 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. Nicholas'-gate, notwithstanding the gallantry of the Frencli officers, Who exposed themselves up the glacis sword in hand. As this was the principal attack of w-hich my uncle Toby was an eye-witness at Namtur, the army of the besiegers being cut off, by the confluence of the YMaes and Sambres, 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 70d6 L;:F BIFE AND oPINIONSo OF distinctions between the scarp and counter-scarp; the glacis and covered way, the half-moon and ravelin, as to mlake his company fully comprehend where and what he was about. V5riters themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you will the less wonder, if in his endeavors to explain them, and in opposition to many misconceptions, that my uncle Toby did oft-times puzzle his visitors, sometinles 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 afflair the more intricate to my uncle Toby was this, that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the gate of the St. Nicholas, extending itself from the bank of the Maes quite up the great water-stop; the ground was cut and crosscut with such a multkiude of dykesI 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 nor 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 fiesh friends and fresh inquirers; 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 counter-scarp, nor cross the dyke without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he must have frettled and fumed inwardly. He did so: and the little and hourly vexatious, which may seem trifling and of no account to the man who has not read Hippocrates; yet, Twhoever has read I-ippocrates, 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. TRI S T R AM SHAINDYo. a 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 camle into his head, that if he could pui'chase 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 when the stone struck him. All this succeded 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 HOBY-Honlzs. CHAPTER II. THERE is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expense of making an entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your critics 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 fully as offensive, of bestowring your attention upon the rest of your guests in so particular a way, as if there was no such thing as a crlitic (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 handls. 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 ceremony, and fall on heartily. s LlIFE AND OPINIONS OF I said I had left six places, and I was on the point of carrying my complaisance so as to have left a seventh open for them, and in this very spot I stand on; but being, told by a critic (though not by occupation, but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the meantim e 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, muddleheaded fellow, as-Go look. So, Sir, Critic, 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 I reject it; for though it might have suited my uncle Toby's character as a soldier excellently well, and had he accustomed himself, in such attacks to whistle the Lillibullero,* 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 similes, 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 * MY UNCLE TOBY'S WHISTLE, LILL I BU LLE R RO The fBallad* to this tune was written in the year 1686, on account of King James II. nominating to the Lieutenancy of Ireland Genesv~l Tcslbot, newly created Earl of Tyrconnel, a furious Papist, who had recommended himself to his bigoted master by his arbitrary treatment of the Protestants in the preceding year, when only Lieutenant-General, and whose subsequent conduct fully justified his expectations and their fears. This foolish Ballad, treating the Papists, and chiefly the Irish, in a very ridiculous manner, had a burden, said to be the Irish words, " Lero, lero, lillibullero;" and made an impression on the (King's) army, more powerful than either the philippics of Desmosthenes or Cicero. The whole army, and at last the people both in city and country, were singing it perpetually. Perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect; for it contributed not a little towards the Revolution in 1683. t LILLIBULLERO and BULLLEN-A-LAH, are said to have been the watchwords used among the Irish Papists, in their massacre of the Protestants in 1641. * Sco Percy's Reliques of Ancient Eaglish Poetry, vol. ii., p. 25' See Bishop Burnot's History of his own Times; and Kiing's St.ste of the Protelstanlt in Ireland, 1691, 4to. RI TRAM SIAND'DY. nme' Why, Sir) I should be undone; at this very moment that I am going to fill up one place against a critic, 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 yoe ever read such a book as Locke's Essay upon the HIuman 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 metaphysic circle. But this by the way. Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion in the mind of a man, is threefold. Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, Slight and transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not dull: and, Thirdly, A memory like unto a sieve; not able to retain what it has received. Call down Dolly your chambermaid, and I will give you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that Dolly herself should understand it as well as Malbranch. When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side, take that opportunity to recollect, that the organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing which Dolly's hand is in search of. Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you-'tis an inch, Sir, of red seal-wax. When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if Dolly fumbles too long for her thimble, till the wax is over-hardened, it will not receive the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint it. Very well. If Dolly's wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, of a temper too soil, tho' it may receive, it will not hold the impression, how hard soever Dolly thrusts against it: and, 8 0 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF last of all, Supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied theretoin 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 confusion in my uncl.e Toby's discourse; and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists, to show 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 history of the 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 critic! 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 any one time or other, by this, and this only; what a pudder and racket in Councils about ovcar and wn6ucractl; 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, thoiu wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's perplexities, thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counter-scarp; his glacis and his covered way; his ravelin and his halfmoon;'twas not by ideas, by Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words. CHAPTER III. WimN 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 TRI ITRIAM SHfANDY. 81 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 MAaes and Sambre; make diversions as far as Vauban's line, the abbey of Salsines, &c., and gave his visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks as that of the gate of St. Nicholas, where he had the honor 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-butterfied, 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, Coehorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel, with almost as many nore bookks of military A; 82 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 cannonball did not go, but he was insensibly laid on, and resolved in his mind to inquire and find out which road the ball did go: for which purpose he was obliged to set off afiesh with old Malthus, 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 a 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 breach upon a horizontal plane; and that the semiparameter-stop! my dear uncle Toby, stop! go not one foot further 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. 0 my uncle, fly-fly-fly from it as from a serpent! Is it fit, good-natured man! thou should'st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with hectic watchings? Alas!'twill exasperate thy symptoms, check thy perspirations, evaporate thy spirits, waste thy animal strength, dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive habit of body, impair thy health, and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age. 0 my uncle! my uncle Toby! T R I S T., A M -A N D 83 CHAPTER IV. I WOULD not give a groat for that man's knowledge in pencraft, who does not understand this: That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby-would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate; therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the middle of my story. Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth than beauty. This is to be understood cum grcano 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 as 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, lvwhich, he told him, might surely have been accomlplished at least by that time. He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and'1th-e sorrows of his four years' Imnelancholy ilmpjrisonmiient; adding, thlat hbad it not been fior the kinc] 84 LIFE AN D O PTi TONS OF looks and fraternal cheerings of the best of brothers, he had long since sunk under his misfortunes. My father was by. MIy 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't-wNas 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 fietful or discontented word; he had been all patience, all submission. VWe lose the right of complaining some times, 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 perenptorily 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 fanmily after the common way; and from the time and manner in which this eager desire showed 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, anid'tis the subject of the next chapter to set forth what that cause and crotchet vras. I own, when that's done,'twill be time to return back- to the parlor fire-side, where we left my uncle Toby hi the middle of his sentence. CHAPTER V. WELXN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, or, in other words, when his IIOBBY-HonSE grows headstrong, farewell cool reason and far discretion. l'[y uncle Toby's wound was near well; and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprise, 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 T nRISTrNAM SrAN y, 85 five or six weeks. The sound of as man'y 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 lather 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 reachling 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 endeavoring to catch the snuffers in falling, he thrust MIonsieur Blondel off the table, and Count de Pagan o'top of him.'Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of redressing these evils by himself, he rung his bell for his man Trim. Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, prithee see what confusion I have here been making, I must have some better contrivance, Trim. Canst 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, and please your Honor, replied Trim, making a bow; but I hope your Honor will be soon rweil enough to get down to your country-seat, where, as your Honor 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 86 L XLFE AND OPINIONS oV company; his real name was James Butler; but having got the nickname of Trimn, in the regiment, my uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any othl er 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 wellbeloved 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 least, 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 HonnY-HoRsIcALLY, as a body-servant, No on Hobi-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' Hlronor, 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. MIdy 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 faiithful servant as an humble f'ielnd, hi could not bear to stop his month. Such was Colrporal Trim. If I dulrst presume, continued Trilm, to cicv your 1'Honor mly advice, and. spe'' my oi?; ina, ii-'i.-i,::,i'r' —: b ot 1 arl nit weilcome, T rim, o0ijoti TRMISTRAB SHANDYo 8.1 my uncle Toby; speak, speak what thou thinkest upon the smbject, 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 Corporal Tril, with humble submission to your Honor's better judgment, that these ravelins, bastions, curtains, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honor 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 Honor might sit out of doors, and give me the nography (Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle) of the town or citadel your Honor was pleased to sit down before, and I'll be shot by your Honor upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your Honor's mind. I dare say thou would'st, Trim, quoth my uncle. For if your Honor, 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 foss6; and if your iHonor 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 counter-scarp (Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby), and when I had sloped them to your mind, an' please your Honor, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods, (and as your Honor knows they should be) and I would make the walls and parapets of 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; you Honor 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 fosse (as was the case at St. Nicholas's gate) and facilitate the passage over it. Your Honor understands these matters, replied Corporal Trim, better than any officer in his MIajesty's service; but would your Honor please to let the bespeking of tile table alone, and let us both go into the country, I would work under your Honor's directions like a horse and make fortifications for you sonethbing likle ad tain-sy, with 88 8TL I F E4 AN)D OPINIONS OF all their batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all the world's riding twenty miles to go and see it. MIy uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet as Tril went on; but it was not a blush of guilt, of modesty, or of ang'er, 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 Mifajesty and the Allies take the fieldcl, and demolish them, town by town, as fast as-Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, say no more. Your Honor, continued Trim, might set 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 Honor would get not only pleasure and good pastime, but good air, and g'ood exercise, and good health; and your Honor's wound would be well in a month. Thou hast said enough, Trin, quoth my uncle Toby (putting his hand into his breeches' pocket) I like thy project mightily. And if your Honor 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-ax, and a couple ofSay 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 daylight, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decamnpment. Iy 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 kitchengarden 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 woCrds, " A rood and a half of ground to do what T IST A SH A N DY 89 they would with," this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously pia'ted, all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy; which was the physical cause of making him change color, 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 the self-sanle thing in private; I say in private; for it was sheltered firom 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 preconceived 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 tiling 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 underplot in the epitasis and working up of this drama. At present the scene must drop, and change for the parlor fire-side. C H APTER VI. WHIAT can they be doing, brother? said my father. I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking, as I told you, the 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 rang the bell. Pray, what's all that racket over our heads, Obadiabh? 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 g'arden 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 90 LLIFE AND OP I I O NS OF do you go directly for Dr. Slop, the mlan-midwife, with all our services, and let him know your mistress is fallen into labor, 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 humor 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 expense. A pudding's end, replied my father; the Doctor must be paid the same for inaction as action, if not better, to keep hil 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. iMy 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 WOR ) 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 style the Aposiopesis. Just Heaven! how does the Poco piu and Poco menno of the Italian artists; the insensible mOiPE 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 ccterca, 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 BACKeSIDE,'tis bawdy; scratch Backside out, and put cOVEx'D WAY in,'tis a metaphor; and, I dare say, as fortification ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, that T SA I S T R A i 91 if it had been left to have added one word to the sentence, that word was it. But whether that was the case, or not the case; or whether the snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident or anger, will be seen in due time. CHAPTER VII. THOUrGi my father was a good natural philospher, 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 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) 6to 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; 0 2 TLBiFEir AND OPINIONS O F but that when he thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards the heavens." 5My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither, for he looked horizontally. Right endI 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 chimneypiece- 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 the world, continued my father (filling a fresh pipe) —every thing in the 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 distress of our domestic 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. T RST RA EIANY n 08 CHAPTER VIII. IT is about an hour and a half's tolerable good reading since my uncle Toby rung the bell, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a horse, and go for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife; so that no one can say, with reason, that I have not allowed Obadiah time enough, poetically speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to go and come; though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has scarce had time to get on his boots. If the hypercritic will go upon this; and is resolved after all to take a pendululn, 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 pendulunms 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 himn ill upon my hands near four years, and have since travelled him and Corporal Trim, in a chariotand-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 hypercritic is untractable, alleging 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, fronm this very moment, a professed Roomance, which, before, was a book apocryphal: if I am thus pressed, I then put an 94 LX FR AN'D OPINO N S OF 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 af giving a tragical one too. Imagine to yourself-but this had better begin a new chapter. HAPTER IX. IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honor to a serjeant in the horse guards. Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure; which-if you have read I-Iogarth'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 thece 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 through the dirt upon the vertebrs of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty color-but of strefigth, 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 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 through thick and thin, as he approached; would not such a phenomenon, 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 coachhorse. In nmy idea, the vortex alone of'em was enough to have involved and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctors pony, TRIS T RA SHANDY. 95 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, shows what little advantage 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 style 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 pulled 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 mnomentum 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 a,:ffir came into fashion. 3X LIFNE AND OPIN IONS OF CHAPT:ER X. WnrEN Dr. Slop entered the back parlor, 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 surprise 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;'unsoiped,?ncppointed, 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 parlor-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 sworn (wvitlhout mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect. HIere 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 cargtznenturn ad hornincm; 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 reflection in my father might have solved it; for lie had apprised 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 hypercritic'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 TRISTR AMI SHANDY. 97 have power to think of nothing else-commonplace infirmity of the greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the denmonstration, 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 irreconcilable pulsatione instantly brought Stevinus, the great engineer, along with them, into my uncle Toby's mind. What business Stevinus had in this affair, is the greatest problem of all. It'shall be solved; but not in the next chapter. CHAPTER XIo 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 parlor; 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, rnbbed down and condoled, felicitated, got into a, pair of Obadiah's pumps, step LIFE AND OPINIONS OF ping forwrards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action. Truce! truce, good Dr. Slop! stay thy obstetric hand; return it safe unto 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 instructed with the secret articles of the solemn treaty which has brought thee into this place? Art thou aware that at this instafit 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 has left thy tire-tete, thy new-inventedforceps, thy crotchet, thy she irt, and all thy instruments of salvation and deliverance behind thee: by Heaven! at this moment they are hanging up in a green baize bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the bed's head! Ring; call; send Obadiah back upon the coach-horse to bring them all with 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 I C A PTER XII. YoIrn 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 favorite author with me. Then, added my father, making use of the argument ad crizmenam, 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 connexion 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 TI ISTRAMX S I - N D Y o 99 let the occasion be ever 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 curtains and hornworks. That I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. Slop, interrupting him, and laughing most immoderately at his pun. Dennis the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father; he would grow testy upon it at any time: but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the nose: he saw no difference. Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, the curtains my brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do withl bed-steads; thouglh I know Du Cange says, "That bed-clurtains, in all probability, have taken their name fiom them;" nor have the horn-works he speaks of, any think in the world to do with the horn-works of cuckoldom: but the cuctain, 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 curtain, for this reason, because they are so well flcanked. ('Tis the case of other curtains, quoth Dr. Slop, laughing.) However, continued my uncle Toby, to mlake them sure, he generally chose to place ravelins before them, only taking care not to extend them beyond the fosse, 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 aungle, 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 curtain, 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] goet before the curtain,'twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a halfmoon;'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. 100 L I FE AND OPINIONS OF As for the horn-work (heigh! ho! sigh'd my father) which, continued my uncle Toby, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of outwork; they are called by the French engineers, O;rkagye ac cornse; and we generally make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;'tis formed by two epaulimets or demi-bastions, they are very pretty, and if you will take a walk, I'll engage to show 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 labor, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to carry off the manmidwife —Accouchezr, 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 I)evil; is 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, palisadoes, ravelins, half-moons, cand such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all the towns in Flanders with it. M y 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 tlaken shelter; nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts; for he felt this insult of my father as feelingly as a lman 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 overgrown 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 friom his chair. TRISTRAM SHAN A o 101 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 in that age of pity, which instantly set my whole fiame 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 magic, 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 mind: and though I would not depreciate what the study of the literce I.,umanieoores, at the unive'sity, 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 t6 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 pictur:e, by the instrument with which I drew the other parts of it, that taking in no more than the mere HOBnBY-HoRSICAL likeness; this is a part of his moral character. lIy 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 sourness of temper. Though this never transported him to any thing which looked like malignancy: yet in the little rubs and vexations of life, twas apt to show itself in a drollish and witty kind of peevishness: 1He was however fiank and generous in nature; at all times open to conviction: and in the little ebullitions of this subacid humor towTaids 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 1 02 P. LIFE AN D O PINIONS OF 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-HoRsF 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? lHow did he behave? 0, Sir! it was great; for as soon as my father had done insulting his IHOBBY-tHoRsE, 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 goodnature; so placid; so fiaternal; so inexpressibly tender towards him: it penetrated my father to his heart; he rose unp 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 humor which my mother gave me. Mly dear, dear brother, answerered 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 clear Toby, cried my father, either with your amusemnents 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. TRIST A M SHA JsDY., 10o CHAPTER XIIIo Mr brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle. In a family way, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop. Pshaw I said my father, Itis not worth talking of. C HAPTER XIV. AT the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both standing, like Brutus and Cassius, at the close of the scene, making up their accounts. As my father spoke the three last words, he sat down; my uncle Toby exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he rung the bell, to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step home for Stevinus; my uncle Toby's house being no farther off than the opposite side of the way.. Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus; but my uncle Toby had no resentment in his heart; and he went on with the subject, to show my father 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 r eturn from Leyden through the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a view of it. 104 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF That's nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning fiom Paris to Schevling,.and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it, and nothing else. Some men cannot bear to be outgone. The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But, mark,'twas out of no contempt of Peireskius at all; but that Peireskius's indefatigable labor 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 though I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he has achieved 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, Tamr citus erat, quarm ecrat 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 (though 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 . TRISTRAM SIANDY, i, o.5 nothing,' ancl 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 though, I owni, if I was a prince, I would generously recompense the scientific head which brought forth such contrivances; yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them. MJy father here had got into his element, and was going on as prosperously with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had before, upon his of fortification; but to the loss of much sound knowledge, the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father that day, for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence, CHAPTER XY. Ix 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' pleasexyour Honor, 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 Honor. 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 fallen out, however, said Trim, an' please your Honor; 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 106 ELI FE AND O PII TONS OF 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 smailed. I cannot conceive how it is possible, quote 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 Honors, 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 HIonor, quoth Trim, I officiated two whole campaigns in Flanders, as clerk to the chaplain of the regiment.-t-Ie 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. CHAP TER XVI. IF yOU will 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 cornposition of a Divine of our church, as well as yours; so that we run equal risks.'Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth Trim, for'tis only upon Conscience, an' please your Honors. Trim's reason put his audience into good-humi-or, all but Dr. Slop, who, turning his head about towards Trim, looked a little angry. TRISTRAM R S LA NDY. 1c0 Begin, Trim, and read distinctly, quoth my father. I will, an' please your Honor, replied the Corporal; making a bow, and bespeaking attention with a slight movement of his right hand. CHAPTER XVII.o 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 plane 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 show us, by the way, how the arts and sciences mutually befriend each other? How the deuce Corporal Trim, wvho 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 Cyclopdclia 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 fireside, 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 108, I F E N OP N N OF 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 nnder 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 palln 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 thisI've told himn it should be explained; but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and Dr. Slop; so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure, a statuary might have modelled from it; nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College, or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it. Trim made a bow, and read as follows: THE SERMON, HEBREWS, Xiii. 18. For we trust we 2haved a good Cozsci6eaec. " 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 Honor, replied Trim. Pugh! said my atller, smiling. TRISTR AM S H A N DY. 109 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 ought 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 license, 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 Honor, 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 though 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 IHeaven 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 Honor 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 o80 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 SERM ON. HEBREWS, Xiii. 18. For we trust we hcave ca good Conscience. C 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.] 66 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.] "IIn other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the wise man complains, hardly do we guess arcight at the things tfat acre upon the eccrth; ccand with labor do swe find things thcat 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.] T R ISTRAM S A NDY. 111 " 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 favorable on his side, and his heart condemns him not, that it is not a matter of trst, 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 continued 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 ouf upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness: could no such thing as favor and affection enter this sacred court: did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it; or was ashamed to show 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 judgmentseat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case: was this truly 112 L IFE AND OP I N INI NS OF 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 hypochondriac 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 a 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 of 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 dishonor; but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and dishonor for her sake. Surely, you will think Conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can have no rest night or day from its reproaches. "Alas! Conscience had. something else to do all this time, than break in upon him: as Elijah reproached the god Baal, this domestic god tvas eitheer tcoalling, or pnrsuzing, oar Mcas on ca jo.mrnezy, or )er'cCdventure he slelpt, and could?zot be cwmo7ce. "Perhaps he was gone out in company with Honor, 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, T IS T R A M S IN A DY N 113 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, though, quoth Dr. Slop, he could not.] "sleeps as soundly in his bed; and at last meets death as unconcernedly! perhaps much more so than a much better man."' [All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father; the case could not happen in our church. It happens in ours, however, replied my father, but too often. I own, quoth Dr. Slop, (struck a little with my father's fiank 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 meanh 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; though not accented as a note of acquiescence, but as a interjection of that particular species of surprise, 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.] I' 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 Honors, cried Trim, I think thiis 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 veery mann his own; 1 hcve no fornication to answer? to my conscience; no fcithless vows or promzises to mnsce cup; I have debauched no man's wife or child. ]. 4 F: ALIFE AND OPINIONS F Thanl7o God, I cam not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or' even as this libertine, soho 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 LxARE; 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 its gates upon him: What is there to affright his conscience? Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there unvulnerable, fortified with Qsarts and trzarta 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. Ay, ay, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head, these are but sorry fortifications, Trim. Oh! very poor work, answered Triml, to what your Honor 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 pettifogg'ing Lawyer amongst you. Amongst us, a man's conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded; three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth my uncle Toby. Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon.'Tis a very short one, replied Trim. I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely. Trim went on.] " A fourth man shall want even this refuge; shall break through all the ceremony of slow chicane; scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose: see the barefaced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders! Horrid! But indeed much better was not to be expected in the present T' R T.A.M STIA. TD l15 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. lBut 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? Ay, 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. 0 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 himl consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there, though 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 dishonor. "' When David surprised Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe, we read that his heayt smote him for what he had done: but in the matter of lUriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honored, fell to mlake way for his lust, where conscience had so imuch greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed from the first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove him; and we read not once of 11. LIFE AND OPINIONS 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? I-Iow readest thou? Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth; what they say? "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 cofidgence towcards God; that is, have just grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the judgment of God; and nothing else but aannticipation 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. "lB-lessed is the man, indeed, then, as the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus expresses it, qwho is not _pricced with the multitude of his sinis; blessed is the ncan whose heart hath not condemned hi m; wchether 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 chieeful, countenc6nce; his rind shall tell him mnore than seven qwatch-,m7en that sit above utpoka toower on high. [A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle Toby, unless'tis flanked.] "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 behavior 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 T R I S T S A N D Y. 117 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 gfaols 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 di-ffer 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 watchmen upon the tower, who, I suppose, are all sentinels there, are more, an' please your Honor, than were necessary; andl, to go on at that rate, would harass a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding-officer, who loves his men, will never do, if he can help it; because two sentinels, added tPee Corporal, are as good as twenty. I have been a cormandlifig-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 honor 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, Triml, 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 hornworks, or ravelins before the curtain, in his time; or such a fosse 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 m~ain: so that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare saT, from the Corpas de Garcde, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it. They could be no more, an' please your Honor, than a corporal's guard. ly father smniled inwardly, but not outwardly; J1 18 IL ~LIFE AND OPINI O Oi S OF the subject being rather too serious, considering whlat 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 tcales, even in imagination (though 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, though 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 tlie honor 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, wakcizng, 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 then will. employ the power I put into their hands to TRIsTRAMI SEHANDY 119 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 dishonor 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 Honor, or some such capricious principle, strait security for two of the most valuable blessings! my property and my life. ";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 entertain the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man. " IHe 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 licewise is a sore evil under the suwn; 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" [WVell, 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! 120 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF In how many kingdoms of the worldl"-[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 fiom justice and humanity, he showed 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 Honor, quote Trim, sighing, but never in so melancholy a one as this: I would not have drawn a trigger 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 Honor, 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 honor to God, by actions which are a dishonor 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 1" [Here Trim's face turned as pale as ashes.] "See the melancholy wretch who uttered it "-[Here the tears began to trickle T I' II S' I A M S I- A N D Y. 121 down] —"just brought forth to undclergo the anguish of a mockl trial, and endure the utmost pains that a, studied system of cruelty has been able to invent." [D-n them all, quoth Trim, his color 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 fellowN's distress: even Slop hilself acknowledged pity for him. Why, Trim, said my father, this is not a history,'tis a sermon thllou art reading; prithee begin the sentence again.]'"Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors, his body so wasted witl sorrow and confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. " Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!" [I would rather face a cannon, quoth Trim, stamping.] "'See what convulsions it has thrown him into! Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched! what exquisite tortures he endures by it!" [I hope'tis not in Portugal.] "'Tis all nature can bear! Good God! see how he 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 Honors, all this is in Portugal, -vwhere 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 if your Honor will allow me; though I would not read it for myself for a Cololel's pay. Poor Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. MBy father went on.] " Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched! -what exquisite torture lie endures by it!'Tis all nature can bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his tremubling lips, -willing to take its leave, but not suiffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!" [Then, thank God, ho-wever, quoth Trim, they have not killed him.] "See 6 122 LIFE AND OPINIO NS OF 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. 0 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 colmpare 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 frzuits ye s/aZll know them. 6 I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or three short and independent rules deducible from it. 6'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 CnEED. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors: and where they separate, depend upon it,'tis for no other cause but quietness' sake. "6 Secondly, 1TWhen a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular instance, that such a thing goes against his conscience-always believe hbe 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 CoNSCiExCE 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 INIS. T RI S T R A A N DY 123 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 tel times better, Sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so fullo 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 inflame 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 dramatic; 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 acnd 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'emo. But pray, quoth my uncle Toby, whose can this be? How could it get into my Stevinus? A man must be a great 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 it was wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish. The similitude of the style 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 d'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, d _posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my uncle Toby's house to inquire after it. It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of know 124 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF ledge, had borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelessly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to keep him company. Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thro' Ban unsuspected fissure in thy master's pocket, down into a treacherous and 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 half-penny 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: not 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 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 the sample of his sermons, is liked, there are now in the possession of the Shandy family, as many as will make a handsonme volume, at the world's service: and much good may they do it. TRIST RAM SXANDY..25 C HIA P T E R XVIII, OBADIAH gained the two crowns without dispute' for he came in jingling with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, slung across his body, just as Corporal Trim went out of the room. It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. Slop (clearing up his looks) as we are in a condition to be of some service to'lrs. 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 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 Sotueraines, 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 perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of it. I know not, quoth my father, answering a little too testily to be quite dispassionate in what he said; I know not, quoth he, what we have left to give up in lieu of who shall bring our children into the world, unless that, of who shall beget them. One would almost give up anything, replied Dr. Slop. I beg your pardon, answered my uncle Toby. Sir, replied Dr. Slop, it would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years in all branche:, of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the f/ets, which has leceived such lights, that, for my part (holding up his hands) I 126 LIFE AN D OPI NIONS OF declare, I wonder how the world has- I wish, quoth my uncle Toby, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders, C HAPTER XIX. I iiVE, dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute, to remind you of one thing, and to inform you of another. W-hat 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 namnes, 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 first act of his begetting, down to the lean and slippered pantaloon in his second childishness, but he had some favorite notion to himself springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the highway of thinking, as these two which hbave been explained. Mr. Shandy, my father, sir, would see nothing in the ligllt in which others placed it; he placed things in his own light; he vwould weigh nothilng 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 fut~lcrum, he would say, should be almost invisible, to avoid all friction from the popular tenets; without this, the rminutixc of philosophy, which would always turn the balance, will have no weight at all. IKnowledge, like matter, he would affirm, was divisible iz i'finitumZ; that the grains and scruples were as much a R I S'T R AM SH ANDY 12 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 the want of considering this properly, and of applying it skillfully 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 wherefoi'e, he would add, are we needy? From the neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our half-pence 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 through 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 1 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; xwhich, when he had done arguing the matter vrith 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 sheetanchor. It failed him, though from no defect in the argument itself: but that, do what he could, he was not able for his soul to make her 128 L I F L E A N D OPINIONS OF 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 I 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 wtife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side 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 endeavor to do it justice, and set it forth with all the perspicuity I am master of. Mly father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms: Filst, That an ounce of a man's own wit was worth a ton of other people's; and Secondly, (which by the by was the ground work of the first axiom, though 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 lunderstanding, was from no original sharpness or bluntnaess 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 object of his inquiry to find out the identical place. Now, fr om 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 _pinzea gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized, formed a cushion for her about the size of a marrow-pea; though to speak the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all in that one place,'twas no bad conjecture: and mny father had fallen with that great philosopher plump.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 NWalloon officer at the battle of Landen, who had one part of his brain shot away by a musket ball, Land 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 friom the body; and if it is true that people can RIST RAM SH ANDY, 29 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 Coglionissiano Borri, the great Nlhilanese physician, affirms, in a letter to Bartholine to have discovered in the cellulc 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 Agnima, or even the Anzimus, taking up her residence and sitting dabbling like a tadpole all day long, both summer and winter, in a puddle, or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin soever, he would say, shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the doctrine a hearing. What therefore seemed the least liable to objections of any was, that the chief sensorium or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place all intelligences were referred, and from whence all her mandates were, issued, was in, or near, the cerebellum, or rather somewhere about the medulla oblongactca, wherein it was generally agreed by Dutch anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the organs of the seven senses concentrated, 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 favored. 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 tlhe 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 the next to this and his Christian name, which were the two original and most cifica(f %' 180 LIPE A.ND OPI NIONS OF oious causes of all: that the third cause, or rather what logicians call the causa sine gut non, without which all that was done, was of no manner of significance, was the preservation of this delicate and finespun web, from the havoc 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 an explanation. IMy father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into Lithopcedus Seenonesis de Portal difiecili,* 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 labor-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 pounds avoirdupois acting perpendicularly upon it; it so happened, that in forty-nine instances out of fifty, 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 pie of. Good God! cried my father, what havoc and destruction must this make in the infinitely fine and tender texture of the cereeleNm 1! Or if there is such a juice as Borri pretends, is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in the world both feculent and mothery? But how great Was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that this force acting upon the very vortex of the head, not only injured the brain itself, or cerebrum, but that it necessarily squeezed and propelled the cereebrnu towards the cer'ebellum, which was the immediate seat of the understanding I 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 withinside. But when my father read o0, and was let into the secret, Lhat * The author is here twice mistaken; for Lithopccdus should be wrote thus: Lit7bopcedUi Seetoteeosis Icon. The second mistake is that this Lithopcedu3s is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by Athosius, 15SO, may be seen at the end of Cordueus's works in Spachius. Mr. Tristramn Shandy has been led into this error either from seeing Lithoposd ts's nilae of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. -, or by miotak.ing Li/'lop.dts,6s for.Tie2'scowogiVist, from the too great similituide cf tho names, T R T A M SA h AN D 1 l1 when a child was turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and was extractedby the feet; that instead of the cerebruem being propelled towards the cerebellumn, the cerebellum, on the contrary, was propelled simply towards the ce'>ebrum, 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 useo When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a phenomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve by it: it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest block-head 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, showing, c vioriori, 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 commonplace solution of a clear 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; showed 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 net-work was broke or displaced, so that the coul might just act as she liked. When my father' had got so far, what a blaze of light did the ac counts of the Cresarian section, and of the towering geniuses who had come safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis I Here X3 2 n: FLIFE AN D OPINIONS OF 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 cerebruemz towards the cerebellemn, either by the os pubis on this side, or the os coxygis on that; and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your Julius Coesar, 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 honor to the hypothesis. These, and many more who figured high in the annals of fame, a11 came side-way, Sir, into the world. The incision of the abdomzen and uterus ran for six weeks together in my father's head; he had read, and w'as 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, MIr. Shandy's, hypothesis; concerning which I have only to add, that my brother Bobby did as great honor to it (vlwhatever 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 favor 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 his new-invented forceps was the armor 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 favor of the very thing which ran in my father's fancy; though T R IST R AM S H AND. 33 not with a view to the soul's good in extricating 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 show 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 unravelled, you may endeavor 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. LIFE AND OPINIONS TRISTRAM SHANDY, G E N Tr 1 E M A No BOOK IIT, BOOK III. CHAPTE'R I. " I wISH, Dr. Slop," quoth my uncle Toby (repeating his wish for Dr. Slop a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of wishing than he had wished at first*) —II 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 themn again for the soul of him. In all disputes, male or female, whether for honor, 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 his wish, is for the party wish'd at, instantly to get upon his legs, and wish the zoisher something in return, of pretty nearly 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 * Vide page 114. 131 138 LIFE AND OPINIONS F danger: the dispute was one of the most interesting disputes in the world, "whether the child of his prayers and endeavors 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: CHAPTER II. WHAT prodigious armies you had in Flanders!' Brother Toby, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with his right hand, and with his left pulling out a striped India handkerchief from his right coat-pocket, in order to rub his head, as he urged 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 circunmstances 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 RST AM SHA A NDY. 139 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 graceful as he paints, might have painted him as he sat. Now, as my father managed this matter, consider what a devil of a figure my father made of himself. In the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, and in the beginning of the reign of King George the First, " Coat-pockets were cut very low' down in the skirt." I need say no more; the father of mischief, had he been hammering at it a month, could not have contrived a worse fashion for one in my father's situation. ]CHAPTER I II 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 fathers approaches towards it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in, before the gate of St. Nicholas; the idea of which drew off his attention so entirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand to the bell to ring up Trim to go and fetch his map of Namur, and his compasses and sector along with it, to measure the returning angles of the traverses of that attack, but 140 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF -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 that your uncle Toby was on horseback. CH APTER I. A MxA'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 is of a sarcenet, or thin Persian. Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Babylonins, Dionysius, Heracleotes, Antipater, Pansetius, and Possidonius, among 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 cannot recollect, all pretended that their jerkins were made after this fashion; you might have rumpled and crumpled, and doubled and creased, and fretted, and friidged the outside of them all to pieces; in short, you might have play'd 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 T ISTRAM S HANDY. 141 lining, by Heaven! it had all of it, long ago, been frayed and fretted to a thread. You MBessrs. 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 word is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me." CHAPTER V. ANY man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious effusion 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 color; 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 into exact tune, he would instantly have screw'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 furica, con strepito, or any other hurly-burly whatever, to do with harmony? 142 LIFE AND OPINIONS O 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 tailor 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 followsC H A P TER VI. 66 WHAT prodigious armies you had in Flanders!'9 Brother Toby, quoth my father, I do believe thee to be as honest a man, and with as good and as upright a heart as ever God created; nor is it thy fault, if all the children which have been, may, can, shall, will, or ought to be begotten, come with their heads foremost into the world: but believe me, dear Toby, the accidents which unavoidably waylay them, not only in the article of our begetting'em, though these, in my opinion, are well worth considering, but the dangers and difficulties our children are beset with, after they are got forth into the world, are enow; little need is there to expose them to unnecessary ones in their passage to it. Are these dangers, quoth my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon my father's knee, and looking up seriously in his face for an answer, are these dangers greater now-a-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 further. MLy uncle instantly withdrew his hand from 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 checks, and the obicular muscles around his lips to do their duty, he whistled Lilibullero. TRISTRAM SHANDY 143 CHAPTER V II WHILST my uncle Toby was whistling Lilibulilero 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 concluded 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-tete, forceps, and squirt, as would have been enough, had Hymen had taken a jaunt that way, to have frightened him out of the country; but when Obadiah accelerated his motion, and from a plain trot essayed 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 oftentimes done with the greatest patriots. "The poor fellow, Sir, was not able to hear himnself whistle." 144 L i FE AND OPINIONS OF CHIAPTE R VIII, As Obadiah loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music he carried with him, he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put, himself in a condition of enjoying it. In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt to enter a man's head as his hat-band: the philosophy of this is so near the surface, I scorn to enter into it. As Obadiah's was no 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-cabalistical, and only partly musical: Obadiah made a 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 humor for such a contest, and she and Dr. Slop both fairly started together, there is no man living who had seen the bag with all that Obadiah had done to it, and known likewise the great speed the Goddess can make when she thinks proper, who would have had the least doubt remaining in his mind-which of the two would have carried off the prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag infallibly-at least by twenty knots. Sport of small accidents, Tristraml Shandy! that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been made 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 T R I S TRAM SH N DY 145 themselves in the course of thy life, to thee, been so often, so vexatiously, so tamely, so irrevocably abandoned-as thou hast been forced to leave them; but'tis over, all but the account of'em, which cannot be given to the curious till I am got out into the world. CHAPTER IX. GRIAT witS jump: for the moment Dr. Slop cast his eyes upon his bag (which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle Toby about midwifery put him in mind of it) the very same thought occurred.'Tis God's mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. Shandy has had so'bad a time of it, else she might have been brought to bed seven times told, before one half of these knots could have been 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. CHAP.TER X. IN the case of knots; by which, in the first place, I would not be understood to mean slip-knots,.because in the course of my life andl opinions, my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I mention the catastrophe of my great-uncle IMr. 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 par 146 LIFE AAND OPINIONS OF ticular species of knots called bow-knots; there is so little address, or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below nay 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 bond 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 through 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-uknife and cut thioough 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 favorite instrullment, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a hard labor, 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 deuce 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. IMy mother gave a groan. Lend me your pen-knife, 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-micdwife 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 himrself, 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 gteat occ asions, quoth my father (con-' doling with him first upon the accident), are but so mucth -waste of our strength and soul's health to no manner of purpose. I own-: it, TRISTR A M S ANDY. 147 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 humors, 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 surprise, I generally retain so much presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle Toby), as to make it answer my purpose; that is, I swear on till I find myself easy. A wise and a just man, however, would always endeavor to proportion the vent given to these humors, not only to the degree of them stirring within himself, but to the size and ill intent to 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 Cervantic 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, fiom the lowest to the highest provocations 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. NTot 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 legerbook 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 thumlrb up in the corner of his handkerchief, and with,a1 wry face, though without any suspicion, read aloud, as follows, my uncle Toby whistling Lillibullero as loud as he could all the time. 148 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XI. "BY the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, nother 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 now aloud; and as Captain Shandy seels 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 offeringg at that instant to give over whistling, and read it himnself to them, Dr. Slop thought he might as well read it, ander 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 Liibztflleo, though not quite so loud as before. " By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the undefiled Virgin iMary, mother and patroness of our Saviour and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubirms and seraphims, 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 hee" (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 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 hih be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent hin" TRISTRA M S H ANDY 149 (Obadliah, of the knots which he has tied) and make satisfaction 1' (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) —"M'ay the holy cross which Christ, for our salvation, triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him! "May the holy and eternal Virgin Maliy, mother of God, curse him! May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him! Mfay all the angels' and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him!" [Our armies swore terribly in Flanclers, cried my uncle Toby, but nothing to this. For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] " May the praiseworthy multitude of patriarchs and prophets curso him! "; May St. John, the Precnrsor, 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 conlpany 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 honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, damn him! M! ay all the saints who, frEom 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'cld wherever he be, whether in the house or the stables, the garden, or the field, or the high-way, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church! Ml[ay he be cursed, in living, in dying!" [Here my uncle Toby, taking the advantage of a zinzim 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 hungTy, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in waking, 150 L IFE AN]D OP INIONS OF in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, - in and in blood-letting! "' May he" (Obadiah) "be cursed lit all the faculties of his body! " May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in the hair of his head! May le 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 eyebrows, 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" [A'y father shook his head] "' and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails! " May lie be cursed in all the joints and articulations of his members, firom the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no soundness in him!" "'3ay the Son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty,-" [Here may uncle Toby, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous, long, loud Whew'w-w-w-; something betwixt the interjectional whistle of Ileyday! and the word itself. By the golden beard of Jupiter, and of Juno (if her mllajesty 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 aquatic, 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 honor, 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 strolken and sworn by: by all these beards together then, I vow alnd protest that of the two bad cassocks I am worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as frieely as ever did Cid Hanmet offered his, to have stood by and heard my uncle Toby's accompaniment.] "; Curse him!" continued Dr. Slop, "I and may Heaven, with all the T R ST RAM SANN DY 151 powers which move therein, rise up against himr, curse and damrn him," (Obadiah)' uinless ho::erpent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it, so be it. Almen." 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 damned already to all eternity, replied Dr. Slop. I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby. Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return mlly 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 HAPTER X I I. 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'eem are so hung round ancd befetis7i'd cwith 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 Guinea, their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply therdm upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick'd and tortur'd to death by'em. And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night? Oh, against all rule, my Lord, most nungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in lmtber, cease, and genzcder, he made a breach thus, stopping, as if the point wanted settling; and bet-wixt the nominative case, which your Lordship knows should govern the verb., he suspended his voice in the epilogue a, 152 LI F AND O P I NIONS OF 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 looked 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 critic! And for the epic 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. Admlirable 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 coloring of Titian-the expression of Rubens —the grace of Raphael —the purity of Dominichino-the cosrregiescity 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 humor, give me, I ask no more, but one stroke of native humor, with a single spark of thy own fire along with it, and send Mercury, with the ivodes and conmpcosses, if lie can be spared, with my compliments to-no matter. iNow 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 t-. Pcaul's thumb, God's flesh, and Godosfish,which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as king's T R I S a. A Mot S $- A.r i and 1Y 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 damln you," you see'tis nothing. There is an orientality in this we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention, possess'd more of the excellencies of a swearer; had such thorough knowledge of the human fiame, 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 hcardzess in his manner, and, as in MIichael 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, Tribonias, to collect the Roman or civil laws 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 oftentimes affirm, there was not an oath from the great and tremendous oath of William the conqueror ("By the splendor 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. I5'1 1,11' 5F I, A N T) O P I N I O N S O F CH APTER XIII. BLESS my soul! my poor mistress is ready to faint-and her pains are gone —and the drops are done —and the bottle of julep is brokeand the nurse has cut her arm-(and I my thumb, cried Dr. Slop;) ancl the chil(l is where it was, continued Susannah, and the midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip. shblback 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 mistressbut 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 tile midwife came down to me. I like subordination, quoth my ancle 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,l in the year Ten. Nor, replied Dr. Slop (parodlying my uncle Toby's hobby-horsical reflection; though -fully as hobby-horsical himself), do I know, Captain Shandy, what miglht 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 * * 1 *: the application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so ac )rqop2os, that, without it, the cut upon my thumb mighllt have been felt by the Shandy family as long as the Shlandy family had a name. C lA PTEiT XIV. LET US go back to the. -' i: in the last chapter. It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so when eloquence flourished at Athens and Rome; anjd would be so now, did T R ISTRAM SHANDY. 155 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 where you want it. A scar, an ax, a sword, a pink'd doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a threehalfpenny pickle-pot; but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred. Though if it was too young, and the oration as long as Tully's second Philippic, it must certainly have beshit the orator's mantle. And then again, if too old, it must have been unwieldy and incommodious to his action, so as to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it. Otherwise, when a state-orator has hit the precise age to a minute, hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it, and produced it so critically, that no soul could say it came in by head and shoulders. Oh, Sirs, it has done wonders! it has open'd the sluices, and turned the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politics 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 shlows, 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 showing. CHAPTER XV. De. 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-inven-ted 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: 156 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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, "ar ce children brought into the world with a squirt?" CJIAPTER XVI. UP ON my honor, sir, you have torn every bit of skin quite off the back of both my hands with. your forceps, cried my uncle Toby; and you have crushed all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly.'Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slop; you should have clinched 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 awkward, or possibly-'Tis well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities, that the experiment was not first made upon my child's headpiece. It would not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr. Slop. I maintain, it, said my uncle Toby, that 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. TRI STRAM SHANDYS 157 CHAPTER XVII. AND pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it may not be the child's hip, as well as the child's head? ('Tis most certainly the head, replied the midwife.) Because continued Dr. Slop (turning to my father), as positive as these old ladies generally are,'tis a point very difficult to know, and yet of the greatest consequence to be known; because, sir, if the hip is mistaken for the head, there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps * * * What the possibility was, Dr. Slop whispered very low to my father, and then to my uncle Toby. There is no such danger, continued he, with the head. No, in truth, quoth my father; but when your possibility has taken place at the hip, you may as well take off the head too. It is morally impossible that 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 shown the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother's apartments. CHAPTER XVIII. IT is two hours and ten minutes-and no more-cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived; and I know not how it happens, brother Toby, but, to my imagination, it seems almost an age. _Here-pray, sir, take hold of my cap: nay, take the bell along with it, and my pantofles 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. 158 I IF AND OPINIONS OF Though my father said, "he knew not how it happen'cd," yet he knew very well how it happen'd: and at the instant he spoke, it was predetermined in his mind to give my uncle Toby a clear account of the matter, by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of duration acnd its simplje modes,' in order to show my uncle Toby by what mechanism and mensuration 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 surprised 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 somne 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 knowledge. But I'll tell thee. T I S TRAM S TA X - 159 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 ducration, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it. What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle Toby.: " For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind," continued my father, " and observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist; and so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or anything else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing co-existing with our thinking: and so, according to that preconceived:-'You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle Toby.'Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of time we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months-and of clocks (I wish there was not a clock. in the kingdom) to measure out their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us, that'twill be well if, in time to come, the succession of our ideas be of any use or service to us at all. Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man's head there is a regular succession of ideas, of one sort or other, which follow each other in a 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 lantern 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 the subject, said my father. * Vide Locke. 160 LI FS AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTEIR XIX. WHAT a conjecture was here lost! My father, in one of his best explanatory moods, in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point, into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about; my uncle Toby, in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world; his head like a 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; and 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 humor, in putting a stop to itas he did, was A robbery of the Ontologic Tireasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again. CH AP TER X X. TrroUGHn my father persisted in not going on with the discourseyet 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 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 worn out by 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 revo T RISTRAM S H A N DY.161 lutions 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 a touchhole 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 O RS P R EFAE. 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, ay, 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) saith, 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 what wit and judgment in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east fiom west. So says Locke: so are farting and hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, Didius, the great churchlawyer, in his code de fcartendi et illustrandi fAcGaciis 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 sytlogism: 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 olpacidcear matter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception, and spoil all. Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able critics and felloWvlaborers (for to you I write this preface)-and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do pull off your beards) renowned 162 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF for gravity and wisdom; Monopolus, my politician; Dicius, 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, Bight 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 gredt 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 spareplaces of our brains, in such sort, that they might continue to be injected and. turn'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 am dying, I am gone. Hlelp! 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 namongst ourselves one day *to an end; there would be so much satire and sarcasm, scoffing and flouting, with rallying 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 rackiet and a clatter we should make, what with breaklng 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, wve should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and TIS STRA M S HAND. ]_63 though we should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or devilesses, we should nevertheless, my clear 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 havre 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 j.dgmnent, which I have so bountifully wished both for your WorliLips 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 mzodicums of'ern 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 firom each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so many great states 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 arctic and antarctic 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 jcdgmzent 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 ca lack' of wit and judgment about us! For moercy'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 lalke of Bothnia, coasting along it through East and West Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north-east of the Baltic, up to Petersburgh, and just stepping into Ingria; then stretching over directly from thence through the 164 LI FE AN D OPINIONS OF north parts of the Russian empire, leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we got into the very heart of Russia and Asiatic 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 housrehold judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with; and had they either more of 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 humors 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 deptl of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the lenxgth 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 diaclectic,inzdvction~, 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 fiom 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 TRISTRAM SA N D Y. 165 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 journey's end; some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks; others horizontally with their tails into kennels: Here one half of a learned profession tilting fa7ll butt 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 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 background 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 i! —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'NVo7ces his nose could stand in Tosy o'Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not? 166 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 np as many months; and if carried on upon a military plan, as your Honors know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein, such as feints, forced marches, surprises, almbuscades, mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consists in catching at all advantages on both sides, mig'ht 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; ancld that is, I-ow it comes to pass, that your men of least qoit are reported to the men of most jcudywent? But mark-I say, 9eported to be; for it is no mnore, 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 barg'ain. 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 llate 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, betisxt your owvn 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 knowledgoe bring to any man, if even froml a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, a winter-mitten, a truckle for a pulley, the lid of a goldsmith's crucible, an oil-bottle, an old slipper, or a cane-chlair?" I am this moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to illustratet,htlis afibir of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top TR I STRAM H A D 1Yo 67 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 iwhole 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 amn 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 may say in all such cases of duplicated embellishment, 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 of 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 ime farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that would be ten times better without any knobs at all? Now these two knoes, 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 needlfuil the most priz'd, the most calamitous to be without, and conseqcuently 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 flame or feedl1ug, or so ignorant of what will do him good therein, who does not wish and steadfastly resolve in his own mind, to be, or to be tholugllt 168 LIFE AND. OPINIONS OF 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 efibrt 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 periwigs, 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 philosophized upon it, on the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so join'd 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!UMa1rk only, I write not for them. T RSTRAM SIHAND. 169 CHAPTER XXL EvEnY day for at least ten years together, did my father resolve to have it mended:'tis not mended yet. No family but ours would 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 rhetoric and conduct were at perpetual handycuffs. Never did the parlor-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 honor 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 enough, 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 Shandyhall, the parlor door-hinge shall be mended this reign. CHAPTER XXII. WHEN Corporal Trim had brought his two mortars to bear, he was delighted with his handywork 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 parlor. 170 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Now, next the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of hinizges, I had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is this: Had the parlor-door opened and turn'd upon its hinges, as a door should do,Or, for examlple, 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 tbem: but the thing was, morally speaking, so very imp'racticable, 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. "6 When things move upon bad hinges, an' please your`Worships, 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 Honor, 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. Mfay it please your Honor, 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 Honor 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 hereditarcy. Then I fear, quoth my uncle Toby, Trim has cut off the entail. I have only cut off the tops, an' please TRISTRAM SHANDY. 171 your Honor, cried Trim. I hate.perpetuities as much as any man ailve, 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 Shancly wore them at the battle of Marston-ifoor. 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. HI-ave 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 expenses than you were at 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? 2My father could not help smiling for his soul: his anger at thle worst was never more than a spark; and the zeal and simplicity of Trim, gand the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle Toby, brought him into perfect good humor with them in an instant. Generous souls! God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth my father to himself. 1U72 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XXIII. ALL is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs: I hear not one foot stirring. Prithee, Trim, who's in the kitchen? There is no one soul in the kitchen, answered Trim, making a low bow as he spoke, except Dr. Slop. Confusion! cried my father (getting up upon his legs a second time)-not one single thing 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. lWhat can the fellow be puzzling about in the kitchen! He is busy, an' please your Honor, 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 himn I thank him heartily. You must 1know, my uncle Toby mnistook 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 ain 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'ls, tlhough much against my will; I say much against my will, onlly hbecaiuse the story, in one sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right, it should come in, either amongst the anecdotes of miy uincle 2'oby's amours with Widow Wadman, in which Corporal Trim Aas no mean actor, or else in the middle of his and my uncle Toby's calmpalnig'ns on the bowling-green, for it will do very well in either place; Vblt then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my stoiy, I ruin the story I'm upon; and if I tell it here, I anticipate mattersl and ruin it there. What would your Worships have me do in this case? Tell it, Mr. Shandy, by all means. You are a fool, Tristram, if you do. T It S T A i S HANDY. 1 O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)-which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing, that kindly show him where lhe is to begin it, and where he is to end it, what he is to put into it, and what he is to leave out, how much of it he is to cast into a shade, and whereabouts he is to throw his light! Ye who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into, will you do one thing? I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us), that wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here, that at least you set up-a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take. CHAPTER XXIV. TIuOUGH 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 imlitating 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 follo wed 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 fiiend Garrick, whom I have s6 much cause to esteem and honor-(why or wherefore,'tis no matter)-can it escape your penetration, I defy it, that so many playwrights, and opificers of chit-chat, have ever since been working upon Trim's and my uncle 174 L I E A. N D OPINIONS oF 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-d-8ts, 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 anyone 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 afterwards 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 thirteen, to the latter end of my uncle Toby's campaign in the year eighteen, 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 everything was right at his fortifications, in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly, he espied his Bridget. As the Corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth showing 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 TRISTR AM SHANXDY. 175 Dutch fasLion, and which went quite across the ditch, was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces, that very night. RMy father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby's H-IoBB —HoRsE; he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted; and indeed, unless mny 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 mnischance, but it tickled my father's imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his humor than any one which had yet befallen it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to himo WXell, but dear Toby! imy father would say, (ldo tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened. IHow can you tease mle so much about it? my uncle Toby would reply; I have told it you twenty times, word fobr word, as Trin told it me. Prithee, how was it then, Corporal? my father would cry, turning to Trim. It was a mere misfortune, an' please your Honor; I was showing Mrs. Bridget our fortifications; and in going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipped 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 Honor, arm in arm with irs. Bridget, I dragg'd her after me; by means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge; and Trim's foot (nmy uncle Toby would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled fill 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 Honor, the bridge, which your Honor 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 ancientsthe vinea which Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy. -Ie would tell my uncle Toby of the caCtacpltce of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bul-lwarks from their very foundations; he would go on a'nd describe the wonderfull mechanisml of the bali8ta, which MlIarcellinus 176 XLIFE A D OPINIONS OF makes so much rout about!-tlle terrible effects of the )yr'Caolhi, which cast fire; the danger of the terebra and sco)1,jio, which cast javelins. But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of Corporal Trim? Believe me, brother, no bridge or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this worold, 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 smoking his pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapor one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a sufb-o eating 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 lholding his head with the other, and firom time to time wiping his eyes iwith a clean cambric handkerchief, which he pull'd out of his pocket. The affectionate acnd endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little offices, cut my father through his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him. BMay nmy brains be knock'd out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself-if ever I insult this Worthy soul more! CHAPTER XX. 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 flamne 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 toolk it of him in the field, convinced him that if the King of Spain and the Emperor went together by the ears, England, France, and Holland, must, by force of their pre-engagements, TRI s TRAM SHANDY. 177 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 foss6, 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 empowered 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 Worships 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 forseeing moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal's misfortune, he changed his mind for that of the Marquis d'Hopital's invention, which the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as your Worships may see-Act. 7rud. Lips. an. 1695; to these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of sentinels, inasmuch as the construction of thenm was a curve line approximating to a cycloidl-if not a cycloid itself. ~My uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any?8 1 78 L IFE AND OPINIONS OF man in England: but was not quite such a master of the cycloid; he talked, however, about it every day —the bridge went not forwards. We'll ask somebody about it, cried my uncle Toby to Trim. CHAPTER XXVI. WHEN, Trim came in and told my father, that Dr. Slop was in the kitchen, and busy in making a bridge, my uncle Toby, the affair of the jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his brain, took it instantly for granted that Dr. Slop was making a model of the Marquis d'H1pital's bridge.'Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle Tobby; 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. CHAPTEIR XXVII. TRrs unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father- God bless your Honor, cried Trim,'tis a bridge for master's nose. In bringing him into the world'with his vile instruments, he has crush'd his nose, Susannah says, as flat as a pan-cake 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. T R X S, N. A h, s AN D o 179 CHAPTER XXVIII-. FRioM 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 dipped my pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and solemnity there appeared in my manner of doing it. Lord! how different from the rash jerks and hare-brain'd squirts thou art wont, Tristram, to transact it with in other humors-dropping thy pen, spurting thy ink about thy table and thy books, as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and thy furniture, cost thee nothing I CHAPTER XXIX. I WON'T go about to argue the point with you:'tis so; and I am persuaded of it, Madam, as much as can be, "That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position." The moment my father got up into his chamlber, 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 ISOa -, I F E A N D o iN I o N S O F palmn of his right hand, as lie 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 insensibly over the side of the bed, his knuckles reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep'cl 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 sigl'd once, heav'd his breast often, but uttered not a word. An old set-stitch'd chair, valanced and fringed around with partycolored worsted bobs, stood at the bed's head, opposite to the side where my father's head reclin'd. ily uncle Toby sat him down in it. Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever conies too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late; so that you see, rfadam, there is but a mlark 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 chail, lie drew the curtain a little forivards, and having a tear at every one's service, he pull'd out a cambric handkerchief, gave a low sigh, but held his peace. CHAPTER XXX. "ALL is not gain that is got into the purse." So that, notwithstanding my father had the happiness of reading the oddest books in the universe, *and had, moreover, in himself, the oddest way of thinking that ever man in it was bless'd with, yet it had this drawback upon him after all, that it laid him open to some of the oddest and most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one, which he sunk under at present, is as stronig an example as can be given. iNo 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 palips in be;ettilg" a STR1STRnA>X SHA N TY 181 child as my father was; yet it will not account for the extravagance of his affliction, nor will it justify the unchristian manner he abandoned and surrendered himself up to. To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hovlr, and my uncle Toby, in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him. C HAPTER XXXI. I TNINK 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-granchnother, "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 the 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 Waisp, or any other sound part of philosophy and natural pursuit; in order to which, what have you to do, before you set out, unless you intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment, but to give the world a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most occasion for, changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small coin; which done, let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can, or put a different idea either into your head, or your reader's head, if he knows how. In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as this I am engaged in, the neglect is inexcusable; and heaven is witness how the world has revenged itself upon me for leaving so many openings 182 LIFE AND o OPINION S O to equivocal strictures, and for depending so much as I have done, all along, upon the cleanliness of my readers' imaginations. Here are two senses, cried Eugenius as we walk'd along, pointing with the forefinger of his right hand to the word crevice, in the fortyeighth page 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 triumphed over Eugenius; but I triumphed 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, entreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the Devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds than what I put into my definition: for by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work where the word Nose occurs, I declare by that word I mean a nose, and nothing more or less. CHAPTER XXXII. "BErcAusE,' 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 flatnosed 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 great-grandfather, pressing up the TR ISTRAM SHANDY. 183 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 aeutll y! >ur~ uncle's, replied my great-grandmother. ly w'elt-grandfatller was convinced. He untwisted the paper, and si gfned the article. CHAPTER: XXXIII. WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours! quoth my grandmother to my grandfather. My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand. Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds half-yearly (on Michaelmas and Lady-day) during all that time. No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father; and as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, with which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever he entered upon the odd fifty, he generally gave a loud hem! rubbed the side of his nose leisurely with the fiat 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 w ith it, and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchieft and wiping his temples. Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowance 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 fiom ancestors. For three generations at least, this tenet in favor 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 so far fiom havw 184 TLIFE AND OPINIONS OF ing the whole honor of this, as it had of almost all his other strange notions; for, in a great measure, he might have said to have suck'd this in with his mother's milk. He did his part, however. If education planted the nmistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it to perfection. He would often declare, n sin 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. I-le would often boast that the Shandy Family riank'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 left 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 turned 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 prolllinent 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 I CHAPTER XXXIV. IT is a singular blessing, that nature has form'd the mind of man with the samue happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is observed in old dogs-" of not learning new tricks." W7hat 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 thoughllts, as would eternally be making him change sides! RISTRAM i AND V.1 8 5 N'ow, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this: IHe picked 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 cojnfesso, he will say, things were in a state of nature; the apple is as much Frank's apple as John's. Pray Mr. Shandy Y-Vwhat 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 lie peel'd it? or when he brought it home? or when he digested it? or when he? For'tis plain, sir, if the first picking up of the apple, made it not his, no subsequent act could. Brother Didins, 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 the cudgel's for me; so I give myself no farther trouble about the answer.) Brother Didius, Tribonius will say, it is a decreed case, as you nmay find it in the firagments of Gregorius and IHermogines'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 exudations of a man's brains, are as much a man's own property as the breeches upon his backside; which said exudations, &c., being dropp'd upon the said apple by the labor of finding it, and picking it up; and being moreover indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly annex'd, by the picker up, to the thing picked 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, land 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 labor 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 LIFE A1 ND OPINIONS OF to whatever he could lay his hands on, and, in a word, would entrench and fortify them round with as many circumlvallations and breastworks as my uncle Toby would a citadel. There was one plaguy rub in thle 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 objects, and how many millions of books, in all languages, andin all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated on 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 by, was ridiculous enough, yet at the very same time he did it, lie 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 blackendest no man's character, devouredst no man's bread! Gentle, with faithful Trim behind thee, didst thou ramble round the little circle of pleasure, justling no creature in the 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 the 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. T I S TRAM S H A NDYo 187 CHAPTER XXXV. MY father's collection was not great; but, to make amends, it was curious; snd consequently he was some time in making it; he had the great good fortune, however, to set off well, in getting Bruscambille's prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing; for lie gave no more for IBruscanibilie than three half-crowns, owing indeed to the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the book, the moment lie laid his hands upon it. There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendomn, 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 Colenmar-street with it, as he would have hied honme with a treasurle, without taking his hand once off from Bruscanmbille all the way. To those who do not yet know of which gender Bruscaml bille is, inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by either,'twill be no objection against the sirnile-to say, That when miy father got hole, hle solaced hinlself with Bruscambille after the manner in ivhich,'tis ten to one, your Worship solaced yourself with your first nlistress!-that is, from mornilng even unto night: which, by the bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the enamuorato, 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 Lis appetite, his zeal greater than his knowledge, he cool'd, his affections became divided; he got hold of Prignitz, purchased Scroderus, AnArea Parseus, 3Bouchet's Evening Conferences, and, above all, the great and learned Hafen Slawkenbergius; of which, as I shall have much to say by and by, I will say nothing now. 188 LIF E AND OPI N IO N S OF CHAPTER XXXVI. Or all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study, in support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein lie felt a more cruel disappointment at first, than the celebrated Dialogue between Paunphagus and Cocles, written by the chaste pen of the great and venerable Erasmus, upon the various -uses and seasonable application 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 ~frissk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it, and to kdick it,'with long kicks, and shorlt 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 utrb. 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 beforehand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much r eading, by which your Reverence knows I mean mnzc7h knowcledge, 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. TRISTRAM S1HANDY. 189 190 L I E AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTE R XXXVII. "'IHIEL ~me oJ aitet hujus nasi, " quoth Pamphagus; that is, "My nose has been the making of me." "-Nec est cur poniteat, " replies Cocles; that is, "HI-ow the deuce should such a nose fail?" The doctrine, you see, was laid down by Erasmus, as mny 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. Mly 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, through and throulgh, in its most strict and literal interpretation. I-He could still make nothing of it, that way. Alayhlap, 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 mystic and the allegoric sense. Here is some room to turn a man's self in, brother. Mly 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 Erasmnus, the dialogist affirmeth, that a long nose is not without its domestic conveniences also; for that, in case of distress, and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, ad excitandum focumr (to stir up the fire.) iNature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, ancl 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 ou t 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 T RISTRAM SII ANDY 191 conscience. Psllhav! cried my father, scratching on, I might as well be seven miles off'I've done it, said mly fither, snapping his fingers. See, imy 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. CHtAPTER XXXVIII. 0 SLAWKE,_EuRGIUS! thou faithful analyser of my Disgrazias, thou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which in one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me fi'om the shortness of my nose, and no other cause that I am conscious of, tell me, Slawvkenbergius! 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? lwhich first cried out to thee, Go, go, Slawkenbergius! dedicate the labors of thy life, neglect thy pastimes, call forth all the porwers and fRaculties of thy nature, maccrate thyself in the service of mlankind! and write a grand rOIO for theml, upon Lhe subject of their noses. How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius's sensoriumll, so that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch'd the key, and whose hand it was that blew the bellows, as Hafen Slawkenbeirgius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten years, we can only raise conjectures. Slawkvenbergius was play'd upon, for aught I know, like one of YWhitfield'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 Dook 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 192 LIFE AND OPIN IONS OF coolly, and consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the main end and design of his being; or, to shorten my translation, for Slawkenbergius's book is in Latin, and not a little prolix in this passage; ever since I understood, quoth Slawkenbergius, any thing, or rather what asoct 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 dicalectically, 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 empowered 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 porticoes 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 charnelhouses in Silesia, which he had rummaged, has informed us, that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of human noses, or 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 TRISTRAM SLHANDY. 193 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 Turkey, 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 lickwtvise of Scroderus (Andrea) who, all the world knows, set hinimself 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 fi'om 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. zMy father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he should take in his affair; when Ambrose Pareaus 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 show the learned, I know the fact myself, That this Ambrose Parseus 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 in 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 Paraeus convinced my father, that the true and e flcient cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the worldl, and upon which Prignitz and Scroderus had wasted so much lea'ning and fine parts, was neither this nor that; but that the length and 194 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF goodness of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the niTse's breast, as the flatness and shortness of purise noses was to the firmlness and elastic repulsion of the samle organ of nutrition in the hale and lively; which, though happy for the women, was the undoing of the child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb'd, so rebuff'd, so rebated, and so refirigerated thereby, as never to arrive acd renszursmim scuam legitimavi,; but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the nurse or mother's breast,'by sinking into it, quoth Paruans, as into so much butter, the nose was conforted, nourish'd, plump'd up, refresh'd, refocillated, and set a growing for ever. I have but two things to observe of Parseus; first, That he proves and exploains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression: for with, may his soul for ever rest in peace! And, secondlly, That besides the systems of Prignitz and Scroderus, which Ambrose ParlEus his hypothesis effectually overthrew, it overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our family; t:d 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. Mfy 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 domestic misadventures crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck of another. A cow broke in (to-morrow morning) to my uncle Toby's fortifications, and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up the sods with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way. Trim insists upon being tried by a court-martial, the cova to be shot, Slop to be cruacifx'd, myself to be Trist'rcm'd, and at lmy very baptism madc a martyr of; poor unhappy devils as we all are! I want swaddling; but there is no time to be losL il exclamt'ions, I have left my f:tther lying across his bed, lmy uncle Toby in bhs old fringed chair, sitting beside him, and promisedt I Iw'ould 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 T R IS TR A M SH A N DY. 195 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 Pardenus, Panocrates, and Grangonsier to relate; a tale out of Slawkenbergius to translate; and all this in five minu.tes less than no time at all. Such a head! would to I-leaven my enemies only saw the inside of it. C HAPTER XXXIX. THERE was not any one scene more entertaining in our famnily; and to do it justice in this point, 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 solemln, That I believe, in my soul (unless my love and partiality to my understanding blinds me) the hand of the Supreme Mfaker 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 dramatic 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 fiom morning to night, were lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a confidence, as in the Sllandyl Family. Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical theatre of ours, than what frequently arose out of this selfsame chapter of long noses, especially when my father's imagination was heated with the inquiry, and nothing would serve him but to heat my uncle Toby's too. lMy 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 P1rignitz 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 dacmp tinder, and no spark could ]D(~,LIFE AND OPINIONS OF possibly take hold; or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtailns, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrines, I say not; let schoolmen, scullions, anatonlists, and engineers, fight for it among themselves.'Twas some misfortune, I make no douibt, in this affair, that my father had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle Toby, and render out of Slawkenbergius's Latin, of which, as he was no great master, his translation was not always of the purest, and generally least so where'twas most wanted. This naturally open'd a door to a second misfortune; that in the warmer paroxysms of his zeal to open my uncle Toby's eyes, my father's ideas ran on as much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle Toby's, neither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of my father's lecture. CHAPTER XL. TnE gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms, I mean in man, for in superior classes of beings, 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 teerminus!) just as a man, as Locke well observes, by a yard, finds two men's nine-pinalleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought together, to measure their equality, by jsrtac-position. Had the same glreat reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle Toby's deportment, what T RISTRAM SIANDY 197 great attention he gave to every word; and as oft as he took his pipe firom his mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of it! surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his linger 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 mecdius termin7us, 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 philosophic lectures, was to enable my uncle Toby not to discuss, but comp2rehend; to hold the grains and scruples of learning, not to wveigh them. My uncle Toby, as you will read in the next chapter, did neither the one or the other. CHAPTER XLI.'Tis a pity, cried my father, one winter's night after a three houlrs' painful translation of Slawkenbergius;'tis a pity, cried my father, putting my mother's thread-paper into the book for a mark as he spoke, that Truth, brother Toby, should shut herself up in such impregnable fastness, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself up sometimes 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 terminuzs, 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 HIafen Slawkenbergius fiom 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 witlh 198 LIFE AND OPIN O N S OF great pleasure began his sentence'again, changing only the'plan, and dropping the metaphor of the siege in 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 shown in their solutions of noses. Can noses be'dissolved? replied my uncle Toby. Mly 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 llmy mother's thread-paper about his thumb, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw my mother's thread-paper into the fire, bit her satin pincushion in two, fill'd his mouth with bran, confounded it: but nmark! 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 witll the bran —the bran, may it please your Honors, 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 plrove 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 mlly 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 quacre of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him in his hobby-horsical career.'Twas all one to my uncle Toby; lie 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. H-Ie 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 hihnself, 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 T R rST RA M S H A NDY. 99 affair of Ernulphus, which he as seldom committed as any Cman upon earth)-By all thfit's good and great! brother Toby, said mly father, if it were not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one: so much as they do, you would put a man beside all temper. W',y, by the solutions of noses, of which I was telling you, I meant, as you. might have known, had you favored me with one grain of attention, the various accounts, which learned men of different kinds of Inowledge have given the world of the causes of short and long nose,~ 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 fiames 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 fatherL 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 fathe; finished his remark, my uncle Toby fell a whistling Lillibudlero with more zeal (though mlore out of tune) than usual. What is become of my wife's thread-paper? C HAPTER XLII. No matter; as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of some consequence to my mother; of none to mny father as a mark in Slawkenbergius. Slawkenbergius, in every page of him, was a rich treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father; lihe 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 200 LIFE AND PIN IONS OF 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 the 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 decades; each decade 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 decades, which, I own, seem rather playful and sportive than speculative; but, in general, they are to be looked upon by the learned as a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning round, somehow or other, upon the main hinges of his subject, and collected by him with great fidelity and added to his work as so many illnstrations upon the doctrines of noses. As we have leisure enough upon our hands, if you give me L%;qe, Madam, I'll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decade. LIFE AND OPINIONS OF RISTRAM SHAND G E N T L E iM A N BOOK IV1 BOOK IV. SLAWKIENBERGIUS'S TALE. 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 behindc him, containing a few shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson sat in pair of breeches, entered the town of Strasburg. He told the sentinel 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 sentinel 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 scimitar 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 sentinel's hand, and passed on. It grieves me, said the sentinel, 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 scimitar; 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 sentinel, and putting his hand to his cap as lie spoke. I carry it, continued.he, thus: holding up o.112 2 04t LIFE AND O P I N I O N S OTF his naked scimitar, llis mule moving on slowly all the time, on purpose to defend my nose. It is well worth it, gentle stranger, replied the sentinel.'Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandy-legg'd drummer:'tirs a nose of parchment. As I am a true Catholic, except that it is six times as big,'tis a nose, said the sentinel, like my own. I heard it crackle, said the drummer. By dunder, said the sentinel, 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 sentinel and the drummer-was the same point debating betwixt a trumpeter and a trumpeter's wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopp'd to see the stranger pass by. Benedicity! What a nose I'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 sentinel and the drummer, but betwixt the trumpeter and the 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 saintlike 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 Nicholas; which done, having uncrossed his arms with the same solemnity with which he had crossed them, he TRI STRAM SHANDY. 205 took up the reins of his bridle with his left hand, and putting his right hand into his bosom, with his scimitar hanging loosely to the wrist of it, he rode on, as slowly as one foot of the mule could follow another, through 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-satin breeches, with a silver-fringed (appendage to them, which I dare not translate)-he put his breeches, with his fringed cod-piece on, and forthwith, with his short scimitar 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- satin 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 cloakbag, 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 and jolliest, 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. 206 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF'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 St. Nicholas this days 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 innkeeper's wife. Never! never! said the strangerv; 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 and out at another, this way and that way, long ways and cross ways, up one street, down another street, in at this alley, out at 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-a-day! I was at vespers! I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring, I was quilting. God help mue! I never saw it —I never touch'd it! would I had been a sentinel, 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 Frankfolr, 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. TaISTRAM SHANDY. 207 Banish'd from my country-my friends-from thee. Poor devil, thou'rt sadly tired with thy journey! Come, get on a little fhster; there's nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts, a crimson-satin pair of breeches, and a fiinged —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 Nicholas, every step! Why, at this rate, we shall be all night in getting inTo 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. Nicholas. 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 care of —took off his cloak-bag, with his crimson-satin breeches, &c., in it-called for an omelet for 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 MBab, 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 seniorcanoness, 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 through for it; there was no keeping a limb still amongst them; in short, they go up like so many ghosts. The penitentiaries of the third order of Saint Francis, the nuns of 208 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Mount Calvary, the Prsemonstratenses; the Clunienses,* 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 Anthony 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 Ur'sula 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 the cause of that restlessness, had never happened in Strasburg, since Miartin Luther, with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down. If the stranger's nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into the dishest 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; though, I acknowledge (cries Slawkenbergius, with more gaiety of thought thtan I could have expectedfrlom 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, in which I have spent the greatest part of my life, though I own to them the ~ iafen Slawkenbergius means the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded in the year 940 by Odo, abbe de Cluny. t Mr. Shandy's compliments to orators-is very sensible that Slawkenbergius has here changed his metaphor-which he is very guilty of; that, as a translator, Mr. Shandy has all along done what he could to make him stick to it, but that here'twas impossible. TRISTRAM SHA ND Y 209 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' mind, 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 sentinel, the bandy-legg'd drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter's wife, the burgornmaster'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 descriptions 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 his scimitar slung loosely to his wrist, through the streets, and walked with his crimson-satin breeches across the parade,'twas with so sweet an air of careless modesty, and so manly withal, as would have put the heart in j eopardy (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 noondayI 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 time would allow her, for the illustration of her theory -she staid no longer than three days. The sentinels and the bandy-legg'd drummer! nothing on this 210 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 porticoes. The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left hand, read his also in the same style, under the portico or gateway of his stableyard; 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 marshall'd them. In a word, each Strasburger came crowding for intelligence; and every Strasburger had the intelligence he wanted.'Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural philsosophy, &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 incommolled 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, through these conduits of intelligence, were all busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRTrr keeps her little court, were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up through 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 woens and cedematous 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 cdematous swellings. It was demonstrated, however, very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous mass of heterogeneous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to the nose, whilst the infant was in itcero, without destroying the statical balance of the fmetus, 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 TR I S TR A M SHAN DY. 211 world (bating the case of wens), it could not regularly grow and be sustained afterwards. This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect which nutriment had in extending the vessels; and in the increase and prolongation of the muscular parts of the greatest growth and expansion imaginable. In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to affirm, that there was no cause in nature why a nose should 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 sang'uification, it could possibly work off no more than what the appetite brought it: or, admittingthe 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 the legs have been unfortunately shot off? HI-e 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 212 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 p)}'inciqii, 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 phenomenon 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 shown it. The only objection to this was, that if it proved any thiing, 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 ecclesiastical 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' part, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases, showing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegoric expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long nose: in proof of which, with great learning, lie cited the underwritten authories,* which had decided * Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formula atun. Quinimo & Logistae & Canonistee. Vid. Parce Barno Jas in d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de contec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. 1. TRIS TiRA i\ SH A rN;D Y. 213 the point incontestably, had it not appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dear and chapter-lands, had been determined by it nineteen years before. It happened —I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving her a lift another way in so doing, that the two universities of Strlasburg-the Lutheran founded in the year 1538, by Jacobius Sturmlius, counsellor of the senate, and the Popish, founded by Leopold, archduke 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 damlnation. The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate, a" plriori, that from thle 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 MIercury, all got toggether in the fourth; that he must, in course, and unavoidably, be a damnl d man; and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, smust be damn'd doctrines too. By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio* (in reading this, my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, -which the Arabians allotted to religion, it appeared that MAartin Luther did not care one stiver about the matter: and that, fiom the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars — they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blaspheining; with the blast of which his soul (being steep'd in guilt) sailed before the wind in the lake of hell-fire. n. 7. qua etiam in re conspir. Om. de Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de contrlahend. empt. &c. necnon. J. Scrudr. in cap. ~ refut per toturn. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Pro. cap. 9 if. 11, 12, obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Plhras. & e. g. ad finem, cure comment. N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentoratens. de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc. Archiv. fid. coll. per Yon Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583, preecip. ad finem. Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. alinea feud. per federa, test. Joha. Luxius inc prolegom.,luern velien videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2, 3. Vid. Idea. * tllec Imiro, satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio Asterismo in hona cceli,tatione, quatn Arabes religioni deplutabant efficit Jlccrtizti7cc Lwtleessermn6 sacrilegium iereticum, Christianse religionis hostem acerrimum atque prophanuml, ex horoscopi lirectioue ad Martis coitum, religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissimna ad infernos oavigat -ab Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara fligellis igneis cruciata periuntur. Lucas Gaurieus in Tractatu astrologico de pc'cteritis multosrum hominum accidentibus per genituris exanminatis. 214 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born October 22,'83, which was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner, inasimuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben, in the county of Mansfelt, that Luther was not born in the year 14853, 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 mnust 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 in 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 wlhole 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, fiar 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. M'y father knew the weakness of thlis prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could show 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 Hiafen Slawkenberglius's Decades full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which mly father read over with half the delight; it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together, his lVcages and Ills _Nroses. 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 mloeet with a book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as thlose upon the head at one stroke.] The two universities of Strasburg were hard tulgging 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 Martinm had doubled the Cape, or hacl fallen upon a lee-shore; and no doubt, as it wa-s an inquiry of TRISTRAM S A NDY. 215 much edification, at least to those who understood this sort of navicgation, 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 Quedlingburg and her four dignitaries were 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. STwas 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 Antinosarians, which implies contradictions. He can Inake matter think, said the Nosarians. As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow's ear, replied the Antinosarians. He cannot make two and two.five, replied the Popish doctors.'Tis false, said the 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 HIeaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks it, as blig as the steeple of Strasburg. Now the steeple of Strasburg being the biggest and the tallest church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length, could be worn, at, least by a nmiddle-siz'd man. The Popish doctors swore it could: *thl Lutheran doctors said no; it could not. This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great 216 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 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 gulf of school divinity, and then they all sailed before the wind. Heat is in proportion to want of true knowledge. The controversy about the attributes, &c., instead of cooling, on thile 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 Parichmentaricans, the Brassaricrss, the Tu'r2entarians, on one side, the Popish doctors on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked out of sight. The poor Strasburgers left upon the beach! What was to be done! No delay; the uproar increased, every one in disorder, the city-gates set open. Unfortunate Strasburgers! was there in the store-house of nature, was thlere in the lumIber-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 panegyric. Show me a city so macerated with expectation, who neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or nature, for seven-and-twenty days together, who could have held out one day longer! On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to Strasburg. Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenbergius must certainly have made some mistake in his numerical characters) 7,000 coaches, 15,000 single-horse chairs, 20,000 wagons, crowded as full as they could hold with senators, counsellors, syndics, 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 hig TRISTR A A S-H ADY 217 glety-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 sunrise to meet the courteous stranger on the road. I-aste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale, I say catastrophe (cries Slawkenbergius) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly disposed, not only rejoiceth (gaucdet) in the Cctcasotrop2)e and Peripeitia of a DRAbMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and inltegrant parts of it; it has its Priotasis, Eplitasis, CCatastasis, its CcUtast?oopl/e, 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 Slawkenbergins, 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 wbvth the sentinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg, after pulling off his crimson-satin pair of breeches, is the Protacsis or first entrance, where the characters of the Personce Dranactis 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 Catcstasis, and which usually takes up the 2nd and 3rd 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, in the Catcstasis, 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 on 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 I-Iafen 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. 10 218 L IFE A ND OPI IO S OF — hat 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 ancds, let the traveller and his horse pass by. The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to Strasburg that night. What a fool amu I, said the traveller to himself, when he had rode about a league farther, to think of getting into Strasburg this nightl! 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 dacat and a hall;'tis too much, better go back to the last inn I have passed, thlan lie I lknow not where, or give I know not what. The tlaveller, as 1he made these reflections in his mind, turned his horse's head about, and three minutes after the stranger had been conducted into his chamberr, 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. HIe 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, there was not room in it to turn his nose in. W5hy 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, loohking up to heaven, thou hast conducted me to the end of my pilgrimlage, I Tis Diego. The traveller was the brother of Julia, so often involked that night by the stranger as he rode from Strasburg upon his mule; and was TRISTRAM SH AX DY 219 come, on her part, in quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from Valladolid across the Pyrennean mountains through France, and had many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit of him, through the many meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover's thorny tracks, Julia had sunk under it, and had not been able to get a step further than to Lyons, -where, with the many disquietudes of a tender heart, which all talk of, but few feel, she sicken'd but had just strength to write a letter to Diego; and having conjured her brother never to see her face till he had found him out, and put the letter into his hands, Julia took to her bed. Fernandez (for that was her brother's name)-though the campbed was as soft as any one in Alsace, yet he could not shut his eyes in it. As soon as it was day, he rose; and hearing Diego was risen too, he entered his chamber and discharged his sister's commission, The letter was as follows: "6 Seig. DiEGo, W,' Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not,'tis not now to inquire? it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to farther trial. I- How could I know so little of myself, when I sent my duenna to forbid your coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you, Diego, as to imagine you would have staid one day in Valladolid to have given ease to my doubts? Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether my suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey to much uncertainty and sorrow? "In what manner Julia has resented this, my brother, when he puts this letter into your hands, will tell you; he will tell you in what frantic haste she flew to her lattice, and how many days and nights together she leaned immovably upon her elbow, looking through it towards the way which Diego was wont to come. "He will tell you, when she heard of your departure, how her spirits deserted her, how her heart sicken'd, how piteously she mourned, how low she hung her head. Diego! how many weary steps has my brother's pity led me by the hand languishing to trace out yours! how far has desire carried me beyond strength! and hole oft have I fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry out-O my Diego! "If the gentleness of your carria.e has not belied your heart, you 220 LIFE A N OPINIONS OF will fly to me almost as fast as you fled fiom me: haste as you will, you will arrive but to see mel expire.'Tis a bitter draught, Diego; but oh!'tis embittered still more by dying un — " She could proceed no farther. Slawkenberg'ius supposes the word intended was unconvinced; but her strength would not enable her to finish her letter. The heart of the courteous Diego overflowed as he read the letter: he ordered his mule forthwith, and Fernandez's horse to be saddled; and as no vent in prose is equal to that of poetry in such conflicts, chance, which as often directs us to- remedies as to diseases, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the window, Diego availed himself of it; and, whilst the ostler was getting ready his mule, he eased his mind against the wall as follows: ODE. Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love Unless my Julia strikes the liey, Her hand alone can touch the palt, Whose dulcet movement charms the heart, And governs all the man with sympathetic sway. II. O Julia! The lines were very natural, for they were nothing at all to the purpose, says Slawkenbergius, and'tis a pity there were no more of them; but whether it was that Seig. Diego was slow in composing verses, or the ostler quick in saddling mules, is not averred; certain it was, that Diego's mule and Fernandez's horse were ready at the door of the inn before Diego was ready for his second stanza; so, without staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth, passed the Rhine, traversed Alsace, shaped their course towards Lyons, and, before the Strasburgers and the abbess of Quedllingberg had set out on their cavalcade, had Fernandez, Diego, and his Julia, crossed the Pyrennean mountains, and got safe to Valladolid.'Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that, when Diego was in Spain, it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the Frankfort road; it is enough to say, that of all restless desires, curiosity being the strongest, the Strasburgers felt the full force of it; andl that for three days ald nights they were tossed to and fro in the Frankfort road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion, before they TRISTRAA SHAN D Y. 221 could submit to return home; when, alas! an event was prepared for them, of all others, the most grievous that could befall a free people. As this revolution of the Strasburgers' affairs is often spoken of, and little understood, I will, in ten words, says Slawkenbergius, give the world hn explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale. Everybody knows of the glrand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by order of Mon. Colbert, and put in manuscript into the hand of Louis the Fourteenth, in the year 1664.'Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system was the getting possession of Strasburg, to favor an entrance at all times into Suabia, in order to disturb the quiet of Germany; and that, in consequence of this plan, Strasburg unhappily fell at length into their hands. It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such like revolutions; the vulgar look too higsh for them, statesmen look too low. Truth (for once) lies in the middle. What a fatal thing is the popular pride of ia free city! cries one historian. The Strasburgers deemed it a diminution of their freedom to receive an imperial garrison, so fell a prey to a lFrench one. The fiate, says another of the Strasburgers, may be a warning to all free people to save their money. They anticipated their revenues, brought themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength, and, in the end, became so weak a people, they had not strength to keep their gates shut; and, so the French pushed them open! Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius,'twas not the French,'twas curiosity pushed them open. The French, indeed, who are ever upon the catch, when they saw the Strasburgers, men, women, and children, all marched out to follow the stranger's nose, each man followed his own, and marched in. Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever since, but not fiom any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for it is owing to this only, that Noses have ever so run in, their heads, that the Strasburgers could not follow their business. Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, making an exclamation, it is not the first, and I fear wrill not be the last fortress that has been either won-or lost by fNoses. THIE EiND OF SLAkWEENiERGIUS'S TALE. 222 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF _ A P T E R I. WITH: all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father's fancy, with so many family prejudices, and ten decades'of such tales running on for ever along with them-how was it possible with such exquisite-was it a true nose?-that a man with such exquisite feelings as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs, or indeed above stairs, in any other posture but the very posture I have described? Throw yourself down upon the bed a dozen times, taking care only to place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it before you do it. But was the stranger's nose a true nose, or was it a false one? To tell that beforehand, Madam, would be to do injury to one of the best tales in the Christian world; and that is the tenth of the tenth decade, which immediately follows this. This tale, cried Slawkenbergius, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right well, that when I shall have told it, and my readers shall have read it through,'twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book; inasmuch, continues Slawkenbergius, as I know of no tale which could possibly ever go down after it.'Tis a tale indeed! This sets out wvith the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when Fernandez left the courteous stranger and his sister Julia alone in her chamber, and is overwritten T IIH I N T R I a I ES OF DIEGO AND JULIA. Heavens! thou art a strange creature, Slawkenbergius! what a whimsical view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of T ISTRAM S H AND. 223 Slawkenbergius's tales, and the exquisiteness of his m.oral, should please the world, translated shall a couple of volumes be. Else, how this can ever be translated into good English, I have no sort of conception. There seems, in some passages, to want a sixth sense to do it rightly. What can he mean by the lambent pupilabity of slow, low, dry chat, five notes below the natural tone, which you know, Madam, is little more than a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive an attempt towards a vibration in the strings about the region of the heart, The brain made no acknowledgment. There's often no good understanding betwixt'ema: I felt as if I understood it. I had no ideas. The movement could not be without cause. I'm lost. I can make nothing of it, unless, may it please your Worships, the voice, in that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably forces the eyes to approach not only within six inches of each other, but to look into the pupils. Is not that dangerousl But it can't be avoided; for to look up to the ceiling, in that case the two chins unavoidably meet; and, to look down into each other's lap, the foreheads come into immediate contact, which at once puts an end to the conference, I mean to the sentimental part of it. lWhat is left, Madam, is not worth stooping for. C HA P TE R I I. MY father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death had pushed him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play upon the floor with the toe of that foot which hung over the bedside. My uncle Toby's heart was a pound lighter for it. In a few moments, his left hand, the knuckles of which had all the time reclined upon the handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling; he thrust it a little more within the valance, drewv up his hand, when he had done, into his bosom, gave a hem! My good uncle Toby, with infinite pleasure, answered it; and full gladly would have ingraftee d a sentence of consolation upon the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I said, that way, and fearing, moreover, that he might set out with something which might make a bad matter worse, 224 L IF E AND OPINIONS OF he contented himself with resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his crutch. Now, whethei' the compression shortened -my uncle Toby's face into a more pleasurable oval, or that the philanthropy of'his heart, in seeing his brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had braced up his muscles, so that the compression upon his chin only doubled the benignity which was there bef'ore, is not hard to decide. My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam of sun-shine in his face, as melted downr the sullenness of his grief in a moment. He broke silence as follows: C HA P T E I I I. DID ever mann brother Toby, cried my father, raising himself upon his elbow, and turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where my uncle Toby was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin resting upon his crutch-did ever a poor unfortunate man, brother Toby, cried my father, receive so many lashes? The most I ever saw given, quoth mly uncle Toby (ringing the bell at the bed's head for Trim) was to a grLenadier, I think, in lackay's regiment. Had my uncle Toby shot a bullet through my father's heart, he could not have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly. Bless me! said my uncle Toby. CHAPTER IV. WAs it Mackay's regiment, quoth my uncle Toby, where the poor grenadier was so unmercifully whipp'd at Bruges, about the ducats? O Christ! he was innocent[ cried Trim, with a deep sigh. And he was whipp'd, may it please your 1-Ionor, almost to Death's door. TRl IST1rAM SItDAIDY. 225 They had better have shot him, outright, as he begg'd, and he had gone directly to Heaven; for he was as innocent as your Honor. I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. I never think of his, continued Trim, and my poor brother Tom's misfortune's, for we were all three school-fellows, but I cry like a coward. Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim. I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle Toby. I know your Honor does, replied Trim, and so am not ashamed of it myself. But to think, may it please your Honor, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke-to think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could make them, the children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the world, and fall into such evils! poor Tom! to be tortured upon a rack for nothing-but marrying a Jew's widow who sold sausages! honest Dick Johnson's soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put into his knapsack! 0! these are misfortunes, cried Trim, pulling out his handkerchief- these are misfortunes, may it please your Honor, worth lying down and crying over. My father could not help blushing.'Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own; thou feelest it so tenderly for others. Alacka-day, replied the corporal brightening up his face, your Honor knows I have neither wife or child; I can have no sorrows in this world. -My father could not help smiling. As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age, when thou art passed all services, Trim, and hast outlived all thy friends. An' please your Honor, never fear, replied Trim, cheerly. But I would have thee never fear, Trim, replied my uncle Toby, and therefore, continued miy uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word therefore, in recompense, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs of, whilst thy master is worth a shilling, thou shall never ask elsewhere, Trimn, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby, but had not power; tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off; he laid his hands upon his breast, made a bow to the ground, and shut the door. Albs 226 LIFE AND OPiNIONS OF I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby. My father smiled. I have left him, moreover, a pension, continued my uncle Toby. My father looked grave. CHAPTER V. Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of pensions and grenadiers? CHAPTER VI. WnEWN my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose fiat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him, but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed, with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when Corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise off the bed, he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again before he could'do it. Attitudes are nothing, Madam,'tis the transition from one attitude to another, like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all. For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor, pusheil the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance, gave a hem, raised himself up upon his elbow, and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby, when, recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first effort in that attitude, he got upon his legs, and in making che third turn across the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby; and laying the three first fingers of his right hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself to my uncle Toby as follows: TRIST RAM SHANXDY. 22V CHAPTER VII. WnHEN I reflect, brother Toby, upon iAN; and take a view of that dark side of him which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble; when I consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion of our inheritance-I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting my father, but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year. What could I have done without it? replied my uncle Toby. That's another concern, said my father testily; but I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful items with which the heart of man is overcharged,'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is able to stand it out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.'Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up and pressing the palms of his hands close together,'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy; a sentinel in a wooden sentry-box might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men. We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings. That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it. But give me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery. With all my heart, replied mly uncle Toby. Mly father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates is so finely painted by Raphael, in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning of Socrates is expressed by it, for he holds the fore-finger of his left hand between the fore-finger and thumb of his right; and seems as if he was saying to the libertine he is reclaiming: " You gCrant me this; and this, and this, and this, I don't ask of you;. they follow of themselves in course."' So stood my father, holding fast his fore-finger betwixt his finger and his thumb, and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old ~ LIF AND o PINI ONS O fringed chair, valanced around with party-colored worsted bobs. O Garrick! what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it! CH IAPTER VIII. THonsUr man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father; yet, at the same time,'tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged j ourney, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day, was it not, brother Toby, that there is a secret spring within us. Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be Religion. Will that set my child's nose on? cried my father, letting go his fing er, and striking one hand against the other. It m-akes every tling strai(ght for us, answered my uncle Toby. Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of; is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil; which, like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can't prevent the shock, at least it inmposes upon our sense of it. Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his fore-finger as he was coming closer to the point, had my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr'd in that precious part of him, fanciful and extravagant as I may appear to the world in my opinion of Christian names, and of that magic bias which good or bad names irresistibly impress apon our characters and conducts; Heaven is witness, that in the warmest transports of my wnishes for the prosperity of my child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honor than what George or Edward'would have spread around it. But alas? continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him, I must counteract and undo it with the greatest good. He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother. I wish it may answer, replied iny uncle Toby, rising up. TRIl S TR A SHANDDY. 229 CHAPTER IX. WHAT a chapter of chances! said my father, turning himself about on the first landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going down stairs: what a long chapter of chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand brother Toby, and calculate it fairly. I know no more of calculation than this baluster, said my uncle Toby, (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone.)'Twas a hundred to one, cried my uncle Toby. I thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin,) you had knovwn nothing of calculations, brother Toby.'Twas aeiere chance, said my uncle Toby. Then it adds one to the chapter, replied my father. The double success of my father's repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at once: it was well it so fell out (chance I again) or the world to this day had never known the subject of my father's calculation; to guess it there was no chance. What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express; and in truth I have enough already upon my hands without it. Have I not promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes? a chapter of noses? No: I have done that; a chapter upon my uncle Toby's modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep. By my great-grandfather's whiskers, I shall never get half of'em through this year. Take pen'and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother Toby, said my father; and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of the forceps should have the ill-luck just to fall upon and break down that one part, which should break down the fortunes of our house with it. It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby. I don't comprehend, said my father. Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr. Slop foreboded? 230 LI;FE AND OPINIONS OF My father reflected half a minute; looked down, touched the middle of his forehead slightly with his fingerTrue, said he. CHAPTER X. Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and, for aught I know, as my father and my uncle Toby are in a talking humor, there may be as many chapters as steps. Let that be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny. A sudden impulse comes across me; drop the curtain, Slhandy: I drop it. Strike a line here across the paper, Tristram: I strike it, and hey for a new chapter. The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair; and if I had one, as I do all things out of all rule, I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done. And I warm? I am, and the cause demands it: a pretty story! is a man to follow rules, or rules to follow him? Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew about the matter at once. Is not this ten times better than to set out dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world a story of a roasted horse? that chapters relieve the mind, that they assist, or impose upon the imagination, and that is a'work of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes, with fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted him! 0! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple, you must read Longinus: read away: if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over, never fear, read hiim again. Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times through a-piece, and never understoodl a single word I But TRI STR A M S HANDY. 231 mark the consequence. Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at a11 kindas of waiting; for he wrote books de omni scribi5i; and for Licetuis (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a fio3tls, of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himself. The learned know I mean his Gonopsyc7iaifthlropologia upon the origin of the Human Soul. So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best chapter in my whole work; and, take my word, whoever reads it, is full as well elnployed as in picking straws. CHAPTER XI. We shall bring all things to rights, said nmy father, setting his foot upon the first step from the landing. This Trismegistus, continued my father, drawing his leg back, and turning to my uncle Toby, was the greatest (Toby) of all earthly beings; he was the greatest king, the greatest lawgiver, the greatest philosopher, and the greatest priest, and engineer, said my uncle Toby. In course, said my father. CHAPTER XII. ANi how does your mistress? cried my father, taking the same step over again fi'om the landing, and calling to Susannah, whom he sawv passing by the foot of the stairs withl-l a huge pin-cushion in her hand, how does your mistress? As well, said Sus annah, tripping by, but without looking up, as can be expected. -What a fool am I! said my father, drawing his leg back again —let things be a-s they will, brother Toby,'tis ever the precise answer. And how is the child, pray? No answer,. And where is Dr. Slop? added muy father, rtl'.is 232 LIFE AND OPI NIO NS O ing his voice aloud, and looking over the balusters. Susannah was out of hearing. Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, crossing the landiig, in order to set his back against the wall whilst he propounded it to my uncle Toby, of all the puzzling riddles, said he, in the marriage state, of which, you may trust me, brother Toby, there are more asses' loads than all Job's stock of asses could have carried, there is not one that has more intricacies in it than this: that from the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to bed, every female in it, from my lady's gentlewomlan down to the cider-wench, becomes an inch taller for it; and gives herself more airs upon that single inch, than all the other inches put together. I think rather, replied my uncle Toby, that'tis we who sink an inch lower. If I meet but a woman with child, I do it.'Tis a heavy tax upon that half of our fellow-creatures, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby.'Tis a piteous burden upon'em, continued he, shaking his head. Yes, yes,'tis a painful thing, said my father, shaking his head too: but certainly, since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did two heads shake together, in concert, fiom two such dif'erent springs. God bless'em all, said my uncle Toby and my father; each to Deuce take himself. CHAP TER XIII. -IOLLA! you chairmlain! here's sixpence: do step into that bookseller's shop, and call me a day-tall critic. I am very willing to give any one of'em a crown to help me with his tackling to get my falther and my uncle Toby off the stairs, and to put themn to bed.'Tis even ligh time: for, except a short nap which they both got whilst Trim w.as boring the jack-boots, and which, by the bye, did my father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hinge, they have not else shut their eyes since nine hours before the time that Dr. Slop iwas led into the back-parlor in that dirty pickle by Obadianh T R I STRA S A NDY. 233 Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this, and to take up-Truce; I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon the strange state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as things stand at present: an observation never applicable before to any one biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to myself; and, I believe, will never hold good to any other, until its final destruction; and, therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it must be worth your Worships' attending to. I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelvemonth; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my third volumne,* and no farther than to my first day's life,'tis demonstrative that I have 364 days more life to write just now, than when I first set out, so that, instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it; on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back. Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this, and why not? and the transactions and opinions of.it to take up as much description-and fox what reason should they be cut short? as at this rate I should just live 364 times faster than I should write, it mu.st follow, an' please your Worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have to write, and, consequently, the more your Worships read, the more your Worships will have to read. Will this be good for your Worships' eyes? It will do well for mine; and was it not that my Opinions will be the death of me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this self-same Life of mine; or, in other words, shall lead a couple of fine lives together. As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it no way alters my prospects: write as I will, and rush as I may into the middle of things, as I-orace advises, I shall never overtake myself, whipp'd and driven to the last pinch. At the worst I shall have one day the start of my pen, and one day is enough for two volumes! and two volumes will be enough for one year: Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, which is now opened to us! as I trust its providence will prosper every thing else in it that is taken in hand. * According to the original editions. 234 LIFE AND OPIN IO N S OF As for the propagation of geese, I give myself no concern, Nature is all-bountiful; I shall never want tools to work with. So then, friend, you have got my father and my uncle Toby off the stairs, and seen them to bed? And how did you manage it? You dropp'd curtain at the stair-foot. I thought you had no other way for it. Here's a crown for your trouble. CHIIAPTER XIV. THEN reach my breeches off the chair, said my father to Susannah. There is not a mloment's time to dress you, Sir, cried Susannah, the child is as black in the face as my — As your what? said my father; for, like all orators, he was a dear searcher into comparisons. Bless me, Sir, said Susannah, the child's in a fit. And where's Mir. Yorick? Never where he should be, said Susannah; but his curate's in the dressing-room, with the child upon his.arm, waiting for the name; and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as Captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it should not be called, after him? IWere one sure, said my father to himself, scratchingl his eyebrow, that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not, and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus -upon him: but he may recover. No, no, said my father to Susannal4 I'll get up. There is no time, cried Susannah, the child's as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father. But stay, thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father; canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head the length of the gallery without scratching? Can I? cried Susannab, shutting the door in a huff. If she can, I'll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches. Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery. Ify father made all possible speed to find his breeches. Susannah got the, start, and kept it.'Tis Tris-something, cried Susannah. There is no Christian. name in the world, said the curate, beginning with Tris, but Tristram. Then'tis Tristram-gistus, quoth Susannab. T R I STRAM S H ANDY 235 There is no gistus to it, noodle!'tis my own name, replied the curate, (dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the basin; Tristram! said he, &c., &c., &c., &c.: so Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death. My father followed Susannah, with his night-gown across his arm, with nothing more than his breeches on; fastened, through haste, with but one single button; and that button, through haste, thrust only half into the button-hole. She has not forgot the name? cried my father, htalf-opening the door. No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence. And the child is better, cried Susannah. And how does your mistress? As well, said Susannah, as can be expected. Pish! said my father, the button of his breeches slipping out of the button-hole; so that whether the interjection was levelled at Susannah or the button-hole; whether Pish was an interjection of contempt, or an interjection of modesty, is a doubt; and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three fbllowing favorite chapters; that is, my chapter of chamber-maids, my chapter of pishes, and my. chapter of buttonholes. All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, That the moment my father cried Pish! he whisk'd himself about, and with his breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm of the other, he returned along the gallery to bed, something slower than he came. CHAPTEIR XV. I wisn I could write a chapter upon sleep. A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this moment offers, when all the curtains of the filmily are drawn, the candles put out, and no creature's eyes are open but a single onefor the other has been shut these twenty yeais —of my mother's nurse. It is a fine subject. And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters 236 LIFE A ND OPINIONS OF upon button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single chapter upon this. Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of'em; and trust -me, when I get amongt'eam, you gentry with great beards, look as grave as you will, I'll make merry work with my button. holes-I shall have'em all to myself,-'tis a maiden subject,-I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine saying in it. But for sleep, I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin; I am no dab at your fine sayings, in the first place; and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world,'tis the refuge of the unfortunate, the enfranchisement of the prisoner, the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the brokenhearted; nor could I set out with a lie in my mouth, by affirming that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompense the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us, that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it; or what a happiness it is to man, after the anxieties and passions of the day a-re over, and he lies down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calmn and sweet above her, no desire, or fear, or doubt, that t;roubles the air.; nor any difficulty, past, present, or to collie, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secessiop "God's blessing," said Sancho Panga,' be upon the nman who first invented this self-same thing called Sleep: it covers a man all over like a cloak." Now there is more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and affections, than all the dissertations squeez'd out of the heads of the learned together, upon the subject. Not that I altogether disapprove of what Montaigne advances upon it;'tis admirable in its way; (I quote by memory.) The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep, without tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by. We should study and rulminate upon it, ill order to render proper thanks to him who grants it to us. For this end, I cause myself to be disturbed in my sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish it: and yet I see few, says lie again, who live with less sleep, when need requires: mly body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent and TRISTRAM SIHANDY. 28U sudden agitation; I evade of late all violent exercises, I am never weary with walking: but from my youth, I never liked to ride upon pavements. I love to lie hard and alone, and even without my wife. This last word may stagger the faith of the world; but remember, "'La Vraisemblance," (as Bayle says in the affair of Liceti) "n'est pas toujours du COt6 de la Verite." And so much for sleep. CHAPTER XVI. In, my wife will but venture him, brother Toby, Trismegistus shall be dress'd and brought down to us, whilst you and I are getting our breakfast together. Go, tell Susannah, Obadiah, to step here. She is run up staiis, answered Obadiah, this very instant, sobbing and crying, and wringing her hands as if her heart would break. We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from Obadiah, and looking wistfully in my uncle Toby's face for some time, we shall have a devilish month of it, brother Toby, said my father, setting his arms a-kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, woman, wind, brother Toby!'Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle Toby. That it is, cried my father, to have so many jarring elements breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a gentleman's house. Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother Toby, that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmoved, whilst such a storm is whistling over our heads. And what's the matter, Susannah? They have called the child Tristram; and my mistress is just got out of an hysteric fit about it. No!'tis not my fault, said Susannabh, I told him it was Tristram gistus. Make tea for yourself, brother Toby, said my father, taking down his lhat; but how different from the sallies and agitations of voice and members which a common reader would imagine! For he spdke in the sweetest modulation, and took down his hat with the genteelest movement of limbs, that ever affliction harmonized and attuned together. 238 LIFE A ND OPINIONS OF Go to the bowling-green for Corporal Trim, said my uncle Toby, speaking to Obadiah, as soon as my father left the room. CH APTE R XVII. WHEN the misfortune of my nose fell so heavily upon my father's head, the reader remembers that he walked instantly up stairs, and cast himself down upon his bed; and from hence, unless he has a great insight into human nature, he will be apt to expect a rotation of the same ascending and descending movements from him, upon this misfoirtune of my NAME. No. The different weight, dear Sir, nay even the different package of two vexations of the same weight, makes a very wide difference in our manners of bearing and getting through with them. It is not half an hour ago, when (in the great hurry and precipitation of a poor devil's writing for daily bread) I threw a fair sheet, which I had just finished, and carefully wrote out, slap into the fire, instead of the foul one. Instantly I snatched off my wig, and threw it perpendicularly, with all imaginable violence, up to the top of the room; indeed I caught it as it fell: but there was an end of the matter; nor do I think any thing else in Nature would have given such immediate ease. She, dear goddess, by an instantaneous impulse, in all ~provo?7ing cctses, determines us to a sally of this or that member, or else she thrusts us into this or that place, or posture of the body, we know not why; but mark, Miadam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries; the most obvious things which come in our way have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of Nature's work; so that this, like a thousand other things, falls out for us in a way, which though we cannot reason upon it, yet we find the good of it, may it please your Reverences and your Worships, and that's enough for us. Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction for his life, nor could he carry it up stairs like the other; he walked composedly out with it to the fish-pond. T ISTRAM M SHANDY. 239 Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which way to have gone, Reason, with all her force, could not have directed him to any thing like it; there is something, Sir, in fish-ponds; but what it is, I leave to system-builders and fish-pond diggers betwixt'em to find out; but there is something, under the first disorderly trhansport of the humors, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly and a short walk towards one of them, that I have often wondered that neither Pythagoras, nor Plato, nor Solon, nor Lycurgus, nor Mfahomet, nor any one of your noted lawgivers, ever gave order about them. C H APTER XVIII. Your Honor, said Trim, shutting the parlor-door before he began to speak, has heard, I imagine, of this unlucky accident. O yes, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and it gives me great concern. I am heartily concerned too: but I hope your Honor, replied Trim, will do me the justice to believe, that it was not in the least owing to me. To thee, Trim? cried my uncle Toby, looking kindly in his face,'twas Susannah's and the curate's folly betwixt them; what business could they have together, an' please your Honor, in the garden? In the gallery thou meanest, replied my uncle Toby. Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low bow. Two misfortunes, quoth the corporal to himself, are twice as many at least as are needful to be talked over Hat one time; the mischief the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his Honor hereafter. Trim's casuistry and address, under the cover of his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle Toby; so he went on with what he had to say to Trim as follows: For my own part, Trim, though I can see little or no difference betwixt my nephew's being called Tristram or Trismlegistus; yet as the thing sits so near my brother's heart, Trim, I would freely have given a hundred pounds rather than it should have happened. A hundred pounds, an' p-lease your Honor! replied Trim, I would not give a cherry-stone to boot. Nor would I, Trim, upon my own account, quoth my uncle Toby; but my brother, whom there is no 240 LIFE A D OPI N IONS OF arguing with in this case, maintains that a gret deal more dopends, Trim, upon Christian names than what ignorant people imagine I for he says there never was a great or heroic action performed, since the worldl began, by one called Tristram. Nay, he will have it, Trim, that a man can neither be learned, or wise, or brave.'Tis all fancy, an' please your Honor: I fought just as well, replied the corporal, when the regiment called me Trim, as when they called me James Butler. And for my own part, said my uncle Toby, though I should blush to boast of myself, Trim: yet had my name been Alexander, I could have done no more at Namur than my duty. Bless your Honor! cried Trim, advancing three steps as he spoke, does a man think of his Christian name when he goes upon the attack? Or when he stands in the trench, Trim? cried my uncle Toby, looking firm. Or when he enters a breach? said Trim, pushing in between two chairs. Or forces the lines? cried my uncle, rising up, and pushing his crutch like a pike. Or facing a platoon? cried Trim, presenting his stick like a firelock. Or when he marches up the glacis? cried my uncle Toby, looking warm and setting his foot upon his stool. CHA PTER XIX. My father was returned from his walk to the fish-pond, and opened the parlor-door in the very height of the attack, just as my uncle Toby was marching up the glacis. Trim recovered his arms. Never was my uncle Toby caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life! Alas! my uncle Toby! had not a weightier matter called forth all the ready eloquence of my father-how hadst thou then, and thy poor hobby-horse too, been insulted! My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and, after giving a slight look at the disorder of the room, he took hold of one of the chairs which had formed the corporal's breach, and placing it over-against my uncle Toby, he sat down in it, and, as soon as the tea-things were taken away, and the door shut, he broke out into a lamentation as follows: T R I ST RAM S H A N D Y. 241 MY FATHER'S LAMENTATION. IT is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to Ernulphus's curse, which was laid upon the corner of the chimneypiece, as to my uncle Toby, who sat under it; it is in vain longer. said my father, in the most querulous monotony imaginable, to struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of human persuasions. I see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, or the sins and follies of the Shandy family, Heaven has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and that the prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force of it is directed to play. Such a thing would batter the whole universe about our ears, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, if it was so. Unhappy Tristram! child of wrath! child of decrepitude! interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or disaster in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or entangle thy filaments, which has not fallen upon thy head, ere even thou camest into the world; what evils in thy passage into it!.what evil since! produced into being, in thle decline of thy father's days, when the powers of his imagination a:rl of his body were waxed feeble; when radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which should have teiper'd thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found thy stamina in, but negations?'Tis pitiful, brother Toby, at the best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention on both sides could give it. But how were we defeated? You know the event, brother Toby! it's too melancholy a one to be repeated now, when the few animal spirits I was worth in the world, and with which memory, fancy, and quick parts should have been convey'd, were all dispersed, confused, confounded, scattered, and sent to the devil! I-elore then was the time to have put a stop to this persecution against him, and tried an experiment at least, whether calmness and serenity of mind in your sister, with a due attention, brother Toby, to her evacuations and repletions, and the rest of her non-naturals, might not, in the course of nine months' gestation, have set all things to rights. My child was bereft of these! What a teasing life did she lead herself, and consequently, her fcetus too, with that nonsensical anxiety of hers about lying-in in town! I thought my sister sub11 242 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF mitted with the greatest patience, replied my uncle Toby; I never heard her utter one fretful word about it. She fiuned inwardly, cried my father; and that, let me tell you, brother, was ten times worse for the child, and then, what battles did she fight with me! and what perpetual storms about the midwife! There she gave vent, said my uncle Toby. Vent! cried my father, looking up. But what of all this, my dear Toby, to the injuries done us by my child's coming head-foremost into the world, when all I wished in this general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket unbroke, unrifled! With all my precautions, how was my system turned topsy-turvy in the wo~mb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a pressure of 470 pounds of avoirdupois weight acting perpendicularly upon its apex, that at this hour,'tis ninety per cent. insurance, that the fine net-work of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a thousand tatters. Still we could have done! Fool, Coxcomb, Puppy, give him but a Nose; Cripple, Dwarf, Driveller, Goosecap, (shape him as you will) the door of fortune stands open. O Licetus! Licetus! had I been bless'd with a fcetus five inches long and a half; like thee, Fate might have done her worst. Still, brother Toby, there was one cast of the die left for our child, after all: O Tristram! Tristram! Tristram! We will send for Mr. Yorick, said my uncle Toby. Youm may send for whom you will, replied my father. CHAPTElR XX. WHAT a rate have I gone at, curveting andt friisking it away, two up and tTro down, for three volumes* together, without looking oncea behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon! I'll tread upon no one, quoth I to myself, when I mounted. I'll take a good rattling gallop: but I'll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the Accoldcing to the oi'iginal editions. T R I S T A M SHANDY. 243 road. So off I set, up one lane, down another, through this turnpike over that, as if the arch-jockey of jockeys had got behind me. Now, ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you may,'tis a million to one you'll do some one a mischief, if not yourself. HIe's flung -lie's off —he's lost his seat-he's down-he'll break his neck; see! if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of the undertaking critics! he'll knock his brains out against some of their posts! he's bounced out! look, he's now riding like a madcap, full tilt through a whole crowd of painters, fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players, schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, prelates, popes, and engineers. Don't fear, said I, I'll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the King's highway. But your horse throws dirt; see, you've splash'd a bishop! I hope in God,'twas only Ernulphus, said 1. But you have squirted full in the face of Mess. LeMoyne, De Ronmigny, and De Marcilly, doctors of the Sorbonne. That was last year, replied I. But you have trod this moment upon a king. Kings have bad times oJ't said I, to be trod upon by such people as me. You have done it, replied my accuser. I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off; and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story. And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXI. As Francis the First, of France, was one winterly night warming himself over the embers of a wood-fire, and talking with his first minister of sundry things for the good of the state;* it would not be amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this good understanding betwixt ourselves and Switzerland was a little strengthened. There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving money to these people, they would swallow up the treasury of France. Poo! poo! answered the king, there are more ways, Mons. le Premier, of bribing states, besides that of giving money; I'll pay * Vide Menagiana, Vol. I. 244 LIFE AND O P I ION S OF Switzerland the honor of standing godfather for my next child. Your lmajesty, said the minister, in so doing, would have all the grammarians in Europe upon your back; Switzerland as a republic, being a female, can in no construction be a godfather. She may be godmother, replied Francis, hastily; so, announce my intentions by a courier to-morrow morning. I am astonished, said Fi'ancis the First (that day fortnight), speaking to his minister as lie entered the closet, that we have had no answer froml Switzerland. Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said BMons. le Premier, to lay before you my dispatches upon that business. They take it kindly, said the king. They do, Sire, replied the minister, and have the highest sense of the honor your majesty has done them; but the republic, as godmother, claims her right, in this case, of naming the child. In all reason, quoth the king; she will christen him Francis, or Henry, or Lewis, or some other namie that she knows will be agreeable to us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the minister. I have this hour received a dispatch fiom our resident, with the determination of the republic on that point also. And what nanme has the republic fixed upon for the Dauphin? Shadrach, Mfeshech, Abednego, replied the minister. By Saint Peter's girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss, cried Francis the First, pulling up his breeches, and walking hastily across the floor. Yourmnajesty, replied the minister calmly, cannot bring yourself off. We'll pay them in money, said the king. Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the minister. I'll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth Francis the First. Your honor stands pawned already in this matter, answered Monsieur le Premier. Then, Mons. le Premier, said the king, by — we'll go to war with'em. T R ISTAM SHAN A DY. 245 CHAPTER XXII. ALBEIT, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavored carefully (according to the measure of such a slender skill as God has vouchsafed me, and as convenientleisure from other occasions of needful profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger books, yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to entreat thy lenity seriously, fin beseeching thee to believe it of me, that, in the story of my father and his Christian names, I have no thoughts of treading upon Francis the First, nor, in the affair of the nose, upon Francis the Ninth, nor, in the character of my uncle Toby, of characterizing the militating spirits of my country; the wound upon his groin is a wound to every comparison of that kind: nor by Trim, that I meant the Duke of Ormond, or that my book is wrote against predestination, or free will, or taxes;( if'tis wrote against anything,'tis wrote, an't please your Worships, against the Spleen! in order, by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the diaphragm, and the succussations of the intercostal and abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the gall and other bitters juices from the gall-bladder, liver, and sweet-bread of his majesty's subjects, with all the inimicitious passions which belong to them, down into their duodenums. C HAP TERI XXIII. BUT can the thing be undone, Yorick? said my father: for in my opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a vile canonist, replied Yorick; but of all evils, holding suspense to be the most tormenting, we shall at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these great dinners, said my father. The size of the dinner is not the point, answered Yorick, we want, Mr. Shandy, to dive into the bottom of 246- LIFE AND OPINIONS OF this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not; and as the beards of so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and of the most eminent of our school-divines, and others, are all to meet in the middle of one table, and Didius has so pressingly invited you, who, in your distress, would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite, continued Yorick, is to apprise Didius, and let him manage a conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject. Then my brother Toby, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall go with us. Let my old tie-wig, quoth my uncle Toby, and my laced regiments, be hung to the fire all night, Trim. * * *'* * * * * e *' * * * CHAPTER XXV. No doubt, Sir, there is a whole chapter wanting hlere, and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it; but the bookbinder is neither a fool, nor a knave, nor a puppy, nor is the book a jot more imperfect (at least upon that score); but, on the- contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate to your Reverences in this manner. I question first, by the bye, whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters, but there is no end, an' please your Reverences, in trying experiments upon chapters, we have had enough of it; so there's an end of that matter. But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the chapter which I have torn out, and Ml-lich otherwise you would all have been reading just now instead of this, was the description of my father's, my uncle Toby's, Trim's, and Obadiah's setting out and journeying to the visitation at ***. We'll go in the coach, said my father. Prithee, have the arms been altered, Obadiah? It would have made my story much better TRISTRAM SHANDY 24 7 to have begun with telling you that at the time my mother's arms were added to the Shandys', when the coach was re-painted upon my father's marriage, it had so fallen out, that the coach-painter, whether by performing all his works with the left-hand, like Turphilius the Roman, or Hans HIolbein of Basle, or whether'tiwas more from the blunder of his head than hand, or whether, lastly, it was from the sinister turn which everything relating to our ftamily was apt to take, it so fell out, however, to our reproach, that hiAstead of the bend-dexter, which, since Harry the Eighth's reign, was honestly our due, a bend-sinister, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite across the field of the Shandy arms.'Tis scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so mnuch incommoded with so small a matter. The word coach, let it h-e whose it would, or coach-man, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, could never be named in the family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon the door of his own: he never once was able to step into the coach, or out of it, withou-t turning round to take a view of the arms, and making a vow at th'le same time, that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it again, till the bend-sinister was taken out; but, like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many things which the Destinies had set down in their books ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser families than ours) -but never to be mended. Has the bend-sinister' been brush'd out, I say? said mly father. There has been nothing brush'd out, Sir, answered Obadiah, but the lining. We'll go o' hoi'seback, said my father, turning to Yorick. Of all things in the worldl, except politics, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said Yorick. No matter for that, cried my father; I should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them. Never mind the bend-sinister, said my uncle Toby, putting on his tie-wig. No, indeed, said my father, you may go with my aunt Dinah to a visitation with a bend-sinister, if you think fit. My poor uncle Toby blushed. My father was vexed at himself. No, my dear brother Toby, said my father, changing his tone; but the damp of the coachlining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did December, January, and February, last winter: so, if you please, you shall ride my wife's pad; and, as you are to preach, Yorick, you 248 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF had better make the best of your way before, and leave me to take care of my brother Toby, and to follow at our own rates. Now, the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this cavalcade, in which corporal Trim and Obadiah, upon two coachhorses abreast, led the way as slow as a patrol, whilst my uncle Toby, in his laced regimentals and tlie tie-wig, kept his rank with my father, in deep roads and dissertations alternately, upon the advantage of learning and arms, as each could get the start. But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so much above the style and manner of any thing else I have been able to paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without depreciating every other scene, and destroying, at the same timle, that necessary equipoise and balance (whether of good or l)ad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work result. For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it; but, in my opinion, to write a book, is for all the world like humming a song; be but in tune with yourselfM,]adam,'tis no matter how high or how low you take it. This is the reason, may it please your Reverences, that somle of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off very well (as Yorick told my uncle Toby one night)-by siege. My uncle Toby looked brisk at the sound of the word siege; but could make neither head nor tail of it. I'm to preach at court next Sunday, said Homenas: run over my notes: so I humm'd over Doctor Hlomenas's notes; the modulation's very well;'twill do, Homenas, if it holds on at this rate; so on I humm'd, and a tolerable tuie I thought it was; and to this hour, may it please your Reverences, had never found out how low, how flat, how spiritless and jejune it was, but that, all of a sudden, up started an air in the miJddle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly, it carried my soul up with it into the other world: now had I (as Montaigne complaind in a parallel accident)-had I found the declivity easy, or the ascent accessible-certes Ii. had been outwitted. Your notes, Homenas, I should have said, are good notes; but it was so perpendicular a precipice, so wholly cut off from *the rest of the work, that, by the first note I humm'd, I found myself flying into the other world, and from thence discovered the vale fiom whence TRISTRAM S HANDY. 249 I came, so deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into it again. A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one. And so much for tearing out of chapters. CHAPTER XXVI. SEE, if he is not cutting it all into slips! and giving them about him to light their pipes!'Tis abominable, answered Didius. It should not go unnoticed, said Doctor Iysarcius: — he was of the Kysarcii of the low Countries. Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood in a direct line betwixt him and Yorick, you Inight have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a mnore proper place, Mr. Yorick; or at least upon a more proper occasion to have shown your contempt of what we have been about.- If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with,'twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and, if'twas good enough to be preached before so learned a body,'twas certainly, Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards. I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemma; let him get off as he can. I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion, that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom, and, if it was possible, my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me; it emne from my head instead of my heart: and it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it in this manner. To preach, to show the extent of our reading, or the subtleties of our wit, to parade it in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning, tinsell'd over with a few words, which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth, is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week 11* 250 LIFE AND O PI NI ONS OF which is put into our hands:'tis not preaching the gospel, but ourselves. For my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart. As Yorick pronounced the wordls poit-bclane7, my uncle Toby rose up to say somlething upon projectiles, when a single word, and no more, uttered fiom the opposite side of the table, drew every one's ears towards it:'a word of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expected: a word I am ashamed to write, yet must be written, must be read l; illegal, uncanonical —guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into themselves, rack, torture your. invention for ever, you're where you was. In short, I'll tell it in the next chapter. Z o/ s —~__ _ _ _ _ _ a AP: PT R XXV II. ZOUNDS! -- Z ds! cried Phutatorius, partly to himself, yet high enough to be heard; and what seemed odd,'twas uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in amazement, and one in bodily pain. One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression and mixture of the two tones as plainly as a third or a jfitl?, or any other chord in music, were the most puzzled and perplexed with it. The concord was good itself; but then'twas quite out of the key, and no way applicable to the subject started: so that, with all their knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it. Others, who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their ears to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a choleric spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose; and that the desperate monosyllable Z ds, was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged. but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's T R ISTRA S H A N DY. 251 good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on, a third party began to suppose, that it was no Dmo-G:e than an involuntary respiration, casually forming itself into the s, ape of a twelve-penny oath, without the sin or substance of one. Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it, on the contrary, as a real and substantial oath, propensely formed against Yorick, to whom he was known to bear no good liking; which said oath, as my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at that very time in the upper regions of Phutatorius's purtenance; and so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first squeezed out by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the right ventricle Phutatorius's heart, by the stroke of surprise which so strange a theory of preachling had excited. How finely we argue upon mistaken facts! There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the monosyllable which Phutatorius uttered, who did noet take this for granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that Phutatorius's mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was arising between Didius and Yorick; and indeed, as he looked first towards the one, and then towards the other, with the air of a man listening to what was going forwards, who would not have thought the same? But the truth was, that Phutatorius knew not one word or one syllable of what was passing; but his whole thoughts and attention were taken up with a transaction which was going forwards at that very instant within the precincts of his own Galligaskins, and in a part of them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch accidents: so that, notwithstanding Hie looked with all the attention in the world, and had gradually Screwed up every nerve and muscle in his face to the utmost pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it was thought, to give a sharp reply to Yorick, who sat over against him, yet, I say, was Yorick never once in any one domicil of Phutatorius's brain; but the true cause of his exclamation lay at least a yard below. This I will endeavor to explain to you with all imaginablo decency. You must be informed then, that Gastripheres, who had taken a turn into the kitchen a little before dinner, to see hou- things went 252 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF on, observing a wicker-basket of fine chestnuts standing upon the dresser, had ordered that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and sent in as soon as dinner was over; Gastripheres enforcing his orders about them, that Didius, but Phutatorius especially were particularly fond of'eam. About two minutes before the time that my uncle Toby interrupted Yorick's harangue, Gastripheres's chestnuts were brought in: and as Phutatorius's fondness for'em was uppermost in the waiter's head, he laid them directly before Phutatorius, wrapt up hot in a clean damask napkin. lNow, whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all thrust into the napkin at a time, but that some one chestnut, of -more life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion; it so fell out, however, that one was sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddling under, it fell perpendicularly into that particular aperture of Phutatorius's breeches, for which, to the shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout all Johnson's Dictionary: let it suffice to say, it was that particular aperture, which in all good societies, the laws of decorum do strictly require, like the temple of Janus (in peace at least) to be universally shut lip. The neglect of this punctilio in Phutatorius (which by the by should be a warning to all mankind) had opened a door to this accident. Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speaking; but in no opposition to the opinion either of Acrites or Mythogeras in this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of it, and are so to this hour. That there was nothing of accident in the whole event, but that the chestnut's taking that particular course, and in a manner of its own accord, and then falling with all its heat directly into that one particular place, and no other, was a real judgment upon Phutatorius for that filthy and obscene treatise de Concubinis retinendis, which Phutatorius hadc published about twenty years ago, and was that identical week going to give the world a second edition of. It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy; much, undoubtedly, may be wrote on both sides of the question; all that concerns me, as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and TRISTRAM SHA N DY. 253 render it creditable to the reader, that the hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chestnut; and that the chestnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly, and piping hot, into it, without Phutatorius's perceiving it, or any one else at that time. The genial warmth which the chestnut imparted, was not undelectable for the first twenty or five-and-twenty seconds; and did no more than gently solicit Phutatorius's attention to that part: but the heat gradually increasing, and, in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain, the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles and circuits, to the place in danger, leaving all his upper regions, as you may imagine, as empty as my purse. With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back, Phutatorious was not able to dive into the secret of what was going forward below; nor could he make any kind of conjecture what the devil was the matter with it. However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoic, which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had'certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter: but the sallies of the imagination are ungovernable in all things of this kind: a thought instantly darted into his mind, that though the anguish had the sensation of glowing heat, it might, notwithstanding that, be a bite as well as a burn; and if so, that possibly a newt or an asker, or some such detested reptile, had crept up, and was fastening his teeth; the horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the chestnut, seized Phutatorius with a sudden panic, and in the first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw him, as it has done the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard: the eifect of which was this, that he leaped incontinently up, uttering as he rose that interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the apposiopestic break after it marked thus, Z —-ds! which, though not strictly canonical, was still as little as any man could have said upon the occasion; and which, by the by, 25:4 LIF E A ND OPI NIONS OF wrhether canonical or not, Phutatorius could no more help than he could the cause of it. Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up'ittle more time in the transaction than just to allow time for Phuta-.;orius to draw forth the chestnut, and throw it down with violence tpon the floor, and for Yorick to rise from his chair, and pick the,hestnut up. It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the diind. What incredible weight they have in forming and governing mur opinions, both of men and things! that trifles, light as air, shall raft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immovably within it, that d'uclid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it! Yorick, I said, picked up the chestnut which Phutatorius's wrath had flung down; the action was trifling; I am ashamed to account for it: he did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chestnut not a jot the worse for the adventure; and that he thought a good chestnut worth stooping for. But this incident, trifling as it was, wrought differently in Phlutatorius's head. I-He considered this act of Yorick's,.n getting off his chair and picking up the chestnut, as a plain acknowl-dgment in hil, that the chestnut was originally his; and, in course, that it must have been the owner of the chestnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it. What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this: That the table being parallelogramical, and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for Yorick, who sat directly over-against Phutatorius, of slipping the chestnut in: and consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, which Phutatorius cast full upon Yorick as these thoug'hts: rose, too evidently spoke his opinion; and as Phutatorius was naturally supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion at once became the general one; and for a reason very different from any which have yet been given, in a little time it was put out of all manner of dispute. When great or unexpected events fall out upon the state of this sublunary world, the mind of man, which is an inquisitive kind of a substance, naturally takes a flig'ht behind the scenes, to see what is the cause and first spring of them. The search was not long in this instance. tRISTRAM SHANDY 2 5 b5 It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of the Treatise which Phutatorius had wrote, de Concultbinis ~retinendcis, as a. thing which he feared had done hurt in the world: and'twas easily found out, that there was a mystical meaning in Yorick's prank, and that his chlicking the chestnut hot into Phutatorius's *' - -,:., was a sarcastical fling at his book; the doctrines of which, they said, had inflamed many an honest man in the same place. This conceit awaken'd Somnolentius; made Agelastes smile; and, if you can recollect the precise look and air of a man's face intent in finding out a riddle, it threw Gastripheres's into that formn; and, in short, was thought by many to be a master stroke of arch wit. This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as groundless as the dreams of philosophy. Yorick, no doubt, as Shakspeare said of his ancestor, " was a man of jest," but it was temper'd with something which withheld hihn from that and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame; but it was his misfortune, all his life long, to bear the imputation of saying and doing a thousand things, of which (unless imy esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable. All I blame him for, or rather all I blame and alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which would never suffer him to take pains to set a story right with the world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, lie acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horse. He could have explained it to his honor, but his spirit was above it; ancd besides, he ever looked upon the inventor, the propagator, and believer, of an illiberal report, alike so injurious to hiim, he could not stoop to tell his story to them, and so trusted to time and truth to do it for him. This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respects; in the present, it was followed by the fixed resentment of Phutatorius, who, as Yorick had just made an end of his chestnut, rose up fromi his chair a second time, to et him know it; which indeed he did with a snile; saying only, that he would endeavor not to forget the obligation. But you must mnark and carefully separate and distinguish these two things in your mind: The smile was for the company; The threat was for Yorick. 256 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XXVIII. CAN you tell me, quoth Phutatorius, speaking to Gastripheres, who sat' next to him, for one would not apply to a surgeon in so foolish an affair, can you tell me, Gastripheres, what is best to take out the fire? Ask Eugenius, said Gastripheres. That greatly depends, said Eugenius, pretending ignorance of the adventure, upon the nature of the part. If it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be wrapt up- It is both the one and the other, replied Phutatorius, laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod of his head, upon the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the same time, to ease and ventilate it. If that is the case, said Eugenius, I would advise you, Phutatorius, not to tamper with it by any means; but if you will send to the next printer, and trust your cure to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off the press, you need do nothing more than twist it round. The damp paper, quoth Yorick (who sat next to his fiiend Eugenius), though I know it has a refreshing coolness in it, yet, I presume, is no more than the vehicle; and that the oil and lampblack, with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, does the business. Right, said Eugenius; and is, of any outward application I would venture to recommend, the most anodyne and safe. Was it my case, said Gastripheres, as the main thing is tle oil and lamnp-black, I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on directly. That would make a very devil of it, replied Yorick. And besides; added Eugenius, it would not answer the intention, which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription; which the faculty hold to be half in half: for consider, if the type is a very small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs and large capitals excepted) as no art or managemient of the spatula can come up to. It falls out very luckily, replied Phutatorius, that the second edition of my Treatise, De Concubinis retinendis is at this instant in the press. You may take any leaf of it, said Eugenius; no matter which. Provided, quoth Yorick, there is no bawdy in it. TRISTRAM S HA NDY 257 They are just now, replied Phutatorius, printing off the ninth chapter; which is the last chapter but one in the book. Pray, what is the title of that chapter? said Yorick; making a respectful bow to Phutatorius, as he spoke. I think, answered Phutatorius,'tis that de Re Concubinarid. For Heaven's sake, keep out of that chapter, quoth Yorick. By all means, added Eugenius. C HAPTER XXIX. Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand, with his fingers spread, upon his breast, had such a blunder about a Christian name happened before the Reformation [It happened the day before yesterday, quoth my uncle Toby to himself], and when baptism was administer'd in Latin ['Twas all in English, said my uncle], many things might have coincided with it; and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name. Had a priest, for instance, which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptized a child of Tom-o'Stiles, in nomine pcatrice c filica & spiritum sanctos, the baptism was held null. I beg your pardon, replied Kysarlcius; in that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the baptism was valid; and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun; and not, as in your case, upon the last. My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listened with infinite attention. Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John Stradling's in gomine Gatris, &c., &c., instead of in rnomine Patris, &c. Is this a baptism? No, say the ablest canonists; inasmuch as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for gomine does not signify a name, nor gatris a father. What do they signify? said my uncle Toby. Nothing at all, quoth Yorick. Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius. 2.5 8 L IFE AND OPINIONS OF In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part earnest. But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patrice is put for patris, filia for f/ii, and so on; as it is a fault only in the declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the inflections of their branches, either this way or that, does not in any ~ art hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the words as before. But then, said Didius, the intention of the priest's pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have gone along with it. Right, answered Iysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we have an instance in a decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the Third. But my brother's child, cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the Pope;'tis the plain child of a Protestant gentleman, christen'd Tristram against the wills and wishes both of his father and mother, and all who are akin to it. If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of those only who stand related to Mr. Shandy's child, were to have weight in this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in it. My uncle Toby laid down his pipe, and my-father drew his chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an introduction. It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the* best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued Kysarcius, "Whether the mother be of kin to her child;" but, after much dispassionate inquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides, it has been adjudged for the negative; namely, "That the mother is not of kin to her child."t My father instantly clapp'd his hand upon my uncle Toby's mouth, under color of whispering in his ear; the truth was, he was alarmed for iZibiullero, and having a great desire to hear more of so curious an argument, he begg'd my uncle Toby, for Heaven's sake, not to disappoint him in it. My uncle Toby gave a nod, resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling Lil/ib6llero inwardly, I(ysarcius, Didius, and Triptolemus went on with the discourse as follows: This determination, continued Kysarcius, how contrary soever it: Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7, ~ 8. t Vide Brooke's Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 259 may seem to run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side, and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous case, known commonly by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's Case. It is cited in Brooke, said Triptolemus. And taken notice of by Lord Coke, added Didius. And you may find it in Swinburn on Testaments, said Kysarcius. The case, Mr. Shandy, was thisIn the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles Duke of Suffolk having issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died: after whose death the son died also; but without will, without wife, and without child; his mother and his sister by the father's side (for she was born of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration of her son's goods, according to the statute of the 21st of Harry the Eighth; whereby it is enacted, That in case any person. die intestate, the administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin. The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, tlfe sister, by the father's side, commenced a suit before the Ecclesiastical Judge, alleging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; and, 2dly, That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; and, therefore, prayed the court, that the administration granted to the mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to the deceased, by force of the said statute. liereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its issue, and many causes of great property likely to be decided in times to come, by the precedent to be then made, the most learned, as well in the laws of this realm as in the civil law, were consulted together, Whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no? Whereunto not only the temporal lawyers, but the church-lawyers, the juris-consulti, the jurisprudentes, the civilians, the advocates, the commissaries, the judges of the consistory and prerogative courts of Canterbury and York, with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, That the mother was not of * kin to her child. And'what said the Duchess of Suffolk to it? said my uncle Toby. The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby's question, confounded Ky* Mlater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. 0. de Verb, signific. 260 LIFE AND OPINIO N S OF sarcius more than the ablest advocate. He stopp'd a full minnte, looking in my uncle Toby's face without replying; and in that single minute Triptolemus put by him, and took the lead as follows:'Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt'tis for this cause, that however true it is that the child may be of the blood and seed of its parents, that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by the parents; for so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patr'is & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine liberorum. But this, Triptolemus, cried Didius, proves too much; for, from this authority cited, it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child, but the father likewise. It is held, said Triptolemus, the better opinion; because the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are they but (una carco*) one flesh; and consequently no degree of kindred, or any method of acquiring one in nature. There you push the argument again too far, cried Didius, for there is no prohibition in nature, though there is in the Levitical law, but that a man may beget a child upon his grandmother; in which case, supposing the issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both of-But who ever thought, cried Kysarcius, of lying with his grandmother? The young gentleman, replied Yorick, whom Selden speaks of, who not only thought of it, but justified his intention to his father by the argument drawn from the law of retaliation: "'You lay, Sir, with my mother," said the lad; " why may not I lie with yours?"'Tis the arsgumentum commune, added Yorick.'Tis as good, replied Eugenius, taking down his hat, as they deserve. The company broke up. * Vide Brooke's Abrid. tit. Administr. N. 47. TRISTRIAM SHA N DY. 261 CHAPTER XXX. AND pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, as he and my father were helping him leisurely down the stairs, don't be terrified, Madam; this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last. And pray, Yorick, said my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of Tristram at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it; for [Mrs. Shandy, the mother, is nothing at all akin to him; and as the mother's is the surest side, Mr. Shandy, in course, is still less than nothing. In short he is not as much akin to him, Sir, as I am. That may well be, said my father, shaking his head. Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle Toby, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the Duchess of Suffolk and her son. The vulgar are of the salme opinion, quoth Yorick, to this hour. CIIAPTER XXXI. THOUGH llmy father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned discourses,'twas still but like the anointing of a broken bone. The momnent he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under us. He became pensive, walked frequently forth to the fish-pond, let down one loop of his hat, sigh'd often, forbore to snap; and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and digestion, as Hippocrates tells us, he had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health rescued by a fiesh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a thousand pounds, by my aunt Dinah. 262 LIFE AND OPINIONS O F My father had scarce read the letter, when, taking the thing by the right end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out mostly to the honor of his family. A hundred and fifty odd projects took possession of his brains by turns; he would do this, and that, and tVother. Hie would go to Rome; he would go to law; he would buy stock; he would buy John Hobson's farm, he would new fore-front his house, and add a new wing to make it even. There was a fine water-mill on this.side; and he would build a wind-mill on the other side of the river, in full view, to answer it. But above all things in the world, he would inclose the great Ox-moor, and send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels. But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do everything; and in truth very few of these to any purpose, of all the projects which offered themselves upon the occasion, the two last seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favor either of the one or the other. This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though'tis certain my father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my brother's education, and, like a prudent man, had actually determined to carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from, the second creation of actions in the Missississippi-scheme, in wrhich he was an adventurer; yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning it likewise to some account. But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjecture of things as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their claims, like a wise man, he had refrained entering into any nice or critical examination about them: so that, upon the dismission of every other project at this crisis, the two old projects, the Ox-moor, and my brother, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mind, which of the two should be set a-going first. People may laugh as they -will; but the case was this:It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of TRISTRAM SHA DY. 2 3 it should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage; not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise and change of so much air, but simply for the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap of having been abroad. Tantum v alet, my father would say, quantuum sonat. Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most Christian indulgence, to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore, and thereby make an example of him, as the first Shandy unwhirled about Europe in a post-chaise, and only because lie was a heavy lad, would be using him ten times worse than a Turk. On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard. Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds, it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about fifteen years before; besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation. It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy family ever since the middle of the last century, and though it lay full in view, before the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill; and on the other by the projected wind-mill spoken of above; and for all these reasons seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection of the family, yet, by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as the ground they tread on, it had all along most shamefully been overlooked; and, to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value of land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in. However, ashneither the purchasing this track of ground, nor indeed the placing of it'where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father's doing, he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair-till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries), which being altogether my father's own act and deed, it naturally awakened every other argument in its favor; and upon summing them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honor, he was bound to do something for it; and and that now or never was the time. I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, 264 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF that the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by each other; for though my father weightd them in all humors and conditions-spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done; reading books of farming one day-books of travels another, laying aside all passion whatever, viewing the arguments on both sides in all their lights and circumstances, communing every day with my uncle Toby, arguing with Yorick, and talking over the whole affair of the Ox-moor with Obediah, yet nothing in all that time appeared so strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable of the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of equal weight, as to keep the scales even. For to be sure, with proper helps, and in the hands of some people, though the Ox-moor would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the world from what it did, or ever could do, in the condition it lay, yet every tittle of this was true with regard to my brother Bobby, let Obediah say what he would. In point of interest, the contest I own, at first sight, did not appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple. expense of paring and burning, and fencing in the Ox-moor, &c., &c., with the certain profit it would bring him in return; the latter turned out so prodigiously in his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the Ox-moor would have carried all before it; for it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first year, besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following; and the year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred, but, in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty, if not two hundred quarters of peas and beans, besides potatoes without end. But then, to think he was all this while breeding up my brother like a hog to eat them, knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state of suspense, that, as he often declared to my uncle Toby, he knew no more than his heels what to do. Nobody but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguingthing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time; for, to say nothing of the havoc, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the TRIS T RAM SAN D Y. 265 nerves, which you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from'the heart to the head, and so on; it is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man, every time, as it goes backwards and forwards. My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME, had he not been rescued out of it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil: the misfortune of my brother Bobby's death. What is the life of man? Is it not to shift from side to side? fiomn sorrow to sorrow? to button up one cause of vexation, and unbutton another? C I A P T E R X XXII. From this momlent I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the Shandy family; and it is from this point, properly, that the story of my LIFE and OPINIONS sets out. WV:ith all my hurry and precipitation, I have been but clearing the ground to raise the building: and such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was executed, since A.dam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it: I have but half a score of things to do in the time; I have a thing to name, a thing to lament, a thing to hope, a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten. I have a thing to suppose, a thing to declare, a thing to conceal, a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for. This chapter, therefore, I naznze the chapter of THINGS, and my next chapter to it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon Wi-rImsitns, in order to keep up some connection in my works. The things I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I have not been able to get into that part of my w.ork, towalrds which I have all the way looked forwards with so much earnest desire; and thatl is the campaigns, but especially the amours, of my uncle Toby, the events of which are of so singular-a nature and so Cervantic a ciast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey'but the 12 260 LIF E AND OPINIONS OF same impressions to every other brain which the occurrences themselves excite in my own, I will answer for it, the book shall maklce its way in the world much better than its master has done before it. Oh Tristram! Tristramu! can this but be once brought about, the credit which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils which have befallen thee as a man: thou wilt feast upon the one, when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other! No wonder I itch so much as I do to get at these amours: they are the choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at'em, assure yourselves, good folks (nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes offence at it), I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words! and that's the thing I have to declare. I shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fear: and the thing I hope is, that your Worships and Reverences are not offended: if you are, depend upon't I'll give you something, my good gentry, next year, to be offended at; that's my dear Jenny's way; but who my Jenny is, which is the right and which is the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealed: it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my chapter of Button-holes; and not one chapter before. And now that you have just got to the end of these four volumes,* the thing I have to askc is, how you feel your heads? my own aches dismally! As for your healths, I know they are much better. True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart andlungs; and, all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through their channels, and make the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round. Was I left, like Sancho Panua, to choose my kingdom, it should should not be maritime, or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of; no it should be a kingdom-of hearty laughing subjects; and as the bilious and more saturine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humors, have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politic as body natural; and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passions, and subject them to reason, I should add to my prayer, that God would give my subjects grace to be wIsE as they * According to the original editions, TRISTRAM SHANDY. 267 were MERny; and then I should be the happiest monarch, and they the happiest people, under Heaven. And so with this moral for the present, may it please your Worships and your Reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, when (unless this vile cough kills me in the mean time) I'll have another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you little dream of. LIFE AND OPINIONS TRISTRAM SHANDY, GE N T I~ E M A N. BOOK Ve BOOK V. CH APTER I. IF it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a postilion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought hlad never entered my head. He flew like lightning: there was a. slope of three miles and a half; we scarce touched the ground, the motion was most rapid, most impetuous;'twas communicated to my brain, my heart partook of it. "By the great God of day," said I, looking towards the sun, and thrusting my arm out of the forewindow of the chaise, as I made my vow, " I will lock up my studydoor the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface, in the draw-well at the back of my house." The London wagon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon the hill, scarce progressive, dragg'd, dragg'd up by eight ltecavy beasts, "by main strength!" quoth I, nodding; "but your betters draw the same way, and something of every body's! O rare!" Tell me, ye leained, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bul1, so little to the stock? Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting, the same rope? for ever in the same track, for ever at the same pace? Shall we be destined, to the days of eternity, on holydays as well as working-days, to be showing the'elics of learning, as monks do the 271 272 LIF A D OPIN IONS OF relics of their saints, without working one, one single miracle with them? W ho made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a moment; that great, that most excellent, and most noble creatnre of the world-the miracle of nature, as Zoroaster, in his book CJrepI vacewS called him; the Shecinah of the Divine Presence, as Chrysostoml: the imnage of God, as -Moses; the rag of Divinity, as Plato; the marvel of marvels, as Aristotle, to go sneaking on at this pitiful, pimping, pettifogging rate I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion; but if there is no catachresis in the wishl and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that every imitator in Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for his pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large enough to hold, ay, and sublimate them, tag-ray and bob-tail, mail and female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of wohiskers; but by what chain of ideas, I leave as a legacy in mnortinair to Prudes and Tartufes, to enjoy and make the most of. TIP ON II I SK ES. I'm sorry I made it;'twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a man's head. A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear it!'tis a delicate world; but I knew not of what mettle it was made, nor had I ever seen the under-written fragment; otherwise, as surely as noses are noses, and whiskers are whiskers still (let the world say what it will to the contrary), so surely would I have steered clear of this dangerous chapter. T HE FRAM E N T. ~ * * * * * * * * * * * 8 * * * * * * * * * * * * You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking hold of the old lady's hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze as he'pronounced the word ewhiskers. Shall we change the subject? By no means, replied the old lady; I like your account of those matters: so throwing a thin gauze handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back upon the chair, with her face turned towards him, and acd TRIS TPAM SI A NDY. 23 vancing her two feet as she reclined herself, I desire, continued she, you will go on. The old gentleman went on as follows: Whiskers! cried the Queen of Navarre, dropping her knotting-ball as la Fosseuse uttered the word. Whiskers, Madam! said La Fosseuse, pinning the ball to the qcueen's apron, and making a courtesy as she repeatecd it. La Fosseuse's voice was naturally soft and low, yet'twas an articulate voice; and every letter of the word whisders fell distinctly upon the Queen of Navarre's ear. Whiskers! cried the queen, laying a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still distrusted her ears. Whiskers! replied La Fosseuse, repeating the word a third time. There is not a cavalier, Madam, of his age in Navarre, continued the maid of honor, pressing the page's interest upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair —Of what? cried Margaret, smiling. Of whiskers, said La Fosseuse, with infinite modesty. The word whis/kers still stood its ground, and continued to be made use of in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of NIavarre, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which La Fosseuse had made of it: the truth was, La Fosseuse had pronounced the word not only before the queen, but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an accent which always implied something of a mystery. And as the court of Margaret, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of gallantry and devotion, and whiskers being as applicable to the one as the other, the word naturally stood its ground; it gained full as much as it lost: that is, the clergy were for it, the laity were against it, and, for the women, they were divided. The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur De Croix, was at that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honor towards the terrace before the palace-gate, where the guard was mounted. The lady De Baussierre fell deeply in love with him, La Battarelle did the same; it was the finest weather for it that ever was remembered in Navarre. La Guyol, La Iaronette, La Sabatiere, fell in love with the Sieur de Croix also; La Rebours and La Fosseuse knew better: De Croix had failed in an attempt to recommend himself to La RPebours; and La Rebours and La Fosseuse were inseparable. The Queen of Navarre was sitting with her ladies in the painted bow-window, facing the gate of the second court, as De Croix passed 12* 274 LIFE A ND OPIN IONS OF through it. He is handsome, said the Lady Baussiere. He has a good mien, said La Battarelle. He is finely shaped, said La Guyol. I never saw an officer of the horse-guards in my life, said La Maronette, with two such legs; Or who stood so well upon them, said La Sabatiere. But he has no whiskers, cried La Fosseuse. Not a pile, said La lEebours. The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way as she walked through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it this way and that way in her fancy. Ave Maria + -what can La Fosseuse mean? said she, kneeling down upon the cushion. La Guyol, La Battarelle, La Maronette, La Sabatiere, retired instantly to their chambers. Whiskers! said all four of them to themselves, as they bolted the doors on the inside. The Lady Carnavallette was counting her beads with both hands, unsuspected under her farthingale. From St. Anthony down to St. Ursula, inclusive, not a saint passed through her finger without whiskers; St. Francis, St. Dominick, St. Bennet, St. Basil, St. Bridget, had all whiskers. The Lady Baussiere had got into a wilderness of conceits, with moralizing too intricately upon La Fosseuse's text: she mounted her palfrey, her page followed her, the host passed by, the Lady Baussiere rode on. One denier, cried the Order of Mercy, one single denier, in behalf of a thousand patient captives, whose eves look towards Heaven and you for their redemption. The Lady Baussiere rode on. Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly holding up a box begirt with iron in his withered hands. I beg for the unfortunate: good my lady,'tis for a prison, for an hospital,'tis for an old man, a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretiship, by fire; I call God and all his angels to witness,'tis to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry;'tis to comfort the sick and the broken-hearted. The Lady Baussiere rode on. A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground. The Lady Baussiere rode on. He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, &c, TRISTRAM SHAND:Y. 275 Cousin, aunt, sister, mother, for virtue's sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ's sake, remember me! pity me! The Lady Baussiere rode on. Take hold of my zohisker8, said the Lady Baussiere. The page took hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace. There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the stronger. We see, spell, and put them together, without a dictionary. Ha, ha, he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere, looking close at each other's prints. Ho, ho! cried La Battarelle and Maronette, doing the same. Whist! cried one; st, st, said a second; hush; quoth a third; poe, poo, replied a fourth; gramercy! cried the Lady Carnavallette;'twas she who bewhisker'd St. Bridget. La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon one side of her upper lip, put it into La Rebours' hand. La Rebours shook her head. The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her muff. La Guyol smiled. Fy! said the Lady Baussiere. The Queen of Navarre touched her eye with the tip of her fore-finger, as much. as to say, I understand you all.'Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La Fosseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all these defiles. It made a faint stand, however, for a few months; by the expiration of which, the Sieur de Croix, finding it high time to leave Navarre for want of whiskers, the word, in course, became indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use. The best word in the best language of the best world, must have suffered under such combinations. The Curate d'Estella wrote a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the Navarrois against them. Does not all the world know, said the Curate d'Estella, at the conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same fate, some centuries ago, in most parts of Europe, which whiskers have now done in the kingdom of Navarre? The evil, indeed, spread no farther then; but have not beds and bolsters, and night-caps and chamber-pots, stood 27rs6 LIFFE AND OPINIONS OF upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles, and spigots, and faucets, in danger still from the same association? Chastity, by nature the gentlest of all affections, give it but its head,'tis like a ramping and a roaring lion. The drift of the Curate d'Estella's argument was not understood. They ran the scent the wrong way. The world bridled his ass at the tail. And when the extremes of Delicacy, and the beginnings of Concupiscence, hold their next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also. CHAPTER II. WnEN my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy account of my brother Bobby's death, he was busy calculating the expense of his riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyons.'Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it to travel over again, and his calculation to begin afiesh when he had almost got to the end of it, by Obadiah's opening the door to acquaint him the family was out of yeast, and to ask whether he might not take the great coach-horse early in the morning, and ride in search of some. With all my heart, Obadiah, said my father (pursuing his journey); take the coach-horse, and welcome. But he wants a shoe, poor creature! said Obadiah. Poor creature! said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison. Then ride the Scotch horse, quoth my father, hastily. He cannot bear a saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole world. The Devil's in that horse; then take Patriot, cried my father, and shut the door. Patriot is sold, said Obadiah. Here's for you! cried my father, making a pause, and looking in my uncle Toby's face as if the thing had not been a matter of fact. Your Worship ordered me to sell him last April, said Obadiah. Then go on foot for your pains, cried my father. I had much rather walk than ride, said Obadiah, shutting the door. What plagues! cried my father, going on with his calculation. But the waters are out, said Obadiah, opening the door again. TR IST R A A NDYo 277 Till that moment, my father, who had a map of Sanson's, and a book of the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage le had paid for, purposing to go on from that point with his jourlney and calculation, as soon as Obediah quitted the room; but this second attack of Obadiah's, in opening the door and laying the whole country under water, was too much. He let go his compasses, or rather, with a mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table: and then there was nothing for him to do, bhut to return back to Calais (like many others) as wise as he set out. When the latter was brought into the parlor, which contained the news of my brother's death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey -to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of Nevers. By your leave, Mons. Sanson, cried my father, striking the point of his compasses through Nevers into the table, and nodding to my uncle Toby, to see what was in the letter,-twice in one night is too much for an English gentleman and his son, Mons. Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a town as Nevers. What think'st thou, Toby added my father in a sprightly tone. Unless it be a garrison town, said my uncle Toby, for then- I shall be a fool, said my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live. So giving a second nod, and keeping his compasses still upon Nevers with one hand, and holding his book of the post-roads in the other, half calculating and half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my uncle Toby hummed over the letter. - he's gone! said my uncle Toby. Where? Who? cried my father. lMy nephew, said my uncle Toby. What, without leave, without money, without governor? cried my father in amazement. No: he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle Toby. Without being ill? cried my father again. I dare say not, said my uncle Toby, in a JIw voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart; he has been ill enough, poor lad! I'll answer for him, for he is dead. When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, 2'78 LJIF E AND OPINIONS OF that not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work. My father stuck his compasses into Nevers but so much the faster. What contrarieties! his, indeed, was matter of calculation! Agrippina's must have been quite a different affair; who else could pretend to reason from history? How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself. CHAPTER III. AND a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too; so look to yourselves.'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian, or some one, perhaps, of later date, either Cardan, or Budcaus, or Petrarch, or Stella, or, possibly, it may be some divine or father of the church; St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms, that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children: and Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel: and, accordingly, we find, that David wept for his son Absalom, Adrian for his Antinous, Niobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death. * My father managed his affliction otherwise;. and, indeed, differently from most men, either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the Hebrews and the Romans, nor'slept it off, as the Laplanders; nor hanged it, as the English; nor drowned it, as the Germans; nor did he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or lillebdllero it. IHe got rid of it, however. Will your Worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two pages? When Tully was bereft of her dear daughter Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart, he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it. O my Tullia! my daughter! my child! still, still, still,'twas O my Tullia! my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my T I S T A SAN A D DY. 27 9 Tullia, I talk with my Tullia. But, as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion, nobody upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me. My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tuilius Cicero could be for his life, and, for ought I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was, indeed, his strength and his weakness too. His strength, for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness, for he was hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him to show his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one (bating the case of a systematic misfortune) he had all lie wanted. A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which set it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal; sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instince, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of his misfortune but as five, my father gained half in half; and, consequently, was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him. This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's domestic character; and it is this that, in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps, unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture. My father had a favorite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own riding. He was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security, as if he had been reared, broke, and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mnounting. By some neglect or other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father's expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced. My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiah, and that there would never be an end of the disaster. See here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have done! It was not me, said Obadiah. I-How do I know that? replied my father. Triumph swain in my father's eyes at the repartee; the Attic salt brought water into them; and so Obadiah heard no more about it. 280 LIFE AND OPINI ON OF Now let us go back to my brother's death. Philosophy has a fine saying for everything. For Death, it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once rushed so into my father's head, that'twas difficult to string them together, so as to make anything of a consistent show out of them. He took them as they camne. "'Tis an inevitable chance, the first statute in Magna Charta; it is an everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother, Al muest die. " If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder; not that he is dead. " Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us. " To die, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and the proudest pyramid of them all which wealth and science have erected, has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon." (My father found he got great ease and went on) " K~ingdoms and provinces, towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when those principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them together, have performed their several evolutions, they fall back." Brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, laying down his pipe at the word evolutions-Revolutions, I meant, quoth my father-by Heaven! I meant revolutions, brother Toby; evolutions is nonsense.'Tis not nonsense, said my uncle Toby. But is it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my father; do not dear Toby, continued he, taking him by the hand, do not-do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis. I My uncle Toby put his pipe into his mouth. "Where is Troy and Mycense, and Thebes, and Delos, and Persepolis, and Agrigentum?" continued my father, taking up his book of post roads, which he had laid down. "What is become, brother Toby, of Ninevah and Babylon, of Cyzicum and Mitylene? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are left; and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by piecemeal to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night. The world itself, brother Toby, must-must come to an end. " Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from ]ggina towards Megara," (when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby,) " I began. T RIST RAM S HAND. 281 to view the country round about. _icEgina was behind me, Mlegara was before, Pyreus on the right hand, Corinth on the left. What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth? Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his presence! Remember, said I to myself again-remember thou art a man." Now, my uncle Toby knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of Servius Sulpicius's consolatory letter to Tully: he had as little skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity: and as my father, whilst he was concerned in the Turkey trade, had been three or four times in the Levant, in one of which he had staid a whole year and a half at Zante, my uncle Toby naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had taken a trip across the Archipelago into Asia; and that all this sailing affair, with zEgina behind, and lIegara before, and Pyrseus on the right hand, &c. &c., was nothing more than the true course of my father's voyage and reflections.'Twas certainly in his manner; and many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations. And pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, laying the end of his pipe upon my father's hand in a kindly way of interruption, but waiting till he finished the account. What year of our Lord was this?'Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father. That's impossible, cried my uncle Toby. Simpleton! said my father,'twas forty years before Christ was born. My uncle Toby had but two things. for it; either to suppose his brother to be the Wandering Jew, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain. " M ay the Lord God of Heaven and earth protect him and restore him!" said my uncle Toby, praying silently for my father, and with tears in his eyes. My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his harangue with great spirit. " There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines." (This way of setting off, by the by, was not likely to cure my uncle Toby's suspicions.) "Labor, sorrow, grief, sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life." /MIuch good may it do them, said my uncle Toby to himself. "My son is dead! so much the better-'tis a shame, in such a tempest, to have but one anchor. 28'2 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF " But he is gone forever from us! be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was bald; he is but risen from a feast before he was surfeited; from a banquet before he had got drunken. " The Thracians wept when a child was born," (and we were very near it, quoth my uncle Toby,) " and feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world; and with reason. Death opens the gate of Fame, and shuts the gate of Envy after it: it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hands. "Show me the man who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I'll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty." Is it not better, my dear brother Toby (for mark, our appetites are but diseases,) is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat? not to thirst, than to take physic to cure it? Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love anid melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his innD to be bound to begin his journey afresh? There is no terror, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows friom groans and convulsions, and the blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottom of curtains, in a dying man's room. Strip it of these-What is it?'Tis better in battle thail in bed, said my uncle Toby. Take away its hearses, its mutes, and its mourning, its plumes, escutcheons, and other mechanic aids. What is it? Better in bcattle! continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby;'tis terrible no way, for consider, brother Toby, when we are, death is not; and when death is, we are noto My uncle Toby laid down his pipe, to consider the proposition; my father's eloquence was too rapid to stay for any man; away it went, and hurried my uncle. Toby's ideas along with it. For this reason, continued my father,'tis worthy to recollect how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made. Vespasian died in a jest upon his close-stool; Galba with a sentence; Septimus Severus in a dispatch.; Tiberius in dissimulation; and Caesar Augustus in a compliment. I hope'twas a sincere one, quoth my uncle Toby.'Twas to his wife, said my father. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 283 CHAP TER IV. AmD lastly, for of all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my father, this, like the gilded dome which covers in the fabric, crowns all.'Tis of Cornelius Gallus, the pr.ttor, which, I dare say, brother Toby, you have read. I dare say I have not, replied my uncle. He died, said my father,as ** * * * * * * * * * * *.* * * 8 * And if it was with his wife, said my uncle Toby, there could be no hurt in it. That's more than I know, replied my father. CHAPTER V. My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which led to the parlor, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word woife.'Tis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it by leaving the door a little ajar, so that my mother heard enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge of her finger across her two lips, holding in her breath, and bending her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neck (not towards the door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink) she listened with all her powers: the listening slave, with the Goddess of Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an intaglio. In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes, till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as Rapin does those of the church) to the same period. 284 LIFE AND OPINION S OF CH APTER V I. TheOUGT, in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it, that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and impulses, that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honor and advantages of a complex one, and a number of as odd movements within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a Dutch silk-mill. Amongst these there was one, I am going to speakl of, in which, perhaps. it was not altogether so singular as in.many others: and it was this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was going forward in the parlor, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen. Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was delivered in the parlor, or a discourse suspended till a servant went out, or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or mother; or, in short, when any thing was supposed to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to,'twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat ajar, as it stands just now; which, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended) it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left, not indeed so wide as the Dardanelles, but -wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this windward trade as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house; my mother at this moment stands profiting by it. Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brother's death; so that before my father had well got over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue, had Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject. A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of TRISTRAM SHANDYo 285 all Job's stock, though, by the bye, youzr eurious olserTers are seldom wo0rth ca gr'oat, would have given the half of it to have heard Corporal Trim and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier. My father, a man of deep reading, prompt memory, with Cato, and Seneca, and Epictetus, at his fingers' ends:The corporal, with nothing to remember; of no deeper reading than his master-roll, or greater names at his fingers' ends, than the contents of it. The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images. The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and the pictures on the other, going straight-forwards, as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to Heaven thou hadst a better historian! Would thy historian had a better pair of breeches! O ye critics! will nothing meltlyou? CH APTER VII. My young master in London is dead! said Obadiah. A green satin night-gown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susannah's head. Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections of words. Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning. But note a second time: the word mzourning, notwithstanding Susannah lmade use of it herself, failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black: all was green. The green satin night-gown hung there still. 0!'twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried Susannabh. lMy mother's whole wardrobe followed. What a possession! her red damask, her orange-tawny, her white and lutestrings, her brown taffeta, her bone-laced caps, herbed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoast. Not a rag was left behind. "No; shee will never lboo k2 u again!" said Susannah. 286 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF We had a fat, foolish scullion; my father, I think, kept her fox simplicity; she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy. -Joe i dead, said Obadiah; he is certainly dead! So am not I, saod the foolish scullion. Here is said news, Trim, cried Susannah, wviping her eyes as Trim stepp'd into the kitchen; Master Bobby is dead and burid/! the funeral was an interpolation of Susannahs; we shall have all to go into mourning, said Susannah. I hope not, said Trim. You hope not! cried Susannah earnestly. The mourning ran not in Trim's head, whatever it did in Susannah's. I hope, said Trim, explaihing himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard the letter'read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the Oxmoor. Oh I he's dead, said Susannah. As sure, said the scullion, as I'm alive. I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said Trim, fetching a, sigh. Poor creature! - poor boy! poor gentleman! He was alive last Whitsuntide! said the coachman. Whitsuntide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon, what is Whitsuntide, Jonathan (for that was the coachman's name), or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability;) and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment!'Twas infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears. We are not stocks sand stones. Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous'd with it. The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in church and state, and possibly the preservation of the whole world, or, what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power; may, in time to come, depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal's eloquence, I do demand your attention: your Worships and Reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease. TRIS TR A M A ND Y 287 I said, " We are not stockls and stones:"'tis very well. I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish Awe were; but men clothed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations: and what a junketing piece of work of it there is betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them; for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your Barbciati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul, gives a smarter stroke and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy than words can either convey, or sometimes get rid of. I've gone a little about; no matter,'tis for health, let us only carry it back in our mind, to the mortality of Trim's hat. "Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?" There was nothing in the sentence;'twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head, he had made nothing at all of it. "Are we not here now?" continued the corporal; " and are we not -" (dropping his hat plump upon the ground, and pausing, before he pronounced the word) "gone in a moment?" The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it. Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was. the type and forerunner. like it; his hand seemed to vanish from under it; it fell dead; the corporal's eye fixed upon it as upon a corpse; and Susannah burst into a flood of tears. Now, ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground without any effect. Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under Heaven, or in the best direction, that could be given to it! had he dropped it like a goose, like a puppy, like an ass; or in doing it, or even after he had done it, had he looked like a fool, like a ninny, like a nincompoop, it had fail'.d, and the effect upon the heart had been lost. Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines of eloquence; who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it, and then harden it again to your purpose:Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass; and, having done it, lead the owners of them whither ye think meet: 288. LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Ye, lastly, who drive-; and why not? Ye also who are driven like turkeys to market, with a stick and a red clout, meditate, meditate, I beseech you, upon Triln's hat. CHAPTER VII I. STAY, I have a small account to settle with the reader before Trim can go on with this harangue. It shall be done in two minutes. Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in due time, I own myself a debtor to the world for two items, a chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes: which, in a former part of my work, I promised and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of your Worships and'Reverences telling me that the two subjects, especially so connected together, might endanger the morals of the wdrld, I pray the chapter upon chamber-maids and buttonholes may be forgiven me, and that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is nothing, an't please your Reverences, but a chapter of chambermaids, green gowns, and old hats. Trim took his hat off the ground, put it upon his head, and then went on with his 6'ration upon death, in manner and form following: CHAPTER IX. To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care is, who live here in the service of two of the best of masters —(bating, in my own case, his majesty King William the Third, whom I had the honor to serve both in Ireland and Flanders)-I own it; that fiom Whitsuntide to within three weeks of Christmas,'tis not long,'tis like nothing; but to those, Jonathan, who know what Death is, and what havoc and destruction he can make, before a man can well wheel about,'tis a whole age. O Jonathan!'twould make a goodnatured man's heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal (stand TRISTRAM X SHANDY. 289 ing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time! And trust me, Susy, added the corporal, turning to Susaanah, whose eyes were swimming in water, before that time comes round again, many a bright eye will be dim. Susannah placed it to the right side of the page; she wept, but she court'sied too. Are we not, continued Trim, looking still at Susannab-are we not like a flower of the field? A tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation —else no tongue could have described Susannah's affliction. Is not all flesh grass?'Tis clay,'tis dirt. They all looked directly at the scullion; the scullion had just been scouring a fish-kettle. It was not fair. What is the finest face that ever man looked at! I could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried Susannah. What is it! (Susannall laid her hand upon Trim's shoulder) but corruption! Susannah took it off. Now I love you for this; and'tis this delicious mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you aree; and he who hates you for it-all I can say of the matter is, that he has either a pumlpkin for his head, or a pippin for his heart; and whenever he is dissected'twill be found so. CHAPTE R X. xWHETITER Susannah by taking her hand too suddenly from off the corporal's shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions), broke a little the chain of his reflections, Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious he had got into the doctor's quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than himself, Or whether, -~ Or whether-for in all such cases a man of invention and parts may, with pleasure, fill a couple of pages with suppositions-which of all these was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curioius any body, determine-'tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue: 13 290 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not Death at all: not this.. added the corporal, snapping his iingers; but with an air which no one but the Corporal could have given to the sentiment. In battle I value Death not this... and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbons, in scouring his gun. What is he? A pull of a trigger; a push of a bayonet an inch this way or that, makes the difference. Look along the line-to the right-see! Jack's down! Well,'tis worth a regiment of horse to him. No;'tis Dick. Then Jack's no worse. Never mind which; we pass on, in hot pursuit; the wound itself which brings him is not felt-the best way is to stand up to him; the man who flies, is in ten times.more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws. I've looked him, added the Corporal, an hundred times in- the face, and know what he is. He's nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field. Bat he's very fiightful in a house, quoth Obadiah. I never im-ind it myself, said Jonathan, upon a coach-box. It amust, in my opinion, be most natural in bed, replied Susannab. And could I escape him by creeping into the worst calf's skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it there, said Trim; but that is nature. Nature is nature, said Jonathan. And that is the reason, cried Susannah, I so, much pity my mistress. She will never get the better of it. Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family, answered Trim. Madam will get ease of heart in weeping, and the squire in talking about it, but my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself. I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for Lieutenant Le Fevre. An' please your Honor, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I lay beside him. I cannot help it, Trin, my master would say;'tis so melancholy an accident, I cannot get it off my heart. Your Honor fears not death yourself. I hope, Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a wrong, thing. Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fevre's boy. And with that, like a quieting draught, his Honor would fall asleep.I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain, said Susainnah. He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said Obadiah, as ever lived. Ay, and as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept befbre a platoon. There never was a better officer in the king's army, or a better man in God's world; for he would march up to the mouth of T R S T A SHANDY. 291 a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch-hole: and yet, for all that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people: he would not hurt a chicken. I would sooner, quoth Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year, than some for eight. Thank thee, Jonathan! for thy twenty shillings, as much, Jonathan, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into my own pocket. I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. He is a fiiend and a brother to me; and could J be sure my poor brother Tom was dead, continued the corporal, taking out his handkerchief, was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the captain. Trim could not refrain friom tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master. The whole kitchen was affected. Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said Susannah. With all my heart, answered the corporal. Susannah, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and Corporal Trinm, formed.a circle about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the kitchen-door, the corporal began. CHAPTER XI. I AM a Turk if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had plastered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river Nile, without one. Your most obedient servant, Madam, I've cost you a great deal of trouble. I wish it may answer; but you have left a crack in my back; and here's a great piece fallen off here before: and what must I do with this foot? I shall never reach England with it. For my own part, I never wonder at anything; and so often has my judgment deceived llme in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wvrong; at least, I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without-I'll go to the world's end with him. But I hate dis 292 LIF' E AND OPINIONS O putes, and therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society,) I would almost subscribe to any thing which does not choke me in the first passage, rather than be drawn into one. But I cannot bear suffocation; and bad smells worst of all. For which reasons, I resolved from the beginning, that if ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented, or a new one raised, I would have no hand in it, one way or t'other. C I-I AP T E R XI I. Br3u to return to my mother. My uncle Toby's opinion, Madam, " That there could be no harm in Cornelius Gallus, the Roman prsetor's lying with his wife;" or rather the last word of that opinion (for it was all my mother heard of it), caught hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex; you shall not mistake me, I mean her curiosity; she instantly concluded herself the the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession upon her fancy, you will readily conceive, every word my father said was accommodated either to herself or her family-concerns. Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live who would not have done the same? From the strange mode of Cornelius's death, my father had made a transition to that of Socrates, and was giving my uncle Toby an abstract of his pleading before his judges;'twas irresistible: not the oration of Socrates, but my father's temptation to it. He had wrote the * Life of Socrates himself the year before he left off trade; which I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it; so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in Socrates's oration which closed with a shorter word than transmigration, or annihilation, or a worse thought in middle of it than to to be-or not to be, the entering upon a new and untried state * This book my father would never consent to publish;'tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family; all, or most of which, will be printed in due time. TRISTRA M SHANDoY 293 of things, or upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance! That toe and our children werte born to die, but neither of us born to be slaves. No, there I mistake; that was part of Eleazer's oration, as recorded by Josephus (de Bell. Judiac.) Eleazer owns he had it from the philosophers of India. In all likelihood, Alexander the Great, in his irruption into India, after he had overrun Persia, amongst the many things he stole, stole that sentiment also; by which means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he died at Babylon) at least by some of his marauders, into Greece, fiom Greece it got to Pome, fiom Rome to France, and from France to England. So things come round:By land-carriage; I can conceive no other way. By water, the sentiment might easily have come down the Ganges, into the Sinus Gangeticus, or Bay of Bengal, and so into the Indian Sea; and following the course of trade (the way from India by the Cape of Good Hope being then unknown) might be carried, with other drugs and spices, up the Red' Sea to Joddah, the por't of lMecca, or else to Tor or Suez, towns at the bottom of the Gulf; and from thence by caravans to Coptos, but three day's journey distant, so down the Nile directly to Alexandria, -vwhere the sentimzent would be landed at the very foot of the great staircase of the Alexandrian library; and from that storehouse it would be fetched. Bless me! what a trade was driven by the learned in those days! C HAPTTER XIII. Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a man)-if not, there's an end of the matter. Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise era ii which so great a man lived; whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c., to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel;'tis not doing as they would be done by. Happen that as it may, my father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience-of wondering why he was begot; 294 LIFE AND OPINI ONS OF wishing himself dead; sometimes worse: and when the provocation ran higuh, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary powersSir, you scarce could have distinguished him firom Socrates himself. Every word would breathe sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about all its issues; for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the abstract of Socrates's oration, which my father was giving my uncle Toby, was not altogether new to her. She listened to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter, had not my father plunged (which he had no occasion to have done) into that part of the pleading where the great philosopher reckons up his connexions, his alliances, and children; but renounces a security to be so won, by working upon the passions of his judges. "I have friends, I have relations, I have three desolate children," says Socrates. -Then, cried my mother, opening the door-you have one more, Mr. Shandy, than I know of. -By Heaven! I have one less, said my father, getting up and walking out of the room. CHAPTER XIV. — THEY are Socrates's children, said my uncle Toby. He has been dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother. My uncle Toby was no chronologer; so not caring to advance one step but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe delibcIrately upon the table, and rising up, and taking my mother most k1indly by the hand, without saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out after my father, that he might finish the ecl-lirc0issement himself. T S T AM S A ND 295 CHAPTER XV. HAD this volume been a farce, which, unless every one's Life and Opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no reason to suppose, the last chaptelr, Sir, had finished the first act of it; and then this chapter must have set off thus:Ptr..r..r..ing, twing, twang, prut, trut;'tis a cursed bad ficcdfe. Do you know whether my fiddle's in tule or no? trut..prut. They should be fifths.'Tis wickedly strung, —tr...a.e.i.o.u.-t-ang. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound-post absolutely down, else, trut..prut. HIark!'tis not so bad a tone. Diddle cliddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges; but there's a man there, no, not him with the bundle under his arn, the grave man in black.'Sdeath! not the gentleman with the sword on. Sir, I had rather play a Caprichio to Calliope herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet I'll stake my Cremona to a Jew's trump, which is the greatest musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that belongs to him. Twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle, twiddle diddle, twoddle diddle, twuddie diddle; prut-trut, krish, krash, krush. I've undone you, Sir, but you see he's no worse; and was Apollo to take his fiddle after me, he can make him no better. Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, hum, hum, drum. Your Worships and your Reverences love music, and God has nmade you all with good ears, and some of you play delightfully yourselves; trut-prut, prut-trut. 0! there is, whom I could sit and hear whole days, whose talents lie in making what he fiddles to be felt; who inspires me with his joys and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion'. If you would borrow five guineas of me, Sir-which is generally ten guineas more than I have to spare-or you, Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, want your bills paid, that's your time. 290 LIFE AN D OPINI ONS OF CHAPTER XVI. TH3E first thing which entered my father's head, after affairs were a little settled in the family, and Susannah had got possession of my mother's green satin night-gown, was to sit down coolly, after the example of Xenophon, and write a Trlistrc'apadia, or system of education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father's last stake; he had lost my brother Bobby entirely; he had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me, that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me-my geniture, nose, and name! there was but this one left; and accordingly my father gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of projectiles. The difference between them was, that my uncle Toby drew his whole knowledge of projectiles friom Nicholas Tartaglia. AMy father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain, or had so reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and spinsters had spun before him, that'twas pretty near the same torture to him. In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced almost into the middle of his work. Like all other writers, he met with disappointments. He imagined he should be able to bring whatever he had to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and bound, it might be rolled up in my mothers's housewife. Matter grows under our hands. Let no man say, " Come, I'll write a duocodecino." 3My father- gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious a principle) as was used by John de la Casse, the Lord Archbishop of Benevento, in composing his Galatea; in which his Grace of Benevento spent near forty years of his life; and, when the thing came out, it was not of above half the size or thickness of a Rider's Almanac. How the holy man managed the affair, unless he spent TRISTRA SHA N DY o 297 the greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at primero with his chaplain, would pose any mortal not let into the true secret, and therefore'tis worth explaining to the world, was it only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much tlo be fed, as to be famous. I own, had John de la Casse, the Archbishop of Benevento, for whose memory (notwithstanding his Galatea) I retain the highest veneration; had he been, Sir, a slender clerk, of dull wit, slow parts, costive head, and so forth, he and his Galatea might have jogged on together to the age of -Methuselah for me; the phenomenon had not been worth a parenthesis. But the reverse of this was the truth. John de la Casse was a genius of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these great advantages of nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his Galatea, he lay under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and a half in the compass of a whole summer's day. This disability in his Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted with; which opinion was this, viz.: That whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his private amusement, but) where his intent and purpose was, bonc'fde, to print and publish to the world, his first tfhoughts were always the temptations of the evil one. This was the state of ordinary writers: but when a personage in venerable character and high station, either in church or state, once turned author, he maintained, that from the very moment he took pen in hand, all the Devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him.'Twas Termtime with them; every thought, first and last, was captious; how specious and good soever,'twas all one; in whatever form or color it presented itself to the imagination,'tWas still a stroke of one or other of'em levell'd at him, and was to be fenced off. So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of qwctfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other militant upon earth; both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his wit, as his resistcance. My father was hugely pleased with this theory of John de la Casse, Archbishop ofBenevento; and (had it not cramped him a little in his creed) I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the Shandy estate to have been the broacher of it. How far my father actually 13* 298 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF believed in the Devil, will be seen when I come to speak of my father's religious notions, in the progress of this work:'tis enough to say here, as he could not have the honor of it, in the literal sense of the doctrine, he took up with the allegory of it; and would often say, especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good meaning, truth, and knowledge, couched under the veil of John de la Casse's parabolical representation, as was to be found in any one poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity. Prejudice of education, he would say, is the Devil, and the multitudes of them which we suck in with our mother's milk, are the Devil. and all. We are haunted with them, brother Toby, in all our lucubrations and researches; and was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they obtruded upon him, what would his book be? Nothing, he would add, throwing his pen away with vengeance; nothing but a farrago of the clack of nurses, and of the nonsense of the old women (of both sexes) throughout the kingdom. This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my father made in his Tristrapacdia; at which (as I said) he was three years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, had scarce completed, by his own reckoning, one half of his undertaking; the misfortune was, that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned to my mother: and, what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first part of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains, was rendered entirely useless; every day a page or two became of no consequence. Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisd.oln, that the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the temperate act of pursuing them. In short, my father was so long in all his acts of resistance, or, in other words, he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened, which, when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not be concealed a moment from the reader; I verily believe, I had put by my father, and left him drawing a sun-dial, for no better pur, pose than to be buried under ground. T tST R AM S A N DY - 299 CHAPTER XVII.'Twas nothing; I did not lose two drops of blood by it;'twas not worth calling in a surgeon had he lived the next door to us. Thousands suffer by choice, what I did by accident. Doctor Slop mlade ten times more of it than there was occasion. Some men rise by the art of hanging great weights upon small wires: and I am this day (August the 10th, 1761) paying part of the price of this man's reputation. O,'twould provoke a stone to see how things are carried on in this world! The chambermaid had left no ***'** *** under the bed. Cannot you contrive master, quoth Susannah, lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the window-seat withl the other; cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time, to * *** ** *** **** I was five years old. Susannab did not consider that nothing was well hung in our family; so, slap came the sash down like lightning upon us. Nothing is left cried Susannah; nothing is left, for me, but to run my country. My uncle Toby's house was a much kinder sanctuary: and so Susannah fled to it. CHAPTER XVIII. WHEN Susannah told the Corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all the circumstances which attended the mnurder of me (as she called it), the blood forsook his cheeks; all accessaries in murder being principals, Trim's conscience told him he was as much to blame as Susannah; and if the doctrine had been true, my uncle Toby had much of the bloodshed to answer for to Heaven as either of'elm; so that neither reason nor instinct, separate nor together, could possibly have guided Susannah's steps to so proper an asylum. It is in vain to leave this to the reaider's imagination: to form any S00 LIFE AND O P NIO N OB' kind of hypothesis that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore; and to do it without, he must have such brains as no reader ever had before him. Why should I put them either to trial or to torture?'Tis my own affair:. I'll explain it myself. CHIAPTER XIX. 9Tis a pity, Trim, said my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the corporal's shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works, that we have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in the gorge of that new redoubt;'twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on that side quite complete. Get me a couple cast, Trim. Your honor shall have them, replied Trim, before to-morrow morning. It was the joy of Trim's heart; nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle Toby, in his campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for: had it been his last crown, he would have sat down and hammered it into a paderero, to have prevented a single wish in his master. The corporal had already, what with cutting off the ends of my uncle Toby's spouts, hacking and chiselling up the sides of his leaden gutters, melting down his pewter shaving-basin, and going at last, like Lewis the Fourteenth, on the top of the church for spare ends, &tc., he had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides, three demi-culverins, into the field. MBy uncle Toby's demand for two more pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery-window; and as the sash-pulleys, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages. Hie had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle Toby's house long before, in the very same way, though not always in the same order; for sometimes the pulleys had been wanted, and not the lead, TII S T RAM SI- A N D Y 301 so then he began with the pulleys; and the pulleys being picked out, then the lead became useless; and so the lead went to pot too. A great MORAL might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not time;'tis enough to say, Wherever the demolition began,'twas equally fatal to the sash-window. CHAPTER XX. TiE corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack as she could: true courage is not content with coming off so. The corporal, whether as general or controller of the train,'twas no matter, had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have happened-at least in Susannah's 7hands. -How would your Honors have behaved? He determined at once not to take shelter behind Susannah, but to give it; and, with this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlor, to lay the whole mnancumvre before.my uncle Toby. Mly uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the battle of Steinkirk, and of the strange conduct of Count Solmes, in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was directly contrary to the king's command, and proved the loss of the day. There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow, they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic writer, I mean of ancient days. Trim, by the help of his fore-finger laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand striking across it at the right angles, made a shift to tell his story so.that priests and virgins might have listened to it; and the story being told, the dialogue went on as follows: ~02 LIFE AND OPINIONs OF CH APTER XXI. I WOULD be picqueted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded Susannah's story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm:'twas my fault, an' please your Honor, not hers. Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat, which lay upon the table, if anything can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done,'tis I certainly who deserve the blame; you obeyed your orders. Had Count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steinkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the retreat, he had saved thee- Saved! cried Trim, interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence for him after his own fashion, he had saved five battalions, and please your Reverence, every soul of them. There was Cutt's, continued the corporal, clapping the fore-finger of hisiright hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand, there was Cutt's, Mackay's, Angus's, Gsahllam's, and Leven's, all cut to pieces: and so had the English life-guards, too, had it not been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and received the enemy's fire in their faces, before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket. They'll go to Heaven for it, added Trim. Trim is right, said my uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick; he's perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so straight, and the French had such a nation of hedges, and copses; and ditches, and fell'd trees laid this way-and that, to cover them (as they always have). Count Solmes should have sent us; we would have fired muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives. There was-nothing to be done for the horse; he had his foot shot off, however, for his pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landen. Poor Trim got his wound there, quoth my uncle Toby.'Twas owing, an' please your Honor, entirely to Count Solmes; had he drubbed them soundly at Steinkirk, they would not have fought us at Landen. Possibly not, Trim, said my uncle Toby: though, if they have the advantage of a wood, or you T'RIS TRAM STA NDYO 303 give them a moment's time to intrench themselves, they are are a nation which will pop and pop forever at you. There is no way but to march coolly up to them, receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell. Ding-dong, added Trim. Horse and foot, said uncle Toby. HIelter-skelter, said Trim. Right and left, cried my uncle Toby. Blood an' ounds! shouted the corporal; the battled raged; Yorick drew his chair a little to one side for safety; and, after a moment's pause, my uncle Toby, sinking his voice a note, resumed the discourse as follows: C HAPTE R XXII. KING WILLIAM, said my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly provoked at Count Soliues for disobeying his orders, that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after. I fear, answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal, as the king at the court. But'twould be singularly hard in this case, continued he, if Corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite to Count Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace: too often, in this world, do things -take that train. I would spring a mine, cried my uncle Toby, rising up, and blow up my fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see it. Trim directed a slight, but a grateful bow towards his master, and so the chapter ends. C HAPT ER XXIII. THiEN, Yorick, replied my uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast: and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us. And Susannah, and please your Honor, said Trim, shall be put in the rear.'Twas an excellent disposition, and in this order, without either drums beating, or colors flying, they marched slowly fromn my uncle Toby's house to Shandy-hall. 304 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door, instead of the sashweights, I had cut off the church-spout, as I once thought to have done. You have cut off spouts enow, replied Yorick. CHAPTER XXIV. As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like himr soever in different airs and attitudes, not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or act, upon any untried occasion, or occurrence of life. There was that infinitude of oddities in himl and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing, it baffled, Sir, all calculations. The truth -was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled, that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his' eye, altogether different fiom the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind. In other words,'twas a different object, and, in course, was differently considered. This is the true reason that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing. She looks at her outside; I, at her in. IHow is it possible we should agree about her value? CHAPTER XXY.'TIs a point settled, and I mention it for the comfort of Conficius,* who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story, that provided he keeps along the line of his story,, he may go backwards and forwards as he will,'tis still held to be no digression. This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backva~'rds myself. * Mr. Shandy is supposed to mean ***** t**E***, Esq., member for *** e, and not the Chinese Legislator. TRISTRAM SHAND Yo 305 CHAPTER XXVI. FIFTY thousand pannier loads of Devils (not of the Archbishop of Benevento's, I mean of Rabelais's Devils) with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it as I did when the accident befell me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery; so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore. Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself, and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity, yet Susannah, in passing by the kIitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook, the cook had told it, with a commentary, to Jonathan; and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that, by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above, was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened. I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown, and so walked up stairs. One would imagine from this (though for my own part I somewhat question it) that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable chapter in the Tristrac-pcdica, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book, and that is the chapter ulpon sash-windoiws, with a bitter Philippic at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids. I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise. First, had the matter been taken into consideration before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sashwindclow for good an' all'; which, considering with what difficulty he composed books, he might have done with ten times less trouble than he could have wrote the chapter. This argument, I foresee, holds good against his writing a chapter, even after the event; but'tis obviated under the second reason, wlhich I have the honor to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write 306 L'F AND OPI N IO N S OF the chapter apon sash-windows and chamber-pots at the time supposed, and it is this: — That, in order to render the Tristrc-pcdacia, complete; I wrote the chapter myself. CHAP TEi XXVII. My father put on his spectacles, looked, look them off, put them into the case, all in less than a statutable minute; and, without opening his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs. My motller imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon: but seeing him retlurn with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading-desk, she took. it for granted it was an Herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bed-side, that he might consult upon the case at his ease. If it be but right done, said my father, turning to the section, de sede vel subjecto circmncisionis, for he had brought up SSpenser de Legibuts IHebr3or2zm Ritualibus, and fc6iaimonides, in ordei' to confront and examine us altogether;If it be but right done, quoth he- Only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs? For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop. My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows: * * * * * * sai my father* * * * * c * * -Very well, said my father, * * * * * * * * * * *, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * — nay, if it has that convenience, and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whetler the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews, lie rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner' we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded, he shut the book, and walked down stairs. Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a T R I S T R A S A N D Y 3 07different great nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it, if the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Plicenicians, the Arabians, the Cappadocians, if the Colchi and Troglodytes did it, if Solon and Pythagoras submitted, -what is Tristram? Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter? CHAPTER XXVIII. DEAR Yorick, said my father, smiling, (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle Toby, in comning through the narrow entry, and so had stept first into the parlor) this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his religious rites. Nfever was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel, initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a mnanner. But he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick. There has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed. That you are a better judge of than I, replied Yorick. Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both: the trine and sextile aspects have jumped awry, or the opposite of their ascendants have not hit it, as they should, or the lords of the genitures (as they call them) have been at bo-peep, or something has been wrong above or below with us.'Tis possible, answered Yorick. But is the child, cried my uncle Toby, the worse? The Troglodytes say not, replied my father. And your theologists, Yorick, tell us-Theologically? said Yorick; or speaking after the manner of apothecaries? statesmen? or washerwomen? I'm not sure, replied my father; but they tell us, brother Toby, he's the better for it. Provided, said Yorick, you travel him into Egypt. Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when he sees the Pyramids. Now, every word of this, quoth my uncle Toby, is Arabic to me. I wish, said Yorick,'twas so to half the'world. ~ Ilus, continued my father, circumcised his whole army one morning. Not without a court-martial? cried my uncle Toby. Though 808 LIE AN D OP I IONS OF the learned, continued lhe, taking no notice of my uncle Toby's remark, but turning to Yorick, are greatly divided still, who Ilus was; some say Saturn: some, the Supreme Being; others, no more than a brigadier-general under Pharaoh-tNeco. Let him be who he will, said my uncle Toby, I know not by what article of war he could justify it. The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different reasons for it: others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shown the world the futility of the greatest part of them. But then again our best polemic divines- I wish there was not a polemic divine, said Yorick, in the kingdom; one ounce of practical divinity-is worth a painted slipload of all their Reverences have imported these fifty years. Pray, Mr. Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby, do tell me what a polemic divine is? The best description, Captain Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of'em, replied Yorick, in the account of the battle fought, single hands, betwixt Gymnast and Captain Tripet; which I have in my pocket. I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle Toby, earnestly. You shall, said Yorick. And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door, and I know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than his supper, I beg, brother, you'll give him leave to come in. With all my soul, said my father. Trim came in, erect and happy as an emperor; and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from his right-hand coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows: CHAPTER XXIX. "WHICH words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers of them, being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the assailant. All this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and, therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his short sword by his thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the stirrup-leather feat, wherleby after TR IST RAM SHANDY. 309 the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards his horse's head. Now (said he) my case goes forward. Then, suddenly, in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot. Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time; and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed, I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before; which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times; at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touchiny any thing, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper." [This can't be fighting, said my uncle Toby. The corporal shook his head at it. Have patience, said Yorick.] "Then (Tripet) pass'd his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself en cg'ouple. But, said he,'twere better for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head into the air, and straight found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a wind-mill, and made above an hundred frisks, turns and demipommadas." Good God! cried Trim, losing all patienceone home thrust of a bayonet is worth it all. I think so, too, replied Yorick. I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father. 8310 LIF E AND OPINIONS OF CItAPTER XXX. No; I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him, I have advanced nothing in the Tristra-pceiact, but what is as clear as any one proposition in Euclid. Reach me, Trim, that book from off the scrutoire. It has oft-tinmes been in my minid, continued my father, to have read it over, both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby; and I think it a little unfriendly to myself, in not having done it long ago. Shall we have a short chapter or two now, and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve, and so on, till we get through the whole.? My uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance which was properi and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time. The company smiled. Trim, quoth my father, has paid the full price for staying out the entertainment. He did not seem to relish the play, replied Yorick.'Twas a Tom-fool battle, an' please your Reverences, of Captain Tripet's and that other officer, making so many surnmersets as they advanced: the French come on capering now and then in that way, but not quite so much. My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency, than what the corporal's, and his own reflections, made him to do that moment; he lighted his pipe, Yorick drew his chair closer to the table, Trim snuff'ld the candle, my father stirr'd up the fire, took up the book, cough'd twice, and began. CHAPTER XXXI. Tnm first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves, are a little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject, for the present we'll pass them by:'tis a prefatory introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil government, the foun R I S'1 A Al S IA m. 311 dation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species, I was insensibly led into it.'Twas natural, said Yorick. The original of society, continued my father, I'mn satisfied, is, what Politian tells us, i. e. merely conjugai, and nothing more than trhe getting together of one man and one woman; to which (according to Hesiod) the philosopher adds a servant: but supposing, in the first beginning, there were no men-servants born, he lays the foundation of it, in a man, a woman, and a bull. I believe'tis an ox, quoth Yorick, quoting the passage (vatov jzEv y rprorto rcra, yvvaZca re, F3ov r' apor7lpa) —A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth, but there is a better reason still, said my father, (dipping his pen into his ink;) for the ox, being the most patient of animals, and the most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment7 was the properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new-joined couple, that the creation could have associated with them. And there is a stronger reason, added my uncle Toby, than them all for the ox. My father had no power to take his pen out of his inkhorn, till he had heard my uncle Toby's reason. For, when the ground was tilled, said my uncle Toby, and made worth inclosing, then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification. True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place. My father gave Trim a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse. I enter upon this speculation, said my father, carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely to show the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction' 6ver whom he acquires these several ways:1st, by marriage. 2d, by adoption. 8d, by legitimation. And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order. I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied Yorick, the act, especially. where it ends there, in my opinion, lays as little obligatica upon the child, as it conveys power to the father. You are wrong, said my father argutely; and for this plain reason * * * * * * * * * *, * * 312 L I F E AND OPINIONS OF' I own, added my father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power and jurisdiction of the mother. But the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for her. She is under authority herself, said my father: and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason,'she is not the principal agent," Yorick. In what? quoth uncle Toby, stopping his pipe. Though, by all means, added my father, (not attending to my uncle Toby) "The son ought to pay her respect," as you may. read, Yorick, at large, in the first book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh title, and the tenth section. I can read. it as well, replied Yorick, in the Catechism. CHAPTER XXXII. TPmI can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle Toby. Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with Trim's saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honor, replied my uncle Toby. Ask him, MrI. Yorick, any question you please. The Fifth Commandment, Trim, said Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest catechumen. The corporal stood silent. You don't ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command; the fifth? cried my uncle Toby. I must begin with the first, an' please your Honor, said the corporal. Yorick could not forbear smiling. Your Reverence does not consider, said the Corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position, that'tis exactly the same thing as doing one's exercise in the field. " Join your right hand to your firelock," cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion. "Poise your firelock," cried the corporal, doing the duty still of both adjutant and private man. " Rest your firelock," one motion, an' please your Reverence, you see leads into another. If his I-Honor will begin but with the firstThe first? cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand upon his side. TRISTRAM SH ANDY. 313 The second? cried my uncle Toby, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment. The corporal went through his manual with exactness; and having honored his father and mother, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room. Every thing in the world, said my father, is big with jest, and has wit in it, and instruction too, if we can but find it out. Here is the scaffold-work of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, without the BUILDING behind it. Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders, to view themselves in, in their true dimensions. Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which their unskillfulness knows not how to fling away! SOIENOES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE, BRUT WISDOM NOT. Yorick thought my father inspired. I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt Dinah's legacy in charitable uses, (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion) if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated. Prithee, Trim, quoth my father, turning round to him, what dost thou mean by " honoring thy father and mother?" Allowing them, an' please your Honor, three half-pence a day out of my pay, when they grow old. And didst thou do that, Trim? said Yorick. He did, indeed, replied my uncle Toby. Then, Trim, said Yorick, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator on that part of the Decalogue; and I honor thee more for it, Corpora! Trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself. 14 314 LIFE ANiD OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XXXIII. O BLESSED health! cried my father, making an exclamation as he turned over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art above all gold and treasure;'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powver to receive instruction and to relish virtue. He that has thee, has little more to wish for; and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants every thing with thee. I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my father, into very little room; therefore we'll read the chapL'r quite through. My father read as follows: "The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastely betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture." You have proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently, replied my father. In sayi:ig this, my father shut the book, not as if he resolved to read no more of it, for'he kept his fore-finger in the chapter: not pettishly, for he shut the book slowly; this thumb resting, when he had done it, upon the upper side of the cover, as his three fin.. srs supported the lower side of it, without the least comnpressive violence. I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to Yorick, most sufficiently, in the preceding chapter. Now, could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had- wrote a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, and that he had managed the- point so well, that there was not one single wmord wet or driy upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter, or a single syllable in it, pro or con, directly, or indirectily-, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any part of tile animanl economy,"' thou eternal Maker of all beings!" he would cry, striking his breast with his right hand, (in case he had one) " Thou whose T R ISTRA S H A NDY. 315 power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of excellence and perfection, What have we MOONITES done?" CHAPTER XXXIV. WITH two strokes, the one-at Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my father achieve it. The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the acrs longac, and ritac brevis. Life short, cried my fatherl, and the art of healing tedious! and who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves, and the stage-loads of chemical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which in all ages they have first flatter'c the world, and at last deceived it! 0 my Lord Verulam! cried my father, turning from Hippocrates, and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrummongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest. What shall I say to thee, my great Lord Verulam? What shall I say to thy internal spirit, thy opium, thy saltpetre, thy greasy unction, thy daily purges, thy nightly glisters, and succedaneums? ly father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing; how lhe dealt with his lordship's opinion, you shall see; but when I know not; we must first see what his lordship's opinion was. CHAPTER XXXV. " THE two great causes which conspire with each other to shorten life," says Lord Verulamn, "are, first: The internal spirit, whichl, fike a gentle flanme, wastes the body down to death: and, secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to ashes: which.two enemi es 316 LIFE AND OPINIO lN S OF attacking us on both sides of our bodies together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions of life." This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of saltpetre every morning before you get up. Still this friame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of the air without; but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could enter; nor could any one get out. This put a stop to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy distempers, a course of glisters was requisite to carry off redundant humors, and render the system complete. What my father had to. say to my lord of Verulam's opiates, his' saltpetre, and greasy'unctions and glisters, you shall read, but not to-day, or to-morrow; time presses upon me, my reader is impatient, I must get forward. You shall read the chapter at your leisure, (if you choose it) as soon as ever the Tristrcrn-pcedia is published. Sufficeth it at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established his own.. CHAPTER XXXVI. TiaE whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us; the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the schoolmen confounded the task, merely (as Van Helmont the famous chemist has proved), by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies. Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily anid balsamous substance; for the fat oi tallow, as also the T R ISTRAM SHAT D Y 317 phlegm of watery parts, are cold: whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle, " Quod omne animal post coitum est triste." Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture; but whether vice versa, is a doubt; however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness, or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies; so that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of them threatens his destruction,'twill be all that is needful to be done upon that head. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter; his eyes were fixed upon my father, throughout it; he never mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth and shook his head: and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question, aside: * * *:, *, * * *,* *k ~* * * * * * * *,,,.. It was at the siege of Limerick, an' please your honor, replied the corporal, making a bow. The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention. Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried my father mentally. By heaven! continued he, communing still with himself, it would puzzle an CEdipus to bring it in point. I believe, an' please your Honor, quoth the corporal, that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plied your Honor off — And the Geneva, Trim, added my uncle Toby, which did us more good 318 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF than all, I verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an' please your Honor, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them, too. The noblest grave, corporal, cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in! But a pitiful death for him! an' please your Honor, replied the corporal. All this was as much Arabic to my daughter, as the rites of the Colchi and Troglodytes had been before to my uncle Toby; my father could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile. My uncle Toby, turning to Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun it, and so settled the point for my father at once. C HAPTER XXXVIII. IT was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great.happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was upon us in the camp; otherwise, what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better. My father drew in his lungs topfull of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as slowly as he possibly could. It was HIeaven's mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal's head to maintain that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforcing the fever, as he did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were) a continual firing; so that the radical heat stood its ground friom the beginning to the end, and was a fair match fobr the moisture, terrible as it was. Upon my honor, added my uncle Toby, you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother Shandy, twenty toises. If there was no firing, said Yorick. Well, said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after the word, was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they had their clergy. Yorick, foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort of TIRISTRAM SHANDY. 319 mercy, laid his hand upon my father's breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked the corporal a question. Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my fatheis leave, tell us honestly, what is thy opinion concerning this self-samne radical heat and radical moisture? With humble submission to his Honor's better judgme:it, quoth the corporal, making a bow to my uncle Toby. Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my uncle Toby. The poor fellow is my servant, not my slave, added my uncle Toby, turning to my father. The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging upon the wiist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; then touching his under jaw with the thu;imb and finger of his right hand before he opened his mouth, he delivered his notion thus: CHIIAPTER XXXIX. JUST as the corporal was hemming to begin, in waddled Dr. Slop.'Tis not two-pence matter, the corporal shall go on in the next chapter, let who will come in. Well, my good doctor, cried my father, sportively, for the transitions of his passions were unaccountably sudden; and what~; has this whelp of mine to say to the matter? Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog he could not have done it.. in a more careless air: the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of inquiry. He sat down. Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered, in what condition is the boy?'Twill end in a phisnosis, replied Dr. Slop. I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby, returning his pipe into his mouth. Then let the corporal go on, said rmy father, with his medical lecture. The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words: — 320 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XL. TiE city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his majesty King William himself, the year after I went into the army, lies, an' please your Honors, in the middle of a devilish wet swampy country.'Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon: and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in Ireland. I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical lecture.'Tis all true, answered Trim. Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of it, said Yorick.'Tis all cut through, an please your Reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs and besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a puddle;'twas that, and nothing else; which brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his Honor and myself. Now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water; nor was that enough for those who could afford it, as his Honor could, without setting fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove. And what conclusion dost thou draw, Corporal Trim, cried my father, from all these premises? I infer, an' please your Worship, replied Trim, that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water; and that the radical heat of those who can go to the expense of it, is burnt brandy: the radical heat and moisture of a private man, an' please your Honor, is nothing but ditch-water-and a dram of Geneva,; and give us but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits and drive away the vapors, we know not what it is to fear death. I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop, to determine in which branch of learning your servant shines most; whether in physiology or divinity. Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon. TRISTRAM S HADY. 321 It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal was examined in the latter, and passed muster with great honor. The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being, as the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation. It is inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways; but principally, in my opinion, by consubstantials, imzpriments and ocelude2lts. Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice point. That he has, said my father. Very likely, said my uncle. I'm sure of it, quoth Yorick. CHAPTER XLI. DocToR SLOP being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the T7istrac-1p)(dia. Come! cheer up, my lads; I'll show you land; for when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this twelvemonth. Huzza! C HAPTE R XLII. FIVE years with a bib under his chin; Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to Malachi; A year and a half in learning to write his own name; Seven lbng years and more rvXruing it, at Greek and Latin; Four years at his probations and his negations; the fine statue still lying in the middle of the marble block, and nothing done, but his tools sharpened to hew it out!'Tis a piteous delay! Was not the great Julius Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all? Forty-four years old was he before he could manage his Greek; and Peter Damianus, Lord Bishop of Ostia, as all the 14* 822 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF world knows, could not so much as read when he was of man's estate; and 7Baldus himself, as eminent as he turned out after, entered upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined he intended to be an advocate in the other world. No wonder, when Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventy-five disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely-" If the old man be yet disputing and inquiring concerning wisdom, what time will he have to make use of it?" Yorick listened to my father with great attention; there was a seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims; and he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as almost atoned for them. Be wary, Sir, when you imitate him. I am convinced, Yorick, continned my father, half reading and half discoursing, that there is a northwest passage to the intellectual world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take with it. But, alack! all the fields have not a river or a spring running beside them; every child, Yorick, has not a parent to point it out. The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a low voice, upon the auxiliary verbs, Mr. Yorickc. Had Yorick trod upon Virgil's snake, he could not have looked more surprised. I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it; and I reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befell the republic of letters, that those who have been intrusted with the education of our children, and whose business it was to open their minds, and stock them early with ideas, in order to set the imagination loose upon them, have made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing it, as they have done; so that, except Raymond Lullius, and the elder Pelegrini, the last of whom arrived to such perfection in the use of'em, with his topics, that, in a few lessons, he could teach a young gentleman to discourse with plausibility upon any subjects, pro and con, and to say and write all that could be spoken or written concerning it without blotting a word, to the admiration of all who beheld him. I should be glad, said Yorick, interrupting my fatlher, to be made to comprehend this matter. You shall, said my father. The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of TRISTRAM SHANDY. 323 is a high metaphor; for which, in my opinion, the idea is generally the worse, and not the better: but, be that as it may, when the mind has done that with it, there is an end; the mind and the idea are at rest, until a second idea enters: and so on. Now the use of the Azuxilia'ries is, at once to set the soul a-going by herself upon the materials as they are brought her; and by the versability of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open new tracts of inquiry, and make every idea engender millions. You excite my curiosity greatly, said Yorick. For my own part, quoth my uncle Toby, I have given it rp. The Danes, an' please your Honor, quoth the corporal, who were on the left at the siege of Limerick, -were all auxiliaries. And vTry good ones, said my uncle Toby. And your Honor roul'd with them, captains with captains, very well, said the corporal. But the Auxiliaries, Trim, my brother is talking about, answered my uncle Toby, I conceive to be different things. You do? said my father, rising up. C HAP T E 1 XLIII My father took a single turn across the room, then sat down and finished the chapter. The verbs-auxiliary we are concerned in here, contianed my father, are, am, was, have, had, do, did, make, made, suffer, shall, should, will, would, can, could, owe, ought, used, or is woDnt; and these varied with tenses, present, past, future, and conjugated with the verb see, or with these questions added to them: Is it? Was it? Will it be? Would it be? May it-be? Might it be? and thase again put negatively, Is it not? Was it not? Ought it not? or affinmatively, It is, It was, It ought to be; or chronologically, Has it been always? Lately? How long ago? or hypothetically, If it was? if it was not what would follow? If the French should beat the English i If the Sun go. out of the Zodiac? Now by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in which a child's memory should be exercised, there is no one idea 324 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. can enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of corruptions and conclusions may be drawn forth from it. Didst thou ever see a white bear? cried my father, turning his head round to Trim, who stood at the back of the chair. No, an please your HIonor, replied the corporal. But thou couldst discourse about one, Trim, said my father, in case of need? How is it possible, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, if the corporal never saw one?'Tis the fact I want, replied my father; and the possibility of it is as follows: A WHITE BEAR Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one? Would I had seen a white bear! (for.how can I imagine it?) If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a white bear, what then? If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive, have I ever seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted? described? Have I never dreamed of one? Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers, or sisters, ever see a white bear. What would they give? How would they behave? How would the white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth? Is the white bear worth seeing? Is there no sin in it? Is it better than a black one? LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GE N T I, E M A N. BOOK TI. BOOK VI. C H APTER I. WE'LL not stop two moments, my dear Sir, only as we have got through these seven volumes,* (do, Sir, sit down upon a seat-they are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have passed through. What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it! Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack-Asses? How they view'd and review'd us, as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of that little valley! and when we climbed over that hill, and were just getting out of sight, good God! what a braying did they all set up together! Prithee, Shepherd, who keeps all these Jack-Asses? * * * Heaven be their comforter-What! are they never curried? are they never taken in in winter? Bray, bray, bray, bray on, the world is deeply your debtor; louder still-that's nothing; in good sooth, you are ill used. Was I a Jack-Ass, I solemnly declare, I would bray in G-sol-re-nt from morning, even unto night. CHEAPTER II. WHEN my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good and * According to the original editions. 32T 328 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF all, and, in a kind of Triumph, re-delivered it into Trim's hand, with a nod to lay it upon the scrutoire where he found it. Tristram, said he, shall be made to conjugate every word in the dictionary backwards and forwards the same way: every word, Yorick, by this means, you see, is converted into a thesis or an hypothesis; every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of propositions; and each proposition has its own consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on again, into fresh tracts of inquiries and doubtings. The force of this engine, added my father, is incredible, in opening a child's head.'Tis enough, brother Shandy, cried my uncle Toby, to burst it into a thousand splinters. I presume, said Yorick, smiling, it must be owing to this (for, let logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted for sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments), that the famous Vincent Quirino, amongst the many other astonishing feats of his childhood, of which the Cardinal Bembo has given the world so exact a story -should be able to paste up in the public schools at Rome, so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four thousand five hundred and sixty different theses, upon the most abstruse points of the most abstruse theology; and to defend and maintain them in such sort, as to cramp and dumbfound his opponents. What is that, cried my father, to what is told us of Alphonsus Tostatus, who, almost in his nurse's arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts, without being taught any one of them? What shall we say at the great Peireskius? That's the very man, cried my uncle Toby, I once told you of, brother Shandy, who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Scheveling, and from Scheveling back again, merely to see Stevinus's flying chariot. He was a very great man! added my uncle Toby (meaning Stevinus). He was so, brother Toby, said my father, (meaning Peireskius)-and had multiplied his ideas so fast, and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if we may give credit to an anecdote concerning him, which we cannot withhold here, without shaking the authority of all anecdotes whatever, at seven years of age, his father committed entirely to his care the education of his younger brother, a boy of five years old, with the sole management of all his concerns. Was the father as wise as the son? quoth my uncle Toby. I should think not, said Yorick. But what are these, continued my father, (breaking out in a kind of TRISTRAM SHA A DY 329 enthusiasm) what are these to those prodigies of childhood in Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius, Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Ferdinand (le Cordoue, and others, some of whom left off their substantial forms at nine years old, or sooner,. and went on reasoning without them? Others went through their classes at seven; wrote tragedies at eight. Ferdinand de Cordoue was so wise at nine,'twas thought the devil was in him; and at Venice gave such proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he was Antichrist, or nothing. Others were masters of fourteen languages at ten; finished the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic, and ethics, at eleven; put forth their commentaries upon Servius and Martianus Capella at twelve; and at thirteen received their degrees in philosophy, laws,' and divinity. -But you forget the great Lipsius, quoth Yorick, who composed a work* the day he was born. They should have wiped it up, said my uncle Toby, and said no more about it, CHAPTER III. WinN the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up in Susannah's conscience about holding the candle, whilst Slop tied it on; Slop had not treated Susannah's distemper with anodynes, and so a quarrel had ensued betwixt them. Oh! oh! said Slop, casting a glance of undue freedom in Susannah's face, as she declined the office; then, I think, I know you, Madam. You know me, Sir, cried Susannah, fastidiously, and with a toss of her head, levelled evidently, not at his profession, but at the doctor himself; you know me! cried Susannah again. Dr. Slop clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his nostrils; Susannah's spleen was ready to burst at it;'Tis false, said Susannah. * Nous aurious quelque inter6t, says Baillet, de montrer qu'il n'a rien de ridicule s'il etoit veritable, au moins dans le sens enigmatique que Nicius Erythmus a tich6 de lui donner. Cet auteur dit que pour comprendre comme Lipse, il a pu composer un ouvrage le premier jour de sa vie, il faut s'imaginer que ce premier jour n'est pas celui de la naissance charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commenc6 d'user do la raison: il veut que q'ait-6t,i, Page de neuf ans; et il nous veut persuader que co fut en cet age, que Lipse fit un poeme. Le tour est ingenieux, &c., &c. 330 LIFE AND OPINION S OF Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said Slop, not a little elated with the success of his last thrust, if you won't hold the candle and lookyou may hold it and shut your eyes. That's one of your popish shifts, cried Susannah.'Tis better, said Slop, with a nod, than no shift at all, young woman. I defy you, Sir, cried Susannah, pulling her shift-sleeve below her elbow. It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other, in a surgical case, with a more splenetic cordiality. Slop snatched up the cataplasm: Susannah snatched up the candle. A little this way, said Slop. Susannah looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop's wig, which being somewhat bushy anid unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled. You impudent whore! cried Slop-(for what is passion but a wild beast)-you impudent whore! cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his hand. I never was the destruction of anybody's nose, said Susannah, which is more than you can say.'It is? cried Slop, throwing the cataplasm in her face. Yes, it is, cried Susannah, returning the,,compliment with what was left in the pan. CHAPTER IV. DOcTOn SLOP and Susannah filed cross bills against each other in the parlor; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into the kitchen, to prepare a fomentation for me; and whilst that was doing, my father determined the point, as you will read. CHAPTER r. You see'tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my uncle Toby and Yorick, to take this young creature out of these women's hands, and put him into those of a private governor. Marcons Antoninus provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend TRISTRAM SHANDY 331 his son Commodus s education; and in six weeks cashiered five of them. I know very well, continued my father, that Commodus's mother was in love with a gladiator at the time of her conception; which accounts for a great many of Commodus's cruelties when he became emperor; but still I am of opinion, that those five whom Antoninus dismissed, did Commodus's temper, in that short time, more hurt than the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long. Now, as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror in which hie is to view himself frolm morning to night, and'by which he is to adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps, the inmost sentiments of his heart, I would have one, Yorick, if possible, polished at all points, fit for my child to look into. This is very good sense, quoth my uncle Toby to himself. There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body and all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man well within; and I am not at all surprised, that Gregory of Nazianzum, upon observing the hasty and untoward gestures of Julian, should foretell he would one day become an apostate; or that St. Ambrose should turn his amanuensis out of doors, because of an indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and forwards like a flail; or that Democritus should conceive Protagoras to be a scholar from, seeing him bind up a fagot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs inwards. There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into -a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes which discovers him. It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make choice of, shall neither lisp,* nor squint, nor wink, nor talk loud, nor look fierce, nor foolish; nor bite his lips, nor grind his teeth, nor speak through his nose, nor pick it, nor blow it with his fingers. He shall neither walk fast nor slow, nor fold his arms, for that is laziness; nor hang them down, for that is folly; nor hide them in his pocket, for that is nonsense. He shall neither strike, nor pinch, nor tickle, nor bite, nor cut his v*ide Pellegrina. 332 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF nails, nor hawk, nor spit, nor snift, nor drum with his feet or fingers in company; nor (according to Erasmus) shall he speak to any one, in making water; nor shall he point to carrion or excrement. Now this is all nonsense again, quoth my uncle Toby to himself. I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, facete, jovial; at the same time prudent, attentive to businees, vigilant, acute, argute, inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions; he shall be wise, and judicious, and learned. And why not humble, and moderate, and gentle-tempered, and good? said Yorick. And why' not, cried my uncle Toby, free and generous, and bountiful and brave? He shall, my dear Toby, replied my father, getting up and shaking him by his hand. Then, brother Shandy, answered my uncle Toby, raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of my father's other hand, I humbly beg I may recommend poor Le Fevre's son to you-(a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in' my uncle Toby's eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal's, as the proposition was made)-you will see why, when you read Le Fevre's story. Fool that I was! nor can I recollect, (nor perhaps you) without turning back to the place, what it was that hindered me from letting the corporal tell it in his own words; but the oocasion is lost, I must tell it now in my own. CHAP TER VI. THE STORY OF LE FEVRE. IT was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies, which was about seven years before my father came into the country, and about as many after the time that my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe; when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard, I say, sitting, for in consideration of the corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain) when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the T R ISTRAM SH ANDY. 333 corporal to stand; and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermiond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain his point over him; for many a time, when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect. This bred more little squabbles betwixt them, than all other causes, for five and twenty years together. But this is neither here nor there-why do I mention it? Ask my pen; it governs me, I govern not it. Hie was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a little inn in the village, came into the parlor with an empty phial in his hand; to beg a glass or two of sack.'Tis for a poor gentleman, I think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack, and a thin toast. I think, says he, taking his hand from his head, it would comfort me. If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thilig, added the landlord, I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will still mend, continued he; we are all of us concerned for him. Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle Toby; and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself, and take a couple of bottles, with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more, if they will do him good. Though I amn persuaded, said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too. There must be somlething more than common in him, that, in so short a time, should win so much upon the affections of his host: and of his whole family, added the corporal, for they are all concerned for him. Step after him, said my uncle Toby, do, Trim, ancd ask if he knows his name. I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into the parlor with the corporal; but I can ask his son again. Has he a son with him, then? said my uncle Toby. A boy, replied the )andllord, of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poolr 334 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF creature has tasted almost as little as his father: he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day. He has not stirred fiom the bed-side these two days. My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and Trim, without being ordered, took it away without saying one word, and, in a few minutes after, brought him his pipe and tobacco. Stay in the room a little, said my uncle Toby. Trim! said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in firont of his master, and made his bow; my uncle Toby smoked on, and said no more. Corporal! said my uncle Toby; the corporal made his bow. MIy uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished his pipe. Trim! said my uncle Toby, I have a project in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman. Your Honor's roquelaure, replied the corporal, has not once been had on, since the night before your Honor received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicholas; and, besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather,'twill be enough to give your Honor your death, and bring on your Honor's torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, *since the account the landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair, added my uncle Toby, or that I had known more of it. How shall -we manage it? Leave it, an'-please your Honor, to me, quoth the corporal. I'll take -my hat and stick, and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your Honor a fall account in an hour. Thou shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here's a shilling for thee to drink with his servant. I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door. ly uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it Was not full as well to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line, as a crooked one, he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fevre and his boy the whole time he smoked it. TRISTRAM SI A N D Y 335 CH APTER VII. THE STORY OF LE FEVRE'CONTINUED. IT was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe, that Corporal Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following account: I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your Honor any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant. Is he itn the army then? said my uncle Toby. He is, said the corporal. And in what regiment? said my uncle Toby. I'll tell your Honor, replied the corporal, everything straight-forwards, as I learnt it. Then, Trim, I'll fill another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt thee, till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could speak it-Your Honor is good. And having done that, he sat down, as he was ordered, and began the story to my uncle Toby over again, in pretty near the same words. I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any intelligence to your Honor, about the lieutenant and his son: for, when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing everything which was proper to be asked, (That's a right distinction, Trim, said my uncle Toby) I was answered, an' please your Honor, that he had no servant with him; that he had come to the inn with hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he came. If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man, we can hire horses from hence. But alas! the poor gentleman will never go from hence, said the landlady to me, for I heard the death-watch all night long; and, when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him; for he is broken-hearted already. I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord 336 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF spoke of; but I will do it for my father, myself, said the youth. Pray let me save you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down -upon by the fire, whilst I did it. I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best myself. I am sure, said I, his Honor will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly burst into tears. Poor youth! said my uncle Toby; he has been bred up fronm an infant in the army; and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend! I wish I had him here. I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a mind for my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company. What could be the matter with me, an' please your Honor? Nothing in the world, Trim, said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose, but that thou art a good-natured fellow. When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was proper to tell him, I was Captain Shandy's servant, and that your Honor (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father; and that if there was anything in your house or cellar (and thou might'st have added my purse too, said my uncle Toby), he was heartily welcome to it. He made a very low bow (which was meant to your Honor), but no answer; for his heart was full. so he went up stairs with the toast. I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the. kitchen door, your father will be well again. Mr. Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire, but said not a word, good or bad, to comfort the youth. I thought it wrong, added the corporal. I think so too, said my uncle Toby. When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to let me know, that in about ten minutes, he should be glad if I would step up stairs. I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers, for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bed-side, and as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion. I thought, said the curate; that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all. I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it. Are you sure of it? replied the curate. A soldier, an' please your Reverence said I, prays TRISTRAM SHANDY, 337 as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any' one in the whole wtorld.'Twas well said of thee, Trin, said my uncle Toby. But when a soldier, said I, an' please your Reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in thle trenches, up to his knees in cold water, or engaged, said I, for months together, in long and dangerous marches; harassed, perhaps, in his rear to-day; harassing others to-morrow; detached here; countermanded there: resting this night out upon his arms; beat- up in his shirt the next; benumbed in his joints; perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on; must say his prayers how and when he can. I believe, said I, for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the reputation of the army, I believe, an' please your Reverence, said I, that when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson -though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. Thou should'st not have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby, for God, only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not: At the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then), it will be seen who have done their duties in this worldcl, and who have not; and we shall be advanced, Trim, accordingly. I hope we shall, said Trim. It is in the scripture, said my uncle Toby; and I will show it thee to-morrow. In the mean time we may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort, said my uncle Toby, that God Almighty is so good and just as a governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it, it will never be inquirecd into, whether we have done it in a red coat or a black one. I hope not, said the corporal. But go on, Trim, said my uncle Toby, with thy story. When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant's room, which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, he was lying in his bed, with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it. The youth was just stooping down to take up the cushionl, upon which, I supposed, he had been kneeling; the book was laid upon the bed; and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time. Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant. HIe did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed-side. If you are Captain Shandy's servant, said he, you must 15 .338 L gLIF E AND OPINIONS OF present my thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me. If he was of Levens's, said the lieutenant. I told him your Honor was. Then, said he, I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remeimber him, but'tis most likely, as I had not the honor of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good nature has laid under obligations to him, is one Le Fevre, a lieutenant in Angus's; but he knows me not, said he a second time, musing; possibly he may my story, added he. Pray tell the captain, I was the ensign at Breda, whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent. I remember the story, an' please your Honor, said I, very well. Do you so? said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, then well may I. In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosorl which seemed tied with a black ribbon about his neck, and kissed it twice. Here, Billy, said he; the boy flew across the room to the bed-side, and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand and kissed it too, then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept. I wish, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh, I wish, Trim, I was asleep. Your Honor, replied the corporal, is too much concerned. Shall I pour out your Honor a glass of sack, to your pipe? Do, Trim, said my uncle Toby. I remember, said my nncle Toby, sighing again, the story of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omlitted; and particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what) was universally pitied by the whole regiment; but finish the story thou art upon.'Tis finished already, said the corporal, for I could stay no longer; so wished his Honor a good night. Young Le Fevre rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in Flanders. But alas! said the corporal, the.lieutenant's last day's march is over! Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle Toby. TRISTRA M SHIAN'D~ Y 339 CHAPTER VIII. -TI STORY OF LE FEVRE CONTINUTED. IT was to my uncle Toby's eternal honor, though I tell it only for the sake of those who, when coop'd in betwixt a natural and a positive law, know not;, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves, That notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at the time carrying on the seige of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner: that nevertheless he gave up Denderlond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp; and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except that lie ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which lie might be said to have turned the seige of Dendermond into a blockade, lhe left Dendermond to itself, to be relieved or not by the French king, as the French king thoufght good; and only considered how he himself should relieve the'poor lieutenant and his son. That kind Being who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompense thee for this. Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as lie ina; putting him to bed, and I will tell thee in what Trim. In the first place, when thou mad'st an offer of my services to Le Fevle, as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knew'st he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself, out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood in need, thou 1knowest, Trim, lhe, had been as welcome to it as myself. Your Honor knows, said the corporal, I had no orders. True, quoth my uncle Toby, thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a nian. In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby, when thou offeredst hlim whtatever was in mly house, thou shlouldst have offered him my house too. A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we ha,. 340 L IF E AND OPI N IONS o him with us, we could tend and look to him. Thou s.rt an excellent nurse thyself, Trim, and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs. In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he might march. He will never march, an' please your HI-onor, in this world, said the corporal., Hi will march, said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed, with one shoe off. An' please your Honor, said the corporal, he will never march, but to his grave. He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, he shall larch to his regiment. Ile cannot stand it, said the corporal. IIe shall be supported, said my uncle Toby. He'll drop at last, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy? I-I shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly. A-well-a-day! do what we can for him, said Trim, maintaining his point; the poor soul will die. I-Te shall not die, by G-, cried my uncle Toby. The accusing spirit which flew up to IIeaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wroto it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever. CHAPTER IX. IMY uncle Toby went to his bureau-put his purse in his breechespocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed, and fell asleep. C I A P TER X. THE STORY OF LE FEVRE CONCLDED). THE sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village, but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death press'd heavy upon his eye-lids; and hardly could the wheel at the cistern TRISTRAM S H ANDY. 341 turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother-officer would have done it, and asked him how he did; how he had rested in the night: what was his complaint; where was his pain; and what he could do to help him; and without giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him. You shall go home directly, Le Fevre, said my uncle Toby, to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter, and we'll have an apothecary, and the corporal shall be your nurse; and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre. There was a frankness in my uncle Toby, not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it, which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed lp close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits -of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow. within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back; the film forsook his eyes for a moment; he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's tace, then cast a look upon his boy-and that ligament, fine as it waV-i, was never broken. Nature instantly ebbed again: the film returned to its place>; the pulse fluttered, stopp'd-went on-throb'd-stopp'd again —mlo-v'dstopp'd-shall I go on? No. 342 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CH APTER XI. I Am SO impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young Le Fevre's, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my uncle Toby recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a few words, in the next chapter. All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as follows: That my uncle Toby, with young Le Fevre in his hand, attended the poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave. That the governor of Dendermond. paid his obsequies all military honors: and that Yorick, not to be behind-hand, paid him all ecclesiastic; for they buried him in his chancel. And it appears likewise, he preached a funeral sermon over him; I say it appeals, for it was Yorick's custom which I suppose a general one with those of his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed, to chronicle down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short conlment or stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit. For instance, "This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation, I don't like it at all; though I own ther.e is a world of WA'TEP-LANDISH knowledge in it; but'tis all tritical, and most tritically put together. This is but a flimsy kind of composition. What was in my head when I made it? "N. IB. The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any sermon; and of this sermon, that it will suit any text. "For this sermon I shall be hanged; for I have stolen the greater part of it. Doctor Paidagunes found me out. 1". Set a thief to catch a thief." On the back of half a dozen I find written, "' So so," and no more: and upon a couple "M loderato"; by which, as far as any one may gather firon Altieri's Italian Dictionary, but mostly fromn the authority of a piece of green whip-cord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of Yorick's whip-lash, with which he has left us the two sermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So so's, tied TRIST AM SHANDYo 343 fast together in one bundle by themselves, one may safely suppose he meant pretty nearly the same thing. There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, wihich is this, that the jMIoderato's are five times better than the So so's: show ten times more knowTledge of the human heart: have seventy times more wit and spirit in them: (and to rise properly in iny climiax) discover a thousand times more genius: and to crown all, are infinitely more entertaining, than those tied up with theml: for which reason, whenever Yorick's dramatic sermons are offered to the world, though I shall admit but one out of the whole number of the So so's, I shall, nevertheless, adventure to print the two moderato's without any sort of scruple. What Yorick could mean by the words lentanmente, tenute, y'grave, and sometimes adagio, as applieid to theological compositions, and with which he has characterized some of these sermons, I dare not venture to guess. I am more puzzled still upon finding a l'octavo alta! upon one: UComstrepito upon the back of another; Scicillianca upon a third; Allac capellca upon a fourth; Con l'arco upon this; Senzca l'arco upon that. " All I know is, that they are musical terms, and have a meaning; and as he was a musical man, I will make no doubt, but that by some quaint application of such metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impressed very distinct ideas of their several characters upon his fancy, whatever they may do upon that of others. Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably led me into this digression. The funeral sermon upon poor Le Fevre, wrote out very fairly, as if from a hasty copy. I take notice of it the more, because it seems to have been his favorite comnposition. It is upon mortality; and is tied length-ways and crossways with a yarn thrum, and then rolled up and twisted roun d with a half sheet of dirty blue paper, which seems to have been once the cast-cover of a general review, which to this day smells horribly of horse drugs. Whether these marks of humiliation were designed, I something doubt: because at the end of the sermon (and nor at the beginning of it), very different from his way of treating the rest, he had wroteBRAvo! though not very offensively, for it is at two inches, at least, and a 844 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF half's distance from and below the concluding line of the sermon, at the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it, which, you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it justice, it is wrote besides with a crow's quill so faintly in a small Italian hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether your thumb is there or not; so that, from the manner of it, it stands half excused; and being wrote, moreover, with very pale ink, diluted almost to nothing,'tis more like the ritratto of the shadow of vanity, than of VANITY herself, of the two; resembling rather a faint thought of transient applause, secretly stirring up in the heart of the composer, than a gross mark of it, coarsely obtruded upon the world. With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do no service to Yorick's character as a modest man; but all men have their failings; and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes it away, is this, that the word was struck through some time afterwards (as appears from a different tint of the ink) with a line quite across in this manner, -B-RA-O —as if he had retracted,'or was ashamed of the opinion he had once entertained of it. These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon, which served as a cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned toward the text; but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he had five or six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a whole score to turn himself in, he to4k a larger circuit, and indeed a much more mettlesome one; as if he had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more frolicsome strokes at vice, than the straitness of the pulpit allowed. These, though hussar-like they skirmish lightly, and out of all order, are still auxiliaries on the side of virtue; tell me, then, Mfynheer Vander Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not be printed together! TRISTRAM SHANDYo 345 CHAPTERl X Io WHEN my uncle Toby had turned every thing into money, and settled all accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and Le Fevre, and betwixt Le Fevre and all mankind, there remained nothing more in my uncle Toby's hands than an old regimental coat, and a sword; so that my uncle Toby found little or no opposition from the world in taking administration. The coat my uncle Toby gave the corporal. Wear it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, as long as it will hold together, for the sake of the poor lieutenant. And this, said my uncle Toby, taking up the sword in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as he spoke, and this, Le Fevre, I'll save for thee:'tis all the fortune, continued my uncle Toby, hanging it upon a crook, and pointing to it,'tis all the fortune, my dear Le Fevre, which God has left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way with it in the world, and thou doest it like a man of honor,'tis enough for us. As soon as my uncle Toby had laid a foundation and taught him to inscribe a regular polygon in a circle he sent him to a public school, where, excepting Whitsuntide and Christmas, at which times the corporal was punctually dispatched for him, he remained to the spring of the year seventeen; when the stories'of the Emperor's sending his army into Hungary, against the Turks, kindled a spark of fire in his bosom, he left his Greek and Latin without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my uncle Toby, begged his father's sword, and my uncle Toby's leave along with it, to go and try his fortune under Eugene. Twice did my uncle Toby forget his wound, and cry out, Le Fevre! I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside me, and twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head in sorrow and disconsolation. My uncle Toby took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the lieutenant's death, and delivered it to the corporal to brighten up; and having detained Le Fevre a single fornight to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn, he put the sword into his hands. If thou art brave, Le Fevre, said my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee; but Fortune, said he (musing a 15* 846 LIFE AND OPINIONS O1 little), Fortune may: And if she does, added my uncle Toby, embracing him, come back again to me, Le Fevre, and we shall shape thee another course. The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of Le Fevre more than my uncle Toby's paternal kindness; he parted from my uncle Toby, as the best of sons from the best of fathers-both dropped tears, and as my uncle Toby gave him his last kiss, he slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his father's, in which was his mother's ring, into his hand, and bid God bless him. CHAPTER XIII. LE FEvzIE got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his sword was made of, at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade; but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, and trod close upon his heels for four years together after. He had withstood these buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at Marseilles, from whence he wrote my uncle Toby word, he had lost his time, his services, his health, and, in short, everything but his sword; and was waiting for the first ship to return back to him. As this letter came to hand about six weeks before Susannlah's accident, Le Fevre was hourly expected, and was uppermost in my uncle Toby's mind all the time my father was giving him and Yorick a description of what kind of a person he would choose for a preceptor to me; but as my uncle Toby thought my father at first somewhat fanciful in the accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning Le Fevre's name, till the character, by Yorick's interposition, ending, unexpectedly, in one who should be gentle-tempered, and generous, and good, it impressed the image of Le Fevre, and his interest, upon my uncle Toby so forcibly, that he rose instantly off his chair; and laying down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father's hands, I beg, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, I may recommend poor Le Fevre's son to you. I beseech you do, added Yorick. He has a good heart, said my uncle Toby. And a brave one too, an' please your Honor, said the. corporal. R ISTRA A SHA NDYo 3 47 The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle Toby. And the greatest cowards, an' please your honor, in our regiment, were the greatest rascals in it: there was Serjeant Kumber, and EnsignWe'll talk of them, said my father, another time. C HAPTE R X I V. WHAT a jovial and merry world would this be, may it please your Worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies! Dr. Slop, like a son of a w, as my father called him for it, to exalt himself, debased me to death, and made ten thousand times more of Susannah's accident than there was any grounds for; so that in a week's time, or less, it was in everybody's mouth, that poor Master Shandy * * * * * * * entirely, and FAME, who loves to double everything, in three days more, had sworn positively she saw it; and all the world, as usual, gave credit to her evidence,:'That the nursery window had not only * * * * * * * * * *; butthat' *C * * * * * *'s also." Could the world have been sued like a BODY-CORPORATE; my father had brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but, to fall foul of individuals about it-as every soul who had mentioned the affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable-'twas like flying in the very face of his best friends; and yet, to acquiesce under the report, in silence, was to acknowledge it openly, at least in the opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in contradicting it, was to confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the other half. Was ever poor devil of a country-gentleman so hampered? said my father. I would show him publicity, said my uncle Toby, at the marketcross.'Twill have no effect, said my father. 34 8 L I F E AND OPINIONS OF CH APTE R X V. I'LL put him, however, into breeches, said my father, let the world say what it will. CH APTER XVI. THERE are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well as in matters, Madam, of a more private concern, which, though they have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken and entered upon in a hasty, harebrained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding this (and could you and I have got into the cabinet, or stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so), weighed, poised, and perpended, argued upon, canvassed through, entered into, and examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the GODDESS OF COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could neither have wished it, or done it better. Of the number of these was my father's resolution of putting me into breeches; which though determined at once, in a kind of huff, and a defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro'd and con'd, and judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month before, in two several beds of justice, which my father had held for that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my next chapter; and, in the chapter following that, you shall step with me, Madcam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my father and my mother debated between themselves this affair of the breeches, from which you may form an idea how they debated all lesser matters. TRISTR AM S tI ANDY, 349 CHAPTER XV YId THE ancient Goths of Germany, who (the learned Cluverius is positive) were first seated in the country between the Vistula and the Oder, and who afterwards incorporated the iEerculi, the Bugians, and some other Vandalic clans to them, had all of them a wise custom of debating everything of importance to their state, twice; that is, once drunk, and once sober; drunk-, that their councils might not want vigor; and, sober, that they might not want discretion. Now my father, being entirely a water-drinker, was a long time gravelled almost to death, in turning this as much to his advantage, as he did every other thing, which the ancients did or said; and it was not till the seventh year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless experiments and devices, that he hit upon an expedient which answered the purpose: and that was, when any difficult and momentous point was to be settled in the family, which required great sobriety, and great spirit too, in its determination, he fixed and set apart the first Sunday night in the month, and the Saturday night which immediately preceded it, to argue it over in bed with my mother: by which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself, These my father, humorously enough, called his beds of justice; for, from the two different counsels taken in these two different humors, a middle one was generally found out, which touched the point of wisdom as well as if he had got drunk and sober an hundred times. It must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as well in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it is not every author that can try the experiment as the Goths and Vandals did it, or, if he can, may it be always for his body's health?. and to do it, as my father did it, am I sure it would be always for his soul's? My way is this: In all nice and ticklish discussions (of which, Heaven knows, there are but too many in my book), Where I find I cannot take a step 350 LIFE AND OPINIONS 0 I without the danger of having either their Worships or their Reverences upon my back, I write one half full, and t'other fasting; or write it all full and correct it fasting; or.write it fasting and correct it full, for they all come to the same thing. So that, with a less variation from Lmy father's plan, than my father's from the Gothic, I feel myself upon a par with him in'his first bed of justice, and no way inferior to him in his second. These different and almost irreconcilable effects, flow uniformly from the wise and wonderful mechanisnz of nature, of which, be hers the honor. All that we can do, is, to turn and work the machine to the improvement and better manufactory of the arts and sciences. Now, when I write full, I write as if I was never to write fasting again as long as I live; that is, I write free from the cares, as well as the terrors of the world, I count not the number of my sears, nor does my fancy go forth into dark entries and by-corners to antedate my stabs. In a word, my pen takes its course; and I write on, as much from the fullness of my heart as my stomach. But when, an' please your Honors, I indite fasting,'tis a diff-erent story. I pay the world all possible attention and respect, and have as great a share (whilst it lasts) of that understrapping virtue of discretion as the best of you. So that betwixt both, I write a careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humored, Shandean book, which will do all your hearts good. And all your heads too, provided you understand it. CHAPTER XVIII. We, should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and shifting his pillow a little towards my mother's, as he opened the debate, we should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this boy into breeches. We should so, said my mother. We defer it, my dear; quoth my father, shamefully. I think we do, Mr. Shandy, said my mother. Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests and tunics. TnISTRAM SHANDY. 851 He does look very well in them, replied my mother. And for what reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to take him out of them. It would so, said my mother. But, indeed, he is growing a very tall lad, rejoined my father. He is very tall for his age, indeed, said my mother. I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who the dence he takes after. I cannot conceive, for my life, said my mother. Humph! said my father. (The dialogue ceased for a moment.) I am very short myself, continued my father, gravely. You are very short, Mr. Shandy, said my mother., Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time; in muttering which, he plucked his pillow a little farther from my mother's, and turning about again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half. When he gets these breeches made, cried my father, in a higher tone, he'll look like a beast in them. He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother. And'twill be lucky, if that's the worst on't, added my father. It will be very lucky, answered my mother. I suppose, replied my father, making some pause first, he'll be exactly like other people's children. Exactly, said my mother. Though I should be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate stopped again. They should be of leather, said my father, turning him about again. They will last him, said my mother, the longest. But he can have no linings to them, replied my father. I-Ie cannot, said my mother.'Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my father. Nothing can be better, quoth my mother. Except dimity, replied my father.'Tis best of all, replied my mother. One must not give him his death, however, interrupted my father. By no means, said my mother. And so the dialogue stood still again. 352 LI E AND OPINIO S OF I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth time, he shall have no pockets in them. There is no occasion for any, said my mother. I mean, in his coat and waistcoat, cried my father. I mean so too, replied my mother. Though if he gets a gig or a top-poor souls! it is a crown and a sceptre to them, they should have where to secure it. Order it as you please, Mr. Shandy, replied my my mother. But don't you think it right? added my father, pressing the point home to her. Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. Shan dy. There's for you! cried my father, losing temper. Pleases me! You never will distinguish, Mrs. Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience. This was on the Sunday night; and farther this chapter sayeth not. CHAPTER XIX. AFTER my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother, he consulted Albertus Itubenius upon it; and Albertus Rubenius used my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my father had used my mother; for as RPubenius had wrote a quarto express, De Re Vestiaria Veterurn, it was Rubenius' business to have given iny father some lights. On the contrary, my father might as well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long beard, as of extracting a single word out of Rubenius upon the subject. Upon every other article of ancient dress, Rubenius was very communicative to my father; he gave him a full and satisfactory account of The Tog'a, or loose gown. The Chlamys. The Ephod. The Tunica, or Jacket. The Synthesis. The P.enula. TRISTRAM SHA NDY. 353 The Lacerna, with its Cucullus. The Paludamentunm. The Pretexta. The Sagum, or soldier's jerkin. The Trabea; of which, according to Suetonius, there were three kinds. But what are all these to the breeches? said my father. Rubenius threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had been in fashion with the Romans. There was, The open shoe. The close shoe. The slip shoe. The wooden shoe. The sock. The buskin. And The military shoe with hob nails in it, which Juvenal takes notice of. There were the clogs. The pattens. The pantoufles. The brogues. The sandals, with latchets to them. There was the felt shoe. The linen shoe. The braided shoe. The laced shoe. The calceus insisus. And The calceus rostratus. Rubenius showed my father how well they all fitted, in what manner they laced on, with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbons, jaggs, and ends. But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father. Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the Romans manufactured stuffs, of various fabrics: some plain, some striped, others diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and gold: That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire, when the Egyptians, coming to settle amongst them, brought it into vogue. 354 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their clothes: wnhich color (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great officers) they most affected and wore on their birth-days and public rejoicings: —That it appeared from the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their clothes to the fuller, to be clean'd and whitened: but that the inferior people, to avoid that expense, generally wore brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture-till towards the beginning of Augustus's reign, when the slave dressed like his master. and almost every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the Latus CClavus. And what was the Latu Clavus? said my father. IRubenius told hil, that the point was still litigating amongst the learned; that Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius, Ticinensis, Baysius, BudmTus, Salmasius, Lipsius, Lizius, Isaac Causabon, and Joseph Scaliger, all differed fiom each other, and he from them: That some took it to be the button; some the coat itself; others only the color of it: That the great Baysius, in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12, honestly said, he knew not what it was, whether a tribula, a stud, a button, a loop, a buckle, or clasps and keepers. Miy father lost the horse, but not the saddle. They are 7too'ks and eye3, said my father —and with hooks and eyes he ordered my b)reeches to be make. CHAPTER XX: WE are now going to enter upon a new scene of events. Leave we then the breeches in the tailor's hands, with my father standing over him with his cane, reading him as he sat at work a lecture upon the lcatus cdavs, and pointing to the precise part of the waistband where he was determined to have it sewed on. Leave we my mother-(truest of all the Pococurantes of her sex!) careless about it, as about every thing else in the worlc which concerned her; that is, indifferent whether it was done this way or that, providing it was but done at all. T RSTRAM SIH ANDY. 355 Leave we Slop likewise to the full profits of all my dishonors. Leave we poor Le Fevre to recover, and get honle from Marseilles as he can': and last of all, because the hardest of all, Let us leave, if possible, zyselff; but tis impossible, I must go along with you to the end of the world. CHAPTER XXI. IF the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and a half of ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle Toby's kitchengarden, and which -was the scene of so nmany of his delicious hours, the fault is not in me, but in his imagination; for I am sure I gave him so minute a description, -I was almost ashamed of it. When _Fcate was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great transactions of future times, and recollected for what purposes this little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined, she gave a nod to Ncateure:'twas enough-Nature threw half a spadeful of her kindliest coimpost upon it, with just so mauch clay in it, as to return the forms of angels and indentings, and so little of it too, as not to cling to the spade, and render works of so much glory, nasty in foul weather. My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans along with him, of almost every fortified town in Italy and Flanders; so, let the Duke of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before what town they pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared for them. His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this: As soon as ever a town was invested (but sooner when the design was known), to takle the plan of it (let it be what town it would) and enlarge it upon a scale to the exact size of his bowling-green; upon the surface of which, by means of a large roll of pack-thread, and a number of small piquets driven into the ground, at the several angels, and redans, he transferred the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the place, with its works, to determine the depths and slopes of the ditches, the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of the several caznfuettes, parapets, &c., he set the corporal to work; 356 rL IFE AND OPINIONS OF and sweetly went it on. The nature of the soil, the nature of the work itself, and, above all, the good-nature of my uncle Toby, sitting by from morning to night, and chatting kindly with the corporal upon past-done deeds, left labor little else but the ceremony of the name. When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper posture of defence, it was invested; and my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first parallel. I beg I may not be interrupted in my story, by being told, That the first parallel should be at least three hundred toises distant from the mzain body of the place, and that I have not left a single inch for it; for my uncle Toby took the liberty of encroaching upon his kitchen-garden, for the sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green; and for that reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt two rows of his cabbages and his cauliflowers: the conveniences and inconveniences of which will be considered at large in the history of my uncle Toby's and the corporal's campaigns, of which this I'm now writing is but a sketch, and will be finished, if I conjecture right, in three pages (but there is no guessing). The, campaigns themselves will take up as many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a weight of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the work; surely they had better be printed apart. We'll consider the affair; so take the following sketch of them in the mean time:CHAPTER XXII. WHEN the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first parallel, not at random, or any how, but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to run theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks by the accounts my uncle Toby received from the daily papers, they went on during the whole siege, step by step, with the allies. When the Duke of Marlborough made a lodgment, my uncle Toby made a lodgment too: and when the face of a bastion was TRISTRAM S t A N D Y o 8 battered down, or a defence ruined, the corporal took his mattock and did as much, and so on; gaining ground and making themselves masters of the works, one after another, till the town fell into their hands. To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others, there could not have been a greater sight in the world than on a post morning, in which a practicable breach had been made by the Duke of Marlborough in the main body of the place, to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and observed the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind him, sallied forth; the one with the Gazette in his hand, the other with a spade on his shoulder to execute the contents. What an honest triumph in my uncle Toby's looks, as he marched up to the ramparts! what intense pleasure swimming in his eye, as he stood over the corporal reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an inch too wide, or leave it an inch too narrow I But when the chlamade was beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed with the colors in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts, I-Heaven! Earth! Sea! but what avail apostrophes? with all your elements, wet or dry, you never compounded so intoxicating a draught. Iln this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a week or ten days together, which detained the Flanders mail, and kept them so long in torture, but still'twas the torhure of the happy: in this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, fiom the invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened fresh springs of delight in carrying them on. The first year's campaign was carried on, from beginning to end, in the plain'and simple method I've related. In the second year, in which my uncle Toby took Liege and Ruremond, he thought he might afford the expense of four handsome draw-bridges; of two of which I have given an exact description ill the former part of my work. At the latter end of the same year, he added a couple of gates with 358 LIFE AND O P INIONS OF portcullises: these last were converted afterwards into orgues, as the better thing i and during the winter of the same year, my uncle Toby, instead of a new suit of clothes, which lie always had at Christimas7 treated himself with a handsome sentry-box, to stand at the corner of the bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of the glacis, there Awas left a little kind of an esplanade, for himl and the corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon. The sentry-box wTas in case of rain. All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which enabled ihy uncle Toby to take the field with great splendor. My father would often say to Yorick, that if any mortal in the -whole universe had done such a thing except his brother Toby, it would have been looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires uipon the parade and prancing manner in which Lo-uis XIV. from the beginning of the war, but particularly that very year had taken the field. But'tis not in my brother Toby's nature, kind soul! my fahther would add, to insult any one. But let us go on. C HAPTEE R XX I II. I MUST observe, that although in the first year's canmpaign, the word town is often mentioned, yet there was no town at that time within the polygon, that addition was not made till the summer following, the spring in which the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the third year of my uncle Toby's campaigns, when, upon his taking Aniberg, Bonn, and Rhinberg, and Huy and Limbourg, one after another, a thought came into the corporal's head, that to talk of taking so many towns, woitholt one toon to showo for it, was a very nonsensical wray of going to work; and so proposed to my uncle Toby, that they should have a little model of a town built for them, to be run up together, of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within the interior polygon to serve for all. My uncle Toby felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly agreed to it; but with the addition of two singular imprbvements, T R itR A M S AN X 0 3 59 of which he was almost as proud, as if he had been the original inventor of the project itself. The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of which it was most likely to be the representative; with grated windows, and the gable-ends of the houses facing the streets, &c., &c., as those in Ghent and Bruges, and the rest of the towns in Brabant and Flanders. The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off so as to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put directly into hand; and many a look of mutual congratulation was exchanged between my uncle Toby and the corporal, as the carpenter did the work. It answered prodigiously the next summer; the town was a perfect Proteus. It was Landen, and. Trerebach, and Stantvliet, and Druzen, and tIagenau: and then it was Ostend, and Menin, and Aeth, and Dendermond. Surely never did any TowN act to many parts, since Sodom and Gomorrah, as my uncle Toby's town did. In the fourth year, my uncle Toby, thinking a town looked foolishly without a church, added a very fine one with a steeple. Trim was for having bells in it. Mly uncle Toby said, the metal had better be cast into cannon. This led the way, the next campaign, for half a dozen brass fieldpieces, to be planted three and three, on each side of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; and, in a short time, these led the way for a train somewhat larger, and so on (as must always be the case in hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch bore, till it came at last to my father's jack-boots. The next year, which was that in which Lisle was besieged, and at the close of which both Ghent and Bruges fell into our hands, my uncle Toby was sadly put to it for proper ammunition: I say proper ammunition, because his great artillery would not bear powder; and'twas well for the Shandy family they would not. For so full were the papers, from the beginning to the end of the siege, of the inces-. sant firings kept up by the besiegers, and so heated was my uncle Toby's imagination with the accounts of them, that he had. infallibly shot away all his estate. 360 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Something'therefore was wanting, as a succedaneum, especially in one or two of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something like a continual firing in the imagination, and this something the corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an entire new system of battering of his own, without which, this had been objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the great deside'rata of my uncle Toby's apparatus. This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally do, at a little distance from the subject. CHAPTE1R XXIV. WITH two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great regard, which poor Tom, the corporal's unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with the account of his marriage with the Jew's widow, there was A Mlontero-cap and two Turkish tobacco-pipes. The Montero-cap I shall describe by and by. The Turkish tobacco pipes had nothing particular in them; they were fitted up and ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of Morocco leather and gold wire, and mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory, the other with black ebony, tipp'd with silver. Mly father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two presents more as tokens of his brother's nicety than his affection. Tom did not care, Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, or to smoke in the tobacco-pipe of a Jew. God bless your Honor, the corporal would say (giving a strong reason to the contrary), how can that be? The ~Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish cloth, dyed in grain, and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the fiont, which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered; and seemed to have been the property of a Portuguese quarter-master, not of foot, but of horse, as the word denotes. TRISTRAM SH A NDY. 361 The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for his own sake, as for the sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon GALA days; and yet never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all controverted points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal was sure he was in the right, it was either his oath, his wager, or his gift.'Twas his gift in the present case. I'll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to give away my iMontero-cap to the first beggai' who comes to the door, if I do not manage this matter to his Honor's satisfaction. The completion was no further off, than the very next morning; which was that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the Lower Deule, to the right, and the gate of St. Andrew; and on the left, between St. Magdalen's and the river. As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war, the most gallant and obstinate on both sides, and, I must add, the most bloody too (for it cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred men), my uncle Toby prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary solemnity. The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to bed, he ordered his Ramillie wig, which had lain, inside out, for many years, in the corner of an old campaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out and laid upon the lid of it, rea(ly for the morning; and the very first thing he did, in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle Toby, after he had turned the rough side outwards, put it on. This done, he proceeded next to his breeches; and having buttoned the waist band, he forthwith buckled on his sword-belt, and had got his sword half-way in, when he considered he should want shaving, and that it would be very inconvenient doing it with his sword on, so took it off. In essaying to put on his regimental coat and waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in. his wig, so that went off too; so that, what with one thing and what with another, as it always falls out when a man is in the most haste,'twas ten o'clock, which was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle Toby sallied out. 16 8362 L'IFE AND OPINIONS OF I APTER XXV. My uncle Toby had scarce turned the corner of his yew-hedge, which separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived the corporal had begun the attack without him. Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal's apparatus, and of the corporal himself in the height of this attack, just as it struck my uncle Toby, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal was at work, for in Nature there is not such another; nor can any combination of all that is grotesque and whimsical in her works produce its equal. The corporalTread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he was your kinsman: Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness, for he was your brother. Oh, corporal! had I thee, but now, now that I am able to give thee a dinner and protection, how would I cherish thee! thou should'st wear thy Montero-cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week; and when it was worn out, I would purchase thee a couple like it. But alas! alas! alas! now that I can do this, in spite of their Reverences, the occasion is lost, for thou art gone: thy genius fled up to the stars, from whence it came; and that warm heart of thine, with all its generous and open vessels, compassed in a ceod of the valley / But what, what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I look towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy master, the first, the foremost of created beings; where, I shall see thee, faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard, with a trembling hand, across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to the door, to take his mourning-horse by the bridle to follow his hearse, asu he directed thee: where all my father's systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and, in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the lacquered plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe' away the dew which Nature has shed upon them. When I see him cast in the rosemary with an air of T RISTRAM SHANDY. 363 disconsolation, which cries through my ears, 0 Toby! in what corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow? Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain, when I shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted hand. ~ —,.-,..._~r~._...~_ CHAPTER XXVI. TRH corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply the grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack, had no farther idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out of one of my uncle Toby's six fieldpieces, which were planted on each side of his sentry-box; the means of effecting which occurring to his fancy at the same time, though he had pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from miscarriage of his projects. Upon turning it this way and that a little' in his mind, he soon began to find out, that, by means of his two Turkish tobacco-pipes, with the supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their lower ends, to be tagg'd by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the touch-holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the morocco tube, he should be able to fire the six field-pieces all together, and with the same ease as to fire one. Let no man say from what tags and jaggs hints may not be cut out for the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my father's first and second beds of justice, ever rise up and say again, from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck out, to carry the Arts and Sciences up to perfection. Heaven! thou knowest how I love them; thou knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I would this moment give my shirt-Thou art a fool, Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in the world, and'twill break thy set. No matter for that, Eugenius; I would give the shirt off my back to be burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish inquirer. 364 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Iow mnany sparks, at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into the tail of it. Think ye not, that in striking these in, he might, peradventure, strike something out? as sure as a gun. But this project by the bye. The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing his to perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with charging them to the top with tobacco, he went with contentment to bed. C IAP TER XX VII. THE corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle Toby, in order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two before my uncle came. He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together in front of my uncle Toby's sentry-box, leaving only an interval of about a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the convenience of charging, &c., and the sake, possibly, of two batteries, which he might think double the honor of one. In the rear, and facing his opening, with his back to the door of his sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his post. He held the ivory pipe appertaining to the battery on the right, betwixt the finger and thumb of. his right hand: and the ebony pipe tipp'd with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, betwixt the finger and thumb of the other; and with his right knee fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the corporal, with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off his two cross-batteries at the same time against the counter-guard, which faced the counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the enemy a single puff or two; but the pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined him.'Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had not his will to make that day. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 365 CHAPTER XXVIII. My uncle Toby took the ivory pipe out of the corporal's hand; looked at it for half a minute, and returned it. In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe from the corporal again, and raised it half-way to his mouth, then hastily gave it back a second time. The corporal redoubled the attack; my uncle Toby smiled, then looked grave, then smiled for a moment, then looked serious for a long time. Give me hold of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby. My uncle Toby put it to his lips, drew it back directly, gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge. Never did my uncle Toby's mouth water so much for a pipe in his life. My uncle Toby retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his hand. Dear uncle Toby! don't go into the sentry-box with the pipe; there's no thrusting a man's self with such a thing in such a corner. CH APTER XXIX. I BEG the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle Toby's ordnance behind the scenes; to remove his sentry-box, and clear the theatre, if possible, of horn-works and half-moons, and get the rest of his military apparatus out of the way; that clone, my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff the candles bright, sweep the stage with a new broom, draw up the curtain, andl exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will act: and yet, if pity be akin to love, and bravery no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses betwixt the two passions (in case there is one) to your heart's content. Vain science! thou assisted us in no case of this kind, and thou puzzlest us in every one. 366 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart, which misled him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this nature usually go on, you can-you can have no conception of it: with this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman; and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you (when a siege was out of his ]lead) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks, and shot my uncle Toby, ten times in a day, through his liver; if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose. With all this, Madam, and what confounded every thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you might as soon-But where am I going? These reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up that time which I ought to bestow upon facts. CHAPTER XXX.o OF the few legitimate sons of Adam, whose breasts never felt what the sting of love was (maintaining first all misogynists to be bastards) —the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honor; and I? wish, for their sakes, I had the key of my study, out of the draw~ well, only for five minutes, to tell you their names; recollect them I cannot, so be content to accept of these, for the present, in their stead. There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and Dardanus, and Pontus, and Asius, to say nothing of the iron-hearted Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K***R herself could make nothing of. There was Babylonicus, and MIediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus, and Prusicus; not one of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess. The truth is, they had all of them something else to do; and so had my uncle Toby, till Fate, till Fate, I say, envying his name the glory of being TRISTRAM SHAND Y. 367 handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus's and the rest, she basely patched up the peace of Utrecht. Believe me, Sirs,'twas the worst deed she did that year. CHAPTER XXXI. AMiONGsT the many ill consequences of the treaty of UJtrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary's heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby's. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon my account whatever, or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the LUtrecht Gazette, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain. Mly father, who was a great motive-monge'r, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,: for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself, would always console my uncle Tlby upon these occasions, in a way which showed plainly he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his HOBBY-nORSE. Never mind, brother Toby, he would say, by God's blessing, we shall have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does, the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play. I defy'em, my dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns, or towns without sieges. My uncle Toby never took this back-stroke of my father's at his HOBBY-IiORSE kindly. He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonorable part a blow could. fall: so that, upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with mere fire to defend himself than common. I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary. I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again. He 368 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF was not eloquent; it was not easy to my uncle Toby-to make long harangues, and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts, my uncle Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus; but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him. My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down before he went to bed. I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers, with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus, [ ], and is endorsed AMy brother Toby's justiSfcation of his own principZes and conduct in wishing to. continue the war. I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical.oration of my uncle Toby's a hundred times; and I think it so fine a model of defence, and shows so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principls in him, that I give it the world, word for word (interlineations and all) as I find it. CHAPTER XXXII. MY TUNCLE TOBY'S APOLOGETICAL ORATION. I AM not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man, whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war, it has an ill aspect to the world; and that, how just and right soever his motives and intentions may be, he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in doing it. For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe him. He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend, lest he may suffer in his esteem; but if his heart is overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what TRISTRAM SHANDY. 369 his true notions, dispositions, and principles of honor are. What, I hope, I have been in all these, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say: much worse, I know, have I been than I.ought, and something worse, perhaps, than I think; but such as I am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the same breasts with me, and with whom I have been brought up from my cradle, and fiom whose knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to to this, I have concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it; such as I am, brother, you must, by this time, know me, with all my vices, and with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or my understandings. Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht, and grieved the war was notrcarried on with vigor a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon unworthy views; or that, in wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his fellow-creatures slainmore slaves made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own pleasure. Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it? [The devil a deed do I 7noze oj; dear Toby, but one for an hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed sieges.] If, when I was a school-lboy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart beat with it, was it my fault? Did I plant the propensity there? Did I sound the alarm within, or Nature? When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and Parismenus, and Valentine and Orson, and the Seven Champions of England, were. handed around the school, were they not all purchased with my own pocket-money? Was that selfish, brother Shandy? When we read over the siege of Troy, which lasted ten years and eight monthsthough with such a train of artillery as we had at Namur, the town might have been carried in a week-was I not as much concerned for the destruction of the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of the whole school? Had I not three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my left, for calling Helena a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed a tear for Hector? And when king Priam came to the camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy without it, you know, brother, I could not eat my dinner. Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother Shandy, my blood 16* 370 LIFE AND O PIN I ONS O F flew out into the camp, and my heart panted for war, was it a proof it could not ache for the distresses of war too? 0 brother!'tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels, and'tis another to scatter cypress. [ Who told thee, zmy dear [Toby, that cypJ)ess wacs utsed by the ancients on moTourvful occasions?]'Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his ownlife; to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut to pieces:'Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the breach the first man, to stand in the foremost rank, and march bi'avely on with drums and trumlpets, and colors flying about his ears:'Tis one thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this: and'tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war; to view the desolation of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them,-is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo. Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you in Le Fevre's funeral sermon, Thact so soft and gentle a cr~eattlure, bo'rn to love, to mzercyJ, aGnd kindness, as manc is, soas not shcapedfor this? But why did you not add, Yorickl, if not by NCature, that he is so by 2Necessity? For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought, as ours has been, upon principles of libe~rty, and upon principles of honor? what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And I-leaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things, and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attend my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that, in carrying them on, we were answering the great end of our creation. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 7 1 CHAPTER XXXIII. I TOLD the Christian reader; I say Christian, hoping he is one; and if he is not, I am sorry for it, and only beg he will consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book. I told him, Sir, for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be goingbackwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the readeres fancy; which, for my own part, if I did not take heed to do mom'e than at first, there is so much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, with so many breaks and gaps in it, and so little service do the stars afford, which nevertheless I hang up in some of the darkest passages, knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the!:ights the sun itself at noon-day can give it, and now you see, I'm lost myself! But'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be dissected, you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of cambric, running along the whole whole length of the web, and so untowardly, you cannot so much as cut out a * *, (here I hang up a couple of lights again).or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt. Qucanto id diligentivzs in liberis procreandis ccavendin, sayeth Carden. All which being considered, and that you see'tis morally impracticable for me to wind this round to where I set out, I begin the chapter over again. CHO APTER XXXIII. I TOLD the Christian reader, in the beginning of the chapter which preceded my uncle Toby's apologetical oration, though in a different trope from what I shall make use of now, that the peace of 7Utrecht 372 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF was within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and his Hobby-horse, as it did betwixt the Queen and the rest of the confederating powers. There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse, which as good as says to him, " I'll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my life, before I would ride a single mile upon your back again." Now, my uncle Toby could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for, in strictness of language he could not be said to dismount his horse at all, his horse rather flung him, and somewhat viciously, which made my uncle Toby take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be settled by state jockeys as they like; it created, I say, a sort of shyness between my uncle Toby and dlhis hobby-horse: He had no occasion for hhn fiom the month of March to November, which was the summer after the articles were signed, except it was now and then to take a short ride out, just to see that the fortifications and harbor of Dunkirk were demolished accordiug to stipulation. The French were so backward all that summer in setting about that affair; and Monsieur Tugghe, the deputy friom the magistrates of Dunkirk, presented so many afecting petitions to the Queen, beseeching her Majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works which might have incurred her displeasure, but to spare, to spare the mole, for the mole's sake; which in its naked situation, could be no more than an object of pity; and the Queen (who was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition, and her ministers also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for these private reasons, * * * * * * * ~* * * * c * *; sothat the whole went heavily on with, my uncle Toby; insomuch, that it was not within three full months, after he and the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be destroyed, that the several commandants, commissaries, deputies, negotiators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it. Fatal interval of inactivity! The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the ramparts, or main fortifications of the town. No; that will never -do, corporal, said my uncle Toby; for, in going that way to work with the town, the English garrison will not be safe in it an TRISTRAM SHANDY. 373 hour; because, if the French are treacherous-they are as treacherous as Devils, an' please your Honor, said the corporal. It gives me concern always when I hear it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, for they don't want personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please. Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up the pioneer's spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it, let them enter an' please your Honor, if they dare. In cases like this, corporal, said my uncle Toby, slipping his right hand down to the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheonwise, with his fore-finger extended,'tis no part of the consideration of a commandant, what the enemy dare, or what they dare not do; he must act with prudence. We will begin with the out-works both towards the sea and the land, and particularly with Fort Louis, the most distant of them all, and demolish it first; and the rest one by one, both on our right and left, as we retreat towards the town; then we'll demolish the mole, next fill up the harbor, then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the air; and having done that, corporal, we'll embark for England. We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting himself. Very true, said my uncle Toby, looking at the church. CHAPTER XXXIV. A DELUSIVE, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim, upon the demolition of Dunkirk, for a moment rallied back the ideas of. those pleasures, which were slipping from under him. Still, still all went on heavily; the magic left the mind the weaker. Stillness, with silence at her back, entered the solitary parlor, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle Toby's head; and Listlessness, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down beside him in his arm-chair. No longer Amberg, Rhinberg, and Liinbourg, and Huy, and Bonn, in one year; and the prospect of Landen, and Trerebach, and Drusen, and Dendermond, the next, hurried on the blood: No longer did saps, and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep outthis fair enemy of man's repose: 374 LIFE- AND OPINIONS OF No more could my uncle Toby, after passing the French lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of France, 4v oss over the Oyse, and with all Picardie open behind him, march up to the gates of Paris, and. fall asleep with ideas of nothing but ideas of glory: No more was he to dream he had fixed the royal standard upon the tower of the Bastile, and awake with it streaming in his head: Softer visions, gentler vibrations, stole sweetly in upon his slunmbers; the trumpet of war fell out of his hands: he took up the lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most difficult! how wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle Toby? CHAPTER XXXV. Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, that I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle Toby's courtship of widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love and love-making, that ever was addressed to the world, are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a description of what love is? whether part God and part Devil? as Plotinus will have it: Or, by a more critical equation, and, supposing the whole of love to be as ten? to determine, with, Ficinus, " how nmacny parts of it the one? and how mrany the other?" or whether it is all of it one grecat devil, from head to tail; as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion: but my opinion of Plato is this: That he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with Dr. Baynard; who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of'em on at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a hearse and six, rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing Cantharides. I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this mon TRISTRAM SHANDY. 375 strous liberty in arguing, but what lNazianzen cried out (that is, polemically) to Philagrius. "Eve!" 0 race?'tis fine reasoning, sir, indeed! orlt OtSioofetC ev HlaOEat -and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you p hhiloso2hize about it in youzr moods and jpassioRs. Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason; I should stop to inquire, whether love is a disease, or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver, because this would lead me on to the two very opposite manners in which patients have been treated, the one, of Acetius, who always began with a cooling clyster of hemp-seed and bruised cucumbers; and followed on with thin potations of water-lilies and purslane, to which he added a pinch of snuff; of the herb Hanea; and, where Awetius durst venture it, his topaz ring. The other, that of Gordonius, who (in his cap. 15, de Amore) directs they should be thrashed "ad putorem usque," till they stink again. These are the disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great stock of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my uncle Toby's affairs: I must anticipate thus much: That from his theories of love (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby's mind almost as much as his amours themselves) he took a single step into practice; and, by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he produced Gordonius's effect upon my uncle Toby, without the disgrace. What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this: That whatever effect it had upon my uncle Toby, it had a vile effect upon the house; and, if my uncle Toby had not smoked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too. 376 LIFE AND OPINIONS ~'OF CHAPTER XXXVI.'TWILL come out bf itself, by and by. All I contend for is, that I am not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is: and so long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the word itself, without any other idea to it than what I have in common with the rest of the world, why should I differ friom it a moment before the time? When I can get on no further, and find myself entangled on all sides in this mystic labyrinth, my opinion will then come in, in course, and lead out. At present I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in telling the reader, my uncle Toby fell in love: Not that the phrase is at to my liking: for to say a man is fallen in love, or that he is deeply in love; or up to the ears in love; and sonietimes even over head and ears in it, carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a below a man. This is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship, I hold to be damnable and heretical: and so much for that. Let love therefore be what it will, my uncle Toby fell into it.:- And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation, so wouldst, thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than Widow Wadman. CH APTER XXXVI. To conceive this right-call for pen and ink —here's paper ready to your hand. Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind; as like your mistress as you can; as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you;'tis all one to me-please but your own fancy in it. TR1ISTRAtM BRANDY. 3t7a 378 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF Was ever anything in nature so sweet? so exquisite? Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle Toby resist it? Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers, which 1[falice will not blacken, and which Ignorance cannot misrepresent. CHAPTER XXXI X. As Susannah was informed, by an express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle Toby's falling in love with her mistress, fifteen days before it happened; the contents of which express Susannah communicated to my mother the next day; it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby's amours a fortnight before their existence. I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother, which will surprise you greatly. Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke silence. "My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman!i" Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again, as long as he lives. It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand. That she is not a woman of science, my father would say, is her misfortune; but she might ask a question. My mother never did. In short, she went out of the world, at last, without knowing whether it tuqned round, or stood still. My father had officiously told her above a thousand times, which way it was; but she always forgot. For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much farther betwixt them than a proposition, a reply, a rejoinder: at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches) and then went on again. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 379 If he marries,'twill be the worse for us, quoth my mother. Not a cherry-stone, said my father; he may as well batter away his means upon that as anything else. To be sure, said my mother. So here ended the proposition, the reply, and the rejoinderi, I told you of. It will be some amusement to him, too, said my father. A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children. Lord have mercy upon me! said my father to himself. * * H APTER XL. I AM now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a view of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but that I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now, 0 These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second and third, and fourth volumes.* In the fifth volume I have been very good; the precise line I have described in it being this: * Alluding to the first editions. 380 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. A B o C By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A, where I took a trip to Navarre; and the indented curve B, which is the short airing when I was there with the lady Baussiere and her page; I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's Devils led me the round you see marked D: for as for c c c c, they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done, or with my own transgressions at the letters A B D, they vanish into nothing. In this last volume I have done better still, for from the end of Le Fevre's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns I have scarce stepped a yard out of my way. If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible, by the good leave of his Grace of Benevento's Devils, but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of going on even thus: which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it by a writingmaster's ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. This right line, the pathway for Christians to walk in; say divines. The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero. The best line! say cabbage-planters-is the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one given point to another. I wish your Ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth-day suit! What a journey! Pray can you tell me, that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight lines, by what mistake, who told them so, or how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this line with the line of gravitation? LIFE AND OPINIONS OF RISTRAM SHAND G E N T L E M A N BOOK VII. BOOK VIi. CHAPT ER I. No: I think I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough, which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the Devil, would but give me leave; and in another place (but where, I can't recollect now), speaking of my book as a machine, and laying my pen and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, in order to gain the greater credit to it, I swore it should be kept a-going at that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the Fountain of Life to bless me so long with health and good spirits. Now, as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge, nay, so very little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick, and playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that, on the contrary, I have much, much to thank them for. Cheerily have ye made me tread the path of life, with all the burdens of it (except its cares) upon my back: in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either with sable, or with a sickly green: in dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope; and when DrEATH himself knocked at my door, ye bade him comxe again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission.'There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,'" quoth he. Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story; and I was that moment telling Eugenius a 383 384 LIFE A ND OPINIONS OF most tawdry one, in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shellfish; and of a monk damned for eating a muscle; and was showing him the grounds and justice of the procedure. "Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?" quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my hand as I finished my story. But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this son of a wohore has found out my lodgings. You call him rightly, said Eugenius, for by sin we are told, he entered the world. I care not which way he entered, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with him, for I have forty volumes to write, and forty thousand things to say and do, which nobody in the world will say and do fur me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better whilst these few scattered spirits remain and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support me, had I not better, Eugenius, fly for my life?'Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius. Then, by Heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of; for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garrone; and if I hear him clattering at my heels, I'll scamper away to Mount Vesuvius; from thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck. He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou. Eugenius's wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months banished;'twas a vile moment to bid adieu in: he led me to my chaise. Allons! said I; the post-boy gave a crack with his whip, off I went like a cannon, and at half a dozen bounds got into Dover. TRISTRAM S H AND Y. 385 CHAPTER II. Now, hang it! quoth I, as I looked towards the French coast, a man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad; and I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three lay in my way. But mine, indeed, is a particuliar case. So, without arguing the matter further with Tholuas o'Becket, or any one else, I skipped into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and-scudded away like the wind. Pray, Captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never overtaken by Death in this passage? Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he. What a cursed liar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already. What a brain! upside down! hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into' another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fixed and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass! good G-!I every thing turns round inmit like a thousand whirlpools. I'd give a shilling to know if I shan't write the clearer for it. Sick! sick! sick! sick! When shall we get to land, Captain? they have hearts like stones. O I am deadly sick! Reach me that thing, boy;'tis a most discomfiting sickness, I wish I was at the bottom. Madam, how is it with you? Undone! undone! un O-! undone, Sir. What! the first time? No,'tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time, Sir. Hey-day what a trampling over-head! Hollo! cabin-boy! what's the matter? The wind chopped about! S'death! then I shall meet him full in the face. What luck!'tis chopped about again, master. O the Devil chop it. Captain, quoth she, for Heaven's sake, let us get ashore. 16 386 LIFBE AND OPINIONS OF C HAPTER III. IT is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between Calais and Paris; in behalf of which, there is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you'll take. First, The road by Lisle and Arrass, which is the most about, but most interesting and instructing: The second, That by Amiens; which you may go, if you would see Chantilly: And that by Beauvais, which you may go if you will. For this reason, a great many choose to go by Beauvaiso CIHAP T E 1R IVo "Now, before I quit Calais," a traveller would say, "' it would not be amiss to give some account of it." Now, I think it very much amiss, that a man cannot go quietly. through a town and let it alone when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about, and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely, o' my conscience, for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have wrote cand galloped, or who have galloped and wrote, which is a different way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, wrote galloping, which is the way I do at present, from the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school-books hanging at his a-, and galling his beast's crupper, at every stroke, there is not a galloper of us all, who might not have gone on ambling quietly on his own ground (in case he had any) and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as well as not. For my own part, as Heaven is my judge, and to which I shall TRISTRAM S A N DY 387 ever make my last appeal, I know no more of Calias, (except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of Grand Cairo; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and as dark as pitch in the morning when I set out; and yet, by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting this and that together in another, I would lay any travelling odds, that I this molnent write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item which is worth a strangelms curiosity in the town, that you would take me for the ~ town-clerk of Calais itself; and where, Sir, would be the wonder? was not Democritus, who laughed ten times more than 1, town-clerk of Abdera? and was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, town-clerk of Ephesus? It should be penned, moreover, Sir, with so much knowledge, and good sense, and truth, and p)rcision. Nay, if you don't believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains. CHAPTER Vo CALAIS, Calatium, Calusium, Calesium. This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see no reason to call in question in this place, was once no more than a small village, belonging to one of the first Counts de Guignes, and as it boasts at present of no less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of four hundred and twenty distinct families in the bawsse sile, or suburbs, it must have grown up by little and little, I suppose, to its present size. Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial church in the whole town. I had not an opportunity of taking its exact dimensions, but it is pretty easy to -make a tolerable conjecture of'ern: for as there are fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all, it must be considerably large; and if it will not,'tis a very great pity they have not another. It is built in form of a cross?, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary; the steeple, 388 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF which has a spire to it, is placed in the middle of the church, and stixnds upon four pillars, elegant and light enough, but sufficiently strong at the same time. It is decorated with eleven altars, most of wLich are rather fine than beautiful. The great altar is a masterpiece in its kind,'tis of white marble, and, as I was told, near sixty feet high: had it been much higher, it had been as high as Mount Calvary itself; therefore, I suppose. it must be high enough in all conscience. There was nothing struck me more than the great square: though. cannot say'tis in either well paved or well built; but'tis in the heart of the town, and most of the streets, especially those in that quarter, all terminate in it. Could there have been a fountain in all Calais, which it seems there cannot, as such an object would have been a great ornament, it is not to be doubted but that the inhabitants would have had it in the very centre of this square; not that it is properly a square, because'tis forty feet longer from east to west, than from north to south; so that the French in general have more reason on their side in calling them Places than Squares, which, strictly speaking, to be sure, they are not. The town-house seems to be but a sorry building, and not to be kept in the best repair; otherwise it had been a second great ornament to this place: it answers, however, its destination, and serves very well for the reception of the magistrates, who assemble in it from time to time; so that'tis presumable, justice is regularly distributed. I had heard much of it, but there is nothing at all curious in the Courgain:'tis a distinct quarter of the town, inhabited solely by sailors and fishermen: it consists of a number of small streets, neatly built, and mostly of brick.'Tis extremely populous; but as that may be accounted for from the principles of their diet, there is nothing curious in that neither. A traveller may see it; to satisfy himself: he must not omit however taking notice of La Tour de Guet, upon any account;'tis so called from its particular destination, because in war it serves to discover and give notice of the enemies which approach the place, either by sea or land; but'tis monstrous highl, and catches the eye so continually, you cannot avoid taking notice of it if you would. It was, a sirngular disappointment to mle, that I could not have per TRISTRAM SHANDY. 389 mission to take an exact survey of the fortifications, zhich are the strongest in the world, and which, from first to last, that is, fron the time they were set about by Philip of France, Count of Bologne, to the present war, wherein many reparations Awere made, have cost (as I learnt afterwards from an engineer in Gascony) above a hundred millions of livres. It is very remarkable; that at the Tete; de Gravelenes, and where the town is naturally the weakest, they have expended the most money; so that the outworks stretch a great way into the campaign, and consequently occupy a large tract of ground. H-owever, after all that is sacid and done, it must be acknouwledged that Calais was never upon any account so considerable from itself, as from its situation, and that easy entrance which it gave our ancestors, upon all occasions, into France. It. was not without its inconveniences also; being no less troublesome to the English, in those times, than Dunkirk has been to us, in ours; so that it was deservedly looked upon as the key to both kingdoms; which no doubt is the reason that there have arisen so many contentions who should keep it: of these, the siege of Calais, or rather the blockade (for it was shut up both by land and sea) was the most memorable, as it withstood the efforts of Edward the Third a whole year, and was not terminated, at last, but by famine and extreme misery; the gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre, who first offered himself a victim for his fellow-citizens, has rank'd his name with heroes. As it will not take up above fifty pages, it would be injustice to the reader, not to give a minute account of that romantic transaction, as well as of the siege itself, in Rapin's own words: CHAPTER VI. BUT courage! gentle reader! I scorn it:'tis enough to have thee in my power; but to make use of the advantage which the fortune of the pen has now gained over thee, would be too much. No.! by that all-powerful fire which warms the visionary brain, and lights the spirits through unworldly tracts! ere I would force a helpless creature upon this hard service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for 390 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF fifty pages, which I have no rig'ht to sell thee, naked as I am, I would browse lipon thle Lountains and smile thlat the north wind brougllht nme neither rmy tent nor my supper. So put on, my brave boy 1 and make the best of thy way to Boulogne. CHAPTER VII.I BomULONE! hah I so we are all got together, debtors and sinners before EIeaveni, a jolly set of us; but I can't stay and quaff it off with you. I'm pursued myself like a hundred I)evils, and shall be overtaken before I can well change horses: for H-eaven's sake, mnake haste.'Tis for high treason, quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man that stood next him. Or else for murder, quoth the tall man. Well throwrn, Size-Ace! qupth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has been conmittingA/hI mz eherejfilze! said I, as shie tripped by from her matins, you look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious) No; it can't be that, quoth a fourth (she made a court'sy to me, I kiss'd my hand)'tis a debt, continued he.'Tis certainly for debt, quoth a fifth. I would not pay that gentleman's debts, quoth Ace, for a thousand pound. Nor Twould I, quoth Size; for six times the sum. Well thrown, Size-Ace again! quoth I; but I have no debt but the /debt of NATzURE,,and I want but patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe her. How can you be so hard-hearted, MADAM, to arrest a poor traveller going along, without molestation to any one, upon his lawful occasions? Do stop that deathlooking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare sinner, who is posting after me. He never would have followed me but for you. If it be but for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you, ]Madam. Do, dear lady. Now, in troth,'tis a great pity, quoth mine Irish host, that all flhis good- courtship should be lost; for the young gentlewoman has been after going out of hearing of it all along. TRISTRAM S HA D Y. 391 Simpleton! quoth 1. So you have nothing else in Boulogne worth seeing? By Jasus! there is the finest semicnary for the Humanitieso There cannot be a finer, quoth I. CHAPTER VIII. WHEN the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times fastelr than the vehicle he rides in, woe be to truth! and woe be to the vehicle and its tackling (let'em be made of what stuff you will) upon which he breathes forth the disappointment of his soul! As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, "the most haste the worst speed," was all the reflection I made upon the affair the first time it happen'd; the second, third, fdurth, and fifth time, I confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly blamed only the second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, without carrying my reflections further; but the event continuing to befall me from the fifth to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one exception, I then could not avoid making a national reflection of it, which I do, in these words: That something is alcways wro7ng in a _French post-chaise ulpon Trst soettiny out. Or the proposition may stand thus: A French poostillion has acwags to alight before he has got thrvee huzndred yards out of town. What's wrong now? -Diable. a rope's broke! a knot has slipt! a staple's drawn! a bolt's to whittle! a tag, a rag, a jagg, a strap, a buckle, or a buckle's tongue, want altering. Now, true as all this is, I never think myself empowered to excommunicate thereupon either the post-chaise, or its driver; nor do I take it into my head to swear by the living G-, I would rather go afoot ten thousand times, or that I will be damn'd if ever I get into another; but I take the matter coolly before me, and consider, that some tag, or rag, or jagg, or bolt, or buckle, or buckle's tongue, will ever be a-wanting, or want altering, travel where I will; so I 392 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF never chaff, but take the good and the bad as they fall in my road, and get on. Do so, my lad! said I: he had lost five minutes already in alighting, in order to get at a luncheon of black bread, which he had crammed into the chaise-pocket, and was remounted, and going leisurely on, to relish it the better. Get on my lad, said I, briskly; but in the most persuasive tone imaginable; for I jingled a four-andtwenty sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold the flat side towards him, as he look'd back. The dog grinn'd intelligence from his right ear to his left; and behind his sooty muzzle discovered such a pearly row of teeth, that sovereignty would have pawn'd her jewels for them. Just Heaven I i What masticators!What bread!and so, as he finish'd the last mouthful of it, we enter'ld the town of Montreuil. CHAPTER IX. TUEBPE is not a town in all France which, in my opinion, looks better in the map than Montreuil. I own it does not look so well in the book of post-roads; but when you come to see it, to be sure it looks most pitifully. There is one thing, however, in it at present very handsome; and that is, the inn-keeper's daughter. She has been eighteen months at Amiens, and six at Paris, in going through her classes; so knits, and sews, and dances, and does the little coquetries very well. A slut! in running them over within these five, minutes that I have stood looking at her, she has let fall at least a dozen loops in a white thread stocking. Yes, yes-I see, you cunning gipsy!'tis long and taper, you need not put it to your knee; and that'tis your own, and fits you exactly. That nature should have told this creature a word about a statue's thumb! But as this sample is worth all their thumbs,-besides, I have her thumbs and fingers in at the bargain, if they can be any guide to me, and as Janatone withal (for that is her name) stands so well T R IST R A M S H A N D. 393 for a drawing, may I never draw more; or rather, may I draw like a draught-horse, by main strength, all the days of my life, if I do not draw her in all her proportions, and with as determin'd a pencil, as if I had her in the wettest drapery. But your'Worships choose rather that I give you the length, breadth, and. perpendicular height of the great parish-church, or a drawing of the facade of the abbey of St. Austreberte, which has been transported from Artois hither: every thing is just I suppose as the masons and carpenters left them;- and if the belief in Christ continues so long, will be so these fifty years to come; so your Worships and Reverences may all measure them at your leasures; but he who measures thee, Janatone, must do it now; thou carriest the principles of change within thy frame; and, considering the changes of a transitory life, I would not answer for thee a moment; ere twice twelve months are passed and gone, thou mayest grow out like a pumpkin, and lose thy shapes; or thou mayest go off like a, flower, and lose thy beauty-nay, thou mayest go off like a hussy, and lose thyself. I would not answer for my aunt Dinah, was she alive;'faith, scarce for her picture, were it but painted by Reynolds. But if I go on with my drawing, after naming that son of Apollo, I'll be shot. So you must e'en be content with the original; which, if the evening is fine in passing through Montreuil, you will see at your chaise-door, as you change horses; but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I have, you had better stop. She has a little of the devote; but that, sir, is a terce to a nine in your favor. L- help me! I could not count a single point: so had been piqued, and re-piqued, and capotted to the devil. CHAPTER X. ALL which being considered, and that death moreover might be much nearer me than I imagined, I wish I was at Abbeville, quoth I, were it only -to see how they card and spin: so off we set. l,/. 394 LIFE AN D OPINIONS OF de ntffniseuil df Acl2.iij)of'Wi -st e e-J et derni, de A7aconont a' Bercnay - poste, de Bercnacy ac No.cviuon - poste, de oATouvioz Ci AAbbeville - ooste, -but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed. C HAPTE R XI. WHA.T a vast advantage is travelling! only it heats one; bnt there is a remedy for that, which yo-u imay pick out of the next chapter. CHAPTER XII. WAS I in a condition to stipulate with death, as I am this moment with my apothecary, how and where I will take his clyster, I should certainly declare against submitting to it before my -friends; and therefore I never seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe, which generally takes up and torments my thoughts as much as tle catastrophe itself, but I constantly draw the curtain across it with this wish, That the Disposer of all things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my own house, but rather in somne decent inn; at home I know it; the concern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows and smoothing my pillow, which the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify my soul, that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not aware of; but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid me wiith an undisturbed, but punctual attention; but mark: This inn should not be the ini at Abbeville: if there vwas not another in the universe, I would strike that inn out ef the capitulation: so f Vide Book of French Post-Roads, page 36, edition of 1762. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 395 Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the morning. Yes, byfour, sir; or, by Genevieve, I'll raise a clatter in the house sliall wake the dead. C HAP TER X III. "Mi ace them lice unto a wheel," is a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned know, against the grand tour, and that restless spirit for making it, which David prophetically foresaw would haunt the children of men in the latter days; and, therefore, as thinketh the great Bishop Hall,'tis one of the severest imprecations which David ever uttered against the enemies of the Lordl: and, as if he had said, 11 I wish them no worse luck than always to be rolling about." So much motion, continues he (for he was very corpulent) is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of Heaven, Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy; and that to stand still, or to get on but slowly, is death and the devil. Hollo! ho! the whole world's asleep! bring out the horses-grease the wheels-tie on the mail; and drive a nail into that moulding, I'll not lose a moment. Now, the wheel we are talking of, and zckher'einto (but not wzhereonto, for that would make an Ixion's wheel of it) he curseth his enemies, according to the bishop's habit of body, should certainly be a post-chaise wheel, whether they were set up in Palestine at that time or not; and my wheel, for the contrary reasons, must as certainly be a cart-wheel, groaning round its revolution once in an age; and of which sort, were I to turn commentator, I should make no scruple to affirm, they had great store in that hilly country. I love. the Pythagoreans (much more than ever I dare tell my dear Jenny) for their "xoptcyov avro re Ewtyarog erg ro /calrs ~ZoaoGerv."' [their] "their getting out of the body, in order' to think woell." No man thinks right whilst he is in it; blinded, as he must be, with his congenial humors, and drawn differently aside, as the bishop and myself have been, with too lax or too tense a fibre; REASON is, half 396 LIFE AN D OPINIONS OF of it, SENSE; and the measure of IHeaven itself is but the measure of our present appetites and connections. But which of the two, in the present case, do you think to be mostly in that wrong? You, certainly, quoth she, to disturb a whole family so early. CHAPTER XIV. BUT she did not know I was under a vow not to shave my beard till I got to Paris; yet I hate to make mysteries of nothing;'tis the cold cautiousness of one of those little souls from which Lessius (lib. 13. de Xloribus )Divinis, cap. 24.) Lath made his estimate, wherein he setteth forth, That one Dutch mile, cubically multiplied, will allow ro.m enough, and to spare, for eight hundred thousand millions, which he supposes to be a. great numlber of souls (counting from the time of Adam), as can possibly be damn'd to the end of the world. From what he has made this second estimate, unless from the parental goodness of God, I don't know: I am much more at a loss what could be in Franciscus Ribbera's head who pretends that no less a space than one of two hundred Italian miles multiplied into itself will be sufficient to hold the like number, he certainly must have gone upon some of the old Roman souls, of which he had read, without reflecting how much, by a gradual and most tabid decline in a course of eighteen hundred years, they must unavoidably have shrunk so as to have come, when he wrote, almost to nothing. In Lessius's time, who seems the cooler man, they were as little as can be imagined. We find them less now. And next winter We shall find them less again; so that, if we go on from little to less, and from less to nothing, I hestitate not one moment to affirm, that in half a century, at this rate, we shall have no souls at all; which being the period, beyond which I doubt likewi::e of the existence of the Christian faith,'twill be one advantage, that both of them will be exactly worn out together. Blessed Jupiter! and blessed every other heathen god and goddess! TRISXRAM SH ANDY. 397 for now ye will come into play again, and with Priapus at your tails. What jovial times! but where am I? and into what a delicious riot of things am I rushing! I —I, who must be cut short in the midst of my days, and taste no more of'em than what I borrow from my imagination. Peace to thee, generous fool I and let me go on. CHAPTER XV. "So hating, I say, to make mysteries of nothing," I intrusted it with the post-boy, as soon as ever I got off the stones: he gave a crack with his whip to balance the compliment.: and with the thillhorse trotting, and a sort of an up and a down of the other, we danced it along to Ailly an Clochers, famed in clays of yore for the finest chimes in the world; but we danced through it without music, the chimes being greatly out of order, (as in truth they were through all France.) And so making all possible speed from Ailly au Clochers, I got to Hixcourt: from Hixcourt, I got to Perquignay: and from Perquignay I got to Amiens; concerning which town I have nothing to inform you, but what I have informed you once before, and that was, that Janatone went there to school. CHAPTER XVI. IN the whole catalogue of those whiffling vexations which come puffing across a man's canvas, there is not one of a more teasing or tormenting nature than this particular one which I am going to describe, and for which (unless you travel with an acvance-courie', which numbers do, in order to prevent it) there is no help; and it is this: That be you in ever so kindly a propensity to sleep, though you are passing perhaps through the finest country, upon the best roads, p.ud in the easiest carriage for doing it in the world; nay, were you 398 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF sure you could sleep fifty miles straight forwards, without once opening your eyes; nay, what is more, was you as demonstratively -atisfied as you can be of any truth in Euclid, that you should upon all accounts be full as well asleep as awake, nay, perhaps better; yet thle incessant returns of paying for the horses at every stage, with the necessity thereupon of putting your hand into your pocket, and counting out from thence three livres fifteen sous (sous by sous) puts and end to so much of the project, that you cannot execute above. six miles of it (or, supposing it is a post and an half, that is but nine), were it to save your soul from destruction. I'll be even with'em, quoth I; for I'll put the precise sum into a piece of paper, and hold it ready in my hand all the way: "Now, I shall have nothing to do," said I (composing myself to rest), "but to drop this gently into the post-boy's hat, and not say a word,v" Then there wants two sous more to drink, or there is a twelve sons piece, of Louis XIV., which will not pass; or a livre and some old liards to be brought over from the last stage, which Monsieur bad forgot, which altercations (as a man cannot dispute very well asleep) rouse him: still is sweet sleep retrievable; and still might the flesh weigh down the spirit, and recover itself of these blows; but then, by Heaven! you have paid but a single post, whereas'tis a post and a half; and this obliges you to pull out your book of post-roads, the print of which is so very small, it forces you to open your eyes, whether you will or no: then Monsieur le, Cure offers you a pinch of snuff, or a poor soldier shows you his leg, or a shaveling his box, or the priestess of the cistern will water your wheels; (they do not want it; but she swears by her /priesthool (throwing it back) that they do); then you have all these points to argue, or consider over in your mind; in doing of which, the rational powers get so thoroughly awakened, you may get them to sleep again as you can. It was entirely owing to one of these misfortunes, or I had pass'd clean by the stables of Chantilly. But the postillion first affirming, and then persisting in it to my face, that there was no mark upon the two sous piece, I open'd my eyes to be convinced; and seeing the mark upon it as plain as my nose, I leap'd out of the chaise in a passion, and so saw every thing at Chantilly in spite. I tried it but for three posts and a half, but believe'tis the principle in the world T R I STRA M S HAND Y. 399 to travel speedily upon; for as few objects look very inviting in that mood, you hIave little or nothing to stop you; by which means it was that I passed through St. Dennis, without turning my head so much as on the side towards the Abbey. richness of their treasdry stuff and nonsense! Bating their jewels, which are all false, I would not give three sons for any one thing in it, but Jaidas's lantern; nor for that neither, only, as it grows dark, it might be of use. C I AP TE R X VII. CrAcK, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack; so this is Paris! quoth I (continuing in the same imood), and this is Paris! humph I Paris! cried I, repeating the name the third time. The first, the finest, the most brilliant The streets, however, are nasty. But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells. Crack, crack, crack, crack; what a fuss thou makest! as if it concerned the good people to be informed, that a man with a pale face and clad in black, had the honor to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawmny yellow jerkin, turned up with red calainanco! Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. I wish thy whipBut'tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack-crack on. Ha! and no one gives the wall! but in the School of Urbanity herself, if the walls are besh-t —how can you do otherwise? And prithee, when do they light the lamps? TWhat! never in the summer months! Ho!'tis the time of salads. 0 rare! salad and soup, soup and salad, salad and soup, e6ncore-'Tis too much for sinners. Now I can bear the barbarity of it. How can that unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don't you see, friend, the streets are so villainously narrow, that there is not room in all Paris to turn a wheelbarrow! In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have been amiss if they had been left a thought wider; nay, were it only so much in every single street, 400 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF as that a man might know (was it only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten cooks' shops! and twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes' driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great merry-making with the barbers by joint consent, had said, Come, let us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating; they are all gou'rmands; we shall rank high; their god is their belly; their cooks must be gentlemen: and, forasmuch as the periqwig mna7eth the man, and the periwig-maaker maketh the periwig, ergo, would the barbers say, we shall rank higher still, we shall be above you all, we shall be Capitouls* at least, yardi!'we shall all wear swordcs: And so, one could swear (that is by candle-light, but there is no depending upon it) they continue to do to this day. C APTER XVII 1. THE French are certainly misunderstood: but whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by us; or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not understanding their language always so critically as to know " what they would be at," I shall not decide; but'tis evident to me, when they affirm, That they woho have seen Paris, have seen everg/ything,"' they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light. As for candle-light, I give it up; I have said before, there was no depending upon it; and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and shades are too sharp, or the tints confounded, or there is neither beauty nor keeping, &c..... for that's not truth; but it is an uncertain light in this respect, that in all the five hundred grand 4 Chief Magistrate in Toulouse &c. TRISTRAM SHAN DY. 401 hotels, which they number up to you in Paris; and the five hundred good things, at a modest computation (for'tis only allowing one good thing to a hotel) which by candle-light are best to be seer, felt, heard and unde:rstood (which by the bye, is a quotation form Lilly) the devil a one of us, out of fifty, can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them. This is no part of the French computation;'tis simply this: — That by the last survey, taken in the year 1716, since which time there have been considerable augmentations, Paris doth contain nine hundred steets, (eiz.) In the quarter called the City, there are fifty-three streets; In St. James of the shambles, fifty-five streets; In St. Oportune, thirty-four streets; In the quarter of the Louvre, twenty-five streets; In the Palace Royal,. or St. Honorius, forty-nine streets; In Mtont Martyr, forty-one streets; In St. Eustace, twenty-nine streets; In the Halles, twenty-seven streets; In St. Dennis, fifty-five streets; In St. Martin, fifty-four streets; In St. Paul, or the AMortellerie, twenty-seven streets; The Greve, thirty-eight streets; In St. Avoy, or the Verrerie, nineteen streets; In the M arias, or the Temple, fity-two streets; In St. Anthony, sixty-eight streets; In the Place Maubert, eighty-one streets; In St. Bennet, sixty streets; In St. Andrew de Arcs, fifty-one streets; In the quarter of the Luxembourg, sixty-two streets; And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets; into any of which you may walk; and that when you have seen them, with all that belongs to them, fairly by day-light, their gates, their bridges, their squares, their statues —- and have crusaded it, moreover, through all their parish-churches, by no means omitting St. Roche and Sulpice; - - and to crown all, have taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may see, either with or without the statues and pictures, just as you choose. — Then you have seen 4-02 LIFE AND OPINIONS. OF -but'tis what no one neecleth to tell you, for you will read of it yourself, upon the portico of the Louvre, in these words: — * Earth no such Folks! no Folks e'er such a town As Paris is! sing Derry, derry, down. The French have a gay way of treating every thing that is Great; and that is all can be said upon it. CHIAPTE3R XIX. IN mentioning the word gay (as in the close of the last chapter) it puts one (i. e. an author) in mind of the word spleen; especially if he has any thing to say upon it. Not that by any analysis, or that from. any table of interest or genealogy, there appears much more ground of alliance betwixt them, than betwixt light and darkness, or any two of the most unfriendly opposites in nature; only'tis an under-craft of authors to keep up a good understanding amongst words, as politicians do amongst men, not knowing how near they may be under a necessity of placing them to- each other; which point being now gain'd, and that I may place mine exactly to my mind, I write it down here, SPLEENo This, upon leaving Chantilly, I declared to be the best principle in the world to travel speedily upon; but I gave it only as a matter of opinion. I still continue in the same sentiments; only I had not then experience enough of its working to add this, that though you do get on at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same time; for which reason, I here quit it entirely, and for ever; and'tis heartily at any one's service: it has spoiled me the diges* Non orbis genterm, non urbem gens habet ullam ulla paremo T R ISTRAM SAN D Y 403 tion of a good supper, and brought on a bilious diarrhbca, which has brought me back again to my first principle on which I set out; and with which I shall now scamper it away to the banks of the Garonne. No; I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people, their genius, their manners, their customs, their laws, their religion, their government, their manufactures, their commerce, their finances, with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them; qualified as I may be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that time making these things the entire subject of my inquiries and reflections. Still, still I must away, the roads are paved, the posts are short, the days are long,'tis no more than noon, I shall be at Fontainbleau before the King. Was he going there? Not that I know. CHAPTER XX. ~Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in France as we do in England; whereas we get on much faster, conzsidertis cozsidelrandis; thereby always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them, and then consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them,'tis a wonder they get on at all. Their suffering is most unchristian; and'tis evident thereupon to me, that a French post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words***** > and >**** in which there is as much sustenance as if you gave them a peck of corn. Now as these words cost nothing, I long, from my soul, to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question, they must be told him plainly, and with.the most distinct articulation, or it will answer no end; and yet to do it in that plain way, though their Reverences may laugh.at it in the bed-chamber, fullf well I wot, they will abuse it in -the parlor; for which cause, I have been volvTing and revolvingo in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device, or facette contrivance, I might so modulate them, that 404 LIFE- AND OPINIONS OF whilst I satisfy that ear which the reader chooses to lend me, I might not dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself. My ink burns my finger to try; and when I have,'twill have a worse consequence, it will burn (I fear) my paper. 3No; I dare not. But if you wish to know how the Abbess of Andouillets and a novice of her convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all imaginable success), I'll tell you without the least scruple. CHAPTER XXI. TEE Abbess of Andouillets, which, if you look into the large set of provincial maps now published at. Paris, you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an anechyosis, or stiff joint, (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins) and having tried every remedy: First, prayers and thanksgivings; then invocations to all the saints in heaven, promiscuously; then particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before her; then touching it with all the relics of the convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youth; then wrapping it up in her veil when she went to bed; then cross-wise her rosary; then bringing in to her aid the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals; then treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations; then with poultices and marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus HIenricus, white lilies, and fenugreek; then taking the woods, I mean the smoke of'em, holding her scapulary across the lap; then decoctions of wild chicory, water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily, and cochlearia; and nothing all this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot baths of Bourbon: so.having first obtained leave of the visitor-general to take care of her existence, she ordered all to be got ready for her journey. A novice of the convent, of about seventeen, w1ho had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it constantly into the Abbess's cast poultices, &c., had gained such an interest, that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have T R ISTAM S HANDY 405 been set up for ever by the hot baths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice, was elected as the companion of the journey. An old calash, belonging to the Abbess, lined with green frieze, was ordered to be drawn out into the sun. The gardener of the convent, being chosen muleteer, led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the rump-ends of their tails; whilst a couple of laysisters were busied, the one in darning the lining, and the other in sewing on the shreds of yellow binding, which the teeth of time had unravelled; the under-gardener dressed the muleteer's hat in hot wine-lees; and a tailor sat musically at it, in a shed over-against the convent, in assorting four dozen of bells for the harness, whistling to each bell as he tied it on with a thong. The carpenter and the smith of Andouillets held a council of wheels; and by seven, the morning after, all look'd spruce, and was ready at the gate of the convent for the hot baths of Bourbon. Two rows of the unfortunate stood ready there an hour before. The Abbess of Andouillets, supported by Margarita the novice, advanced slowly to the calash, both clad in white, with their black rosaries hanging at their breasts. There was a simple solemnity in the contrast; they entered the calash; the nuns in the same uniform, sweet emblem of innocence, each occupied a window, and as the Abbess and MBargarita look'd up, each (the sciatical poor nun excepted) —each stream'd out the end of her veil in the air, then kiss'd the lily hand which let it go. The good Abbess and Margarita laid their hands saint-wise upon their breasts, look'd up to heaven, then to them, and look'd "God bless you, dear sisters." I declare I am interested in this story, and wish I had been there. The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer, was a little, hearty, broad-set, good-natured, chattering, toping kind of a fellow, who troubled his head very little with the howos and wolens of life; so had mortgaged a month of his conventicle wages in a borrachio, or leathern cask of wine, which he had disposed behind the calash, with a large russet-colored riding-coat over it to guard it from the sun; and as the weather was hot, and he not a niggard of his labors Walking ten times more then he rode, he found more occasions than those of nature, to fall back to the rear of his carriage; till by frequent coming and going it had so happen'd, that all his wine had 406 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF leak'd out at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one half of the journey was finish'd. Man is a creature born to habitudes. The day had been sultry, the evening was delicious, the wine was generous, the IBurgundian hill on which it grew was steep, a little tempting bush, over the door of a cool cottage, at the foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the passions, a gentle air rustled distinctly through the leaves,' Conle, come, thirsty muleteer, come in." The muleteer was a son of Adam: I need not say one word more. He gave the m`ules, each of'em, a sound lash, and looking in the Abbess's and Margarita's faces (as he did it), as much as to say, " here I am, he gave a second good- crack, as much as to say to his mule?,'get on;" so slinking behind, he enter'd the little inn at the foot of the hill. The muleteer, as I told you, was a little joyous, chirping fellow, wvho thought not of to-morrow, nor of what had gone before, or what was to follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little chitchat along with it; so entering into a long conversation as how. he was chief gardener to the convent of Andouillets, &c., rc., and out of friendship for the Abbess and Mademoiselle Margarita, who was only in her noviciate, lhe had come along with them from the confines of Savoy, &c., &c., and as how she had got a white swelling by her devotions; and what a nation of herbs lie had procured to mollify her humnors, &c., &c., and that if'the waters of Bourbon did not mend that leg, she might as well be lame of both, &c., &c., &C. He so contrived his story, as absolutely to forget the heroine of it, and with her the little novice; and what was a more ticklish point to be forgot than both, the two mules; who beiing creatures that take advantage of the world, inasmuch as their parents took it of them, and they not being in a condition to return the obligation dowzecra7rd (as men, and women, and beasts are), they do it side-ways, and long-ways, and back-ways, and up ]fill, nd down hill, and which way they cain. Philosophers, with all their ethics, have never considered this rightly; hoAw should tlhe poor mulleteer, th-len in his cups, consider it at all? He did not in the least;'tis time we do. Let us leave himn then in the vortex of his element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal mIlen, and for a moment let us look after the nmules, the Abbess, and Margarita. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 407 By virtue of the muleteer's two last strokes, the mules had gone quietly on, following their own consciences up the hill, till they had conquered about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty old devil, at the turn of an angle, giving a side-glance and no muleteer behind them. By my fig! said she, swearing, I'll go no further. And if I do, replied the other, they shall make a drum of my hide. And so, with one consent, they stopped thus: CHAPTER XXII. GET on with you, said the Abbess. Wh —-— ysh, ysh, ysh, cried Margarita. Sh —-a, shu-u, shu-u, sh —aw, shaw'd the Abbess. Whu —v-w, whew-w-w, whuv'd Margarita, pursing up her sweet lips betwixt a hoot and a whistle. Thump, thump, thump, obstreperated the Abbess of Andouillets, with the end of her gold-headed cane against the bottom of the calash. The old mule let a fCHAPTER XXIII. WE are ruined and undone, my child, said the Abbess to Margarita; we shall be here all night: we shall be plundered, we shall be ravished! We shall be ravished, said Margarita, as sure as a gun. Sancta fariac! cried the Abbess (forgetting the 0!) why was I governed by this wicked stiff joint' why did I leave the convent of Andonillets? and why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go unpolluted to her tomb? O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word 408 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF servant7, why was I not content to put it here, or there? anywhere, rather than be in this sti'ait? Strait! said the Abbess. Strait! said the novice; for terror had struck their understandings, the one knew not what she said, the other what she answered. O my virginity! virginity! cried the Abbess. -inity! inity! said the novice, sobbing. C HAP TE R XXIV. MY dear mother, quoth the novice, coming a little to herself, there are two certain words, which I have been told will force any horse, or ass, or mule, to go up a hill whether he will or not; be he ever so obstinate or ill-willed, the moment he hears them uttered, he obeys. They are words of magic! cried the abbess, in the utmost horror. No, replied Margarita, calmly, but they are words sinful. What are they? quoth the Abbess, interrupting her. They are sinfful in the first degree, answered Margarita; they are mortal; and if we are ravished and die unabsolved of them, we shall both- But you may pronounce them to me, quoth the Abbess of Andouillets. They cannot, my dear mother, said the novice, be pronounced at all; they will make all the'blood in one's body fly up into one's face. But you may whisper them in my ear, quoth the Abbess. I-eaven! hadst thou no guardian angel to delegate to the inn at the bottom of the hill? Was there no generous and friendly spirit unemployed? no agent in nature, by some monitory shivering creeping along the artery which led to his heart, to rouse the muleteer from his banquet.? no sweet minstrelsy to bring back the fair idea of the Abbess and Margarita, with their black rosaries? Rouse! rouse! but'tis too late; the horrid words are pronounced this moment, and how to tell them, Ye, who can speak of every thing existing with unpolluted lips, instruct me, guide me! TRISTRA4r SITANDY. 409 CHAPTER XXV. ALL sins whatever, quoth the Abbess, turning casuist in the distress they wTere under, are held by the confessor of our convent to be either mortal or venial: there is no further division. iow, a venial sin being the slightest and least of all sins, being halved, by taking either only the half of it, and leaving the rest, or, by taking it all, and amicably halving it betwixt yourself and anlother person, in course becomes diluted into no sin at all. Now I see no sin in saying bou, bot, boxt, bou, bou, a hundred times together; nor is there any turpitude in pronouncing the syllable ger, gel-, le?, ger), ger, weere it from our matins to our vespers. Therefore, my dear daughter, continued the Abbess of Anclouillets, I will say box, and thou shalt say ger; and then alternately, as there is no more sill in foxl than in box; thou shalt say fou, and I will come in (like fa,, sol, la, re, mi, ut, at our complines) with ter: and accordingly the Abbess, giving the pitch tone, set off thus: Abbess, B ou —bo-u —bou — Ml[argarita, — ger, —ger, —ger. Margarita, Fou —fou —fou — Abbess, — ter, — ter, — ter. The two mules acknowledged the notes by a mutual lash of their tails; but it went no further.'Twill answer by and by, said the novice. Abbess, B ou-bou-bou-bou-boi-bou]argarita, — ger, ger, ger, ger, ger, ger. Quicker still, cried Margarita. Fou, fou, foul, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fon, fou. Quicker still, cried Margarita. Bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou. Quicker still. God preserve me, said the Abbess. They do not understand us, cried Margarita. But the devil does, said the Abbess of Andouillets. 18Q 410 L IFE A D OPINION S O F CH A P T ER XXVI. WhAT a track of country have I run! how many degr'ees nearer to the warim sun am I advanced, and how many fair and goodly cities have I seen, during the timne you have been reading and reflecting, Madam, upon this story! There's Fontainblean, and Sens, andc Joigny, and Auxerre, and Dijon the capital of Burgundy, and Challon, and Macon the capital of the Mlaconese, and a score more upon the road to Lyons; and now I have run them over, I night as well talk to you of so many market towns in the moon, as tell yeo one word about theml: it will be this chapter at the least, if not both this and the next entirely lost, do what I will. Why,'tis a strange stor.y! Tristram. Alas! 3Madam, had it been upon some melancholy lecture of the cross, the peace of meekness, or the contentment of resignation, I had not been incommoded; or had I thought of writing it upokl the purer abstractions of the soul, and that the food of wisdom, and holiness, and contemplation, upon which the spirit of man (when separateld firom the body) is to subsist for ever, you would have come with a better appetite fioml it. I wish I never had wrote it: but as I never blot any thing onut let us use some honest means to get it out of our heads directly. Pray reach me my fool's cap: I fear you sit upon it, madam;'tis under the cushion: I'll put it on. Bless me! you have had it upon your head this half-hour. There then let it stay, with aFa-ra diddle di and a fa-ri diddle d and a high-dum, —dye-dum fiddle —-dunm-c. And now, madam, we may venture, I hope, a little to go on...~~~~~~~~~~~ T R I STRAM SIIA N DY. 411 C.H AP T ER P XXV II. ALL you need say of Fontainbleau (in case you are asked), is, that it stands about forty miles (south soaethinzg) from Paris, in the middle of a large forest: that there is something great in it: that the King goes there once every two or three years, with his whole court, for the pleasure of the chase; and that, during that carnival of sporting, an English gentleman of fashion (you need not forget yourself) may be accommodated writh a nlag: or two, to partake of the sport, taking care only not to out-gallop the King. Though there are two reasons vwhy you need not talk loud of this to every one. First, IBecause'twnill make the said nags the harder to be got; and, Secondly,'Tis not a word of it true. A lions! As for Sens, you may dispatch it in a word; "'Tis an archiepiscopal see.' For Joigny, the less, I think, one says of it, the better. But for zAuxerre, I could:go on for ever: for in my g'rand tour through Europe, in which, after all, my father (not caring to trust me with;l any one) attended me himself, with my uncle Toby, and Trinm, and Obadiahb, and indeed most of the family, except my mother, who being taken up with a project of knitting my father a pair of largo eworsted breeches (the thing is common sense), and she not calring to be put out of her way, she stayed at home, at Shlandy-hall, to keep thin-gs r igtlt:during the expedition; in which, I say, my father stopping us two days at Auxerre, and his researches being ever of such:a nature, that they would have found fruit even in a, deseort, he has left me enough to say upon Auxerre. In short, wliereever my father went; but'twas mlore remarkably so in this journey th1rough France and Italy, than in any other stages of his life; his road seemed to lie so much on one side of that, wherein all other tsavellers have gone before himl, he saw Kings, and Courts, and sills of all colors, in such strange lig'hts; and his remarks, and reasonings upon the characters, the manners, and customs of the countries we pass'd over, were so opposite to those of all other mortal 412 LIFE:ANlD OPINIONS OF men, particularly those of my uncle Toby and Trim (to say nothing of myself;) and to crown all, the occurrences and scrapes which we were perpetually meeting and getting into, in consequence of his systems and opiniatry, they were of so odd, so mix'd and tragi-comical a contexture, that the whole put together, it appears of so different a shade and tint from any tour in Europe, which was ever executed, that I will venture to pronounce, the fault must be mine and mine only, if it be not read by all travellers and travel-readers, till travelling is no more, or, which comes to the same point, till the world, finally, takes it into its head to stand still. But this rich bale is not to be opened now, except a small thread or two of it, merely to unravel the mystery of my father's stay at AlLxerre. As I have mentioned it,'tis too slight to be kept suspended; and when'tis wove in, there is an end of it. We'll go, brother Toby, said my father, whilst dinner is coddling, to the abbey of St. Germain, if it be only to see these bodies, of which AMonsieur Sequier has given such a recommendation. I'll go see any body, quoth my uncle Toby; for he was all compliance through every step of the journey. Defend me! said my father, they are all mummies. Then one need not shave, quoth my uncle Toby. Shave! no, cried my father,'twill be more like relations to go with our beards on. So out we sallied, the corporal lending his master his arm, and bringing up the rear, to the abbey of St. Germatn. Every thing is very fine, and very rich, and very superb, and very magnineent, said my father, addressing himself to the sacristan, wh-o was a younger brother of the order of Benedictines; but our curiosity had led us to see the bodies, of which Monsieur Sequier has given the world so exact a description. The sacristan made a bow, and lighting a torch first, which he had always in the vestry ready for the purpose, he led us into the tomb of St. Heribald. This, said the sacristan, laying his hand upon the tomb, was a renown'd prince of the house of Bavaria, who, under the successive reigns of Charlemagne, Louis le Debonnair, and Chlarles the Bald, bore a great sway in the government, and had a principal hand in bringing' every thing into order and discipline. Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field as in the cabi TRISTRAM SH AN DY, 413 net; I dare say he has been a gallant soldier. He was a moLk, said the sacristan. AMy uncle Toby and Trim sought comfort in each other's faces, but found it not. MIy father clapp'd both his hands upon his cod-piece, which was a way he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for thiough he hated a monk, and tile very smell of' a monk, worse than all the Devils in hell, yet, the shot hitting my uncle Toby and Trim so much harder than him,'twas a relative triumph, and put him into the gayest humor in the world. And pray what do you call this gentleman? quoth my father, rather sportingly. This tomb, said the young Benedictine, looking downwards, contains the bones of St. Maxima, who came from Ravenna on purpose to touch the bodyOf St. MIaximus, said my father, popping in with his saint before him, they were two of the greatest saints in the whole martyrology, added my father. Excuse me, said the sacristan,'twas to touch the bones of St. Germain, the builder of the abbey. Anld what did she get by it? said my uncle Toby. What does any woman get by it? said my father. fcartyrdom, replied the young Benedictine, making a bow down the ground, and uttering the word with so humlble but decisive a cadence, it disarmed my father for a moment.'Tis supposed, continued the Benedictine, that St. Maxima has lain in this tomb four hundred years, and two hundred before her canonization.'Tis but a slow rise, brother Toby, quoth my father, in this self-same army of martyrs. A desperate slow one, an' please your HIonor, said Trimn, unless one could purchase. I should rather sell out entirely, quoth my uncle Toby. I am pretty much of your opinion, brother Toby, said my father. Poor St. Maxima! said my uncle Toby, low to himself, as we turn'd from the tomb. She was one of the fairest and most beautiful ladies either of Italy or France, continued the sacristan. But who the deluce has got lain down here, beside her? quoth my father, pointing with his cane to a large tomb as we walked on. It is Saint Optat, Sir, ans-wered the sacristan. And properly is Saint Optat placed! said my father; and what is Saint Optat's story? continued he. Saint Optat, replied the sacristan, was a bishop. I thought so; by IIeaven! cried my father, interrupting him; Saint Optat! bow should Saint Opt-at fail! So snatching out his pocket 414 LIF E AND OPINIONS OF book, and the young Benedictine holding him the torch as he wrote, he set it down as a new prop to his system of Christian names: and I will be bold to say, so disinterested was he in the search of truth, that, had he found a treasure in Saint Optat's tomb, it would not have made him half so rich;'twas as successful a short visit as ever was paid to the dead; and so highly was his fancy pleased with all that had passed in it, that he determined at once to stay another day in Auxerre. I'll see the rest of these good gentry:to-morrow, said my father, as we crossed over the square. And while you are paying that visit, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby, the corporal and I will mount the ramparts. CHAPTER XXVIII. Now this is in the most puzzled skein of all; for in this last chapter, as far as it has help'd me through Auxerre, I have been getting forwards in two different journeys together, and with the same dash of the pen; for I have got entirely out of Auxerre in this journey which I am writing now, and I am got half-way out of Auxerre in that which I shall write hereafter. There is but a certain degree of perfection in every thing; and, by pushing at something beyond that I llave brought myself into such a situation, as no traveller ever stood before me; for I am this moment walking across the inarletplace of Auxerre, with my father and my uncle Toby, in our way back to dinner; and I am this moment also entering Lyonil, w itl myay post-chaise broke into a thousand pieces: and I am, iImo'reover, this -moment in a handsome pavilion, built by Pringello,0* upon the banlks of the Garonne, which IMons. Sligniac has lent me, and wthere — I now sit rhapsodizing all these affairs. Let me collect myself, and pursue my journey. * The famous'Don Pringello, the celebrated Spanish architect, of whom my cousin Anthony has made such honorable mention, in a scholium to the tale inscrlibed to his name, Vid. p. 129, small edit. TRXSTRA sM SH AD AND 4 15 CHAP TER X XIX. I AMB glad of it said I, settling the account with myself, as I walk'd into Lyons, my chaise being all laid higgledy-piggledy with my bagr gage in a cart, whicih was moving slowly beforei me. I aim he.a1rtily glad, said I, that'tis all broke to pieces; for now I can go dilectly by water to Avignon, which will carry me on a hundred and twenty miles of my journey, mid not cost me seven iivres; alnd friom thence, continued I, bringing' forwards the accounts, I can hbire a couple of mulles, or asses, if Ilike (for nobody knows mue) and cross tle plains of Languedoc for almost nothing: I shall gain four hundred lives by the misfortune clear into my purse; and pleasure-! worth —worth double the money, by it.. With what velocity, contlindue I, clapping my two hands together, shall I fly down thle rapid PRhone, with the Vivares on my right hand, and Dauphiny on my left, SGcl'Ce seeing the ancient cities of Vienne, Valence, and Vivieres! What a flame will it rekindle in the lamp, to sa 9tch a blushing:grape frnom tle Hermitage and Cot; Roti, as I slhoot by the foot of them! and what a fiesh spring in the blood! to behold upon the banks, advancing and retiring, the castles of romance, whence courteous knights have whilom rescued the distress'd; and see, vertiginous, the rocks, the mountains, the cataracts, and all the hurry vwhich Nature is in with all her great works about her! As I went on thus, methought nmy chaise, the wreck of which look'd stately enough at the first, insensibly grew less and less in its size; the freshness of the painting was no rnore, the gilding lost its lustre, and the whole affair appeared so poor in my eyes! so sorry! so contemptible! and, in a word, so much wrorse than the Abbess of Andouillet's itself, that I was just opening nmy mouth to give it to the Devil, when a pert, vamping chaise-undertaker, stelpping nimbly across the street., demanded if MIonsieur would have his chaise refitted. No, no, said I shaking my head sideways. Would lMonsieur.choose to sell it? rejoined the undertaker. With all my soul, said I; the iron-work is worth forty livres, and the glasses worth forty more, and the leather you may take to live on. What a mine of wealth, quoth I, as lie counted me the money, has 416 L IFE AND OPINIONS OF this post-chaise brought me in! And this is my usual method of book-keeping, at least with tile disasters of life, making a penny of every one of'em as theyhappen to me. Do, my dear Jenny, tell the world for me how I behlaved under one, the rmost oppressive of its kind, whicl could beffll me, as a man, proud as he ought to be of his manhood.'Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my garters in my hand, reflecting upon vlwhat had not passed.'Tis enough, Tristram, and I nan satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in mny er, a * a: $ a * a * * * -any other man would have sunk down to the centre. Everything is good for something, quoth I. I'll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat's whey, and I'll gain seven years longer life for the accident. For which reason I think myself inexcusable for blaming Fortune so often as I hsave done, for pelting me all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call'd her, with so many small evils. Surely, if I have any cause to be angry with her,'tis that she has not sent me great ones: a score of good cursed, bouncing losses, would have been as good as a pension Lo me. One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wish: I would not be at the plague of paying land tax for a larger. CHAPTER XXXo To those who call vexations, vexations, as knowing what they are, there could not be a greater, than to be the best part of a day at Lyons, the most opulent and flourishing city in France, enriched with the most fragments of antiquity, and not be able to see it. To be witheld upon any account, must be a vexation; but to be withheld by a vexation, must certainly be what philosophy justly calls VEXATIO~ upon'VEXATION. R ISTRAM SIAANDYo 41 7 I had got my two dishes of milk-coffee (which, by the by, is excellent]y good for a consumption; but you must boil the milk and coffee together, or otherwise'tis only coffee and milk), and as it was no more than eight in the morning, and the boat did not go off till ~oon, I had time to see enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all the friends I had in the world with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list, and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock of Lippius of Basil, in the first place. Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism; I have neither genius, or taste, or fancy, and have a brain so entirely unapt for everything of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet able to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel-cage, or a common knife-grinder's wheel, though I have many an hour of my life look'd up with great devotion at the one, and stood by with as much patience as any Christian ever could do at the other. I'll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very first thing I do: and then I will pay a visit to the great library of the Jesuits and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the general history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarian, but) in the Chinese language, and in the Chinese character too. Now, I know almost as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the mechanism of Lippius's clock-work: so, why these should have jostled themselves into the two first articles of my list, I leave to the curious as a problem of Nature. I own, it looks like one of her ladyship's obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her humor as much as I. When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself tco my valet de place, who stood behind me,'twill be no hurt if we go to the church of St. Irennus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tied; and, after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived.'Twas at the next town, said the valet de place, at Vienna. I am glad of it, said I, rising briskly from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as my usual pace; "' for so much the sooner shall I be at the Tomb of the Two Lovers." What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in uttering this, I might leave to the curious too; but, as no principle of clock-work is concerned in it,'twill be as well for the reader if I explain it myself. 18* 418 LIFE AND OPINIONS OFi CHAPTER XXXI. 0! THnERE is a sweet era in the life of a man, when (the brain being tender and fibrillous, and more like pap than anything else), a story read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more cruel destinyAmandus —Hie, Amanda-Sheeach ignorant of the other's course; He-east, She-west: Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the Emperor of Morocco's court, where the Princess of Morocco, falling in love with him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of his Amanda. She (Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell'd hair, o'er rocks and mountains, inquiring for Amandus! Amandus! Amandus! making every hill and valley to echo back his name — Amandus! Amandus! at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate.: Has Amandus! has my Amalndus enter'd? till, going round, and round, the World, chance unexpectedly bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by different ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native city, and each in well-known accents calling out aloud, Is Amandus Is my Amanda still alive? they fly into each other's arms, and both drop down'dead for joy. There is a soft era in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story affords more pabulum to the brain than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it; and finding, moreover, in some itinerary, but in what, God. knows, that, sacred to the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon TRISTRAMi SsIA ND. 419 them to attest their truths, I never' could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of the lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the close; nay, such a kind of empire had it establish'd over me, that I could seldom think or speak of Lyons; and sometimes, not so much as see even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running on-though I fear with some irreverence"I thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and so little short, except in wealth, of the Santc Casac itself, that, sometime or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons) on purpose to pay it a visit." InI my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, though last, was not, you see, least; so taking a dozen or two -of longer strides than usual across my room, just while it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the Basse Cour, in order to sally forth; and, having called for my bill,-as it was uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid it; and, moreover, given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of ]M~onsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the Rhone, when I was stopped at the gate. CHAPTER XXXII.'TwAs by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder-feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no. Now,'tis an animal (be in Wvhat hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike. There is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or uinder panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I) I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of 420 LIFE A ND OPINIONS OF his countenance, and where those carry me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think, as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whoml I can do this; for parrots, jackdaws, &c., I never exchange a word with them; nor with apes, &c., for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent —nay, my dog and my cat, though I value them both (and for my dog he would speak if he could), yet, somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation; I can make nothing of a discourse with them beyond the 2rtposition, the repiFy, and rejoinder, which terminated my father's and my mother's conversation in his beds of justice; and those uttered, there's an end of the dialogue. [But with an ass I can commune forever. Come, honesty! said I-seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate-art thou for comning in or going out? The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. Well, replied I, we'll wait a minute for thy driver. He turned his head thouglhtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way. I understand thee perfectly, answered I: if thou takest a wrong step in this affair lie will cudgel thee to death. Well, a minute is but a minute, and, if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent. He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavoriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half-a-dozen times, and picked it up again. God help thee, Jack, said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't, and mary a bitter day's labor, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages;'tis all, all bitterness to thee, whatever life is,to others. And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as;bitter, I dare say, as soot (for he had cast aside the stem), and thou hast not a fiiend, perhaps, in all this world, that will give thee a macaroon. In saying this, I pulled out a paper of'erm, which I had just purchased, and gave him one; and, at this moment that I am telling it my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon, than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in; 'TRIST'RiAM S-I AND -421 the poor beast was heavy loaded, his legs seemed to tremble under him, he hung rather backwards; and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke short in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face, "Don't thrash me with it; but, if you will, you may.' "If I do," said I, " I'll be d-d. "I The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the Abbess of Andouillets', (so there was no sin in it) when a person coming in, let fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end to the ceremony. Out upon it! cried I; but the interjection was equivocal, and, I think, wrong placed, too, for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture of the ass's pannier, had caught hold of my breeches-pocket as he rushed by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can imagine, so that the Out tupon it! in my opinion, should have come in here; but this I leave to be settled by THE nRVIEwERS OF MY BREECHES, which I have brought over along with me for that purpose. CHAPTER XXXIII. Wum n all was set to rights, I came down stairs again into the Basse Cour with my valet de place, in order to sally out towards the tomb of the two lovers. &c., and was a second time stopped at the gatenot by the ass, but by the person who struck him; and who, by that time, had taken possession (as is not uncommon after a defeat) of that very spot of ground where the ass stood. It was a commissary sent to me from the post-office, with a rescript in his hand, for the payment of some six livres odd sous. Upon what account? said I.'Tis upon the part of the King, replied the commissary, heaving up both his shoulders. My good friend, quoth I, as sure as I am I, and you are youAnd who are you? said he. Don't puzzle me, said I. 422 LIF E AND OPI N IONS OF CH APTER XXXI V. BrT it is an indubitable verity, continued I, addressing myself to the commissary, changing only the form of my asseveration, that I owe the King of France nothing but my good will; for he is a very honest man, and I wish him all health and pastime in the world. Pardonnesz noi, replied the commissary, you are indebted to him six livres four sous for the next post from hence to St. Fons, in your route to Avignon, which being a post-royal you pay double for the horses and postillion; otherwise,'twould have amounted to no more than three livres two sous. But I don't go by land, said I. You may, if you please, replied the commissary. Your most obedient servant, said I, making him a low bow. The commissary, with all the sincerity of grave good breeding, made me one as low again; I never was more disconcerted with a bow in my life. The devil take the serious character of these people! quoth I(aside)-they understand no more of ironzy than thisThe comparison was standing close by with his panniers, but something sealed up my lips; I could not pronounce the name. Sir, said I, collecting myself, it is not my intention to take post. But you may, said he, persisting in his first reply; you may take post, if you choose. And I may take salt to my pickled herring, said I, if I choose. But I do not choose. But you must pay for it, whether you do or no. Ay! for the salt, said I (I know). And for the post too, added he. Defend me! cried I. I travel by water; I am going down the Rhone this very afternoon; my baggage is in the boat, and I have actually paid nine livres for my passage. C'est tout egal,'tis all one, said he. Beon Dieu! what, pay for the way I go! and for the way I do not go! CGest tout egal, replied the commissary. The devil it i;! said I; but I will go to ten thousand Bastiles first. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 423 O England!'England! thou land of liberty, and climate of good sense! thou tenderest of mothers, and gentlest of nurses! cried I, kneeling upon one knee as I was beginning my apostrophe, When the director of rMadame Le Blanc's conscience coming in at that instant, and seeing a person in black, with a face as pale as ashes, at his devotions, looking still paler by the contrast and distress of his drapery, ask'd if I stood in want of the aids of the church? I go by woateqr, said I; and here's another will be for making me pay for going by oil! CHAPTER XXXV. As I perceived the commissary of the post-office would have his six livres four sous, I had nothing else for it, but to say some smart thing upon the occasion, worth the money: And so I set off thus: And pray, Mr. Commissary, by what law of courtesy is a defenceless stranger to be used just the reverse from what you use a Frenchman in this matter? By no means said he. Excuse me, said I; for you have begun, Sir, with tearing off my breeches; and now you want my pocket. Whereas, had you first taken my pocket, as you do with your own people, and then left me bare a-'d after, I had been a beast to have complain'd. As it it is,'Tis contrary to the laiw of nature.'Tis contrary to ereason,'Tis contrary to the Gospel. But not to this, said he, putting a printed paper into my hand: PAR LE BOY.'Tis a pithy prolegomenon, quoth I; and so read on By all which it appears, quoth I, having read it over a little to 424 t LIFE AND OP INIONS OF 1 rapidly, that if a man sets out in a post-chaise f'rom Paris, he must go on travelling in one all the days of his life, or pay for it. Excuse me, said the commissary, the spirit of the ordinance is this:-That if you set out with an intention of running post from Paris to Avignon, &c., you shall not change that intention, or mode of travelling, without first satisfying the fermiers for two postsfilrther than the place you repent at; and'tis founded, continued he, upon this, That the Reve;nues are not to fall short through your fic7leness. O by Heavens! cried I, if fickleness is taxable in France, we have nothing to do but to make the best peace with you we can. And so the peace was mnade; And if it is a bad one, as Tristraml Shandy laid the corner-stone of it, noboby but Tristram Shandy ought to be hanged. CHAPTER XXXVI. TioUGH I was sensible I had said as many clever things to the commissary as came to six livres four sous, yet I was determined to note down the imposition amongst my remarks, before I retired from the place; so putting my hand into my coat pocket for my remarks -(which, by the bye, may be a caution to travellers to take a little more care of their renmarks for the future)-my remarks were stolen." Never did sorry traveller make such a pother and racket about his remarks, as I did about mine, upon the occasion. Heaven! earth! sea! fire! cried I, calling in every thing to my aid but what I should, mly remarks are stolen! What shall I do? Mr. Commissary! pray did I drop any remarks as I stood beside you? You dropp'd a good many very singular ones. replied he. Pugh! said I, those were but a few, not worth above six livres two sons; but these are a large parcel. He shook his head. Monsieur Le Blanc! Madame Le Blanc! did you see any papers of mine? You, maid of the house, run up stairs! Frangois, run up after her I I must have my remarks: they were the best remarks, cried I, that ever were made, the wisest, the wittiest. What shall I do Which way shall I turn myself? T RISTRAM SHANDY. 425 Sancho PanCa when he lost his ass's furniture, did not exclaim more bitterly. CHAPTER XXXV I I. WITEN the first transport was over, and the registers of the 1brain were beginning to get a little out of the confusion into which this jumble of cross accidents had cast them, it then presently occurr'd to me, that I left the remarks in the pocket of the chaise; and that, in selling my chaise, I had sold my remarks along with it, to the chaise-vamper. I leave this void space, that the leader may swear into it any oath he is mostf accustomed to. For Imy own part, if ever I swore a ichole oath into a vacancy in mny life, I think it was into that —* * * * * * * *, said I; and so llmy remarks through France, which were as fiull of wit as an egg is full of meat, and as well worth four hundred guineas as the said egg is worth a penny, have I been selling here to a chaiseampelr, for four Louis d'ors; and giving him a post chaise (by -l-eaven!) worth six into the bargain; had it been to Dodsley, or Becket, or any creditable bookseller, who was either leaving off business, and wanted a post-chaise, or who was beginning it —and wanted my remarks, and two or three guineas along with them, I could have borne it; but to a chaise-vamper! Show me to him this moment, FranQois, said I. The Valet de place put on his hat, and led the way; and I pull'd off mine as I passed the commissary, and followed him. CHAPTER XXXVIII. WhnEN we arrived at the chaise-vamper's house, both the house and the shop were shut up: it was the eighth of September, the nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God. Tantarra-ra-tan-tivi, the whole world was going out a May-poling, frisking here, capering there, nobody cared a button for me or my remarks; so I sat me down upon a bench by the door, philo 4%6 J LIFE AN D OPINIONS OF sophizing upopn my condition. By a better fate than usually attends me, I had not waited half an hour, when the mlistress caime in to take the papillotes from off her hair, before she went to the May-poles. The French women, by the bye, love May-poles a Ict folie; that is, as much as their matins. Give'em but a IMay-pole, whether in I~ay, June, July, or September, they never count the times, down it goes,'tis meat, drink, washing, and lodging to'em; and had we but the policy, an' please yourr Worships (as wood is a little scarce in France) to send thelm but plenty of Maly-poles, The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance around them (and the men for conmpany) till they were all blind. The wife of the chaise-vamper stepp'd in, I told you, to take the papillotes fron off tihe hair; the toilet stands still for no m;lan, so she jerk'd off her cap, to begin with them, as she open'd tile door; in doing which one of them fell upon the ground: I instantly saw it was my own wvriting. 0 Seigneur! cried I, you have got all my remalrks upon your head, Madam! J'ea? suis bien mnortifiee, said she:'Tis well, thinks I, they have stuck there, for could they have gone deeper, they would have made such confusion in a French woman's noddle, she had better have gone with it unfrizzled to the day of eternity. Teez, said'she: so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she took thenm fromn her curls, and put them g1ravely, one by one, into my hat; one was twisted this way, another twisted that. Ay! by my faith, and when they are published, quoth I, They will be worse twisted still. C I-APTER XXXIX. AND now for Lippius's clock! said I, with the air of a man who had got through -all his difficulties; nothing can prevent us seeing that, andc the Chinese IHistory, &c. Except the time, said Francois; for'tis almost eleven. Then we must speed the faster, said I, striding it away to the cathedral, I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by one of the minor canons, as I was entering the west door, TI S T R AM I- H A nT D Y. 427 that Lippius's great clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for some years. It will give me the more time, thought I, to peruse the Chinese history; and besides, I shall be able to give the world a better account of the clock in its decay, than I could have done in its flourishing condition. And so away I posted to the college of the Jesuits. Now it is with the project of:getting a peep at the History of China, in Chinese characters, as with many others I could mention, which strike the fancy only at a distance; -for as I came nearer and nearer to the point, my blood cool'd, the fieak gradually went off, till at length I would not have given a cherry-stone to have it gratified. The truth was, my time was short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the Lovers. I wish to God, said I, as I got tile rapper in my hand, that the key of the library may be but lost. It fell out as well, For all the Jesuits had got the colic, and to that degree, as never was known in the memory of the oldest practitioner. CHtAPTER XL. As I knew the geography of the Tomb of the Lovers, as well as if I had lived twenty years in Lyons; namely, that it was ulpon the turning of my rlight hand, just without the gate leading to the Fauxbourg de Vaise, I dispatched Frangois to the boat, that I might pay the homage I so long ow'd it, without a witness of my weakness; I malk'd with all imaginable joy towards the place. When I saw the gate which intercepted the tomb, my heart glowed within me. Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to Amandus and Amanda, long, long have I tarried to drop this tear upon your tomb. I core, I comeWhen I came, there was no tomb to drop it upon. What would I have given for my uncle Toby to have whistled Lilibullero. 428 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTElR XLI. No matter how or in what mood, but I flew fiom the Tomb of the Lovers, or rather I did not fly from it, for there was no such thing existing, and just got time enough to the boat to save my passage: and ere I had sailed a hundred yards, the Rhone and the Saon met together, and carried me down merrily betwixt them. But I have described this voyage down the Rhone before I made it. So now I am at Avignon; and as there is nothing to see but the old house in which the Duke of Ormond resided, and nothing to stop me but a short remark upon the place, in three minutes you will see me crossing the bridge upon a mule, with Frangois upon a horse with my portmanteau behind him, and the owner of both, striding the way before us, with a long gun upon his shoulder, and a sword under his arm, lest peradventure we should run away with his cattle. Had you seen ily breeches in entering Avignon, though you'd have seen them better, I think, as I mounted, you would not have thought the precaution allliss, or found in your heart to have taken it in dudgeon: for my own part, I took it most kindly; and determined to make him a present of them, when we got to the end of our journey, for the trouble they had put him to, of aruming himself at all points against them. Before I go further, let me get rid of my remark upon Avignon, which is this: That I think it wrong, merely because a man's hat has been blown off his head, by chance, the first night he comes to Avignon, that he should- therefore say, "Avignon is more subject to high winds than any town in all France;" for which reason I laid no stress upon the accident till I had inquired of the master of the inn about it; who telling me seriously it was so, and hearing, moreover, the windiness of Avignon spoken of in the country about as a proverb, I set it down merely to ask the learned what'can be the cause? the consequence I saw, for they are all Dukes, Marquises, and Counts there, the deuce a baron in all Avignon; so that there is scarce any talking to them on a windy day. Prithee, friend, said I, take hold of my mule for a moment; for I wanted to pull off one of my jack-boots, which hurt my heel: the TRIST T R A SANDY. 429 mtan was standing quite idle at, the door of the inn: and as I had taken it into rimy head he was someway concerned about the house or stable, I put the bridle into his hand, so begun with my boot. When I had finished the affair, I turned about to take the mule from the man, and thank him. But Monsieur le Marquis had walked in. CHAPTEIR XLII. I ErID Anow the whole South of France, from the banks of the Rhbone to those of the Garonne, to traverse upon my mule at my own leisure, ct my ow.n leisure, for I had left Death, the Lord knows, and he only, how far behind me 6' I have followed- many a man through France," quoth he;' "but never at this mettlesome rate." Still he followed, and still I fled him, but I fled him cheerfully; still he pursued, but, like one who pursued his prey without hope, as he lagg'd, every step he lost softened his looks. Why should I fly him at this rate? So, nothwithstanding all the commissary of the post-office had said, I changed the mzode of my travelling once more; and, after so precipitate and rattling a course as I had run, I flattered my fancy with thinking of my mule, and that I should traverse the rich plains of Languedoc upon his back, as slowly as foot could fall. There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller, or more terrible to travel-writers, than a large rich plain, especially if it is without great rivers or bridges; and presents nothing to the eye but one unvaried picture of plenty: for after they have once told you, that'tis delicious (or delightful as the case happens;)-that the soil was grateful, and that Nature pours out all her abundance, &c..... they have then a large plain upon their hands, which they know not what to do with, and which is of little or no use to them, but to carry them to some town; and that town, perhaps of little more, but a new place to start from to the next plain, and so on. This is most terrible work; judge if I don't manage my plains better. 430 LI F E AND OPINIO NS O CHAPTER X LIIIo I NAD not gone above two leagues and a half, before the man with his gun began to look at his prilingm. I had three several times loiter'd terrihbl5 behind; half a mile at least every time; once in deep conference with a drum-maker;, who Awas making drums for the fairs of I3aucaria and Tarasscone: I did not understand the principle. The second time, I cannot so properly say I stopp'd, for meeting a couple of Franciscans straitened more for time than myself, and not being able to get to the bottom of what; I was about, I had turned back witlh tl-heml. The third was an. affnahi of trade with a gossip, for a hand-basket of Pmrovence figs for four sous: this would have been transacted at once, but for a case of conscience at the close of it; for when the figs wAere paid for, it turn'd out, that there were two dozen of eggs covered over with vine-leaves at the bottom of the basket: as I had no intention of buying eggs, I made lno sort of claim to themi: as for the space they occupied, what signified it? I had figs enow for muy money. But it was my intention to have the basket; it was the gossip's intention to keep:it, witthout rwhich she could do nothing w ith her eggs; and unless I had the basket, I could do as little with my figs, which were too ripe already, and some of'em burst at the side: this brought on a short contention, which terminated in sundry proposals what we both should do. How wre disposed of our eggs and figs, I defy you or tihe Devil hliself, had lhe not been there (which I am persuaded lhe was) to form the least probable conjecture. You will read the whole of it, not this year, for I am hastening to the story of my uncle Toby's amours; but you will read it in the collection of those -which have arose out of the journey across this plain; and which, therefore I call my PLAIN STORIES. How far my pen has been fatigued, like those of other travellers, in this journey of it, over so barren a track, the world must judge; T Rn I S T n A Al S II A XND. 4S31 but the traces of it, which are now all set o' vibrating together this moment, tell me'tis the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for as I had made no convention with my man with the. gun, as to time, by stopping and talking to every soul I met, who Lwas not in a full trot, joining all parties before me, waiting for every soul behind, hailing all those who were coming through cross-road3s,S arresting all kinds of beggars, pilgrims, fiddlers, fiiars, not passing by a -.woman -i a mulberry-tlree fwithout commending her legs, and tempting her into conversation with a pinch of snuff: in short, by seizing every handle, of what size or shape soever, which chance held out to me in this iourney, I turned my plain into a city. I was always in company, and with great variety too; and as- my mule loved society as much as myself, and had some proposals always on his part to offer bo every beast he met, I am confident we could have passed through Pall-mall or St. James's Street, for a month together, with fewer ad — -ventures, and seen less of human nature. 0! there is that sprightly frankness, which at once nnpins every plait of a Languedocian's dress, that whatever is beneath it, it looks so much like the simplicity which poets sung of in better days! I vill delude my fancy, and believe it is so.'Twas in the road betwixt Nismes and Lunel, where there is the best M]uscatto wine in all France, and which, by the by, belongs to the honest canons of Montpellier: and foul befall the man who has drunk it at their table, who grudges them a drop of it. The -sn was set; they had done their work; the nymphs had tied up their hair afresh, and swains were preparing for a carousal; my mule made a dead point.'Tis the fife and tabourine, said I. I'm frighten'd to deathl quoth he. They are running at the ring of pleasure, said I, giving, him a prick. By Saint Boogar, and all the saints at the backside of the door of purg'atory, said he (making the sanme resolution with the Abbess of Andouillet's), I'll not go a step further.'Tis very well, Sir, said I. I never will. argue a point with one of your family as long as I live; so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch, and t'other into that, I'll take a dance, said I; so stay you here. A sun-burnt daughter of Labor rose up from the group to meet me, as I advanced towards them; her hair, which was a dark chestnut, approaching rather to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress. 432 LIFE AND OPINI ON S OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. We want a cavalier, said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer them. And as cavalier you shall have, said I, taking hold of both of them. -Iadst thou, Nannette, been array'd like a Duchesse / But that cursed slit in thy petticoat! Nannette cared-not for it. We could not have done without you, said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught politeness, and leading me up with the other. A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had added a tabourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. Tie me up this tress, instantly, said Nannette, putting a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a stranger. The whole knot fell down. We had been seven years acquainted. The youth struck the note upon the tabourine, his pipe followed, and off we bounded, " the deuce take that slit!" The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from Heaven, sung alternately with her brother;'twas a Gascoigne roundelay. VIVA LA JOIA! FIDON LA TRISTESSA! The nymphs join'd in unison, and their swains an octave below them. I would have given a crown to have it sew'd up. Nannette would not have given a sous, Viva la joia was in her lips: Viva la joia, was in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt us. She looked amiable! Why could I not live, and end my days thus? Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows, cried I, why could not a man sit down in the lap of content here, and dance and sing, and say his prayers, and go to Heaven with this nut-brown maid? Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidious. Then'tis time to dance off, quoth I; so changing only partners and tunes, I danced it away from Lunel to Montpellier; from thence to Pesenas, Beziers. I danced it along throughl Narbonne, Carcasson, and Castle Naudairy, till at last I danced myself into Pedrillo's pavilion; where, pulling out a paper of black lines, that I might go on straight-forwards, without digression or parenthesis, in my uncle Toby's amours, I began thus: LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM S HANDY, G E N T I, E M A N. BOOK VIII. BOOK VYIII CI A P T E R I. BuTr softly, for in these sportive. plains and under this genial sun, where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and dancing to the vintage, and every step that's taken, the judgment is surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been said upon straight lines,* in sundry pages of my book, I defy the best cabbage-planter that ever existed, whether he plants backwards or forwards, it makes little difference in the account (except that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in the other), I defy him to go on coolly, critic ally, and canonically, planting his cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical distances, especially if slits in petticoats are unsewed up, without ever rand anon straddling out, or sliding into some bastardly digression. In Freezeland, Fog-land, and some other lands I wot of, it may be done! But in this clear climlate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible' and insensible, gets vent, in this land, my dear Eugenius, in this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unscrewing my inkhorn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with * vide page 879, Vol. Lr 435 436 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF all the meanders of Julia's track in quest of her Diego, in full view of my study-window, if thou comnest not and takest me by the hand. What a work it is likely to turn out! Let us begin it. ~ ~..... CHAPTER II. Ir is with Love as with Cuckoldom: but now I am tallking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the comf)a~rison may be imparted to him any hour in the day), I'll just mention it, and begin in good earnest. The thing is this: That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known Waorld, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best. I'm sure it is the most religious, for I begin with writing the first sentence, and trusting to Almighty God for the second.'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening the street door, and calling in. his neighbors, and friends, and kinsfolk, with the Devil and all his imps, with their hammers, and engines, &e., only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows the whole. I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up, catching the idea even sometimes before it half-way reaches me! I believe, in my conscience, I intercept many a thought which' Heaven intended for another man. Pope and his portrait are fools to me; no martyr is ever so full of faith or fire. I wish I could say of good works too; but I have no Zeal or Anger —or Anger or Zeal; — and, till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name, the arrantest Ta2rtizfe in science, in politics, or in religion, shall TRISTRAM SHANDY. 437 never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting, than what he will read in the next chapter. CHAPTER III. Bonw jour! good-morrow! so you have got your cloak on betimes! but'tis a cold morning, and you judge the matter rightly;'tis better to be well mounted than go o'foot; and obstructions in the glands are dangerous. And how goes it with thy concubine, thy wife, and little ones o'both sides? and when did you hear fiom the old gentleian and lady, your sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins? I hope they have got the better of their colds, coughs, claps, tooth-aches, fevers, stranguaries, sciaticas, swellings, and sore eyes. What a devil of an apothecary! to take so much blood, give such a vile purge, puke, poultice, plaster, night draught, clyster, blister! And why so many grains of calomel? Santa c ariac! and such a dose of opium! periclitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to tail! [By my great-aunt Dinah's old black velvet mask! I think there was no occasion for it. Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off and on, before she was got with child by the coachman, not one of our family would wear it after. To cover the masse afresh, was more than the mask was worth; and to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be half seen through, was as bad as having no mask at all. This is the reason, may it please your Reverences, that in all our numerous family, for these four generations, we count no more than one Archbishop, a Welsh Judge, some three or four Aldermen, and a single Mountebank. In tihe sixteenth century, we boast of no less than a dozen alchemists. 438 LIFE AND OPINIONS o F CH APTER IV. "IT iS with Love as with Cuckoldom;" the suffering party is at least the third, but, generally, the last in the house who knows any thing about the nmatter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen words for one thing; and so long as what in this vessel of the human frame is LSove, may be Hcfatred in that, Sentiment half a yard highel, and lVonsense-No, ]Madanm, not there; I mean at the part I am now pointing to with my fore-finger —how can we help ourselves? Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, wllho ever soliloquized upon this mystic subject, my uncle Toby was the worst fitted to have pushed his researches throungh such a contention of feelings; and he had infallib.y let them all run on, as we do worse matters, to see what they would turn out, had not Bridget's prenotification of them to Susannah, and Susannah's repeated nmanifestoes thereupon to all the world, made it necessary for my uncle Toby to look into the affair. CHAPTER V. WnY weavers, gardeners, and gladiators, or a man with a- pined leg (proceeding from some ailment in the foot) should ever have had some tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and duty settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists. A water-drinker, provided he is a professed one, and does -it without fraud or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, " That a rill of cold water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a torch in my Jenny's —" The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run opposite to the natural wor.kings of causes and effects; T R SRIIA I S IAR N D S 4S But it shows the weakness and imbecility of human reason. " And in perfect good health with it!" The most perfect, Madam, that Friendship herself could wish me, "' And drink nothing! nothing but water?" Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of the brain, see how they give way! In swims Clriosity, beckoning to her damsels to follow; they dive into the centre of the current. Fancy sits musing upon the bank, and, with her eyes following the stream, turns straw and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits. And Desire, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her, with the other. O ye water-drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn'd this world about like a mill-wheel, grinding the faces of the impotent, bepowdering their ribs, bepeppering their noses, and changing sometimes even the very frame and face of nature! If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, Eugenius. And, if I was you, Yorick, replied Eugenius, so would I. Which shows they had both read Longinus. For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own as long as I live. CHAPTER VI. I wISn my uncle Toby had been a water-drinker, for then the thing had been accounted for, That the first moment Widow NWadman saw him, she felt something stirring within her in his favor; something! something. Something, perhaps, more than friendship, less than love: something, no matter what, no matter where; I would not give a single hair of my mule's tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed, the villain has not many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain) to be let by your Worships into the secret. But the truth is, my uncle Toby was not a water-drinker; he drank it neither pure nor mix'd, nor anyhow, nor anywhere, except 440 LIFE AND OPINIONS O fortuitously upon some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be had, or during the time he was under cure; when, the surgeon telling him it would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner into contact, my uncle Toby drank it for quietness' sake. Now, as all the world knows that no effect in nature can be produced without a cause, and as it is as well known that my uncle Toby was neither a weaver, a gardener, nor a gladiator, unless as a captain, you will needs have him one, but then he was only a captain of foot, and, besides, the whole is an equivocation. There is nothing left for us to suppose, but that my uncle Toby's leg —but that will avail us little in the present hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment in the foot, whereas his leg was not emaciated from any disorder in his foot, for my uncle Toby's leg was not emaciated at all. It was a little stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it for the three years he lay confined at my father's house in town; but it was plump and muscular, and, in all other respects, as good and promising a leg as the other. I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it, than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to make fresh experiments of getting out of'em. Inconsiderate soul that thou art! What.! are not the unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm'd in on every side of thee; are they, Tristram, not sufficient, but thou must entangle thyself still more? Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cartloads of thy fifth and sixth volumes* still, still unsold, and art almost at thy wit's ends how to get them off thy hands? To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest in skating against the wind in Flanders? and it is but two months ago that, in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and, hadst thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell thee, it would have amounted to a gallon? * Alluding to the first edition. TRISTRAM SHANDY, 441 CHAPTER VII. BUT, for Heaven's sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons, let us take the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and somehow or other, you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it. I beg we may take more care. C HAP TER VIII. ~M uncle Toby and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the whole affair; it was neither a pioneer's spade, a pick-ax, or a shovel. It was a bed to lie on: so that as Shandy-hall was at that time unfurnished, and the little inn where poor Le Fevre died, not yet built, my uncle Toby was constrained to accept of a bed of Mrs. Wadman's, for a night or two, till corporal Trim (who, to the character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of tailors, constructed one in my uncle Toby's house. A daughter of Eve, for such was Widow Wadman, and it's all the character I intended to give of her, " That she was a perfect woman," had better be fifty leagues off, or in her warm bed, or playing with a case-knife, or any thing you please, than make a man the object of her attention, when the house and all the furniture is her own. There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad daylight, where a woman has a power, physically speaking, of viewing a man in more 1-9* 442 LIF E A ND OPINIONS OF lights than one; but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without mixing something of her own goods and chattels along with him, till, by reiterated acts of such combinations, he gets foisted into her inventory, And then, good night. But this is not matter of System; for I have delivered that above: nor is it a matter of Br'eviary; for I make no man's creed but my own: nor matter of _act, at least that I know of: but'tis matter copulative and introductory to what follows. CHI IAP TE R IX. I DO not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them, or the strength of their gussets; but pray, Do not nightshifts differ from day-shifts as much in this particular, as in any thing else in the world, That they so far exceed the others in length, that, when you are laid down in them, they fall almost as much below the feet as the day-shifts fall short of them? Widow Wadman's night-shifts (as was the mode, I suppose, in King William's and Queen Anne's reigns) were cut, however, after this fashion; and, if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing) so nuch the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length: so that, allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what she would with. Now, from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak and Decemberly nights of a seven years' widowhood, things had insensibly come to this pass, and, for the two last years, had got establish'd into one of the ordinances of the bedchamber, That as soon as Mrs. Wadman was put to bed, and had got her legs stretched down to the bottom of it, of which she always gave Bridget notice, Bridget, with all suitable decorum, having first open'd the bedcllothes at the feet, took hold of the half-ell of cloth we were speaking of, and having gently, and with both her hands, drawn it downwards to its furthest extension, and TRISTRAM SHANDY. 443 then contracted it again sidelong by four or five even plaits, she took a large corking-pin out of her sleeve, and, with the point directed towards her, pinn'd the plaits all fast together, a little above the hem; which done, she tuck'd all in tight at the feet, and wish'd her mistress a good-night. This was constant, and without any other variation than this: that on shivering and tempestuous nights, when Bridget untuckl'd the feet of the bed, &c. to do this, she consulted no thermometer but that of her own passions: and so performed it standing, kneeling, or squatting, according to the different degrees of faith, hope, and charity, she was in, and bore towards her mistress that night. In every other respect, the etiquette was sacred, and might have vied with the most mechanical one of the most inflexible bed-chamber in Christendom. The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle Toby up stairs, which was about ten, Mrs. Wadman threw herself into her arm-chair, and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a resting-place for her elbow, she reclin'd her cheek upon the palm of her hand, and, leaning forwards, ruminated till midnight upon both sides of the question. The second night she went to her bureau, and, having ordered Bridget to bring her up a couple of fresh candles and leave them upon the table, she took out her marriage-settlement, and read it over with great devotion: and the third night (which was the last of my uncle Toby's stay) when Bridget had pull'd down the night-shift, and was essaying to stick in the corking-pin. With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most natural kick that could be kick'd in her situation; for supposing * * * * * * * * * to be the sun in its meridian, it was a northeast kick: she kick'd the pin out of her fingers, the etiquette which hung upon it, down, down it fell to the ground, and was shivered into a thousand atoms. From all which, it was plain that Widow Wadman was in love with my uncle Toby. 444 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CH A: PTER X. MY uncle Toby's head at that time was full of other matters, an that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return this. This made an armistice (that is, speaking with regard to my uncle Toby; but, with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy) of almost eleven years. But in all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray, I choose, for that reason, to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of M[rs. Wadman with my uncle Toby. This is not a distinction without a difference. It is not like the affair of an old hat coc7'cld and a cockld old ha~t, about which your Reverences have so often been at odds with one another; but there is a difference here in the nature of things: And, let me tell you gentry, a wide one too. C H A P T E XI. Now, as Widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby, and my uncle Toby did not love Widow Wadman, there was nothing for Widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby, or let it alone. Widow Wadman would do neither the one nor the other. Gracious Heayen! but I forget I am a little of her temper myself: for whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does, about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her, and that she careth not three half-pence whether I eat my breakfast or not,Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to TRISTRAtM SIIA ND. 445 Terra del Fuego, and so on to the )evil. In short, there is not an infernal niche where I do not take her divinityship and stick it. But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and, as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very centre of the milky way, Brightest of Stars! thou wilt -shed thy influence upon some one. The deuce take her and her influence too: for at that word, I lose all patience: much good may it do him! By all that is hirsute and gashly! I cry, taking my furr'd cap, and twisting it round my finger, I would not give sixpence for a dozen such! But'tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears), and warm, and soft, especially if you stroke it the right way: but, alas! that will never be my luck: (so here my philosophy is shipwreck'd again). No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor). Crust and crumb, Inside and out, Top and bottom; I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it; I am sick at the sight of it:'Tis all pepper, garlic, staragen, salt, and Devil's dung. By the great arch-cook of cooks, who does nothing, I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fireside and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world. O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny. O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the twelfth chapter. CHAPTER XII. "NOT touch it for the world," did I say? Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor! 446 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CHAPTER XIII. WHrIen shows, let your Reverences and Worships say what you will of it (for, as for thinkcing, all who do think, think pretty much alike both upon it and other matters), Love is certainly, at least alphabetically speaking, one of the most A gitating, B ewitching, C onfounded, D evilish affairs of life; the most E xtravagant, F utilitous, G aligaskinish, H andy-dandyish, I racundulous (there is no K to it), and L yrical of all human passions: at the same time, the most NM isgiving, N innyhammering, 0 bstipating, P ragmatical, S tridulous, R idiculous, though, by the by, the R should have gone first: but, in short,'tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle Toby, upon the close of a long dissertation upon the subject, "You can scarce," said he, "combine two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage.'" What's that? cried my uncle Toby. The cart before the horse, replied my father. And what is he to do there? cried my uncle Toby. Nothing, quoth my father, but to get in, or let it alone. Now Widow Wadman, as I told you before, would do neither the one nor the other. She stood, however, ready harnessed and caparisoned at all points, to watch accidents. TRISTRAM SHANDY 4447 CHAPTER XIV. TrEE Fates, who certainly all foreknew of these amours of Widow Wadman and my uncle Toby, had, from the first creation of matter and motion (and with more courtesy than they usually do things, of this kind), established such a chain of causes and effects hanging so fast to one another, that it was scarce possible for my uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other garden in Christendom but the very house and garden which join'd and lay parallel to Mrs. Wadman's: this, with the advantage of a thicket arbor in Mrs. Wadman's garden, but planted in the hedge-row of my uncle Toby's, put all the occasions into her hands which love-militancy wanted; she could observe my uncle Toby's motions, and was mistress likewise of his councils of war; and as his unsuspecting heart had given leave to the corporal, through the mediation of Bridget, to make her a wicker-gate of communication to enlarge her walks, it enabled her to carry on her ap-. proaches to the very door of the sentry-box; and sometimes, out of gratitude, to make an attack, and endeavor to blow my uncle Toby up in the very sentry-box itself. CHAPTER XV. IT is a great pity; but'tis certain, from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire, like a candle, at either end, provided there is a sufficient wick standing out; if there is not, there's an end of the affair; and if there is, by lighting it at the bottom, as the flame in that case has the misfortune generally to put out itself, there's an end of the affair again. For my part, could I always have the ordering of it which way I would be burnt myself, for I cannot bear the thoughts of being burnt like arbeast, I would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the 448 LIFE AND OP INIONS O top; for then I should burn down decently to the socket; that is from my head to my heart, firom my heart to my liver, from my liver to my bowels, and so on by the mesenteric veins and arteries, through all the turns and lateral insertions of the intestines and their tunicles to the blind gut. I beseech you, Doctor Slop, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting him as he mentioned the blind gut, in a discourse with my father the night my mother was brought to bed of me; I beseech you, quoth my uncle Toby, to tell me which is the blind gut; for, old as I am, I vow I do not know to this day where it lies. The blind gut, answered Doctor Slop, lies betwixt the Ilion and Colon. In man? said my father.'Tis precisely the same, cried Doctor Slop, in a woman. That's more than I know, quoth my father. CHAPTER XVI. AND SO, to make sure of both systems, ]Mrs.Wadman predetermined to light my uncle Toby neither at this end nor that; but, like a prodigal's candle, to light him, if possible, at both ends at once. Now, through all the lumber-rooms of military furniture, including both of horse and foot, from the great arsenal of Venice to the Tower of London (exclusive) if iMrs. Wadman had been rummaging for seven years together, and with Bridget to help her, she could not have found any one blind or mzntelet so fit for her purpose as that which the expediency of my uncle Toby's affairs had fix'd up ready to her hands. I believe I have told you-but I don't know, possibly I have; be it as it will,'tis one of the number of those many things which a man had better do over again than dispute about it-That whatever town or fortress the corporal was at work upon, during the course of their campaign, my uncle Toby always took care, on the inside of his sentrybox, which was towards his left hand, to have a plan of the place, fasten'd up with two or three pins at the top, but loose at the b6ttom, T I S TR AM SHA NDY. 449 for the conveniency of holding it up to the eye, &c... as occasions required; so that when an attack was resolved upon, Mrs. Wadman had nothing more to do, when she had got advanced to the door of the sentry-box, but to extend her right hand; and edging in her left foot at the same movement, to take hold of the map or plan, or upright, or whatever it was, and with out-stretched neck meeting it half-way, to advance it towards her; on which my uncle Toby's passions were sure to catch fire, for he would instantly take hold of the map in his left hand, and with the end of his pipe in the other, begin an explanation. When the attack was advanced to this point, the world will naturally enter into the reasons of Mrs. Wadman's next stroke of generalship; which was, to take my uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe out of his hand as soon as she possibly could: which, under one pretence or other, but generally that of pointing more distinctly at some redoubt or breastwork in the map, she would effect before my uncle Toby (poor soul!) had well march'cd above half a dozen toises with it. It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his fore-finger. The difference it made in the attack was this: That in going upon ~it, as in the first case, with the end of her fore-finger against the end of my uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it along the lines, firom Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby's lines reached so far, without any effect: for as there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment; it could neither give fire by pulsation, nor receive it by sympathy;'twas nothing but smoke. Whereas, in following my uncle Toby's fore-finger with hers, close through all the little turns and indentings of his works, pressing sometimes against the side of it, then treading upon its nail, then tripping it up, then touching it here, then there, and so on, it set something at least in motion. This, though slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand fiat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manceuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place hers close beside it. This at once opened a communication, large enough for any sentiment to 4o0 3t BLI' E AND OPINIONS OF pass or repass, which a person skill'd ih the elementary and practi cal part of love-luaking has occasion for. By bringing up her fore-finger parallel (as before) to my nncle Toby's, it unavoidably brought the thumb into action; and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in its right place —-Mrs. Wadmnan had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving, to get it press'd a hairbreadth of one side out of her way. Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible that it was her leg (and no one's else) at the bottom of the sentrybox, which slightly pressed against the calf of his! So that my uncle Toby being thus attack'd, and sore push'd on both his wings, was it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre in disorder? The deuce take it! said my uncle Toby. C fI HAP T XE R T V I I, TnEse attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different kinds; varying from each other like the attacks which history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to be attacks at all; or if lie did, would confound them all together; but I write not to them. It will be time enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them as I come up to them, which will not be for some chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings, which my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall be kept so, whilst I have power to preserve anything); upon the lower corner of which, ion the right hand side, there are still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb; which, there is all the reason in the world to imagine, were Mrs. Wadman's; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose to have been my uncle Toby's, is absolutely clean. This seems an authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there T iTRA X U rr A 4 51 are vestigia of the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are unquestionably the very holes through which it has been pricked up in the sentry-box. By all that is priestly! I value this precious relic, with its stigmatac and priclcs, more than all the relies of the:Romish church; always excepting when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered the flesh of St. Radagunda in the desert; which, in your road from Fesse to Cluny, the nuns of that name will show you for love. CHAPTER XVIIiL I TnH, an' please your Honor, quoth Trim, the fortifications are quite destroyed; and the basin is upon a level with the mole. I think so too, replied my uncle Toby, with a sigh half suppress'd; but step into the parlor, Trim, for the stipulation; it lies upon the table. It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal; till this very morning that the old woman kindled the fire with it. Then, said my uncle Toby, there is no further occasion for our services. The more, an' please your Honor, the pity, said the corporal; in uttering which, he cast his spade into the wheel-barrow, which was beside him, with an air the most expressive of disconsolation that can be imagined, and was heavily turning about to look for his pick-ax, his pioneer's shovel, his piquets, and other little military stores, in order to carry them off the field, when a heigh-ho! from the sentry-box, which being made of thin slit deal, reverberated the sound more sorrowful to his ear, forbade him. No, said the corporal to himself, I'll do it before his Honor rises to-morrow morning; so taking his spade out of the wheel-barrow again, with a little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the glacis, but with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in order to divert him, he loosen'd a sod or two, pared their edges with his spade, and having given them a gentle blow or two with the back of it, he sat himself down close by my uncle Toby's feet, and began as follows; 452 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF CH APTER XIX. IT was a thousand pities; though I believe, an' please your Honor, I am going to say but a foolish kind of a thing for a soldierA soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the corporal, is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a manll of letters, But not so often, an' please your Honor, replied the corporal. My uncle Toby gave a nod. It was a thousand pities, then, said the corporal, casting his eye upon Dunkirk and the Mole, as Servius Sulpicius, in returning out of Asia (when he sailed from zEgina towards Megara) did upon Corinth and Pyrnus, "' It was a thousand pities, an' please your Honor, to destroy these works, and a thousand pities to have let them stand." Thou art right, Trim, in both cases, said my uncle Toby. This, continued the corporal, is the reason, that from the beginning of their demolition to the end, I have never once whistled, or sung, or laugh'd, or cry'd, or talk'd of past-done deeds, or told your Honor one story, good or bad. Thou hast many excellences, Trim, said my uncle Toby; and I hold it not the least of them, as thou happenest to be a story-teller, that of the number thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful hours, or divert me in my grave ones, thou hast seldom told ine a bad one. Because, an' please your HIonor, except one of a King of.Bohemia and his seven castles, they are all true; for they are about myself. I do not like the subject the worse, Trim, said my uncle Toby, on that score. But, prithee, what is this story? Thou hast excited my curiosity. I'll tell it your Honor, quoth the corporal, directly. Provided, said my uncle Toby, looking earnestly towards Dunkirk and the Mole again, provided it is not a merry one: to such, Trim, a man should ever bring one half of the entertainment along with him; and the disposition I am in at present, would wrong both thee, Trim, and thy story. It is not a merry one, by any means, replied T R ISTRAM S H A NDY. 453 the corporal. Nor would I have it altogether a grave one, added my uncle Toby. It is neither the one nor the other, replied the corporal; but will suit your Honor exactly. Then I'll thank thee for it with all my heart, cried my uncle Toby; so prithee begin it, Trim. The corporal made his reverence; and though it is not so easy a matter as the world imagines, to pull off a lank Montero-cap with grace, or a whit less difficult, in my conceptions, when a man is sitting square upon the ground, to make a bow so teeming with respect as the corporal was wont, yet, by suffering the palm of his right hand, which was towards his master, to slip backwards upon the grass, a little beyond his body, in order to allow it the greater sweep, and by an unforced compression, at the same time, of his cap with the thumb and the two fore-fingers of his left, by which the diameter of the cap became reduced; so that it might be said rather to be insensibly squeez'd, than pull'd off with a fiatus, the corporal acquitted himself of both in a better manner than the posture of his affairs promised; and having hemmed twice, to find in what key his story would best go, and best suit his master's humor, he exchanged a single look of kindness with him, and set off thus: THE STORY OF T-IE KING OF BOHEMIIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES. There was a certain King of Bo-he — As the corporal was entering the confines of Bohemia, my uncle Toby obliged him to halt for a single moment. He had set out bareheaded; having, since he pull'd off his Montero-cap in the latter end of the last chapter, left it lying beside him on the ground. The eye of Goodness espieth all things; so that before the corporal had well got through the first five words of his story, had my uncle Toby twice touch'd his Montero-cap with the end of his cane, interrogatively: as much as to say, Why don't you put it on, Trim? Trim took it up with the most respectful slowness, and casting a glance of humiliation, as he did it, upon the embroidery of the forepart, which being dismally tarnish'd and fray'd, moreover, in some of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, he laid it down again between his two feet, in order to moralize upon the subject.'Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle Toby, that thou art about to observe: 4i 5 4 LIFE2 AIN D OPINIONS OF "Nothtng in this forlnd, Treim, is nmade to last for ever,9 But when tokens, dear Tom, of thy love and remembrance wear out, said Trim, what shall we say? There is no occasion, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, to say any thing else; and was a man to puzzle his brains till Doomsday, I believe, Trim, it would be impossible. The corporal perceiving my uncle Toby was in the right, and that it would be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer' moral from. his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, which the text and doctrine between them had engender'd, he return'd, with the same look and tone of voice, to his story of the King of Bohemia and his seven castles. THE STORY OF TIE KING OF BOHEbMIA AND HIS SEVEN CIASTLES* CONTINUED. There was a certain King of Bohemia; but in whose reign, except his own, I am not able to inform your Honor. I do not desire it of thee, Trim, by any means, cried my uncle Toby. It was a little before the time, an' please your Honor, when giants were beginning to leave off breeding: but in what year of our Lord that wasI would not give a halfpenny to know, said my uncle Toby. Only, an' please your Honor, it makes a story look the better in the face.'Tis thy owi n, Trim, so ormament it after thy own fashion; and take any date,\ continued my uncle Toby, looking pleasantly upon him; take any date in the whole world thou choosest, and put it to; thou art heartily welcome. The corporal bowed; for of every century, and of every year of that century, from the first creation of the world down to Noah's flood; and from Noah's flood to the birth of Abraham; through all the pilgrimages of the patriarchs, to the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt; and throughout all the Dynasties, Olympiads, Urbeconditas, and other memorable epochas of the different nations of tb,,. world, down to the coming of Christ, and from thence to the TRISTRAM SIIANDY. 455 very moment in which the corporal was telling his story, had my uncle Toby subjected this vast empire of time, and all its abysses, at his feet; but as Jf.odesty scarce touches with a finger what Liberality offers her with both hands open, the corporal contented himself with the very worst year of the whole bunch; which, to prevent your Honors of the Majority and Minority from tearing the very flesh off your bones in contestation, "Whether that year is not always the last-cast year of the last-cast almanac?' I tell you plainly, it was; but from a different reason than you wet of. It was the year next him, which, being the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and twelve, when the Duke of Ormond was playing the Devil in Flanders, the corporal took it, and set out with it afiesh on his expedition to Bohemia. THE STORY OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES, CONTINUED. In the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve, there was, an' please your HonorTo tell thee truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, any other date would have pleased me much better, not only on account of the sad stain upon our history that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to cover the siege of Quesioi, though Fagel was carrying on the works with such incredible vigor, but likewise on the score, Trim, of thy own story; because if there are-and which, fiom what thou hast dropt, I partly suspect to be the fact-if there are giants in itThere is but one, ani please your Honor.'Tis as bad as twenty, replied my uncle Toby; thou should'st have carried him back some seven or eight hundred years out of harm's way, both of critics and other people; and therefore I advise thee, if ever thou tellest it againIf I live, an' please your I-Ionor, but once to get through it, I will never tell it again, quoth Trim, either to man, woman, or child. Poo, poo! said my uncle Toby; but with accents of such sweet encouragement did he utter it, that the corporal went on with his story with more alacrity than ever. 4-56 LIFE AND OPI NIONS O THIE STORY OF THIE KING OF BOHEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES? CONTINUED. There was, an' please your Honor, said the corporal, raising hlis voice and rubbing the palmns of his two hands cheerily together as lihe began, a certain IKing of Bohemia — Leave out the date entirely, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaning forwards, and laying his hand gently upon the corporal's shoulder to temper the interruption, leave it out entirely, Trim; a story passes -very well without these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of'em. Sure of'em! said the corporal, shaking his head. Right, answered my uncle Toby; it is not easy, Trim, for one, bred up as thou and I have been to arms, who seldom looks further forward than to the end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, to know much about this matter. God bless your Honor! said the corporal, won by the manner of my uncle Toby's reasoning, as much as by the reasoning itself, he has something else to do; if not in action, or on a march, or upon duty in his garrison, he has his firelock, an' please your Honor, to furbish, his accoutrements to take care of, his regimentals to mend, himself to shave and keep clean, so as to appear always like what he is upon the parade; what business, added the corporal triumphantly, has a soldier, an' please your Honor, to know anything at all of geogrcw'hy? Thou would'st have said chr'onology, Trim, said my uncle Toby; for as for geography,'tis of absolute use to him; he must be acquainted intimately with every country and its boundaries where his profession carries him; he should know every town and city, and village and hamlet, with the canals, the roads, and hollow-ways, -which lead up to them, There is not a river or a rivulet he passes, Trim, but he should be able, at first sight, to tell thee what is its name, in what mountains it takes its rise, what is its course, how far it is navigable, where fordable, where not; he should know the fertility of every valley, as well as the hind who ploughs it; and be able to describe, or, if it is required, to give thee an exact map of all the plains and defiles, the forts, the acclivities, the woods and morasses, through and by which his army is to march; he should know their produce, their plants, their minerals, their waters, their animals, T RISTR AM SH ANDY 457 their seasons, their climates, their heats and colds, their inhabitants, their customs, their language, their policy, and even their religion. Is it else to be conceived, corporal, continued my uncle Toby, rising up in his sentry-box as he began to warml in this part of his discourse, how Mlarlborough could have marched his army from the banks of the Maes to Belburg; fiom lBelburg to IKerpenord (here the corporal could sit no longer); from Kerpenord, Tri-m, to Kalsaken; fiom Kalsaken to NTewdorf; from Newdorf to Landenbourg; from Landenbourg to Mildenheim; from Mildenheim to Elchingen; from Elchingen to Gingen; from Gingen to Baulmerchoffen; from Balmerchofien to Skellenbui'g, where he broke in upon the enemy's works, forced his passage over the Danube, crossed the Lech, pushecl on his troops into the heart of the empire, marching at the head of them through Fribourg, IHokenwert and Schonevelt, to the plains of Blenheim and Hochstet? Great as he was, corporal, he could not have advanced a step, or made one single day's march, without the aids of geography. As for chronology, I own, Trim, continued my uncle Toby, sitting down again coolly in hi-s sentry-box, that, of all others, it seems a science which the soldier might best spare, was it not for the lights mwhich that science must one day give him, in determining the invention of powder; the furious execution of which, reversing every thing, like thunder, before it, has becomle a new era to us of military improvements, changing so totally the nature of attacks and defences, both by sea and land, and awakening so mulch art and skill in doing it, that the world cannot be too exact in ascertaining the precise time of its discovery, or too inquisitive'in knowing what great man Avas the discoverer, and what occasions gave birth to it. I am far from controverting, continued my uncle Toby, what historians agree in, that in the year of our Lord 1380, under the reign of Wencelaus, son of Charles the Fourth, a certain priest, whose name was Schwartz, showed the use of powder to the Venetians, in their wars against the Genoese; but'tis certain he was not the first: because, if we are to believe Don Pedro, the Bishop of LeonHow came priests and bishops, an' please your Honor, to trouble their heads so much about gunpowder? God knows, said my uncle Toby; his providence brings good out of every thing, and he avers, in his chronicle of King Alphonsus, who reduced Toledo, that in the year 1343, which was full thirty20 458 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF seven years before that time, the secret of powder was rell known, and employed with success, both by Moors and Christians,'not only in their sea-combats, at that period, but in many of their most memorable sieges in Spain and Barbary; and all the world knows, that Friar Bacon had wrote expressly about it,. and had generously given the world a receipt to make it by, above a hundred and fifty years before even Schwartz was born; and that the Chinese, added my uncle Toby, embarrass us, and all accounts of it, still more, by boasting of the invention some hundreds of years even before him. They are a pack of liars, I believe, cried Trim.r They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle Toby, in this matter, as is plain to ime from the lresent miserable state of military architecture amongst them; which consists of nothing more than a fo0ss with a briclk wall without flanks; and for what they give us as a bastion at each angle of it,'tis so barbarously constructed, that it looks for all the world-like one of my seven castles, an' please your Honor, quoth Trim. iMRy uncle Toby, though in the utmost distress for a comuparison, most courteously refused Trim's offer, till Trim, telling him he had half a dozen more in Bohemia, which he knew not how to get off his hands, my uncle Toby was so touched with the pleasantry of heart of the corporal, that he discontinued his dissertation upon gunpowder, and begged the corporal forthwith to go on with his story of the Kling of Bohemia and his seven castles. TIHE STORY OF THE KING OF BOiEEMIA AND HIS SEVEN CASTLES, CONTINUED. This stnfortunate King of Bohemia, said TrimWas he unfortunate then? cried my uncle Toby, for he had been. so wrapt up in his dissertation upon gunpowder, and other military affairs, that though he had desired the corporal to go on, yet the many interruptions he had given, dwelt not so strong on his fancy as to account for the epithet. Was he mcnfortucnate, then, Trim? said my uncle Toby, pathetically. The corporal, wishiIg first the word and all its synonimas at the devil, forthwith began to run back in his mind the principal events in the King of Bohemia's story; from every one of which, it appear TRISTRAM S NiIDA N 459 ing that he was the most fortunate man that ever existed in the world, it put the corporal to a stand; for not caring to retract his epithet, and less to explain it, and least of all to twist his tail (like men of lore) to serve a system, he looked up in mly uncle Toby's face for assistance; but. seeing it was the very thing my uncle Toby sat in expectation of himself, after a hum and a haw, he went onThe King of Bohemia, an' please your Honor, replied the corporal, wvas stfofrtcnate, as thus: That taking great pleasure and delight in navigation and all sort of sea affairs, and there hcalpeiang throughout the whole kingdom of Bohemia to be no sea-port town whateverHI-ow the deuce should there, Trim? cried my uncle Toby; for 3Bohemia being totally inland, it could have happen'd no otherwise. It might, said Trim, if it had pleased God. Miy uncle Toby never spoke of the being and natural attributes of God, but with diffidence and hesitation. I believe not, replied my uncle Toby, after some pause; for being inland, as I said, and having Silesia and Moravia to the east; Lusatia and Upper Saxony to the north; Franconia to the west, and Bavaria to the south, Bohemia could not have been propell'd to the sea without ceasing to be Bohemia; nor could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against it. Scandalous, cried Trim. Thich would bespeak, added my uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of compassion in him who is the father of it, that I think, Trim, the thing could have happen'd no way. The corporal made the bow of unfeign'd conviction, and went on: Now the King of Bohemia, with his Queen and courtiers, fhappening one fine summer's evening to walk out-Ay, there the word hcpivening is right, Trim, cried my uncle Toby; for the King of Bohemia and his Queen might have walked out or let it alone —'twas a matter of contingency which might happen or not, just as chance ordered it. King William was of an opinion, an' please your Honor, quoth Trimin, that every thing was predestined for us in this world; insomuch, that he would often say to his soldiers, that "every ball had its billet." He was a great man, said my uncle Toby. And I believe, continued Trim. to this day, that the shot which disabled me 46(0 LIFE AND O PI iS N t at the battle of Landen, was pointed at my i-knee for no other purpose but to take me out of his service, and place me in your Honor's, where I should be taken so much better care of in my old age. It shall never, Trim, be construed otherwise, said my uncle Toby. The heart, both of the master and the man, were alike subject to sudden overflowings —a short silence ensued, Besides, said the corporal, resuming the discourse, but in a gayer accent, if it had not been for that single shot, I had never, an' please your Honor, been in love. So thou wast once in love, Trim? said my uncle Toby, smiling. Souse! replied the corporal —over head and ears I an' please your Honor. Prithee, when? where? and how came it to pass? I never heard one word of it before, quoth my uncle Toby. I dare say, answered Trim, that every drummer and sergeant's son in the regiment knew of it.'Tis high time I should, said my uncle Toby. Your Honor remembers with concern, said the corporal, the total rout and confusion of our camp and army at the affair of Landen: every one was left to shift for himself; and if it had not been for the regiments of Wyndlham, Lumley, and Galway, which covered the retreat over the bridge of Neerspeeken, the king himself could scarce have gained it; he was press'd hard, as your Honor knows, on every side of him. Gallant mortal! cried my uncle Toby, caught with enthusiasm, this moment; now that all is lost, I see him galloping across me, corporal, to the left, to bring up the remains of the English horse along with him, to support the right, and tear the laurel from Luxembourg's brows, if yet'tis possible: I see him with the knot of his scarf just shot off, infusing friesh spirits into poor Galway's regiment, riding along the line-then wheeling about, and charging Conti at the head of it. Brave! brave, by heaven! cried my uncle Toby; he deserves a crown. As richly, as a thief a halter, shouted Trim. My uncle Toby knew the corporal's loyalty-otherwise the comparison was not at all to his mind: it did not altogether strike the corporal's fancy when he had made it; but it could not be recall'd; so he had nothing to do, but proceed. As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think of any thing but his own safety; though Talmash, said my uncle Toby, brought off the foot with great prudence. But I was left TRI STiAM SHAN DY. 461 upon the field, said the corporal. Thou wast so, poor fellow! replied my uncle Toby. So that it was noon the next day, continued the corporal, before I was exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more, in order to be conveyed to our. hospital. There is no part of the body, an' please your Honor, where a wound occasions more intolerable anguish than upon the knee. Except the groin, said my uncle Toby. An' please your Honor, replied the corporal, the knee, in my opinion, must certainly be the most acute, there being so many tendons and what-d'-ye-call-'ems all about it, (for I know their names as little as thou dost) about it; but moreover, * * * It is for that reason, quoth my uncle Toby, that the groin is infinitely more sensible; there being not only as many tendons and whatd'-ye-call-'ems. Mirs. Wadman, who had been all the time in her arbor, instantly stopped her breath, unpinn'd her mob at the chin, and stood up upon one leg. The dispute was maintained with amicable and equal force betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim, for some time, till Trim, at length recollecting that he had often cried at his master's sufferings, but never shed a tear at his own, was for giving up the point, which my iUncle Toby would not allow.'Tis a proof of nothing, Trim, said he, but the generosity of thy temper. So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (ccuteris pcaribzs) is greater than the pain of a wound in the knee-or Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of a wound in the groin, are points which to this day remain unsettled. CHAPTER XX. THE anguish of my knee, continued the corporal, was excessive in itself; and the uneasiness of the cart, with the roughness of the roads, which were terribly cut up, making bad still worse, every step was death to me; so that with the loss of blood, and the want of caretaking of me, and a fever I felt coming on besides-(Poor soul! said 462 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF my uncle Toby.) All together, an' please your Honor, was more than I could sustain. I was telling my sufferings to a young woman, at a peasant's house, where our cart, which was the last of the line, had halted; they had help'd me in, and the young woman had taken a cordial out of her pocket and dropp'd it upon some sugar; and seeing it had cheer'd me, she had given it me a second and a third time. So I was telling her, an' please your Honor, the anguish I was in, and was saying it was so intolerable to me, that I had much rather lie down upon the bed, turning my face towards one which was in the corner of the room, and die, than go on-when, upon the attempting to lead me to it, I fainted in her arms. She was a good soul! as your Honor, said the corporal, wiping his eyes, will hear. I thought love had been a joyous thing, quoth my uncle Toby.'Tis the most serious thing, an' please your Honor (sometimes), that is in the world. By the persuasion of the young woman, continued the corporal, the cart with the wounded men set off with-out me; she had assured them I should expire immediately if I was put into the cart. So when I came to myself, I found myself in a still, quiet cottage, with no one but the young woman, and the peasant and his wife. I was laid across the bed, in the corner of the room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the young woman beside me, holding the corner of her handkerchief dipp'd in vinegar to my nose with one hand, and rubbing my temples with the other. I took her at first for the daughter of the peasant, (for it was no inn), so had offer'd her a little purse with eighteen florins, which my poor brother Tom (here Trim wip'd his eyes) had sent me as a tolken, by a recruit, just before he set out for Lisbon. I never told your Honor that piteous story yet-(Here Trim wip'd his eyes a third time.) The young woman call'd the old man and his wife into the room to show them the money, in order to gain me credit for a bed and what little necessaries I should want, till I should be in a condition to be got to the hospital. Come then, said she, tying up the purse, I'll be your banker; but as that office alone will not keep me employ'd, I'll be your nurse too. I thought by her manner of speaking this, as well as by her TRISTRAM S A N D Y. 463 dress, which I then began to consider more attentively, that the young woman could -not be the daughter of the peasant. She was in black down to her toes, with her hair concealed under a cambric border, laid close to her forehead: she was one of those kind of nuns, an' please your I-lonor, of which your Honor knows'there are a good many in Flanders, which they let go loose.- By thy description, Trim, said my uncle Toby, I dare say she was a young Beguine, of which there was none to be found anywhere but in Spanish Netherlands, except at Amsterdam: they differ from nuns, in this, that they can quit their cloister if they choose to marry; they visit and take care of the sick by profession. I had rather, for my own part, they did it out of good-nature. She often told me, quoth Trim, she did it for the love of Christ. I did not like it. I believe, Trim, we are both wrong, said my uncle Toby: we'll ask Mr. Yorick about it to-night at my brother Shandy's; so put me in mind, added my uncle Toby. The young Beguine, continued the corporal, had scarce given herself time to tell me, "she would be my nurse," when she hastily turned about to begin the office of one, and prepare something for me; and in a short time, though I thought it a long one, she came back with flannels, &c. &c., and having fomented my knee soundly for a couple of hours, &c., and made me a basin of thin gruel for mly supper, she wish'd me rest, and promised to be with me early in the morning. She wish'd me, an' please your Honor, what u-as not to be had. MAy fever ran very high that very night; her figure made sad disturbance within me; I was every moment cutting the world in two, to give her half of it; and every moment was I crying, That I had nothing but a knapsack and eighteen florins to share with her. The whole night long was the fair Beguine, like an angel, close by my bedside, holding back my curtain, and offering me cordials; and I was only awakened from my dream by her coming there at the hour promised, and giving them in reality. In truth, she was scarce ever from me; and so accustomed was I to receive life firom her hands, that my heartl sicken'd and I lost my color, when she left the room; and yet, continued the corporal, (making one of the strangest reflections upon it, in the world)"It was not love;" for during the three weeks she was almost constantly with me, fomenting my knee with her hand night and 464 LnIFE AND OPINI ONI OF dlay, I can honestly say, an' please your Honor. that' * * * * * * >* *!, * s e * * * >:y e * * * s'4 once. That was very odd, said Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. I think so too, said Mrs. Wadman. It never did, said the corporal. CHAPTER XXI. BUT'tis no marvel, continued the corporal, seeing my uncle Toby musing upon it, for love, an' please your Honor, is exactly like war, in this; that a soldier, though he has escaped three weeks complete o'. Saturday niglht, may, nevertheless, be shot thl'ough his heart on Sunday morning. It hacippened so here, an' please your Honor, with this difference only, that it was on Sunday in the afternoon, when I fell in love all at once with sissercarc,. It burst lipon me, an' please your Honor, like a bomb, scarce giving me time to say' God bless me." I thought, Trim, said my uncle Toby, a man never fell in love so very sudden. Yes, an please your Honor, if he is in the way of it, replied Trim. I prithee, quoth my uncle Toby, inform Lme how this matter happened. With all pleasure, said the corporal, making a bow. CHAPTER XXII. I HAD escaped, continued the corporal, all that time from falling in love, and had gone on to the end of the chapter, had it not been predestined otherwise. There is no resisting our fate. It was on Sunday, in the afternoon, as I told your Honor. The old man and his wife had walked out. Every thing was still and hush as midnight about the house. There was not so much as a duck or a duckling about the yard,) TRISTRAMI SHAND Y 465 When the fair Beguine came in to see me. My wound was then in a fair way of doing well, the inflammation had been gone off for some time; but it was succeeded with an itching both above and below my knee, so insufferable, that I had not shut my eyes the whole night foi it. Let me see it, said she, kneeling down upon the ground parallel to my knee, and laying her hand upon the part below it. It only wants rubbing a little, said the Beguine; so covering it with the bedclothes, she began with the fore-finger of her right hand to rub under my knee, guiding her fore-finger backwards and forwards by the edge of the flannel which kept on the dressing. In five or six minutes I felt slightly the end of her second finger, and presently it was laid flat with the other, and she continued rubbing in that way round and round for a good while; it then came into my head, that I should fall in love: I blush'd when I saw how white a hand she had. I shall never, an' please your Honor, behold another hand so white whilst I live. Not in that place, said my uncle Toby. Though it was the most serious despair in nature to the corporal, he could not forbear smiling. The young Beguine, continued the corporal, perceiving it was of great service to me, from rubbing for some time, with two fingers, proceeded to rub at length with three, till by little and little she brought down the fourth, and then rubb'd with her whole hand I will never say another word, an' please your Hlonor, upon hands again; but it was softer than satin. Prithee, Trim, commend it as as much as thou wilt, said my uncle Toby; I shall hear thy story with the more delight. The corporal thank'd his master most unfeignedly; but having nothing to say upon the Beguine's hand but the same over again, he proceeded to the effects of it. The fair Beguine, said the corporal, continued rubbing with her whole hand under my knee, till I fear'd her zeal would weary her. "'I would do a thousand times more," said she, "for the love of Christ." In saying which, she pass'd her hand across the flannel, to the part above my knee, which I had equally complain'd of, and rubb'd it' also. I perceived then, I was beginning to be in love. 460 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF As she continued rub-rub-rubbing, I felt it spread from under her hand, an' please your HI-onor, to every part of my frame. The more she rubb'd and the longer strokes she took, the more the fire kindled in my veins, till at length, by two or three strokes longer than the rest, my passion rose to the highest pitch. I seized her hand. And then thou clapped'st it to thy lips, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and madest a speech. Whether the corporal's amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle Toby described it, is not material; it is enough that it contained in it the essence of all the love-romances which ever have been wrote since the beginning of the world. CHAPTER XXIII. As soon as the corporal had finished the story of his amour, or rather my uncle Toby for him, Mrs. Wadman silently sallied forth from her arbor, replaced the pin in her mob, pass'd the wicker-gate, and advanced slowly towards my uncle Toby's sentry-box: the disposition which Trim had made in my uncle Toby's mind, was too favorable a crisis to be let slip. The attack was determin'd upon: it was facilitated still more by my uncle Toby's having ordered the corporal to wheel off the pioneer's shovel, the spade, the pick-ax, the piquets, and other military stores which lay scatter'd upon the ground where Dunkirk stood. The corporal had march'd; the field was clear. INow, consider, Sir, what nonsense it is, either in fighting, or writing, or any- thing else (whether in rhyme to it, or not) which a man has occasion to do, to act by plan: for if ever Plan, independent of all circumstances, deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean in the archives of Gotham) it was certainly the plan of Mrs. Wadman's attack of my uncle Toby in his sentry-box, by 2plan. Now, the plan hanging up in it at this juncture, being the plan, of Dunkirk, and the tale of Dunkirk a tale of relaxation, it opposed every impression she could make: and, besides, could she have gone upon it, TRISTR At S H A DY. 4 6 7 the manceuvre of fingers and hands in the attack of the sentry-box, was so outdone by that of the fair Beguine's, in Trim's story, that just then, that particular attack, however successful before, became the most heartless attack that could be made. O! let woman alone for this. Mrs. Wadman had scarce open'd the wicker-gate, when her genius sported with the change of circumstances. She formed a new attack in a moment. CHAPTER XXIV. I AM half distracted, Captain Shandy, said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approach'd the door of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; a mote, or sand, or something, I know not what, has got into this eye of mine; do look into it: it is not in the white. In saying which, Mrs. Wadman's edged herself close in beside my uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising up, Do look into it, said she. Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart as ever child look'd into a raree show-box; and'twere as much a sin to have hurt thee. If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature, I've nothing to say to it. My uncle Toby never did; and I will answer for him, that he would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to January (which, you know, takes in both the hot and cold months) with an eye as fine as the Thraciant Rhodope's beside him, without being able to tell whether it was a black or a blue one. The difficulty was, to get my uncle Toby to look at one at all.'Tis surmounted. And I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the * Rhodope Thracia tam inevitabili fascino instructo, tam exact8 oculis intuens attraxit, ut si in illam quis incidisset, fieri non posset, quin caperetur.-I KNOW NOT WlHO. 468 LIF.E AND OPINIONS O. ashes falling out of it, looking, and looking, then rubbing his eyes, and looking again, with twice the good-nature that ever Galileo look'd for a spot in the sun. In vain! for, by all the powers which animate the organ, Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right; there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor particle of opake matter floating in it. There is nothing, my deal paternal uncle! but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all directions, into thine. If thou lookest, my uncle Toby, in search of this mote one moment'longer, thou art undone. CHAPTER XXV. As eye is, for all the world, exactly like a cannon, in this respect, That it is not so much the eye or the cannon, in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eye, and the carriage of the cannon; by which both the one and the other are enabled to do so much execution. I don't think the comparison a bad one: however, as'tis made and placed at the head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in return, is, that whenever I speak of HMrs. Wadman's eyes, (except once in the next peliod) that you keep it in your fancy. I protest, Madam, said my uncle Toby, I can see nothing whatever in your eye. It is not in the white, said Mrs. Wadmlan. ]My uncle Toby look'd with might and main into the pupil. Now, of all the eyes which ever were created; from your own, Madam, up to those of Venus herself, which certainly were as venereal a pair of eyes as ever stood in a head, there never was an eye of them all so fitted to rob my uncle Toby of his repose, as the very eye at which he was looking; it was not, PMadam, a rolling eye, a romping, or a wanton one; nor was it an eye sparkling, petulant, or imperious, of high claims and terrifying exactions, which would have curdled at once that milk of human nature, of which my uncle Toby was made up; but'twas an eye full of gentle salutations, and soft T R I TRAM SHA NDY 4G69 responses, speaking, not like the trumpet-stop of some ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to holds coarse converse, but whispering soft, like the last low accents of an expiring saint, "How can you live comfortless, Captain Shandy, and alone, without a bosom to lean your head on, or trust your cares to?" It was an eyeBut I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another word about it. It did my uncle Toby's business. C IHAP T ER XX I. THmERE is nothing shows the characters of my father and my uncle Toby in a more entertaining light, than their different manner of deportment under the same accident; for I call not love a misfortune; from a persuasion, that a man's heart is ever the better for it. Great God! what must my uncle Toby's have been, when'twas all benignity without it! My father, as appears from many of his papers, was very subject to this passion before he married; but, from a little subacid kind of drollish impatience in his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never submit to it like a Christian; but would pish, and huff, and bounce, and kick, and play the Devil, and write the bitterest Philippics against the eye that ever man wrote; there is one in verse upon somebody's eye or other, that, for two or three nights together, had put him by his rest; which, in his first transport of resentment against it, he begins thus:"A devil'tis, and mischief such doth work As never yet did Pagan, Jew, or Turk."0: In short, during the whole paroxysm, my father was all abuse and foul language, approaching rather towards malediction; only he did not do it with as much method as Ernulphus; he was too impetuous; * This will be printed with my father's Life of Socrates, &c. 1170 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF nor with Ernulphus's policy; for though my father, with the most intolerant spirit, would curse both this and that, and every thing under IIeaven, which was either aiding or abetting to his love, yet he never concluded his chapter of curses upon it, without cursing himself in at the bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and coxcombs, he would say, that ever was let loose in the world..My uncle Toby, on the contrary, took it like a lamb, sat still, and ket the poison work in his veins without resistance; in the sharpest exacerbations of his wound (like that on his groin) he never dropt one fretful or discontented word, he blamed neither heaven nor earth, nor thought, nor spoke an injurious thing of any body, or any part of it; he sat solitary and pensive with his pipe, looking at his lame leg, then whiffing out a sentimental heigh-ho! which, mixing with the smoke, incommoded no one mortal. Hle took it like a lamb, I say. In truth, he had mistook it at first; for, having taken a ride with my father that very morning, to save, if possible, a beautiful wood, which the dean and chapter were hewing down to give to the poor;* which said wood being in full view of my uncle Toby's house, and of singular service to him in his description of the battle of Wynnlendale, by trotting on too hastily to save it, upon an uneasy saddle, worse horse, &c. &c... it had so happened, that the serous part of my uncle Toby, the first shootings of which (as my uncle Toby had no experience of love) he had taken for a part of the passion, till the blister breaking in the one case, and the other remaining, my unele Toby was presently convinced that his wound was not a skindeep wound, but-that it had gone to his heart. CHAPTER XXVII. TErE world is ashamed of being virtuous. Mly uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore, when he felt he was in love with Widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more * Mr. Shandy must mean the poor in spirit! inasmuch as they divided the money amongst themselves. TRXISTRAM SEHANDJY.a 4 71 to be made a mystery of, than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap'd knife across his finger. Had it been otherwise —yet, as he ever look'd upon Trim as an humble friend, and saw fresh reasons every clay of his life to treat him as such-it would have made no variation in the manner in which he informed him of the affair. "' I am in love, corporal!" quoth my uncle Toby. CHAPTER XX:III. Ix love! said the Corporal, your Honor was very well the day before yesterday, when I was telling your Honor the story of the King of Bohemia. Bohemiai! said my uncle Toby.... musing a long time....What became of that story, Trim? We lost it, an' please your Honor, somehow betwixt us; but your Honor was as free from love then, as I am.'Twas just whilst thou went'st off with the wheelbarrow, with Mrs. Wadman, quoth lmy uncle Toby. She has left a ball here, added my uncle Toby, pointing to his breast. She can no more, an' please your Honor, stand a siege, than she can fly, cried the corporal. But as we are neighbors, Trim, the best way, I think, is to let her know it civilly first, quoth my uncle Toby. Now, if I might presume, said the corporal, to differ from your Honor. Why else do I talk to thee, Trim? said my uncle Toby, mildly. Then I would begin, an' please your Honor, with making a good thundering attack upon her, in return, and telling her civilly afterwards; for if she knows anything of your Honor's being in love, beforehand, L-d help her! She knows no more at present of it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, than the child unborn. Precious souls! Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its circumstances, to Mrs. Bridget, twenty-four hours before; and was, at that very moment, sitting in council with her, touching some slight misgivings with regard to the issue of the affair, which the Devil, who never lies dead 472 LI FE AND OPINIONS OF in a ditch, had put into her head, before. he would allow her half time to get quietly through her Te Deum, I am terribly afraid, said Widow Wadmlan, in'case I should marry him, Bridget, that the pool captain will not enjoy his health, with the monstrous wound upon his groin. It may not, Madam, be so very large, replied Bridget, as you think; and I believe, besides, added she, that'tis dried up. I would like to know, merely for his sake, said Mrs. Wadman. We'll know the long and broad of it in ten days, answered Mrs. Bridget; for whilst the captain is paying his addresses to you, I'm confident Mr. Trim will be for making love to me; and I'll let him as much as he will, added Bridget, to get it all out of him. The measures were taken at once; and my uncle Toby and the corporal went on with theirs. Now, quoth the corporal, setting his left hand a kimbo, and giving such a flourish with his right, as just promised success, and no more, if your Honor will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack. Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, exceedingly; and as I foresee thou must act in it as my aid-ade-camzp, here's a crown, corporal, to begin with, to steep thy commission. Then, an' please your Honor, said the corporal, (making a bow first for his commission) we will begin with getting your Honor's laced clothes out of the great campaign-trunk, to be well air'd, and have the blue and gold taken up at the sleeves; and -I'll put your white ramillie-wig fresh into pipes; and send for a tailor to have your Honor's thin scarlet breeches turn'd. I had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle Toby. They will be too clumsy, said the'corporal. C HAP T E XXIX. Thoou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword.'Twill be only in your Honor's way, replied Trim. TRIST AM S HANDY. 473 C A P TE R XXX. BIUT your Honor's two razors shall be new set, and I will get my MIontero-cap furbish'd up, and put on poor Lieutenant Le Fevre's regimental coat, which your Honor gave me to wear for his sake; and as soon as your I-Ionor is clean shaved, and has got, your clean shirt on, with your blue and gold or your fine scarlet, sometimes one rand sometimes t'other, and everything is ready for the attack, we'll march up boldly, as if'twas to the face of a bastion; and whilst your Honor engages iMrs. Wadman in the parlor to the right, I'll attack Mrs. Bridget in the kitchen to the left; and having seiz'd that pass, I'll answer for it, said the corporal, snapping his fingers over his head, that the day is your own. I wish I may but manage it right, said my uncle Toby; but I declare, corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench. A woman is quite a different thing, said the corporal. I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby. CH A P T E R XXXI. IF anything in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion, the hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion, would say, though with more facetiousness than became a hermit, "That they were the means he used to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.'" It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconic way of expressing, but of libelling, at the same time, the desires and appetities 474 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my father's life,'twas his constant mode of expression; he never used the word 2cassions once, but ass always, instead of them; so that he might be said truly to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass, or else of some other man's, during all that time. I must here observe to you the difference betwixt My father's Ass and Mly HonBY-I-IonsE, in order to keep characters as separate as may be, in our fancies as we go along. For my 1-obby-I-Iorse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of the ass about him.'Tis the sporting little filly-folly which carries you out for the present hour —a maggot, a butterfly, a picture, a fiddle-stick, an uncle Toby's siege, or an acnything which a man makes a shift to get astride on, to canter it away friom the cares and solicitudes of life.'Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole creation; nor do I really see how the world could do without it. But for my father's ass. Oh! mount him-mount him —mount him (that's three times, is it not?)-mount him not:'tis a beast concupiscent; and foul befall the nman who does not hicler him from kicking. CHAPTER XXXII. WELJL, dear brother Toby, said my father, upon his first seeing him after he fell in love, and how goes it with your ass? Now, my uncle Toby thinking more of the part where he had had the blister, than of Hilarion's metaphor, and our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of things, he had imagined that my father, who was not very ceremonious in his choice of words, had inquired after the part by its proper name: so notwithstanding my mother, Dr. Slop, and'[r. Yorick, were sitting in the parlor, he thought it rather civil to conform to the term my father had made use of than not. When a maa is hem'd in by two indecorums, and must commait one of'er, I always TR I S TR AM S H A NY D. 5 observe, let him choose which he w ill, the world will blame him; so I should not be astonish'd if it blames my uncle Toby. My a-e, quoth my uncle Toby, is much better, brother Shandy. Mly father had formed great expectations froml? his Ass in this onset: and would have brought him on again; but Doctor Slop setting up an intemperate laugh, and my mother crying out L- bless us! it drove my father's Ass off the field: and the laugh then becoming general, there was no bringing him back to the charge for some time: And so the discourse went on without him. Every body, said my mother, says you are in love, brother Toby; andi we hope it is true. I am as much in love, sister, I believe, replied my uncle Toby, as any man usually is. I-Iumnph said my father. And when did you know it? quoth my mother. When the blister broke, replied my uncle Toby. My uncle Toby's reply put my father into good temper, so he charged o'foot. CHAPTER XXXIII. As the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of love, according to the different parts which are affected by it, the brain or liver, I think when a man is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he has fallen into. What signifies it, brother Shandy, replied my uncle Toby, which of the two it is, provided it will but make a man marry, and love his wife, and get a few children? A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking full in my mother's face, as he forced his way betwixt hers and Doctor Slop's, a few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle Tol-,y's words as he walked to and fro. [Not, my dear brother Toby; cried my father, recovering himself all at once, and coming close up to the back of my uncle Toby's chair, not that I should be sorry hadst thou a score: on the contrary, I should rejoice, and be as kindl, Toby, to every one of them as a father, 76 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF ]My uncle Toby stole his hand, unperceived, behind his chair, to give nay father's a squeeze. Nay, moreover continued he, keeping hold of my uncle Toby's hand, so much dost thou possess, my dear Toby, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities,'tis piteous the world is not peopled by creatures which resemble thee! and was I an Asiatic monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new project, I would oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strength or dry up thy radical moisture too fast, or weaken thy memory, or fancy, brother Toby, which these gymnics, inordinately taken, are apt to do, else, dear Toby, I would procure thee the most beautiful women in my empire, and I would oblige thee, znolens volens, to beget for me one subject every nonth. As my father pronounced the last word of the sentence, my mother took.a pinch of snuff. Now I would not, quoth my uncle Toby, get a child, zolens volens, that is, whether I would or no, to please the greatest prince upon earth. And'twould be cruel in me, brother Toby, to compel thee, said my father; but'tis a case put, to show thee, that it is not thy begetting a child, in case thou should'st be able, but the system of Love and Marriage thou goest upon, which I would set thee right in. There is, at least, said Yorick, a great deal of reason and plain sense in Captain Shaudy's opinion of love; and'tis amongst the illspent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have read so many flourishing poets and rhetoricians in my time from whom I never could extract so much. I wish, Yorick, said my father, you had read Plato: for there you would have learnt that there are two loves. I know there were two s'eligions, replied Yorick, amongst the ancients; one for the vulgar, and another for the learned: but I think one love might have served both of them very well. It could not, replied my father, and for the same reasons; for, of these loves, according to Ficinus's comment upon Velasius, the one is rational, The other is naturctl; the first ancient, without mother, where Venus had nothing to do; the second begotten of Jupiter and Dione. T R ST R AM SHAND. 477.Pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, what has a man who believes in God to do with this? My father could not stop to answer, for fear of breakinog the thread of his discourse. This latter, continued he, partakes wholly of the nature of Venus. The first, which is the golden chain let down from Heaven, excites to love heroic, which comprehends in it, and excites to, the desire of philosophy and truth; the second excites to desire simply. I think the procreation of children as beneficial to the world, said Yorick, as the finding out the longitude. To be sure, said my mother, love keeps peace in the world. In the house, my dear, I own. It replenishes the earth, said my mother. But it keeps Heaven empty, my dear, replied my father.'Tis Virginity, cried Slop, triumphantly, which fills Paradise. Well push'd nun! quoth my father. CHAPTER XXXIV. MI father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of a slashing way with him in his disputations, thrusting and ripping, and giving every one a stroke to remember him by, in his turn, that if there were twenty people in company, in less than half an hour he was sure to have every one of them against him. What did not a little contribute to leave him thus without an ally, was, that if there was any one post more untenable than the rest, he would be sure to throw himself into it; and to do him justice, when he was once there, he would defend it so gallantly, that'twould have been a concern, either to a brave man, or a good-natured one, to have seen him driven out. Yorick, for this reason, though he would often attack, yet could never bear to do it with all his force. Doctor Slop's Virginity, in the close of the last chapter, had got him for once on the right side of the rampart; and he was beginning to blow up all the convents in Christendom about Slop's ears, when C-orporal Trim came into the parlor to inform my uncle Toby, that 478 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF his thin scarlet breeches, in which the attack was to be made upon MErs. Wadman, would not do; for that the tailor, in r;pping them up, in order to turn them, had found that they had been turned before. Then turn them again, brother, said my father, rapidly, for there will be many a turning of them yet before all's done in the affair. They are as rotten as dirt, said the corporal. Then by all means, said my father, bespeak a new pair, brother; for though I know, continued my father, turning himself to the company, that Widow Wadman has been deeply in love with my brother Toby for many years, and has used every art and circumvention of woman to outwit him into the same passion, yet now that she has caught him, her fever will be past its height. She has gained her point. In this case, continued my father, which Plato, I am persuaded, never thought of, Love, you see, is not so much a sentiment as a situation, into which a man enters, as my brother Toby would do into a co01)S, no matter whether he loves the service or no; being once in it, he acts as if he did, and takes every step to show himself a man of prowess. The hypothesis, like the rest of my father's, was plausible enough, and my uncle Toby had but a single word to object to it, in which Trim stood ready to second him; but my father had not drawn his conclusion. For this reason, continued my father (stating the case over again), notwithstanding all the world knows that Mrs. Wadlman acects my brother Toby; and my brother Toby contrariwise affects HIrs. Wadman, and no obstacle in nature to forbid the music striking up this very night, yet will I answer for it, that this self-same tune will not be play'd this twelvemonth. We have taken our measures badly, quoth my uncle Toby, looking up interrogatively in Trim's face. I would lay my Montero-cap, said Trim. Now Trim's Montero-cap, as I once told you, was his constant wager; and having furbished it up that very night, in order to go upon the attack, it made the odds look more considerable. I would lay, an' please your Honor, my Montero-cap to a shilling, was it pro per, continued Trim (making a bow), to offer a wager before your Honors. There is nothing improper in it, said my father, -tis a mode of expression; for in saying thou would'st lay thy Montero-cap to a shilling, all thou meanest is this, that thou believest. Now, what dost thou believe? That Widow Wadman, an' please your Worship, cannot hold it out ten days. And whence, cried Slop, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of woman, friend. By falling in love -with a popish clergy-woman, said Trim.'Twas a. Beguine, said my uncle Toby. Doctor Slop was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my father taking that very crisis to fall in helter-skelter upon the whole order of Nuns and Beguines, a set of silly, fusty baggages, Slop could not stand it: and my uncle Toby having some measures to take about his breeches, and Yorick about his fourth general division, in order for their several attacks next day, the company broke up; and my father being left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt that and bed-time, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote my uncle Toby the following letter of instructions: MY DEAR BROTHER TOBY: What I am going to say to thee, is upon the nature of women, and of love-making to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee, though not so well for me, that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon that head, and that I am able to write it to thee. Had it been the good pleasure of Him who disposes of our lots, and thou no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou should'st have dipp'd the pen this moment into the ink, instead of myself; but that not being the case, Mkirs. Shandy being now close beside me, preparing for bed, I have thrown together, without order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and documents as I deem may be of use to thee, intending, in this, to give thee a token of my love; not doubting, my dear Toby, of the manner it will be accepted. In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the affair, though I perceive, from a glow in my cheek, that I blush as I begin to speak, to thee upon the subject, as well knowing, not 4'80 LIFE AND O PINIONS OF withstanding thy unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou neglectest, yet I would remind thee of one (during the continuance of thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted; and that is, never to go forth upon the enterprise, whether it be in the morning or the afternoon, without first recommending thyself to the protection of Almighty God, that he may defend thee from the evil one. Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once, at least, every four or five days, but oftener if convenient; lest, in taking off thy wig before her, through absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been cut away by Time: how much by Trim.'Twere better to keep ideas of baldness out of her fancy. Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it as a sure maxim, Toby, "That women are timid;" and'tis well they are, else there would be no dealing with them. Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs, like the trunk-hose of our ancestors: A just medium prevents all conclusions. ~Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in a low soft tone of voice; silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: for this cause if thou canst help it, never throw down the tongs and poker. Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with her, and do whatever lies in thy power, at the same time, to keep from all her books and writings which tend thereto: there are -some devotional tracts, which if thou.canst entice her to read over, it will be well; but suffer her not to look into Rabel]ais, or Scarron, or Don Quixote: They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear Toby, that there is no passion so serious as lust. Stick a pin in the bosom of thy shirt, before thou enterest the parlor. And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sofa with her, and she gives thee occasion to lay thy hand upon hers, beware of taking it: thou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper of thine. Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her curiosity on TR I T R A SH A N D Y 481 thy side; and if she is not conquered by that, and thy ass continues still kicking, which there is great reason to suppose, thou must begin with first losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according to the practice of the ancient Scythians, who cured the most intemperate fits of the appetite by that means. Avicenna, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges; and I believe rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat's flesh, nor red deer; nor even foal's flesh by any means; and carefully abstain, that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, didappers, and water-hens. As for thy drink, I need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of Ver-,;ain and the herb lcanea, of which iElian relates such effects; but if thy stomach palls with it, discontinue it from time to time, taking cucumbers, melons, purslain, water-lilies, woodbine, andlettuce in the stead of them. There is nothing farther-for thee which occurs to me at present. Unless the breaking out of a fresh war.' So wishing everything, dear Toby, for the best, I rest thy affectionate brother, WALTERZX SHANDY. CHAP T E R XXXV. WHILST my father was writing this letter of instruc'tions, my uncle Toby and the corporal were busy in preparing every thing for the attack. As the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for the present) there was nothing which should put it off beyond the next morning; so, accordingly, it was resolved upon for eleven o'clock. Come, my dear, said my father to my mother,'twill be but like a brother and sister, if you and I take a walk down to my brother Toby's, to countenance him in this attack of his. My uncle Toby and the, corporal had both been accoutred some time, when my father and mother enter'd and, the clock striking eleven, were that moment in motion to sally forth; but the account 21 482 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SIHANDY. of this is worth more than to be wove into the fag-end of the eighth* volume of such a work as this. My father had no time but to put the letter of instructions into my uncle Toby's coat-pocket, and join with my mother in wishing his attack prosperous. I could like, said my mother, to look through the key-hole, out of curiosity. Call it by its right name, my dear, quoth my father, And lookc through the key-hole as long as you will. * Alluding to the first edition LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHAND), G E N T I1 E M A N. BOO1K IX DEDICATION TO A GREAT MAN. HAVING, d poriori, intended to dedidate The Amours of my uncle Toby to Mr.* * *, I see more reasons, d posteriori, for doing it to Lord * > * * * * I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of their Reverences: because, d posteriori, in Court Latin, signifies the kissing hands for preferment, or any thing else, in order to get it. My opinion of Lord * * * * * * * is neither better nor worse than it was of Mr. * **. Honors, like impressions, upon coin, may give an idea and local value to a bit of base metal; but gold and silver will pass all the world over, without any other recommendation than their own weight. The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour's amusement to Mr. * * * when out of place, operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour's amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after labor and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast. Nothing is so perfectly amitsement as a total change of ideas; no ideas are so totally different as those of Ministers and innocent Lovers: for which reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and Patriots, and set such marks upon them as will prevent confusion 485 486 A D) E DICA TION TO A GREAT MAN. and mistake concerning them for the future, I propose to dedicate that volume to some gentle shepherd, Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray, Far as the Statesman's walk or Patriot's way; Yet simple Natcs'e to his hopes had given, Out of a cloud-capp'd hill, an humbler heaven; Some stamcl'd World in depth of woods embrac'd-= Some happier Island in the wat'ry wasted And where, admitted to the equal sky, Isis fc4it/'flab Dog shall bear him company. In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his imagination, I shall unavoidably give a.Diversion to his passionate and love-sick contemplations. In the mean time, I am TEIE AUTIIOI. BOO K IX. CHAPTER Is I CALL all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Toby's amours, till this very moment, that my mother's curiosity, as she stated the affair, or a different impulse in her, as my father would have it, wished her to take a peep at them through the key-hole. " Call it, my dear, by its right name," quoth my father, "6 and look through the key-hole as long as you will." Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humor, which I have often spoken of, in my father's habit, could have vented such an insinuation; he was, however, frank and generous in his nature, and at all times open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience smote him. My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the inside of her hand rested upon the back of his; she raised her fingers, and let them fall, it could scarce be called a tap; or, if it was a tap,'twould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether'twas a tap of remonstrance or a tap of confession; my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class'd it right; Conscience redoubled her blow, he turn'd his face suddenly the other way, and my mother, supposing his body was about to turn with it, in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its centre, brought herself 457 488 E LIr AND OPINIONS OF so far in front, that, as he turned his head, he met her eye: Confusion again! he saw a thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himself: a thin, blue, chill, pellucid crystal, with all its humors so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen at the bottom of it, had it existed; it did not; and how I happened to be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, Heaven above knows; my mother, iadam, was so at no time, either by nature, by institution, or example. A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humors from the manual eifervescences of devotional tracts, which, having little or no meaning in them, nature is oftentimes obliged to find one; and, as for my father's example!'twas so far from being either aiding or abetting thereunto, that'twas the whole business of his life to keep all fancies of that kind out of her head; Nature had done her part to have spared him this trouble; and, what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew it. And here am I sitting, this 12th day of August, 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers, without wig or cap on, a most tragi-comical completion of his prediction, "That I should neither think nor act like any other man's child, upon that very account." The mistake of my father was, in attacking my mother's motive instead of the act itself; for, certainly, key-holes were made for other purposes; and, considering *the act as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it was, it became a violation of nature; and was, so far, you see, criminal. It is for this reason, an' please your Reverences, that key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness than all the other holes in this world put together: Which leads me to my uncle Toby's amours. T A rIs T.. a - A 4 D 5 9 CHAPTER II. THouGrro the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby's great ramillie-wig into pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the corner of his old campaign-trunkl; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business, as one would have wished. The corporal, with cheery eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score of -times, to inspire it, if possible, with a better air: had Spleen given a look at it,'twould have cost her ladyship a smile; it airl'd everywhere but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have done it honor, he could as soon have raised the dead. Such it was, or rather, such would it have seem'd upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had, moreover, wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnish'd gold-lac'd hat and' huge cockade of flimsy taffety became him; and, though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and, altogether, seem'd to have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage. Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby's blue and gold, had not Quantity, in some measure, been necessary to Grace. In a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life (for he seldom went farther than the bowling-green), his blue and gold had become so miserably too strait for him, that it was with the utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves was of no advantage: they were laced, however, down the back, and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the mode of King William's reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so metallic and doughty an air with them, that, had my uncle 21* g490o Ii LI FE AND OP INIONS 0 Toby thought of attacking in armor, nothing could have so well imposed upon his imagination. As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp'd by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes and sevenas. Yes, Madam; but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before; and, as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush. The corporal had array'd himself in poor Le Fevre's regimental coat; and with his hair tuck'd up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbish'd up for the occasion, march'd three paces distant from his master: a whiff of military pride had puff'd out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipp'd into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal's stick. My uncle Toby carried his cane like a pipe. It looks well, at least, quoth my father to himself. C! APTE R IlI. Mi uncle Toby turned his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and the corporal, as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stick, but not vaporingly; and with the sweetest accent of most respectful encouragement, bid hisI Honor " never fear." Now my uncle Toby did fear, and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproach'd him) so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong, and therefore, was never altogether at his ease near any one of them, unless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman's eye; and yet, excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked stedfastly into one; and would often tell my father, in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as talking bawdy. And suppose it is? my father would say. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 491 CHAPTER IV. SHE cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had march'd up to within twenty paces of Mrs. Wadman's door, she cannot, corporal, take it amiss. She will take it, an' please your HI-onor, said the corporal, just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my brother Tom. And how was that? quoth my uncle Toby, facing quite about to the corporal. Your Honor, replied the corporal, knows of Toni's misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them any further than this, That if Tom had not married the widow, or had it pleased God, after their marriage, that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and dragg'd to the Inquisition;'tis a cursed place, added the corporal, shaking his head; when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an' please your Honor, for ever.'Tis very true, said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house as he spoke. Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for life, or so sweet, an' please your Honor, as liberty. Nothing, Trim, said my uncle Toby, musing. Whilst a man is free, cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus: A thousand of my father's most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy. My uncle Toby look'd earnestly towards his cottage and his Dowling-green. The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation 492 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF with his wand; and he had nothing to do but to conjure him down again with his story; and in this form of exorcism, most unecclesiastically did the corporal do it, CHAPTEPR V. As Tom's place, an9 please your Honor, was easy, and the weather warm, it put him upon thinking seriously of settling himself in the world, and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew, who kept a sausage-shop in the same street, had the ill-luck to die of a stranguary, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing trade, Tom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be no harm in offering her his service to carry it on; so without any introduction to the widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages at her shop, Tom set out, counting the matter thus within himself as he walk'd along: That, let the worst come of it that could, he should, at least, get a pound of sausages for their worth; but, if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausages, but a wife and a sausageshop, an' please your Honor, into the bargain. Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish'd Tom success; and I can fancy, an' please your HIonor, I see him this moment with his white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o' one side, passing jollily along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a cheerful word for every body he met. But, alas! Tom! thou smilest no more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophized him in his dungeon. Poor fellow! said my uncle Toby, feelingly. He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an' please your Honor, as ever blood warm'd. Then he resembled thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby, rapidly. The corporal blush'd down to his fingers' ends; a tear of sentimental bashfulness, another of gratitude to my uncle Toby, and a tear of sorrow for his brother's misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek together. My uncle Toby's kindled, as TRISTRAM IT II A i AND 4 0 3 one lamp does at another, and taking hold of the breast of Trim's coat (which had been that of Le Fevre's), as if to ease his lame leg, but in reality to gratify a finer feeling, he stood silent for a minute and a half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal, making a bow, went on with his story of his brother and the Jew's widow. CHAPTER I. WHrEr Tom, an' please your Honor, got to the shop, there was nobody in it but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies —not killing them.'Tis a pretty picture! said my uncle Toby; she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy. She was good, an' please your Honor, from nature, as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances in the story of that poor friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said Trim; and some dismal winter's evening, when your Honor is in the hunmor, they shall be told you, with the rest of Tom's story, for it makes a part of it. Then do not forget, Trim, said my uncle Toby. A negro has a soul! an' please your Honor, said the corporal, (doubtingly.) I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me. It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the corporal. It would so, said my uncle Toby. Why, then, an' please your Honor, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one? I can give no reasIon, said my uncle Toby. Only, cried the cdorporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her.'Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, which recommends her to protection, and her brethren with her;'tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands, nowo; where it may 494 TLFE AND O PINIONS ON A be hereafter, heaven knows! but be it where it will, the brave Trim will not use it unkindly. God forbid! said the corporal. Amen, responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon his heart. The corporal returned to his story, and went on-but with an embarrassment in doing it, which here and there a reader in this world will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice, which gave sense and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not please himself; so giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and aiding nature at the same time, with his left arm a-kimbo on one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the other, the corporal got as near the note as he could, and in that attitude continued his story. CH APTER VII. As Tom, an' please your Honor, had no business at that time with the Moorish girl, he passed on into the room beyond, to talk to the Jew's widow about love, and his pound of sausages; and being, as I have told your Honor, an open, cheery-hearted lad, with his chlaracter wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair, and without much apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the table, and sat down. There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman, an' please your Honor, whilst she is making sausages. So Tom began a discourse upon them: First, gravely —" As how they were made; with what meats, herbs and spices"; then a little gaily, as-" With what skinsand if they never burst? Whether the largest were not the best?" and so on —taking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, rather under than over, that he might have room to act in. It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim's shoulder, that Count de la Motte TRI T r AM SH A DY 495 lost the battle of Wynnendale: he pressed too speedily into the wood; which if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed her example. It was so late in the year, continued my uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perish'd in the open field. Why, therefore, may not battles, an' please your Honor, as well as marriages, be made in Heaven? My uncle Toby mused. Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so, not being able to frame a reply exactly to his mind, my uncle Toby said nothing at all, and the corporal finished his story. As Tom perceived, an' please your Honor, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages, was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them. First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage, whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her hand; then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out, one by one-then by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them, and so on, from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout. Now a widow, an' please your Honor, always chooses a second husband as unlike the first as she can; so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it. She made a feint, however, of defending herself by snatching up a sausage. Tom instantly laid hold of another. But seeing Tom's had more gristle in itShe signed the capitulation, and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter. CHAPTER VIII. ALL womankind, continued Trim (commenting upon his story), from the highest to the lowest, an' please your Honor, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them. cut; and there is no knowing that but by trying, as we do with our artillery 46 tsLIFE A XD OPIXIONS O in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark. I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby, better than the thing itself. Because, your Honor, quoth the corporal, loves glory more than pleasure. I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either: and as the knowledge of arms tends so apparently to the good and quiet of the world, and particularly that branch of it which we have practised together in our bowling-green, has no object but to shorten the strides of Ambition, and intrench the lives and fortunes of the few from the plunderings of the manay; whenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellow-feeling as to face about and march. In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about and marched firmly as at the head of his company; and the faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hind upon his coat-skirt, as he took his first step, marched close behind him down the avenue. Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my mother. By all that's strange, they are.besieging Mrs. Wadman, in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circurmvallation I I dare say, quoth my mother-But stop, dear Sir; for what my mother dared to say upon the occasion, and what my father did say upon it, with her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased, comllmented, or descanted upon-or to say it all in a word, shall be thumbed over by posterity, in a chapter apart; I say by posterity, and care not if I repeat the wolrd again; for what has this book done more than the Legation of MIoses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them? I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny, than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more; everything presses on, whilst thou art twisting that lock, see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make. Heaven have mercy upon us both! TRISTRAN SHANDY. 497 CI: APTER IX. Now for what the world thinks of that ejaculation, I would not give a groat. CHAP TiER IX. MY mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father's right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the old-garden-wall, where Doctor Slop Was overthrown by Obadiah on the coach-horse. As this was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman's house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing my uncle Toby and the corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn'd about, " Let us just stop a moment," quoth my father, "' and see with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their first entry; it will not detain us," added my father, 1" a single minute." No matter if it be ten minutes, quoth my mother. It will not detain us half a one, said my father. The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother Tom and the Jew's widow: the story wena on, and on; it had episodes in it; it came back and went on, and on again; there was no end of it: the reader found it very long. G- help my father! he pish'd fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the corporal's stick, with all its flourishings and danglings, to as many Devils as chose to accept of them. When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see it out. Curiosity governs the jZrst moment; and the second moment is all economy to justify the expense of the first; and for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment, Stis a point of Honor. 498 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience; but that Virtue, methinks, has extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles which 2Honor has left him upon the earth. My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries, to the end of Trim's story; and from thence to the end of my uncle Toby's panegyric upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing that, instead of marching up to Mrs. Wadmlan's door, they both faced about and march'd down the avenue diametrically opposite to his expectation, he broke out at once with that little subacid sourness of humor, which, in certain situations, distinguished his character friom that of all other men. CHAPTER XI.'LNow what can their two noddles be about?" cried my father, I dare say, said my mother, they are making fortifications. Not on M[rs. Wadman's premises! cried my father, stepping back. I suppose not, quoth my mother. I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of fortification at the Devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, faussebrays, and cuvettes. They are foolish things, said my mother. Now she had a way, which, by the by, I would this moment give away my purple-jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your Reverences would imitate, and that was, never to refuse her assent and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no ideas of the principal word or term of art upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her, but no more; and so would go on using a hard word for twenty years together, and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to inquire about it. TRISTRAM SHANDY. 499 This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than could have done the most petulant contradiction; the few that survived were the better for the ctuettes. "They are foolish things," said my mother. Particularly the cuvettes, replied my father. It was enough; he tasted the sweet of triumph, and went on. Not that -they are, properly speaking, YMrs. Wadman's premises, said my father, partly correcting himself, because she is but tenant for life. That makes a great difference, said my mother. In a fool's head, replied my father. Unless she should happen to have a child, said my mother. But she must persuade my brother Toby first to get her one. To be sure, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother. Though if it comes to persuasion, said my father, Lord have mercy upon them! Amen, said my motherl, piano. Amen, cried my father, fortissimo. Amen, said my mother again, but with such a sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as discomfited every fibre about my father; he instantly took out his almanac; but before he could untie it, Yorick's congregation coming out of church, became a full answer to one half of his business with it, and my mother telling him it was a sacrament day, left him as little in doubt, as to the other part. He put his almanac into his pocket. The First Lord of the Treasury, thinking of oaays and mneans, could not have returned home with a more embarrassed look. CHAPTER XII. UPoN looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter 500 L IF AE ND OPINIONS OF be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which, a book would not hold together a single year; nor is it a poor creeping digression (which, but for the name of, a man might continue as well going on in the King's highway) which will do the business. No, if it is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one, and upon a frisky subject too, where neither the horse nor his rider are to be caught but by rebound. The only difficulty is, raising powers suitable to the nature of the service: Fctncy is capricious; Wit must not be searched for, and PleasamtTy (good-natured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was an empire to be laid at her feet. The best way for a man is, to say his prayers. Only, if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects, as well ghostly as bodily, for that purpose, he will find himself rather worse after he has said them than before; for other purposes better. For' my own part, there is not a way, either moral or mechanical, under Heaven, that I could think of, which I have not taken with myself in this case; sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself; and arguing the point over and over again with her, upon the extent of her own faculties. I never could make them an inch the wider. Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the body, by temperance, soberness, and chastity. These are good quoth I, in themselves; they are good, absolutely; they are good, relatively; they are good for health; they are good for happiness in this world; they are good for happiness in the next. In short, they are good for every thing but the thing wanted; and there they are, good for nothing, but to leave the soul just as HIeaven made it. As for the theological virtues of Faith and Hope, they give it courage; but then, that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you are exactly where you started. Now, in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have found to answer so well as this. Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not blinded by self-love, there must be something of true genius about me, merely upon this symptom of it, That I do not know what Envy is: for never do I hit upon any invention or device which T RI I S T RA A M S HANDY. 501 tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly make it public; willing that all manklind should write as well as myself: Which they certainly will, when they think as little. CHAPTER XIII. Now, in ordinary cases, that is; when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous through my penOr that I am got, I klnow not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for zmy soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of the chapter, unless something be doneI never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of snuff; or a stride or two across the room, will not do the business for me, I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only, if I do leave a hair, that it be not a grey one; this done, I change my shirt, put on a better coat, send for my last wig, put my topaz-ring upon my finger; and, in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion. Now the Devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for, consider, Sir, as every man chooses to be present at the shaving of his own beard (though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits over-against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand in it, the Situation, like all others, had notions of her own to put into the brain. I maintain it, the conceits of a rough-bearded man are seven years more terse and juvenile for one single operation, and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up, by continual shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimity. How Homer could write with so long a beard, I don't know; and as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little care: but let us return to the Toilet. Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body (erforeplm urpacf) as he calls it, but he is deceived: the soul and body 502 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF are joint-sharers in every thing they get: a man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth'd at the same time: and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him; so that he has nothing to do but take his pen, and write like himself. For this cause, when your Honors and Reverences would know whether I write clean, and fit to be read, you will be able to judge full as well by looking into my laundress's bill, as my book: there was one single month, in which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one-and-thirty shirts with clean writing; and after all, was more abused, cursed, criticis'd, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote in that one month, than in all the other months of that year put together. But their Honors and Reverences had not seen my bills. CHAPTE R XIV. As I never had any intention of beginning the Digression I am making all this preparation for, till I came to the 15th chapter, I have this chapter to put to whatever use I think proper. I have twenty this moment ready for it. I could write my chapter of Button-holes in itOr my chapter of P'ishes, which should follow themOr my chapter of Knots, in case their Reverences have done with them: they might lead me into mischief. The safest way is. to follow the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been writing, though'I declare beforehand, I know no more than my heels how to answer them. And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of Thersitical satire, as black as the very ink'tis wrote with (and by the bye, whoever says so, is indebted to the Muster-master General of the Grecian army, for suffering the name of so ugly and foul-mouth'd a man as Thersites to continue upon his roll, for it has furnish'd him with an epithet) in these productions, he will urge all the personal washings and scrubbings upon earth do a sinking genius TRISTRAM SHANDY 503 no sort of good, but just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is, the better generally he succeeds in it. To this I have no other answer, at least ready, but that the. Archbishop of Benevento wrote his nasty Romance of the Galatea, as all the world knows, in a purple coat, waist-coat, and purple pair of breeches; and that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the book of the Revelations, as severe as it was look'd upon by one part of the world, was far from being deem'd so by the other, upon the single account of that Investment. Another objection to all this remedy, is its want of universality; forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon which so much stress is laid, by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species entirely from its use, all I can say, is, that female writers, whether of England, or of France, must e'en go without it. As for the Spanish ladies, I am in no sort of distress. CHAPTER XV. Y TEE fifteenth chapter is come at least; and brings nothing with it but a sad signature of " How our pleasures slip from under us in this world!" For in talking of my Digression, I declare before Heaven, I have made it! What a strange creature is mortal man! said she.'Tis very true, said I; but'twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle Toby. CHAP TER XVI.T GWHEN my uncle Toby and the corporal had marched down to the bottom of the avenue, they recollected their business lay the other way; so they faced about, and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman's door. 504 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF I warrant your Honor, said the corporal, touching his ilontero-cap with his hand as he passed him, in order to give a knock at the door. AMy uncle Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful servant, said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not altogether marshal!'d his ideas; he wish'd for another conference, and, as the corporal was mounting up the three steps before the door, he hemc'd twice; a portion of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, towards the corporal; he stood with the rapper of the door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger and her thumb upon the latch, benumb'd with expectation; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready to be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window-curtain of her bed-chamber, watching their approach. Trim! said my uncle Toby; but, as he articulated the word, the minute expired, and Trim let fell the rapper. My uncle Toby, perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knock'd on the head by it, whistled Lillibullero. CHTAPTER XVII. As Mrs. Bridget's finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal did not knock as often as perchance your Honor's tailor. I might have taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine some five-and-twenty pounds at least, and wonder at the man's patience. But this is nothing at all to the world: only'tis a cursed thing to be in debt; and there seems to be a fatality in the exchequers of some poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no economy can bind down in irons. For my own part, I'm persuaded there is not any one prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small, upon earth, more desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I am, or who takes more likely means for it. I never give above half a guinea nor walk with boots, nor cheapen toothpicks, nor lay out a shilling upon a band-box, the yea'r round: TRISTRAM S HAN DY. 505 and, for the six months I'm in the country, I'm upon so small a scale, that with all the good temper in the world, I outdo Rousseau a barlength! for I keep neither man nor boy, nor horse, nor cow, nor dog, nor cat, nor any thing that can eat or drink, except a thin poor piece of a vestal (to keep my fire in) and who has generally as bad an appetite as myself: but, if you think this makes a philosopher of me, I would not, my good people, give a rush for your judgments. True philosophy; but there is no treating the subject whilst my uncle is whistling Lillibullero. Let us go into the house. CHI APTE R X III. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. * * * * * * * * * * * * You shall see the very place, Madam, said my uncle Toby. Mrs. Wadman blush'd, look'd towards the door, turn'd pale, blush'd 22 506 L IFE AND OPINIONS O. slightly again, recover'd her natural color, blush'd worse than ever; which, for the sake of the unlearned reader, I translate thus: L —d! I cannot look at it! What would the world say if I looae'd at it? I should drop down if I look'd at it! I wish I could look at it. There can be no sin in looking at it, I will look at it.". Whilst all this was running through Mrs. Wadman's imagination, my uncle Toby had risen from the sofa, and got to the other side of the parlor-door, to give Trim an order about it in the passage*. *, * ~,,, ~, * * ~ ~* * * * * I believe it is in the garret, said my uncle Toby. I saw it there, an' please your Honor, this morning, answered Trim. Then prithee step directly for it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and bring it into the parlor. The corporal did not approve of the orders; but most cheerfully obeyed them. The first was not an act of his will; the second was; so lhe put on his ]Moiltero-cap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My uncle Toby returned into the parlor, and sat himself down again upon the sofa. You shall lay your finger upon the place, said my uncle Toby. I will not touch it, however, quoth Mrs. Wadman to herself, This requires a second translation:-it shows what little knowledge is got by mere words; we must go up to the first springs. Now, in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages, I must endeavor to be as clear as possible myself. Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads, blow your noses, cleanse your emu-nctories, sneeze, my good people; God bless you. Now give me all the help you can. CHAPTER XXI. As there are fifty different ends (counting all ends in, as well civil as religious) for which a woman takes a husband, she first sets about and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes, in her mind, T RISTRAM SHANDY, 507 which of all that number of ends is hers; then, by discourse, inquiry, argumentation, and inference, she investigates and finds out whether she has got hold of the right one; and, if she has, then, by pulling it gently this way and that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it will not break in the drawing. The imagery under which Slawkenbergius impresses this upon his reader's fancy, in the beginning of his third Decade, is so ludicrous, that the honor I bear the sex will not suffer me to quote it, otherwise, it is not destitute of humor. "'She first, saith Slawkenbergius, stops the ass; and holding his halter in her left hand (lest he should get away) she thrusts her right hand into the very bottom of his pannier, to search for it. For what? You'll not know the sooner, quoth Slawkenbergius, for interrupting me. "I have nothing, good lady, but empty bottles," says the ass. "I am loaded with tripes," says the second. And thou art little better, quoth she to the third; for nothing is there in thy panniers but trunk-hose and pantofles; and so to the fourth and fifth, going on, one by one, throxugh the whole string, till coming to the ass which carries it,-she turns the pannier upsidedown, looks at it, considers it, samples it, measures it, stretches it, Mwets it, dries it, then takes her teeth to the warp and weft of it. Of what? for the love of Christ! 1 am determined, answered Slawkenbergius, that all the powers, upon earth shall never wring that secret from my breast. CHAPTER XXII. WE live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles, and so'tis no matter; else it seems strange, that Nature, who makes every thing so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs, unless for pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes, to whatever passes through her hands, that, whether she designs for the plow, the caravan, the cart, or whatever other creature she models, be it but an ass's foal, you are sure to have the 508 LIFE AN D OPI ION S OF thing you wanted; and yet, at the same time, should so eternally bungle it as she does, in making so simple a thing as a married man. Whether it is in the choice of the clay, or that it is frequently spoil'd in the baking (by an excess of which a husband may turn out too crusty, you know, on one hand, or not enough so, through defect of heat, on the other); or whether this great artificer is not so attentive to the little Platonic exigencies of that aCCrt of the species, for whose use she is fabricating this; or that her Ladyship sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do, I know not: we will discourse about it after supper. It is enough, that neither the observation itself, nor the reasoning upon it, are at all to the purpose-but rather against it; since, with regard to my uncle Toby's fitness for the marriage state, nothing was ever better; she had formed him of the best and kindliest clay, had temper'd it with her own milk, and breathed into it the sweetest spirit; she made him all gentle, generous, and humane; she had filled his heart with trust and confidence, and disposed every passage which led to it for the communication of the tenderest offices; she had, moreover, considered the other causes for which matrimony was ordainedAnd, accordingly,* * * * f* * * * * * * * e * * *, ~ * * * * The Donation was not defeated by my uncle Toby's wound. Now, this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is the great disturber of our faiths in this world, had raised scruples in Mrs. Wadman's brain about it; and like a true Devil as he was, had done his own work at the same time, by turning my uncle Toby's virtue thereupon into nothing but empty bottles, trnipes, trmnlchose, and pantofies. T RISTRAM SHA DY 509 CHAPTER XXIII. MRs. BRIDGET had pawned all the little stock of honor a poor chambermaid was worth in the world, that she would get to the bottom of the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most concessible jostulatc in nature; namely, that, whilst my uncle Toby was nmaking love to her mistress, the corporal could find nothing better to do than to make love to her; "' Anzd I'll let him as much as he will," said Bridget,'" to get it out of hiimn." Friendship has two garments, an outer and an under one. Bridget was serving her mistress's interests in the one, and doing the thing which most pleased herself in the other; so had as many stakes depending upon my uncle Toby's wound as the Devil himself. Mrs. Wadman had but one, and as it possibly might be her last (without discouraging AMrs. Bridget, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her cards herself. She wanted not encouragemn ent: a child mig'ht have looked into his hand; there was such a plainness and simplicity in his playing out what trumps he had, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the tenz-ace, and so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sofa with Widow Wadman, that a generous heart would have wept to have won the game of him. Let us drop the metaphor. CHAP T E R XXIV. AND the story too, if you please; for though I have all along been hastening towards this part of it, with so much earnest desire, as well knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the world, yet now that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen and go on with the story for me that will; I see the difficulties of the descriptions I amn going to give, and feel my want of powers. 510 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of blood this week in a most uncritical fever which attacked me at the beginning of this chapter: so that I have still some hopes remaining it may be more in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the subtle aura of the brain: be it which it will, an Invocation can do no hurt; and I leave the affair entirely to the invoiced, to inspire or to inject me according as he sees good. THE INVOCATION. Gentle Spirit of sweetest humor, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of my beloved Cervantes! Thou who glided'st daily through his lattice, and turned'st the twilight of his prison into noon-day brightness by thy presence, tinged'st his little urn of water with heaven-sent nectar, and, all the time hle wrote of Sancho and his master, didst cast thy mystic mantle o'er his withered stump,* and wide extended it to all the evils of his life. Turn in hither, I beseech thee! behold these breeches! they are all I have in the world; that piteous rent was given them at Lyons. My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happened amongst them; for the laps are in Lombardy, and the rest of them here. I never had but six, and a cunning gipsy of a laundress at Milan cut me off the fore-laps of five. To do her justice, she did it with some consideration, for I was returning out of Italy. And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinder-box, which was, moreover, filched from me at Sienna, and twice that I paid five Pauls for two hard eggs, once at Raddicofini, and a second time at Capua, I do not think a journey through France and Italy, provided a mnan keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some people would make you believe; there must be 8ps and dowens, or how the deuce should we get into valleys where Nature spreads so many tables of entertainment?'Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their voitures to be shaken to pie'ces for nothing; and, unless you pay twelve sons for greasing your wheels, how should the poor peasant get butter to his bread?' We really expect too much, and, for the livre or two above par for your supper and bed, at the * He lost his hand at the battle of Leparnto. T RI TR AM SA N DY 11 most they are but one shilling and nine-pence halfpenny, who would embroil their philosophy for it? for Heaven's and for your own sake, pay it, pay it with both hands open, rather than leave Disappoiztment sitting drooping upon the eyes of your fair hostess and her damsels in the gateway, at your departure; and besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of them, worth a pound: at least I did. For my uncle Toby's amours running all the way in my head, they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my own. I was in the most perfect state of bounty and good-will, and felt the kindliest harmony vibrating within me; with every osseillation of the chaise alike; so that, whether the roads were rough or smooth, it made no difference.; everything I saw, or had to do with, touched upon some secret spring, either of sentiment or rapture. They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the foreglass to hear them more distinctly.'Tis Maria, said the postillion, observing I was listening. Poor Maria, continued he (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank, playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her. The young fellow uttered this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow I would give him a four-and-twenty sous piece when I got to Moulins. And who is poor Maria? said I. The love and pity of all the villages around us, said the postillion: it is but three years ago that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted, and amiable a maid; and better fate did MAaria deserve than to have her bans forbid by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them. He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth and began the air again; they were the same notes, yet were ten times sweeter. It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young' man; but who hlas taught her to play it, or how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that Heaven has assisted her in both; for, ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation; she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that se'rvice upon it almost day and night. The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural 512 LIFE AIND OPINIONS OF eloquence, that I could not help deciphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria's taken such full possession of me. We had got up by this time almost to the bank where MIaria was sitting; she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side; she was beautiful; and, if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her. God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said, in the several parish-churches and convents around, for her, but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever. As the postillion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and qulerulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm. Maria looked wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat, and then at me, and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately. WVell, Mfaria, said I softly, what resemblance do you find? I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the hmunblest conviction of what a beast man is, that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fall an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scattered, and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days; and never, never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live. As for writing nonsense to them, I believe there was a reserve; but that I leave to the world. Adieu, 3Maria! adieu, poor hapless damsel! some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips, but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk'd softly to my chaise. What an excellent inn at Mioulins t TRISTRAM S HANDYo,1 CHAPTER XXV. WnTanE we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters; on the account of which my honor has lain bleeding this half hour, I stop it, by pulling off one of my yellow slippers, and throwing it, with all my violence, to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of itThat whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are written in the wld, or, ofor aught I know, may be now writing in it, that it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse; besides, I look upon a chapter which has only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what worse things there are in the world, that it is no way a proper subject for satire. Why then was it left so? And here, without staying for my reply, shall I be called as many blockheads, numsculls, doddypoles, dunderheads, ninnyhammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoopsi and sh-t-a-beds, and other unsavory appellations as ever the cake-bakers of Lerne cast in the teeth of King Gargantua's shepherds; and I'll let them do it, as Bridget said, as much as they please: for how was it possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 25th chapter of my book before the 1Sth? &c. So I don't take it amiss. All I wish is, That it may be a lesson to the world, "to let people tell their stories their ow'n way." The Eighteenth Chcapter. As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my uncle Toby's introduction into the parlor was so short, that Mrs. Wadman hadbut just time to get from behind the curtain, lay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two towards the door to receive him. My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of our Lord God one thou22* a5[I4 t LI E, AND OP N IO N S 0' sand seven hundred and thirteen; then facing about, lhe marchid up abreast with her to the sofa, and in three plain words, though not before he was sat down, nor after he was sat down, but as he was sitting down, told her, " he icas inz love;" so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the declaration than he needed. Mrs. Wadmcan naturally looked down upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every moment that may uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification, and love, moreover, of all others, being a subject of which he was the least a master; when he had told Mirs. Wadmlan once that lie loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to work after its own way. 3My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it, and would ofRen say, That could his brother Toby to his process have added but a pipe of Tobacco, lie had wherewithal to have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the globe. Mty uncle Toby never understood what my father meant: nor will I presume to extract more from it than a condemnation of an error w-hicll the bulk of the world lie under; but the French, every one'em to a man, who believe in it almost as much as the real presenece, That tczl-ing of love is qcnlinng it." I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt. Let us go on: Mrs. NWadman sat in the expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, subblushing, as she did it, she took up the gauntlet, or the discourse (if you like it better), and communed with my uncle Toby thus: The cares and discqlietudes of the marriage-state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great. I suppose so, said my uncle Toby. And therefore when a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at ease as you are, so happy, Captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends, and your amusements, I wonder what reasons can incline you to the state. They are written, quoth my uncle Toby, in the Common-Prayer Book. TR S T R A SHANDY. e'l1 Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the gulf as she pleased. As for children, said Mrs. Wadman, though a principal end, perhaps, of the institution, and the natural wish, I suppose, of every parent, yet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain comforts? and what is there, dear Sir, to pay for the heartaches! what compensation for the many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother, who brings them into life? I declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased GodA fiddle-stick! quoth she, Chapter the Nineteenth. Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks and accents with which the -wordfiddlestick may be pronounced in all such cases as this, every one of'em impressing a sense and meaning as different fromn the other as dirt from cleanliness, that casuists (for it is an affair of conscience upon that score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong. Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestickc which summoned up all my uncle Toby's modest blood into his cheeks: so feeling within himself that he had somehlow or other got beyond his depth, he stopped short; and without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and made an offer to take them as they were, and share them along with her. When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again; so casting his eye upon the Bible, which Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of all other the most interesting to him, which was the siege of Jericho, he set himself to read it over, leaving his proposal of marriage; as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. [Now it wrought neither as an astringent nor a loosener; nor like opium, nor bark, mercury, nor buckthorn, nor any one drug which Nature had bestowed upon the world; in short, it ' 16; I EI A ND OPINIONS O F worked not at all in her: and the cause of that was, that there was something working there before. Babbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a dozen times; but there is fire still in the subject. Allons! CHAPTER XXVI. IT is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh, to inquire, before he sets out, how many miles to York? which is about the half-way: nor does any body wonder, if he goes on and asks about the corporation, &c. It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a sciatica, to wish to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in the one case than in the other. She had accordingly read Drake's Anatomy from one end to the other. She had peep'd into Wharton upon the Brain, and borrowed *Graaf upon the Bones and AMuscles; but could make nothing of it. She had reason'd likewise from her own powers, laid down theorems, drawn consequences, and come to no conclusion. To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop, "If poor Captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his wound?" -Ie is recovered, Doctor Slop would say. What, quite? Quite, madam]. But what do you mean by a recovery? Mrs. Wadman would say. Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so.Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge. In short, there was no way to extract it, but from my uncle Toby himself. There is an accent of humanity in an inquiry of this kind, which lulls suspicion to rest; and I am half persuaded the serpent got pretty near it in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the * This must be a mistake in Mr. Shandy; for Graaf wrote upon the pancreatic juice, and the parts of generation. iRI S R1 A SHANDOY b lf sex to be deceived could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold chat with the Devil without it. But there is an accent of humanity: how shall I describe it?'tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives the inquirer a right to be as particular with it as your body-surgeon.;" Was it without remission? "Was it more tolerable in bed? " Could he lie on both sides alike with it?' Was he able to mount a horse?'W Was motion bad for it?" et ccetera, were so tenderly spoke to, and so directed towards my uncle Toby's heart, that every item of them sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves; but when Mrs. Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby's groin; and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and 9e6le mele with the Dutch, to take the counterguard of St. Roch sword-in-hand, and then, with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him, all bleeding, by the hand out of the-trench, wiping her eye as he was carried to- his tent, Heaven! Earth! Sea! all was lifted up, the springs of nature rose above their levels, an angel of mercy sat beside him on the sofa, his heart glow'd with fire; and had he been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of them to M1rs. Wadman. And whereabouts, dear Sir, quoth Mrs. Wadman, a little categorically, did you receive this sad blow? In asking this question, Mrs. Wadman gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my uncle Toby's red plush breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest reply to it, that my uncle Toby would lay his fore-finger upon the place. It fell out otherwise, for my uncle Toby having got his wound before the gate of St. Nicholas, in one of the traverses of the trench opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of St. Roch, he could at any time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing when the stone struck him. This struck instantly upon my uncle Toby's sensorium; and with it, struck his large map of the town and citadel of Namur, and its environs, which he had purchased and pasted down upon a board, by the corporal's aid, through his long illness: it had lain, with other military lumber, in the garret ever since; and accordingly the corporal was detached to the garret to fetch it. 51$8 LISt AND OPINIONS OF My uncle Toby measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. Wadman's scissors, from the returning angle before the gate of St. Nicholas; and. with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the Goddess of Decency, if then in being —if not,'twas her shadeshook her head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes, forbade her to explain the mistake. Unhappy AiMrs. Wadman! For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to thee: but my heart tells me, that in such a crisis an apostrophe is but an insult in disguise; and ere I would offer one to a woman in distress, let the chapter go to the Devil; provided any damn'd critic in keeping will be but at the trouble to take it with him. CHAPTER XXVII. MY uncle Toby's map is carried down into the kitchen. CHAPTER XXVIII. AND here is the Maes, and this is the Sambre, said the corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a little towards the map, and his left upon Mrs. Bridget's shoulder, but not the shoulder next him; and this, said he, is. the town of Namur, and this the citadel, and there lay the French, and here lay his honor and myself; and in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive the wound which crush'd him so miserably here. In pronouncing which, he slightly press'd the back of her hand towards the part he felt for, and let it fll. We thought, Mr. Trim, it had been more in the middle, said Mrs. Bridget. That would have undone us for ever, said the corporal. And left my poor mistress undone too, said Bridget. TRI'SfTlRAM SHAND Y. i9 The corporal made no reply to the repartee, but by giving Mrs. Bridget a kiss. Come, come, said Bridget, holding the palm of her left hand parallel to the plane of the horizon, and sliding the fingers of the other over it, in a way which could not have been done had there been the least wart or protuberance-'tis every syllable of it false, cried the corporal, before she had half finished the sentence. I know it to be a fact, said Bridget, from credible witnesses. Upon my honor, said the corporal, laying his hand upon his heart, and blushing as he spoke, with honest resentment,'tis a story, Mrs. Bridget, as false as hell. Not, said Bridget, interrupting him, that either I or my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether it is so or no; only that when one is married, one would choose to have such a thing by one at leastIt was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. Bridget, that she had begun the attack with her manual exercise; for the corporal instantly * * * * * a * * * * * * * CHAPTER XXIX. IT was like the momentary contest in the moist eyelids of an April morning, "Whether Bridget should laugh or cry." She snatch'd up a rolling-pin —'twas ten to one she had laugh'd. She laid it down —she cried: and had one single tear of'em but tasted of bitterness, full sorrowful would the corporal's heart have been that he had used the argument; but the corporal understood the sex, a quart ncajor to a terce at least, better than my uncle Toby, and accordingly he assailed Mrs. Bridget after this manner: I know, ~Mrs. Bridget, said the corporal, giving her a most respectful kiss, that thou art good and modest by nature; and art withal so generous a girl in thyself, that, if I know thee rightly, thou would'st not wound an insect, much less the honor of so gallant and worthy a soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a countess of; but 520 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF thou hast been set on, and deluded, dear Bridget, as is often a woman's case, " to please others more than themselves." Bridget's eyes poured down at the sensations the corporal excited. Tell me, tell me, then, my dear Bridget, continued the corpora., taking hold of her hand, which hung down dead by her side, and giving her a second kiss, whose suspicion has misled thee? Bridget sobb'd a sob or two, then open'd her eyes; the corporal wiped'em with the bottom of her apron; she then open'd her heart and told him all. C HA P T E R XXX. MY uncle Toby and the corporal had gone on separately with their operations the greatest part of the campaign, and as effectually cut off from all communication of what either the one or the other had been doing, as if they had been separated from each other by the Maes or the Sambre. ~My uncle Toby, on his side, had presented himself every afternoon in his red and silver, and blue and gold, alternately, and sustained an infinity of attacks in them, without knowing them to be attacks; and so had nothing to communicate. The corporal, on his side, in taking Bridget, by it gain'd considerable advantages, and consequently had much to communicate; but what were the advantages, as well as what was the manner by which.he had seiz'd them, required so nice an historian, that the corporal durst not venture upon it; and, as sensible as he was of glory, would rather have been contended to have gone bare-headed and without laurels for ever, than torture his master's modesty for a single moment. Best of honest and gallant servants! But I have apostrophiz'd thee, Trim, once before; and could I apotheosize thee also (that is to say) with good company, I would do it ivit-hout ceremony in the very next page. T R ISTR AM S H A N DY 521 CHAPTER XXXi, Now my uncle Toby had one evening laid down his pipe upon tihe table, and was counting over to himself, upon his fingers' ends (beginning at his thumb), all Mrs. Wadman's perfections, one by one; and happening two or three times together, either by omitting some, or counting others twice over, to puzzle himself sadly before he could get beyond his middle-finger, Prithee, Trim, said he, taking up his pipe again, bring me a pen and ink. Trim brought paper also. Take a full sheet, Trim! said my uncle Toby, making a sign with his pipe at the same time to take a chair and sit down close by him at the table. The corporal obeyed, placed the paper directly before him, took a pen, and dipp'd it in the in