^■m. ^ ^?o f9M m> THE WORKS LAURENCE STERNE; CONTAINING THE LIFE AND OPINIONS or TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT., ;ENTIMENTAL journey through trance and ITALY, SERMONS, LETTERS, &c. A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. X^ LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, CO^ ENT GARDEN. WDCCCLIil. '^ ^ ■J -''-,- ^p 5-7 n) 2^ V7 CONTENTS, rAGE A'-tvertisement 1 Lite and Family of Sterne 3 Lines in memory of Jlr. Sterne, Author of the Sentimental Journey g Character and Eulogiura of Sterne and his writings 10 LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 13 W*«f!ni^TIMENTAL JOURNEY. PAGE Calais. 397 The Monk, Calais 3P8 The Desob'igeant, Calais 4()0 Psref.ice in the Desobligeant 401 C"liis 404 111 the Street. Calais 40 '> The Remise- Door, Ca/cTis 4fl6 The Snuff-box, Calais 4'!8 The Remise-Door, Calais 409 In the Street, Calais 410 The Remise, Ca/a/s 4U 'J'lie Remise-Door, C«/a(S 412 The Remise, C«Za!S 413 In the Street, Calais ih. Mnntriul 415 A Fragment 418 Montriul \ ib. The Bidet 420 The Dead Ass, Nampcnt 42 1 The Postillion, iVaw2/)«H^ 422 Amiens 423 The Letter, Amiens 425 Paris 427 The Wig, Paris 428 The Pulse, Paris 429 The Husband, Paris 430 The Gloves, Paris 431 The Translation, Paris 432 The Dwarf, Paris 4:14 The Rose, Juris 4;jjj The Fille de Chambre, Paris 4ij The Passport, Paris 440 The Psis^pcTt, the Hotel at Paris 4U The Captive 44? The Starling:, Road to Versailles 4-1 1 The Address, Versailles 445 Le Pati?sier, Verxailles 446 The Sword, Rennes 448 The Passport, Versailles 449 Character, Versailles 454 'l"he Temptation, Paris 455 The Conquest 457 The Mystery, Paris {/>. The Case of Conscience, Paris 453 The Riddle, Paris 460 Le Dimanche, Pam 461 The Fragment, Paris 462 The Fragment and the Bouquet, Paris 465 1 he Act of Charity, Paris 466 The Riddle Explained, Paris 467 Paris 4fi8 Maria, Moulines 470 The Bourbonnois 473 The Supper ib. The Grace 474 The Case of Delicacy 475 SERMONS. I. — Inquiry after Happiness 481 n.— i'he House of Feasting and the House of Jlourning considered 486 in.— Philanthropy Recommended 492 IV. — Self-Knowledge 499 V. — p]lijah and the Widow of Zarephath .... 505 VI. — Pharisee and Publican in the Temple .. 515 VII. — Vindication of Human Nature 521 VIII.— Time and Chance 526 IX.— The Character of Herod 531 X. — The Shortness and Troubles of Life .... 537 XI. — Evil-Speaking 544 XII. — Joseph's History considered; — For- giveness of Injuries 550 XIII. — Duty of setting Bounds to our Desires 557 XIV. — Self-Examination 562 XV. — Job's Expostulation with his wife 567 XVI. — The Character of Shimei 673 XVII. — Case of Hezekiah and the Messengers 57s XVIII. — The Levite and his Concubine 584 XIX.— Felix's Behaviour towards Paul 590 XX.— The Prodigal Son 5y6 XXI. — National Mercies considered 6^-1 XXII -The History of Jacob considered .... 607 sRRMOx nam XXIII.— Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 613 XXIV. — Pride 620 XXV. — Humility 628 XXVI — Advantages of Christianity to the world 632 xxvii. — The Abuses of Conscience considered 638 XXVIII.— Temporal advantages of Religion .. 646 XXIX. — Our Conversation in Heaven 650 XXX.— Description of the World 655 XXXI. — St. Peter's Character 66O XXXII. — Thirtieth of January 668 XXXIII 673 XXXIV.— Trust in God 6/8 XXXV 684 XXXVI. — Sanctity of the Apostles 689 XXXVII. — Penances 693 XXXVIII. — On Enthusiasm 6P9 XXXIX. — Eternal Advantages of Religion .. 706 XL. — Asa. — A Thanksgiving Sermon 711 XLi. — Follow Peace 714 XLii — Search the Scriptures 720 XLIII 725 xLiv. — The Ways of Providence justified unto Man 7fl0 XLV. — The Ingratitude of Israel 798 CONTENTS. LETTERS. LBTTBB PAOB I.— To I\ri89 L 744 II — To the same ib. III. — To the same 745 IV.— To the same ib. »•.— To Mrs. F 746 VI.— To Dr. ****** ib. VII. — To David Garrick. Esq 747 vm.— To S G .Esq 748 IX.— To the same id. X. — To Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. . 749 XT.— To the Rev. Mr. Sterne ih. XII.— To my witty widow, Mrs. F 75" XIII. — To S C , Esq ib. X!V. — To the same 751 XV.— To the same ib. XVI . — To the same 752 XVII.— To J^ — H S , Esq. ib. xviii. — To the same 733 XIX.— To Lady 754 XX. — To David Garrick, Esq ib. XXI.— To Lady D 755 XXII. — To David Garrick, Esq 16. XXIII. — To the same ib. XXIV.— To Mrs. Sterne, York 756 XXV. — To the same ib. XXVI. — To the same 757 XXVII. — To the same ib. XXVIII. — To the same 758 XXIX.— To Ladv D 759 XXX.— To Mr. E ib. XXXI.— To J H S , Esq ib. XXXII. — To Mr. Foley, at Paris 760 XXXIII.— To J H" S , Esq 76I XXXIV.— To Mr. Foley, at Paris 762 XXXV. — To the same ib. XXXVI. — To the same ib. XXXVII. — To the same ib. XXXVIII. — To the same 763 XXXIX. — To the same ib. XL. — To the same ib. XLi. — To the same 764 XLii. — To the same ib. XLUi. — To the same ib. XLiv. — To the same ib. XLV. — To the same 765 XLVi.— To Mrs. F ib. XLVii. — To Mrs. Sterne ib. XLViii. — To Mr. Foley 766 XLix.— To J H — S , Esq ib. u. — To the same ib. LI. — To Mr. Foley, at Paris 767 LI I . — To the same ib. Liii.— To J H S , Esq ib. LI v.— To Mr. Foley, at Paris 768 LV. — To David Garrick, Esq ib. Lvi. — To the same 769 LVii. — To Mr. Foley ib. LViii.— To Mr. W ib. Lix.— To Mr. Foley, at Paris 770 LX. — To the same ib. Lxi. — To Mr, Panchaud, at Paris ib. LX!i.— To the same ib. Lxui. — To the same 771 Lxiv.— To the same ib. Lxv. — To Miss Sterne ib. Lxvi.— ToJ H S , Esq ib. Lxvii.— To Mr. Foley, at Parii 772 LBTTKH F48R Lxvin. — To ]\rr. Panchaud, at Paris Ti* Lxix— To J H S , Esq lA. Lxx. — To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris 773 LXXi.- To Mr. S ib. Lxxii.— To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris ib. Lxxiii. — To Mr. Foley, at Paris ib. LXXI v.— To Mr. Panchaud ib. Lxxv. — From Ignatius Sancho to Mr. Sterne.. 774 Lxxvi. — From Mr. Sterne to Ignatius Sancho ib. Lxxvii— To Mr. W 77S Lxxviii. — To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris ib. Lxxix. — To Mis.s Sterne ib. Lxxx. — To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris 778 Lxxxi. — Jo Eliza ib. Lxxxii. — To the same ib. Lxxxiii.— To the same ib. Lxxxiv. — To the same 777 Lxxxv. — To the same 77^ Lxxxvi. — To the same ib. Lxxxvii. — To the same 7/9 LXXXVI 1 1. — To the same 780 Lxxxix. — To the same ib, xc. — To the same 781 xci. — To Miss Sterne 78i 783 I*. ib. ib. 784 t*. 785 -To Lady P- XCII xciii. — To Mr. and Mrs. J xciv. — To Ignatius Sancho .. .. xcv.— To the Earl of S ., xcvi.— To J. D n, Esq. . xcvii.— To J H S — xcviii. — To A. L e, Esq. xcix. — To the same -, Esq. c. — To Ignatius Sancho ib. ci.— To Mr. and Mrs. J 78t cii. — To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris ib. Esq. cm. — To Mr. and Mrs. J CIV.— To J H S- cv. — To Mr. and Mrs. J tO, cvi. — To Miss Sterne ib. cvii.— To Sir \V 788 cviii. — To the same ib. cix. — To Mr. Panchaud, at Paris 789 ex. — To Mr. and Mrs. J ib. CXI.— To Mrs. F ib. cxii.— To Mrs. H .. cxiii. — To Mr. and Mrs. J — cxiv.— To Mrs. H .. cxv. — To A. L e, Esq 79(' ib. ib. ib. 791 ib. ib. 792 ib. 793 I*. ib. cxvi.— To the Earl of cxvii. — To his Excellency Sir G M .. cxviii. — To A. L e, Esq cxix.— To J H S , Esq cxx. — To Mr. and Mrs . J cxxi . — To the same cxxii.— To the same cxxiii. — To the same cxxiv. — From Dr. Eustace, in America, to the Rev. Mr. Sterne, with a Walking Stick ib. cxxv. — Mr. Sterne's Answer 794 cxxvi.— To L S n, Esq ib. cxxvii. — To Miss Sterne ib. cxxviii. — To Mrs. J — cxxix.— To ****•*****. cxxx. — To the same ... cxxxi.— To **** 795 ib. 796 797 cxxxii.— From S. P. to Mr. B., containing an Impromptu ib. The Ftt.gmtat 799 I The Kittory of a good warm Watch coat, &:c. mo . 80i ADYERTISEMENT. The Works of Mr. Sterne, after contending with the prejudices of some, and the ignorance of others, have at length obtained that general approbation that they are entitled to by their vari- ous, original, and intrinsic merits. No writer of the present times can lay claim to so many unborrowed excellencies. In none have wit, humour, fancy, pathos, and unbounded know- ledge of mankind^ and a correct and elegant style, been so hap- pily united. These properties, which render him the delight of every reader of taste, have surmounted all opposition : — even Envy, Prudery, and Hypocrisy are silent. Time, which allots to each author his due portion of fame, and admits a free discussion of his beauties and faults, without favour and without partiahty, hath done ample justice to the superior genius of Mr. Sterne. It hath fixed his reputation as one of the first writers in the English language, on the firmest basis, and advanced him to the rank of a classic. As such, it becomes a debt of gratitude to collect his scattered perform- ances into a complete edition. The present edition comprehends all the Works of Laurence Sterne, either made public in his lifetime, or since his death. They are printed from the best and most correct copies, with no other alterations than what became necessary from the correc- tion of literal errors ; and the Letters are arranged according to their several dates, as far as they can be discovered. Those which are confessedly spurious are rejected ; and, that no credit may be given to such as are of doubtful authority, it will be proper to observe that those numbered 129, 130, 131, have not the proofs of authenticity which the others possess. They cannot how^ever be pronounced forgeries with so much 2:*\: :': .*•*; '.•' *: : ..: /Abv^RTisEMEXT, confidence as some* which are discarded from the present edition may be, and therefore are retained in it. That no part of the genuine works of Mr. Sterne might be omitted, his own account of himself and family is inserted with- out variation. But as this appears to have been a hasty com- position, intended only for the information of his daughter, — a small number of facts and dates, by way of notes, are added to it. These, it is presumed, will not be considered as improper additions. It would be trespassing on the reader's patience, to detain him any longer from the pleasure which these volumes will afford, by bespeaking his favour either for the author or his Vv^orks : — the former is out of the reach of censure or praise ; and the re- putation of the latter is too well established to be either sup- ported or shook by panegyric or criticism. To the taste, there- fore, the feeling, the good sense, and the candour of the public, the present collection of Mr, Sterne's Works may be submitted, without the least apprehension that the perusal of any part of them will be followed by consequences unfavourable to the interests of society. The oftener they are read, the stronger will a sense of universal benevolence be impressed on the mind ; and the attentive reader will subscribe to the character of the author given by a comic writer, who declares he held him to be " a moralist in the noblest sense ; he plays indeed with the fancy, and sometimes, perhaps, too wantonly ; but, while he thus de- signedly masks his main attack, he comes at once upon the heart; refines, amends it, softens it; beats down each selfish barrier from about it, and opens every sluice of pity and benevolence." • See the Preface to a work published in 1779, intituled, " Letters supposed to have been written by Yorick to Eliza." Mtmoit^ LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REV. LAURENCE STERNE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Roger STERNE* (grandson to Archbishop Sterne), Lieutenant in Handiside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a Captain of a good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle ; — though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him), which was on * Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215. Simon Sterne, of Mansfield. I Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, ob. June 1683. |1 Richard Sterne, of York and Kilvington, Esq. 1700. ; Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Dikinson, ob. 1670. 2 I 3 William Sterne Simon Sterne, = Mary, daughter and of Mansfield. of Elvington heiress of Roger and Halifax, Jaques, of Elving- ob. 1703. ton, near York. 11 Richard, Riciiard. Roger. |4 Mary. Jaques, ll.d. ob. 1759. LAURENCE STERNE. Elizabeth. 16 Frances. The Arms of the family, says Guillam, in his book of Heraldry, p. 77, are, Or, a chevron between three crosses flory, sable. The crest, on a wreath of his colours: a starling proper. Trifling circumstances are worthy of notice, when connected with distinguished characters. The arms of Mr. Sterne's family are no otherwise important than on account of the crest having afforded a hint for one of the finest stories in " The Sentimental Journey." b2 4.''. .'.*•*.• r ••• : : ..Im'smoirs of the lips September 25, 1711, old style. This Nuttle had a son by my grand- mother, — a fine person of a man, but a graceless whelp! — what became of him I know not. The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south of Ireland ; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk. — My birth - day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day of our arrival, with many- other brave ofiicers, broke, and sent adrift into the wide world, with a wife and two children ;— the elder of which was Mary. She was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July 10, 1712, new style. This child was the most unfortunate: she married one Wemans, in Dublin, — who used her most unm.ercifully ; spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself; which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman,— of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate. The regiment in which my father served being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, Tvith the rest of his family, and came to the family-seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter ; where, in a sad w'inter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool, by land, to Plymouth. — (Melancholy description of this journey, not necessary to be transmitted here.) — In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. My mother, with three of us (for she lay in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away, by a leak springing up in the vessel. At length, after many perils and struggles, we got to Dublin. There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half's time spent a great deal of money. In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhinged again ; the regiment was ordered, with man}' others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and were driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol ; thence, by land, to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight ; — where, I remember, we stayed encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops (in this expedition, from Bristol to Hampshire, we lost poor Joram, — a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox) : my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow, in Ireland ; whence my father sent for us. — We had poor Joram's loss supplied, during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen. — This pretty blossom fell, at the age of three years, in the barracks of Dublin : she was. as I w^ell remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last lonjr, — as were most of my father's babes. We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm ; but, through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at leng^th got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow ; where my father had for some weeks given us over for lost. — We lived in the barracks at Wicklow one year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), when OF THE REV. MR. STERN K. 5 Devijeher (so called after Colonel Devijeher) was born ; thence we de- camped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow ; who, being a relation of my mother's, invited us to his parsonage at Animo. — It was in this parish, during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt : the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hun- dreds of the common people flocked to see me. Hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the barracks a year. In this year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one) I learnt to write, 6cc. The regiment ordered in twenty-two to Carrickfergus, in the north of Ireland. We all decamped ; but got no further than Drogheda ; — thence ordered to MuDengar, forty miles Avest, where, by Providence, we stumbled upon a kind relation, a collateral descendant from Arch- bishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle, and kindly entertained us for a year, and sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, &c. A most rueful and tedious journey had we all (in March) to Carrickfergus, where we arrived in six or seven days. Little Devijeher here died ; he was three years old : he had been left behind at nurse at a farm-house near Wicklow, but was fetched to us by my fattier the summer after : — another child sent to fill his place, Susan. Thi? babe too left us behind in this weary journey. The autumn of that year, or the spring afterwards (I forget which), my father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school, which he did near Halifax, with an abie master; with whom I stayed some time, till, by God's care of me, my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, and sent me to the university, &c. To pursue the thread of our story, my father's regiment was, the year after, ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was brought forth, Catherine, still living; but most unhappily- estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness and her ow^n folly. From this station the regiment was sent to defend Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father was run through the body by Captain Phillips, in a duel (the quarrel began about a goose !) ; with much diflB:culty, he sur- vived, though with an impaired constitution, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to ; for he w^as sent to Jamaica, ■where he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made a child of him ; and then, in a month or two, Avalking about continually without complaining, till the moment he sat down in an arm-chair, and breathed his last, which was at Port Antonio, on the north of the island. My father was a little smart man, active to the last degree in all exercises, most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of which it pleased God to give him full measure. He was, in his temper, somewhat rapid and hasty, but of a kindly sweet disposition, void of all design j and so innocent in his own intentions that he suspected no one ; so that you might have cheated him ten times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose. My poor father died in March, 1731. I remained at Halifax till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself and schoolmaster : — he had the ceiling of the school-room new white-washed ; the ladder remained there : I one unlucky day mounted it, and wrote with a brush, in large capital letters, LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure 6 MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE that I should come to preferment. — This expression made me forget the stripes I had received. — In the year thirty-two* my cousin sent me to the university, where I staid some time. 'Twas there that I commenced a friendship with Mr. H , %vhich has been lasting on both sides. I then came to York, and my uncle got me the living of Sutton : and, at York, I became acquainted with your mother, and courted her for two years: — she owned she liked me; but thought herself not rich enough, or me too poor, to be joined together. — She went to her sister's in S ; and I wrote to her often. — I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but would not say so. — At her return she fell into a consump- tion ; and one evening that I was sitting by her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, " My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live ! but I have left you every shilling of my fortune." — Upon that she shewed me her will. — ^This generosity overpowered mc. — It pleased God that she recovered, and I married her in the year 1741. t My uncle and myself were then upon very good terms ; for he soon got me the Prebendary of York ;— but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the news-papers : — though he was a party man, I was not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that period he became my bitterest enemy. | — By my wife's means, I got the living of Stillington : a friend of hers in the south had promised her that, if she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places. I had then very good health. Books, § painting, fiddling, and shooting, were my amusements. As to the Squire of the parish, I cannot say we were upon a very friendly footing : but at Stillington, the family of the C s shewed us every kindness : 'twas most truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family, who were ever cordial friends. In the year 1760, I took a house at York for your mother and yourself, and w^ent up to London to publish H my two first volumes of Shandy.** In that year Lord Falconbridge pre- * He was admitted of Jesus College, in the university of Cambridge, 6th July 1733, under the tuition of Mr. Cannon. Matriculated 29th March 1735. Admitted to the degree of B.A. in January 1736. Admitted M.A. at the commencement of 1740. + Jaques Sterne, LL.D. He was Prebendary of Durham, Canon Residentiary, Precentor and Prebendary of York, Rector of Rise, and Rector of Hornsey cum Riston, both in the East Riding of the county of York. He died .Tune 9th, 1759. J It hath, however, been insinuated that he for some time wrote a periodical electioneering paper at York, in defence of the Whig interest. — Montbiy Review, vol. 53, p. 344. § A specimen of Mr. Sterne's abilities in the art of designing may be seen in Mr.Wodhul's poems, 8vo. 1772. II The first edition was printed in the preceding year at York. ** The following is the order in which Mr. Sterne's publications appeared : 1747. The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath considered. A charity Serjiion preached on Good-Friday, April 17, 1747, for the support of two charity- schools in York. 1750. The Abuses of Conscience. Set forth in a Sermon preached in the cathedral church of St. Peter, York, at the summer assizes, before the Hon. Mr. Baron Clive, and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe, on Sunday, July 29, 1750. OF THK REV. MR. STERNE. sented me with the curacy of Coxwould ; a sweet retirement in com- parison of Sutton. In sixty-two I went to France, before the peace was concluded ; and you both followed me. I left you both in France, and, in two years after, I went to Italy for the recovery of my health ; and, when I called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return to England with me:* she and yourself are at length come, and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my girl every thing I wished her. / have set down these particulars relating to my family and self for my Lydia, in case hereafter she might have a curiosity, or a kinder motive^ to know them. As Mr. Sterne, in the foregoing narrative, hath brought down the account of himself until within a few months of his death, it remains only to mention that he left York about the end of the year 17G7, and came to London, in order to publish The SentimentalJourney, which he had written during the preceding summer at his favourite living of Coxwould. His health had been for some time declining ; but he con- tinued to visit his friends, and retained his usual flow of spirits. In February, 1768, he began to perceive the approaches of death ; and with the concern of a good man, and with the solicitude of an affectionate parent, devoted his attention to the future welfare of his daughter. His letters, at this period, reflect so much credit on his character that it is to be lamented some others in the collection were permitted to see the light. After a short struggle with his disorder, his debilitated and worn-out frame submitted to fate on the 18th day of March, 1768, at his lodgings in Bond-street. He was buried at the new burying-ground belonging to the parish of St. George, Hanover-square, on the 22nd of the same month, in the most private manner; and hath since been indebted to strangers for a monument very unworthy of his memory ; on which the following lines are inscribed : — Near to this Place Lies the Body of The Reverend Laurence Sterne, a. m. Died September 13th, 1768,t Aged 53 Years. Ah ! molliter ossa quiescant. 1759. Vol. 1 and 2 of Tristram Shandy. .760. Vol. 1 and 2 of Sermons. 1761. Vol. 3 and 4 of Tris^.ram Shandy. 1762. Vol. 5 and 6 of Tristram Shandy. 1765. Vol. 7 and 8 of Tristram Shandy. 1766. Vol. 3, 4, 5, and 6, of Sermons. 1767. Vol. 9 of Tristram Shandy. 1768. The Sentimental Journey. The remainder of his works were published after his death. * From this passage it appears that the present account of Mr. Sterne's Life and Family was written about six months only before his death. f It is scarcely necessary to observe that this date is erroneous. 8 * MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE, &C. If a sound Head, warm Heart, and Breast humane, Unsullied Worth, and Soul without a Stain ; If Mental Pow'rs could ever jostly claim The well-won Tribute of immortal Fame, Sterne was the Man, who, with gigantic Stride, Mow'd down luxuriant Follies far and wide. Yet what tho' keenest Knowledge of Mankind Unseal 'd to him the springs that move the Mind ; What did it cost him ? — Ridicul'd, abus'd, Bj'^ Fools insulted, and by Prudes accus'd ! — In his, mild Reader, view thy future Fate ; Like him, despise what 'twere a Sin to hate. This monumental Stone was erected by two brother masons; for, though he did not live to be a member of their society, yet, as his all- incomparable performances evidently prove him to have acted by rule and square, they rejoice in this opportunity of perpetuating his high and irreproachable character to after-ages. W. & S. IN MEMORY OT^ MR. STERNE, AUTHOR OF THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. With wit, and genuine humour, to dispel, From the desponding bosom, gloomy care. And bid the gushing tear, at the sad tale , Of hapless love or filial grief to flow From the full sympathizing heart, were thine ; , These powers, O Sterne ! But now thy fate demands j (No plumage nodding o'er the emblazon'd hearse 1 Proclaiming honour where no virtue shone) * But the sad tribute of a heart-felt sigh : ■ What though no taper cast its deadly ray, I Nor the full choir sing requiems o'er thy tomb, ^ The humbler grief of friendship is not mute ; ' And poor Maria, with her faithful kid, • Her auburn tresses carelessly entwin'd : With olive foliage, at the close of day, ^; Shall chant her plaintive vespers at thy grave. < Thy shade, too, gentle Monk, 'mid awful night, j Shall pour libations from its friendly eye ; 1 For erst his sweet benevolence bestow'd J Its generous pity, and bedewed with tears • The sod which rested on thy aged breast. 10 4 CHARACTER AND EULOGIUM ■ OP STERNE, AND HIS WRITINGS IN A FAMILIAR EPISTLE FROM A GENTLEMAV IN IRELAND TO HIS FRIEND. [WRITTSN IN THS YEAR 1769.] What trifle comes next? — Spare the censure, my friend, This letter's no more from beginning to <5nd : Yet, when you consider (your laughter, pray stifle) The advantage, the importance, the use of a trifle — When you think too, beside— and there's nothing more clear — That pence compose millions, and moments the year ; You surely will grant me, nor think that I jest, That life's but a series of trifles at best. How widely digressive ! yet, could I, O Sterne,* Digress with thy skill, with thy freedom return ! The vain wish I repress — Poor Yorick ! no more Shall thy mirth and thy jests " set the table on a roar ;" No more thy sad tale, with simplicity told. O'er each feeling breast its strong influence hold. From the wise and the brave call forth sympathy's sigh, Or swell with sweet anguish humanity's eye : * The late Reverend Laurence Sterne, A.M., &c., Author of that truly original,, humourous, heteroclite work called the Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, of a Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (which, alas ! he did not live to finish), and of some volumes of Sermons. Of his skill in delineating and supporting his characters, those of the father of hia hero, of his uncle Toby, and of Corporal Trim (out of numberless others), afford ample proof: to his power in the pathetic, who- ever shall read the stories of Z,e Fevre, Maria, the Monk, and the Dead Ass, must, if he has feelings, bear sufficient testimony ; and his Sermons throughout (though sometimes, perhaps, chargeable with a levity not entirely becoming the pulpit) breathe the kindest spirit of Philanthropy, of good-will tovards man. For the few exceptional parts of his works, those small blemishes Q.uas ant incur ia fndit Aut humana parum cavit ?iaiura — suffer them, kiml critic, to rest with l;i> ashes. 11 Here and there in a page if a blen?.ish appear, (And what page, or what life, from a blemish is clear ?) Trim and Toby with soft intercession attend ; Le Fevre intreats you to pardon his friend ; Maria too pleads for her fav'rite distress'd, As you feel for her sorrows, O grant her request ! Should these advocates fail, I've another to call. One tear of his Monk shall obliterate all. Favour'd pupil of Nature and Fancy, of yore. Whom from Humour's embrace sweet Philanthropy bore, While the Graces and Loves scatter flowers on thy urn, And Wit weeps the blossom too hastily torn ; This meed, too, kind Spirit, unotFended receive From a youth, next to Shakespeare's, who honours thy grave I The above eulogium will, I doubt not, appear to you (and perhaps also to many others) much too high for the literary character of Sterne ; I have not at present either leisure or inclination to enter into argument upon the question ; but, in truth, I consider myself as largely his debtor for the tears and the laughter he so frequently excited, and was desirous to leave behind me (for so long at least as this trifle shall remain) some small memorial of my gratitude. I will even add that, although I regard the memory of Shakespeare with a veneration little short of idolatry, I esteem the Monk's horn-hox a relick " as devoutly to be wisheu" as a pipe-stopper, a walk- ing-stick, or even an ink-stand, of the mulberry -tree. LIFE AND OPINIONS TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT. CHAPTER I. I WISH either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me ; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; — that not only the production of a rational being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind ; — and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house, might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppernjost. Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, — 1 am verily persuaded I should have made tjuite a different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me. Believe me, good folks, this is not so incon- siderable a thing as many of you may think it: — you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal S|)irits, as how they are transfused from father to son, 8ic. — and a great deal to that purpose ; — Well, you may take my word that nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world, depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when once they are set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a halfpenny matter, — away they go cluttering like hey-go mad ; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden walk, which, when they are once used to, the devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it. Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock ? Good G — / cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — Did ever woman since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying? — Nothing. 14 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS CHAPTER II Then, positively, there is nothing in the (jiiestlon, that I can see, either good or bad. Then, let nie tell you, sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least, — because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirit whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception. The HoMuvcuLUs, sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice j — to the eye of reason, in scientific research, he stands confessed — a Being guarded and circumscribed with rights. The minutest philosophers, who, by the bye, have the most enlarged understand- ings (their souls being inversely as their inquiries), show us, incon- testibly, that the Homunculus is created by the same hand, — engendered in the same course of nature, — endowed with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us : — That he consists, as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, car- tilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genials, humours, and articulations 3 — is a Being of as much activity, — and, in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England. He may be benefited, — he may be injured, — he may obtain redress ; in a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity, which Tully, PufiFendorf, or the best ethic writers allow to arise out of that state and relation. Now, dear sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone ! or that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little gentleman had got to his journey's end miserably spent; — his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread ; — his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description, — and that, in this sad disordered state of nerves, he had laid down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together. — I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights. CHAPTER III. To my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft and heavily complained of the injury j but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby well remembered, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity (as he called it) in my manner of setting up my top, and, justifymg the principles upon which I had done it, — the old g^entlenian shook his head, and in a OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 15 tone more expressive by half of sorrow than reproach, — he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me, that I should neither think nor act like any other man's child : — But alas I con- tinued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, my Tristram's misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world. — My mother, who was sitting by, looked up, but she knew no more than her backside what my father meant, — but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been often informed of the affair, understood him very well. CHAPTER IV. I KNOW there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, — who find themselves ill at ease unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you. It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men what- ever — be no less read than the Pilgrim's Progress itself — and, in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window; — I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn j and, therefore, must beg pardon for going on a little farther in the same way : for which cause right glad I am that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done ; and that I am able to go on, tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab ovo. Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether : But that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy — (I forget which) ; — besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr, Horace's pardon 5 — for, in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man s rules that ever lived. To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I caji give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part of this chapter ; for I declare, beforehand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive. Shut the door. 1 was begot in the night betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was. — But how came I to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our family, but now made public for the better clearing up of this point. 16 THE Lira AND OPINIONS My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey mer- chant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life — on the first Sunday night of every month throughout the whole year, — as certain as ever the Sunday night came, to wind up a large house-clock, which he had standing on the back stairs' head, with his own hands: — and being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of, — he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and to be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month. It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great mea- sure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which, I fear, I shall carry with me to my grave ; namely, that, from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out, at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up, but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head — and vice versd : which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke, who certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice whatsoever. But this by the bye. Now it appears by a memorandum in my pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, ^'That on Lady-day, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture, my father set out upon his journey to London, with my eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school j" and, as it appears from the same authority, " That he did not get down to his wife and family till the second week in May following," — it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter puts it beyond all possibility of doubt. But pray, sir, what was your father doing all December, January, and February r Why, madam, — he was all that time afflicted with a sciatica. CHAPTER V. On the fifth day of November, 1718, which, to the aera fixed on, was as near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected, — was I, Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and disastrous world of ours. 1 wish I bad been born in the moon, or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or Saturn, OF TRISTRAM SIIAXDY. 17 because I never could bear cold weather), for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for V^enus) than it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours, — which o*my conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and chppings of the rest; not but that the planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in it to a great title or to a great estate ; or could any how contrive to be called up to public charges, and employments of dignity or power ; but that is not my case; and, therefore, every man will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it; for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made j for I can truly say that, from the first hour I drew my breath in it to this, I can now scarce draw it all, for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in Flanders : — I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune ; and, though I will not wrong her by saying she has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil, yet, with all the good tempe" in the world, I affirm it of her that, in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained. CHAPTER VI. In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly when I was born ; but I did not inform you how. No ; that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself; besides, sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once. — You must have a little patience. I have under- taken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also ; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other. As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity ; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship. — diem prceclarum ! — then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out — bear with me, — and let me go on, and tell my story my own way : — or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road, — or should some- times put on a fool's cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass along, — don't fly off, — but, rather, courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my outside; — and, as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do any thing, — only keep your temper. IQ THE LIFE AND OPINIONS CHAPTER VII. In the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature, had acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world : ■ by which word world, need I in this place inform your worship that I would be understood to mean no more of it than a small circle described upon the circle of the great world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts, of which the cottage where the good old woman lived is supposed to be the centre ? She had been left, it seems, a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year ; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage, — grave deportment, — moreover, a woman of few words, and withal an object of compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, call out the louder for a friendly lift, the wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity j and, often having lamented an inconvenience to which her husband's flock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case have been ever so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles' riding j Avhich said seven long miles, in dark nights and dismal roads, tb>e country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to fourteen ; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at all ; — it came into her head that it would be doing as seasonable a kindness to the whole parish as to the poor creature herself, to get her a little instructed in some of the plain principles of the business, in order to set her up in it. As no woman there- abouts was better qualified to execute the plan she had fermed than herself, the gentlewoman very charitably undertook it ; and, having great influence over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in effecting it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson joined his interest with bis wife's in the whole affair ; and in order to do things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise as his wife had given by institution, — he cheerfully paid the fees for the ordinary's license himself, amounting in the whole to the sum of eighteen shillings and fourpence 5 so that, betwixt them both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her ofiice, together with all its rights, members, and appurtenances whatsoever. These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in which such licenses, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was according to a neat formula of Didius's own devising, w'ho, having a particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing, over OF TRISTRAM SHAXDV. 19 agnin, all kinds of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this d.iinty amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the neighbourhood to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this whimwham of his inserted. . I own I never could envy Didius in these kinds of fancies of his ; but every man to his own taste. Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in the combing of asses' tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not except- ing Solomon himself, — have they not had their Hobby-Horses j — their running - horses, — their coins and their cockle - shells, their drums and their trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets, — their maggots and their butterflies ? — And so long as a man rides his Hobby- Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you nor me to get up behind him, — pray, sir, what have either you or I to do with it ? CHAPTER VHI. — De gustibus non est d'lsputandum; — that is, there is no disputing against Hobby-Horses ; and, for my part, I seldom do ; nor could I, with any sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom J for happening, at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fiddler and painter, according as the fly^ stings, — be it known to you that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns (nor do I care who knows it), I frequently ride out and take the air ; — though sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a wise man would think altogether right. But the truth is, — I am not a wise man ; — and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in the world it is not much matter what I do : so I seldom fret or fume at all about it : nor does it much disturb my rest when I see such great lords and tall personages as hereafter follow ; — such, for instance, as my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses ; — some with large stirrups, getting on in a more grave and sober pace j others on the con- trary, tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a mortgage, — and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks. So much the better — say I to myself; — for, in case the worst should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well without them -, and for the rest, why God speed them- e'en let them ride on without opposition from me • for, were their lordships unhorsed this very night — 'tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse mounted, by one-half, before c 2 20 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon - my rest. But there is an instance which I own puts me off" my guard, and that is when I see ane born for great actions, and what is still more for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones; when I behold such an o/ze, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment j when I see such an one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my love to my country has pre- scribed to him, and my zeal for his glory wishes, then, my Lord* I cease to b^ a philosopher, and, in the first transport of an honest impatience, I wish the Hobby-Horse, with all his fraternity, at the devil. " My Lord, •' I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in the three great essentials of matter, form, and place : I beg, therefore, you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with ihe most respectful humility, at your Lordship's feet, — when you are upon them, — which you can be when you please ; and that is, my Lord, whenever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes too. I have the honour to be. My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient and most devoted, and most humble servant, Tristram Shandy." CHAPTER IX. I SOLEMNLY dcclarc, to all mankind, that the above dedication was made for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate, — Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other realm in Christendom j • nor has it yet been hawked about, or offered p :>ljrly or privately, directly or indirectly, to any one person or person = - ;reat or small; but is honestly a true virgin dedication untried on upon any soul living. I labour this point so particularly merely to remove any offence or objection which might arise against it from the manner in which I propose to make the most of it ; — which is the putting of it up fairly to public sale ; which I now do. Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear ; — for my own part, as I hate chaffering and higglino^ for a few guineas in a dark entry ; — 1 resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try whether I should not come off the better. If, therefore, there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, in these his Majesty's dominions, who stands in need of a OF IRISTRAM SHANDT 91 tight, genteel dedication, and whom the above will suit (for, by the bye, unless it suits, in some degree, 1 will not part with it) it is much at his service, for fifty guineas ; which I am positive is twenty giMiioas less than it ought to be afforded for, by any nuii? of genius. My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gros^ piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lord- ship sees, is good, — the colouring transparent, — the drawing not amiss ; or, to speatc more like a man of science, — and measure my piece in the painter's scale, divided into <20, — I believe, niy Lord, the outlines will turn out as 1<2, — the composition as 9, — the colouring as 6, — the expression 13 and a half, — and the design, — if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my own design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be as 20,-1 think it cannot vveil fall short of 19. Besides all this, — there is keeping in it ; and the- dark strokes in the Hobby-Horse (which is a secondary figure, an4. a kind of back-ground to the whole) give great force to the |)rinci[)al lights in your own figure, and make it come off wonderfully ; and besides, ther'? is an air of originality in the tout ensemble. Be pleased ^^y good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of Mr. dsley, for the benefit of the author ; and in the next edition care shuU be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship's titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of the preceding chapter : all which, from the words De gustibus non est disputandum, and whatever else in this book relates to HoBBY-HoRSEs, but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship. — The rest I dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all the patrons, or matrons, I can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world run mad after it. Bright Goddess, If thou art not too busy with Candid and Miss Cunegund's affain . — take Tristram Shandy's under thy protection also ! CHAPTER X. Whatever degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the midwife might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested, — at first sight seems not very material to this history ; — certain, how- ever, it was that the gentlewoman, the parson's wife, did run away at that time with the whole of it : and yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking but that the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit upon the design first, — yet, as he heartily concurred in It the moment it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry it into execution, had a claim to some share of it, — if not to a full half of whatever honour was due to it. The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise 22 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS Lay down the book, and I will al'.ow you half a day to give a probable guess at the grounds of this procedure. Be it known then that, for about five years before the date of the midwife's license^ of which you have had so circumstantial an account^ ■ — the parson we have to do with had made himself a country-talk by a breach of all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his station, and his office ; and that was in never appearing better, or otherwise, mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jackass of a horse, value about one pound fifteen shillings j who, to shorten all descrip- tion of him, was full brother to Rosinante, as far as similitude congenial could make him ; for he answered his description to a hair's breadth in everything — except that I do not remember 'tis any where said that Rosinante was broken-winded ; and that, moreover, Rosinante, as is the happiness of most Spanish horses, fat or lean^ — was undoubtedly a horse at all points. I know very well that the Hero's horse was a horse of chaste deportment, which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion ^ but it is as certain, at the same time, that Rosinante's continency (as may be demonstrated from the adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temj)erance and orderly current of his blood. — And let me tell you, madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world in behalf of which you could not say more, for your life. Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do exact justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work, — I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote's horse ; in all other points, the parson's horse, I say, was jnst such another, for he was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade as Himiility herself could have bestrided. In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was greatly in the parson's power to have helped the figure of this horse of his, — for he was master of a very handsome demi-peak'd saddle, quilted on the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, poudre d^or: — all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it should be. But not caring to banter his beast, he'had iiung all these up behind his study door: and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted him with just such a bridle and such a saddle as the figure and value of such a steed might well and truly deserve. In the several sallies about his parish, c.nd in the neighbouring visits to the gentry who lived around him, you will easily com- prehend th-it the parson, so apjminted, would both hear and see enough to keep his philosoj)hy from rusting. To speak the truth, he nevnr could enter a village but he caught ^he attention of both old OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. ^i? and young. Labour stood fetill as be passed — tbe bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well, — the spinning-wheel forgot its round, — even chuck - farthing and shuffle - cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight j and, as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough upon his hands to make his observations, — to hear the groans of the serious — and the laughter of the light-hearted ; all which he bore with excellent tranquillity. His character was — he loved a jest in his heart — and^ as he saw himself in the true point of ridicule, he Avould say he could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light in which he so strongly saw himself 3 so that to his friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who therefore made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his humour, — instead of giving the true cause, — he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself j and, as he never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his beast, — he would sometimes insist upon it that the horse was as good as the rider deserved 3 — tliat they w^ere — ^centaur-like — both of a piece. At other times, and in other moods, when his^ spirits were above the tempta- tion of false wit,— he would say he found himself going off fast in a consumption • and, vvith great gravity, would pretend he could not bear the sight of a fat horse, without a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in his pulse ; and that he had made choice of the lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in spirits. At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, })referably to one of mettle ; — for on such an one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as delightfully de vanitate mundi et fugd scFCuli as with the advantage of a death's-head before him : — that, in all other exercitations he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along, to as much account as in his study 5 — that he could draw up an argument in his sermon, or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in tbe other ; — that brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and judgment, were two incompatible movements, — but that upon his steed — he could unite and reconcile every thing 5 — he could compose his sermon — he could compose his cough, and, in case nature gave a call that way, he could likewise compose himself to sleep. — ^In short, the parson, upon such encounters, would assign any cause but the true cause, — and he withheld the true one only out of a nicety of temper, because he though; it did honour to him. But the truth of thp story was as follows : — in the first years of this gentleman's life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle were purchased by him, it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it what you will, — to run into the opposite extreme. In the language of the country where he dwelt, he was said tcThave loved a good horse, and generally had one of the best in the whole parish 24 rilE LIFE AND OPINIO.VS Standing in his stable always ready for saddling ; and as the nearest midwife, as I told you, did not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile country, it so fell out that the poor gentleman ■was scarce a whole week together without some piteous application for his beast J and as he was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more distressful than the last, — much as he loved his beast, he had never a heart to refuse him ; the upshot of which was generally this, that his horse was either clapped, or spavined, or greased ; or he was twitter-boned, or broken- winded, or something, in short, or other had befallen him which would let him carry no flesh;— so that he had, every nine or ten months, a bad horse to get rid of, — and a good horse to purchase in his stead. What the loss in such a balance might amount to, communibus annis, I would leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffic to determine ; but, let it be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it for many years without a murmur ; till, at length, by repeated ill accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the thing under consideration ; and, upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expenses, but withal so heavy an article in itself as to disable him from any other act of generosity in his parish : besides this, he considered that, with half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good ; — and what still weighed more with him than all other consi- derations put together was this, that it confined all his charity into one particular channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely, to the child-bearing and child-getting part of his parish ; reserving nothing for the impotent, — nothing for the aged, — nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness, and affliction dwelt together. For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expense ; and there appeared but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it ; — and these were, either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his steed upon any application whatever, — or else be content to ride the last poor devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and infirmities, to the very end of the chapter. As he dreaded his own constancy in the first — he very cheerfully betook himself to the second j and though he could very well have explained it, as I said, to his honour, — yet, for that very reason he had a spirit abov- it j choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the laugh of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story which might seem a panegyric upon himself. I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight of La Mancha, whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and would actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the greater hero of nniiquity. OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 25 Bat this is not the moral of my story : the thing I had in view was to shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair. — For you must know that, so long as this explanation would have done the parson credit — the devil a soul could find it out. — I suppose that his enemies would not, and that his friends could not. But no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expenses of the ordinary's license to set her up, — but the whole secret came out : every horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly remembered. — The story ran like wild-fire. — '" The parson had a returning fit of pride which had just seized him ; and he was going to be well mounted once again in his life ; and, if it was so, 'twas plain as the sun at noon-day he would pocket the expense of the license, ten times told, the very first year : — so that every body was left to judge what were his views in this act of charity." What were his views in this, and in every other, action of his life, — or rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound asleep. About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made entirely easy upon that score, — it being just so long since he left his parish — and the world at the same time — behind him ; — and stands accountable to a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain. But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men : — order them as they will, they pass through a certain medium which so twists and refracts them from their true direction that, with all the titles to praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are nevertheless forced to live and die without it. Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example. , . . But to know by what means this came to pass, — and to make that knowledge of use to you, I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters, which contain such a sketch of his life and con- versation as will carry its moral along with it. When this is done, if nothing stops us in our way, we will go on with the midwife. CHAPTER XI. YoRiCK was this parson's name, and, what is very remarkable in it (as appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect preservation), it had been exactly so spelt for near 1 was within an ace of saying nine hundred years ; but I would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth however indisputable in itself j and, therefore, I shall conten*^^ myself with only saying It had been exactly so spelt. 26 THE LIFE AND OPIMOXS without the least variation or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long ; which is more than I would venture to say of one half of the best sirnames in the kingdom ; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners. — Has this been owing to the pride, or to the shame, of the respective proprietors ? — In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one, and sometimes to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a villanous affair it is, and will one day so blend and confound us all together that no one shall be able to stand up and swear " That his own great-grandfather was the man who did either this or that." This evil has been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of the Yorick family, and their religious preservation of these records I quote ; which do farther inform us that the family was originally of Danish extraction, and had been transplanted into England as early as in the reign of Horwendillus, King of Denmark, in whose Court, it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. Yorick, and from whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of what nature this considerable post was this record saith not — it only adds that, for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished, as altogether unnecessary, not only in that Court, but in every other court of the Christian world. It has often come into my head that this post could be no other than that of the king's chief jester; — and that Hamlet's Yorick, in our Shakspeare, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon authenticated facts, was certainly the very man. I have not the time to look into Saxo-Grammaticns's Danish history, to know the certainty of this ; — but, if you have leisure^, and can easily get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself. I had just time, in my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding along with him at a prodigious rate through most parts of Europe, and of which or'ginal journey, performed by us two, a most delectable narrative will be given in the progress of this work ; I had just time, I say, and that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long sojourner in that country namely, "That nature was neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy, in her gifts of genius and capacity to its inhabitants ; — but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to them all ; observing such an equal tenour in the distribution of her favours as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of refined parts, but a great deal of good plain household understanding, amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;" which is, I think, very right. With us, you see, the case is quite different : — we are all ups and downs in this matter; — you are a great genius ; — or, 'tis fifty to one, sir, you arc a great dunce and a blockhead ; — not that there is a VF Tins IK AM SHAXDY. total want of intermediate steps ; — no, — we are not so irregular as that comes to ; — but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree, in this unsettled ishmd, where nature, in her gifts and dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious ; fortune herself not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she. This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to Yorick's extraction, who, by what 1 can remember of him_, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis — in nine hundred years it might possibly have all run out: 1 will not philosophize one moment with you about it ; for, happen how it would, the fact was this, — that, instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours you would have looked for in one so extracted — he was, on the contrary, as mercurial and sublimated a composition — as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions with as much life a!id whim, and gaite de cceiir about him, as the kindliest ciinwite could have engendere-l and put together. With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not on- ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world 3 and, at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: so tiiiit, upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody's tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, — you may likewise imagine it was with such he had generally the iil-luck to get tise most entangled. For aught I know, there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such fracas : for, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity ; — not to gravity as such : — for, where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal men for days and weeks together ; — but he was an enemy to the affec- tation of it, and declared open war against it only as it appeared a clo;ik for ignorance or for folly : and then, whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much quarter. Sometiines, in his wild way of talking, he would say that Gravity was an arrant scoundrel, and he would add — of the most dangerous kind too, — because a sly one — and that, he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve- month than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was no danger — but to itself: — • whereas the very essence of gravity was de&ign, and consequently deceit : — it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth ; and that, with all its pretensions, — it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it, — viz., A mysterious carriage of the 28 IHE LIFE AND OPINION'S body to cover the defects of the mind ; — which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say deserved to be written in letters of gold. But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually translate into plain English, without any periphrasis ; — and too oft without much distinction of either person, time, or place ; — so that when mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding he never i^ave himself a moment's time to reflect who was the hero of the piece, what his station, or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter; but if it was a dirty action, — without more ado, — The man was a dirty fellow, — and so on. And as his comments had usually the ill fate to be terminated either in a ban mot, or to be enlivened throughout with some drollery or humo'.ir of expression, it gave wings to Yorick's indiscretion. In a word, though he never sought, yet, at the same time, as he seldom shunned, occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without much ce- remony he had but too many temptations in life of scattering his wit and his humour, his gibes and his jests, about him. They were not lost for want of gathering. What were the consequences, and what was Yorick's catastrophe thereupon, you will read in the next chapter. CHAPTER XII. The mortgager and mortgagee dififer, the one from the other, not more in length of purse than the jester and jestee do in that of memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all-four ; — which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more than some of the best of Homer's can pretend to ; — namely, That the one raises a sum, and the other a laugh, at your expense, and thinks no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases ; — the periodical or accidental payments of it just serving to keep the memory of the affair alive ; till, at length, in some evil hour — pop comes tiie creditor u{)on each, and by demand- ing principal upon the spot, together with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the full extent of their obligations. As the reader (for I hate your fs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature, I need not say more to satisfy him that my Hero could not go on at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwith- standing Eugenius's frequent advice, he too much disregarded ; thinking that, as not one of them was contracted through any OF TRISTRAM SHAXDr. 29 malignancy — but. on the contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they would all of them be crossed out in course. Eugenius would never admit this ; and would often tell him that, one day or other, he would certainly be reckoned with ; — and he would often add — in an accent of sorrowful apprehension — to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness ot heart, would as often answer with a Pshaw ! — and if the subject was started in the fields, — with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it ; but, if close pent up in the social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricadoed in, with a table and a couple of arm chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a tangent, — Eugenius would then go on with his lecture upon discretion in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put together: "Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine wiE sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can extricate thee out of. In these sallies, too oft, I see it happens that a person laughed at considers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situatiou belonging to him ; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckonest up his friends, his family, his kindred and allies — and dost muster up, with them, the many recruits which will list under hiin from a sense of conmion danger — 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say that, for every ten jokes, thou hast got a hundred enemies ; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be con- vinced it is so. " I cannot suspect it, in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies. 1 believe and know them to be truly honest and sportive — but con- sider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not ; and that thou knowest not what it is either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other; whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too. " Revenge, from some baneful corner, shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart, nor integrity of conduct, shall set right. — —The fortunes of thy house shall totter, — thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it, — thy faith questioned, — thy words belied, — thy wit forgotten, thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy. Cruelty and Cowardice, twin-ruffians, hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes : the best of us, my dear lad, lie open there ; and trust me — trust me, Yorick, when, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an innocent and a helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis 30 TIIi:»LlFE AND OPIXIOXS an ea^^y matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed to make a fire to offer it U[) with." Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over to him but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look attending it that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more sobriety. — But, alas, too late ! a grand con- federacy, with ***** and***** at the head of it, was formed before the first prediction of it. The whole plan of attack, just as Eugeniiis had forboded, was put in execution all at once, — with so little mercy on the side of the allies, — and so little suspicion on Yorick of what was carrying on against him — that, when he thought, good easy man! — full surely, preferment was o' ripening, — they had smote his root, — and then he fell, as many a w^orthy man had fallen before him. Yorick, however, fought it out, with all imaginable gallantry, for some time ; till overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities of the war — but more so by the ungenerous manner in which it was carried on, — he threw dow^n the sword ; and, though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last— phe died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, quite broken-hearted. What inclined Eugenius to the same opinion, was as follows : — A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand and, after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again, — he told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke, — I ho[)e not, Yorick, said he Yorick replied, with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand, and that was v.W ; — but it cut Eugenius to his heart Come, come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him, my dear lad, be comforted, — let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis, when thou most wantest them ; who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee !. . . . Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head For my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words, — I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee, — and would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, cheering up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it. I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left- hand, — his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius, — I beseech thee to take a view of my head I see nothing that ails it, replied Engenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 31 you that it is so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows which ***** jjjj(j *****^ j^j^jj some others, have so unhandsomely given nie in the dark, that I might say, with Sancho Panza, that should I recover, and " mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it." — Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart, as he uttered this j —yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone ; and, as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes faint picture of those flashes of his spirit which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar ! Eugenius was convinced from this that the heart of his friend was broken 3 he 'squeezed his hand — and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door j he then closed them, — and never opened them more. He lies buried in a corner of his church-yard, in the parish of , under a plain marble slab, which his friepd Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy : Ten times in a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over, with such a variety of plaintive tones as denote a general pity and esteem for him a foot-way crossing the church-yard close by the side of his grave, — not a pas- senger goes by without stopping to cast a looli upon it, — -and sighing, as he walks on, Alas, poor YORICK ! 52 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS CHAPTER XIII. It is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted from the midwife that it is high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world, and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at present, I am going to introduce to him for good and all : but as fresh matter may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt tlio reader and myself, which may require immediate dispatch, — 'twas right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the meantime ; because, when she is wanted, we can no way do without her. I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note and consequence throughout our whole village and township j that her fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circum- ference of that circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a shirt to his back or no — has one surrounding him j which said circle, by the way, whenever 'tis said that such a one is of great weight and importance in the world, I desire may be enlarged or contracted in your Worship's fancy, in a compound ratio of the station, profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways), of the personage brought before you. In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it at about four or five miles, which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish ; — which made a considerable thing of it. I must add that she was, moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-house, and some other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said, from the smoke of her own chimney : but I must here, once for ail, inform you that all this will be more exactly delineated and explained in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developments of this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume : not to swell the work, — I detest tl\e thought of such a thing, — but by way of commentary, scholium, illustration, and key, to such passages, incidents, or inuendoes, as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don't forget the meaning of the word) by all the world ; which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all the gentlemen reviewers in Great Britain, and of all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the contrary, — I am determined shall be the case I need not tell your VVorship that all this is spoken in confidence. OF TRISTRAM SHAXDY CHAPTER XIV. 33 Upon looking into my mother's marriage settlement, in order to satisfy myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any further in this history, — I had the good fortune to pop upon the very thing I wanted, before I had read a day and a half straight forwards ; it might have taken me up a month ; which shows plainly that when a man sits down to write a history, though it be but the history of Jack Hickathrift, or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his heels what lets and con- founded hinderances he is to meet with in his way, — or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer drives on his mule — straight forward, — for instance, from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once turning his head aside, either to the right hand or to the left, — he might venture to foretel you to an hour when he should get to his journey's end : but the thing is, morally speaking, impossible ; for, if he is a man of the least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make with this or that party as he goes along, which he can nowise avoid : he will have views and prospects to himself perpetually soliciting his eye, which he can no more help standing still to look at than he can fly ; he will, moreover, have various Accounts to reconcile : Anecdotes to pick up : Inscriptions to make out : Stories to weave in : Traditions to shift : Personages to call upon : Panegyrics to paste up at this door : Pasquinades at that : all which, both the man and the mule are exempt from. To sum up all ; there are archives at every stage to be looked into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genea- logies, which justice ever and anon calls him back to stay the reading of : in short, there is no end of it. —For my own part, I declare I have been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could, — and am not yet born : 1 have just been able, and that's all, to tell you when it happened, but not how; so that you see the thing is yet far from being accomplished. These unforeseen stoppages, which, I own, I had no conception of when I first set out, — but which, I am convinced, now, will rather increase than diminish as I advance,— have struck out a hint which I am resolved to follow; and that is, — not to be in a hurry, — but to go on leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year, — which, if I am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live. 34 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS CHAPTER XV. The article in my mother's marriage-settlement, which I told the reader I was at the pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it, I think proper to lay before him — is so much more fully ex- pressed in the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be barbarity to take it out of the lawyer's hand : — It is as follows : 'AND THIS INDENTURE FURTHER WITNESSETH, That *the said Walter Shandy, merchant, in consideration of the said * intended marriage to be had, and by God's blessing to be well and ^ truly solemnized and consummated between the said Walter Shandy * and Elizabeth Mollineux aforesaid, and divers other good and valu- 'able causes and considerations him thereunto specially moving, — 'doth grant, covenant, condescend, consent, conclude, bargain, and * fully agree to and with John Dixon and James Turner, Esqrs., the 'above-named trustees, &c. &c. TO WIT, That in case it 'should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise come to ' pass, that the said Walter Shandy, merchant, shall have left off 'business before the time or times that the said Elizabeth Mollineux * shall, according to the course of nature, or otherwise, have left off 'bearing and bringing forth children : and that, in consequence of ' the said Walter Shandy having so left off business, he shall, in ' despite, and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the 'said Elizabeth Mollineux, — make a departure from the city of ' London, in order to retire to and dwell upon his estate at Shandy * Hall, in the county of , or at any other country-seat, castle, ' hall, mansion-house, messuage, or grange house, now purchased, or 'hereafter to be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof: — 'That then, and as often as the said Elizabeth Mollineux shall happen * to be enceinte with child or children, severally and lawfully begot, or 'to be begotten, upon the body of the said Elizabeth Mollineux during ' her said coverture, — he the said Walter Shandy shall, at his own 'proper cost and charges, and out of his proper monies, upon good 'and reasonable notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six weeks ' of her the said Elizabeth MoUineux's full reckoning, or time o* ' supposed and computed delivery, — pay, or cause to be paid, the sum 'of one hundred and twenty pounds of good and lawful money, to * John Dixon and James Turner, Esquires, or assigns, upon ' TRUST and confidence, and for and unto the use and uses, intent, end, ' and purpose following : THAT IS TO SAY, That the 'said sum of one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid into the 'hands of the said Elizabeth Mollmeux, or to be otherwise applied by 'them the said trustees, for the well and truly hiring of one coach, ' with able and sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of the *said Elizabeth Mollineux, and the child or children which she shall ' be then and there enceinte and pregnant with, — unto the city of OF TRISTRAM SIIAXDY, •London^ and for the further paying and defraying of all other ' incidental costs, charges, and expenses whatsoever, — in and about, * and for, and relating to her said intended delivery and lying-in, iu * the said city or suburbs thereof. And that the said Elizabeth * Mollineux shall and may, from time to time, and at all such time * and times as are here covenanted and agreed upon, — peaceably 'and quietly hire the said coach and horses, and have free ingress, * egress, and regress throughout her journey, in and from the said ' coach, according to the tenour, true intent, and meaning of these * presents, without any let, suit, trouble, disturbance, molestation, ' discharge, hinderance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation, interruption, or 'incumbrance whatsoever. And that it shall moreover be * law ful to and for the said Elizabeth Mollineux, from time to ' time, and as oft or often as she ^shall well and truly be advanced ' in her said pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and ' agreed upon, — to live and reside in such place or places, and in ' such family or families, and with such relations, friends, and other ' persons within the said city of London, as she, at her own will and * pleasure, notwithstanding her present coverture, and as if she were * a femme sole and unmarried, — shall think fit. AND THIS » INDENTURE FURTHER WITNESSETH, That, for the more ' effectually carrying of the said covenant into execution, the said < Walter Shandy, merchant, doth hereby grant, bargain, sell, release, ' and confirm unto the said John Dixon and James Turner, Esquires, * their heirs, executors, and assigns, in their actual possession now 'being, by virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale, for a year, to * them the said John Dixon and James Turner, Esquires, by him the 'said Walter Shandy, merchant, thereof made j which said bargain ' and sale for a year bears date the day next before the date of iheae * presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for transferring * uses into possession, ALL that the manor and lordship of ' Shandy, in the county of , with all the rights, members, and * appurtenances thereof 5 and all and every the messuages, houses, 'buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts, crofts, 'garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, 'commons, woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and water- ' courses, together with all rents, reversions, services, annuities, 'fee-farins, knights' fees, views of frank-pledge, escheats, reliefs, * mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and fugitives, felons of ' themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, fee-warrens, and all other 'royalties and seignories, rights and jurisdictions, privileges and * hereditaments whatsoever. ; — AND ALSO, the advowson, dona- * tion, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or parsonage ' of Shandy aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tithes, glebe- * lands' In three words my mother was to ly-in (if she chose it) in London. But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the 0-2 36 THE LIFE AND 0?IMOXS part of my mother, ^vhich a marriage article of this nature too mani- festly opened a door to, and which, indeed, had never been thought of at all, but for my uncle Toby Shandy j a clause was added in security of my father, which was this : * That in case my mother * hereafter should, at any time, put my father to the trouble and ' expense of a London journey, upon false cries and tokens 5 — that ' for every such instance she should forfeit all the right and title ' which the covenant gave her to the next turn ; — but to no more — * and so on — tofies quoties — in as effectual a manner as if such a * covenant betwixt them had not been made.' This, by the way^ was no more than what was reasonable ; and yet, reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon myself. But I was begot and born to misfortunes j for my poor mother, whether it was wind, or water, or a compound of both, — or neither • or whether it was simply the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her ; — or how far a strong wish and desire to have it so might mislead her judgment ; — in short, whether she was deceived, or deceiving, in this matter, it no way becomes me to decide. The fact was this, that in the latter end of September, 1717, which was the year before I was born, my mother having carried my father up to town, much against the grain, — he peremptorily insisted upon the clause ; so that I was doomed, by marriage articles, to have my nose squeezed as flat to my face as if the destinies had actually spun me Avithout one. How this event came about, — and what a train of vexatious dis- appointments, in one stage or other of my life, have pursued me, from the mere loss or rather compression of this one single member, — shall be laid before the reader all in due time. CHAPTER XVI. My father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty or five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and tease himself, and, indeed, my mother too, about the cursed expense, which, he said, might every shilling of it have been saved ; then, what vexed him more than every thing else was the pro- voking time of the year, — which, as I told you, was towards the end of September, when his wall-fruit, and green-gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just ready for pulling : '' Had he been whistled up to London, upon a Tom Fools errand in any other month of the whole year, he should not have said three words about it." For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down but the hea^'y blow he had sustained from the loss of a son, whom, it OF TRISTKAM SHANDY. ST seems, he had fully reckoned upon in his mind, and registered down in his pocket-book, as a second staff' for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him. . . . "The disappointment of this, he said, was ten times more to a wise man than all the money which the journey, &c., had cost him, put together Rot the hundred and twenty pounds, — he did not mind it a rush." From Stilton all the way to Grantham, nothing in the whole affair provoked him so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish figure they should both make at church the first Sunday, • of which, in the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpened a little by vexation, he would give so many humorous and provoking descriptions, — and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes, in the face of the whole congregation, — that my mother declared these two stages were so truly tragi-comical that she did nothing but laugh and cry, in a breath, from one end to the other of ihem all the way. From Grantham, till they crossed the Trent, my father was out of all kind of patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied my mother had put upon him in this affair. " Certainly," he would say to himself, over and over again, "the woman could not be deceived herself if she could, — what weakness!" — Tor- menting word! which led his imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was over, played the deuce and all with him ; for, sure as ever the word weakness was uttered, and struek full upon his brain, so sure it set him upon running divisions upon how many kinds of weaknesses there werej — that there was such a thing as weakness of the body, as well as weakness of the mind ; — and then he would do nothing but syllogize within himself, for a stage or two together, how far the cause of all these vexations might, or might not, have arisen out of himself. In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up in it, that my mother, whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey of it down. — In a word, as she complained to my uncle Toby, he would have tired out the patience of any flesh alive. CHAPTER XVII. Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the best of moods, — pshaw-ing and pish-ing all the way down, — yet he had the complaisance to keep the worst part of the story still to himself 3 which was the resolution he had taken of doing himself the justice, which my uncle Toby's clause in the marriage-settle- ment empowered him : nor was it till the very night in which I was begot, which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of his design: when my father happening, as you 38 THE LIFE AND OPIXIOXS remember, to be a little chagrined and out of temper, — took occa- sion, as they lay chatting gravely in bed afterwards, talking over what was to come, — to let her know that she must accommodate herself as well as she could to the bargain made between them in their marriage-deeds J which was to ly-in of her next child in the country, to balance the last year's journey. My father was a gentleman of many virtues, — but he had a strong spice of that in his temper which might, or might not, add to the number. 'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and of obstinacy in a bad one : of this my mother had so much knowledge that she knew 'twas to no purpose to make any remonstrance ; — so she e'en resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it. CHAPTER XVIII. As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother should ly-in of me in the country, she took her measures accordingly J for which purpose, when she was three days, or there- abouts, gone with child, she began to cast her eyes upon the midwife whom you have so often heard me mention ; and, before the week was well got round, as the famous Dr. Maningham was not to be had, she had come to a final determination in her mind, — notwith- standing there was a scientific operator within so near a call as eight miles of us, and who, moreover, had expressly wrote a five shiUing book upon the subject of midwifery, in which he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself, — but had likewise super- added many curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the foetus in cross births, and some other cases of danger which delay us in getting into the world j — notwithstanding all this, my mother, I say, was absolutely determined to trust her life, and mine with it, into no soul's hand but this old woman's only. — Now this I like j — • when we cannot get at the very thing we wish, never to take up with the next best in degree to it -, — no, that's pitiful beyond description. It is no more than a week from this very day in which I am now writing this book — for the edification of the world, which is March 9, 1759, — that my dear, dear Jenny, observing I 1 irked a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five and twenty - hillings a yard, — told the mercer she was sorry she had given hin. so much trouble ; and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide stuff of ten-pence a yard. 'Tis the duplication of one and the same greatness of soul ; only, what lessened the honour of it somewhat, in my mother's case, was that she could not heroine it into so violent and hazardous an extreme as one in her situation might have wished, because the old midwife had really some little claim to be depended upon, — as much, at least, as success could give her, having, in the course of her practice of near twenty years in the OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 39 parish, brought every mother's son of them into the world without any one slip or accident which could fairly be laid to her account. These facts, though they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy some few scru{)les and uneasinesses which hung upon my father's spirits in relation to this choice To say nothing of the natural workings of humanity and justice, or of the yearnings of parental and connubial love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible in a case of this kind,— ^he felt himself concerned, in a particular manner, that all should go right in the present case, — from the accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and child, by her lying-in at Shandy hall. — He knew the world judged by events, and would add to his afflic- tions, in such a misfortune, by loading him with the whole blame of it. **Alas o'day ! — had Mrs. Shandy, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in going up to town just to ly-in and come down again, — which, they say, she begged and prayed for upon her bare knees, — and which, in my opinion, considering the fortune which Mr. Shandy got with her, — was no such mighty matter to have com- plied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been alive at this hour." This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable 3 — and yet, it was not merely to shelter himself, — nor was it altogether for the care of his offspring and wife, that he seemed so extremely anxious about this point ; my father had extensive views of things, — and stood, moreover, as he thought, deeply concerned in it for the public good, from the dread he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance might be put to. He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had unanimously agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign down to his own time, that the current of men and money towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or another, set in so strong — -as to become dangerous to our civil rights ; though, by the bye, a current was not the image he took most delight in, — a distemper was here his favourite metaphor; and he would run it down into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was identically the same in the body national as in the body natural : where the blood and spirits were driven up into the head faster than they could find their ways down, — a stoppage of circulation must ensue, which was death in both cases. There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by French politics or French invasions 3 nor was he so much in pain of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humours in our constitution, — which he hoped was not so bad as it was imagined, — but he verily feared that, in some violent push, we should go off, all at once, in a state of apoplexy j — and then he would say, The Lord have mercy upon us all. My father was never able to give the history of this distemper — without the remedy along with it. 40 THE LIFE AND OPIXIOXS " Was I an absolute prince," he would say, pulling up his breeches with both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, " I would ap- point able judges at every avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of every fool's business who came there ; and if, upon a fair and candid hearing, it appeared not of weight sufficient to leave his own home, and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and children, farmer's sons, 8:c., &c., at his backside, they should be all sent back, from constable to constable, like vagrants, as they were, to the place of their legal settlements. By this means, I should take care that my metropolis tottered not through its own weight ; — that the head be no longer too big for the body ; that the extremes, now Avasted and pinned in, be restored to their due share of nourishment, and regain, wiih it, their natural strength and beauty. 1 would effectually provide that the meadows and cornfields of my dominions should laugh and sing j that good cheer and hospitality flourish once more ; and that such weight and influence be put thereby into the hands of the 'Squiralty of my kingdom as should counter- poise what I perceive my Nobility are now taking from them. *' Why are there so few palaces and gentleman's seats r" he would ask with some emotion, as he walked across the room, " throughout so many delicious provinces in France ? Whence is it that the few remaining chateaus amongst them are so dismantled, — so unfur- nished, and in so ruinous and desolate a condition ? — Because, Sir he would say), in that kingdom no man has any country interest to support ) the little interest of any kind, which any man has any where in it, is concentrated in the Court, and the looks of the Grand Monarque 3 by the sun-shine of whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every Frenchman lives or dies.'' Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard against the least evil accident in my mother's lying-in in the country — \\as, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance of power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in his own, or higher, stations ; which, with the many other usurped rigVits which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing, — would, in the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestic government established in the first creation of things by God. In this point he was entirely of Sir Robert Filmer's opinion : — that the plans and institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern parts of the world were originally all stolen from that admirable pattern and prototype of this household and j^aternal power; which for a century, he said, and more, had gradually been degenerating away into a mixed government ; the form of which, however desirable in great combinations of the species, — was very troublesome' in small ones, — and seldom produced any thing, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion. For all these reasons, private and 'Miblic, put together, — my OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 41- father was for having the man-mid-wife, by all means, — my mother by no means. My father begged and entreated she would for once recede from her prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to choose for her J my mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her privilege in this matter, to choose for herself, — and have no mortal's help but the old woman's What could my father do? He was almost i\[ his wits' end } talked it over with her in all moods ; placed his arguments in all lights j argued the matter with her like a Christian, — like a heathen, — like a husband, — like a father, — like u p itriot, — like a man My mother answered every thing only like a woman 3 which was a little hard upon her; for as she could not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of characters — it was no fair match ; — 'twas seven to one What could my mother do ? She had the advantage (otherwise she w(mld have been certainly overpowered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal at the bottom, which bore her up, and enabled her to dispute the affair with my father with so equal an advantage — that both sides sung Te Deum. In a word, my mother was to have the old woman, — and the operator was to have license to drink a bottle of wine with my father and my uncle Toby Shandy in the back parlour, — for which he was to be paid five guineas. I must beg leave, before I tinish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the breast of my fair reader 3 and it is this: Not to take it absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have dropped in it,— that I am a married man." 1 own, the tender appellation of my dear, dear Jenny, with some other strokes of conjugal knowledge interspersed here and there, might, naturally enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a determination against me. All I plead for in this case. Madam, \ is strict justice, and that you do so much of it to me, as well as to yourself — as not to prejudge or receive such an impression of me till you have better evidence than, I am positive, at present can be produced against me .... Not that I can be so vain, or unreasonable. Madam, as to desire you should therefore think that my dear, dear Jenny is my kept mistress 3 — no, — that would be flattering my character in the other extreme, and giving it an air of freedom which, perha{)s, it has no kind of right to. All I contend for is the utter impossibihty, for some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon earth, should know how this matter really stands It is not impossible but that my dear, dear Jenny! tender as the appellation is, may be my child . . . . Consider, — I was born in the year eighteen Nor is there any thing unnatural or extravagant in the supposition that my dear Jenny may be my friend Friend ! My friend Surely, Madam, a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be suj)ported, without Fy ! Mr. Shandy without any thing. Madam, but that tender and delicious sentiment which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a 42 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS difference of sex. Let me entreat you to study the pure and senti- mental parts of the best French romances j, ... it will really, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions this de- licious sentiment^ which I have the honour to speak of, is dressed out. CHAPTER XIX. I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in Geometry than pretend to account for it that a gentleman of my father's great good sense,— knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious too in })hilosoijhy — wise also in political reasoning, — and in polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant, — - could be capable of entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track, — that I fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a choleric temper, will immediately throw the book by ; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at it ; — ' and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he will, at first sight, absolutely condemn it as fanciful and extravagant ; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of Christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving. His opinion, in this matter, was. That there was a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct. The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness, ^-nor had he more faith or more to say — on the powers of Ne- cromancy in dishonouring his deeds, — or on Dulcinea's name in shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of Tkisma- GiSTUs OR Archimedes, on the one hand, — or of Nyky and Simkin on the other. How many C.esars and Pompkys, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them ! And how many, he would add, are there, who miglit have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus'b int© nothing! I see plainly. Sir, by your looks (or as the case happened), my father would say, — that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine, — which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom, — I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it ; — and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am morally assured I should hazard little in stating a case to you — not as a party in the dispute, but as a judge, and trusting my appeal upon it to your own good sense and candid dis- quisition in this matter. You are a person ; free from as many narrow prejudices of education as most men and if I may presume to penetrate farther into you, — of a liberality of genius above bearing dowa an opinion, merely because it wants friends. Your son I — your dear son, from whose sweet and open temper you have so OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 43 much to expect, — your Billy, Sir, would you for the world have called him Judas ? . . . . Would you, my dear Sir, he would say, laying his hand upon your breast with the genteelest address, — and in that soft and irresistible piano of voice, which the nature of the argumentum ad hominem absolutely requires, Would you, Sir, if a Jew of a godfather had proposed the name of your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration of him ? O my God ! he would say, looking up, if I know your temper right. Sir,- you are mcapable of it ; you would have trampled upon the offer; you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head with abhorrence. Your greatness of mind iu this action, which I admire, with that generous contempt of money which you show me in the whole trans- action, is really noble ; and what renders it more so is the principle of it ; the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, that was your son called Judas, — the sordid and treacherous idea so inseparable from the name would have accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a miser and a rascal of him, in spite. Sir, of your example. I never knew a man able to answer this argument But, indeed, to speak of my father as he was ; — he was certainly irresisti- ble, both in his orations and disputations ; he was born an orator -, .... eeodidaxTOQ. . . . Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logic and Rhetoric were so blended up in him, — and, withal, he had so shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent — that Nature might have stood up and said, — "This man is elo- quent." In short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, 'twas hazardous in either case to attack him And yet, 'tis strange, he had never read Cicero, nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus, amongst the ancients; nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Ramus, nor Farnaby, amongst the moderns ; . . . . and, what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crakenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator ; he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument ad ignorantium, and an argument ad homi- nem, consisted ; so that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at Jesus College in ****^ — it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society, that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools should be able to work after that fashion with them. To work with them in the best manner he could was what my father was, however, perpetually forced upon ; for he had a thou- sand little sceptical notions of the comic kind to defend, — most of which notions, I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and of a vive la bagateUe ; and, as such, he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and, having sharpened his wit upon 'em, dismiss them till another day. 44 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS I mention this not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the progress and establishment of my father's many odd opinions, but as a warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance for some years, into our brains, at length claim a kind of settlement there, — working sometimes like yeast, — but more generally after the manner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest, — but ending in downright earnest. Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father's notions, or that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit ; or how far, in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right the reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here is that, in this one, of the influence of Christian names, however it gained footing, he was serious ; he was all uniformity ; he was systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again, — he was serious ! and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better, — as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child, or more so, than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy dog. This, he would say, looked ill ; and had, moreover, this par- ticular aggravation in it, viz. — That, when once a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given, it was not like the case of a man's character, which, when wronged, might hereafter be cleared, — and, possibly, some time or other, if not in the man's life, at least after his death, be, somehow or other, set to rights with the world : — But the injury of this, he would say, could never be undone ; — nay, he doubted even whether an act of parliament could reach it: He knew, as well as you, that the legislature assumed a power over sirnames ; but, for very strong reasons which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, to go a step farther. It was observable that, though my father, in consequence of this opinion, had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names, — that there were still numbers of names which hung so equally in the balance before him that they were absolutely indifferent to him: Jack, Dick, and Tom, were of this class: these my father called neutral names 5 — affirming of them, without a satire, that there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men, since the world began, who had indifferently borne them so that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each other's effects j for which reason, he would often declare he would not give a cherry- stone to choose amongst them. Bob, which was my brother's n.ime, was another of these neutral kinds of Christian names, which operated very little either way ; and as my father happened to be at Epsom OF TRISrRA>f SHANDY. 45 when it was given hini, he would oft-thnes thank heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him :— it was worse, he said, than nothing. William stood pretty high : Numps again was low with him — and Nick, he said was the Devil. But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquer- able aversion for Trjstram ; he had the loAvest and most con- temptible opinion of it of any thing in the world, thinking it could possibly produce nothing, in rerum natura, but what was extreaiely mean and pitiful: so that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved — he would sometimes break off in a sudden and spirited Epiphonema, or rather Erotesis, raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth, above the key of the dis- course, — and demand it categorically of his antagonist, whether he would take upon him to say he had ever remembered, — whether he had ever read, — or even whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing any thing great or worth recording ? — No, — he would say — Tristram! The thing is impossible. What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book, to publish this notion of his to the world ! Little boots it to the subtle speculatist to stand single in his opinions, — unless he gives them proper vent : it was the identical thing which my father did ; — for in the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the pains of writing an express Dissertation simply upon the word Tristram, — showing the world, with great candour and modesty, the grounds of his great abhorrence of the name. When this story is compared with the title-page — will not the gentle reader pity my father from his soul ? to see an orderly and well-disposed gentleman, who, though singular — yet inoffensive — in his notions, — so played upon in them by cross-purposes ; to look down upon the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his I little systems and wishes j to behold a train of events perpetually falling out against him, and in so critical and cruel a way as if they had purposely been planned and pointed against him, merely to , insult his speculations. — In a word, to behold such a one, in his old tage, ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow j — ten tirnes'in a day calling the child of his prayers Tristram; — Melancholy dissyllable of sound ! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven. By his ashes ! I swear it, — if ever malignant spirit took pleasure, or busied itself, in traversing the purposes of mortal man, — it must have been here ; — and if it was not necessary I should be born before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account of it. 4 • ( ^ h) ^ / p ^^ -- •1* -n* lI • • 6 ffi ± cc == b^ -T \ M n » . r -; -n n» ^ J 1 - ^ q ---■ i y , Ti 3- ) "1 \ . " 1 ) ^) R""" ^ V^ ^ __ f ^. 1 ~ll* ^ -i ■^t -^ t ■?fr \^ jk5 S* ^ i: ,^»— -^^-'^^ m^ &~ *^F P ^ c c ^'-U ^ J^ H-3 P I -\ ':) "i 1) » * 1 'I 1 (M «^ 1) A J 1 ( -r •11 g^ -• 2 • ,r ^ r it 2 C- 1 11 2 ^ iJ "3 rr in J 2 r • • "I) ) _. =\ J T) 8 ■^) "• 64 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS more, believe me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysic circle. But this by the way. Now, if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion in the mind of a man is threefold. Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and transient impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not dull. And, thirdly, a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what it has received Call down Dolly, your cham- bermaid, and I will give you my cap, and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that Dolly herself shall understand it as well as Malbranch When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her hand into the bottom of her pocket, hanging by her right side take that opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing which Dolly s hand is in search of Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you — it is an inch. Sir, of red seal-wax. When this is melted and dropped upon the letter, if Dolly fumbles too long for her thimble, till the wax is over-hardened, it will not receive the mark of her thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint it. Very well. If Dolly's wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of a temper too soft, — though it may receive — it will not hold, the impression, how hard soever Dolly thrusts against it ; and last of all, supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied thereto in careless haste, as her mistress rings the bell ; — in any of these three cases, the print, left by the thimble, will be as unlike the prototype as a brass jack. Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the confusion in my uncle Toby's discourse 3 and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great phy- siologists — to show the world what it did not arise from. What it did arise from I have hinted above 3 and a fertile source of obscurity it is, — and ever will be, — and that is the unsteady uses of words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings. It is ten to one (at Arthur's) whether you have ever read the literarj histories of past ages 3 if you have, — what terrible battles yclept logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink-shed — that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes. Gentle critic ! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and con- versation has been pestered and disordered, at one time or other, by this, and this only: what a pudder and racket in Councils about 'ao-m and viaor^aGiQ ; and in the schools of the learned about power and OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 65 about spirit ;. . . . about essences, and about quintessences j about substances, and about space : — what confusion in greater Theatres, from words of little meaning, and as indeterminate a sense ; when thou coRsiderest this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's per- plexities ; thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp., — his glacis and his covered way, — his ravelin and his half-moon : 't was not by ideas — by Heaven ! — his life was put in jeopardy by words. CHAPTER III. When my uncle Toby got his map of Namur to his mind, he began immediately to apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the stuily of it ; for nothing being of more importance to him than his recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have read, upon the passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the nicest care to make himself so far master of his subject as to be able to talk upon it without emotion. In a fortnight's close and painful application, which, by the bye, did my uncle Toby's wound upon his groin no good, — he was enabled, by the help of some marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, together with Gobesius's military architecture and pyroballogy, trans- lated from the Flemish, to form his discourse with passable perspicuity ^ and, before he was two full months gone, he was right eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced counterscarp with great order ; but having, by that time, gone much deeper into the art than what his first motive made necessary, — my uncle Toby was able to cross the Mats and Sambre ; make diversions as far as Vauban's line, the Abbey of Salsines, &c., and give his visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks as of that at the gate of St. Nicolas, where he had the honour to receive his wound. jIBut the desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the_acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the mere he took a liking to it ; by the same process and electrical assimilation, as I tohi you, through which, I ween, the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the happiness, at length, to get all be-virtued, be-pictured, be-butterflied, and be- fiddled. The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet fountain of science the greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst ; so that, before the first year of his confinement had well gone round, there wa> scarce a fortified town in Italy or Flanders of which, by one means or other, he had not procured a plan, reading over, as he got them, and carefully collating therewith, the histories of their sieges, their demolitions, their improvements and new works ; all which he wouIq read with that intense application and delight that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner. F 66 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS In the second year, my uncle Toby purchased Ramelliand Cataneo, translated from the Italian ; likewise Stevinus Moralis, the Cheva- lier de V'ille, Lorini, Coehom, Sheeter, and the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel, with almost as many more books of military architecture as Don Quixote was found to have of chivalry, wht-n the curate and barber invaded his library. Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August ninety-nine, my uncle Toby found it necessary to understand a little of projectiles. . . . And, having judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain head, he began with N. Tartaglia, who, it seems, was the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball's doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line. — This N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing. Endless is the search of Truth ! No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannon-ball did not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to inquire and find out which road the ball did go. For which purpose he W;is obliged to set off afresh with old Maltus, and studied him devoutly. He proceeded next to Galileo and Torricellius, wherein, by certain geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be a Parabola, — or else an Hyperbola, — and that the para- meter, or latus rectum, of the conic section of the said path was to the quantity and amplitude in a direct ratio as the whole line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, formed by the breach upon a horizontal plane ; and that the semi-parameter — Stop ! — my dear uncle Toby, stop go not one foot further into this thorny and bewildered track : intricate are the steps ! intricate are the mazes of thi-s labyrinth ! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this bewitching phantom. Knowledge, will bring upon thee. . . . O, my uncle ! fly — fly — fly from it as from a serpent. ... Is it fit, good-natured man! thou should'st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights, baking thy blood with hectic watchings ? Alas ! it will exasperate thy symptoms, — check thy persspirations, evaporate thy spirits, — waste thy animal strength, — dry up thy radical moisture, — bring thee into a costive habit of body, — impair thy health, — and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age O my uncle ! my uncle Toby. CHAPTER IV. I would not give a groat for that man's knowledge in pen-craft who does not understand this, — That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby, — would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate ; there- fore, I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the middle of my story. — Writers of iny stamp have one principle in common with OF TRISTKAM SHANDY. 67 painters Where an exact copying- makes our pictures less striking-, we choose the less evil ; deeming- it even more pardonable to trespass against truth than beauty 'This is to be understood cum grono sails i but be it as it will, — as the parallel is made more for the sake of Ltting the apostrophe cool than any thing else,— it is not very materia' whether, upon any other score, the reader approves of it or not. In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby, perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only ; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force. It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt, — to dismiss his barber unshaven, — and to allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself so little about it as not to ask him once in seven times* dressing how it went on. When, lo ! all of a sudden, for the change was as quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his recovery, — complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon; and one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he thus up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate with him upon the protraction of the cure, which, he told him, might surely have been accomplished, at least by that time He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of his four years' melancholy imprisonment ; adding that, had it not been for the kind looks and fraternal cheerings of the best of brothers, — he had long since sunk under his misfortunes. . . . My father was by : my uncle Toby's eloquence brought tears into his eyes j — ' twas unex- pected. My uncle Toby, by nature, was not eloquent ; it had the greater effect. The surgeon was confounded 3 not that there wanted grounds for such, or greater, marks of impatience, — but 'twas unexpected too : in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen any thing like it in my uncle Toby's carriage ; he had never once dropped one fretful or discontented word ; he had been all patience, — all submission. — We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it 3 but we often treble the force : — The surgeon was astonished ; but much more so when he heard my uncle Toby go on, and pe- remptorily insist upon his healing up the wound directly, — or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the King's Sergeant-Surgeon, to do it for him. The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature ; the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister passion to it : these my uncle Toby had m common with his species ; — and either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well, and out of doors 3 but I have told you before that nothing wrought with our family after the common way 5 and from the time and manner in which this eager desire showed itself, in the present case, the pe* t. J'irg reader will suspect there was some other cause or F 2 6*8 THE LIFE A\D OPIXIOXS crotchet for it in my uncle Toby's head. There was so: and 'tis the subject of the next chapter to set forth what that cause and crot het was. I own, when that's done, 'twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, where we left my uncle in the middle of his sentence. CHAPTER V. When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling^ p assion, in other wor is, when his Hobby-horse grows head-strong, farewell co; i ■ j.ison and fair discretion. My uncle Toby's wound was near well j and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprise, and could get leave to say as much — he told him 'twas just beginning to incarnate ; and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of, — it w^ould be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads, twelve hours before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Toby's mind The succession of his ideas was now rapid j he oroiled with impatience to put hi design in execution j — -and so, without consulting farther with any soul living, — which, by the bye, I think is right when you are predetermined to take no one soul's advice, — he privately ordered Trim, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot and four, to be at the door exactly by twelve o'clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon 'Change.. . . So, leaving a bank-note upon the table, for the surgeon's care of him, and a letter of thanks for his brother's, — he packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments, &c., and, by the help of a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other, my uncle Toby embarked for Sliandy-hall. The reason, or rather the rise, of this sudden emigration was as fi;ll()WS : — The table in my uncle Toby's room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting, with his maps, &c., about him, — being somewhat of the smallest, for thit iufinityof great and small instruments of knowledge which usually l;iy crowded upon it; — he had the accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and, in stooping to take the compasses up with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers ; and as the dice took a run against liim, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, he thrust ISIonsieur Blondel oti the table, and Count de Pagan o'top of him. It was to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of redressing these evils Ly hin;self : he rung his bell fur his man Trim ! Trim, quoih my uncle Toby, pi i thee s^e wtiat confusion I have here been making. — I nmst have seme better contrivance, — Trim. Can'st not thou take my rule, and measure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again? OF TRISTRAM SHANUY. 69 Yes, an* please 5 our Honour, replied Trim, making a bow; i)ut I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where, — as your Honour takes so much pleasure i,) fortification, — we could manage this matter to a T. I must here inform you that this servant of my uncle Toby's, who went by the name of Trim, had been a corporal in my uncle's ov.'n company: his real name was James Butler ; but having got the nick-name of Trim in the regiment, my uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name. The poor fellow had been disabled for the service by a wound on his left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair of Namur ; . . . and as the fellow was well beloved in the regiment, and a handy feHow into the bargain, n y uncle Toby took him for his servant 3 and of an excellent use was he, attending my uncle Toby in the camp and in his quarters, as a valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, and nurse ; and, indeed, from first to last, waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection. My uncle Toby loved the man in return ; and what attached him more to him still was the similitude of their knowledge For Corporal Trim (for so, for the future, I shall call him), by four years' occasional attention to his m.ister's discourse upon fortilied towns, and the advantages of prying and peeping continually into Ws Master's plans, &c., exclusive and besides what he gained Hobbv-horsically as a body-servant (nan Hobby -hor sic al per se), had become no mean })roficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and chamber- maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle Toby himself. 1 have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal Trim's cha- racter, — and it is the only dark line in it. The fellow loved to advise, — or rather to hear himself talk.; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so ; but set his tongue a-going, — you had no hold of him ; lie was voluble ; — the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner, interceding so strongly in behalf of his elocution — that, though you might have been incom- moded, — you could not well be angry. My uncle Toby was seldom either the one or the other with him, — or, at least, this fault in Trim broke no squares with 'em. My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the man; and, besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant — :is an humble friend, — he could not bear to stop his mouth. Such was Corporal Trin). If 1 durst presume, continued Trim, to give yo-^r Honour my advice, and speak mv opinion in this matter Tiiou art welcome. Trim, quoth my uncle Toby; ^S} eak, — speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without fe r Wl y, then, rephed Trim, not 70 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS hanging his ears^ and scratching his head, like a country lout, but stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division. ... I think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards, — and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was pinned against the hangings, — I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour's better judgment, that these ravelins, bastions, curtains, and horn-works, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with. As summer is coming on, continued Trim, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography [Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle] .... of the town or citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before, — and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I do not fortify it to your Honour's mind. .... I dare say thou would'st. Trim, quoth my uncle For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the polygon, with its exact lines and angles. . . . That I could do very well, quoih my uncle. ... I would begin with the fosse, and if your Honour could tell me the proper depth and breadth I can to a hair's breadth. Trim, replied my uncle I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp, — and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp. . . . Very right. Trim, quoth my uncle Toby. . . . And when I had sloped them to your mind, — an' please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods, — and as your honour knows they should be, — and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too. ..... The best engineers call them gazons. Trim, said my uncle Toby. Whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied Trim ; your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or stone I know they are, Trim, in some respects, — quoth my uncle Toby, nodding his head j for a cannon ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fosse (as was the case at St. Nicholas's Gate) and facilitate the passage over it. Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal Trim, better than any officer in his Majesty's service : but would your Honour please to let the bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into the country, I would work, under your Plonour's directions, like a horse, and make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their batteries, saps, ditches, and pallisidoes, th it it should be worth all the world's riding twenty miles to go and see it. My uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet, as Trim went on ; but it was not a blush of guilt, — of modesty, or of anger j it was a l)lush of joy ; he was fired with Corporal Trim's project and de- scription . . . Trim ! said my uncle Toby, thou hast said enough. . . . OF THrSTKAM SIIAM>V. We might begin the campaign, continued Trim, on the very day that his Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish 'em, town for town, as fast as Trim, quotli my uncle Tohy, say no more Your Honour, continued Trim, might sit in your arm- chair (pointing to i') this line weather, giving me your orders, and I would Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby Besides, your Hommr would get not only pleasure and good pastime, but good air, and good exercise, and good health, and your honour's wound would be well in a month Thou hast said enough. Trim, quoth njy uncle Toby (putting his hand into his breeches- pocket) — I like thy project mightily And if your Honour pleases, I'll this moment go and buy a pioneer's spade to take down with us, and I'll bespeak a shovel, and a pick-axe, a d a couple of. . . . Say no more. Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture, — and tlirusting a guinea into Trim's hand Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more ; but go dawn. Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant. Trim ran down and brought up his master's supper, — to no pur- pose; Trim's plan of operation ran so much in my uncle Toby's head, he could not taste it Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, get me to bed : 'twas all one Corporal Trim's description had so fired his imagination — aiv uncle Toby could not shut his eyes The more he considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him ; so that, two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decampment. My uncle Toby had a neat little country-house of his own, in the village where my father's estate lay at Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen- garden of about half an acre ; and at the bottom of the garde a;id cut off from it by a tall yew-hedge, was a bou ling-green cc: taining just about as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for : — so that as Trim uttered the words, *' A rood and a half of ground . do what they would with" — this identical bowling-green instan^^y presented itself, and became curiously painted, all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy ; — which was the physical cause of making him change colour, or, at least, of heightening his blush to that immoderate degree I s{)oke of. Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and expectation than my uncle Toby did, to enjoy this self-same thing in private I say in private for it was sheltered from the house, as I told you, by a tall yew-hedge, and was covered on the other three sides from mortal sight, by rough holly, and thick-set flowering shrubs ; so that the idea of not bemg seen did not a little contribute to the idea of pleasure preconceiv ed in my uncle 72 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS Toby's mind Vain thought ! however thick it was planted about, — or private soever it might seem, — to think, dear uncle Toby, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rood and a half of ground, — and not have it known. How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter, — with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, — may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working up of this drama. ... . . At present the scene must drop, — and change for the parlour fire-side. CHAPTER VI. -What can they be doing, brother ? said my father. I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking, as I told yon, his ])ipe from his mouth, and striking the ashes out of it as he began his sentence J 1 think, replied he, it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. Pray, what's all that racket over our heads, Obadiah r quoth my father ; my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak. Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow towards his left shoulder, my mistress is taken very badly. . . . And where's Susan running down the garden there, as if they were going to ravish her ?. . . . Sir, she is running the shortest cut into the town, replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife Then saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go directly for Dr. Slop, the man- midwife, with all our services — and let him know your mistress is fallen into labour — and that I desire he will return with you with all speed. It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle Toby, as Obadiah shut the door — as there is so expert an operator as Dr. Slop so near, that my wife should persist to the very last in this obstinate humour of her's, in trusting the life of my child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance of an old woman ; and not only the life of my child, brother — but her own life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have begot out of her hereafter. Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the expense A pudding's end — replied my father — the Doctor must be paid the same for inaction as action — if not better — to keep him in temper. Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth- my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his heart — but Modesty: My sister, I dare say, added he, does not care to let a man come so near her ****. I will not say whether my uncle Toby had completed the sentence or not ; 'tis for his advantage to suppose he had — as, I think, he could have added no One Word which would have improved it. If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 73 I>enod's end — then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory which Rhetoricians style the Aposiopesis. Just heaven ! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists — the insensible, more or less determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue ! How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pen, the fiddlestick, et caetera, give the true pleasure ! O, my countrymen ! — be nice j be cautious of your language ; and never, O I never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your fame depend. ''My sister, mayhap," quoth my uncle Toby, ''does not choose to let a man come so near her ****." Make this da^h 'tis an Aposiopesis. Take the dash away, and write Backside — 'tis bawdy. Scratch Backside out, and put covered way in — 'tis a meta- phor ; and, I dare say, as fortification ran so much into my uncle Toby's head, that if he had been left to have added one word to the sentence, that word was it. But whether that was the case or not the case ; or whether the snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe so critically hap})ened through accident or anger — will be seen in due time. CHAPTER YII. Though my father was a good natural philosopher — yet he was something of a moral philosopher too ; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapped short in the middle — he had nothing to do — as such — but to have taken hold of the two pieces, and throw them gently upon the back of the fire He did no such thing ; he threw them with all the violence in the world j and, to give the action still more emphasis — he started upon both his let^ i to do it. This looked something like heat : and the manner of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying proved it was so. " Not choose,'* quoth my father, (repeating my uncle Toby's words) ''to let a man come so near her ! By heaven, brother Toby ! you would try the patience of Job, and I think I have the plagues of one already without it." Why? — Where? — Wherein? — AVherefore ? Upon what account? replied my uncle Toby in the utmost astonishment To think, said my father, o# a man living to your age, brother, and knowing so little about women !. . . . I know nothing at all about them — replied my uncle Toby; and I think, continued he, that the shock I received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with widow Wadiuan — which shock, you know, I should not have received but from my total ignorance of the sex— has given me just cause to say, That I neither know nor pretend to know any thing about 'em, or their concerns either Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at 74 THK LIFE AND OFIMOXS least, know so much as tlie right end of a woman from the wrong?. It is said in Aristotle's ]\Ia^ter-piece, " That when a man doth think of any think which is past — he looketh down upon the ground ; — but that when he thinketh of something which is to come, he looketh up toward the heavens." My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither; for he looked horizontally Right end, — quoth my uncle Toby, n) uttering the two words low to himself, and fixing his two eyes it. sensibly, as he muttered them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad joint m the chimney-piece ; right end of a woman ! 1 declare, quoth my uncle, I know no more which it is than the man in the moon 5 ■ and if I was to think, continued my uncle Toby (keeping his eye still fixed upon the bad joint), this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out. Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you. Every thing in tiiis world, continued my father, (filling a fresh pipe) — every thing in this world, my dear brother Toby, has tw.y bandies. . . , Not always, quoth my uncle Toby. ... At least, replied my father, every one has two hands, — which comes to the same thing. Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider wiihin. himself the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and convenience of all the i)arts which constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and compare them analogically. ... I never rightly understood the meaning of that word, quoth my uncle Toby. .... Analogy, replied my father, is the certain relation and agree- ment, which different Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father's definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two, — and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;. . . . it was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered of it : and, at this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the dissertation itself — (considering the confusion and distresses of our domestic misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another), whether I shall be able la find a place for it in the third volume or not. CHAPTER VIII. It is about an hour and a half's tolerable good reading si'ce my uncle Toby rung the bell, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a horse, and go for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife; — so that no one can say, with reason, that I have not allowed Obadiah time enough, poetically speaking, and considering the emergency too, both to 2:0 and come ; — though morally and truly speaking the man, perhaps, has scarce had time to get on his boots. If the hypercritic will go upon this, and is resolved after all to take a pendulum, and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the OF TRISTRAM SHAXDY. 7f» bell and the rap at the door j — and, after finding it to be no more than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and three-fifths, — should take u))on him to insult over me for such a breach in the unity, or rather proba- bility of time ; — I would remind him that the idea of duration, and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of our ideas, — and is the true scholastic pendulum, — by which, as a scholar, I will be tried in this matter, — abjuring and detesting the jurisdiction of all other pendulums whatever. I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from Shandy-Hall to Dr. Slop, the man-midwife's house j — and that, whilst Obadiah has been going those said eight miles and back, I have brought my uncle Toby from Namur, quite across all Flanders into England j that I have had him ill upon my hands near four years; — and have since travelled him and Corporal Trim, in a chariot and four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into Yorkshire ; — all which put together must have prepared the reader's imagination for the entrance of Dr. Slop upon the stage, — as much, at least (I hope), as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts. If my hypercritic is untractable, — alleging that two minutes and thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds — when I have said all I can about them ; — and that this plea, though it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my book, from this very moment, a professed Romance, which before was a book apocryphal : If I am thus pressed — I then put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it, all at once, — by acquainting him that Obadiah had not got above three- score yards from the stable-yard before he met with Dr. Slop ; and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him, — and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too. Imagine to yourself. But this had better begin a new chapter. CHAPTER IX. Imagine to yourself a little, squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour -^ to a Serjeant in the Horse Guards. Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, which, .... if you have readLHogarth's Analysis of Beautvjand if you have not, I wish you would, — you must know may as certainly be caricatured, and con- veyed to the mind, by three strokes, as three hundred. Imagine such an one, — for, such I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebrae of a little diminutive pony, — of a pretty colour, — but of strength alack ! — scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition. They were not Imagine to yourself Obadiah 76 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way. Pray, sir, let me interest you a moment in this description. Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off posting in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that monstrous rate, — s[)lashing and plunging like a devil through thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a phenonjenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it round its axis — have been a subject of juster apprehension to Doctor Slop, in his situation, than the worst of Whiston's comets? .... to say nothing of the Nucleus, that is, of Obadiah and the coach-horse. ... in my idea the vortex alone of 'em was enough to have involved and carried, if not the Doctor, at least the Doctor's pony, quite away with it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily along towards Shandy-Hall, and had approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn made by an acute angle of the garden-wall, — and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane, when Obadiah and his coach-horse turned the corner, rapid, furious, — pop — full upon him '.-—Nothing, I think, in nature, can be supposed more terrible than such a rencounter, — so imprompt! so ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was. What could Dr. Slop do ? He crossed himself -j Pugh! But the doctor, sir, was a Papist No matter : he had better kept hold of the pommel He had so ; nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all 3 — for, in crossing himself, he let go his v.?hip; — and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle's skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup, — in losing which, he lost his seat : — and in the multitude of oil these losses (which, by the bye, shows what little advantage there is in crossing), the unfortunate Doctor lost his presence of mind. So that, without waiting for Obadiah's onset, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the style and man- ner of a pack of wool, and without any other consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have been) w th the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the mire. JjObadiah pulled off his cap twice to Dr. Slop j— once as he was falling J— and then again when he saw him seated Ill-timed complaisance! — had not the fellow better have stopped h s horse and got off and helped him ? Sir, he did all that his situation would allow — but the Momentum of the coach-horse was so great that Obadiah could not do it all at once 3. ... he rode in a circle three times round Dr. Slop, before he could fully accomplish it any how;, . . . and at the last, when he did stop his beast, it was done with such an explosion of mud that Obadiah had better been a league off. In short, never was a Doctor Slop so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came into fashioni OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. 77 CHAPTER X. When Dr. Slop entered the back-parlour, where my father and my uncle Toby were discoursing upon the nature of Women, — jt was hard to determine whether Dr. Slop's figure, or Dr. Slop's presence, occasioned more surprise to them ; for, as the accident happened so near the house as not to make 't worth while for Obadiah to re- mount him, — Obadiah had led him in as he was, un wiped, una- nointed, unaneled, wiih .ill his stains and blotches on him. . . . He stood, like Hamlet's ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a half, at tne parlour door (Obadiah still holding his hand), with all the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall, totally besmeared — and, in every other part of him, blotched over in such a manner with Obadiah's explosion, that you would have sworn (without mental reservation) ihat every grain of it had taken effect. Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle Toby to have triumphed over my father in his turn ; for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. Slop in that pickle, could have dissented from so much, at least, of my uncle Toby's opinion, "That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a Dr. Slop come so near her ****." But it was the Argumentum ad hominem ; and if my uncle Toby was not very expert at it, you may think he might not care to use it. . . . No j the reason was — it was not iiis nature to insult. Dr. Slop's presence, at that time, was no less problematical than the mode of it, though, it is certain one moment's reflection in my father might have solved it ; for he had apprised Dr. Slop, but the week before, that my mother was at her full reckoning ; and, as the Doctor had heard nothing since, it was natural and very political too in him to have a ride to Shandy-Hall, as he did, merely to see how matters went on. But my father's mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the investigation ; running, like the hypercritic's, altogether upon the ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, measuring their distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation as to have power to think of nothing else. . , . Common-place infirmity of the greatest mathematicians ! working with might and main at the demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it that they have none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with. The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise strong upon the sensorium of my uncle Toby, — but it excited a very different train of thoughts j the two irreconcileable pulsations instantly brought Stevinus, the great engineer, along with them, into my uncle Toby's mind.. ..What business Stevinus had in this affair is the greatest problem of allj.. .. it shall be solved, — but not in the next chapter. 78 THE LIFE AND OPIXIONS CHAPTER XI. Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is), is but a different "^me for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about, in ^ooJ company, would venture to talk all ; so no author, wlio understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all. The truest respect you can pay to the reader's understanding is to halve this matter aiiiicably, and leave him son\ething to imagine in his turn, as well as yourself. For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own. It is his turn now I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop's sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back- parlour ; his imagination must now go on with it for awhile. Let the reader imagine, then, that Dr. Slop has told his tale ; — and in what words, and with what aggravations his fancy chooses Let him suppose that Obadiah has told his tale also, and with sucli rueful lool