Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis.——
HOR.
—Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut mordacius quam
deceat Christianum—non Ego, sed Democritus dixit.—
ERASMUS.
Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, sciebat,
anathema esto.
Second Council of CARTHAGE.
TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
J O H N,
LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER
MY LORD,
I HUMBLY beg leave to offer you these two Volumes[22]; they are the best my talents, with such bad
health as I have, could produce:—had Providence granted me a larger stock
of either, they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.
I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I
dedicate this work to you, I join Lady
SPENCER, in the liberty I take of inscribing the
story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other
motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a
humane one.
I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s most devoted
and most humble Servant,
LAUR. STERNE.
IF it had not been for those two
mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a postillion who drove them
from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had never entered my head. He
flew like lightning——there was a slope of three miles
and a half——we scarce touched the
ground——the motion was most rapid——most
impetuous——’twas communicated to my
brain—my heart partook of it——“By the
great God of day,” said I, looking towards the sun, and
thrusting my arm out of the fore-window of the chaise, as I made my
vow, “I will lock up my study-door the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the
surface of the earth, into the draw-well at the back of my
house.”
The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung
tottering upon the hill, scarce progressive,
drag’d—drag’d up by eight heavy
beasts—“by main strength!——quoth
I, nodding——but your betters draw the same
way——and something of every
body’s!——O rare!”
Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the
bulk—so little to the stock?
Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new
mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?
Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope?
for ever in the same track—for ever at the same pace?
Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as
well as working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning,
as monks do the relicks of their saints—without working
one—one single miracle with them?
Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in
a moment—that great, that most excellent, and most noble
creature of the world—the miracle of nature, as
Zoroaster in his book ωεσι
φυσεως called
him—the SHEKINAH of the divine presence, as
Chrysostom——the image of God, as
Moses——the ray of divinity, as Plato—the
marvel of marvels, as Aristotle—to go sneaking
on at this pitiful—pimping——pettifogging
rate?
I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the
occasion——but if there is no catachresis in the wish,
and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that every imitator in
Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for
his pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large enough
to hold—aye—and sublimate them, shag rag and
bob-tail, male and female, all together: and this leads me to
the affair of Whiskers——but, by what chain of
ideas—I leave as a legacy in mort-main to Prudes and
Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of.
UPON WHISKERS.
I’m sorry I made it——’twas as
inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a man’s
head——A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not
bear it—’tis a delicate world——but I knew
not of what mettle it was made—nor had I ever seen the
under-written fragment; otherwise, as surely as noses are noses,
and whiskers are whiskers still (let the world say what it will to
the contrary); so surely would I have steered clear of this
dangerous chapter.
THE FRAGMENT.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * *
——You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old
gentleman, taking hold of the old lady’s hand, and giving it
a gentle squeeze, as he pronounced the word
Whiskers——shall we change the subject? By no
means, replied the old lady—I like your account of those
matters; so throwing a thin gauze handkerchief over her
head, and leaning it back upon the chair with her face turned
towards him, and advancing her two feet as she reclined
herself——I desire, continued she, you will go on.
The old gentleman went on as follows:——Whiskers!
cried the queen of Navarre, dropping her knotting ball, as
La Fosseuse uttered the word——Whiskers, madam,
said La Fosseuse, pinning the ball to the queen’s
apron, and making a courtesy as she repeated it.
La Fosseuse’s voice was naturally soft and low, yet
’twas an articulate voice: and every letter of the word
Whiskers fell distinctly upon the queen of
Navarre’s ear—Whiskers! cried the queen, laying
a greater stress upon the word, and as if she had still distrusted
her ears——Whiskers! replied La Fosseuse,
repeating the word a third time——There is not a
cavalier, madam, of his age in Navarre, continued the maid
of honour, pressing the page’s interest upon the queen, that
has so gallant a pair——Of what? cried
Margaret, smiling—Of whiskers, said La Fosseuse,
with infinite modesty.
The word Whiskers still stood its ground, and continued
to be made use of in most of the best companies throughout the
little kingdom of Navarre, notwithstanding the indiscreet
use which La Fosseuse had made of it: the truth was, La
Fosseuse had pronounced the word, not only before the queen,
but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an accent which
always implied something of a mystery—And as the court of
Margaret, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture
of gallantry and devotion——and whiskers being as
applicable to the one, as the other, the word naturally stood its
ground——it gained full as much as it lost; that is, the
clergy were for it——the laity were against
it——and for the women,——they were
divided.
The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur De
Croix, was at that time beginning to draw the attention of the
maids of honour towards the terrace before the palace gate, where
the guard was mounted. The lady De Baussiere fell
deeply in love with him,——La Battarelle did the
same—it was the finest weather for it, that ever was
remembered in Navarre——La Guyol, La Maronette, La
Sabatiere, fell in love with the Sieur De Croix
also——La Rebours and La Fosseuse knew
better——De Croix had failed in an attempt to
recommend himself to La Rebours; and La Rebours and
La Fosseuse were inseparable.
The queen of Navarre was sitting with her ladies in the
painted bow-window, facing the gate of the second court, as De
Croix passed through it—He is handsome, said the Lady
Baussiere——He has a good mien, said La
Battarelle——He is finely shaped, said La
Guyol—I never saw an officer of the horse-guards in my
life, said La Maronette, with two such legs——Or
who stood so well upon them, said La
Sabatiere——But he has no whiskers, cried La
Fosseuse——Not a pile, said La Rebours.
The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as
she walked through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it
this way and that way in her fancy—Ave
Maria!——what can La-Fosseuse mean? said she,
kneeling down upon the cushion.
La Guyol, La Battarelle, La Maronette, La Sabatiere,
retired instantly to their chambers——Whiskers! said all
four of them to themselves, as they bolted their doors on the
inside.
The Lady Carnavallette was counting her beads with both
hands, unsuspected, under her farthingal——from St.
Antony down to St. Ursula inclusive, not a saint
passed through her fingers without whiskers; St. Francis,
St. Dominick, St. Bennet, St. Basil, St.
Bridget, had all whiskers.
The Lady Baussiere had got into a wilderness of conceits,
with moralizing too intricately upon La Fosseuse’s
text——She mounted her palfrey, her page followed
her——the host passed by—the Lady Baussiere
rode on.
One denier, cried the order of mercy—one single denier, in
behalf of a thousand patient captives, whose eyes look towards
heaven and you for their redemption.
——The Lady Baussiere rode on.
Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man,
meekly holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered
hands——I beg for the unfortunate—good my Lady,
’tis for a prison—for an hospital—’tis for
an old man—a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by
fire——I call God and all his angels to
witness——’tis to clothe the naked——to
feed the hungry——’tis to comfort the sick and the
broken-hearted.
The Lady Baussiere rode on.
A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground.
——The Lady Baussiere rode on.
He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring
her by the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity,
&c.——Cousin, aunt, sister, mother,——for
virtue’s sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ’s
sake, remember me——pity me.
——The Lady Baussiere rode on.
Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady
Baussiere—The page took hold of her palfrey. She
dismounted at the end of the terrace.
There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of
themselves about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a
consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to
make these etchings the stronger—we see, spell, and put them
together without a dictionary.
Ha, ha! he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere,
looking close at each other’s prints——Ho, ho!
cried La Battarelle and Maronette, doing the
same:—Whist! cried one—ft, ft,—said a
second—hush, quoth a third—poo, poo, replied a
fourth—gramercy! cried the Lady
Carnavallette;——’twas she who
bewhisker’d St. Bridget.
La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair,
and having traced the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt
end of it, upon one side of her upper lip, put in into La Rebours’
hand—La Rebours shook her head.
The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her
muff—La Guyol smiled—Fy, said the Lady
Baussiere. The queen of Navarre touched her eye with
the tip of her fore-finger—as much as to say, I understand
you all.
’Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La
Fosseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the better for
passing through all these defiles——It made a faint
stand, however, for a few months, by the expiration of which, the
Sieur De Croix, finding it high time to leave Navarre
for want of whiskers——the word in course became
indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.
The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have
suffered under such combinations.——The curate of
d’Estella wrote a book against them, setting forth the
dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the Navarois against
them.
Does not all the world know, said the curate
d’Estella at the conclusion of his work, that Noses
ran the same fate some centuries ago in most parts of
Europe, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom of
Navarre?—The evil indeed spread no farther
then—but have not beds and bolsters, and night-caps and
chamber-pots stood upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are
not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles—and spigots
and faucets, in danger still from the same
association?—Chastity, by nature, the gentlest of all
affections—give it but its head——’tis like
a ramping and a roaring lion.
The drift of the curate d’Estella’s argument
was not understood.—They ran the scent the wrong
way.—The world bridled his ass at the tail.—And when
the extremes of DELICACY, and the
beginnings of CONCUPISCENCE, hold their next
provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also.
WHEN my father received the letter
which brought him the melancholy account of my brother
Bobby’s death, he was busy calculating the expence of
his riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to
Lyons.
’Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had
every foot of it to travel over again, and his calculation to begin
afresh, when he had almost got to the end of it, by
Obadiah’s opening the door to acquaint him the family
was out of yeast—and to ask whether he might not take the
great coach-horse early in the morning and ride in search of
some.—With all my heart, Obadiah, said my father
(pursuing his journey)—take the coach-horse, and
welcome.——But he wants a shoe, poor creature! said
Obadiah.——Poor creature! said my uncle
Toby, vibrating the note back again, like a string in
unison. Then ride the Scotch horse, quoth my father hastily.—He cannot bear
a saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole
world.——The devil’s in that horse; then take
PATRIOT, cried my father, and shut the
door.——PATRIOT is sold, said
Obadiah. Here’s for you! cried my father, making a
pause, and looking in my uncle Toby’s face, as if the
thing had not been a matter of fact.—Your worship ordered me
to sell him last April, said Obadiah.—Then go
on foot for your pains, cried my father——I had much
rather walk than ride, said Obadiah, shutting the door.
What plagues, cried my father, going on with his
calculation.——But the waters are out, said
Obadiah,—opening the door again.
Till that moment, my father, who had a map of Sanson’s, and a book
of the post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his compasses,
with one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage he had paid
for—purposing to go on from that point with his journey and calculation,
as soon as Obadiah quitted the room: but this second attack of
Obadiah’s, in opening the door and laying the whole country under
water, was too much.——He let go his compasses—or rather with
a mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw them upon the table; and
then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to Calais (like
many others) as wise as he had set out.
When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained
the news of my brother’s death, my father had got forwards
again upon his journey to within a stride of the compasses of the
very same stage of Nevers.——By your leave, Mons.
Sanson, cried my father, striking the point of his compasses
through Nevers into the table—and nodding to my uncle
Toby to see what was in the letter—twice of one night,
is too much for an English gentleman and his son, Mons.
Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a town as
Nevers—What think’st thou, Toby? added my
father in a sprightly tone.——Unless it be a garrison
town, said my uncle Toby——for then—I shall be a fool, said
my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live.—So giving a
second nod—and keeping his compasses still upon Nevers
with one hand, and holding his book of the post-roads in the
other—half calculating and half listening, he leaned forwards
upon the table with both elbows, as my uncle Toby hummed
over the letter.
—— —— —— ——
—— —— —— ——
—— —— —— ——
—— —— —— ——
—— —— —— —he’s
gone! said my uncle Toby——Where——Who? cried my
father.——My nephew, said my uncle
Toby.——What—without leave—without
money—without governor? cried my father in amazement. No:——he
is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle Toby.—Without being ill?
cried my father again.—I dare say not, said my uncle Toby, in a
low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, he has been
ill enough, poor lad! I’ll answer for him——for he is dead.
When Agrippina was told of her son’s death,
Tacitus informs us, that, not being able to moderate the
violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work—My
father stuck his compasses into Nevers, but so much the
faster.—What contrarieties! his, indeed, was matter of
calculation!—Agrippina’s must have been quite a
different affair; who else could pretend to reason from
history?
How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to
itself.—
————And a chapter it shall
have, and a devil of a one too—so look to yourselves.
’Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or
Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or
Theophrastus, or Lucian—or some one perhaps of
later date—either Cardan, or Budæus, or
Petrarch, or Stella—or possibly it may be some
divine or father of the church, St. Austin, or St.
Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms that it is an
irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our
friends or children—and Seneca (I’m positive)
tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by
that particular channel—And accordingly we find, that
David wept for his son Absalom—Adrian
for his Antinous—Niobe for her children, and
that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for
Socrates before his death.
My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed
differently from most men either ancient or modern; for he neither
wept it away, as the Hebrews and the Romans—or
slept it off, as the Laplanders—or hanged it, as the
English, or drowned it, as the Germans,—nor did
he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or
lillabullero it.——
——He got rid of it, however.
Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between
these two pages?
When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia,
at first he laid it to his heart,—he listened to the voice of nature, and
modulated his own unto it.—O my Tullia! my daughter!
my child!—still, still, still,—’twas O my
Tullia!—my Tullia! Methinks I see my
Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my
Tullia.—But as soon as he began to look into the
stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might
be said upon the occasion—no body upon earth can conceive,
says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.
My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS
TULLIUS CICERO could be for his life,
and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with
as much reason: it was indeed his strength—and his weakness
too.——His strength—for he was by nature eloquent;
and his weakness—for he was hourly a dupe to it; and,
provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his
talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd
one—(bating the case of a systematic misfortune)—he had
all he wanted.—A blessing which tied up my father’s tongue, and a
misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal:
sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for
instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and
the pain of the misfortune but as five—my father
gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if
it had never befallen him.
This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very
inconsistent in my father’s domestic character; and it is
this, that, in the provocations arising from the neglects and
blunders of servants, or other mishaps unavoidable in a family, his
anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all
conjecture.
My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned
over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out
of her for his own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so
talked about his pad every day with as absolute a security, as if
it had been reared, broke,—and bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some neglect or
other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father’s
expectations were answered with nothing better than a mule, and as
ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced.
My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be
the death of Obadiah—and that there never would be an
end of the disaster——See here! you rascal, cried my
father, pointing to the mule, what you have done!——It
was not me, said Obadiah.——How do I know that?
replied my father.
Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the
repartee—the Attic salt brought water into
them—and so Obadiah heard no more about it.
Now let us go back to my brother’s death.
Philosophy has a fine saying for every thing.—For
Death it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once
rushed into my father’s head, that ’twas difficult to
string them together, so as to make any thing of a consistent show out of them.—He
took them as they came.
“’Tis an inevitable chance—the first
statute in Magna Charta—it is an everlasting act of
parliament, my dear brother,—All must die.
“If my son could not have died, it had been matter
of wonder,—not that he is dead.
“Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with
us.
“—To die, is the great debt and tribute
due unto nature: tombs and monuments, which should perpetuate our
memories, pay it themselves; and the proudest pyramid of them all,
which wealth and science have erected, has lost its apex, and
stands obtruncated in the traveller’s horizon.” (My
father found he got great ease, and went
on)—“Kingdoms and provinces, and towns and
cities, have they not their periods? and when those principles and
powers, which at first cemented and put them together, performed their several evolutions,
they fall back.”—Brother Shandy, said my uncle
Toby, laying down his pipe at the word
evolutions—Revolutions, I meant, quoth my
father,—by heaven! I meant revolutions, brother
Toby—evolutions is nonsense.——’Tis
not nonsense—said my uncle Toby.——But is
it not nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such
an occasion? cried my father—do not—dear Toby,
continued he, taking him by the hand, do not—do not, I
beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.——My uncle
Toby put his pipe into his mouth.
“Where is Troy and Mycenæ, and
Thebes and Delos, and Persepolis and
Agrigentum?”—continued my father, taking up his
book of post-roads, which he had laid down.—“What
is become, brother Toby, of Nineveh and
Babylon, of Cizicum and Mitylenæ? The
fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the
names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt)
are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of
time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a
perpetual night: the world itself, brother Toby,
must—must come to an end.
“Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from
Ægina towards Megara,” (when can this
have been? thought my uncle Toby,) “I began to view
the country round about. Ægina was behind me,
Megara was before, Pyræus on the right hand,
Corinth on the left.—What flourishing towns now
prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man
should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as
this lies awfully buried in his presence——Remember,
said I to myself again—remember thou art a
man.”—
Now my uncle Toby knew not that this last paragraph was
an extract of Servius Sulpicius’s consolatory letter
to Tully.—He had as little skill, honest man, in the
fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity.—And as
my father, whilst he was concerned in the Turkey trade, had
been three or four different times in the Levant, in one of
which he had stayed a whole year and an half at Zant, my
uncle Toby naturally concluded, that, in some one of these
periods, he had taken a trip across the Archipelago into
Asia; and that all this sailing affair with
Ægina behind, and Megara before, and
Pyræus on the right hand, &c. &c. was nothing
more than the true course of my father’s voyage and
reflections.—’Twas certainly in his manner, and
many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon
worse foundations.—And pray, brother, quoth my uncle
Toby, laying the end of his pipe upon my father’s hand
in a kindly way of interruption—but waiting till he finished
the account—what year of our Lord was this?—’Twas
no year of our Lord, replied my father.—That’s
impossible, cried my uncle Toby.—Simpleton! said my
father,—’twas forty years before Christ was born.
My uncle Toby had but two things for it; either to
suppose his brother to be the wandering Jew, or that his
misfortunes had disordered his brain.—“May the
Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him!”
said my uncle Toby, praying silently for my father, and with
tears in his eyes.
—My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went
on with his harangue with great spirit.
“There is not such great odds, brother Toby,
betwixt good and evil, as the world
imagines”——(this way of setting off, by the bye,
was not likely to cure my uncle Toby’s
suspicions).——“Labour, sorrow, grief,
sickness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life.”—Much
good may do them—said my uncle Toby to
himself.——
“My son is dead!—so much the
better;—’tis a shame in such a tempest to have but one
anchor.
“But he is gone for ever from us!—be it so. He
is got from under the hands of his barber before he was
bald—he is but risen from a feast before he was
surfeited—from a banquet before he had got drunken.
“The Thracians wept when a child was
born,”—(and we were very near it, quoth my uncle
Toby,)—“and feasted and made merry when a man
went out of the world; and with reason.——Death opens
the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it,—it
unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman’s
task into another man’s hands.
“Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads
it, and I’ll shew thee a prisoner who dreads his
liberty.”
Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for
mark—our appetites are but diseases,)—is it not better
not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not to thirst, than to
take physic to cure it?
Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and
melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like
a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to
begin his journey afresh?
There is no terrour, brother Toby, in its looks, but what
it borrows from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of
noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in
a dying man’s room.—Strip it of these, what is
it?—’Tis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle
Toby.—Take away its hearses, its mutes, and its
mourning,—its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic
aids—What is it?—Better in battle! continued my
father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother
Bobby—’tis terrible no way—for consider,
brother Toby,—when we are—death is
not;—and when death is—we are not.
My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider the
proposition; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for
any man—away it went,—and hurried my uncle
Toby’s ideas along with it.——
For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to
recollect, how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of
death have made.—Vespasian died in a jest upon his
close-stool—Galba with a sentence—Septimus
Severus in a dispatch—Tiberius in dissimulation,
and Cæsar Augustus in a compliment.—I hope
’twas a sincere one—quoth my uncle Toby.
—’Twas to his wife,—said my father.
——And lastly—for all the choice
anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my
father,—this, like the gilded dome which covers in the
fabric—crowns all.—
’Tis of Cornelius Gallus, the
prætor—which, I dare say, brother Toby, you have
read.—I dare say I have not, replied my uncle.—He died,
said my father as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * —And if it
was with his wife, said my uncle Toby—there could be no
hurt in it.—That’s more than I know—replied my
father.
MY mother was going very gingerly in
the dark along the passage which led to the parlour, as my uncle
Toby pronounced the word wife.—’Tis a
shrill penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped
it by leaving the door a little a-jar, so that my mother heard
enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so
laying the edge of her finger across her two lips—holding in
her breath, and bending her head a little downwards, with a twist
of her neck—(not towards the door, but from it, by which
means her ear was brought to the chink)—she listened with all
her powers:——the listening slave, with the Goddess of
Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an
intaglio.
In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five
minutes: till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as
Rapin does those of the church) to the same period.
THOUGH in one sense, our family was
certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels; yet
there was thus much to be said for it, that these wheels were set
in motion by so many different springs, and acted one upon the
other from such a variety of strange principles and
impulses——that though it was a simple machine, it had
all the honour and advantages of a complex one,——and a
number of as odd movements within it, as ever were beheld in the
inside of a Dutch silk-mill.
Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which,
perhaps, it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and
it was this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was going forwards in the
parlour, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the
same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen.
Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or
letter, was delivered in the parlour—or a discourse suspended
till a servant went out—or the lines of discontent were
observed to hang upon the brows of my father or mother—or, in
short, when any thing was supposed to be upon the tapis worth
knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to leave the door,
not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar—as it stands just
now,—which, under covert of the bad hinge, (and that possibly
might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended,) it was
not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a
passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the
Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as
much of this windward trade, as was sufficient to save my father
the trouble of governing his house;—my mother at this moment stands
profiting by it.—Obadiah did the same thing, as soon
as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of
my brother’s death, so that before my father had well got
over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue,—had
Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the
subject.
A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of
all Job’s stock—though by the bye, your
curious observers are seldom worth a groat—would have
given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim and my
father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education,
haranguing over the same bier.
My father—a man of deep reading—prompt
memory—with Cato, and Seneca, and
Epictetus, at his fingers ends.—
The corporal—with nothing—to remember—of no
deeper reading than his muster-roll—or greater names at his
fingers end, than the contents of it.
The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and
allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit
and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures
and images.
The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this
way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on
the other, going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the
heart. O Trim! would to heaven thou had’st a better
historian!—would!—thy historian had a better pair of
breeches!——O ye critics! will nothing melt you?
——My young master in London is dead?
said Obadiah.—
——A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s,
which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which
Obadiah’s exclamation brought into
Susannah’s head.
—Well might Locke write a chapter upon the
imperfections of words.—Then, quoth Susannah, we must
all go into mourning.—But note a second time: the word
mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it
herself—failed also of doing its office; it excited not one
single idea, tinged either with grey or black,—all was
green.——The green sattin night-gown hung there
still.
—O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried
Susannah.—My mother’s whole wardrobe
followed.—What a procession! her red damask,—her orange
tawney,—her white and yellow lutestrings,—her brown
taffata,—her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable
under-petticoats.—Not a rag was left
behind.—“No,—she will never look up
again,” said Susannah.
We had a fat, foolish scullion—my father, I think, kept
her for her simplicity;—she had been all autumn struggling
with a dropsy.—He is dead, said Obadiah,—he is
certainly dead!—So am not I, said the foolish scullion.
——Here is sad news, Trim, cried
Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp’d into
the kitchen,—master Bobby is dead and
buried—the funeral was an interpolation of
Susannah’s—we shall have all to go into
mourning, said Susannah.
I hope not, said Trim.—You hope not! cried
Susannah earnestly.—The mourning ran not in
Trim’s head, whatever it did in
Susannah’s.—I hope—said Trim,
explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard the
letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall
have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the
ox-moor.—Oh! he’s dead, said Susannah.—As
sure, said the scullion, as I’m alive.
I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said Trim,
fetching a sigh.—Poor creature!—poor boy!—poor
gentleman!
—He was alive last Whitsontide! said the
coachman.—Whitsontide! alas! cried Trim,
extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he
read the sermon,—what is Whitsontide, Jonathan (for
that was the coachman’s name), or Shrovetide, or any
tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the
corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the
floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)—and are
we not—(dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a
moment!—’Twas infinitely striking! Susannah
burst into a flood of tears.—We are not stocks and
stones.—Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all
melted.—The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a
fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous’d with it.—The
whole kitchen crowded about the corporal.
Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our
constitution in church and state,—and possibly the
preservation of the whole world—or what is the same thing,
the distribution and balance of its property and power, may in time
to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal’s
eloquence—I do demand your attention—your worships and
reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in
any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.
I said, “we were not stocks and
stones”—’tis very well. I should have added, nor
are we angels, I wish we were,—but men clothed with bodies,
and governed by our imaginations;—and what a junketing piece
of work of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses,
especially some of them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to
confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye
(for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your
Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with
the soul,—gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more
inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey—or
sometimes get rid of.
—I’ve gone a little about—no matter,
’tis for health—let us only carry it back in our mind
to the mortality of Trim’s hat—“Are we not
here now,—and gone in a moment?”—There was
nothing in the sentence—’twas one of your self-evident
truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if
Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head—he
made nothing at all of it.
——“Are we not here now;” continued the
corporal, “and are we not”—(dropping his hat
plumb upon the ground—and pausing, before he pronounced the
word)—“gone! in a moment?” The descent of
the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the
crown of it.——Nothing could have expressed the
sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and fore-runner,
like it,—his hand seemed to vanish from under it,—it
fell dead,—the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a
corpse,—and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.
Now—Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for
matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be
dropped upon the ground, without any effect.——Had he
flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted it,
or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under
heaven,—or in the best direction that could be given to
it,—had he dropped it like a goose—like a
puppy—like an ass—or in doing it, or even after he had
done, had he looked like a fool—like a ninny—like a
nincompoop—it had fail’d, and the effect upon the heart
had been lost.
Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the
engines of eloquence,—who heat it, and cool it, and melt it,
and mollify it,——and then harden it again to your
purpose——
Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and,
having done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet.
Ye, lastly, who drive——and why not, Ye also who are
driven, like turkeys to market with a stick and a red
clout—meditate—meditate, I beseech you, upon
Trim’s hat.
STAY—I have a small account to
settle with the reader before Trim can go on with his
harangue.—It shall be done in two minutes.
Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in
due time,—I own myself a debtor to the world for two
items,—a chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes,
which, in the former part of my work, I promised and fully intended
to pay off this year: but some of your worships and reverences
telling me, that the two subjects, especially so connected
together, might endanger the morals of the world,—I pray the
chapter upon chamber-maids and button-holes may be forgiven
me,—and that they will accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is nothing, an’t
please your reverences, but a chapter of chamber-maids, green
gowns, and old hats.
Trim took his hat off the ground,—put it upon his
head,—and then went on with his oration upon death, in manner
and form following.
——To us, Jonathan, who know not
what want or care is—who live here in the service of two of
the best of masters—(bating in my own case his majesty King
William the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both in
Ireland and Flanders)—I own it, that from
Whitsontide to within three weeks of
Christmas,—’tis not long—’tis like
nothing;—but to those, Jonathan, who know what death
is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a man can
well wheel about—’tis like a whole age.—O
Jonathan! ’twould make a good-natured man’s
heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal (standing perpendicularly),
how low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that
time!—And trust me, Susy, added the corporal, turning
to Susannah, whose eyes were swimming in water,—before
that time comes round again,—many a bright eye will be
dim.—Susannah placed it to the right side of the
page—she wept—but she court’sied too.—Are
we not, continued Trim, looking still at
Susannah—are we not like a flower of the field—a
tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of
humiliation—else no tongue could have described
Susannah’s affliction—is not all flesh
grass?—Tis clay,—’tis dirt.—They all looked
directly at the scullion,—the scullion had just been scouring
a fish-kettle.—It was not fair.—
—What is the finest face that ever man looked at!—I
could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried
Susannah,—what is it! (Susannah laid her hand
upon Trim’s shoulder)—but
corruption?——Susannah took it off.
Now I love you for this—and ’tis this delicious
mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you
are—and he who hates you for it——all I can say of
the matter is—That he has either a pumpkin for his
head—or a pippin for his heart,—and whenever he is
dissected ’twill be found so.
WHETHER Susannah, by taking
her hand too suddenly from off the corporal’s shoulder (by
the whisking about of her passions)——broke a little the
chain of his reflexions——
Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into
the doctor’s quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain
than himself——
Or whether - - - - - -
- - Or whether——for in all such cases a man
of invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages
with suppositions——which of all these was the cause,
let the curious physiologist, or the curious any body
determine——’tis certain, at least, the corporal
went on thus with his harangue.
For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not
death at all:—not this . . added the corporal, snapping his
fingers,—but with an air which no one but the corporal could
have given to the sentiment.—In battle, I value death not
this . . . and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe
Gibbins, in scouring his gun.—What is he? A pull of a
trigger—a push of a bayonet an inch this way or
that—makes the difference.—Look along the line—to
the right—see! Jack’s down!
well,—’tis worth a regiment of horse to
him.—No—’tis Dick. Then
Jack’s no worse.—Never mind which,—we pass
on,—in hot pursuit the wound itself which brings him is not
felt,—the best way is to stand up to him,—the man who
flies, is in ten times more danger than the man who marches up into
his jaws.—I’ve look’d him, added the corporal, an
hundred times in the face,—and know what he
is.—He’s nothing, Obadiah, at all in the
field.—But he’s very frightful in a house, quoth
Obadiah.——I never mind it myself, said
Jonathan, upon a coach-box.—It must, in my opinion, be
most natural in bed, replied Susannah.—And could I
escape him by creeping into the worst calf’s skin that ever
was made into a knapsack, I would do it there—said
Trim—but that is nature.
——Nature is nature, said Jonathan.—And
that is the reason, cried Susannah, I so much pity my
mistress.—She will never get the better of it.—Now I
pity the captain the most of any one in the family, answered
Trim.——Madam will get ease of heart in
weeping,—and the Squire in talking about it,—but my
poor master will keep it all in silence to himself.—I shall
hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for
lieutenant Le Fever. An’ please your honour, do not
sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I laid besides him. I
cannot help it, Trim, my master would say,—’tis
so melancholy an accident—I cannot get it off my heart.—Your honour fears not death
yourself.—I hope, Trim, I fear nothing, he would say,
but the doing a wrong thing.——Well, he would add,
whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fever’s
boy.—And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour would
fall asleep.
I like to hear Trim’s stories about the captain,
said Susannah.—He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said
Obadiah, as ever lived.—Aye, and as brave a one too,
said the corporal, as ever stept before a platoon.—There
never was a better officer in the king’s army,—or a
better man in God’s world; for he would march up to the mouth
of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very
touch-hole,—and yet, for all that, he has a heart as soft as
a child for other people.——He would not hurt a
chicken.——I would sooner, quoth Jonathan, drive
such a gentleman for seven pounds a year—than some for
eight.—Thank thee, Jonathan! for thy twenty
shillings,—as much, Jonathan, said the corporal,
shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the money into my own
pocket.——I would serve him to the day of my death out
of love. He is a friend and a brother to me,—and could I be
sure my poor brother Tom was dead,—continued the
corporal, taking out his handkerchief,—was I worth ten
thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the
captain.——Trim could not refrain from tears at
this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his
master.——The whole kitchen was affected.—Do tell
us the story of the poor lieutenant, said
Susannah.——With all my heart, answered the
corporal.
Susannah, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and
corporal Trim, formed a circle about the fire; and as soon
as the scullion had shut the kitchen door,—the corporal
begun.
I AM a Turk if I had not as
much forgot my mother, as if Nature had plaistered me up, and set
me down naked upon the banks of the river Nile, without
one.——Your most obedient servant,
Madam—I’ve cost you a great deal of trouble,—I
wish it may answer;—but you have left a crack in my
back,—and here’s a great piece fallen off here
before,—and what must I do with this foot?——I
shall never reach England with it.
For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;—and so often
has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it,
right or wrong,—at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects.
For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; and when it
has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go
quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and
can neither of us do well without,—I’ll go to the world’s end with
him:——But I hate disputes,—and therefore (bating
religious points, or such as touch society) I would almost
subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first
passage, rather than be drawn into one——But I cannot
bear suffocation,——and bad smells worst of
all.——For which reasons, I resolved from the beginning,
That if ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented,—or a
new-one raised,—I would have no hand in it, one way or
t’other.
——BUT to return to my
mother.
My uncle Toby’s opinion, Madam, “that
there could be no harm in Cornelius Gallus, the Roman
prætor’s lying with his wife;”——or
rather the last word of that opinion,—(for it was all my
mother heard of it) caught hold of her by the weak part of the
whole sex:——You shall not mistake me,—I mean her curiosity,—she instantly concluded herself
the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession upon
her fancy, you will readily conceive every word my father said, was
accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns.
——Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live,
who would not have done the same?
From the strange mode of Cornelius’s death, my father had made a
transition to that of Socrates, and was giving my uncle Toby an
abstract of his pleading before his judges;——’twas
irresistible:——not the oration of Socrates,—but my
father’s temptation to it.——He had wrote the Life of
Socrates[23] himself the
year before he left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him
out of it;——so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail,
and in so swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father
was. Not a period in Socrates’s oration, which closed with a
shorter word than transmigration, or annihilation,—or a
worse thought in the middle of it than to be—or not to
be,—the entering upon a new and untried state of things,—or,
upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without
disturbance?——That we and our children were born to
die,—but neither of us born to be slaves.——No—there
I mistake; that was part of Eleazer’s oration, as recorded by
Josephus (de Bell. Judaic)——Eleazer owns he had it
from the philosophers of India; in all likelihood Alexander the
Great, in his irruption into India, after he had over-run Persia,
amongst the many things he stole,—stole that sentiment also; by which
means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he died at
Babylon), at least by some of his maroders, into
Greece,—from Greece it got to Rome,—from
Rome to France,—and from France to
England:——So things come round.——
By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.——
By water the sentiment might easily have come down the
Ganges into the Sinus Gangeticus, or Bay of
Bengal, and so into the Indian Sea; and following the
course of trade (the way from India by the Cape of Good
Hope being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and
spices up the Red Sea to Joddah, the port of
Mekka, or else to Tor or Sues, towns at the
bottom of the gulf; and from thence by karrawans to Coptos,
but three days journey distant, so down the Nile directly to
Alexandria, where the SENTIMENT would be
landed at the very foot of the great stair-case of the
Alexandrian library,——and from that store-house
it would be fetched.——Bless me! what a trade was driven
by the learned in those days!
——NOW my father had a
way, a little like that of Job’s (in case there ever
was such a man——if not, there’s an end of the
matter.——
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some
difficulty in fixing the precise æra in which so great a man
lived;—whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs,
&c.——to vote, therefore, that he never lived at
all, is a little cruel,—’tis not doing as they would be
done by,—happen that as it may)——My father, I
say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him,
especially upon the first sally of his impatience,—of
wondering why he was begot,—wishing himself
dead;—sometimes worse:——And when the provocation
ran high, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary
powers—Sir, you scarce could have distinguished him from
Socrates himself.——Every word would breathe the
sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about all its issues; for which reason,
though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the abstract
of Socrates’s oration, which my father was giving my
uncle Toby, was not altogether new to her.—She
listened to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so
to the end of the chapter, had not my father plunged (which he had
no occasion to have done) into that part of the pleading where the
great philosopher reckons up his connections, his alliances, and
children; but renounces a security to be so won by working upon the
passions of his judges.—“I have friends—I
have relations,—I have three desolate
children,”—says Socrates.—
——Then, cried my mother, opening the
door,——you have one more, Mr. Shandy, than I
know of.
By heaven! I have one less,—said my father, getting up and
walking out of the room.
——THEY are
Socrates’s children, said my uncle Toby. He has
been dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother.
My uncle Toby was no chronologer—so not caring to
advance one step but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe
deliberately upon the table, and rising up, and taking my mother
most kindly by the hand, without saying another word, either good
or bad, to her, he led her out after my father, that he might
finish the ecclaircissement himself.
HAD this volume been a farce, which,
unless every one’s life and opinions are to be looked upon as
a farce as well as mine, I see no reason to suppose—the last
chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of it, and then this
chapter must have set off thus.
Pt . . . r . . . r . . .
ing—twing—twang—prut—trut——’tis
a cursed bad fiddle.—Do you know whether my fiddle’s in tune or
no?—trut . . . prut. . —
They should be fifths.——’Tis wickedly
strung—tr . . . a . e . i . o . u .-twang.—The
bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely
down,—else—trut . . prut—hark! tis not so bad a
tone.—Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing
in playing before good judges,—but there’s a man
there—no—not him with the bundle under his arm—the grave man
in black.—’Sdeath! not the gentleman with the sword on.—Sir,
I had rather play a Caprichio to Calliope herself, than draw my
bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet I’ll stake my
Cremona to a Jew’s trump, which is the greatest musical
odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and fifty
leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that
belongs to him—Twaddle diddle, tweddle diddle,—twiddle
diddle,—twoddle diddle,—twuddle diddle,——prut
trut—krish—krash—krush.—I’ve undone you,
Sir,—but you see he’s no worse,—and was Apollo to take
his fiddle after me, he can make him no better.
Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle
diddle—hum—dum—drum.
—Your worships and your reverences love music—and
God has made you all with good ears—and some of you play
delightfully yourselves—trut-prut,—prut-trut.
O! there is—whom I could sit and hear whole
days,—whose talents lie in making what he fiddles to be
felt,—who inspires me with his joys and hopes, and puts the
most hidden springs of my heart into motion.—If you would
borrow five guineas of me, Sir,—which is generally ten
guineas more than I have to spare—or you Messrs. Apothecary
and Taylor, want your bills paying,—that’s your
time.
THE first thing which entered my
father’s head, after affairs were a little settled in the
family, and Susanna had got possession of my mother’s
green sattin night-gown,—was to sit down coolly, after the
example of Xenophon, and write a
TRISTRA-pædia, or system of education
for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered
thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as
to form an INSTITUTE for the government of my
childhood and adolescence. I was my father’s last
stake—he had lost my brother Bobby entirely,—he
had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of
me—that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great
casts for me—my geniture, nose, and name,—there was but
this one left; and accordingly my father gave himself up to it with
as much devotion as ever my uncle Toby had done to his
doctrine of projectils.—The difference between them was, that my uncle Toby drew his whole
knowledge of projectils from Nicholas Tartaglia—My
father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain,—or
reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and spinsters had
spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture to
him.
In about three years, or something more, my father had got
advanced almost into the middle of his work.—Like all other
writers, he met with disappointments.—He imagined he should
be able to bring whatever he had to say, into so small a compass,
that when it was finished and bound, it might be rolled up in my
mother’s hussive.—Matter grows under our
hands.—Let no man
say,—“Come—I’ll write a
duodecimo.”
My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful
diligence, proceeding step by step in every line, with the same
kind of caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite
so religious a principle) as was used by John de la Casse,
the lord archbishop of Benevento, in compassing his
Galatea; in which his Grace of Benevento spent near
forty years of his life; and when the thing came out, it was not of
above half the size or the thickness of a Rider’s
Almanack.—How the holy man managed the affair, unless he
spent the greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or
playing at primero with his chaplain,—would pose any
mortal not let into the true secret;—and therefore ’tis
worth explaining to the world, was it only for the encouragement of
those few in it, who write not so much to be fed—as to be
famous.
I own had John de la Casse, the archbishop of
Benevento, for whose memory (notwithstanding his
Galatea,) I retain the highest veneration,—had he
been, Sir, a slender clerk—of dull wit—slow
parts—costive head, and so forth,—he and his
Galatea might have jogged on together to the age of
Methuselah for me,—the phænomenon had not been
worth a parenthesis.—
But the reverse of this was the truth: John de la Casse
was a genius of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all
these great advantages of nature, which should have pricked him
forwards with his Galatea, he lay under an impuissance at
the same time of advancing above a line and a half in the compass
of a whole summer’s day: this disability in his Grace arose
from an opinion he was afflicted with,—which opinion was
this,—viz. that whenever a Christian was writing a
book (not for his private amusement, but) where his intent and
purpose was, bonâ fide, to print and publish it to the
world, his first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil
one.—This was the state of ordinary writers: but when a
personage of venerable character and high station, either in church
or state, once turned author,—he maintained, that from the
very moment he took pen in hand—all the devils in hell broke
out of their holes to cajole him.—’Twas Term-time with
them,—every thought, first and last, was captious;—how specious and
good soever,—’twas all one;—in whatever form or
colour it presented itself to the imagination,—’twas
still a stroke of one or other of ’em levell’d at him,
and was to be fenced off.—So that the life of a writer,
whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of
composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation
in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon
earth,—both depending alike, not half so much upon the
degrees of his wit—as his RESISTANCE.
My father was hugely pleased with this theory of John de la
Casse, archbishop of Benevento; and (had it not cramped
him a little in his creed) I believe would have given ten of the
best acres in the Shandy estate, to have been the broacher
of it.—How far my father actually believed in the devil, will
be seen, when I come to speak of my father’s religious
notions, in the progress of this work: ’tis enough to say
here, as he could not have the honour of it, in the literal sense of the doctrine—he took
up with the allegory of it; and would often say, especially when
his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good meaning,
truth, and knowledge, couched under the veil of John de la
Casse’s parabolical representation,—as was to be
found in any one poetic fiction or mystic record of
antiquity.—Prejudice of education, he would say, is the
devil,—and the multitudes of them which we suck in with
our mother’s milk—are the devil and
all.——We are haunted with them, brother
Toby, in all our lucubrations and researches; and was a man
fool enough to submit tamely to what they obtruded upon
him,—what would his book be? Nothing,—he would add,
throwing his pen away with a vengeance,—nothing but a farrago
of the clack of nurses, and of the nonsense of the old women (of
both sexes) throughout the kingdom.
This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow
progress my father made in his Tristra-pædia; at
which (as I said) he was three years, and something more,
indefatigably at work, and, at last, had scarce completed, by this
own reckoning, one half of his undertaking: the misfortune was,
that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned to my
mother; and what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first
part of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his
pains, was rendered entirely useless,——every day a page
or two became of no consequence.——
——Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the
pride of human wisdom, That the wisest of us all should thus outwit
ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act
of pursuing them.
In short my father was so long in all his acts of
resistance,—or in other words,—he advanced so very slow
with his work, and I began to live and get forwards at such a rate,
that if an event had not happened,——which, when we get
to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not be concealed a moment from the
reader——I verily believe, I had put by my father, and
left him drawing a sundial, for no better purpose than to be buried
under ground.
——’TWAS
nothing,—I did not lose two drops of blood by
it——’twas not worth calling in a surgeon, had he
lived next door to us——thousands suffer by choice, what
I did by accident.——Doctor Slop made ten times
more of it, than there was occasion:——some men rise, by
the art of hanging great weights upon small wires,—and I am
this day (August the 10th, 1761) paying part of the price of
this man’s reputation.——O ’twould provoke a
stone, to see how things are carried on in this
world!——The chamber-maid had left no ******* *** under
the bed:——Cannot you contrive, master, quoth
Susannah, lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke,
and helping me up into the window-seat with the
other,—cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time, to ****
*** ** *** ****** ?
I was five years old.——Susannah did not
consider that nothing was well hung in our family,——so
slap came the sash down like lightning upon us;—Nothing is
left,—cried Susannah,—nothing is left—for
me, but to run my country.——
My uncle Toby’s house was a much kinder sanctuary;
and so Susannah fled to it.
WHEN Susannah told the
corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all the circumstances
which attended the murder of me,—(as she called
it,)—the blood forsook his cheeks,—all accessaries in
murder being principals,—Trim’s conscience told
him he was as much to blame as Susannah,—and if the
doctrine had been true, my uncle Toby had as much of the bloodshed to answer for to
heaven, as either of ’em;—so that neither reason or
instinct, separate or together, could possibly have guided
Susannah’s steps to so proper an asylum. It is in vain
to leave this to the Reader’s imagination:——to
form any kind of hypothesis that will render these propositions
feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore,—and to do it
without,—he must have such brains as no reader ever had
before him.—Why should I put them either to trial or to
torture? ’Tis my own affair: I’ll explain it
myself.
’TIS a pity, Trim, said
my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the
corporal’s shoulder, as they both stood surveying their
works,—that we have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in
the gorge of that new redoubt;—’twould secure the lines
all along there, and make the attack on that side quite
complete:——get me a couple cast, Trim.
Your honour shall have them, replied Trim, before
tomorrow morning.
It was the joy of Trim’s heart, nor was his fertile
head ever at a loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle
Toby in his campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for;
had it been his last crown, he would have sate down and hammered it
into a paderero, to have prevented a single wish in his master. The
corporal had already,—what with cutting off the ends of my
uncle Toby’s spouts—hacking and chiseling up the
sides of his leaden gutters,—melting down his pewter
shaving-bason,—and going at last, like Lewis the
Fourteenth, on to the top of the church, for spare ends,
&c.——he had that very campaign brought no less than
eight new battering cannons, besides three demi-culverins, into the
field; my uncle Toby’s demand for two more pieces for
the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken
the two leaden weights from the nursery window: and as the sash
pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had
taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their
carriages.
He had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle
Toby’s house long before, in the very same
way,—though not always in the same order; for sometimes the
pullies have been wanted, and not the lead,—so then he began
with the pullies,—and the pullies being picked out, then the
lead became useless,—and so the lead went to pot too.
——A great MORAL might be picked
handsomely out of this, but I have not time—’tis enough
to say, wherever the demolition began, ’twas equally fatal to
the sash window.
THE corporal had not taken his
measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship, but that he
might have kept the matter entirely to himself, and left
Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack,
as she could;—true courage is not content with coming off
so.——The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of
the train,—’twas no matter,——had done that,
without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have
happened,—at least in Susannah’s
hands;——How would your honours have
behaved?——He determined at once, not to take shelter
behind Susannah,—but to give it; and with this
resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into the parlour, to
lay the whole manœuvre before my uncle
Toby.
My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an
account of the Battle of Steenkirk, and of the strange
conduct of count Solmes in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which
was directly contrary to the king’s commands, and proved the
loss of the day.
There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of
what is going to follow,—they are scarce exceeded by the
invention of a dramatic writer;—I mean of ancient
days.——
Trim, by the help of his fore-finger, laid flat upon the
table, and the edge of his hand striking across it at right angles,
made a shift to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might
have listened to it;—and the story being told,—the
dialogue went on as follows.
——I would be picquetted to death, cried
the corporal, as he concluded Susannah’s story, before
I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,—’twas my
fault, an’ please your honour,—not her’s.
Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on
his hat which lay upon the table,——if any thing can be said to be a
fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be
done,—’tis I certainly who deserve the blame,—you
obeyed your orders.
Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the
battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little
upon the corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the
retreat,——he had saved thee;——Saved! cried
Trim, interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence
for him after his own fashion,——he had saved five
battalions, an’ please your reverence, every soul of
them:——there was
Cutt ’s,—continued the corporal, clapping
the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and
counting round his hand,——there was
Cutt ’s,——Mackay ’s,——Angus ’s,——Graham ’s,——and
Leven ’s, all cut to pieces;——and so
had the English life-guards too, had it not been for some
regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief,
and received the enemy’s fire in their faces, before any one
of their own platoons discharged a
musket,——they’ll go to heaven for it,—added
Trim.—Trim is right, said my uncle
Toby, nodding to Yorick,——he’s
perfectly right. What signified his marching the horse, continued
the corporal, where the ground was so strait, that the
French had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches,
and fell’d trees laid this way and that to cover them (as
they always have).——Count Solmes should have
sent us,——we would have fired muzzle to muzzle with
them for their lives.——There was nothing to be done for
the horse:——he had his foot shot off however for his
pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at
Landen.—Poor Trim got his wound there, quoth my
uncle Toby.——’Twas owing, an’ please
your honour, entirely to count Solmes,——had he
drubbed them soundly at Steenkirk, they would not have
fought us at Landen.——Possibly
not,——Trim, said my uncle
Toby;——though if they have the advantage of a
wood, or you give them a moment’s time to intrench themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for
ever at you.——There is no way but to march coolly up to
them,——receive their fire, and fall in upon them,
pell-mell——Ding dong, added
Trim.——Horse and foot, said my uncle
Toby.——Helter Skelter, said
Trim.——Right and left, cried my uncle
Toby.——Blood an’ ounds, shouted the
corporal;——the battle raged,——Yorick
drew his chair a little to one side for safety, and after a
moment’s pause, my uncle Toby sinking his voice a
note,—resumed the discourse as follows.
KING William, said my uncle
Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly
provoked at count Solmes for disobeying his orders, that he
would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months
after.——I fear, answered Yorick, the squire will
be as much provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count.——But ’twould be
singularly hard in this case, continued be, if corporal
Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite to count
Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same
disgrace:——too oft in this world, do things take that
train.——I would spring a mine, cried my uncle
Toby, rising up,——and blow up my fortifications,
and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere
I would stand by and see it.——Trim directed a
slight,——but a grateful bow towards his
master,——and so the chapter ends.
——Then, Yorick, replied my uncle
Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast,——and
do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us.——And
Susannah, an’ please your honour, said Trim,
shall be put in the rear.——’Twas an excellent
disposition,—and in this order, without either drums beating, or colours flying, they
marched slowly from my uncle Toby’s house to
Shandy-hall.
——I wish, said Trim, as they entered the
door,—instead of the sash weights, I had cut off the church
spout, as I once thought to have done.—You have cut off
spouts enow, replied Yorick.
As many pictures as have been given
of my father, how like him soever in different airs and
attitudes,—not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader
to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak,
or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of
life.—There was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of
chances along with it, by which handle he would take a
thing,—it baffled, Sir, all calculations.——The
truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein
most men travelled,—that every object before him presented a
face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and
elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.—In other words,
’twas a different object, and in course was differently
considered:
This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as
well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about
nothing.—She looks at her outside,—I, at her in—.
How is it possible we should agree about her value?
’TIS a point settled,—and I mention it for the
comfort of Confucius,[24]
who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story—that provided he
keeps along the line of his story,—he may go backwards and forwards as he
will,—’tis still held to be no digression.
This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going
backwards myself.
FIFTY thousand pannier loads of
devils—(not of the Archbishop of
Benevento’s—I mean of Rabelais’s
devils), with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not
have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did—when the
accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the
nursery,—so that Susannah had but just time to make
her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.
Now, though I was old enough to have told the story
myself,—and young enough, I hope, to have done it without
malignity; yet Susannah, in passing by the kitchen, for fear
of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook—the
cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and
Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the time my father
had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter
above,—was Obadiah enabled to give him a
particular account of it, just as it had happened.—I
thought as much, said my father, tucking up his
night-gown;—and so walked up stairs.
One would imagine from this——(though for my own part
I somewhat question it)—that my father, before that time, had
actually wrote that remarkable character in the
Tristra-pædia, which to me is the most original and
entertaining one in the whole book;—and that is the
chapter upon sash-windows, with a bitter Philippick
at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.—I
have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.
First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the
event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash
window for good an’ all;—which, considering with what
difficulty he composed books,—he might have done with ten
times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this
argument I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter, even
after the event; but ’tis obviated under the second reason,
which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my
opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows
and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,—and it is this.
——That, in order to render the
Tristra-pædia complete,—I wrote the chapter
myself.
MY father put on his
spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into
the case—all in less than a statutable minute; and without
opening his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down
stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and
basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his
arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading-desk,
she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, and so drew him a
chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his
ease.
——If it be but right done,—said my
father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto
circumcisionis,—for he had brought up Spenser de
Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides,
in order to confront and examine us altogether.——
——If it be but right done, quoth he:—only tell
us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs?——For
that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.
My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section
as follows,
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * *—Very
well,—said my father, * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * *—nay, if it has that
convenience——and so without stopping a moment to settle
it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the
Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the
Jews,—he rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or
three times across with the palm of his hand, in the
manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter
upon us than we foreboded,—he shut the book, and walked down
stairs.—Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different
great nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it—if
the EGYPTIANS,—the
SYRIANS,—the
PHOENICIANS,—the
ARABIANS,—the
CAPPADOCIANS,——if the
COLCHI, and TROGLODYTES did
it——if SOLON and
PYTHAGORAS submitted,—what is
TRISTRAM?——Who am I, that I should fret
or fume one moment about the matter?
DEAR Yorick, said my father
smiling (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle
Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stept
first into the parlour)—this Tristram of ours, I find,
comes very hardly by all his religious rites.—Never was the
son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated
into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner.—But
he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick.—There has been
certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some
part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was
formed.—That, you are a better judge of than I, replied
Yorick.—Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than
us both:—the trine and sextil aspects have jumped
awry,—or the opposite of their ascendents have not hit it, as
they should,—or the lords of the genitures (as they call
them) have been at bo-peep,—or something has been
wrong above, or below with us.
’Tis possible, answered Yorick.—But is the child, cried my
uncle Toby, the worse?—The Troglodytes say not, replied my
father. And your theologists, Yorick, tell us—Theologically? said
Yorick,—or speaking after the manner of apothecaries?[25]—statesmen?[26]—or washer-women?[27]
——I’m not sure, replied my father,—but
they tell us, brother Toby, he’s the better for
it.——Provided, said Yorick, you travel him into
Egypt.—Of that, answered my father, he will have the
advantage, when he sees the Pyramids.——
Now every word of this, quoth my uncle Toby, is
Arabic to me.——I wish, said Yorick,
’twas so, to half the world.
—ILUS,[28]
continued my father, circumcised his whole army one morning.—Not without
a court martial? cried my uncle Toby.——Though the learned,
continued he, taking no notice of my uncle Toby’s remark, but
turning to Yorick,—are greatly divided still who Ilus
was;—some say Saturn;—some the Supreme Being;—others,
no more than a brigadier general under Pharaoh-neco.——Let
him be who he will, said my uncle Toby, I know not by what article of
war he could justify it.
The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty
different reasons for it:—others, indeed, who have drawn
their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shewn the
world the futility of the greatest part of them.—But then
again, our best polemic divines—I wish there was not a
polemic divine, said Yorick, in the kingdom;—one ounce
of practical divinity—is worth a painted ship-load of all
their reverences have imported these fifty years.—Pray, Mr.
Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby,—do tell me what a
polemic divine is?——The best description, captain
Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of ’em,
replied Yorick, in the account of the battle fought single
hands betwixt Gymnast and captain Tripet; which I
have in my pocket.——I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle
Toby earnestly.—You shall, said Yorick.—And as the corporal
is waiting for me at the door,—and I know the description of
a battle will do the poor fellow more good than his supper,—I
beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in.—With
all my soul, said my father.——Trim came in,
erect and happy as an emperor; and having shut the door,
Yorick took a book from his right-hand coat-pocket, and
read, or pretended to read, as follows.
——“which words being heard
by all the soldiers which were there, divers of them being inwardly
terrified, did shrink back and make room for the assailant: all
this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and
therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse,
as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly
(with his short sword by this thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the
stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body
downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and
placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright,
with his back turned towards his horse’s head,—Now,
(said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture
wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to
the left-hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just
into his former position, without missing one jot.——Ha!
said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,—and not
without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,—I
will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility,
turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another striking gambol
as before; which done, he set his right hand thumb upon the bow of
the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and
upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the
said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at
the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and
foreside back, without touching any thing, he brought
himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then giving himself
a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the
crupper—”
(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle
Toby.——The corporal shook his head at
it.——Have patience, said Yorick.)
“Then (Tripet) pass’d his right
leg over his saddle, and placed himself en croup.—But,
said he, ’twere better for me to get into the saddle; then
putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and
there-upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his
body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and
strait found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable
seat; then springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him
about like a wind-mill, and made above a hundred
frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.”—Good God! cried
Trim, losing all patience,—one home thrust of a
bayonet is worth it all.——I think so too, replied
Yorick.——
I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.
——No,—I think I have advanced
nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which
Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him,—I have
advanced nothing in the Tristra-pædia, but what is as
clear as any one proposition in Euclid.—Reach me,
Trim, that book from off the scrutoir:—it has
oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it
over both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and
I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it
long ago:——shall we have a short chapter or two
now,—and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the
whole? My uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance
which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in
the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at
the same time.——The company smiled. Trim, quoth
my father, has paid the full price for staying out the
entertainment.——He did not seem to relish the
play, replied Yorick.——’Twas a
Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your reverence, of captain
Tripet ’s and that other officer, making so many
summersets, as they advanced;——the French come
on capering now and then in that way,—but not quite so
much.
My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his
existence with more complacency than what the corporal’s, and
his own reflections, made him do at that moment;——he
lighted his pipe,——Yorick drew his chair closer
to the table,—Trim snuff’d the candle,—my
father stirr’d up the fire,—took up the
book,—cough’d twice, and begun.
THE first thirty pages, said my
father, turning over the leaves,—are a little dry; and as
they are not closely connected with the subject,——for
the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory
introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for
I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil
government; the foundation of which being laid in the first
conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the
species——I was insensibly led into
it.——’Twas natural, said Yorick.
The original of society, continued my father, I’m
satisfied is, what Politian tells us, i.e. merely
conjugal; and nothing more than the getting together of one man and
one woman;—to which, (according to Hesiod) the
philosopher adds a servant:—but supposing in the first
beginning there were no men servants born——he lays the
foundation of it, in a man,—a woman—and a
bull.——I believe ’tis an ox, quoth Yorick,
quoting the passage ([Greek text])——A bull must have
given more trouble than his head was worth.—But there is a
better reason still, said my father (dipping his pen into his ink);
for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the most useful
withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,—was the
properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined couple,
that the creation could have associated with them.—And there
is a stronger reason, added my uncle Toby, than them all for
the ox.—My father had not power to take his pen out of his
ink-horn, till he had heard my uncle Toby’s
reason.—For when the ground was tilled, said my uncle
Toby, and made worth inclosing, then they began to secure it
by walls and ditches, which was the origin of
fortification.——True, true, dear Toby, cried my
father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place.
My father gave Trim a nod, to snuff the candle, and
resumed his discourse.
——I enter upon this speculation, said my father
carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely to
shew the foundation of the natural relation between a father and
his child; the right and jurisdiction over whom he acquires these
several ways—
1st, by marriage.
2d, by adoption.
3d, by legitimation.
And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their
order.
I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied
Yorick——the act, especially where it ends there,
in my opinion lays as little obligation upon the child, as it
conveys power to the father.—You are wrong,—said my
father argutely, and for this plain reason * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.—I own,
added my father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so
under the power and jurisdiction of the mother.—But
the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for
her.—She is under authority herself, said my
father:—and besides, continued my father, nodding his head,
and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his
reason,—she is not the principal agent,
Yorick.—In what, quoth my uncle Toby? stopping his
pipe.—Though by all means, added my father (not attending to
my uncle Toby), “The son ought to pay her
respect,” as you may read, Yorick, at large in the
first book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh
title and the tenth section.—I can read it as well, replied
Yorick, in the Catechism.
TRIM can repeat every word of it by
heart, quoth my uncle Toby.—Pugh! said my father, not
caring to be interrupted with Trim’s saying his
Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle Toby.—Ask him, Mr. Yorick,
any question you please.——
—The fifth Commandment, Trim,—said
Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a
modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.—You don’t
ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, and
giving it rapidly like the word of command:——The
fifth———cried my uncle Toby.—I must
begin with the first, an’ please your honour, said the
corporal.——
—Yorick could not forbear smiling.—Your
reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his
stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to
illustrate his position,—that ’tis exactly the same
thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.—
“Join your right-hand to your firelock,”
cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the
motion.—
“Poise your firelock,” cried the corporal,
doing the duty still both of adjutant and private man.
“Rest your firelock;”—one motion,
an’ please your reverence, you see leads into
another.—If his honour will begin but with the
first—
THE FIRST—cried my uncle Toby,
setting his hand upon his side—* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * *.
THE SECOND—cried my uncle Toby,
waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the
head of a regiment.—The corporal went through his
manual with exactness; and having honoured his father and
mother, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the
room.
Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and
has wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it
out.
—Here is the scaffold work of
INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, without the
BUILDING behind it.
—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors,
governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in,
in their true dimensions.—
Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up
with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling
away!
—SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE BUT WISDOM
NOT.
Yorick thought my father inspired.—I will enter into obligations
this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt Dinah’s legacy
in charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if
the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has
repeated.—Prithee, Trim, quoth my father, turning round to
him,—What dost thou mean, by “honouring thy father and
mother?”
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a
day out of my pay, when they grow old.—And didst thou do
that, Trim? said Yorick.—He did indeed, replied
my uncle Toby.—Then, Trim, said Yorick,
springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand,
thou art the best commentator upon that part of the
Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it, corporal Trim, than
if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself.
O BLESSED health! cried my father,
making an exclamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next
chapter, thou art before all gold and treasure; ’tis thou who
enlargest the soul,—and openest all its powers to receive
instruction and to relish virtue.—He that has thee, has
little more to wish for;—and he that is so wretched as to
want thee,—wants every thing with thee.
I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important
head, said my father, into a very little room, therefore
we’ll read the chapter quite through.
My father read as follows:
“The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery
betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture”—You have proved
that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently,
replied my father.
In saying this, my father shut the book,—not as if he
resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his fore-finger in the
chapter:——nor pettishly,—for he shut the book
slowly; his thumb resting, when he had done it, upon the upper-side
of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side of it,
without the least compressive violence.——
I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father,
nodding to Yorick, most sufficiently in the preceding
chapter.
Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth
had wrote a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of
all health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the
radical heat and the radical moisture,—and that
he had managed the point so well, that there was not one single
word wet or dry upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout
the whole chapter,—or a single syllable in it, pro or
con, directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt
these two powers in any part of the animal
œconomy——
“O thou eternal Maker of all
beings!”—he would cry, striking his breast with
his right hand (in case he had one)—“Thou whose
power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to
this infinite degree of excellence and perfection,—What have
we MOONITES done?”
WITH two strokes, the one at
Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my father
achieve it.
The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was
no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the
Ars longa,—and Vita brevis.——Life
short, cried my father,—and the art of healing tedious! And
who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the
ignorance of quacks themselves,—and the stage-loads of
chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all
ages, they have first flatter’d the world, and at last
deceived it?
——O my lord Verulam! cried my father,
turning from Hippocrates, and making his second stroke at
him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be
made an example of to the rest,—What shall I say to thee, my
great lord Verulam? What shall I say to thy internal
spirit,—thy opium, thy salt-petre,——thy greasy
unctions,—thy daily purges,—thy nightly clysters, and
succedaneums?
——My father was never at a loss what to say to any
man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium
of any man breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s
opinion,——you shall see;——but when—I
know not:——we must first see what his lordship’s
opinion was.
“THE two great causes,
which conspire with each other to shorten life, says lord
Verulam, are first——
“The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame
wastes the body down to death:—And secondly, the external
air, that parches the body up to ashes:—which two enemies
attacking us on both sides of our bodies together, at length
destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions
of life.”
This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was
plain; nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to
repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the
substance of it more thick and dense, by a regular course of
opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the
other, by three grains and a half of salt-petre every morning
before you got up.——
Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical
assaults of the air without;—but this was fenced off again by
a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of
the skin, that no spicula could enter;——nor could any
one get out.——This put a stop to all perspiration,
sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy
distempers—a course of clysters was requisite to carry off
redundant humours,—and render the system complete.
What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam’s
opiates, his salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you
shall read,—but not to-day—or to-morrow: time presses
upon me,—my reader is impatient—I must get
forwards——You shall read the chapter at your leisure
(if you chuse it), as soon as ever the Tristra-pædia
is published.——
Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the
hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he
built up and established his own.——
THE whole secret of health, said my
father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the
due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within
us;—the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have
maintained it, had not the school-men confounded the task, merely
(as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all
along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of
animal bodies.
Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals,
but an oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as
also the phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and
balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for
the observation of Aristotle, “Quod omne
animal post coitum est triste.”
Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical
moisture, but whether vice versa, is a doubt: however, when the one
decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an
unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness——or
an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.——So that
if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into
fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his
destruction,——’twill be all that is needful to be
done upon that head.——
THE description of the siege of
Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my
uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter;—his
eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;—he never
mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle
Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and
as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to
come close to his chair, to ask him the following question,—aside.— * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *. It was at the siege of Limerick,
an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, making a
bow.
The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing
himself to my father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents,
at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very
account you mention.——Now what can have got into that
precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried
my father, mentally.——By Heaven! continued he,
communing still with himself, it would puzzle an
Œdipus to bring it in point.——
I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal,
that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to
every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your
honour off;—And the geneva, Trim, added my uncle
Toby, which did us more good than all——I verily
believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an’ please your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and
been buried in them too.——The noblest grave, corporal!
cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a
soldier could wish to lie down in.——But a pitiful death
for him! an’ please your honour, replied the corporal.
All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites
of the Colchi and Troglodites had been before to my
uncle Toby; my father could not determine whether he was to
frown or to smile.
My uncle Toby, turning to Yorick, resumed the case
at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun
it,—and so settled the point for my father at once.
IT was undoubtedly, said my uncle
Toby, a great happiness for myself and the corporal, that we
had all along a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst,
during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was upon us in the
camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it,
inevitably have got the better.——My father drew in his
lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as
slowly as he possibly could.——
——It was Heaven’s mercy to us, continued my
uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal’s head to
maintain that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the
radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he did all along,
with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were)
a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its ground from
the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the moisture,
terrible as it was.——Upon my honour, added my uncle
Toby, you might have heard the contention within our bodies,
brother Shandy, twenty toises.—If there was no firing,
said Yorick.
Well—said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after
the word——Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me
one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they
had had their
clergy—————————————Yorick,
foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand
upon my father’s breast, and begged he would respite it for a few
minutes, till he asked the corporal a question.——Prithee,
Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my father’s
leave,—tell us honestly—what is thy opinion concerning this
self-same radical heat and radical moisture?
With humble submission to his honour’s better judgment,
quoth the corporal, making a bow to my uncle
Toby—Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my uncle
Toby.—The poor fellow is my servant,—not my
slave,—added my uncle Toby, turning to my
father.——
The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick
hanging upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel
about the knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; then touching his
under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right hand before he
opened his mouth,——he delivered his notion thus.
JUST as the corporal was humming, to
begin—in waddled Dr. Slop.—’Tis not
two-pence matter—the corporal shall go on in the next
chapter, let who will come in.——
Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the
transitions of his passions were unaccountably sudden,—and
what has this whelp of mine to say to the matter?
Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a
puppy-dog—he could not have done it in a more careless air:
the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the
accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of enquiry.—He sat
down.
Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could
not go unanswered,—in what condition is the
boy?—’Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr.
Slop.
I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle
Toby—returning his pipe into his
mouth.——Then let the corporal go on, said my father,
with his medical lecture.—The corporal made a bow to his old
friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning
radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words.
THE city of Limerick, the
siege of which was begun under his majesty king William
himself, the year after I went into the army—lies, an’
please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy
country.—’Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle
Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation, one
of the strongest fortified places in
Ireland.——
I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of
beginning a medical lecture.—’Tis all true, answered
Trim.—Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of
it, said Yorick.—’Tis all cut through, an’
please your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and
besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege,
the whole country was like a puddle,—’twas that, and
nothing else, which brought on the flux, and which had like to have
killed both his honour and myself; now there was no such thing,
after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to
lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off
the water;—nor was that enough, for those who could afford
it, as his honour could, without setting fire every night to a
pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and
made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.——
And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal Trim, cried
my father, from all these premises?
I infer, an’ please your worship, replied Trim,
that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but
ditch-water—and that the radical heat, of those who can go to
the expence of it, is burnt brandy,—the radical heat and
moisture of a private man, an’ please your honour, is nothing
but ditch-water—and a dram of geneva——and give us
but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and
drive away the vapours—we know not what it is to fear
death.
I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop,
to determine in which branch of learning your servant shines most,
whether in physiology or divinity.—Slop had not forgot
Trim’s comment upon the sermon.—
It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal
was examined in the latter, and passed muster with great
honour.——
The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning
to my father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our
being—as the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation.—It
is inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved
sundry ways, but principally in my opinion by consubstantials,
impriments, and occludents.——Now this poor
fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has
had the misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse
upon this nice point.——That he has,—said my
father.——Very likely, said my uncle.—I’m
sure of it—quoth Yorick.——
DOCTOR Slop being called out
to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave my father an
opportunity of going on with another chapter in the
Tristra-pædia.——Come! cheer up, my lads;
I’ll shew you land——for when we have tugged
through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this
twelve-month.—Huzza!—
——FIVE years with a bib
under his chin;
Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to
Malachi;
A year and a half in learning to write his own name;
Seven long years and more τυπιω-ing
it, at Greek and Latin;
Four years at his probations and his
negations—the fine statue still lying in the middle of
the marble block,—and nothing done, but his tools sharpened
to hew it out!—’Tis a piteous delay!—Was not the
great Julius Scaliger within an ace of never getting his
tools sharpened at all?——Forty-four years old was he
before he could manage his Greek;—and Peter Damianus,
lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could not so
much as read, when he was of man’s estate.—And
Baldus himself, as eminent as he turned out after, entered
upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined he intended to be an advocate in
the other world: no wonder, when Eudamidas, the son of
Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventy-five
disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely,—If
the old man be yet disputing and enquiring concerning
wisdom,—what time will he have to make use of it?
Yorick listened to my father with great attention; there
was a seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest
whims, and he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of
his eclipses, as almost atoned for them:—be wary, Sir, when
you imitate him.
I am convinced, Yorick, continued my father, half reading
and half discoursing, that there is a North-west passage to the
intellectual world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of
going to work, in furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction,
than we generally take with it.——But, alack! all fields
have not a river or a spring running besides them;—every
child, Yorick, has not a parent to point it out.
——The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a
low voice, upon the auxiliary verbs, Mr. Yorick.
Had Yorick trod upon Virgil ’s snake,
he could not have looked more surprised.—I am surprised too,
cried my father, observing it,—and I reckon it as one of the
greatest calamities which ever befel the republic of letters, That
those who have been entrusted with the education of our children,
and whose business it was to open their minds, and stock them early
with ideas, in order to set the imagination loose upon them, have
made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing it, as they have
done——So that, except Raymond Lullius, and the
elder Pelegrini, the last of which arrived to such
perfection in the use of ’em, with his topics, that, in a few
lessons, he could teach a young gentleman to discourse with
plausibility upon any subject, pro and con, and to
say and write all that could be spoken or written concerning it,
without blotting a word, to the admiration of all who beheld
him.—I should be glad, said Yorick, interrupting my father,
to be made to comprehend this matter. You shall, said my
father.
The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of,
is a high metaphor,——for which, in my opinion, the idea
is generally the worse, and not the better;——but be
that as it may,—when the mind has done that with
it—there is an end,—the mind and the idea are at
rest,—until a second idea enters;—and so on.
Now the use of the Auxiliaries is, at once to set the
soul a-going by herself upon the materials as they are brought her;
and by the versability of this great engine, round which they are
twisted, to open new tracts of enquiry, and make every idea
engender millions.
You excite my curiosity greatly, said Yorick.
For my own part, quoth my uncle Toby, I have given it
up.——The Danes, an’ please your honour,
quoth the corporal, who were on the left at the siege of Limerick, were all
auxiliaries.——And very good ones, said my uncle
Toby.—But the auxiliaries, Trim, my brother is
talking about,—I conceive to be different
things.——
——You do? said my father, rising up.
MY father took a single turn across
the room, then sat down, and finished the chapter.
The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my
father, are, am; was; have; had; do; did; make; made; suffer;
shall; should; will; would; can; could; owe; ought; used; or
is wont.—And these varied with tenses, present,
past, future, and conjugated with the verb
see,—or with these questions added to
them;—Is it? Was it? Will it be? Would it be? May it be?
Might it be? And these again put negatively, Is it not? Was
it not? Ought it not?—Or affirmatively,—It
is; It was; It ought to be. Or
chronologically,—Has it been always? Lately? How long
ago?—Or hypothetically,—If it was? If it was
not? What would follow?—If the French should beat
the English? If the Sun go out of the
Zodiac?
Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my
father, in which a child’s memory should be exercised, there
is no one idea can enter his brain, how barren soever, but a
magazine of conceptions and conclusions may be drawn forth from
it.——Didst thou ever see a white bear? cried my father,
turning his head round to Trim, who stood at the back of his
chair:—No, an’ please your honour, replied the
corporal.——But thou couldst discourse about one,
Trim, said my father, in case of need?——How is
it possible, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, if the corporal
never saw one?——’Tis the fact I want, replied my
father,—and the possibility of it is as follows.
A WHITE BEAR! Very well. Have I ever seen
one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever
to have seen one? Or can I ever see one?
Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)
If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should
never see a white bear, what then?
If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive;
have I ever seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one
painted?—described? Have I never dreamed of one?
Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever
see a white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How
would the white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible?
Rough? Smooth?
—Is the white bear worth seeing?—
—Is there no sin in it?—
Is it better than a BLACK ONE?
——WE’LL not stop two moments, my dear
Sir,—only, as we have got through these five volumes[29], (do, Sir, sit down upon a
set——they are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the
country we have pass’d through.——
——What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy
that we have not both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts
in it!
Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number
of Jack Asses?——How they view’d and
review’d us as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of
that little valley!——and when we climbed over that
hill, and were just getting out of sight—good God! what a
braying did they all set up together!
——Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those
Jack Asses? * * *
——Heaven be their comforter——What! are
they never curried?——Are they never taken in in
winter?——Bray bray—bray. Bray on,—the world
is deeply your debtor;——louder still—that’s
nothing:—in good sooth, you are ill-used:——Was I
a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in G-sol-re-ut from
morning, even unto night.
WHEN my father had danced his white
bear backwards and forwards through half a dozen pages, he closed
the book for good an’ all,—and in a kind of triumph
redelivered it into Trim’s hand, with a nod to lay it
upon the ’scrutoire, where he found
it.——Tristram, said he, shall be made to
conjugate every word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards the
same way;——every word, Yorick, by this means,
you see, is converted into a thesis or an hypothesis;—every thesis and hypothesis have an off-spring of
propositions;—and each proposition has its own consequences
and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on again, into
fresh tracks of enquiries and doubtings.——The force of
this engine, added my father, is incredible in opening a
child’s head.——’Tis enough, brother
Shandy, cried my uncle Toby, to burst it into a
thousand splinters.——
I presume, said Yorick, smiling,—it must be owing to
this,—(for let logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted
for sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments)——That
the famous Vincent Quirino, amongst the many other astonishing feats of
his childhood, of which the Cardinal Bembo has given the world so exact
a story,—should be able to paste up in the public schools at Rome,
so early as in the eighth year of his age, no less than four thousand five
hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most abstruse points of the most
abstruse theology;—and to defend and maintain them in such sort, as to
cramp and dumbfound his opponents.——What is that, cried my father,
to what is told us of Alphonsus Tostatus, who, almost in his
nurse’s arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts without being
taught any one of them?——What shall we say of the great
Piereskius?—That’s the very man, cried my uncle Toby,
I once told you of, brother Shandy, who walked a matter of five hundred
miles, reckoning from Paris to Shevling, and from Shevling
back again, merely to see Stevinus’s flying
chariot.——He was a very great man! added my uncle Toby
(meaning Stevinus)—He was so, brother Toby, said my father
(meaning Piereskius)——and had multiplied his ideas so fast,
and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if we may give
credit to an anecdote concerning him, which we cannot withhold here, without
shaking the authority of all anecdotes whatever—at seven years of age,
his father committed entirely to his care the education of his younger brother,
a boy of five years old,—with the sole management of all his
concerns.—Was the father as wise as the son? quoth my uncle
Toby:—I should think not, said Yorick:—But what are
these, continued my father—(breaking out in a kind of
enthusiasm)—what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in
Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius, Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Ferdinand
de Cordouè, and others—some of which left off their substantial
forms at nine years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning without
them;—others went through their classics at seven;—wrote tragedies
at eight;—Ferdinand de Cordouè was so wise at
nine,—’twas thought the Devil was in him;—and at
Venice gave such proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks
imagined he was Antichrist, or nothing.——Others were masters
of fourteen languages at ten,—finished the course of their rhetoric,
poetry, logic, and ethics, at eleven,—put forth their commentaries upon
Servius and Martianus Capella at twelve,—and at thirteen
received their degrees in philosophy, laws, and divinity:——but you
forget the great Lipsius, quoth Yorick, who composed a work[30] the day he was
born:——They should have wiped it up, said my uncle Toby, and
said no more about it.
WHEN the cataplasm was ready, a
scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up in
Susannah’s conscience, about holding the candle,
whilst Slop tied it on; Slop had not treated
Susannah’s distemper with anodynes,—and so a
quarrel had ensued betwixt them.
——Oh! oh!——said Slop,
casting a glance of undue freedom in Susannah’s face,
as she declined the office;——then, I think I know you,
madam——You know me, Sir! cried Susannah
fastidiously, and with a toss of her head, levelled evidently, not
at his profession, but at the doctor himself,——you know
me! cried Susannah again.——Doctor Slop
clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his
nostrils;——Susannah’s spleen was ready to
burst at it;——’Tis false, said
Susannah.—Come, come, Mrs. Modesty, said Slop,
not a little elated with the success of his last
thrust,——If you won’t hold the candle, and
look—you may hold it and shut your eyes:—That’s
one of your popish shifts, cried Susannah:—’Tis
better, said Slop, with a nod, than no shift at all, young
woman;——I defy you, Sir, cried Susannah, pulling
her shift sleeve below her elbow.
It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in
a surgical case with a more splenetic cordiality.
Slop snatched up the cataplasm——Susannah snatched up
the candle;——A little this way, said Slop; Susannah
looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop’s
wig, which being somewhat bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it
was well kindled.——You impudent whore! cried
Slop,—(for what is passion, but a wild beast?)—you impudent
whore, cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his
hand;——I never was the destruction of any body’s nose, said
Susannah,—which is more than you can say:——Is it?
cried Slop, throwing the cataplasm in her face;——Yes, it is,
cried Susannah, returning the compliment with what was left in the pan.
DOCTOR Slop and
Susannah filed cross-bills against each other in the
parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into
the kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me;—and whilst that was doing, my father determined the
point as you will read.
YOU see ’tis high time, said my
father, addressing himself equally to my uncle Toby and
Yorick, to take this young creature out of these
women’s hands, and put him into those of a private governor.
Marcus Antoninus provided fourteen governors all at once to
superintend his son Commodus’s education,—and in
six weeks he cashiered five of them;—I know very well,
continued my father, that Commodus’s mother was in
love with a gladiator at the time of her conception, which accounts
for a great many of Commodus’s cruelties when he
became emperor;—but still I am of opinion, that those five
whom Antoninus dismissed, did Commodus’s
temper, in that short time, more hurt than the other nine were able
to rectify all their lives long.
Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the
mirror in which he is to view himself from morning to night,
by which he is to adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the
inmost sentiments of his heart;—I would have one,
Yorick, if possible, polished at all points, fit for my
child to look into.——This is very good sense, quoth my
uncle Toby to himself.
——There is, continued my father, a certain mien and
motion of the body and all its parts, both in acting and speaking,
which argues a man well within; and I am not at all
surprised that Gregory of Nazianzum, upon observing
the hasty and untoward gestures of Julian, should foretel he
would one day become an apostate;——or that St.
Ambrose should turn his Amanuensis out of doors,
because of an indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and
forwards like a flail;——or that Democritus
should conceive Protagoras to be a scholar, from seeing him
bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs
inwards.——There are a thousand unnoticed openings,
continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into
a man’s soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of
sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room,—or
take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which
discovers him.
It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make choice
of shall neither[31] lisp, or
squint, or wink, or talk loud, or look fierce, or foolish;——or bite
his lips, or grind his teeth, or speak through his nose, or pick it, or blow it
with his fingers.——
He shall neither walk fast,—or slow, or fold his
arms,—for that is laziness;—or hang them
down,—for that is folly; or hide them in his pocket, for that
is nonsense.——
He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle—or bite, or
cut his nails, or hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his feet or
fingers in company;——nor (according to Erasmus)
shall he speak to any one in making water,—nor shall he point to
carrion or excrement.——Now this is all nonsense again,
quoth my uncle Toby to himself.——
I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, faceté,
jovial; at the same time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant,
acute, argute, inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative
questions;——he shall be wise, and judicious, and
learned:——And why not humble, and moderate, and
gentle-tempered, and good? said Yorick:——And why
not, cried my uncle Toby, free, and generous, and bountiful,
and brave?——He shall, my dear Toby, replied my
father, getting up and shaking him by his hand.—Then, brother
Shandy, answered my uncle Toby, raising himself off
the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of my
father’s other hand,—I humbly beg I may recommend poor
Le Fever’s son to you;——a tear of joy of
the first water sparkled in my uncle Toby’s eye, and
another, the fellow to it, in the corporal’s, as the
proposition was made;——you will see why when you read Le
Fever’s story:——fool that I was! nor can I
recollect (nor perhaps you) without turning back to the place, what
it was that hindered me from letting the corporal tell it in his
own words;—but the occasion is lost,—I must tell it now
in my own.
IT was some time in the summer of
that year in which Dendermond was taken by the
allies,—which was about seven years before my father came
into the country,—and about as many, after the time, that my
uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my
father’s house in town, in order to lay some of the finest
sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in
Europe——when my uncle Toby was one
evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at
a small sideboard,—I say, sitting—for in consideration of the corporal’s lame knee
(which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)—when my uncle
Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the
corporal to stand; and the poor fellow’s veneration for his
master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle
Toby could have taken Dendermond itself, with less
trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a
time when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal’s leg
was at rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him
with the most dutiful respect: this bred more little squabbles
betwixt them, than all other causes for five-and-twenty years
together—But this is neither here nor there—why do I
mention it?——Ask my pen,—it governs me,—I
govern not it.
He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord
of a little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty
phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; ’Tis for a
poor gentleman,—I think, of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my house
four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a
desire to taste any thing, till just now, that he has a fancy for a
glass of sack and a thin toast,——I think, says
he, taking his hand from his forehead, it would comfort
me.——
——If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a
thing—added the landlord,—I would almost steal it for
the poor gentleman, he is so ill.——I hope in God he
will still mend, continued he,—we are all of us concerned for
him.
Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my
uncle Toby; and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s
health in a glass of sack thyself,—and take a couple of
bottles with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to
them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good.
Though I am persuaded, said my uncle Toby, as the
landlord shut the door, he is a very compassionate
fellow—Trim,—yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion
of his guest too; there must be something more than common in him,
that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of
his host;——And of his whole family, added the corporal,
for they are all concerned for him.——Step after him,
said my uncle Toby,—do Trim,—and ask if
he knows his name.
——I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord,
coming back into the parlour with the corporal,—but I can ask
his son again:——Has he a son with him then? said my
uncle Toby.—A boy, replied the landlord, of about
eleven or twelve years of age;—but the poor creature has
tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn
and lament for him night and day:——He has not stirred
from the bed-side these two days.
My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust
his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account;
and Trim, without being ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a
few minutes after brought him his pipe and tobacco.
——Stay in the room a little, said my uncle
Toby.
Trim!——said my uncle Toby, after
he lighted his pipe, and smoak’d about a dozen
whiffs.——Trim came in front of his master, and
made his bow;—my uncle Toby smoak’d on, and said
no more.——Corporal! said my uncle Toby—the
corporal made his bow.——My uncle Toby proceeded
no farther, but finished his pipe.
Trim! said my uncle Toby, I have a project
in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my
roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor
gentleman.——Your honour’s roquelaure, replied the
corporal, has not once been had on, since the night before your
honour received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches
before the gate of St. Nicholas;—and besides, it is so
cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure, and what with the
weather, ’twill be enough to give your honour your death, and
bring on your honour’s torment in your groin. I fear so,
replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind,
Trim, since the account the landlord has given
me.——I wish I had not known so much of this
affair,—added my uncle Toby,—or that I had known
more of it:——How shall we manage it? Leave it,
an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the
corporal;——I’ll take my hat and stick and go to
the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring
your honour a full account in an hour.——Thou shalt go,
Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here’s a shilling
for thee to drink with his servant.——I shall get it all
out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door.
My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not
been, that he now and then wandered from the point, with
considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tennaile a straight
line, as a crooked one,—he might be said to have thought of
nothing else but poor Le Fever and his boy the whole time he
smoaked it.
IT was not till my uncle Toby
had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe, that corporal
Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following
account.
I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring
back your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick
lieutenant—Is he in the army, then? said my uncle
Toby——He is, said the corporal——And
in what regiment? said my uncle Toby——I’ll
tell your honour, replied the corporal, every thing straight
forwards, as I learnt it.—Then, Trim, I’ll fill
another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease,
Trim, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The
corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow
could speak it—Your honour is good:—And having
done that, he sat down, as he was ordered,—and begun the
story to my uncle Toby over again in pretty near the same
words.
I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring
back any intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his
son; for when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made
myself sure of knowing every thing which was proper to be
asked,—That’s a right distinction, Trim, said my
uncle Toby—I was answered, an’ please your
honour, that he had no servant with him;——that he had
come to the inn with hired horses, which, upon finding himself
unable to proceed (to join, I suppose, the regiment), he had
dismissed the morning after he came.—If I get better, my
dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man,—we
can hire horses from hence.——But alas! the poor
gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to
me,—for I heard the death-watch all night
long;——and when he dies, the youth, his son, will
certainly die with him; for he is broken- hearted already.
I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the
youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord
spoke of;——but I will do it for my father myself, said
the youth.——Pray let my save you the trouble, young
gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering
him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst I did
it.——I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can
please him best myself.——I am sure, said I, his honour
will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old
soldier.——The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly
burst into tears.——Poor youth! said my uncle
Toby,—he has been bred up from an infant in the army,
and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears
like the name of a friend;—I wish I had him here.
——I never, in the longest march, said the corporal,
had so great a mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for
company:—What could be the matter with me, an’ please
your honour? Nothing in the world, Trim, said my uncle
Toby, blowing his nose,—but that thou art a
good-natured fellow.
When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it
was proper to tell him I was captain Shandy’s servant,
and that your honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned
for his father;—and that if there was any thing in your house
or cellar——(And thou might’st have added my purse
too, said my uncle Toby),——he was heartily
welcome to it:——He made a very low bow (which was meant
to your honour), but no answer—for his heart was
full—so he went up stairs with the toast;—I warrant
you, my dear, said I, as I opened the kitchen-door, your father
will be well again.——Mr. Yorick’s
curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire,—but said not a
word good or bad to comfort the youth.——I thought it
wrong; added the corporal——I think so too, said my
uncle Toby.
When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he
felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to
let me know, that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would
step up stairs.——I believe, said the landlord, he is
going to say his prayers,——for there was a book laid
upon the chair by his bed-side, and as I shut the door, I saw his
son take up a cushion.——
I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr.
Trim, never said your prayers at all.——I heard
the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady,
very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed
it.——Are you sure of it? replied the
curate.——A soldier, an’ please your reverence,
said I, prays as often (of his own accord) as a
parson;——and when he is fighting for his king, and for
his own life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to
pray to God of any one in the whole world——’Twas
well said of thee, Trim, said my uncle
Toby.——But when a soldier, said I, an’
please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together
in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water,—or engaged,
said I, for months together in long and dangerous
marches;—harassed, perhaps, in his rear
to-day;—harassing others to-morrow;—detached
here;—countermanded there;—resting this night out upon
his arms;—beat up in his shirt the next;—benumbed in
his joints;—perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel
on;—must say his prayers how and when he
can.—I believe, said I,—for I was piqued, quoth the
corporal, for the reputation of the army,—I believe,
an’ please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier gets
time to pray,—he prays as heartily as a parson,—though
not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.——Thou shouldst not
have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby,—for
God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not:——At
the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of
judgment (and not till then)—it will be seen who has done
their duties in this world,—and who has not; and we shall be
advanced, Trim, accordingly.——I hope we shall,
said Trim.——It is in the Scripture, said my
uncle Toby; and I will shew it thee to-morrow:—In the
mean time we may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort, said
my uncle Toby, that God Almighty is so good and just a
governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in
it,—it will never be enquired into, whether we have done them
in a red coat or a black one:——I hope not, said the
corporal——But go on, Trim, said my uncle
Toby, with thy story.
When I went up, continued the corporal, into the
lieutenant’s room, which I did not do till the expiration of
the ten minutes,—he was lying in his bed with his
head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a
clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it:——The youth
was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I
supposed he had been kneeling,—the book was laid upon the
bed,—and, as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand,
he reached out his other to take it away at the same
time.——Let it remain there, my dear, said the
lieutenant.
He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to
his bed- side:—If you are captain Shandy’s
servant, said he, you must present my thanks to your master, with
my little boy’s thanks along with them, for his courtesy to
me;—if he was of Levens’s—said the
lieutenant.—I told him your honour was—Then, said he, I
served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remember
him,—but ’tis most likely, as I had not the honour of
any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me.——You will tell him, however, that
the person his good-nature has laid under obligations to him, is
one Le Fever, a lieutenant in
Angus’s——but he knows me not,—said
he, a second time, musing;——possibly he may my
story—added he—pray tell the captain, I was the ensign
at Breda, whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a
musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent.——I
remember the story, an’t please your honour, said I, very
well.——Do you so? said he, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief—then well may I.—In saying this, he drew a
little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black
ribband about his neck, and kiss’d it
twice——Here, Billy, said he,—the boy flew
across the room to the bed-side,—and falling down upon his
knee, took the ring in his hand, and kissed it too,—then
kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept.
I wish, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh,—I
wish, Trim, I was asleep.
Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much
concerned;—shall I pour your honour out a glass of sack to
your pipe?——Do, Trim, said my uncle
Toby.
I remember, said my uncle Toby, sighing again, the story
of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty
omitted;—and particularly well that he, as well as she, upon
some account or other (I forget what) was universally pitied by the
whole regiment;—but finish the story thou art
upon:—’Tis finished already, said the
corporal,—for I could stay no longer,—so wished his
honour a good night; young Le Fever rose from off the bed,
and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down
together, told me, they had come from Ireland, and were on
their route to join the regiment in
Flanders.——But alas! said the
corporal,—the lieutenant’s last day’s march is
over.—Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my uncle
Toby.
IT was to my uncle
Toby’s eternal honour,——though I tell it
only for the sake of those, who, when coop’d in betwixt a
natural and a positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in
the world to turn themselves——That notwithstanding my
uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on
the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who
pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time
to get his dinner——that nevertheless he gave up
Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the
counterscarp;—and bent his whole thoughts towards the private
distresses at the inn; and except that he ordered the garden gate
to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege
of Dendermond into a blockade,—he left
Dendermond to itself—to be relieved or not by the French king, as the
French king thought good; and only considered how he himself
should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.
——That kind BEING, who is a friend to
the friendless, shall recompence thee for this.
Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to
the corporal, as he was putting him to bed,——and I will
tell thee in what, Trim.——In the first place,
when thou madest an offer of my services to Le
Fever,——as sickness and travelling are both
expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a
son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay,—that thou
didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood
in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as
myself.——Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no
orders;——True, quoth my uncle Toby,—thou
didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,—but certainly
very wrong as a man.
In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same
excuse, continued my uncle Toby,——when thou
offeredst him whatever was in my house,——thou shouldst
have offered him my house too:——A sick brother officer
should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with
us,—we could tend and look to him:——Thou art an
excellent nurse thyself, Trim,—and what with thy care
of him, and the old woman’s and his boy’s, and mine
together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his
legs.——
——In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle
Toby, smiling,——he might march.——He
will never march; an’ please your honour, in this world, said
the corporal:——He will march; said my uncle
Toby, rising up from the side of the bed, with one shoe
off:——An’ please your honour, said the corporal,
he will never march but to his grave:——He shall march,
cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on,
though without advancing an inch,—he shall march to his
regiment.——He cannot stand it, said the
corporal;——He shall be supported, said my uncle
Toby;——He’ll drop at last, said the
corporal, and what will become of his boy?——He shall
not drop, said my uncle Toby,
firmly.——A-well-o’day,—do what we can for
him, said Trim, maintaining his point,—the poor soul
will die:——He shall not die, by G—, cried my
uncle Toby.
—The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to
heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it
in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it
down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for
ever.
——MY uncle Toby
went to his bureau,—put his purse into his breeches pocket,
and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a
physician,—he went to bed, and fell asleep.
THE sun looked bright the morning
after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever’s and
his afflicted son’s; the hand of death pressed heavy upon his
eye-lids,——and hardly could the wheel at the cistern
turn round its circle,—when my uncle Toby, who had
rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the
lieutenant’s room, and without preface or apology, sat
himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, independently of
all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old
friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he
did,—how he had rested in the night,—what was his
complaint,—where was his pain,—and what he could do to
help him:——and without giving him time to answer any
one of the enquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan
which he had been concerting with the corporal the night
before for him.——
——You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said
my uncle Toby, to my house,—and we’ll send for a
doctor to see what’s the matter,—and we’ll have
an apothecary,—and the corporal shall be your
nurse;——and I’ll be your servant, Le
Fever.
There was a frankness in my uncle Toby,—not the
effect of familiarity,—but the cause of
it,—which let you at once into his soul, and shewed you the
goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks,
and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the
unfortunate to come and take shelter under him, so that before my
uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making
to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his
knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was
pulling it towards him.——The blood and spirits of Le
Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were
retreating to their last citadel, the heart—rallied
back,—the film forsook his eyes for a moment,—he looked
up wishfully in my uncle Toby’s face,—then cast
a look upon his boy,——and that ligament, fine as
it was,—was never broken.——
Nature instantly ebb’d again,—the film returned to
its place,——the pulse
fluttered——stopp’d——went
on——throbb’d———stopp’d
again——moved——stopp’d——shall
I go on?——No.
I AM so impatient to return to my own
story, that what remains of young Le Fever’s, that is,
from this turn of his fortune, to the time my uncle Toby
recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very few words
in the next chapter.—All that is necessary to be added to
this chapter is as follows.—
That my uncle Toby, with young Le Fever in his
hand, attended the poor lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his
grave.
That the governor of Dendermond paid his obsequies all
military honours,—and that Yorick, not to be
behind-hand—paid him all ecclesiastic—for he buried him
in his chancel:—And it appears likewise, he preached a
funeral sermon over him——I say it
appears,—for it was Yorick’s custom,
which I suppose a general one with those of his profession, on the
first leaf of every sermon which he composed, to chronicle down the
time, the place, and the occasion of its being preached: to this,
he was ever wont to add some short comment or stricture upon the
sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit:—For
instance, This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation—I
don’t like it at all;—Though I own there is a world
of WATER-LANDISH knowledge in it;—but
’tis all tritical, and most tritically put
together.—This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what
was in my head when I made it?
——N.B. The excellency of this text is, that it
will suit any sermon,—and of this sermon,——that
it will suit any text.——
——For this sermon I shall be
hanged,—for I have stolen the greatest part of it. Doctor
Paidagunes found me out. => Set a thief to catch a
thief.——
On the back of half a dozen I find written, So, so, and no
more——and upon a couple Moderato; by which, as
far as one may gather from Altieri’s Italian
dictionary,—but mostly from the authority of a piece of green
whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of
Yorick’s whip-lash, with which he has left us the two
sermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So,
so, tied fast together in one bundle by themselves,—one
may safely suppose he meant pretty near the same thing.
There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which
is this, that the moderato’s are five times better
than the so, so’s;—show ten times more knowledge
of the human heart;—have seventy times more wit and spirit in
them;—(and, to rise properly in my climax)—discovered a
thousand times more genius;—and to crown all, are infinitely
more entertaining than those tied up with them:—for
which reason, whene’er Yorick’s dramatic sermons
are offered to the world, though I shall admit but one out of the
whole number of the so, so’s, I shall, nevertheless,
adventure to print the two moderato’s without any sort
of scruple.
What Yorick could mean by the words
lentamente,—tenutè,—grave,—and
sometimes adagio,—as applied to theological
compositions, and with which he has characterised some of these
sermons, I dare not venture to guess.——I am more
puzzled still upon finding a l’octava alta! upon
one;——Con strepito upon the back of
another;——Scicilliana upon a
third;——Alla capella upon a
fourth;——Con l’arco upon
this;——Senza l’arco upon
that.——All I know is, that they are musical terms, and
have a meaning;——and as he was a musical man, I will
make no doubt, but that by some quaint application of such
metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impressed very distinct
ideas of their several characters upon his fancy,—whatever
they may do upon that of others.
Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has
unaccountably led me into this digression——The funeral
sermon upon poor Le Fever, wrote out very fairly, as if from
a hasty copy.—I take notice of it the more, because it seems
to have been his favourite composition——It is upon
mortality; and is tied length-ways and cross-ways with a yarn
thrum, and then rolled up and twisted round with a half-sheet of
dirty blue paper, which seems to have been once the cast cover of a
general review, which to this day smells horribly of horse
drugs.——Whether these marks of humiliation were
designed,—I something doubt;——because at the end
of the sermon (and not at the beginning of it)—very different
from his way of treating the rest, he had wrote——
Bravo!
——Though not very offensively,——for it
is at two inches, at least, and a half’s distance from, and
below the concluding line of the sermon, at the very extremity of
the page, and in that right hand corner of it, which, you know, is
generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it justice, it is
wrote besides with a crow’s quill so faintly in a small
Italian hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the
place, whether your thumb is there or not,—so that from the
manner of it, it stands half excused; and being wrote
moreover with very pale ink, diluted almost to
nothing,—’tis more like a ritratto of the shadow
of vanity, than of VANITY herself—of the two;
resembling rather a faint thought of transient applause, secretly
stirring up in the heart of the composer; than a gross mark of it,
coarsely obtruded upon the world.
With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing
this, I do no service to Yorick’s character as a
modest man;—but all men have their failings! and what lessens
this still farther, and almost wipes it away, is this; that the
word was struck through sometime afterwards (as appears from a
different tint of the ink) with a line quite across it in this manner,
BRAVO——as if he had retracted, or was
ashamed of the opinion he had once entertained of it.
These short characters of his sermons were always written,
excepting in this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon,
which served as a cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it,
which was turned towards the text;—but at the end of his
discourse, where, perhaps, he had five or six pages, and sometimes,
perhaps, a whole score to turn himself in,—he took a large
circuit, and, indeed, a much more mettlesome one;—as if he
had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more
frolicksome strokes at vice, than the straitness of the pulpit
allowed.—These, though hussar-like, they skirmish lightly and
out of all order, are still auxiliaries on the side of
virtue;—tell me then, Mynheer Vander
Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not be printed
together?
When my uncle Toby had turned
every thing into money, and settled all accounts betwixt the agent
of the regiment and Le Fever, and betwixt Le Fever
and all mankind,——there remained nothing more in my
uncle Toby’s hands, than an old regimental coat and a
sword; so that my uncle Toby found little or no opposition
from the world in taking administration. The coat my uncle
Toby gave the corporal;——Wear it, Trim,
said my uncle Toby, as long as it will hold together, for
the sake of the poor lieutenant——And
this,——said my uncle Toby, taking up the sword
in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as he
spoke——and this, Le Fever, I’ll save for
thee,—’tis all the fortune, continued my uncle
Toby, hanging it up upon a crook, and pointing to
it,—’tis all the fortune, my dear Le Fever,
which God has left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way
with it in the world,—and thou doest it like a man of
honour,—’tis enough for us.
As soon as my uncle Toby had laid a foundation, and
taught him to inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, he sent him
to a public school, where, excepting Whitsontide and
Christmas, at which times the corporal was punctually
dispatched for him,—he remained to the spring of the year,
seventeen; when the stories of the emperor’s sending his army
into Hungary against the Turks, kindling a spark of
fire in his bosom, he left his Greek and Latin
without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my uncle
Toby, begged his father’s sword, and my uncle
Toby’s leave along with it, to go and try his fortune
under Eugene.—Twice did my uncle Toby forget
his wound and cry out, Le Fever! I will go with thee, and
thou shalt fight beside me——And twice he laid his hand
upon his groin, and hung down his head in sorrow and
disconsolation.——
My uncle Toby took down the sword from the
crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the
lieutenant’s death, and delivered it to the corporal to
brighten up;——and having detained Le Fever a
single fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to
Leghorn,—he put the sword into his
hand.——If thou art brave, Le Fever, said my
uncle Toby, this will not fail thee,——but
Fortune, said he (musing a little),——Fortune
may——And if she does,—added my uncle Toby,
embracing him, come back again to me, Le Fever, and we will
shape thee another course.
The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of Le
Fever more than my uncle Toby’s paternal
kindness;——he parted from my uncle Toby, as the
best of sons from the best of fathers——both dropped
tears——and as my uncle Toby gave him his last
kiss, he slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his
father’s, in which was his mother’s ring, into his
hand,—and bid God bless him.
LE FEVER got up to the
Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his sword was made
of, at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade; but a
series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment,
and trod close upon his heels for four years together after; he had
withstood these buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him
at Marseilles, from whence he wrote my uncle Toby
word, he had lost his time, his services, his health, and, in
short, every thing but his sword;——and was waiting for
the first ship to return back to him.
As this letter came to hand about six weeks before
Susannah’s accident, Le Fever was hourly
expected; and was uppermost in my uncle Toby’s mind
all the time my father was giving him and Yorick a
description of what kind of a person he would chuse for a preceptor
to me: but as my uncle Toby thought my father at first somewhat fanciful in the
accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning Le
Fever’s name,——till the character, by
Yorick’s inter-position, ending unexpectedly, in one,
who should be gentle-tempered, and generous, and good, it impressed
the image of Le Fever, and his interest, upon my uncle
Toby so forcibly, he rose instantly off his chair; and
laying down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my
father’s hands——I beg, brother Shandy,
said my uncle Toby, I may recommend poor Le
Fever’s son to you—I beseech you do, added
Yorick——He has a good heart, said my uncle
Toby——And a brave one too, an’ please your
honour, said the corporal.
——The best hearts, Trim, are ever the
bravest, replied my uncle Toby.——And the
greatest cowards, an’ please your honour, in our regiment,
were the greatest rascals in it.—There was serjeant
Kumber, and ensign——
——We’ll talk of them, said my father, another
time.
WHAT a jovial and a merry world would
this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable
labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent,
melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!
Doctor Slop, like a son of a w——, as my
father called him for it,—to exalt himself,—debased me
to death,—and made ten thousand times more of
Susannah’s accident, than there was any grounds for;
so that in a week’s time, or less, it was in every
body’s mouth, That poor Master Shandy * * * * * * * *
* * * * entirely.—And FAME, who loves to
double every thing,—in three days more, had sworn, positively
she saw it,—and all the world, as usual, gave credit to her
evidence——“That the nursery window had not
only * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ;—but
that * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ’s
also.”
Could the world have been sued like a
BODY-CORPORATE,—my father had brought an
action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to fall
foul of individuals about it——as every soul who had
mentioned the affair, did it with the greatest pity
imaginable;——’twas like flying in the very face
of his best friends:——And yet to acquiesce under the
report, in silence—was to acknowledge it openly,—at
least in the opinion of one half of the world; and to make a bustle
again, in contradicting it,—was to confirm it as strongly in
the opinion of the other half.——
——Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so
hampered? said my father.
I would shew him publickly, said my uncle Toby, at the
market cross.
——’Twill have no effect, said my father.
——I’ll put him, however, into
breeches, said my father,—let the world say what it will.
THERE are a thousand resolutions,
Sir, both in church and state, as well as in matters, Madam, of a
more private concern;—which, though they have carried all the
appearance in the world of being taken, and entered upon in a
hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding
this, (and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or stood
behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed,
poized, and perpended——argued
upon——canvassed through——entered into, and
examined on all sides with so much coolness, that the
GODDESS OF COOLNESS herself (I do not take upon me
to prove her existence) could neither have wished it, or done it
better.
Of the number of these was my father’s resolution of
putting me into breeches; which, though determined at
once,—in a kind of huff, and a defiance of all mankind, had,
nevertheless, been pro’d and conn’d, and
judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month
before, in two several beds of justice, which my father had
held for that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of
justice in my next chapter; and in the chapter following that, you
shall step with me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what
kind of manner my father and my mother debated between themselves,
this affair of the breeches,—from which you may form an idea,
how they debated all lesser matters.
THE ancient Goths of
Germany, who (the learned Cluverius is positive) were
first seated in the country between the Vistula and the
Oder, and who afterwards incorporated the Herculi, the
Bugians, and some other Vandallick clans to
’em—had all of them a wise custom of debating every
thing of importance to their state, twice, that is,—once
drunk, and once sober:——Drunk—that their councils
might not want vigour;——and sober—that they might
not want discretion.
Now my father being entirely a water-drinker,—was a long
time gravelled almost to death, in turning this as much to his
advantage, as he did every other thing which the ancients did or
said; and it was not till the seventh year of his marriage, after a
thousand fruitless experiments and devices, that he hit upon an
expedient which answered the purpose;——and that was,
when any difficult and momentous point was to be settled in the
family, which required great sobriety, and great spirit too, in its
determination,——he fixed and set apart the first
Sunday night in the month, and the Saturday night
which immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in bed with my mother: By which contrivance, if you
consider, Sir, with yourself, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
These my father, humorously enough, called his beds of
justice;——for from the two different counsels taken
in these two different humours, a middle one was generally found
out which touched the point of wisdom as well, as if he had got
drunk and sober a hundred times.
I must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers
full as well in literary discussions, as either in military or
conjugal; but it is not every author that can try the experiment as
the Goths and Vandals did it——or, if he
can, may it be always for his body’s health; and to do it, as
my father did it,—am I sure it would be always for his
soul’s.
My way is this:——
In all nice and ticklish discussions,—(of which, heaven
knows, there are but too many in my book)—where I find I
cannot take a step without the danger of having either their
worships or their reverences upon my back——I write
one-half full,—and t’other
fasting;——or write it all full,—and
correct it fasting;——or write it fasting,—and
correct it full, for they all come to the same
thing:——So that with a less variation from my
father’s plan, than my father’s from the
Gothick—I feel myself upon a par with him in his first
bed of justice,—and no way inferior to him in his
second.——These different and almost irreconcileable
effects, flow uniformly from the wise and wonderful mechanism of
nature,—of which,—be her’s the
honour.——All that we can do, is to turn and work the
machine to the improvement and better manufactory of the arts and
sciences.——
Now, when I write full,—I write as if I was never to write
fasting again as long as I live;——that is, I write free
from the cares as well as the terrors of the
world.——I count not the number of my scars,—nor
does my fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to
ante-date my stabs.——In a word, my pen takes its
course; and I write on as much from the fulness of my heart, as my
stomach.——
But when, an’ please your honours, I indite fasting,
’tis a different history.——I pay the world all
possible attention and respect,—and have as great a share
(whilst it lasts) of that under strapping virtue of discretion as
the best of you.——So that betwixt both, I write a
careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured
Shandean book, which will do all your hearts
good——
——And all your heads too,—provided you
understand it.
WE should begin, said my father,
turning himself half round in bed, and shifting his pillow a little
towards my mother’s, as he opened the debate——We
should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this boy into
breeches.——
We should so,—said my mother.——We defer it, my
dear, quoth my father, shamefully.——
I think we do, Mr. Shandy,—said my mother.
——Not but the child looks extremely well, said my
father, in his vests and tunicks.——
——He does look very well in them,—replied my
mother.——
——And for that reason it would be almost a sin,
added my father, to take him out of ’em.——
——It would so,—said my
mother:——But indeed he is growing a very tall
lad,—rejoined my father.
——He is very tall for his age, indeed,—said my
mother.——
——I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine,
quoth my father, who the deuce he takes after.——
I cannot conceive, for my life, said my
mother.——
Humph!——said my father.
(The dialogue ceased for a moment.)
——(I am very short myself,—continued my father
gravely.
You are very short, Mr Shandy,—said my mother.
Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering
which, he plucked his pillow a little further from my
mother’s,—and turning about again, there was an end of
the debate for three minutes and a half.
——When he gets these breeches made, cried my father
in a higher tone, he’ll look like a beast in ’em.
He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother.
——And ’twill be lucky, if that’s the
worst on’t, added my father.
It will be very lucky, answered my mother.
I suppose, replied my father,—making some pause
first,—he’ll be exactly like other people’s
children.——
Exactly, said my mother.——
——Though I shall be sorry for that, added my father:
and so the debate stopp’d again.
——They should be of leather, said my father, turning
him about again.—
They will last him, said my mother, the longest.
But he can have no linings to ’em, replied my
father.——
He cannot, said my mother.
’Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my
father.
Nothing can be better, quoth my mother.——
——Except dimity,—replied my
father:——’Tis best of all,—replied my
mother.
——One must not give him his death,
however,—interrupted my father.
By no means, said my mother:——and so the dialogue
stood still again.
I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the
fourth time, he shall have no pockets in them.——
——There is no occasion for any, said my
mother.——
I mean in his coat and waistcoat,—cried my father.
——I mean so too,—replied my mother.
——Though if he gets a gig or top——Poor
souls! it is a crown and a sceptre to them,—they should have
where to secure it.——
Order it as you please, Mr. Shandy, replied my
mother.——
——But don’t you think it right? added my
father, pressing the point home to her.
Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr.
Shandy.——
——There’s for you! cried my father, losing his
temper——Pleases me!——You never will
distinguish, Mrs. Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it, betwixt a point of
pleasure and a point of convenience.——This was on the
Sunday night:——and further this chapter sayeth
not.
AFTER my father had debated the
affair of the breeches with my mother,—he consulted
Albertus Rubenius upon it; and Albertus Rubenius used
my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than
even my father had used my mother: For as Rubenius had wrote
a quarto express, De re Vestiaria Veterum,—it was
Rubenius’s business to have given my father some
lights.—On the contrary, my father might as well have thought
of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long
beard,—as of extracting a single word out of Rubenius
upon the subject.
Upon every other article of ancient dress, Rubenius was
very communicative to my father;—gave him a full satisfactory
account of
The Toga, or loose gown.
The Chlamys.
The Ephod.
The Tunica, or Jacket.
The Synthesis.
The Pænula.
The Lacema, with its Cucullus.
The Paludamentum.
The Prætexta.
The Sagum, or soldier’s jerkin.
The Trabea: of which, according to Suetonius,
there was three kinds.—
——But what are all these to the breeches? said my
father.
Rubenius threw him down upon the counter all kinds of
shoes which had been in fashion with the
Romans.——
There was,
The open shoe.
The close shoe.
The slip shoe.
The wooden shoe.
The soc.
The buskin.
And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which
Juvenal takes notice of.
There were, The clogs.
The pattins.
The pantoufles.
The brogues.
The sandals, with latchets to them.
There was, The felt shoe.
The linen shoe.
The laced shoe.
The braided shoe.
The calceus incisus.
And The calceus rostratus.
Rubenius shewed my father how well they all
fitted,—in what manner they laced on,—with what points,
straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands, jaggs, and
ends.——
——But I want to be informed about the breeches, said
my father.
Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the
Romans manufactured stuffs of various
fabrics,——some plain,—some striped,—others diapered throughout the whole
contexture of the wool, with silk and gold——That linen
did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of
the empire, when the Egyptians coming to settle amongst
them, brought it into vogue.
——That persons of quality and fortune distinguished
themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which
colour (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great
offices) they most affected, and wore on their birth-days and
public rejoicings.——That it appeared from the best
historians of those times, that they frequently sent their clothes
to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened:——but
that the inferior people, to avoid that expence, generally wore
brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture,—till
towards the beginning of Augustus’s reign, when the
slave dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of
habiliment was lost, but the Latus Clavus.
And what was the Latus Clavus? said my father.
Rubenius told him, that the point was still litigating
amongst the learned:——That Egnatius, Sigonius,
Bossius Ticinensis, Bayfius Budæus, Salmasius, Lipsius,
Lazius, Isaac Casaubon, and Joseph Scaliger, all
differed from each other,—and he from them: That some took it
to be the button,—some the coat itself,—others only the
colour of it;—That the great Bayfuis in his Wardrobe
of the Ancients, chap. 12—honestly said, he knew not what it
was,—whether a tibula,—a stud,—a button,—a
loop,—a buckle,—or clasps and
keepers.——
——My father lost the horse, but not the
saddle——They are hooks and eyes, said my
father——and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches
to be made.
WE are now going to enter upon a new
scene of events.——
——Leave we then the breeches in the taylor’s
hands, with my father standing over him with his cane, reading him
as he sat at work a lecture upon the latus clavus, and
pointing to the precise part of the waistband, where he was
determined to have it sewed on.——
Leave we my mother—(truest of all the
Poco-curante’s of her sex!)—careless about it,
as about every thing else in the world which concerned
her;—that is,—indifferent whether it was done this way
or that,——provided it was but done at
all.——
Leave we Slop likewise to the full profits of all my
dishonours.——
Leave we poor Le Fever to recover, and get home from
Marseilles as he can.——And last of
all,—because the hardest of all——
Let us leave, if possible, myself:——But
’tis impossible,—I must go along with you to the end of
the work.
IF the reader has not a clear
conception of the rood and the half of ground which lay at the
bottom of my uncle Toby’s kitchen-garden, and which
was the scene of so many of his delicious hours,—the fault is
not in me,—but in his imagination;—for I am sure I gave
him so minute a description, I was almost ashamed of it.
When FATE was looking forwards one afternoon,
into the great transactions of future times,—and recollected
for what purposes this little plot, by a decree fast bound down in
iron, had been destined,—she gave a nod to
NATURE,—’twas enough—Nature threw
half a spade full of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so
much clay in it, as to retain the forms of angles and
indentings,—and so little of it too, as not to cling
to the spade, and render works of so much glory, nasty in foul
weather.
My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed,
with plans along with him, of almost every fortified town in
Italy and Flanders; so let the duke of
Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before what town
they pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared for them.
His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as
soon as ever a town was invested—(but sooner when the design
was known) to take the plan of it (let it be what town it would),
and enlarge it upon a scale to the exact size of his bowling-green;
upon the surface of which, by means of a large role of packthread,
and a number of small piquets driven into the ground, at the
several angles and redans, he transferred the lines from his paper;
then taking the profile of the place, with its works, to determine
the depths and slopes of the ditches,—the talus of the
glacis, and the precise height of the several banquets, parapets,
&c.—he set the corporal to work——and sweetly went it
on:——The nature of the soil,—the nature of the
work itself,—and above all, the good-nature of my uncle
Toby sitting by from morning to night, and chatting kindly
with the corporal upon past- done deeds,—left
LABOUR little else but the ceremony of the name.
When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a
proper posture of defence,—it was invested,—and my
uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first
parallel.—I beg I may not be interrupted in my story, by
being told, That the first parallel should be at least three
hundred toises distant from the main body of the place,—and
that I have not left a single inch for it;——for my
uncle Toby took the liberty of incroaching upon his
kitchen-garden, for the sake of enlarging his works on the
bowling-green, and for that reason generally ran his first and
second parallels betwixt two rows of his cabbages and his
cauliflowers; the conveniences and inconveniences of which will be
considered at large in the history of my uncle
Toby’s and the corporal’s campaigns, of which,
this I’m now writing is but a sketch, and will be finished,
if I conjecture right, in three pages (but there is no
guessing)——The campaigns themselves will take up as
many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great
a weight of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this,
to rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the
work——surely they had better be printed
apart,——we’ll consider the affair——so
take the following sketch of them in the mean time.
WHEN the town, with its works, was
finished, my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their
first parallel——not at random, or any
how——but from the same points and distances the allies
had begun to run theirs; and regulating their approaches and
attacks, by the accounts my uncle Toby received
from the daily papers,—they went on, during the whole siege,
step by step with the allies.
When the duke of Marlborough made a
lodgment,——my uncle Toby made a lodgment
too.——And when the face of a bastion was battered down,
or a defence ruined,—the corporal took his mattock and did as
much,—and so on;——gaining ground, and making
themselves masters of the works one after another, till the town
fell into their hands.
To one who took pleasure in the happy state of
others,—there could not have been a greater sight in world,
than on a post morning, in which a practicable breach had been made
by the duke of Marlborough, in the main body of the
place,—to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and observed
the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind
him, sallied forth;——the one with the Gazette in
his hand,—the other with a spade on his shoulder to execute the contents.——What an honest
triumph in my uncle Toby’s looks as he marched up to
the ramparts! What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood
over the corporal, reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as
he was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach an
inch too wide,—or leave it an inch too
narrow.——But when the chamade was beat, and the
corporal helped my uncle up it, and followed with the colours in
his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts—Heaven! Earth!
Sea!——but what avails apostrophes?——with
all your elements, wet or dry, ye never compounded so intoxicating
a draught.
In this track of happiness for many years, without one
interruption to it, except now and then when the wind continued to
blow due west for a week or ten days together, which detained the
Flanders mail, and kept them so long in torture,—but
still ’twas the torture of the happy——In this
track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for
many years, every year of which, and sometimes every
month, from the invention of either the one or the other of them,
adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their
operations, which always opened fresh springs of delight in
carrying them on.
The first year’s campaign was carried on from beginning to
end, in the plain and simple method I’ve related.
In the second year, in which my uncle Toby took
Liege and Ruremond, he thought he might afford the
expence of four handsome draw-bridges; of two of which I have given
an exact description in the former part of my work.
At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates
with port-cullises:——These last were converted
afterwards into orgues, as the better thing; and during the winter
of the same year, my uncle Toby, instead of a new suit of
clothes, which he always had at Christmas, treated himself
with a handsome sentry-box, to stand at the corner of the
bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of the glacis, there was left a little kind
of an esplanade for him and the corporal to confer and hold
councils of war upon.
——The sentry-box was in case of rain.
All these were painted white three times over the ensuing
spring, which enabled my uncle Toby to take the field with
great splendour.
My father would often say to Yorick, that if any mortal
in the whole universe had done such a thing except his brother
Toby, it would have been looked upon by the world as one of
the most refined satires upon the parade and prancing manner in
which Lewis XIV. from the beginning of the war, but
particularly that very year, had taken the field——But
’tis not my brother Toby’s nature, kind soul! my
father would add, to insult any one.
——But let us go on.
I MUST observe, that although in the
first year’s campaign, the word town is often
mentioned,—yet there was no town at that time within the
polygon; that addition was not made till the summer following the
spring in which the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was
the third year of my uncle Toby’s
campaigns,—when upon his taking Amberg, Bonn, and
Rhinberg, and Huy and Limbourg, one after
another, a thought came into the corporal’s head, that to
talk of taking so many towns, without one
TOWN to shew for it,—was a very
nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my uncle
Toby, that they should have a little model of a town built
for them,—to be run up together of slit deals, and then
painted, and clapped within the interior polygon to serve for
all.
My uncle Toby felt the good of the project instantly, and
instantly agreed to it, but with the addition of two singular
improvements, of which he was almost as proud as if he had been the
original inventor of the project itself.
The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of
those of which it was most likely to be the
representative:——with grated windows, and the gable
ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c.—as
those in Ghent and Bruges, and the rest of the towns
in Brabant and Flanders.
The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the
corporal proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on,
or off, so as to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased.
This was put directly into hand, and many and many a look of mutual
congratulation was exchanged between my uncle Toby and the
corporal, as the carpenter did the work.
——It answered prodigiously the next
summer——the town was a perfect
Proteus——It was Landen, and
Trerebach, and Santvliet, and Drusen, and
Hagenau,—and then it was Ostend and
Menin, and Aeth and Dendermond.
——Surely never did any TOWN act so
many parts, since Sodom and Gomorrah, as my uncle
Toby’s town did.
In the fourth year, my uncle Toby thinking a town looked
foolishly without a church, added a very fine one with a
steeple.——Trim was for having bells in
it;——my uncle Toby said, the metal had better be
cast into cannon.
This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass
field-pieces, to be planted three and three on each side of my
uncle Toby’s sentry-box; and in a short time, these
led the way for a train of somewhat larger,—and so
on—(as must always be the case in hobby-horsical affairs)
from pieces of half an inch bore, till it came at last to my
father’s jack boots.
The next year, which was that in which Lisle was
besieged, and at the close of which both Ghent and
Bruges fell into our hands,—my uncle Toby was
sadly put to it for proper ammunition;——I say
proper ammunition——because his great artillery would not bear powder; and
’twas well for the Shandy family they would
not——For so full were the papers, from the beginning to
the end of the siege, of the incessant firings kept up by the
besiegers,——and so heated was my uncle
Toby’s imagination with the accounts of them, that he
had infallibly shot away all his estate.
SOMETHING therefore was wanting as a
succedaneum, especially in one or two of the more violent
paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something like a continual
firing in the imagination,——and this something, the
corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an
entire new system of battering of his own,—without which,
this had been objected to by military critics, to the end of the
world, as one of the great desiderata of my uncle
Toby’s apparatus.
This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I
generally do, at a little distance from the subject.
WITH two or three other trinkets,
small in themselves, but of great regard, which poor Tom,
the corporal’s unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with
the account of his marriage with the Jew’s
widow——there was
A Montero-cap and two Turkish tobacco-pipes.
The Montero-cap I shall describe by and bye.—The
Turkish tobacco-pipes had nothing particular in them, they
were fitted up and ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of
Morocco leather and gold wire, and mounted at their ends,
the one of them with ivory,—the other with black ebony,
tipp’d with silver.
My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest
of the world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon
these two presents more as tokens of his brother’s
nicety, than his affection.——Tom did not care,
Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, or to smoke in the
tobacco-pipe of a Jew.——God bless your honour,
the corporal would say (giving a strong reason to the
contrary)—how can that be?
The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish
cloth, dyed in grain, and mounted all round with fur, except about
four inches in the front, which was faced with a light blue,
slightly embroidered,—and seemed to have been the property of
a Portuguese quarter-master, not of foot, but of horse, as
the word denotes.
The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own
sake, as the sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but
upon GALA-days; and yet never was a Montero-cap put
to so many uses; for in all controverted points, whether military
or culinary, provided the corporal was sure he was in the
right,—it was either his oath,—his
wager,—or his gift.
——’Twas his gift in the present case.
I’ll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to
give away my Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door,
if I do not manage this matter to his honour’s
satisfaction.
The completion was no further off, than the very next morning;
which was that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the
Lower Deule, to the right, and the gate St.
Andrew,—and on the left, between St.
Magdalen’s and the river.
As this was the most memorable attack in the whole
war,—the most gallant and obstinate on both sides,—and
I must add the most bloody too, for it cost the allies themselves
that morning above eleven hundred men,—my uncle Toby
prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary solemnity.
The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to bed, he
ordered his ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years
in the corner of an old campaigning trunk, which stood by his
bedside, to be taken out and laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning;—and the
very first thing he did in his shirt, when he had stepped out of
bed, my uncle Toby, after he had turned the rough side
outwards,—put it on:——This done, he proceeded
next to his breeches, and having buttoned the waist-band, he
forthwith buckled on his sword-belt, and had got his sword half way
in,—when he considered he should want shaving, and that it
would be very inconvenient doing it with his sword on,—so
took it off:——In essaying to put on his regimental coat
and waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in his
wig,—so that went off too:—So that what with one thing
and what with another, as always falls out when a man is in the
most haste,—’twas ten o’clock, which was half an
hour later than his usual time, before my uncle Toby sallied
out.
MY uncle Toby had scarce
turned the corner of his yew hedge, which separated his
kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived the
corporal had begun the attack without him.——
Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal’s
apparatus; and of the corporal himself in the height of his attack,
just as it struck my uncle Toby, as he turned towards the
sentry-box, where the corporal was at work,——for in
nature there is not such another,——nor can any
combination of all that is grotesque and whimsical in her works
produce its equal.
The corporal———
——Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of
genius,——for he was your kinsman:
Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness,—for he was your
brother.—Oh corporal! had I thee, but now,—now, that I am able to give thee a dinner and
protection,—how would I cherish thee! thou should’st
wear thy Montero-cap every hour of the day, and every day of the
week.—and when it was worn out, I would purchase thee a
couple like it:——But alas! alas! alas! now that I can
do this in spite of their reverences—the occasion is
lost—for thou art gone;—thy genius fled up to the stars
from whence it came;—and that warm heart of thine, with all
its generous and open vessels, compressed into a clod of the
valley!
——But what——what is this, to that future
and dreaded page, where I look towards the velvet pall, decorated
with the military ensigns of thy master—the first—the
foremost of created beings;——where, I shall see thee,
faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a trembling
hand across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to the
door, to take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his
hearse, as he directed thee;——where—all my
father’s systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and, in spite of his
philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the lackered plate,
twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe away the dew
which nature has shed upon them——When I see him cast in
the rosemary with an air of disconsolation, which cries through my
ears,——O Toby! in what corner of the world
shall I seek thy fellow?
——Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips
of the dumb in his distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer
speak plain—when I shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal
not with me, then, with a stinted hand.
THE corporal, who the night before
had resolved in his mind to supply the grand desideratum, of
keeping up something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during
the heat of the attack,—had no further idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco
against the town, out of one of my uncle Toby’s six
field-pieces, which were planted on each side of his sentry-box;
the means of effecting which occurring to his fancy at the same
time, though he had pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger
from the miscarriage of his projects.
Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he
soon began to find out, that by means of his two Turkish
tobacco-pipes, with the supplement of three smaller tubes of
wash-leather at each of their lower ends, to be tagg’d by the
same number of tin-pipes fitted to the touch-holes, and sealed with
clay next the cannon, and then tied hermetically with waxed silk at
their several insertions into the Morocco tube,—he
should be able to fire the six field-pieces all together, and with
the same ease as to fire one.———
——Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may
not be cut out for the advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who
has read my father’s first and second beds of justice,
ever rise up and say again, from collision of what kinds of bodies
light may or may not be struck out, to carry the arts and sciences
up to perfection.——Heaven! thou knowest how I love
them;——thou knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I
would this moment give my shirt——Thou art a fool,
Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in
the world,—and ’twill break thy set.——
No matter for that, Eugenius; I would give the shirt off
my back to be burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one
feverish enquirer, how many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint
and steel could strike into the tail of it.——Think ye
not that in striking these in,—he might,
per-adventure, strike something out? as sure as a
gun.——
——But this project, by the bye.
The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing
his to perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon,
with charging them to the top with tobacco,—he went with
contentment to bed.
THE corporal had slipped out about
ten minutes before my uncle Toby, in order to fix his
apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two before my uncle
Toby came.
He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up
together in front of my uncle Toby’s sentry-box,
leaving only an interval of about a yard and a half betwixt the
three, on the right and left, for the convenience of charging,
&c.—and the sake possibly of two batteries, which he
might think double the honour of one.
In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door
of the sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal
wisely taken his post:——He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on
the right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right
hand,—and the ebony pipe tipp’d with silver, which
appertained to the battery on the left, betwixt the finger and
thumb of the other——and with his right knee fixed firm
upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the
corporal, with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off
his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard,
which faced the counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that
morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving
the enemy a single puff or two;—but the pleasure of the
puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got
hold of the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the
very height of the attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined
him.
’Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had
not his will to make that day.
MY uncle Toby took the ivory
pipe out of the corporal’s hand,—looked at it for half
a minute, and returned it.
In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe
from the corporal again, and raised it half way to his
mouth——then hastily gave it back a second time.
The corporal redoubled the attack,——my uncle
Toby smiled,——then looked
grave,——then smiled for a moment,——then
looked serious for a long time;——Give me hold of the
ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby——my
uncle Toby put it to his lips,——drew it back
directly,——gave a peep over the horn-beam
hedge;——never did my uncle Toby’s mouth
water so much for a pipe in his life.——My uncle
Toby retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his
hand.———
——Dear uncle Toby! don’t go into the
sentry-box with the pipe,—there’s no trusting a
man’s self with such a thing in such a corner.
I BEG the reader will assist me here,
to wheel off my uncle Toby’s ordnance behind the
scenes,——to remove his sentry-box, and clear the
theatre, if possible, of horn-works and half moons, and get the
rest of his military apparatus out of the way;——that
done, my dear friend Garrick, we’ll snuff the candles
bright,—sweep the stage with a new broom,—draw up the
curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new
character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will
act: and yet, if pity be a-kin to love,—and bravery no alien
to it, you have seen enough of my uncle Toby in these, to
trace these family likenesses, betwixt the two passions (in case
there is one) to your heart’s content.
Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this
kind—and thou puzzlest us in every one.
There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart
which misled him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in
which things of this nature usually go on; you can—you can
have no conception of it: with this, there was a plainness and
simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the
plies and foldings of the heart of woman;——and so naked
and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege was out of
his head,) that you might have stood behind any one of your
serpentine walks, and shot my uncle Toby ten times in a day,
through his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served
your purpose.
With all this, Madam,—and what confounded every thing as
much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled
modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood
eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you might as soon——But where am I going?
these reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and
take up that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts.
OF the few legitimate sons of
Adam whose breasts never felt what the sting of love
was,—(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be
bastards,)—the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story
have carried off amongst them nine parts in ten of the honour; and
I wish for their sakes I had the key of my study, out of my
draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their
names—recollect them I cannot—so be content to accept
of these, for the present, in their stead.
There was the great king Aldrovandus, and
Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and Dardanus, and
Pontus, and Asius,——to say nothing of the
iron-hearted Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of
K***** herself could make nothing of.——There
was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and
Polixenes, and Persicus, and Prusicus, not one
of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both
a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the
goddess——The truth is, they had all of them something
else to do—and so had my uncle Toby—till
Fate—till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being
handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus’s and the
rest,—she basely patched up the peace of Utrecht.
——Believe me, Sirs, ’twas the worst deed she
did that year.
AMONGST the many ill consequences of
the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my
uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his
appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper
scar in Mary’s heart, than Utrecht upon my
uncle Toby’s. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any
account whatever,—or so much as read an article of news
extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a
sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.
My father, who was a great MOTIVE-MONGER, and
consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either
laughing or crying,—for he generally knew your motive for
doing both, much better than you knew it yourself—would
always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way,
which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for
nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his
hobby-horse.——Never mind, brother Toby,
he would say,—by God’s blessing we shall have another
war break out again some of these days; and when it does,—the
belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us
out of play.——I defy ’em, my dear Toby, he
would add, to take countries without taking towns,——or
towns without sieges.
My uncle Toby never took this back-stroke of my
father’s at his hobby-horse kindly.——He thought
the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the
horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part a
blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down
his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than
common.
I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle
Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an
instance to the contrary:——I repeat the observation,
and a fact which contradicts it again.—He was not
eloquent,—it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make
long harangues,—and he hated florid ones; but there were
occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter
to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle Toby, for a
time, was at least equal to Tertullus——but in
others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.
My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical
orations of my uncle Toby’s, which he had delivered
one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down
before he went to bed.
I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my
father’s papers, with here and there an insertion of his own,
betwixt two crooks, thus [ ], and is endorsed,
MY BROTHER TOBY’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS OWN
PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT IN WISHING TO CONTINUE THE WAR.
I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of
my uncle Toby’s a hundred times, and think it so fine
a model of defence,—and shews so sweet a temperament of
gallantry and good principles in him, that I give it the world,
word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.
I AM not insensible, brother
Shandy, that when a man whose profession is arms, wishes, as
I have done, for war,—it has an ill aspect to the
world;——and that, how just and right soever his motives
the intentions may be,—he stands in an uneasy posture in
vindicating himself from private views in doing it.
For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be
without being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter
his wish in the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy
will not believe him.——He will be cautious of doing it
even to a friend,—lest he may suffer in his
esteem:——But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret
sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of
a brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and what his true
notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are: What, I hope, I
have been in all these, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming
in me to say:——much worse, I know, have I been than I
ought,—and something worse, perhaps, than I think: But such
as I am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the
same breasts with me,—and with whom I have been brought up
from my cradle,—and from whose knowledge, from the first
hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have concealed no one
action of my life, and scarce a thought in it——Such as
I am, brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices,
and with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my
passions, or my understanding.
Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them
it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht, and
grieved the war was not carried on with vigour a little longer, you
should think your brother did it upon unworthy views; or that in
wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his
fellow-creatures slain,—more slaves made, and more families
driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own
pleasure:——Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what
one deed of mine do you ground it? [The devil a deed do I know
of, dear Toby, but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent
thee to carry on these cursed sieges.]
If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but
my heart beat with it—was it my fault?——Did I
plant the propensity there?——Did I sound the alarm
within, or Nature?
When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and
Parismenus, and Valentine and Orson, and the
Seven Champions of England, were handed around the
school,—were they not all purchased with my own pocket-money?
Was that selfish, brother Shandy? When we read over the
siege of Troy, which lasted ten years and eight
months,——though with such a train of artillery as we
had at Namur, the town might have been carried in a week—was I not as much concerned for the
destruction of the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of
the whole school? Had I not three strokes of a ferula given me, two
on my right hand, and one on my left, for calling Helena a
bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more tears for Hector?
And when king Priam came to the camp to beg his body, and
returned weeping back to Troy without it,—you know,
brother, I could not eat my dinner.——
——Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother
Shandy, my blood flew out into the camp, and my heart panted
for war,—was it a proof it could not ache for the distresses
of war too?
O brother! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather
laurels,—and ’tis another to scatter
cypress.——[Who told thee, my dear Toby, that cypress
was used by the antients on mournful occasions? ]
——’Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a
soldier to hazard his own life—to leap first down into the
trench, where he is sure to be cut in
pieces:——’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to
enter the breach the first man,—to stand in the foremost
rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours
flying about his ears:——’Tis one thing, I say,
brother Shandy, to do this,—and ’tis another
thing to reflect on the miseries of war;—to view the
desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable
fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument
who works them, is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to
undergo.
Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le
Fever’s funeral sermon, That so soft and gentle a
creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not
shaped for this?——But why did you not add,
Yorick,—if not by NATURE—that he
is so by NECESSITY?——For what is war?
what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon
principles of liberty, and upon principles of
honour—what is it, but the getting together of quiet
and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the
ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my
witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in
these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular, which
has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me,
and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had,
that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our
creation.
I TOLD the Christian reader—I
say Christian——hoping he is one——and
if he is not, I am sorry for it——and only beg he will
consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely
upon this book——
I told him, Sir——for in good truth, when a man is
telling a story in the strange way I do mine, he is obliged
continually to be going backwards and forwards to keep all tight
together in the reader’s fancy——which, for my own
part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there is so
much unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, with so many breaks
and gaps in it,—and so little service do the stars afford,
which, nevertheless, I hang up in some of the darkest passages,
knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights
the sun itself at noon-day can give it——and now you
see, I am lost myself!——
——But ’tis my father’s fault; and
whenever my brains come to be dissected, you will perceive, without
spectacles, that he has left a large uneven thread, as you
sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of cambrick, running along the
whole length of the web, and so untowardly, you cannot so much as
cut out a * *, (here I hang up a couple of lights
again)——or a fillet, or a thumb-stall, but it is seen
or felt.——
Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum,
sayeth Cardan. All which being considered, and that you see
’tis morally impracticable for me to wind this round to
where I set out——
I begin the chapter over again.
I TOLD the Christian reader in the
beginning of the chapter which preceded my uncle
Toby’s apologetical oration,—though in a
different trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace
of Utrecht was within an ace of creating the same shyness
betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobby-horse, as it did betwixt
the queen and the rest of the confederating powers.
There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his
horse, which, as good as says to him, “I’ll go
afoot, Sir, all the days of my life before I would ride a single
mile upon your back again.” Now my uncle Toby could
not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for in strictness
of language, he could not be said to dismount his horse at
all——his horse rather flung him——and somewhat
viciously, which made my uncle Toby take it ten times
more unkindly. Let this matter be settled by state-jockies as they
like.——It created, I say, a sort of shyness betwixt my
uncle Toby and his hobby-horse.——He had no
occasion for him from the month of March to November,
which was the summer after the articles were signed, except it was
now and then to take a short ride out, just to see that the
fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk were demolished,
according to stipulation.
The French were so backwards all that summer in setting
about that affair, and Monsieur Tugghe, the deputy from the
magistrates of Dunkirk, presented so many affecting
petitions to the queen,—beseeching her majesty to cause only
her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works, which might have
incurred her displeasure,—but to spare—to spare the
mole, for the mole’s sake; which, in its naked situation,
could be no more than an object of pity——and the queen
(who was but a woman) being of a pitiful
disposition,—and her ministers also, they not wishing in
their hearts to have the town dismantled, for these private
reasons, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *——
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ; so that the
whole went heavily on with my uncle Toby; insomuch, that it
was not within three full months, after he and the corporal had
constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be destroyed,
that the several commandants, commissaries, deputies, negociators,
and intendants, would permit him to set about
it.——Fatal interval of inactivity!
The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a
breach in the ramparts, or main fortifications of the
town——No,—that will never do, corporal, said my
uncle Toby, for in going that way to work with the town, the
English garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if
the French are treacherous——They are as treacherous as devils,
an’ please your honour, said the corporal——It
gives me concern always when I hear it, Trim, said my uncle
Toby;—for they don’t want personal bravery; and
if a breach is made in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make
themselves masters of the place when they please:—Let them
enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his pioneer’s spade
in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with
it,—let them enter, an’ please your honour, if they
dare.——In cases like this, corporal, said my uncle
Toby, slipping his right hand down to the middle of his
cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with his fore-finger
extended,——’tis no part of the consideration of a
commandant, what the enemy dare,—or what they dare not do; he
must act with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both
towards the sea and the land, and particularly with fort
Louis, the most distant of them all, and demolish it
first,—and the rest, one by one, both on our right and left, as we retreat towards
the town;——then we’ll demolish the
mole,—next fill up the harbour,—then retire into the
citadel, and blow it up into the air: and having done that,
corporal, we’ll embark for England.——We
are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting
himself——Very true, said my uncle
Toby—looking at the church.
A DELUSIVE, delicious consultation or
two of this kind, betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim,
upon the demolition of Dunkirk,—for a moment rallied
back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from under
him:——still—still all went on
heavily——the magic left the mind the
weaker—STILLNESS, with SILENCE
at her back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy
mantle over my uncle Toby’s head;—and
LISTLESSNESS, with her lax fibre and undirected eye,
sat quietly down beside him in his arm-chair.——No longer
Amberg and Rhinberg, and Limbourg, and
Huy, and Bonn, in one year,—and the prospect of
Landen, and Trerebach, and Drusen, and
Dendermond, the next,—hurried on the blood:—No
longer did saps, and mines, and blinds, and gabions, and
palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man’s
repose:——No more could my uncle Toby, after
passing the French lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from
thence break into the heart of France,—cross over the
Oyes, and with all Picardie open behind him, march up
to the gates of Paris, and fall asleep with nothing but
ideas of glory:——No more was he to dream, he had fixed
the royal standard upon the tower of the Bastile, and awake
with it streaming in his head.
——Softer visions,—gentler vibrations stole
sweetly in upon his slumbers;—the trumpet of war fell out of
his hands,—he took up the lute, sweet instrument! of all
others the most delicate! the most difficult!——how wilt
thou touch it, my dear uncle Toby?
NOW, because I have once or twice
said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, That I was confident the
following memoirs of my uncle Toby’s courtship of
widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn
out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and
practical part of love and love-making, that ever was addressed to
the world——are you to imagine from thence, that I shall
set out with a description of what love is? whether part God
and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it——
——Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the
whole of love to be as ten——to determine with
Ficinus, “How many parts of it—the
one,—and how many the other;”—or whether it
is all of it one great Devil, from head to tail, as
Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which
conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion:—but my opinion of Plato is this; that
he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same
temper and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being
a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of
’em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a
herse and six—rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was
nothing in the world, but one great bouncing
Cantharidis.——
I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this
monstrous liberty in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out
(that is, polemically) to
Philagrius——
“’Ευγε!”
O rare! ’tis fine reasoning, Sir
indeed!—“οτι
φιλοσοφεισ
ευ Παθεσ.”
and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about
it in your moods and passions.
Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to
inquire, whether love is a disease,——or embroil myself
with Rhasis and Dioscorides, whether the seat of it
is in the brain or liver;—because this would lead me on, to
an examination of the two very opposite manners, in
which patients have been treated——the one, of
Aœtius, who always begun with a cooling clyster of
hempseed and bruised cucumbers;—and followed on with thin
potations of water-lilies and purslane—to which he added a
pinch of snuff, of the herb Hanea;—and where
Aœtius durst venture it,—his topaz-ring.
——The other, that of Gordonius, who (in his
cap. 15. de Amore) directs they should be thrashed,
“ad putorem usque,”——till they stink
again.
These are disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great
stock of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the
progress of my uncle Toby’s affairs: I must anticipate
thus much, That from his theories of love, (with which, by the way,
he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby’s mind, almost
as much as his amours themselves,)—he took a single step into
practice;—and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he
found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he was making my
uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he produced
Gordonius’s effect upon my uncle Toby without
the disgrace.
What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place:
all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is
this——That whatever effect it had upon my uncle
Toby,——it had a vile effect upon the
house;——and if my uncle Toby had not smoaked it
down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father
too.
——’TWILL come out
of itself by and bye.——All I contend for is, that I am
not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is; and so
long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of
the word itself, without any other idea to it, than what I have in
common with the rest of the world, why should I differ from it
a moment before the time?——When I can get
on no further,—and find myself entangled on all sides of this
mystic labyrinth,—my Opinion will then come in, in
course,—and lead me out.
At present, I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in
telling the reader, my uncle Toby fell in love:
—Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a
man is fallen in love,—or that he is deeply in
love,—or up to the ears in love,—and sometimes even
over head and ears in it,—carries an idiomatical kind
of implication, that love is a thing below a man:—this
is recurring again to Plato’s opinion, which, with all
his divinityship,—I hold to be damnable and
heretical:—and so much for that.
Let love therefore be what it will,—my uncle Toby
fell into it.
——And possibly, gentle reader, with such a
temptation—so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or
thy concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow
Wadman.
TO conceive this right,—call
for pen and ink—here’s paper ready to your
hand.——Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own
mind——as like your mistress as you can——as
unlike your wife as your conscience will let you—’tis
all one to me——please but your own fancy in it.
——Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet!—so
exquisite!
——Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle Toby
resist it?
Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy
covers, which MALICE will not blacken, and which
IGNORANCE cannot misrepresent.
AS Susannah was informed by an
express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle Toby’s
falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it
happened,—the contents of which express, Susannah
communicated to my mother the next day,—it has just given me
an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby’s amours
a fortnight before their existence.
I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, quoth
my mother, which will surprise you greatly.——
Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of
justice, and was musing within himself about the hardships of
matrimony, as my mother broke silence.——
“—My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be
married to Mrs. Wadman.”
——Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to
lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.
It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never
asked the meaning of a thing she did not understand.
——That she is not a woman of science, my father
would say—is her misfortune—but she might ask a
question.—
My mother never did.——In short, she went out of the
world at last without knowing whether it turned round, or
stood still.——My father had officiously told her
above a thousand times which way it was,—but she always
forgot.
For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further
betwixt them, than a proposition,—a reply, and a rejoinder;
at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as
in the affair of the breeches), and then went on again.
If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us,—quoth my
mother.
Not a cherry-stone, said my father,—he may as well batter
away his means upon that, as any thing else,
——To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the
proposition—the reply,—and the rejoinder, I told you
of.
It will be some amusement to him, too,——said my
father.
A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have
children.——
——Lord have mercy upon me,—said my father to
himself——* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I AM now beginning to get fairly into
my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the
cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my
uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable
straight line. Now,
These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and
fourth volumes[32]——In
the fifth volume I have been very good,——the precise line I have
described in it being this:
By which it appears, that except at the curve,
marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,—and the
indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with
the Lady Baussiere and her page,—I have not taken the
least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse’s
devils led me the round you see marked D.—for as for c c c
c c they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and
outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and
when compared with what men have done,—or with my own
transgressions at the letters A B D—they vanish
into nothing.
In this last volume I have done better still—for from the
end of Le Fever’s episode, to the beginning of my uncle
Toby’s campaigns,—I have scarce stepped a yard
out of my way.
If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible——by the
good leave of his grace of Benevento’s
devils——but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency of
going on even thus:
which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw
it, by a writing-master’s ruler (borrowed for that purpose),
turning neither to the right hand or to the left.
This right line,—the path-way for Christians to
walk in! say divines——
——The emblem of moral rectitude! says
Cicero——
——The best line! say cabbage
planters——is the shortest line, says Archimedes,
which can be drawn from one given point to
another.——
I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your
next birth- day suits!
——What a journey!
Pray can you tell me,—that is, without anger, before I
write my chapter upon straight lines——by what
mistake——who told them so——or how it has
come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along
confounded this line, with the line of
GRAVITATION?
NO——I think, I said, I
would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which
then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the
devil, would but give me leave—and in another
place—(but where, I can’t recollect now) speaking of my
book as a machine, and laying my pen and ruler down
cross-wise upon the table, in order to gain the greater credit to
it—I swore it should be kept a going at that rate these forty
years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless me so long
with health and good spirits.
Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their
charge—nay so very little (unless the mounting me upon a long
stick and playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the
twenty-four, be accusations) that on the contrary, I have
much—much to thank ’em for: cheerily have ye made me
tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its
cares) upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I
remember, have ye once deserted me, or tinged the objects which
came in my way, either with sable, or with a sickly green; in
dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when
DEATH himself knocked at my door—ye bad him
come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye
do it, that he doubted of his commission——
“—There must certainly be some mistake in this
matter,” quoth he.
Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be
interrupted in a story——and I was that moment telling
Eugenius a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied
herself a shell-fish, and of a monk damn’d for eating a
muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the
procedure——
“—Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a
scrape?” quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape,
Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my hand as I
finished my story——
But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this
rate; for as this son of a whore has found out my
lodgings——
—You call him rightly, said Eugenius,—for by
sin, we are told, he enter’d the world——I care
not which way he enter’d, quoth I, provided he be not in such
a hurry to take me out with him—for I have forty volumes to
write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the
world will say and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he
has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me
speak across the table), and that I am no match for him in the open
field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter’d spirits
remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of
them up to him) are able to support me—had I not better,
Eugenius, fly for my life? ’Tis my advice, my dear
Tristram, said Eugenius—Then by heaven! I will
lead him a dance he little thinks of——for I will
gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of
the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my
heels——I’ll scamper away to mount
Vesuvius——from thence to Joppa, and from
Joppa to the world’s end; where, if he follows me, I
pray God he may break his neck——
—He runs more risk there, said Eugenius,
than thou.
Eugenius’s wit and affection brought blood into the
cheek from whence it had been some months
banish’d——’twas a vile moment to bid adieu
in; he led me to my chaise——Allons! said I; the
post-boy gave a crack with his whip——off I went like a
cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.
NOW hang it! quoth I, as I
look’d towards the French coast—a man should
know something of his own country too, before he goes
abroad——and I never gave a peep into Rochester
church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham, or visited
St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid
in my way——
—But mine, indeed, is a particular case——
So without arguing the matter further with Thomas
o’Becket, or any one else—I skip’d into the
boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and scudded away like
the wind.
Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a
man never overtaken by Death in this passage?
Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied
he——What a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth
I, already——what a brain!——upside down!——hey-day! the cells are broke
loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the
nervous juices, with the fix’d and volatile salts, are all
jumbled into one mass——good G—! every thing turns
round in it like a thousand whirlpools——I’d give
a shilling to know if I shan’t write the clearer for
it——
Sick! sick! sick! sick!——
—When shall we get to land? captain—they have hearts
like stones——O I am deadly sick!——reach me
that thing, boy——’tis the most discomfiting
sickness——I wish I was at the bottom—Madam! how
is it with you? Undone! undone! un——O! undone!
sir——What the first time?——No, ’tis
the second, third, sixth, tenth time,
sir,——hey-day!—what a trampling over
head!—hollo! cabin boy! what’s the matter?
The wind chopp’d about! s’Death—then I shall
meet him full in the face.
What luck!—’tis chopp’d about again,
master——O the devil chop it——
Captain, quoth she, for heaven’s sake, let us get
ashore.
IT is a great inconvenience to a man
in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between
Calais and Paris, in behalf of which there is so much
to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along
them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you’ll
take.
First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the
most about——but most interesting, and instructing.
The second, that by Amiens, which you may go, if you
would see Chantilly——
And that by Beauvais, which you may go, if you will.
For this reason a great many chuse to go by Beauvais.
“NOW before I quit
Calais,” a travel-writer would say, “it would
not be amiss to give some account of “it.”—Now I think it very
much amiss—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and
let it alone, when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be
turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over,
merely o’ my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because,
if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all
who have wrote and gallop’d—or who have
gallop’d and wrote, which is a different way still; or
who, for more expedition than the rest, have wrote
galloping, which is the way I do at present——from
the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school
books hanging at his a—, and galling his beast’s
crupper at every stroke—there is not a gallopper of us all
who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in
case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as
well as not.
For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall
ever make my last appeal—I know no more of Calais
(except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do
this moment of Grand Cairo; for it was dusky in the evening
when I landed, and dark as pitch in the morning when I set out, and
yet by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that
in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting this and that
together in another—I would lay any travelling odds, that I
this moment write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm;
and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which
is worth a stranger’s curiosity in the town—that you
would take me for the town-clerk of Calais itself—and
where, sir, would be the wonder? was not Democritus, who
laughed ten times more than I—town-clerk of Abdera?
and was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us
both, town-clerk of Ephesus?——it should be
penn’d moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense,
and truth, and precision——
—Nay—if you don’t believe me, you may read the
chapter for your pains.
CALAIS, Calatium, Calusium,
Calesium.
This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which
I see no reason to call in question in this place—was
once no more than a small village belonging to one of the
first Counts de Guignes; and as it boasts at present of no
less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of four hundred
and twenty distinct families in the basse ville, or
suburbs——it must have grown up by little and little, I
suppose, to its present size.
Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial
church in the whole town; I had not an opportunity of taking its
exact dimensions, but it is pretty easy to make a tolerable
conjecture of ’em—for as there are fourteen thousand
inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all it must be
considerably large—and if it will not—’tis a very
great pity they have not another—it is built in form of a cross, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary;
the steeple, which has a spire to it, is placed in the middle of
the church, and stands upon four pillars elegant and light enough,
but sufficiently strong at the same time—it is decorated with
eleven altars, most of which are rather fine than beautiful. The
great altar is a master- piece in its kind; ’tis of white
marble, and, as I was told, near sixty feet high—had it been
much higher, it had been as high as mount Calvary
itself—therefore, I suppose it must be high enough in all
conscience.
There was nothing struck me more than the great Square;
tho’ I cannot say ’tis either well paved or well built;
but ’tis in the heart of the town, and most of the streets,
especially those in that quarter, all terminate in it; could there
have been a fountain in all Calais, which it seems there
cannot, as such an object would have been a great ornament, it is
not to be doubted, but that the inhabitants would have had it in
the very centre of this square,—not that it is properly a
square,—because ’tis forty feet longer from
east to west, than from north to south; so that the French
in general have more reason on their side in calling them
Places than Squares, which, strictly speaking, to be
sure, they are not.
The town-house seems to be but a sorry building, and not to be
kept in the best repair; otherwise it had been a second great
ornament to this place; it answers however its destination, and
serves very well for the reception of the magistrates, who assemble
in it from time to time; so that ’tis presumable, justice is
regularly distributed.
I have heard much of it, but there is nothing at all curious in
the Courgain; ’tis a distinct quarter of the town,
inhabited solely by sailors and fishermen; it consists of a number
of small streets, neatly built and mostly of brick; ’tis
extremely populous, but as that may be accounted for, from the
principles of their diet,—there is nothing curious in that
neither.——A traveller may see it to satisfy
himself—he must not omit however taking notice of La Tour de Guet, upon
any account; ’tis so called from its particular destination,
because in war it serves to discover and give notice of the enemies
which approach the place, either by sea or land;——but
’tis monstrous high, and catches the eye so continually, you
cannot avoid taking notice of it if you would.
It was a singular disappointment to me, that I could not have
permission to take an exact survey of the fortifications, which are
the strongest in the world, and which, from first to last, that is,
for the time they were set about by Philip of France,
Count of Bologne, to the present war, wherein many
reparations were made, have cost (as I learned afterwards from an
engineer in Gascony)—above a hundred millions of
livres. It is very remarkable, that at the Tête de
Gravelenes, and where the town is naturally the weakest, they
have expended the most money; so that the outworks stretch a great
way into the campaign, and consequently occupy a large tract of
ground—However, after all that is said and
done, it must be acknowledged that Calais was never
upon any account so considerable from itself, as from its
situation, and that easy entrance which it gave our ancestors, upon
all occasions, into France: it was not without its
inconveniences also; being no less troublesome to the
English in those times, than Dunkirk has been to us,
in ours; so that it was deservedly looked upon as the key to both
kingdoms, which no doubt is the reason that there have arisen so
many contentions who should keep it: of these, the siege of
Calais, or rather the blockade (for it was shut up both by
land and sea), was the most memorable, as it with-stood the efforts
of Edward the Third a whole year, and was not terminated at
last but by famine and extreme misery; the gallantry of Eustace
de St. Pierre, who first offered himself a victim for his
fellow-citizens, has rank’d his name with heroes. As it will
not take up above fifty pages, it would be injustice to the reader,
not to give him a minute account of that romantic transaction, as well
as of the siege itself, in Rapin’s own words:
——BUT courage! gentle
reader!——I scorn it——’tis enough to
have thee in my power——but to make use of the advantage
which the fortune of the pen has now gained over thee, would be too
much——No——! by that all-powerful fire which
warms the visionary brain, and lights the spirits through unworldly
tracts! ere I would force a helpless creature upon this hard
service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages, which I
have no right to sell thee,——naked as I am, I would
browse upon the mountains, and smile that the north wind brought me
neither my tent or my supper.
—So put on, my brave boy! and make the best of thy way to
Boulogne.
——BOULOGNE!——hah!——so
we are all got together——debtors and sinners before heaven; a jolly
set of us—but I can’t stay and quaff it off with
you—I’m pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be
overtaken, before I can well change horses:——for heaven’s
sake, make haste——’Tis for high-treason, quoth a very little
man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man, that stood next
him——Or else for murder; quoth the tall man——Well
thrown, Size-ace! quoth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has
been committing———
Ah! ma chere fille! said I, as she tripp’d by from
her matins—you look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was
rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious)—No; it
can’t be that, quoth a fourth——(she made a
curt’sy to me—I kiss’d my hand) ’tis
debt, continued he: ’Tis certainly for debt; quoth a
fifth; I would not pay that gentleman’s debts, quoth
Ace, for a thousand pounds; nor would I, quoth Size,
for six times the sum—Well thrown, Size-ace, again!
quoth I;—but I have no debt but the debt of
NATURE, and I want but patience of her, and I will
pay her every farthing I owe her——How can you be so
hard-hearted, Madam, to arrest a poor traveller going along without
molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do stop that
death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is
posting after me——he never would have followed me but
for you——if it be but for a stage or two, just to give
me start of him, I beseech you, madam——do, dear
lady——
——Now, in troth, ’tis a great pity, quoth mine
Irish host, that all this good courtship should be lost; for
the young gentlewoman has been after going out of hearing of it all
along.——
——Simpleton! quoth I.
——So you have nothing else in Boulogne
worth seeing?
—By Jasus! there is the finest SEMINARY for
the HUMANITIES——
—There cannot be a finer; quoth I.
WHEN the precipitancy of a
man’s wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than
the vehicle he rides in—woe be to truth! and woe be to the
vehicle and its tackling (let ’em be made of what stuff you
will) upon which he breathes forth the disappointment of his
soul!
As I never give general characters either of men or things in
choler, “the most haste the worse speed,” was
all the reflection I made upon the affair, the first time it
happen’d;—the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I
confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly blamed
only the second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, without
carrying my reflections further; but the event
continuing to befal me from the fifth, to the sixth, seventh,
eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one exception, I then
could not avoid making a national reflection of it, which I do in
these words;
That something is always wrong in a French post-chaise, upon
first setting out.
Or the proposition may stand thus:
A French postilion has always to alight before he has got
three hundred yards out of town.
What’s wrong now?——Diable!——a
rope’s broke!——a knot has slipt!——a
staple’s drawn!——a bolt’s to
whittle!——a tag, a rag, a jag, a strap, a buckle, or a
buckle’s tongue, want altering.
Now true as all this is, I never think myself impowered to
excommunicate thereupon either the post-chaise, or its
driver——nor do I take it into my head to swear by the
living G—, I would rather go a-foot ten thousand
times——or that I will be damn’d, if ever I get
into another——but I take the matter coolly
before me, and consider, that some tag, or rag, or jag, or bolt, or
buckle, or buckle’s tongue, will ever be a wanting or want
altering, travel where I will—so I never chaff, but take the
good and the bad as they fall in my road, and get
on:——Do so, my lad! said I; he had lost five minutes
already, in alighting in order to get at a luncheon of black bread,
which he had cramm’d into the chaise-pocket, and was
remounted, and going leisurely on, to relish it the
better.——Get on, my lad, said I, briskly—but in
the most persuasive tone imaginable, for I jingled a
four-and-twenty sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold
the flat side towards him, as he look’d back: the dog
grinn’d intelligence from his right ear to his left, and
behind his sooty muzzle discovered such a pearly row of teeth, that
Sovereignty would have pawn’d her jewels for
them.
Just heaven! {What masticators!—/What bread!—
and so as he finished the last mouthful of it, we
entered the town of Montreuil.
THERE is not a town in all
France which, in my opinion, looks better in the map, than
MONTREUIL;——I own, it does not look so
well in the book of post-roads; but when you come to see
it—to be sure it looks most pitifully.
There is one thing, however, in it at present very handsome; and
that is, the inn-keeper’s daughter: She has been eighteen
months at Amiens, and six at Paris, in going through
her classes; so knits, and sews, and dances, and does the little
coquetries very well.——
—A slut! in running them over within these five minutes
that I have stood looking at her, she has let fall at least a dozen
loops in a white thread stocking——yes, yes—I see,
you cunning gipsy!—’tis long and taper—you need
not pin it to your knee—and that ’tis your
own—and fits you exactly.——
——That Nature should have told this creature a word
about a statue’s thumb!
—But as this sample is worth all their
thumbs—besides, I have her thumbs and fingers in at the
bargain, if they can be any guide to me,—and as
Janatone withal (for that is her name) stands so well for a
drawing——may I never draw more, or rather may I draw
like a draught-horse, by main strength all the days of my
life,—if I do not draw her in all her proportions, and with
as determined a pencil, as if I had her in the wettest
drapery.——
—But your worships chuse rather that I give you the
length, breadth, and perpendicular height of the great
parish-church, or drawing of the façade of the abbey of
Saint Austreberte which has been transported from
Artois hither—every thing is just I suppose as the
masons and carpenters left them,—and if the belief in Christ continues so long, will be
so these fifty years to come—so your worships and reverences
may all measure them at your leisures——but he who
measures thee, Janatone, must do it now—thou carriest
the principles of change within thy frame; and considering the
chances of a transitory life, I would not answer for thee a moment;
ere twice twelve months are passed and gone, thou mayest grow out
like a pumpkin, and lose thy shapes——or thou mayest go
off like a flower, and lose thy beauty—nay, thou mayest go
off like a hussy—and lose thyself.—I would not answer
for my aunt Dinah, was she alive——’faith,
scarce for her picture——were it but painted by
Reynolds—
But if I go on with my drawing, after naming that son of
Apollo, I’ll be shot——
So you must e’en be content with the original; which, if
the evening is fine in passing thro’ Montreuil, you
will see at your chaise-door, as you change horses: but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I
have—you had better stop:—She has a little of the
devote: but that, sir, is a terce to a nine in your
favour——
—L— help me! I could not count a single point: so
had been piqued and repiqued, and capotted to the devil.
ALL which being considered, and that
Death moreover might be much nearer me than I
imagined——I wish I was at Abbeville, quoth I,
were it only to see how they card and spin——so off we
set.
[33]de Montreuil a Nampont -
poste et demi
de Nampont a Bernay - - - - - - poste
de Bernay a
Nouvion - - - - - poste
de Nouvion a ABBEVILLE
poste
——but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed.
WHAT a vast advantage is travelling!
only it heats one; but there is a remedy for that, which you may
pick out of the next chapter.
WAS I in a condition to stipulate
with Death, as I am this moment with my apothecary, how and where I
will take his clyster——I should certainly declare
against submitting to it before my friends; and therefore I never
seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe,
which generally takes up and torments my thoughts as much as the
catastrophe itself; but I constantly draw the curtain across it
with this wish, that the Disposer of all things may so order it,
that it happen not to me in my own house——but rather in
some decent inn——at home, I know it,——the
concern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows, and smoothing my pillow, which
the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify
my soul, that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not
aware of: but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be
purchased with a few guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but
punctual attention——but mark. This inn should not be
the inn at Abbeville——if there was not another
inn in the universe, I would strike that inn out of the
capitulation: so
Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the
morning——Yes, by four, Sir,——or by
Genevieve! I’ll raise a clatter in the house shall
wake the dead.
“MAKE them like unto a
wheel,” is a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned know,
against the grand tour, and that restless spirit for making
it, which David prophetically foresaw would haunt the
children of men in the latter days; and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop
Hall, ’tis one of the severest imprecations which
David ever utter’d against the enemies of the
Lord—and, as if he had said, “I wish them no
worse luck than always to be rolling about.”—So much
motion, continues he (for he was very corpulent)—is so much
unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much
of heaven.
Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of
motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy——and
that to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the
devil——
Hollo! Ho!——the whole world’s
asleep!——bring out the horses——grease the
wheels——tie on the mail——and drive a nail
into that moulding——I’ll not lose a
moment——
Now the wheel we are talking of, and whereinto (but not
whereonto, for that would make an Ixion’s wheel of it)
he curseth his enemies, according to the bishop’s habit of
body, should certainly be a post-chaise wheel, whether they were set up in
Palestine at that time or not——and my wheel, for
the contrary reasons, must as certainly be a cart-wheel groaning
round its revolution once in an age; and of which sort, were I to
turn commentator, I should make no scruple to affirm, they had
great store in that hilly country.
I love the Pythagoreans (much more than ever I dare tell my dear
Jenny) for their
“Χωξισμον
απο τκ
Εωμαιος,
εις το
καλως
φιλοσοφειν”——[their]
“getting out of the body, in order to think well.”
No man thinks right, whilst he is in it; blinded as he must be,
with his congenial humours, and drawn differently aside, as the
bishop and myself have been, with too lax or too tense a
fibre——REASON is, half of it,
SENSE; and the measure of heaven itself is but the
measure of our present appetites and concoctions.——
——But which of the two, in the present case, do you
think to be mostly in the wrong?
You, certainly: quoth she, to disturb a whole family so
early.
——But she did not know I was under a vow not to
shave my beard till I got to Paris;——yet I hate
to make mysteries of nothing;——’tis the cold
cautiousness of one of those little souls from which Lessius
(lib. 13. de moribus divinis, cap. 24.) hath made his estimate,
wherein he setteth forth, That one Dutch mile, cubically
multiplied, will allow room enough, and to spare, for eight hundred
thousand millions, which he supposes to be as great a number of
souls (counting from the fall of Adam) as can possibly be
damn’d to the end of the world.
From what he has made this second estimate——unless
from the parental goodness of God—I don’t know—I
am much more at a loss what could be in Franciscus
Ribbera’s head, who pretends that no less a space than
one of two hundred Italian miles multiplied into itself,
will be sufficient to hold the like number——he
certainly must have gone upon some of the old Roman souls,
of which he had read, without reflecting how much, by a gradual and
most tabid decline, in the course of eighteen hundred years, they
must unavoidably have shrunk so as to have come, when he wrote,
almost to nothing.
In Lessius’s time, who seems the cooler man, they
were as little as can be imagined——
——We find them less now——
And next winter we shall find them less again; so that if we go
on from little to less, and from less to nothing, I hesitate not
one moment to affirm, that in half a century at this rate, we shall
have no souls at all; which being the period beyond which I doubt
likewise of the existence of the Christian faith, ’twill be
one advantage that both of ’em will be exactly worn out
together.
Blessed Jupiter! and blessed every other heathen god and
goddess! for now ye will all come into play again, and with
Priapus at your tails——what jovial
times!——but where am I? and into what a delicious riot
of things am I rushing? I——I who must be cut short in
the midst of my days, and taste no more of ’em than what I
borrow from my imagination——peace to thee, generous
fool! and let me go on.
——“So hating, I say, to make mysteries
of nothing”——I intrusted it with the
post-boy, as soon as ever I got off the stones; he gave a crack
with his whip to balance the compliment; and with the thill-horse
trotting, and a sort of an up and a down of the other, we danced it
along to Ailly au clochers, famed in days of yore for the
finest chimes in the world; but we danced through it without
music—the chimes being greatly out of order—(as in
truth they were through all France).
And so making all possible speed, from
Ailly au clochers, I got to Hixcourt,
from Hixcourt I got to Pequignay, and
from Pequignay, I got to AMIENS,
concerning which town I have nothing to inform you, but what I have
informed you once before——and that was—that
Janatone went there to school.
IN the whole catalogue of those
whiffling vexations which come puffing across a man’s
canvass, there is not one of a more teasing and tormenting nature,
than this particular one which I am going to
describe——and for which (unless you travel with an
avance-courier, which numbers do in order to prevent
it)——there is no help: and it is this.
That be you in never so kindly a propensity to
sleep——though you are passing perhaps through the
finest country—upon the best roads, and in the easiest
carriage for doing it in the world——nay, was you sure you could sleep fifty miles straight
forwards, without once opening your eyes—nay, what is more,
was you as demonstratively satisfied as you can be of any truth in
Euclid, that you should upon all accounts be full as well
asleep as awake——nay, perhaps better——Yet
the incessant returns of paying for the horses at every
stage,——with the necessity thereupon of putting your
hand into your pocket, and counting out from thence three livres
fifteen sous (sous by sous), puts an end to so much of the project,
that you cannot execute above six miles of it (or supposing it is a
post and a half, that is but nine)——were it to save
your soul from destruction.
—I’ll be even with ’em, quoth I, for
I’ll put the precise sum into a piece of paper, and hold it
ready in my hand all the way: “Now I shall have nothing
to do,” said I (composing myself to rest), “but
to drop this gently into the post-boy’s hat, and not say a
word.”——Then there wants two sous more to
drink——or there is a twelve sous piece of Louis XIV. which will
not pass—or a livre and some odd liards to be brought over
from the last stage, which Monsieur had forgot; which altercations
(as a man cannot dispute very well asleep) rouse him: still is
sweet sleep retrievable; and still might the flesh weigh down the
spirit, and recover itself of these blows—but then, by
heaven! you have paid but for a single post—whereas
’tis a post and a half; and this obliges you to pull out your
book of post-roads, the print of which is so very small, it forces
you to open your eyes, whether you will or no: Then Monsieur le
Curé offers you a pinch of snuff——or a poor
soldier shews you his leg——or a shaveling his
box——or the priestesse of the cistern will water your
wheels——they do not want it——but she swears
by her priesthood (throwing it back) that they
do:——then you have all these points to argue, or
consider over in your mind; in doing of which, the rational powers
get so thoroughly awakened——you may get ’em to sleep
again as you can.
It was entirely owing to one of these misfortunes, or I had
pass’d clean by the stables of
Chantilly——
——But the postillion first affirming, and then
persisting in it to my face, that there was no mark upon the two
sous piece, I open’d my eyes to be convinced—and seeing
the mark upon it as plain as my nose—I leap’d out of
the chaise in a passion, and so saw every thing at Chantilly
in spite.——I tried it but for three posts and a half,
but believe ’tis the best principle in the world to travel
speedily upon; for as few objects look very inviting in that
mood—you have little or nothing to stop you; by which means
it was that I passed through St. Dennis, without turning my
head so much as on one side towards the Abby——
——Richness of their treasury! stuff and
nonsense!——bating their jewels, which are all false, I
would not give three sous for any one thing in it, but
Jaidas’s lantern——nor for that either,
only as it grows dark, it might be of use.
CRACK, crack——crack,
crack——crack, crack—so this is Paris!
quoth I (continuing in the same mood)—and this is
Paris!——humph!——Paris! cried
I, repeating the name the third time——
The first, the finest, the most brilliant——
The streets however are nasty.
But it looks, I suppose, better than it
smells——crack, crack——crack,
crack——what a fuss thou makest!—as if it
concerned the good people to be informed, that a man with pale face
and clad in black, had the honour to be driven into Paris at
nine o’clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow
jerkin, turned up with red calamanco—crack, crack——crack, crack——crack,
crack,——I wish thy whip——
——But ’tis the spirit of thy nation; so
crack—crack on.
Ha!——and no one gives the wall!——but in
the SCHOOL of URBANITY herself, if
the walls are besh-t—how can you do otherwise?
And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?—never in
the summer months!——Ho! ’tis the time of
sallads.——O rare! sallad and soup—soup and
sallad—sallad and soup, encore——
——’Tis too much for sinners.
Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that
unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse?
don’t you see, friend, the streets are so villanously narrow,
that there is not room in all Paris to turn a wheelbarrow?
In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have been
amiss, if they had been left a thought wider; nay, were it only so
much in every single street, as that a man might know (was it
only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was
walking.
One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten.—Ten
cooks shops! and twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes
driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great
merry-meeting with the barbers, by joint consent had said—Come, let us
all go live at Paris: the French love good
eating——they are all gourmands——we shall rank
high; if their god is their belly——their cooks must be gentlemen:
and forasmuch as the periwig maketh the man, and the periwig-maker
maketh the periwig—ergo, would the barbers say, we shall rank
higher still—we shall be above you all—we shall be
Capitouls[34] at
least—pardi! we shall all wear swords——
—And so, one would swear, (that is, by
candle-light,—but there is no depending upon it,) they
continued to do, to this day.
THE French are certainly
misunderstood:——but whether the fault is theirs, in not
sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact
limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such
importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by
us——or whether the fault may not be altogether on our
side, in not understanding their language always so critically as
to know “what they would be at”——I shall
not decide; but ’tis evident to me, when they affirm,
“That they who have seen Paris, have seen
every thing,” they must mean to speak of those who have
seen it by day-light.
As for candle-light—I give it up——I have said
before, there was no depending upon it—and I repeat it again;
but not because the lights and shades are too sharp—or the
tints confounded—or that there is neither beauty or keeping,
&c. . . . for that’s not truth—but it is an uncertain light in this respect, That in all the five
hundred grand Hôtels, which they number up to you in
Paris—and the five hundred good things, at a modest
computation (for ’tis only allowing one good thing to a
Hôtel), which by candle-light are best to be seen, felt,
heard, and understood (which, by the bye, is a quotation
from Lilly)——the devil a one of us out of fifty,
can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them.
This is no part of the French computation: ’tis
simply this,
That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven
hundred and sixteen, since which time there have been considerable
augmentations, Paris doth contain nine hundred streets;
(viz)
In the quarter called the City—there
are
fifty-three streets.
In St. James of the Shambles,
fifty-five streets.
In St. Oportune, thirty-four streets.
In the quarter of the Louvre,
twenty-five streets.
In the Palace Royal, or St.
Honorius,
forty-nine streets.
In Mont. Martyr, forty-one streets.
In St. Eustace, twenty-nine streets.
In the Halles, twenty-seven streets.
In St. Dennis, fifty-five streets.
In St. Martin, fifty-four streets.
In St. Paul, or the Mortellerie,
twenty-seven streets.
The Greve, thirty-eight streets.
In St. Avoy, or the Verrerie,
nineteen streets.
In the Marais, or the Temple,
fifty-two streets.
In St. Antony’s, sixty-eight
streets.
In the Place Maubert, eighty-one streets.
In St. Bennet, sixty streets.
In St. Andrews de Arcs, fifty-one
streets.
In the quarter of the Luxembourg,
sixty-two streets.
And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets, into any of
which you may walk; and that when you have seen them with all that
belongs to them, fairly by day-light—their gates, their
bridges, their squares, their statues - - - and have crusaded it
moreover, through all their parish-churches, by no means omitting
St. Roche and Sulpice - - - and to crown all, have
taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may see, either with or
without the statues and pictures, just as you chuse—
——Then you will have seen——
——but ’tis what no one needeth to tell you,
for you will read of it yourself upon the portico of the
Louvre, in these words,
[35]EARTH NO SUCH
FOLKS!—NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A
TOWN
AS PARIS IS!—SING, DERRY, DERRY, DOWN.
The French have a gay way of treating every thing
that is Great; and that is all can be said upon it.
IN mentioning the word gay (as
in the close of the last chapter) it puts one (i.e. an
author) in mind of the word spleen——especially
if he has any thing to say upon it: not that by any
analysis—or that from any table of interest or genealogy,
there appears much more ground of alliance betwixt them, than
betwixt light and darkness, or any two of the most unfriendly
opposites in nature——only ’tis an undercraft of
authors to keep up a good understanding amongst words, as
politicians do amongst men—not knowing how near they may be
under a necessity of placing them to each other——which
point being now gain’d, and that I may place mine exactly to
my mind, I write it down here—
S P L E E N
This, upon leaving Chantilly, I declared to be the best
principle in the world to travel speedily upon; but I gave it only as
matter of opinion. I still continue in the same
sentiments—only I had not then experience enough of its
working to add this, that though you do get on at a tearing rate,
yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same time; for which
reason I here quit it entirely, and for ever, and ’tis
heartily at any one’s service—it has spoiled me the
digestion of a good supper, and brought on a bilious
diarrhœa, which has brought me back again to my first
principle on which I set out——and with which I shall
now scamper it away to the banks of the Garonne—
——No;——I cannot stop a moment to give you the character
of the people—their genius—— their manners—their
customs—their laws——their religion—their
government— their manufactures—their commerce—their finances,
with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them: qualified as I
may be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that
time making these things the entire subject of my enquiries and
reflections——
Still—still I must away——the roads are
paved—the posts are short—the days are
long—’tis no more than noon—I shall be at
Fontainebleau before the king——
—Was he going there? not that I know——
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME
Tristram Shandy
