The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Laurence Sterne
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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For Heaven's sake keep out of that chapter, quoth Yorick.

--By all means--added Eugenius.

Chapter 2.LXIV.

--Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand with his fingers
spread upon his breast--had such a blunder about a christian-name happened
before the Reformation--(It happened the day before yesterday, quoth my
uncle Toby to himself)--and when baptism was administer'd in Latin--('Twas
all in English, said my uncle)--many things might have coincided with it,
and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the
baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name--Had a priest,
for instance, which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin
tongue, baptized a child of Tom-o'Stiles, in nomine patriae & filia &
spiritum sanctos--the baptism was held null.--I beg your pardon, replied
Kysarcius--in that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the
baptism was valid--and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest
should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun--and not, as in
your case, upon the last.

My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen'd with infinite
attention.

Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John
Stradling's in Gomine gatris, &c. &c. instead of in Nomine patris, &c.--Is
this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as much as the radix of
each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and
changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify a name, nor
gatris a father.--What do they signify? said my uncle Toby.--Nothing at
all--quoth Yorick.--Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius.--

In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part earnest.-
-

But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patriae is put for
patris, filia for filii, and so on--as it is a fault only in the
declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the inflections
of their branches either this way or that, does not in any sort hinder the
baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the words as before.--But
then, said Didius, the intention of the priest's pronouncing them
grammatically must have been proved to have gone along with it.--Right,
answered Kysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we have an instance in a
decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the IIId.--But my brother's child,
cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the Pope--'tis the plain child
of a Protestant gentleman, christen'd Tristram against the wills and wishes
both of his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.--

If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of
those only who stand related to Mr. Shandy's child, were to have weight in
this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in it.--My
uncle Toby lay'd down his pipe, and my father drew his chair still closer
to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an introduction.

--It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the (Vide
Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. para 8.) best lawyers and civilians in this
land, continued Kysarcius, 'Whether the mother be of kin to her child,'--
but, after much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on
all sides--it has been adjudged for the negative--namely, 'That the mother
is not of kin to her child.' (Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.)
My father instantly clapp'd his hand upon my uncle Toby's mouth, under
colour of whispering in his ear;--the truth was, he was alarmed for
Lillabullero--and having a great desire to hear more of so curious an
argument--he begg'd my uncle Toby, for heaven's sake, not to disappoint him
in it.--My uncle Toby gave a nod--resumed his pipe, and contenting himself
with whistling Lillabullero inwardly--Kysarcius, Didius, and Triptolemus
went on with the discourse as follows:

This determination, continued Kysarcius, how contrary soever it may seem to
run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side; and
has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous case, known
commonly by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's case.--It is cited in Brook,
said Triptolemus--And taken notice of by Lord Coke, added Didius.--And you
may find it in Swinburn on Testaments, said Kysarcius.

The case, Mr. Shandy, was this:

In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles duke of Suffolk having issue a
son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his last will,
wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose death the son
died also--but without will, without wife, and without child--his mother
and his sister by the father's side (for she was born of the former venter)
then living. The mother took the administration of her son's goods,
according to the statute of the 21st of Harry the Eighth, whereby it is
enacted, That in case any person die intestate the administration of his
goods shall be committed to the next of kin.

The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, the
sister by the father's side commenced a suit before the Ecclesiastical
Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; and 2dly, That the
mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; and therefore prayed
the court, that the administration granted to the mother might be revoked,
and be committed unto her, as next of kin to the deceased, by force of the
said statute.

Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its issue--and
many causes of great property likely to be decided in times to come, by the
precedent to be then made--the most learned, as well in the laws of this
realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, whether the mother was
of kin to her son, or no.--Whereunto not only the temporal lawyers--but the
church lawyers--the juris-consulti--the jurisprudentes--the civilians--the
advocates--the commissaries--the judges of the consistory and prerogative
courts of Canterbury and York, with the master of the faculties, were all
unanimously of opinion, That the mother was not of (Mater non numeratur
inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de Verb. signific.) kin to her
child.--

And what said the duchess of Suffolk to it? said my uncle Toby.

The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby's question, confounded Kysarcius more
than the ablest advocate--He stopp'd a full minute, looking in my uncle
Toby's face without replying--and in that single minute Triptolemus put by
him, and took the lead as follows.

'Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things do
not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt 'tis for this cause,
that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and seed of its
parents--that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of
it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by
the parents--For so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patris & matris,
sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine liberorum.

--But this, Triptolemus, cried Didius, proves too much--for from this
authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all
sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child--but the father
likewise.--It is held, said Triptolemus, the better opinion; because the
father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are
they but (una caro (Vide Brook Abridg. tit. Administr. N .47.)) one flesh;
and consequently no degree of kindred--or any method of acquiring one in
nature.--There you push the argument again too far, cried Didius--for there
is no prohibition in nature, though there is in the Levitical law--but that
a man may beget a child upon his grandmother--in which case, supposing the
issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both of--But who ever
thought, cried Kysarcius, of laying with his grandmother?--The young
gentleman, replied Yorick, whom Selden speaks of--who not only thought of
it, but justified his intention to his father by the argument drawn from
the law of retaliation.--'You laid, Sir, with my mother,' said the lad--
'why may not I lay with yours?'--'Tis the Argumentum commune, added
Yorick.--'Tis as good, replied Eugenius, taking down his hat, as they
deserve.

The company broke up.

Chapter 2.LXV.

--And pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, as he and my father
were helping him leisurely down the stairs--don't be terrified, madam, this
stair-case conversation is not so long as the last--And pray, Yorick, said
my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of Tristram at length settled
by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick; no mortal, Sir,
has any concern with it--for Mrs. Shandy the mother is nothing at all a-kin
to him--and as the mother's is the surest side--Mr. Shandy, in course is
still less than nothing--In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as
I am.--

--That may well be, said my father, shaking his head.

--Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle
Toby, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess of Suffolk
and her son.

The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth Yorick, to this hour.

Chapter 2.LXVI.

Though my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned
discourses--'twas still but like the anointing of a broken bone--The moment
he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so much
the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under
us.--He became pensive--walked frequently forth to the fish-pond--let down
one loop of his hat--sigh'd often--forbore to snap--and, as the hasty
sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and
digestion, as Hippocrates tells us--he had certainly fallen ill with the
extinction of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his
health rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of
a thousand pounds, by my aunt Dinah.

My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right
end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out
mostly to the honour of his family.--A hundred-and-fifty odd projects took
possession of his brains by turns--he would do this, and that and t'other--
He would go to Rome--he would go to law--he would buy stock--he would buy
John Hobson's farm--he would new fore front his house, and add a new wing
to make it even--There was a fine water-mill on this side, and he would
build a wind-mill on the other side of the river in full view to answer it-
-But above all things in the world, he would inclose the great Ox-moor, and
send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels.

But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thing--and
in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the projects which
offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the
deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at
once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put
him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the one or the other.

This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though 'tis certain my
father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my
brother's education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to
carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the second
creation of actions in the Missisippi-scheme, in which he was an
adventurer--yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained,
unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a
claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning
it likewise to some account.

But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things,
as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their
claims--like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical
examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project
at this crisis--the two old projects, the Ox-moor and my Brother, divided
him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the
occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mind--which of the two
should be set o'going first.

--People may laugh as they will--but the case was this.

It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost
become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should have free
ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage--not only
for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise
and change of so much air--but simply for the mere delectation of his
fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been abroad--tantum
valet, my father would say, quantum sonat.

Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgence--to
deprive him of it, without why or wherefore--and thereby make an example of
him, as the first Shandy unwhirl'd about Europe in a post-chaise, and only
because he was a heavy lad--would be using him ten times worse than a Turk.

On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard.

Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds--
it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about
fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation.

It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy-family ever since the
middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the
house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by the
projected wind-mill spoken of above--and for all these reasons seemed to
have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection
of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as
the ground they tread on--it had all along most shamefully been overlook'd;
and to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would
have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value
of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.

However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground--nor indeed the
placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my
father's doing--he had never thought himself any way concerned in the
affair--till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed
law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries)--which
being altogether my father's own act and deed, it naturally awakened every
other argument in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he
saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something
for it--and that now or never was the time.

I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, that
the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by each
other; for though my father weigh'd them in all humours and conditions--
spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and abstracted meditation
upon what was best to be done--reading books of farming one day--books of
travels another--laying aside all passion whatever--viewing the arguments
on both sides in all their lights and circumstances--communing every day
with my uncle Toby--arguing with Yorick, and talking over the whole affair
of the Ox-moor with Obadiah--yet nothing in all that time appeared so
strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable to
the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of
equal weight, as to keep the scales even.

For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho' the
Ox-moor would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the world
from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay--yet every
tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother Bobby--let Obadiah say
what he would.--

In point of interest--the contest, I own, at first sight, did not appear so
undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand,
and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and burning, and
fencing in the Ox-moor, &c. &c.--with the certain profit it would bring him
in return--the latter turned out so prodigiously in his way of working the
account, that you would have sworn the Ox-moor would have carried all
before it. For it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at
twenty pounds a last, the very first year--besides an excellent crop of
wheat the year following--and the year after that, to speak within bounds,
a hundred--but in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty--if not two hundred
quarters of pease and beans--besides potatoes without end.--But then, to
think he was all this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat them-
-knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in
such a state of suspense--that, as he often declared to my uncle Toby--he
knew no more than his heels what to do.

No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is
to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both
obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for to say
nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made
by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which you know convey the
animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart to the head, and so
on--it is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction
works upon the more gross and solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing
the strength of a man every time as it goes backwards and forwards.

My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done
under that of my Christian Name--had he not been rescued out of it, as he
was out of that, by a fresh evil--the misfortune of my brother Bobby's
death.

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?--from
sorrow to sorrow?--to button up one cause of vexation--and unbutton
another?

Chapter 2.LXVII.

From this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the Shandy
family--and it is from this point properly, that the story of my Life and
my Opinions sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have but been
clearing the ground to raise the building--and such a building do I foresee
it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was executed since
Adam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire,
and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of
my ink-horn, after it--I have but half a score things to do in the time--I
have a thing to name--a thing to lament--a thing to hope--a thing to
promise, and a thing to threaten--I have a thing to suppose--a thing to
declare--a thing to conceal--a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for--
This chapter, therefore, I name the chapter of Things--and my next chapter
to it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my
chapter upon Whiskers, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my
works.

The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I
have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards which I have
all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is the
Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby, the events of which
are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so
manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other brain,
which the occurrences themselves excite in my own--I will answer for it the
book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done
before it.--Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once brought about--the
credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many
evils will have befallen thee as a man--thou wilt feast upon the one--when
thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!--

No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours--They are the
choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at 'em--assure
yourselves, good folks--(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes
offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words!--and
that's the thing I have to declare.--I shall never get all through in five
minutes, that I fear--and the thing I hope is, that your worships and
reverences are not offended--if you are, depend upon't I'll give you
something, my good gentry, next year to be offended at--that's my dear
Jenny's way--but who my Jenny is--and which is the right and which the
wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealed--it shall be told you in
the next chapter but one to my chapter of Button-holes--and not one chapter
before.

And now that you have just got to the end of these (According to the
preceding Editions.) three volumes--the thing I have to ask is, how you
feel your heads? my own akes dismally!--as for your healths, I know, they
are much better.--True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the
heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature,
it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely
through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully
round.

Was I left, like Sancho Panca, to choose my kingdom, it should not be
maritime--or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of;--no, it should be a
kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more saturnine
passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have as bad an
influence, I see, upon the body politick as body natural--and as nothing
but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passions, and subject them to
reason--I should add to my prayer--that God would give my subjects grace to
be as Wise as they were Merry; and then should I be the happiest monarch,
and they are the happiest people under heaven.

And so with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and
your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, when,
(unless this vile cough kills me in the mean time) I'll have another pluck
at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you little dream of.

End of the Second Volume.

Volume the Third.

Dixero si quid forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis.--Hor.

--Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut mordacius quam
deceat Christianum--non Ego, sed Democritus dixit.--Erasmus.

Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, sciebat,
anathema esto. Second Council of Carthage.

To the Right Honorable John, Lord Viscount Spencer.

My Lord,

I Humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes (Volumes V. and VI. in
the first Edition.); they are the best my talents, with such bad health as
I have, could produce:--had Providence granted me a larger stock of either,
they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.

I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate this
work to you, I join Lady Spencer, in the liberty I take of inscribing the
story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other motive, which my
heart has informed me of, but that the story is a humane one.

I am, My Lord, Your Lordship's most devoted and most humble Servant,

Laur. Sterne.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.

Chapter 3.I.

If it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a
postillion who drove them from Stilton to Stamford, the thought had never
entered my head. He flew like lightning--there was a slope of three miles
and a half--we scarce touched the ground--the motion was most rapid--most
impetuous--'twas communicated to my brain--my heart partook of it--'By the
great God of day,' said I, looking towards the sun, and thrusting my arm
out of the fore-window of the chaise, as I made my vow, 'I will lock up my
study-door the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below
the surface of the earth, into the draw-well at the back of my house.'

The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon the
hill, scarce progressive, drag'd--drag'd up by eight heavy beasts--'by main
strength!--quoth I, nodding--but your betters draw the same way--and
something of every body's!--O rare!'

Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk--so
little to the stock?

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by
pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever in
the same track--for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as
working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning, as monks do the
relicks of their saints--without working one--one single miracle with them?

Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a moment--
that great, that most excellent, and most noble creature of the world--the
miracle of nature, as Zoroaster in his book (Greek) called him--the
Shekinah of the divine presence, as Chrysostom--the image of God, as Moses-
-the ray of divinity, as Plato--the marvel of marvels, as Aristotle--to go
sneaking on at this pitiful--pimping--pettifogging rate?

I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasion--but if there is no
catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that every
imitator in Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for his
pains; and that there was a good farcical house, large enough to hold--aye-
-and sublimate them, shag rag and bob-tail, male and female, all together:
and this leads me to the affair of Whiskers--but, by what chain of ideas--I
leave as a legacy in mort-main to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the
most of.

Upon Whiskers.

I'm sorry I made it--'twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a
man's head--A chapter upon whiskers! alas! the world will not bear it--'tis
a delicate world--but I knew not of what mettle it was made--nor had I ever
seen the under-written fragment; otherwise, as surely as noses are noses,
and whiskers are whiskers still (let the world say what it will to the
contrary); so surely would I have steered clear of this dangerous chapter.

The Fragment.

. . .--You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking
hold of the old lady's hand, and giving it a gentle squeeze, as he
pronounced the word Whiskers--shall we change the subject? By no means,
replied the old lady--I like your account of those matters; so throwing a
thin gauze handkerchief over her head, and leaning it back upon the chair
with her face turned towards him, and advancing her two feet as she
reclined herself--I desire, continued she, you will go on.

The old gentleman went on as follows:--Whiskers! cried the queen of
Navarre, dropping her knotting ball, as La Fosseuse uttered the word--
Whiskers, madam, said La Fosseuse, pinning the ball to the queen's apron,
and making a courtesy as she repeated it.

La Fosseuse's voice was naturally soft and low, yet 'twas an articulate
voice: and every letter of the word Whiskers fell distinctly upon the
queen of Navarre's ear--Whiskers! cried the queen, laying a greater stress
upon the word, and as if she had still distrusted her ears--Whiskers!
replied La Fosseuse, repeating the word a third time--There is not a
cavalier, madam, of his age in Navarre, continued the maid of honour,
pressing the page's interest upon the queen, that has so gallant a pair--Of
what? cried Margaret, smiling--Of whiskers, said La Fosseuse, with infinite
modesty.

The word Whiskers still stood its ground, and continued to be made use of
in most of the best companies throughout the little kingdom of Navarre,
notwithstanding the indiscreet use which La Fosseuse had made of it: the
truth was, La Fosseuse had pronounced the word, not only before the queen,
but upon sundry other occasions at court, with an accent which always
implied something of a mystery--And as the court of Margaret, as all the
world knows, was at that time a mixture of gallantry and devotion--and
whiskers being as applicable to the one, as the other, the word naturally
stood its ground--it gained full as much as it lost; that is, the clergy
were for it--the laity were against it--and for the women,--they were
divided.

The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur De Croix, was at
that time beginning to draw the attention of the maids of honour towards
the terrace before the palace gate, where the guard was mounted. The lady
De Baussiere fell deeply in love with him,--La Battarelle did the same--it
was the finest weather for it, that ever was remembered in Navarre--La
Guyol, La Maronette, La Sabatiere, fell in love with the Sieur De Croix
also--La Rebours and La Fosseuse knew better--De Croix had failed in an
attempt to recommend himself to La Rebours; and La Rebours and La Fosseuse
were inseparable.

The queen of Navarre was sitting with her ladies in the painted bow-window,
facing the gate of the second court, as De Croix passed through it--He is
handsome, said the Lady Baussiere--He has a good mien, said La Battarelle--
He is finely shaped, said La Guyol--I never saw an officer of the horse-
guards in my life, said La Maronette, with two such legs--Or who stood so
well upon them, said La Sabatiere--But he has no whiskers, cried La
Fosseuse--Not a pile, said La Rebours.

The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as she walked
through the gallery, upon the subject; turning it this way and that way in
her fancy--Ave Maria!--what can La-Fosseuse mean? said she, kneeling down
upon the cushion.

La Guyol, La Battarelle, La Maronette, La Sabatiere, retired instantly to
their chambers--Whiskers! said all four of them to themselves, as they
bolted their doors on the inside.

The Lady Carnavallette was counting her beads with both hands, unsuspected,
under her farthingal--from St. Antony down to St. Ursula inclusive, not a
saint passed through her fingers without whiskers; St. Francis, St.
Dominick, St. Bennet, St. Basil, St. Bridget, had all whiskers.

The Lady Baussiere had got into a wilderness of conceits, with moralizing
too intricately upon La Fosseuse's text--She mounted her palfrey, her page
followed her--the host passed by--the Lady Baussiere rode on.

One denier, cried the order of mercy--one single denier, in behalf of a
thousand patient captives, whose eyes look towards heaven and you for their
redemption.

--The Lady Baussiere rode on.

Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly
holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered hands--I beg for the
unfortunate--good my Lady, 'tis for a prison--for an hospital--'tis for an
old man--a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by fire--I call God
and all his angels to witness--'tis to clothe the naked--to feed the
hungry--'tis to comfort the sick and the broken-hearted.

The Lady Baussiere rode on.

A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground.

--The Lady Baussiere rode on.

He ran begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by the
former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, &c.--Cousin, aunt,
sister, mother,--for virtue's sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ's
sake, remember me--pity me.

--The Lady Baussiere rode on.

Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady Baussiere--The page took hold of
her palfrey. She dismounted at the end of the terrace.

There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves
about our eyes and eye-brows; and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere
about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the stronger--we
see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary.

Ha, ha! he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere, looking close at each
other's prints--Ho, ho! cried La Battarelle and Maronette, doing the same:-
-Whist! cried one--ft, ft,--said a second--hush, quoth a third--poo, poo,
replied a fourth--gramercy! cried the Lady Carnavallette;--'twas she who
bewhisker'd St. Bridget.

La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced
the outline of a small whisker, with the blunt end of it, upon one side of
her upper lip, put in into La Rebours' hand--La Rebours shook her head.

The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her muff--La Guyol
smiled--Fy, said the Lady Baussiere. The queen of Navarre touched her eye
with the tip of her fore-finger--as much as to say, I understand you all.

'Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La Fosseuse had given
it a wound, and it was not the better for passing through all these
defiles--It made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by the
expiration of which, the Sieur De Croix, finding it high time to leave
Navarre for want of whiskers--the word in course became indecent, and
(after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.

The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have suffered
under such combinations.--The curate of d'Estella wrote a book against
them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the
Navarois against them.

Does not all the world know, said the curate d'Estella at the conclusion of
his work, that Noses ran the same fate some centuries ago in most parts of
Europe, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom of Navarre?--The evil
indeed spread no farther then--but have not beds and bolsters, and night-
caps and chamber-pots stood upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are
not trouse, and placket-holes, and pump-handles--and spigots and faucets,
in danger still from the same association?--Chastity, by nature, the
gentlest of all affections--give it but its head--'tis like a ramping and a
roaring lion.

The drift of the curate d'Estella's argument was not understood.--They ran
the scent the wrong way.--The world bridled his ass at the tail.--And when
the extremes of Delicacy, and the beginnings of Concupiscence, hold their
next provincial chapter together, they may decree that bawdy also.

Chapter 3.II.

When my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy account
of my brother Bobby's death, he was busy calculating the expence of his
riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyons.

'Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it to
travel over again, and his calculation to begin afresh, when he had almost
got to the end of it, by Obadiah's opening the door to acquaint him the
family was out of yeast--and to ask whether he might not take the great
coach-horse early in the morning and ride in search of some.--With all my
heart, Obadiah, said my father (pursuing his journey)--take the coach-
horse, and welcome.--But he wants a shoe, poor creature! said Obadiah.--
Poor creature! said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back again, like a
string in unison. Then ride the Scotch horse, quoth my father hastily.--He
cannot bear a saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole world.--
The devil's in that horse; then take Patriot, cried my father, and shut the
door.--Patriot is sold, said Obadiah. Here's for you! cried my father,
making a pause, and looking in my uncle Toby's face, as if the thing had
not been a matter of fact.--Your worship ordered me to sell him last April,
said Obadiah.--Then go on foot for your pains, cried my father--I had much
rather walk than ride, said Obadiah, shutting the door.

What plagues, cried my father, going on with his calculation.--But the
waters are out, said Obadiah,--opening the door again.

Till that moment, my father, who had a map of Sanson's, and a book of the
post-roads before him, had kept his hand upon the head of his compasses,
with one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage he had paid for--
purposing to go on from that point with his journey and calculation, as
soon as Obadiah quitted the room: but this second attack of Obadiah's, in
opening the door and laying the whole country under water, was too much.--
He let go his compasses--or rather with a mixed motion between accident and
anger, he threw them upon the table; and then there was nothing for him to
do, but to return back to Calais (like many others) as wise as he had set
out.

When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news of
my brother's death, my father had got forwards again upon his journey to
within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of Nevers.--By your
leave, Mons. Sanson, cried my father, striking the point of his compasses
through Nevers into the table--and nodding to my uncle Toby to see what was
in the letter--twice of one night, is too much for an English gentleman and
his son, Mons. Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a town as Nevers--
What think'st thou, Toby? added my father in a sprightly tone.--Unless it
be a garrison town, said my uncle Toby--for then--I shall be a fool, said
my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live.--So giving a second nod--
and keeping his compasses still upon Nevers with one hand, and holding his
book of the post-roads in the other--half calculating and half listening,
he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my uncle Toby hummed
over the letter.

. . .he's gone! said my uncle Toby--Where--Who? cried my father.--My
nephew, said my uncle Toby.--What--without leave--without money--without
governor? cried my father in amazement. No:--he is dead, my dear brother,
quoth my uncle Toby.--Without being ill? cried my father again.--I dare say
not, said my uncle Toby, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the
bottom of his heart, he has been ill enough, poor lad! I'll answer for
him--for he is dead.

When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, that, not
being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off
her work--My father stuck his compasses into Nevers, but so much the
faster.--What contrarieties! his, indeed, was matter of calculation!--
Agrippina's must have been quite a different affair; who else could pretend
to reason from history?

How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.--

Chapter 3.III.

. . .--And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too--so look to
yourselves.

'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or
Theophrastus, or Lucian--or some one perhaps of later date--either Cardan,
or Budaeus, or Petrarch, or Stella--or possibly it may be some divine or
father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms
that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our
friends or children--and Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere, that
such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel--And
accordingly we find, that David wept for his son Absalom--Adrian for his
Antinous--Niobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed
tears for Socrates before his death.

My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from
most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the
Hebrews and the Romans--or slept it off, as the Laplanders--or hanged it,
as the English, or drowned it, as the Germans,--nor did he curse it, or
damn it, or excommunicate it, or rhyme it, or lillabullero it.--

--He got rid of it, however.

Will your worships give me leave to squeeze in a story between these two
pages?

When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia, at first he laid it to
his heart,--he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto
it.--O my Tullia! my daughter! my child!--still, still, still,--'twas O my
Tullia!--my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk
with my Tullia.--But as soon as he began to look into the stores of
philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the
occasion--no body upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how
happy, how joyful it made me.

My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullius Cicero could be
for his life, and, for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present,
with as much reason: it was indeed his strength--and his weakness too.--
His strength--for he was by nature eloquent; and his weakness--for he was
hourly a dupe to it; and, provided an occasion in life would but permit him
to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one--
(bating the case of a systematic misfortune)--he had all he wanted.--A
blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it
loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the
misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of
the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune but as five--my
father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if
it had never befallen him.

This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my
father's domestic character; and it is this, that, in the provocations
arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps
unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally
ran counter to all conjecture.

My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a
most beautiful Arabian horse, in order to have a pad out of her for his own
riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every
day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke,--and
bridled and saddled at his door ready for mounting. By some neglect or
other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father's expectations were
answered with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind
as ever was produced.

My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of
Obadiah--and that there never would be an end of the disaster--See here!
you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have done!--It
was not me, said Obadiah.--How do I know that? replied my father.

Triumph swam in my father's eyes, at the repartee--the Attic salt brought
water into them--and so Obadiah heard no more about it.

Now let us go back to my brother's death.

Philosophy has a fine saying for every thing.--For Death it has an entire
set; the misery was, they all at once rushed into my father's head, that
'twas difficult to string them together, so as to make any thing of a
consistent show out of them.--He took them as they came.

''Tis an inevitable chance--the first statute in Magna Charta--it is an
everlasting act of parliament, my dear brother,--All must die.

'If my son could not have died, it had been matter of wonder,--not that he
is dead.

'Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring with us.

'--To die, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and
monuments, which should perpetuate our memories, pay it themselves; and the
proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have erected, has
lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon.'  (My
father found he got great ease, and went on)--'Kingdoms and provinces, and
towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when those principles
and powers, which at first cemented and put them together, have performed
their several evolutions, they fall back.'--Brother Shandy, said my uncle
Toby, laying down his pipe at the word evolutions--Revolutions, I meant,
quoth my father,--by heaven! I meant revolutions, brother Toby--evolutions
is nonsense.--'Tis not nonsense--said my uncle Toby.--But is it not
nonsense to break the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion?
cried my father--do not--dear Toby, continued he, taking him by the hand,
do not--do not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.--My uncle Toby
put his pipe into his mouth.

'Where is Troy and Mycenae, and Thebes and Delos, and Persepolis and
Agrigentum?'--continued my father, taking up his book of post-roads, which
he had laid down.--'What is become, brother Toby, of Nineveh and Babylon,
of Cizicum and Mitylenae? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon,
are now no more; the names only are left, and those (for many of them are
wrong spelt) are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length
of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual
night: the world itself, brother Toby, must--must come to an end.

'Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara,' (when
can this have been? thought my uncle Toby,) ' I began to view the country
round about. Aegina was behind me, Megara was before, Pyraeus on the right
hand, Corinth on the left.--What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the
earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for
the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his
presence--Remember, said I to myself again--remember thou art a man.'--

Now my uncle Toby knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of
Servius Sulpicius's consolatory letter to Tully.--He had as little skill,
honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity.--
And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the Turkey trade, had been
three or four different times in the Levant, in one of which he had stayed
a whole year and an half at Zant, my uncle Toby naturally concluded, that,
in some one of these periods, he had taken a trip across the Archipelago
into Asia; and that all this sailing affair with Aegina behind, and Megara
before, and Pyraeus on the right hand, &c. &c. was nothing more than the
true course of my father's voyage and reflections.--'Twas certainly in his
manner, and many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher
upon worse foundations.--And pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, laying the
end of his pipe upon my father's hand in a kindly way of interruption--but
waiting till he finished the account--what year of our Lord was this?--
'Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father.--That's impossible, cried my
uncle Toby.--Simpleton! said my father,--'twas forty years before Christ
was born.

My uncle Toby had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother to
be the wandering Jew, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain.--
'May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him!' said my
uncle Toby, praying silently for my father, and with tears in his eyes.

--My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his
harangue with great spirit.

'There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil, as the
world imagines'--(this way of setting off, by the bye, was not likely to
cure my uncle Toby's suspicions).--'Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want,
and woe, are the sauces of life.'--Much good may do them--said my uncle
Toby to himself.--

'My son is dead!--so much the better;--'tis a shame in such a tempest to
have but one anchor.

'But he is gone for ever from us!--be it so. He is got from under the
hands of his barber before he was bald--he is but risen from a feast before
he was surfeited--from a banquet before he had got drunken.

'The Thracians wept when a child was born,'--(and we were very near it,
quoth my uncle Toby,)--'and feasted and made merry when a man went out of
the world; and with reason.--Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the
gate of envy after it,--it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the
bondsman's task into another man's hands.

'Shew me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I'll shew thee
a prisoner who dreads his liberty.'

Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for mark--our appetites are but
diseases,)--is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?--not to
thirst, than to take physic to cure it?

Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and
melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled
traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey
afresh?

There is no terrour, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from
groans and convulsions--and the blowing of noses and the wiping away of
tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man's room.--Strip it of
these, what is it?--'Tis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle Toby.-
-Take away its hearses, its mutes, and its mourning,--its plumes,
scutcheons, and other mechanic aids--What is it?--Better in battle!
continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother
Bobby--'tis terrible no way--for consider, brother Toby,--when we are--
death is not;--and when death is--we are not. My uncle Toby laid down his
pipe to consider the proposition; my father's eloquence was too rapid to
stay for any man--away it went,--and hurried my uncle Toby's ideas along
with it.--

For this reason, continued my father, 'tis worthy to recollect, how little
alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made.--Vespasian
died in a jest upon his close-stool--Galba with a sentence--Septimus
Severus in a dispatch--Tiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a
compliment.--I hope 'twas a sincere one--quoth my uncle Toby.

--'Twas to his wife,--said my father.

Chapter 3.IV.

--And lastly--for all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of
this matter, continued my father,--this, like the gilded dome which covers
in the fabric--crowns all.--

'Tis of Cornelius Gallus, the praetor--which, I dare say, brother Toby, you
have read.--I dare say I have not, replied my uncle.--He died, said my
father as. . .--And if it was with his wife, said my uncle Toby--there
could be no hurt in it.-- That's more than I know--replied my father.

Chapter 3.V.

My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which led
to the parlour, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word wife.--'Tis a shrill
penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it by leaving the door
a little a-jar, so that my mother heard enough of it to imagine herself the
subject of the conversation; so laying the edge of her finger across her
two lips--holding in her breath, and bending her head a little downwards,
with a twist of her neck--(not towards the door, but from it, by which
means her ear was brought to the chink)--she listened with all her powers:-
-the listening slave, with the Goddess of Silence at his back, could not
have given a finer thought for an intaglio.

In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till I
bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as Rapin does those of the church) to
the same period.

Chapter 3.VI.

Though in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it
consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it, that
these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted one
upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and impulses--that
though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour and advantages of a
complex one,--and a number of as odd movements within it, as ever were
beheld in the inside of a Dutch silk-mill.

Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, it
was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this, that
whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was
going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same
time, and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the
kitchen.

Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was
delivered in the parlour--or a discourse suspended till a servant went out-
-or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my
father or mother--or, in short, when any thing was supposed to be upon the
tapis worth knowing or listening to, 'twas the rule to leave the door, not
absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar--as it stands just now,--which, under
covert of the bad hinge, (and that possibly might be one of the many
reasons why it was never mended,) it was not difficult to manage; by which
means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left, not indeed as wide
as the Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of
this windward trade, as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of
governing his house;--my mother at this moment stands profiting by it.--
Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the
table which brought the news of my brother's death, so that before my
father had well got over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue,--had
Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.

A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Job's
stock--though by the bye, your curious observers are seldom worth a groat--
would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim and my father,
two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same
bier.

My father--a man of deep reading--prompt memory--with Cato, and Seneca, and
Epictetus, at his fingers ends.--

The corporal--with nothing--to remember--of no deeper reading than his
muster-roll--or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of it.

The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and
striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with the
entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.

The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that;
but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, going
straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to
heaven thou had'st a better historian!--would!--thy historian had a better
pair of breeches!--O ye critics! will nothing melt you?

Chapter 3.VII.

--My young master in London is dead? said Obadiah.--

--A green sattin night-gown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured,
was the first idea which Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susannah's
head.--Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections of words.--
Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning.--But note a second
time: the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself--
failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged
either with grey or black,--all was green.--The green sattin night-gown
hung there still.

--O! 'twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried Susannah.--My mother's
whole wardrobe followed.--What a procession! her red damask,--her orange
tawney,--her white and yellow lutestrings,--her brown taffata,--her bone-
laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats.--Not a rag was
left behind.--'No,--she will never look up again,' said Susannah.

We had a fat, foolish scullion--my father, I think, kept her for her
simplicity;--she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.--He is dead,
said Obadiah,--he is certainly dead!--So am not I, said the foolish
scullion.

--Here is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp'd
into the kitchen,--master Bobby is dead and buried--the funeral was an
interpolation of Susannah's--we shall have all to go into mourning, said
Susannah.

I hope not, said Trim.--You hope not! cried Susannah earnestly.--The
mourning ran not in Trim's head, whatever it did in Susannah's.--I hope--
said Trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard
the letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall have a
terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the ox-moor.--Oh! he's dead, said
Susannah.--As sure, said the scullion, as I'm alive.

I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said Trim, fetching a sigh.--
Poor creature!--poor boy!--poor gentleman!

--He was alive last Whitsontide! said the coachman.--Whitsontide! alas!
cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same
attitude in which he read the sermon,--what is Whitsontide, Jonathan (for
that was the coachman's name), or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to
this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his
stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and
stability)--and are we not--(dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a
moment!--'Twas infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears.-
-We are not stocks and stones.--Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all
melted.--The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle
upon her knees, was rous'd with it.--The whole kitchen crowded about the
corporal.

Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in
church and state,--and possibly the preservation of the whole world--or
what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and
power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of
this stroke of the corporal's eloquence--I do demand your attention--your
worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you
will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.

I said, 'we were not stocks and stones'--'tis very well. I should have
added, nor are we angels, I wish we were,--but men clothed with bodies, and
governed by our imaginations;--and what a junketing piece of work of it
there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for
my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm,
that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch, though
most of your Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with
the soul,--gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible
upon the fancy, than words can either convey--or sometimes get rid of.

--I've gone a little about--no matter, 'tis for health--let us only carry
it back in our mind to the mortality of Trim's hat--'Are we not here now,--
and gone in a moment?'--There was nothing in the sentence--'twas one of
your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if
Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head--he made nothing at all
of it.

--'Are we not here now;' continued the corporal, 'and are we not'--
(dropping his hat plumb upon the ground--and pausing, before he pronounced
the word)--'gone! in a moment?'  The descent of the hat was as if a heavy
lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.--Nothing could have
expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and fore-
runner, like it,--his hand seemed to vanish from under it,--it fell dead,--
the corporal's eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse,--and Susannah burst
into a flood of tears.

Now--Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and
motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the
ground, without any effect.--Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or
skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible
direction under heaven,--or in the best direction that could be given to
it,--had he dropped it like a goose--like a puppy--like an ass--or in doing
it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool--like a ninny--
like a nincompoop--it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been
lost.

Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines of
eloquence,--who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it,--and
then harden it again to your purpose--

Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having
done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet.

Ye, lastly, who drive--and why not, Ye also who are driven, like turkeys to
market with a stick and a red clout--meditate--meditate, I beseech you,
upon Trim's hat.

Chapter 3.VIII.

Stay--I have a small account to settle with the reader before Trim can go
on with his harangue.--It shall be done in two minutes.

Amongst many other book-debts, all of which I shall discharge in due time,-
-I own myself a debtor to the world for two items,--a chapter upon chamber-
maids and button-holes, which, in the former part of my work, I promised
and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of your worships and
reverences telling me, that the two subjects, especially so connected
together, might endanger the morals of the world,--I pray the chapter upon
chamber-maids and button-holes may be forgiven me,--and that they will
accept of the last chapter in lieu of it; which is nothing, an't please
your reverences, but a chapter of chamber-maids, green gowns, and old hats.

Trim took his hat off the ground,--put it upon his head,--and then went on
with his oration upon death, in manner and form following.

Chapter 3.IX.

--To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care is--who live here in the
service of two of the best of masters--(bating in my own case his majesty
King William the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both in Ireland and
Flanders)--I own it, that from Whitsontide to within three weeks of
Christmas,--'tis not long--'tis like nothing;--but to those, Jonathan, who
know what death is, and what havock and destruction he can make, before a
man can well wheel about--'tis like a whole age.--O Jonathan! 'twould make
a good-natured man's heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal
(standing perpendicularly), how low many a brave and upright fellow has
been laid since that time!--And trust me, Susy, added the corporal, turning
to Susannah, whose eyes were swimming in water,--before that time comes
round again,--many a bright eye will be dim.--Susannah placed it to the
right side of the page--she wept--but she court'sied too.--Are we not,
continued Trim, looking still at Susannah--are we not like a flower of the
field--a tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation--
else no tongue could have described Susannah's affliction--is not all flesh
grass?--Tis clay,--'tis dirt.--They all looked directly at the scullion,--
the scullion had just been scouring a fish-kettle.--It was not fair.--

--What is the finest face that ever man looked at!--I could hear Trim talk
so for ever, cried Susannah,--what is it! (Susannah laid her hand upon
Trim's shoulder)--but corruption?--Susannah took it off.

Now I love you for this--and 'tis this delicious mixture within you which
makes you dear creatures what you are--and he who hates you for it--all I
can say of the matter is--That he has either a pumpkin for his head--or a
pippin for his heart,--and whenever he is dissected 'twill be found so.

Chapter 3.X.

Whether Susannah, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the corporal's
shoulder (by the whisking about of her passions)--broke a little the chain
of his reflexions--

Or whether the corporal began to be suspicious, he had got into the
doctor's quarters, and was talking more like the chaplain than himself--

Or whether. . .Or whether--for in all such cases a man of invention and
parts may with pleasure fill a couple of pages with suppositions--which of
all these was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curious any
body determine--'tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his
harangue.

For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at
all:--not this. . .added the corporal, snapping his fingers,--but with an
air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.--In
battle, I value death not this. . .and let him not take me cowardly, like
poor Joe Gibbins, in scouring his gun.--What is he? A pull of a trigger--a
push of a bayonet an inch this way or that--makes the difference.--Look
along the line--to the right--see! Jack's down! well,--'tis worth a
regiment of horse to him.--No--'tis Dick. Then Jack's no worse.--Never
mind which,--we pass on,--in hot pursuit the wound itself which brings him
is not felt,--the best way is to stand up to him,--the man who flies, is in
ten times more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws.--I've
look'd him, added the corporal, an hundred times in the face,--and know
what he is.--He's nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field.--But he's very
frightful in a house, quoth Obadiah.--I never mind it myself, said
Jonathan, upon a coach-box.--It must, in my opinion, be most natural in
bed, replied Susannah.--And could I escape him by creeping into the worst
calf's skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it there--said
Trim--but that is nature.

--Nature is nature, said Jonathan.--And that is the reason, cried Susannah,
I so much pity my mistress.--She will never get the better of it.--Now I
pity the captain the most of any one in the family, answered Trim.--Madam
will get ease of heart in weeping,--and the Squire in talking about it,--
but my poor master will keep it all in silence to himself.--I shall hear
him sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did for lieutenant Le
Fever. An' please your honour, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to
him as I laid besides him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would say,--
'tis so melancholy an accident--I cannot get it off my heart.--Your honour
fears not death yourself.--I hope, Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but
the doing a wrong thing.--Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take
care of Le Fever's boy.--And with that, like a quieting draught, his honour
would fall asleep.

I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain, said Susannah.--He is a
kindly-hearted gentleman, said Obadiah, as ever lived.--Aye, and as brave a
one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a platoon.--There never
was a better officer in the king's army,--or a better man in God's world;
for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted
match at the very touch-hole,--and yet, for all that, he has a heart as
soft as a child for other people.--He would not hurt a chicken.--I would
sooner, quoth Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year--
than some for eight.--Thank thee, Jonathan! for thy twenty shillings,--as
much, Jonathan, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou
hadst put the money into my own pocket.--I would serve him to the day of my
death out of love. He is a friend and a brother to me,--and could I be
sure my poor brother Tom was dead,--continued the corporal, taking out his
handkerchief,--was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every
shilling of it to the captain.--Trim could not refrain from tears at this
testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master.--The whole
kitchen was affected.--Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said
Susannah.--With all my heart, answered the corporal.

Susannah, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and corporal Trim, formed a circle
about the fire; and as soon as the scullion had shut the kitchen door,--the
corporal begun.

Chapter 3.XI.

I am a Turk if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had
plaistered me up, and set me down naked upon the banks of the river Nile,
without one.--Your most obedient servant, Madam--I've cost you a great deal
of trouble,--I wish it may answer;--but you have left a crack in my back,--
and here's a great piece fallen off here before,--and what must I do with
this foot?--I shall never reach England with it.

For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;--and so often has my judgment
deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,--at least
I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as
much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by
the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both
lost, and can neither of us do well without,--I'll go to the world's end
with him:--But I hate disputes,--and therefore (bating religious points, or
such as touch society) I would almost subscribe to any thing which does not
choak me in the first passage, rather than be drawn into one--But I cannot
bear suffocation,--and bad smells worst of all.--For which reasons, I
resolved from the beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to be
augmented,--or a new one raised,--I would have no hand in it, one way or
t'other.

Chapter 3.XII.

--But to return to my mother.

My uncle Toby's opinion, Madam, 'that there could be no harm in Cornelius
Gallus, the Roman praetor's lying with his wife;'--or rather the last word
of that opinion,--(for it was all my mother heard of it) caught hold of her
by the weak part of the whole sex:--You shall not mistake me,--I mean her
curiosity,--she instantly concluded herself the subject of the
conversation, and with that prepossession upon her fancy, you will readily
conceive every word my father said, was accommodated either to herself, or
her family concerns.

--Pray, Madam, in what street does the lady live, who would not have done
the same?

From the strange mode of Cornelius's death, my father had made a transition
to that of Socrates, and was giving my uncle Toby an abstract of his
pleading before his judges;--'twas irresistible:--not the oration of
Socrates,--but my father's temptation to it.--He had wrote the Life of
Socrates (This book my father would never consent to publish; 'tis in
manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family, all, or most of
which will be printed in due time.) himself the year before he left off
trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it;--so that no
one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling a tide of
heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in
Socrates's oration, which closed with a shorter word than transmigration,
or annihilation,--or a worse thought in the middle of it than to be--or not
to be,--the entering upon a new and untried state of things,--or, upon a
long, a profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance?--
That we and our children were born to die,--but neither of us born to be
slaves.--No--there I mistake; that was part of Eleazer's oration, as
recorded by Josephus (de Bell. Judaic)--Eleazer owns he had it from the
philosophers of India; in all likelihood Alexander the Great, in his
irruption into India, after he had over-run Persia, amongst the many things
he stole,--stole that sentiment also; by which means it was carried, if not
all the way by himself (for we all know he died at Babylon), at least by
some of his maroders, into Greece,--from Greece it got to Rome,--from Rome
to France,--and from France to England:--So things come round.--

By land carriage, I can conceive no other way.--

By water the sentiment might easily have come down the Ganges into the
Sinus Gangeticus, or Bay of Bengal, and so into the Indian Sea; and
following the course of trade (the way from India by the Cape of Good Hope
being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and spices up the
Red Sea to Joddah, the port of Mekka, or else to Tor or Sues, towns at the
bottom of the gulf; and from thence by karrawans to Coptos, but three days
journey distant, so down the Nile directly to Alexandria, where the
Sentiment would be landed at the very foot of the great stair-case of the
Alexandrian library,--and from that store-house it would be fetched.--Bless
me! what a trade was driven by the learned in those days!

Chapter 3.XIII.

--Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever
was such a man--if not, there's an end of the matter.--

Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing
the precise aera in which so great a man lived;--whether, for instance,
before or after the patriarchs, &c.--to vote, therefore, that he never
lived at all, is a little cruel,--'tis not doing as they would be done by,-
-happen that as it may)--My father, I say, had a way, when things went
extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his
impatience,--of wondering why he was begot,--wishing himself dead;--
sometimes worse:--And when the provocation ran high, and grief touched his
lips with more than ordinary powers--Sir, you scarce could have
distinguished him from Socrates himself.--Every word would breathe the
sentiments of a soul disdaining life, and careless about all its issues;
for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no deep reading, yet the
abstract of Socrates's oration, which my father was giving my uncle Toby,
was not altogether new to her.--She listened to it with composed
intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter, had not my
father plunged (which he had no occasion to have done) into that part of
the pleading where the great philosopher reckons up his connections, his
alliances, and children; but renounces a security to be so won by working
upon the passions of his judges.--'I have friends--I have relations,--I
have three desolate children,'--says Socrates.--

--Then, cried my mother, opening the door,--you have one more, Mr. Shandy,
than I know of.

By heaven! I have one less,--said my father, getting up and walking out of
the room.

Chapter 3.XIV.

--They are Socrates's children, said my uncle Toby. He has been dead a
hundred years ago, replied my mother.

My uncle Toby was no chronologer--so not caring to advance one step but
upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the table, and
rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without saying
another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out after my father,
that he might finish the ecclaircissement himself.

Chapter 3.XV.

Had this volume been a farce, which, unless every one's life and opinions
are to be looked upon as a farce as well as mine, I see no reason to
suppose--the last chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of it, and then
this chapter must have set off thus.

Ptr. . .r. . .r. . .ing--twing--twang--prut--trut--'tis a cursed bad
fiddle.--Do you know whether my fiddle's in tune or no?--trut. . .prut. .
.--They should be fifths.--'Tis wickedly strung--tr. . .a.e.i.o.u.-twang.--
The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down,--else--
trut. . .prut--hark! tis not so bad a tone.--Diddle diddle, diddle diddle,
diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges,--but
there's a man there--no--not him with the bundle under his arm--the grave
man in black.--'Sdeath! not the gentleman with the sword on.--Sir, I had
rather play a Caprichio to Calliope herself, than draw my bow across my
fiddle before that very man; and yet I'll stake my Cremona to a Jew's
trump, which is the greatest musical odds that ever were laid, that I will
this moment stop three hundred and fifty leagues out of tune upon my
fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that belongs to him--Twaddle
diddle, tweddle diddle,--twiddle diddle,--twoddle diddle,--twuddle diddle,-
-prut trut--krish--krash--krush.--I've undone you, Sir,--but you see he's
no worse,--and was Apollo to take his fiddle after me, he can make him no
better.

Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle--hum--dum--drum.

--Your worships and your reverences love music--and God has made you all
with good ears--and some of you play delightfully yourselves--trut-prut,--
prut-trut.

O! there is--whom I could sit and hear whole days,--whose talents lie in
making what he fiddles to be felt,--who inspires me with his joys and
hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into motion.--If you
would borrow five guineas of me, Sir,--which is generally ten guineas more
than I have to spare--or you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, want your bills
paying,--that's your time.

Chapter 3.XVI.

The first thing which entered my father's head, after affairs were a little
settled in the family, and Susanna had got possession of my mother's green
sattin night-gown,--was to sit down coolly, after the example of Xenophon,
and write a Tristra-paedia, or system of education for me; collecting first
for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and
binding them together, so as to form an Institute for the government of my
childhood and adolescence. I was my father's last stake--he had lost my
brother Bobby entirely,--he had lost, by his own computation, full three-
fourths of me--that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great
casts for me--my geniture, nose, and name,--there was but this one left;
and accordingly my father gave himself up to it with as much devotion as
ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of projectils.--The difference
between them was, that my uncle Toby drew his whole knowledge of projectils
from Nicholas Tartaglia--My father spun his, every thread of it, out of his
own brain,--or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and
spinsters had spun before him, that 'twas pretty near the same torture to
him.

In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced almost
into the middle of his work.--Like all other writers, he met with
disappointments.--He imagined he should be able to bring whatever he had to
say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and bound, it might
be rolled up in my mother's hussive.--Matter grows under our hands.--Let no
man say,--'Come--I'll write a duodecimo.'

My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful diligence,
proceeding step by step in every line, with the same kind of caution and
circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious a principle) as
was used by John de la Casse, the lord archbishop of Benevento, in
compassing his Galatea; in which his Grace of Benevento spent near forty
years of his life; and when the thing came out, it was not of above half
the size or the thickness of a Rider's Almanack.--How the holy man managed
the affair, unless he spent the greatest part of his time in combing his
whiskers, or playing at primero with his chaplain,--would pose any mortal
not let into the true secret;--and therefore 'tis worth explaining to the
world, was it only for the encouragement of those few in it, who write not
so much to be fed--as to be famous.

I own had John de la Casse, the archbishop of Benevento, for whose memory
(notwithstanding his Galatea,) I retain the highest veneration,--had he
been, Sir, a slender clerk--of dull wit--slow parts--costive head, and so
forth,--he and his Galatea might have jogged on together to the age of
Methuselah for me,--the phaenomenon had not been worth a parenthesis.--

But the reverse of this was the truth: John de la Casse was a genius of
fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet with all these great advantages of
nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his Galatea, he lay
under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and a half
in the compass of a whole summer's day: this disability in his Grace arose
from an opinion he was afflicted with,--which opinion was this,--viz. that
whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his private amusement,
but) where his intent and purpose was, bona fide, to print and publish it
to the world, his first thoughts were always the temptations of the evil
one.--This was the state of ordinary writers: but when a personage of
venerable character and high station, either in church or state, once
turned author,--he maintained, that from the very moment he took pen in
hand--all the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him.--'Twas
Term-time with them,--every thought, first and last, was captious;--how
specious and good soever,--'twas all one;--in whatever form or colour it
presented itself to the imagination,--'twas still a stroke of one or other
of 'em levell'd at him, and was to be fenced off.--So that the life of a
writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of
composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that
of any other man militant upon earth,--both depending alike, not half so
much upon the degrees of his wit--as his Resistance.

My father was hugely pleased with this theory of John de la Casse,
archbishop of Benevento; and (had it not cramped him a little in his creed)
I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the Shandy estate, to
have been the broacher of it.--How far my father actually believed in the
devil, will be seen, when I come to speak of my father's religious notions,
in the progress of this work: 'tis enough to say here, as he could not
have the honour of it, in the literal sense of the doctrine--he took up
with the allegory of it; and would often say, especially when his pen was a
little retrograde, there was as much good meaning, truth, and knowledge,
couched under the veil of John de la Casse's parabolical representation,--
as was to be found in any one poetic fiction or mystic record of
antiquity.--Prejudice of education, he would say, is the devil,--and the
multitudes of them which we suck in with our mother's milk--are the devil
and all.--We are haunted with them, brother Toby, in all our lucubrations
and researches; and was a man fool enough to submit tamely to what they
obtruded upon him,--what would his book be? Nothing,--he would add,
throwing his pen away with a vengeance,--nothing but a farrago of the clack
of nurses, and of the nonsense of the old women (of both sexes) throughout
the kingdom.

This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my
father made in his Tristra-paedia; at which (as I said) he was three years,
and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, had scarce
completed, by this own reckoning, one half of his undertaking: the
misfortune was, that I was all that time totally neglected and abandoned to
my mother; and what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first part of
the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains, was
rendered entirely useless,--every day a page or two became of no
consequence.--

--Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom,
That the wisest of us all should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally
forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.

In short my father was so long in all his acts of resistance,--or in other
words,--he advanced so very slow with his work, and I began to live and get
forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened,--which, when we
get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not be concealed a moment
from the reader--I verily believe, I had put by my father, and left him
drawing a sundial, for no better purpose than to be buried under ground.

Chapter 3.XVII.

--'Twas nothing,--I did not lose two drops of blood by it--'twas not worth
calling in a surgeon, had he lived next door to us--thousands suffer by
choice, what I did by accident.--Doctor Slop made ten times more of it,
than there was occasion:--some men rise, by the art of hanging great
weights upon small wires,--and I am this day (August the 10th, 1761) paying
part of the price of this man's reputation.--O 'twould provoke a stone, to
see how things are carried on in this world!--The chamber-maid had left no
....... ... under the bed:--Cannot you contrive, master, quoth Susannah,
lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the
window-seat with the other,--cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time,
to .... ... .. ... ......?

I was five years old.--Susannah did not consider that nothing was well hung
in our family,--so slap came the sash down like lightning upon us;--Nothing
is left,--cried Susannah,--nothing is left--for me, but to run my country.-
-

My uncle Toby's house was a much kinder sanctuary; and so Susannah fled to
it.

Chapter 3.XVIII.

When Susannah told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all the
circumstances which attended the murder of me,--(as she called it,)--the
blood forsook his cheeks,--all accessaries in murder being principals,--
Trim's conscience told him he was as much to blame as Susannah,--and if the
doctrine had been true, my uncle Toby had as much of the bloodshed to
answer for to heaven, as either of 'em;--so that neither reason or
instinct, separate or together, could possibly have guided Susannah's steps
to so proper an asylum. It is in vain to leave this to the Reader's
imagination:--to form any kind of hypothesis that will render these
propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore,--and to do it
without,--he must have such brains as no reader ever had before him.--Why
should I put them either to trial or to torture? 'Tis my own affair: I'll
explain it myself.

Chapter 3.XIX.

'Tis a pity, Trim, said my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the
corporal's shoulder, as they both stood surveying their works,--that we
have not a couple of field-pieces to mount in the gorge of that new
redoubt;--'twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on
that side quite complete:--get me a couple cast, Trim.

Your honour shall have them, replied Trim, before tomorrow morning.

It was the joy of Trim's heart, nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for
expedients in doing it, to supply my uncle Toby in his campaigns, with
whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last crown, he would have
sate down and hammered it into a paderero, to have prevented a single wish
in his master. The corporal had already,--what with cutting off the ends
of my uncle Toby's spouts--hacking and chiseling up the sides of his leaden
gutters,--melting down his pewter shaving-bason,--and going at last, like
Lewis the Fourteenth, on to the top of the church, for spare ends, &c.--he
had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering cannons,
besides three demi-culverins, into the field; my uncle Toby's demand for
two more pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no
better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the
nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of
no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for
one of their carriages.

He had dismantled every sash-window in my uncle Toby's house long before,
in the very same way,--though not always in the same order; for sometimes
the pullies have been wanted, and not the lead,--so then he began with the
pullies,--and the pullies being picked out, then the lead became useless,--
and so the lead went to pot too.

--A great Moral might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not
time--'tis enough to say, wherever the demolition began, 'twas equally
fatal to the sash window.

Chapter 3.XX.

The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of
artilleryship, but that he might have kept the matter entirely to himself,
and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she
could;--true courage is not content with coming off so.--The corporal,
whether as general or comptroller of the train,--'twas no matter,--had done
that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have
happened,--at least in Susannah's hands;--How would your honours have
behaved?--He determined at once, not to take shelter behind Susannah,--but
to give it; and with this resolution upon his mind, he marched upright into
the parlour, to lay the whole manoeuvre before my uncle Toby.

My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of
Steenkirk, and of the strange conduct of count Solmes in ordering the foot
to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was directly
contrary to the king's commands, and proved the loss of the day.

There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going
to follow,--they are scarce exceeded by the invention of a dramatic
writer;--I mean of ancient days.--

Trim, by the help of his fore-finger, laid flat upon the table, and the
edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a shift to tell
his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;--and the
story being told,--the dialogue went on as follows.

Chapter 3.XXI.

--I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded
Susannah's story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,--
'twas my fault, an' please your honour,--not her's.

Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the
table,--if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely
requires it should be done,--'tis I certainly who deserve the blame,--you
obeyed your orders.

Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steenkirk, said
Yorick, drolling a little upon the corporal, who had been run over by a
dragoon in the retreat,--he had saved thee;--Saved! cried Trim,
interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence for him after his own
fashion,--he had saved five battalions, an' please your reverence, every
soul of them:--there was Cutt's,--continued the corporal, clapping the
forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round
his hand,--there was Cutt's,--Mackay's,--Angus's,--Graham's,--and Leven's,
all cut to pieces;--and so had the English life-guards too, had it not been
for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief,
and received the enemy's fire in their faces, before any one of their own
platoons discharged a musket,--they'll go to heaven for it,--added Trim.--
Trim is right, said my uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick,--he's perfectly
right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal,
where the ground was so strait, that the French had such a nation of
hedges, and copses, and ditches, and fell'd trees laid this way and that to
cover them (as they always have).--Count Solmes should have sent us,--we
would have fired muzzle to muzzle with them for their lives.--There was
nothing to be done for the horse:--he had his foot shot off however for his
pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landen.--Poor Trim
got his wound there, quoth my uncle Toby.--'Twas owing, an' please your
honour, entirely to count Solmes,--had he drubbed them soundly at
Steenkirk, they would not have fought us at Landen.--Possibly not,--Trim,
said my uncle Toby;--though if they have the advantage of a wood, or you
give them a moment's time to intrench themselves, they are a nation which
will pop and pop for ever at you.--There is no way but to march coolly up
to them,--receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pell-mell--Ding dong,
added Trim.--Horse and foot, said my uncle Toby.--Helter Skelter, said
Trim.--Right and left, cried my uncle Toby.--Blood an' ounds, shouted the
corporal;--the battle raged,--Yorick drew his chair a little to one side
for safety, and after a moment's pause, my uncle Toby sinking his voice a
note,--resumed the discourse as follows.

Chapter 3.XXII.

King William, said my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so
terribly provoked at count Solmes for disobeying his orders, that he would
not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after.--I fear,
answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal, as
the King at the count.--But 'twould be singularly hard in this case,
continued be, if corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically opposite
to count Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same
disgrace:--too oft in this world, do things take that train.--I would
spring a mine, cried my uncle Toby, rising up,--and blow up my
fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their
ruins, ere I would stand by and see it.--Trim directed a slight,--but a
grateful bow towards his master,--and so the chapter ends.

Chapter 3.XXIII.

--Then, Yorick, replied my uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way
abreast,--and do you, corporal, follow a few paces behind us.--And
Susannah, an' please your honour, said Trim, shall be put in the rear.--
'Twas an excellent disposition,--and in this order, without either drums
beating, or colours flying, they marched slowly from my uncle Toby's house
to Shandy-hall.

--I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door,--instead of the sash
weights, I had cut off the church spout, as I once thought to have done.--
You have cut off spouts enow, replied Yorick.

Chapter 3.XXIV.

As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in
different airs and attitudes,--not one, or all of them, can ever help the
reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or
act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.--There was that
infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by which
handle he would take a thing,--it baffled, Sir, all calculations.--The
truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men
travelled,--that every object before him presented a face and section of
itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of it
seen by the rest of mankind.--In other words, 'twas a different object, and
in course was differently considered:

This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world
besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.--She looks at her
outside,--I, at her in. . .. How is it possible we should agree about her
value?

Chapter 3.XXV.

'Tis a point settled,--and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius, (Mr
Shandy is supposed to mean. . ., Esq; member for. . .,--and not the Chinese
Legislator.) who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story--that
provided he keeps along the line of his story,--he may go backwards and
forwards as he will,--'tis still held to be no digression.

This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards
myself.

Chapter 3.XXVI.

Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils--(not of the Archbishop of
Benevento's--I mean of Rabelais's devils), with their tails chopped off by
their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did--
when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the
nursery,--so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the
back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.

Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,--and young
enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet Susannah, in passing
by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the
cook--the cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to
Obadiah; so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen
times, to know what was the matter above,--was Obadiah enabled to give him
a particular account of it, just as it had happened.--I thought as much,
said my father, tucking up his night-gown;--and so walked up stairs.

One would imagine from this--(though for my own part I somewhat question
it)--that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable
character in the Tristra-paedia, which to me is the most original and
entertaining one in the whole book;--and that is the chapter upon sash-
windows, with a bitter Philippick at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness
of chamber-maids.--I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.

First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event
happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for good
an' all;--which, considering with what difficulty he composed books,--he
might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the
chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter,
even after the event; but 'tis obviated under the second reason, which I
have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my
father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the
time supposed,--and it is this.

--That, in order to render the Tristra-paedia complete,--I wrote the
chapter myself.

Chapter 3.XXVII.

My father put on his spectacles--looked,--took them off,--put them into the
case--all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his lips,
turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he
had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a
couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large
reading-desk, she took it for granted 'twas an herbal, and so drew him a
chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.

--If it be but right done,--said my father, turning to the Section--de sede
vel subjecto circumcisionis,--for he had brought up Spenser de Legibus
Hebraeorum Ritualibus--and Maimonides, in order to confront and examine us
altogether.--

--If it be but right done, quoth he:--only tell us, cried my mother,
interrupting him, what herbs?--For that, replied my father, you must send
for Dr. Slop.

My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows,

. . .--Very well,--said my father,. . .--nay, if it has that convenience--
and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether
the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews,--he
rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm
of his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has
trod lighter upon us than we foreboded,--he shut the book, and walked down
stairs.--Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon
every step as he set his foot upon it--if the Egyptians,--the Syrians,--the
Phoenicians,--the Arabians,--the Cappadocians,--if the Colchi, and
Troglodytes did it--if Solon and Pythagoras submitted,--what is Tristram?--
Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter?

Chapter 3.XXVIII.

Dear Yorick, said my father smiling (for Yorick had broke his rank with my
uncle Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stept first into
the parlour)--this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his
religious rites.--Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel
initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner.--But he is no
worse, I trust, said Yorick.--There has been certainly, continued my
father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when
this offspring of mine was formed.--That, you are a better judge of than I,
replied Yorick.--Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both:--
the trine and sextil aspects have jumped awry,--or the opposite of their
ascendents have not hit it, as they should,--or the lords of the genitures
(as they call them) have been at bo-peep,--or something has been wrong
above, or below with us.

'Tis possible, answered Yorick.--But is the child, cried my uncle Toby, the
worse?--The Troglodytes say not, replied my father. And your theologists,
Yorick, tell us--Theologically? said Yorick,--or speaking after the manner
of apothecaries? (footnote in Greek Philo.)--statesmen? (footnote in
Greek)--or washer-women? (footnote in Greek Bochart.)

--I'm not sure, replied my father,--but they tell us, brother Toby, he's
the better for it.--Provided, said Yorick, you travel him into Egypt.--Of
that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when he sees the
Pyramids.--

Now every word of this, quoth my uncle Toby, is Arabic to me.--I wish, said
Yorick, 'twas so, to half the world.

--Ilus, (footnote in Greek Sanchuniatho.) continued my father, circumcised
his whole army one morning.--Not without a court martial? cried my uncle
Toby.--Though the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle
Toby's remark, but turning to Yorick,--are greatly divided still who Ilus
was;--some say Saturn;--some the Supreme Being;--others, no more than a
brigadier general under Pharaoh-neco.--Let him be who he will, said my
uncle Toby, I know not by what article of war he could justify it.

The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different
reasons for it:--others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the opposite
side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the greatest
part of them.--But then again, our best polemic divines--I wish there was
not a polemic divine, said Yorick, in the kingdom;--one ounce of practical
divinity--is worth a painted ship-load of all their reverences have
imported these fifty years.--Pray, Mr. Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby,--do
tell me what a polemic divine is?--The best description, captain Shandy, I
have ever read, is of a couple of 'em, replied Yorick, in the account of
the battle fought single hands betwixt Gymnast and captain Tripet; which I
have in my pocket.--I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle Toby earnestly.--
You shall, said Yorick.--And as the corporal is waiting for me at the
door,--and I know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more
good than his supper,--I beg, brother, you'll give him leave to come in.--
With all my soul, said my father.--Trim came in, erect and happy as an
emperor; and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from his right-hand
coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows.

Chapter 3.XXIX.

--'which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers of
them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the
assailant: all this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and
therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he
was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his short
sword by this thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the
stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards,
he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and placed both his feet
together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards
his horse's head,--Now, (said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in
the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and
turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round,
just into his former position, without missing one jot.--Ha! said Tripet, I
will not do that at this time,--and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast,
I have failed,--I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and
agility, turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another striking gambol
as before; which done, he set his right hand thumb upon the bow of the
saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding
his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned
and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body,
and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching any
thing, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, and then giving
himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper--'

(This can't be fighting, said my uncle Toby.--The corporal shook his head
at it.--Have patience, said Yorick.)

'Then (Tripet) pass'd his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself en
croup.--But, said he, 'twere better for me to get into the saddle; then
putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and there-
upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he
incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait found himself
betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then springing into the
air with a summerset, he turned him about like a wind-mill, and made above
a hundred frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.'--Good God! cried Trim, losing
all patience,--one home thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.--I think so
too, replied Yorick.--

I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.

Chapter 3.XXX.

--No,--I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to
a question which Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him,--I have
advanced nothing in the Tristra-paedia, but what is as clear as any one
proposition in Euclid.--Reach me, Trim, that book from off the scrutoir:--
it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over
both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and I think it a little
unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long ago:--shall we have a
short chapter or two now,--and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions
serve; and so on, till we get through the whole? My uncle Toby and Yorick
made the obeisance which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not
included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow
at the same time.--The company smiled. Trim, quoth my father, has paid the
full price for staying out the entertainment.--He did not seem to relish
the play, replied Yorick.--'Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an' please your
reverence, of captain Tripet's and that other officer, making so many
summersets, as they advanced;--the French come on capering now and then in
that way,--but not quite so much.

My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his existence with more
complacency than what the corporal's, and his own reflections, made him do
at that moment;--he lighted his pipe,--Yorick drew his chair closer to the
table,--Trim snuff'd the candle,--my father stirr'd up the fire,--took up
the book,--cough'd twice, and begun.

Chapter 3.XXXI.

The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves,--are a
little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject,--for
the present we'll pass them by: 'tis a prefatory introduction, continued
my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name
to give it) upon political or civil government; the foundation of which
being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for
procreation of the species--I was insensibly led into it.--'Twas natural,
said Yorick.

The original of society, continued my father, I'm satisfied is, what
Politian tells us, i. e. merely conjugal; and nothing more than the getting
together of one man and one woman;--to which, (according to Hesiod) the
philosopher adds a servant:--but supposing in the first beginning there
were no men servants born--he lays the foundation of it, in a man,--a
woman--and a bull.--I believe 'tis an ox, quoth Yorick, quoting the passage
(Greek)--A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth.--But
there is a better reason still, said my father (dipping his pen into his
ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the most useful
withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,--was the properest
instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined couple, that the creation
could have associated with them.--And there is a stronger reason, added my
uncle Toby, than them all for the ox.--My father had not power to take his
pen out of his ink-horn, till he had heard my uncle Toby's reason.--For
when the ground was tilled, said my uncle Toby, and made worth inclosing,
then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of
fortification.--True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the
bull, and putting the ox in his place.

My father gave Trim a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse.

--I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half
shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the
natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction
over whom he acquires these several ways--
1st, by marriage.
2d, by adoption.
3d, by legitimation.
And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order.

I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied Yorick--the act, especially
where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation upon the
child, as it conveys power to the father.--You are wrong,--said my father
argutely, and for this plain reason. . ..--I own, added my father, that the
offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power and jurisdiction of
the mother.--But the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for her.--
She is under authority herself, said my father:--and besides, continued my
father, nodding his head, and laying his finger upon the side of his nose,
as he assigned his reason,--she is not the principal agent, Yorick.--In
what, quoth my uncle Toby? stopping his pipe.--Though by all means, added
my father (not attending to my uncle Toby), 'The son ought to pay her
respect,' as you may read, Yorick, at large in the first book of the
Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh title and the tenth section.--I
can read it as well, replied Yorick, in the Catechism.

Chapter 3.XXXII.

Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle Toby.--Pugh! said
my father, not caring to be interrupted with Trim's saying his Catechism.
He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle Toby.--Ask him, Mr. Yorick, any
question you please.--

--The fifth Commandment, Trim,--said Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a
gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.--You
don't ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, and giving it
rapidly like the word of command:--The fifth--cried my uncle Toby.--I must
begin with the first, an' please your honour, said the corporal.--

--Yorick could not forbear smiling.--Your reverence does not consider, said
the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the
middle of the room, to illustrate his position,--that 'tis exactly the same
thing, as doing one's exercise in the field.--

'Join your right-hand to your firelock,' cried the corporal, giving the
word of command, and performing the motion.--

'Poise your firelock,' cried the corporal, doing the duty still both of
adjutant and private man.

'Rest your firelock;'--one motion, an' please your reverence, you see leads
into another.--If his honour will begin but with the first--

The First--cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand upon his side--. . ..

The Second--cried my uncle Toby, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have
done his sword at the head of a regiment.--The corporal went through his
manual with exactness; and having honoured his father and mother, made a
low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.

Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and has wit in
it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.

--Here is the scaffold work of Instruction, its true point of folly,
without the Building behind it.

--Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-
grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true
dimensions.--

Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which
their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!

--Sciences May Be Learned by Rote But Wisdom Not.

Yorick thought my father inspired.--I will enter into obligations this
moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt Dinah's legacy in charitable
uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if the corporal
has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated.--
Prithee, Trim, quoth my father, turning round to him,--What dost thou mean,
by 'honouring thy father and mother?'

Allowing them, an' please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my pay,
when they grow old.--And didst thou do that, Trim? said Yorick.--He did
indeed, replied my uncle Toby.--Then, Trim, said Yorick, springing out of
his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best
commentator upon that part of the Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it,
corporal Trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself.

Chapter 3.XXXIII.

O blessed health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned over
the leaves to the next chapter, thou art before all gold and treasure; 'tis
thou who enlargest the soul,--and openest all its powers to receive
instruction and to relish virtue.--He that has thee, has little more to
wish for;--and he that is so wretched as to want thee,--wants every thing
with thee.

I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my
father, into a very little room, therefore we'll read the chapter quite
through.

My father read as follows:

'The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery
betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture'--You have proved that
matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently, replied my
father.

In saying this, my father shut the book,--not as if he resolved to read no
more of it, for he kept his fore-finger in the chapter:--nor pettishly,--
for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had done it, upon
the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side
of it, without the least compressive violence.--

I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to
Yorick, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter.

Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote a
chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health depended
upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the
radical moisture,--and that he had managed the point so well, that there
was not one single word wet or dry upon radical heat or radical moisture,
throughout the whole chapter,--or a single syllable in it, pro or con,
directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any
part of the animal oeconomy--

'O thou eternal Maker of all beings!'--he would cry, striking his breast
with his right hand (in case he had one)--'Thou whose power and goodness
can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of
excellence and perfection,--What have we Moonites done?'

Chapter 3.XXXIV.

With two strokes, the one at Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my
father achieve it.

The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more
than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the Ars longa,--and
Vita brevis.--Life short, cried my father,--and the art of healing tedious!
And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance
of quacks themselves,--and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and
peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they have first flatter'd the
world, and at last deceived it?

--O my lord Verulam! cried my father, turning from Hippocrates, and making
his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the
fittest to be made an example of to the rest,--What shall I say to thee, my
great lord Verulam? What shall I say to thy internal spirit,--thy opium,
thy salt-petre,--thy greasy unctions,--thy daily purges,--thy nightly
clysters, and succedaneums?

--My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject;
and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing: how he
dealt with his lordship's opinion,--you shall see;--but when--I know not:--
we must first see what his lordship's opinion was.

Chapter 3.XXXV.

'The two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, says
lord Verulam, are first--

'The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame wastes the body down to
death:--And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to ashes:-
-which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies together, at
length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions
of life.'

This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; nothing
more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste committed
by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense,
by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat
of it on the other, by three grains and a half of salt-petre every morning
before you got up.--

Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of the
air without;--but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy unctions,
which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could
enter;--nor could any one get out.--This put a stop to all perspiration,
sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy
distempers--a course of clysters was requisite to carry off redundant
humours,--and render the system complete.

What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam's opiates, his salt-petre,
and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read,--but not to-day--or to-
morrow: time presses upon me,--my reader is impatient--I must get
forwards--You shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you chuse it), as
soon as ever the Tristra-paedia is published.--

Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the
ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established
his own.--

Chapter 3.XXXVI.

The whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again,
depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and
radical moisture within us;--the least imaginable skill had been sufficient
to have maintained it, had not the school-men confounded the task, merely
(as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the
radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies.

Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily
and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm or
watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a
lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle,
'Quod omne animal post coitum est triste.'

Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but
whether vice versa, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the other
decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes
an unnatural dryness--or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.--So
that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into
fire or water, as either of 'em threaten his destruction,--'twill be all
that is needful to be done upon that head.--

Chapter 3.XXXVII.

The description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the
attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter;--his eyes
were fixed upon my father throughout it;--he never mentioned radical heat
and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and
shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the
corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question,--
aside.--. . .. It was at the siege of Limerick, an' please your honour,
replied the corporal, making a bow.

The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my
father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege
of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention.--Now what can
have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried my
father, mentally.--By Heaven! continued he, communing still with himself,
it would puzzle an Oedipus to bring it in point.--

I believe, an' please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had not
been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the claret
and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off;--And the geneva, Trim,
added my uncle Toby , which did us more good than all--I verily believe,
continued the corporal, we had both, an' please your honour, left our lives
in the trenches, and been buried in them too.--The noblest grave, corporal!
cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could
wish to lie down in.--But a pitiful death for him! an' please your honour,
replied the corporal.

All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites of the Colchi and
Troglodites had been before to my uncle Toby; my father could not determine
whether he was to frown or to smile.

my uncle Toby, turning are Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more
intelligibly than he had begun it,--and so settled the point for my father
at once.

Chapter 3.XXXVIII.

It was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great happiness for myself and
the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a most
raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was upon us
in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as
I conceive it, inevitably have got the better.--My father drew in his lungs
top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as slowly as he
possibly could.--

--It was Heaven's mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into
the corporal's head to maintain that due contention betwixt the radical
heat and the radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he did all
along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were)
a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its ground from the
beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the moisture, terrible as it
was.--Upon my honour, added my uncle Toby, you might have heard the
contention within our bodies, brother Shandy, twenty toises.--If there was
no firing, said Yorick.

Well--said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after the
word--Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one
permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they
had had their clergy. . .--Yorick, foreseeing the sentence was likely to
end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father's breast, and
begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked the corporal a
question.--Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my father's
leave,--tell us honestly--what is thy opinion concerning this self-same
radical heat and radical moisture?

With humble submission to his honour's better judgment, quoth the corporal,
making a bow to my uncle Toby--Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my
uncle Toby.--The poor fellow is my servant,--not my slave,--added my uncle
Toby, turning to my father.--

The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging
upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the knot,
he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; then
touching his under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right hand before
he opened his mouth,--he delivered his notion thus.

Chapter 3.XXXIX.

Just as the corporal was humming, to begin--in waddled Dr. Slop.--'Tis not
two-pence matter--the corporal shall go on in the next chapter, let who
will come in.--

Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of
his passions were unaccountably sudden,--and what has this whelp of mine to
say to the matter?

Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog--
he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system which Dr.
Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode
of enquiry.--He sat down.

Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered,-
-in what condition is the boy?--'Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr. Slop.

I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby--returning his pipe into his
mouth.--Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his medical
lecture.--The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then
delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the
following words.

Chapter 3.XL.

The city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his majesty king
William himself, the year after I went into the army--lies, an' please your
honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country.--'Tis quite
surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation,
one of the strongest fortified places in Ireland.--

I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical
lecture.--'Tis all true, answered Trim.--Then I wish the faculty would
follow the cut of it, said Yorick.--'Tis all cut through, an' please your
reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and besides, there was
such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a
puddle,--'twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, and which
had like to have killed both his honour and myself; now there was no such
thing, after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to
lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the
water;--nor was that enough, for those who could afford it, as his honour
could, without setting fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy,
which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm
as a stove.--

And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal Trim, cried my father, from
all these premises?

I infer, an' please your worship, replied Trim, that the radical moisture
is nothing in the world but ditch-water--and that the radical heat, of
those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy,--the radical heat
and moisture of a private man, an' please your honour, is nothing but
ditch-water--and a dram of geneva--and give us but enough of it, with a
pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the vapours--we know
not what it is to fear death.

I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop, to determine in which
branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in physiology or
divinity.--Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon.--

It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal was examined in
the latter, and passed muster with great honour.--

The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning to my father, you
must know, is the basis and foundation of our being--as the root of a tree
is the source and principle of its vegetation.--It is inherent in the seeds
of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but principally in my
opinion by consubstantials, impriments, and occludents.--Now this poor
fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the
misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice
point.--That he has,--said my father.--Very likely, said my uncle.--I'm
sure of it--quoth Yorick.--

Chapter 3.XLI.

Doctor Slop being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave
my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the Tristra-
paedia.--Come! cheer up, my lads; I'll shew you land--for when we have
tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this
twelve-month.--Huzza!--

Chapter 3.XLII.

--Five years with a bib under his chin;

Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to Malachi;

A year and a half in learning to write his own name;

Seven long years and more (Greek)-ing it, at Greek and Latin;

Four years at his probations and his negations--the fine statue still lying
in the middle of the marble block,--and nothing done, but his tools
sharpened to hew it out!--'Tis a piteous delay!--Was not the great Julius
Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all?--Forty-
four years old was he before he could manage his Greek;--and Peter
Damianus, lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could not so much
as read, when he was of man's estate.--And Baldus himself, as eminent as he
turned out after, entered upon the law so late in life, that every body
imagined he intended to be an advocate in the other world: no wonder, when
Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventy-five
disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely,--If the old man be yet
disputing and enquiring concerning wisdom,--what time will he have to make
use of it?

Yorick listened to my father with great attention; there was a seasoning of
wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims, and he had
sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as almost
atoned for them:--be wary, Sir, when you imitate him.

I am convinced, Yorick, continued my father, half reading and half
discoursing, that there is a North-west passage to the intellectual world;
and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in furnishing
itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take with it.--
But, alack! all fields have not a river or a spring running besides them;--
every child, Yorick, has not a parent to point it out.

--The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a low voice, upon the
auxiliary verbs, Mr. Yorick.

Had Yorick trod upon Virgil's snake, he could not have looked more
surprised.--I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it,--and I
reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the republic
of letters, That those who have been entrusted with the education of our
children, and whose business it was to open their minds, and stock them
early with ideas, in order to set the imagination loose upon them, have
made so little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing it, as they have done--
So that, except Raymond Lullius, and the elder Pelegrini, the last of which
arrived to such perfection in the use of 'em, with his topics, that, in a
few lessons, he could teach a young gentleman to discourse with
plausibility upon any subject, pro and con, and to say and write all that
could be spoken or written concerning it, without blotting a word, to the
admiration of all who beheld him.--I should be glad, said Yorick,
interrupting my father, to be made to comprehend this matter. You shall,
said my father.

The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of, is a high
metaphor,--for which, in my opinion, the idea is generally the worse, and
not the better;--but be that as it may,--when the mind has done that with
it--there is an end,--the mind and the idea are at rest,--until a second
idea enters;--and so on.

Now the use of the Auxiliaries is, at once to set the soul a-going by
herself upon the materials as they are brought her; and by the versability
of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open new tracts of
enquiry, and make every idea engender millions.

You excite my curiosity greatly, said Yorick.

For my own part, quoth my uncle Toby, I have given it up.--The Danes, an'
please your honour, quoth the corporal, who were on the left at the siege
of Limerick, were all auxiliaries.--And very good ones, said my uncle
Toby.--But the auxiliaries, Trim, my brother is talking about,--I conceive
to be different things.--

--You do? said my father, rising up.

Chapter 3.XLIII.

My father took a single turn across the room, then sat down, and finished
the chapter.

The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my father, are, am;
was; have; had; do; did; make; made; suffer; shall; should; will; would;
can; could; owe; ought; used; or is wont.--And these varied with tenses,
present, past, future, and conjugated with the verb see,--or with these
questions added to them;--Is it? Was it? Will it be? Would it be? May it
be? Might it be? And these again put negatively, Is it not? Was it not?
Ought it not?--Or affirmatively,--It is; It was; It ought to be. Or
chronologically,--Has it been always? Lately? How long ago?--Or
hypothetically,--If it was? If it was not? What would follow?--If the
French should beat the English? If the Sun go out of the Zodiac?

Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in
which a child's memory should be exercised, there is no one idea can enter
his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and conclusions
may be drawn forth from it.--Didst thou ever see a white bear? cried my
father, turning his head round to Trim, who stood at the back of his
chair:--No, an' please your honour, replied the corporal.--But thou couldst
discourse about one, Trim, said my father, in case of need?--How is it
possible, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, if the corporal never saw one?--
'Tis the fact I want, replied my father,--and the possibility of it is as
follows.

A White Bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen
one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever
see one?

Would I had seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)

If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a
white bear, what then?

If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever
seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted?--described? Have I
never dreamed of one?

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white
bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the white
bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?

--Is the white bear worth seeing?--

--Is there no sin in it?--

Is it better than a Black One?

Chapter 3.XLIV.

--We'll not stop two moments, my dear Sir,--only, as we have got through
these five volumes (In the first edition, the sixth volume began with this
chapter.), (do, Sir, sit down upon a set--they are better than nothing) let
us just look back upon the country we have pass'd through.--

--What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both of
us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack
Asses?--How they view'd and review'd us as we passed over the rivulet at
the bottom of that little valley!--and when we climbed over that hill, and
were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did they all set
up together!

--Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses?. . ..

--Heaven be their comforter--What! are they never curried?--Are they never
taken in in winter?--Bray bray--bray. Bray on,--the world is deeply your
debtor;--louder still--that's nothing:--in good sooth, you are ill-used:--
Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in G-sol-re-ut from
morning, even unto night.

Chapter 3.XLV.

When my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through
half a dozen pages, he closed the book for good an' all,--and in a kind of
triumph redelivered it into Trim's hand, with a nod to lay it upon the
'scrutoire, where he found it.--Tristram, said he, shall be made to
conjugate every word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards the same
way;--every word, Yorick, by this means, you see, is converted into a
thesis or an hypothesis;--every thesis and hypothesis have an off-spring of
propositions;--and each proposition has its own consequences and
conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on again, into fresh tracks
of enquiries and doubtings.--The force of this engine, added my father, is
incredible in opening a child's head.--'Tis enough, brother Shandy, cried
my uncle Toby, to burst it into a thousand splinters.--

I presume, said Yorick, smiling,--it must be owing to this,--(for let
logicians say what they will, it is not to be accounted for sufficiently
from the bare use of the ten predicaments)--That the famous Vincent
Quirino, amongst the many other astonishing feats of his childhood, of
which the Cardinal Bembo has given the world so exact a story,--should be
able to paste up in the public schools at Rome, so early as in the eighth
year of his age, no less than four thousand five hundred and fifty
different theses, upon the most abstruse points of the most abstruse
theology;--and to defend and maintain them in such sort, as to cramp and
dumbfound his opponents.--What is that, cried my father, to what is told us
of Alphonsus Tostatus, who, almost in his nurse's arms, learned all the
sciences and liberal arts without being taught any one of them?--What shall
we say of the great Piereskius?--That's the very man, cried my uncle Toby,
I once told you of, brother Shandy, who walked a matter of five hundred
miles, reckoning from Paris to Shevling, and from Shevling back again,
merely to see Stevinus's flying chariot.--He was a very great man! added my
uncle Toby (meaning Stevinus)--He was so, brother Toby, said my father
(meaning Piereskius)--and had multiplied his ideas so fast, and increased
his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if we may give credit to an
anecdote concerning him, which we cannot withhold here, without shaking the
authority of all anecdotes whatever--at seven years of age, his father
committed entirely to his care the education of his younger brother, a boy
of five years old,--with the sole management of all his concerns.--Was the
father as wise as the son? quoth my uncle Toby:--I should think not, said
Yorick:--But what are these, continued my father--(breaking out in a kind
of enthusiasm)--what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in Grotius,
Scioppius, Heinsius, Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Ferdinand de
Cordoue, and others--some of which left off their substantial forms at nine
years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning without them;--others went
through their classics at seven;--wrote tragedies at eight;--Ferdinand de
Cordoue was so wise at nine,--'twas thought the Devil was in him;--and at
Venice gave such proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks
imagined he was Antichrist, or nothing.--Others were masters of fourteen
languages at ten,--finished the course of their rhetoric, poetry, logic,
and ethics, at eleven,--put forth their commentaries upon Servius and
Martianus Capella at twelve,--and at thirteen received their degrees in
philosophy, laws, and divinity:--but you forget the great Lipsius, quoth
Yorick, who composed a work (Nous aurions quelque interet, says Baillet, de
montrer qu'il n'a rien de ridicule s'il etoit veritable, au moins dans le
sens enigmatique que Nicius Erythraeus a ta he de lui donner. Cet auteur
dit que pour comprendre comme Lipse, il a pu composer un ouvrage le premier
jour de sa vie, il faut s'imaginer, que ce premier jour n'est pas celui de
sa naissance charnelle, mais celui au quel il a commence d'user de la
raison; il veut que c'ait ete a l'age de neuf ans; et il nous veut
persuader que ce fut en cet age, que Lipse fit un poeme.--Le tour est
ingenieux, &c. &c.) the day he was born:--They should have wiped it up,
said my uncle Toby, and said no more about it.

Chapter 3.XLVI.

When the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up
in Susannah's conscience, about holding the candle, whilst Slop tied it on;
Slop had not treated Susannah's distemper with anodynes,--and so a quarrel
had ensued betwixt them.

--Oh! oh!--said Slop, casting a glance of undue freedom in Susannah's face,
as she declined the office;--then, I think I know you, madam--You know me,
Sir! cried Susannah fastidiously, and with a toss of her head, levelled
evidently, not at his profession, but at the doctor himself,--you know me!
cried Susannah again.--Doctor Slop clapped his finger and his thumb
instantly upon his nostrils;--Susannah's spleen was ready to burst at it;--
'Tis false, said Susannah.--Come, come, Mrs Modesty, said Slop, not a
little elated with the success of his last thrust,--If you won't hold the
candle, and look--you may hold it and shut your eyes:--That's one of your
popish shifts, cried Susannah:--'Tis better, said Slop, with a nod, than no
shift at all, young woman;--I defy you, Sir, cried Susannah, pulling her
shift sleeve below her elbow.

It was almost impossible for two persons to assist each other in a surgical
case with a more splenetic cordiality.

Slop snatched up the cataplasm--Susannah snatched up the candle;--A little
this way, said Slop; Susannah looking one way, and rowing another,
instantly set fire to Slop's wig, which being somewhat bushy and unctuous
withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.--You impudent whore!
cried Slop,--(for what is passion, but a wild beast?)--you impudent whore,
cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his hand;--I never was
the destruction of any body's nose, said Susannah,--which is more than you
can say:--Is it? cried Slop, throwing the cataplasm in her face;--Yes, it
is, cried Susannah, returning the compliment with what was left in the pan.

Chapter 3.XLVII.

Doctor Slop and Susannah filed cross-bills against each other in the
parlour; which done, as the cataplasm had failed, they retired into the
kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me;--and whilst that was doing, my
father determined the point as you will read.

Chapter 3.XLVIII.

You see 'tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my
uncle Toby and Yorick, to take this young creature out of these women's
hands, and put him into those of a private governor. Marcus Antoninus
provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his son Commodus's
education,--and in six weeks he cashiered five of them;--I know very well,
continued my father, that Commodus's mother was in love with a gladiator at
the time of her conception, which accounts for a great many of Commodus's
cruelties when he became emperor;--but still I am of opinion, that those
five whom Antoninus dismissed, did Commodus's temper, in that short time,
more hurt than the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long.

Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror in
which he is to view himself from morning to night, by which he is to adjust
his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the inmost sentiments of his heart;--I
would have one, Yorick, if possible, polished at all points, fit for my
child to look into.--This is very good sense, quoth my uncle Toby to
himself.

--There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body and
all its parts, both in acting and speaking, which argues a man well within;
and I am not at all surprised that Gregory of Nazianzum, upon observing the
hasty and untoward gestures of Julian, should foretel he would one day
become an apostate;--or that St. Ambrose should turn his Amanuensis out of
doors, because of an indecent motion of his head, which went backwards and
forwards like a flail;--or that Democritus should conceive Protagoras to be
a scholar, from seeing him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it,
the small twigs inwards.--There are a thousand unnoticed openings,
continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul;
and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat
in coming into a room,--or take it up in going out of it, but something
escapes, which discovers him.

It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make
choice of shall neither (Vid. Pellegrina.) lisp, or squint, or wink, or
talk loud, or look fierce, or foolish;--or bite his lips, or grind his
teeth, or speak through his nose, or pick it, or blow it with his fingers.-
-

He shall neither walk fast,--or slow, or fold his arms,--for that is
laziness;--or hang them down,--for that is folly; or hide them in his
pocket, for that is nonsense.--

He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle--or bite, or cut his nails, or
hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his feet or fingers in company;--nor
(according to Erasmus) shall he speak to any one in making water,--nor
shall he point to carrion or excrement.--Now this is all nonsense again,
quoth my uncle Toby to himself.--

I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, facete, jovial; at the same
time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, argute, inventive,
quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions;--he shall be wise, and
judicious, and learned:--And why not humble, and moderate, and gentle-
tempered, and good? said Yorick:--And why not, cried my uncle Toby, free,
and generous, and bountiful, and brave?--He shall, my dear Toby, replied my
father, getting up and shaking him by his hand.--Then, brother Shandy,
answered my uncle Toby, raising himself off the chair, and laying down his
pipe to take hold of my father's other hand,--I humbly beg I may recommend
poor Le Fever's son to you;--a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in
my uncle Toby's eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal's, as
the proposition was made;--you will see why when you read Le Fever's
story:--fool that I was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you) without
turning back to the place, what it was that hindered me from letting the
corporal tell it in his own words;--but the occasion is lost,--I must tell
it now in my own.

Chapter 3.XLIX.

The Story of Le Fever.

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken
by the allies,--which was about seven years before my father came into the
country,--and about as many, after the time, that my uncle Toby and Trim
the privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order to lay some
of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe--when
my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind
him at a small sideboard,--I say, sitting--for in consideration of the
corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)--when my
uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to
stand; and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that, with
a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself, with
less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a time
when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal's leg was at rest, he would look
back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect:
this bred more little squabbles betwixt them, than all other causes for
five-and-twenty years together--But this is neither here nor there--why do
I mention it?--Ask my pen,--it governs me,--I govern not it.

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a
little inn in the village came into the parlour, with an empty phial in his
hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; 'Tis for a poor gentleman,--I think,
of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my house four
days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste
any thing, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a
thin toast,--I think, says he, taking his hand from his forehead, it would
comfort me.--

--If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing--added the landlord,-
-I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill.--I hope in
God he will still mend, continued he,--we are all of us concerned for him.

Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle Toby;
and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack
thyself,--and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell him he is
heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good.

Though I am persuaded, said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door,
he is a very compassionate fellow--Trim,--yet I cannot help entertaining a
high opinion of his guest too; there must be something more than common in
him, that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his
host;--And of his whole family, added the corporal, for they are all
concerned for him,.--Step after him, said my uncle Toby,--do Trim,--and ask
if he knows his name.

--I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into the
parlour with the corporal,--but I can ask his son again:--Has he a son with
him then? said my uncle Toby.--A boy, replied the landlord, of about eleven
or twelve years of age;--but the poor creature has tasted almost as little
as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day:-
-He has not stirred from the bed-side these two days.

My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from
before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and Trim, without being
ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes after
brought him his pipe and tobacco.

--Stay in the room a little, said my uncle Toby.

Trim!--said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak'd about a
dozen whiffs.--Trim came in front of his master, and made his bow;--my
uncle Toby smoak'd on, and said no more.--Corporal! said my uncle Toby--the
corporal made his bow.--My uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished
his pipe.

Trim! said my uncle Toby, I have a project in my head, as it is a bad
night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to
this poor gentleman.--Your honour's roquelaure, replied the corporal, has
not once been had on, since the night before your honour received your
wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St.
Nicholas;--and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the
roquelaure, and what with the weather, 'twill be enough to give your honour
your death, and bring on your honour's torment in your groin. I fear so,
replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the
account the landlord has given me.--I wish I had not known so much of this
affair,--added my uncle Toby,--or that I had known more of it:--How shall
we manage it? Leave it, an't please your honour, to me, quoth the
corporal;--I'll take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre,
and act accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an
hour.--Thou shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here's a shilling for
thee to drink with his servant.--I shall get it all out of him, said the
corporal, shutting the door.

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now and
then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not full as
well to have the curtain of the tennaile a straight line, as a crooked
one,--he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fever
and his boy the whole time he smoaked it.

Chapter 3.L.

The Story of Le Fever Continued.

It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe,
that corporal Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following
account.

I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your
honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant--Is he
in the army, then? said my uncle Toby--He is, said the corporal--And in
what regiment? said my uncle Toby--I'll tell your honour, replied the
corporal, every thing straight forwards, as I learnt it.--Then, Trim, I'll
fill another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt thee till thou
hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in the window-seat, and begin thy
story again. The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain
as a bow could speak it--Your honour is good:--And having done that, he sat
down, as he was ordered,--and begun the story to my uncle Toby over again
in pretty near the same words.

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any
intelligence to your honour, about the lieutenant and his son; for when I
asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing every
thing which was proper to be asked,--That's a right distinction, Trim, said
my uncle Toby--I was answered, an' please your honour, that he had no
servant with him;--that he had come to the inn with hired horses, which,
upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I suppose, the regiment),
he had dismissed the morning after he came.--If I get better, my dear, said
he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man,--we can hire horses
from hence.--But alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said
the landlady to me,--for I heard the death-watch all night long;--and when
he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him; for he is broken-
hearted already.

I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came
into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of;--but I
will do it for my father myself, said the youth.--Pray let my save you the
trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and
offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire,--whilst I did it.--I
believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best myself.--I am
sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast the worse for being
toasted by an old soldier.--The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly
burst into tears.--Poor youth! said my uncle Toby,--he has been bred up
from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his
ears like the name of a friend;--I wish I had him here.

--I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a mind to
my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company:--What could be the matter
with me, an' please your honour? Nothing in the world, Trim, said my uncle
Toby, blowing his nose,--but that thou art a good-natured fellow.

When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was proper
to tell him I was captain Shandy's servant, and that your honour (though a
stranger) was extremely concerned for his father;--and that if there was
any thing in your house or cellar--(And thou might'st have added my purse
too, said my uncle Toby),--he was heartily welcome to it:--He made a very
low bow (which was meant to your honour), but no answer--for his heart was
full--so he went up stairs with the toast;--I warrant you, my dear, said I,
as I opened the kitchen-door, your father will be well again.--Mr. Yorick's
curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire,--but said not a word good or
bad to comfort the youth.--I thought it wrong; added the corporal--I think
so too, said my uncle Toby.

When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt himself
a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen, to let me know, that in
about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up stairs.--I believe,
said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers,--for there was a book
laid upon the chair by his bed-side, and as I shut the door, I saw his son
take up a cushion.

I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never
said your prayers at all.--I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last
night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could
not have believed it.--Are you sure of it? replied the curate.--A soldier,
an' please your reverence, said I, prays as often (of his own accord) as a
parson;--and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own life, and
for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the
whole world--'Twas well said of thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby.--But when a
soldier, said I, an' please your reverence, has been standing for twelve
hours together in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water,--or engaged,
said I, for months together in long and dangerous marches;--harassed,
perhaps, in his rear to-day;--harassing others to-morrow;--detached here;--
countermanded there;--resting this night out upon his arms;--beat up in his
shirt the next;--benumbed in his joints;--perhaps without straw in his tent
to kneel on;--must say his prayers how and when he can.--I believe, said
I,--for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the reputation of the army,--
I believe, an' please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier gets time
to pray,--he prays as heartily as a parson,--though not with all his fuss
and hypocrisy.--Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim, said my uncle
Toby,--for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not:--At the great
and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not
till then)--it will be seen who has done their duties in this world,--and
who has not; and we shall be advanced, Trim, accordingly.--I hope we shall,
said Trim.--It is in the Scripture, said my uncle Toby; and I will shew it
thee to-morrow:--In the mean time we may depend upon it, Trim, for our
comfort, said my uncle Toby, that God Almighty is so good and just a
governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it,--it will
never be enquired into, whether we have done them in a red coat or a black
one:--I hope not, said the corporal--But go on, Trim, said my uncle Toby,
with thy story.

When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant's room, which I
did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes,--he was lying in his bed
with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a
clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it:--The youth was just stooping
down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneeling,--
the book was laid upon the bed,--and, as he rose, in taking up the cushion
with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time.--
Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant.

He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed-
side:--If you are captain Shandy's servant, said he, you must present my
thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his
courtesy to me;--if he was of Levens's--said the lieutenant.--I told him
your honour was--Then, said he, I served three campaigns with him in
Flanders, and remember him,--but 'tis most likely, as I had not the honour
of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me.--You will tell
him, however, that the person his good-nature has laid under obligations to
him, is one Le Fever, a lieutenant in Angus's--but he knows me not,--said
he, a second time, musing;--possibly he may my story--added he--pray tell
the captain, I was the ensign at Breda, whose wife was most unfortunately
killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent.--I remember
the story, an't please your honour, said I, very well.--Do you so? said he,
wiping his eyes with his handkerchief--then well may I.--In saying this, he
drew a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribband
about his neck, and kiss'd it twice--Here, Billy, said he,--the boy flew
across the room to the bed-side,--and falling down upon his knee, took the
ring in his hand, and kissed it too,--then kissed his father, and sat down
upon the bed and wept.

I wish, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh,--I wish, Trim, I was asleep.

Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned;--shall I pour
your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe?--Do, Trim, said my uncle
Toby.

I remember, said my uncle Toby, sighing again, the story of the ensign and
his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted;--and particularly well
that he, as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what) was
universally pitied by the whole regiment;--but finish the story thou art
upon:--'Tis finished already, said the corporal,--for I could stay no
longer,--so wished his honour a good night; young Le Fever rose from off
the bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down
together, told me, they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to
join the regiment in Flanders.--But alas! said the corporal,--the
lieutenant's last day's march is over.--Then what is to become of his poor
boy? cried my uncle Toby.

Chapter 3.LI.

The Story of Le Fever Continued.

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,--though I tell it only for the
sake of those, who, when coop'd in betwixt a natural and a positive law,
know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves--That
notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying
on the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on
so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner--that
nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment
upon the counterscarp;--and bent his whole thoughts towards the private
distresses at the inn; and except that he ordered the garden gate to be
bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond
into a blockade,--he left Dendermond to itself--to be relieved or not by
the French king, as the French king thought good; and only considered how
he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.

--That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence thee
for this.

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he
was putting him to bed,--and I will tell thee in what, Trim.--In the first
place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fever,--as sickness
and travelling are both expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor
lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay,--that
thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood in
need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.--Your
honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;--True, quoth my uncle
Toby,--thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,--but certainly very wrong
as a man.

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse,
continued my uncle Toby,--when thou offeredst him whatever was in my
house,--thou shouldst have offered him my house too:--A sick brother
officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,--we
could tend and look to him:--Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim,--
and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's and his boy's, and mine
together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs.--

--In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling,--he might
march.--He will never march; an' please your honour, in this world, said
the corporal:--He will march; said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side
of the bed, with one shoe off:--An' please your honour, said the corporal,
he will never march but to his grave:--He shall march, cried my uncle Toby,
marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advanceing an inch,--
he shall march to his regiment.--He cannot stand it, said the corporal;--He
shall be supported, said my uncle Toby;--He'll drop at last, said the
corporal, and what will become of his boy?--He shall not drop, said my
uncle Toby, firmly.--A-well-o'day,--do what we can for him, said Trim,
maintaining his point,--the poor soul will die:--He shall not die, by G..,
cried my uncle Toby.

--The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath,
blush'd as he gave it in;--and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down,
dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

Chapter 3.LII.

--My once Toby went to his bureau,--put his purse into his breeches pocket,
and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a
physician,--he went to bed, and fell asleep.

Chapter 3.LIII.

The Story of Le Fever Continued.

The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le
Fever's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death pressed heavy upon his
eye-lids,--and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its
circle,--when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted
time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat
himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, independently of all
modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and
brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did,--how he had
rested in the night,--what was his complaint,--where was his pain,--and
what he could do to help him:--and without giving him time to answer any
one of the enquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had
been concerting with the corporal the night before for him.--

--You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, to my house,--
and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter,--and we'll have an
apothecary,--and the corporal shall be your nurse;--and I'll be your
servant, Le Fever.

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby,--not the effect of familiarity,--
but the cause of it,--which let you at once into his soul, and shewed you
the goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks, and
voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate
to come and take shelter under him, so that before my uncle Toby had half
finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son
insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast
of his coat, and was pulling it towards him.--The blood and spirits of Le
Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to
their last citadel, the heart--rallied back,--the film forsook his eyes for
a moment,--he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face,--then cast a
look upon his boy,--and that ligament, fine as it was,--was never broken.--

Nature instantly ebb'd again,--the film returned to its place,--the pulse
fluttered--stopp'd--went on--throbb'd--stopp'd again--moved--stopp'd--shall
I go on?--No.

Chapter 3.LIV.

I am so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young Le
Fever's, that is, from this turn of his fortune, to the time my uncle Toby
recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very few words in the
next chapter.--All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as
follows.--

That my uncle Toby, with young Le Fever in his hand, attended the poor
lieutenant, as chief mourners, to his grave.

That the governor of Dendermond paid his obsequies all military honours,--
and that Yorick, not to be behind-hand--paid him all ecclesiastic--for he
buried him in his chancel:--And it appears likewise, he preached a funeral
sermon over him--I say it appears,--for it was Yorick's custom, which I
suppose a general one with those of his profession, on the first leaf of
every sermon which he composed, to chronicle down the time, the place, and
the occasion of its being preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some
short comment or stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to
its credit:--For instance, This sermon upon the Jewish dispensation--I
don't like it at all;--Though I own there is a world of Water-Landish
knowledge in it;--but 'tis all tritical, and most tritically put together.-
-This is but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my head when I
made it?

--N.B. The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any sermon,--and
of this sermon,--that it will suit any text.--

--For this sermon I shall be hanged,--for I have stolen the greatest part
of it. Doctor Paidagunes found me out. > Set a thief to catch a thief.--

On the back of half a dozen I find written, So, so, and no more--and upon a
couple Moderato; by which, as far as one may gather from Altieri's Italian
dictionary,--but mostly from the authority of a piece of green whipcord,
which seemed to have been the unravelling of Yorick's whip-lash, with which
he has left us the two sermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So,
so, tied fast together in one bundle by themselves,--one may safely suppose
he meant pretty near the same thing.

There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is this,
that the moderato's are five times better than the so, so's;--show ten
times more knowledge of the human heart;--have seventy times more wit and
spirit in them;--(and, to rise properly in my climax)--discovered a
thousand times more genius;--and to crown all, are infinitely more
entertaining than those tied up with them:--for which reason, whene'er
Yorick's dramatic sermons are offered to the world, though I shall admit
but one out of the whole number of the so, so's, I shall, nevertheless,
adventure to print the two moderato's without any sort of scruple.

What Yorick could mean by the words lentamente,--tenute,--grave,--and
sometimes adagio,--as applied to theological compositions, and with which
he has characterised some of these sermons, I dare not venture to guess.--I
am more puzzled still upon finding a l'octava alta! upon one;--Con strepito
upon the back of another;--Scicilliana upon a third;--Alla capella upon a
fourth;--Con l'arco upon this;--Senza l'arco upon that.--All I know is,
that they are musical terms, and have a meaning;--and as he was a musical
man, I will make no doubt, but that by some quaint application of such
metaphors to the compositions in hand, they impressed very distinct ideas
of their several characters upon his fancy,--whatever they may do upon that
of others.

Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably led
me into this digression--The funeral sermon upon poor Le Fever, wrote out
very fairly, as if from a hasty copy.--I take notice of it the more,
because it seems to have been his favourite composition--It is upon
mortality; and is tied length-ways and cross-ways with a yarn thrum, and
then rolled up and twisted round with a half-sheet of dirty blue paper,
which seems to have been once the cast cover of a general review, which to
this day smells horribly of horse drugs.--Whether these marks of
humiliation were designed,--I something doubt;--because at the end of the
sermon (and not at the beginning of it)--very different from his way of
treating the rest, he had wrote--Bravo!

--Though not very offensively,--for it is at two inches, at least, and a
half's distance from, and below the concluding line of the sermon, at the
very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it, which, you
know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it justice, it is
wrote besides with a crow's quill so faintly in a small Italian hand, as
scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether your thumb is there or
not,--so that from the manner of it, it stands half excused; and being
wrote moreover with very pale ink, diluted almost to nothing,--'tis more
like a ritratto of the shadow of vanity, than of Vanity herself--of the
two; resembling rather a faint thought of transient applause, secretly
stirring up in the heart of the composer; than a gross mark of it, coarsely
obtruded upon the world.

With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do no
service to Yorick's character as a modest man;--but all men have their
failings! and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes it away, is
this; that the word was struck through sometime afterwards (as appears from
a different tint of the ink) with a line quite across it in this manner,
BRAVO (crossed out)--as if he had retracted, or was ashamed of the opinion
he had once entertained of it.

These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in
this one instance, upon the first leaf of his sermon, which served as a
cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned towards
the text;--but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he had five or
six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a whole score to turn himself in,--he
took a large circuit, and, indeed, a much more mettlesome one;--as if he
had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more frolicksome
strokes at vice, than the straitness of the pulpit allowed.--These, though
hussar-like, they skirmish lightly and out of all order, are still
auxiliaries on the side of virtue;--tell me then, Mynheer Vander
Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they should not be printed together?

Chapter 3.LV.

When my uncle Toby had turned every thing into money, and settled all
accounts betwixt the agent of the regiment and Le Fever, and betwixt Le
Fever and all mankind,--there remained nothing more in my uncle Toby's
hands, than an old regimental coat and a sword; so that my uncle Toby found
little or no opposition from the world in taking administration. The coat
my uncle Toby gave the corporal;--Wear it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, as
long as it will hold together, for the sake of the poor lieutenant--And
this,--said my uncle Toby, taking up the sword in his hand, and drawing it
out of the scabbard as he spoke--and this, Le Fever, I'll save for thee,--
'tis all the fortune, continued my uncle Toby, hanging it up upon a crook,
and pointing to it,--'tis all the fortune, my dear Le Fever, which God has
left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy way with it in the
world,--and thou doest it like a man of honour,--'tis enough for us.

As soon as my uncle Toby had laid a foundation, and taught him to inscribe
a regular polygon in a circle, he sent him to a public school, where,
excepting Whitsontide and Christmas, at which times the corporal was
punctually dispatched for him,--he remained to the spring of the year,
seventeen; when the stories of the emperor's sending his army into Hungary
against the Turks, kindling a spark of fire in his bosom, he left his Greek
and Latin without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my
uncle Toby, begged his father's sword, and my uncle Toby's leave along with
it, to go and try his fortune under Eugene.--Twice did my uncle Toby forget
his wound and cry out, Le Fever! I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight
beside me--And twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his
head in sorrow and disconsolation.--

My uncle Toby took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung
untouched ever since the lieutenant's death, and delivered it to the
corporal to brighten up;--and having detained Le Fever a single fortnight
to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn,--he put the sword
into his hand.--If thou art brave, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, this will
not fail thee,--but Fortune, said he (musing a little),--Fortune may--And
if she does,--added my uncle Toby, embracing him, come back again to me, Le
Fever, and we will shape thee another course.

The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of Le Fever more
than my uncle Toby's paternal kindness;--he parted from my uncle Toby, as
the best of sons from the best of fathers--both dropped tears--and as my
uncle Toby gave him his last kiss, he slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an
old purse of his father's, in which was his mother's ring, into his hand,--
and bid God bless him.

Chapter 3.LVI.

Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his
sword was made of, at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade; but a series
of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, and trod close
upon his heels for four years together after; he had withstood these
buffetings to the last, till sickness overtook him at Marseilles, from
whence he wrote my uncle Toby word, he had lost his time, his services, his
health, and, in short, every thing but his sword;--and was waiting for the
first ship to return back to him.

As this letter came to hand about six weeks before Susannah's accident, Le
Fever was hourly expected; and was uppermost in my uncle Toby's mind all
the time my father was giving him and Yorick a description of what kind of
a person he would chuse for a preceptor to me: but as my uncle Toby
thought my father at first somewhat fanciful in the accomplishments he
required, he forbore mentioning Le Fever's name,--till the character, by
Yorick's inter-position, ending unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle-
tempered, and generous, and good, it impressed the image of Le Fever, and
his interest, upon my uncle Toby so forcibly, he rose instantly off his
chair; and laying down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father's
hands--I beg, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, I may recommend poor Le
Fever's son to you--I beseech you do, added Yorick--He has a good heart,
said my uncle Toby--And a brave one too, an' please your honour, said the
corporal.

--The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle Toby.--And
the greatest cowards, an' please your honour, in our regiment, were the
greatest rascals in it.--There was serjeant Kumber, and ensign--

--We'll talk of them, said my father, another time.

Chapter 3.LVII.

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships,
but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief,
discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

Doctor Slop, like a son of a w. . ., as my father called him for it,--to
exalt himself,--debased me to death,--and made ten thousand times more of
Susannah's accident, than there was any grounds for; so that in a week's
time, or less, it was in every body's mouth, That poor Master Shandy. .
.entirely.--And Fame, who loves to double every thing,--in three days more,
had sworn, positively she saw it,--and all the world, as usual, gave credit
to her evidence--'That the nursery window had not only. . .;--but that. .
.'s also.'

Could the world have been sued like a Body-Corporate,--my father had
brought an action upon the case, and trounced it sufficiently; but to fall
foul of individuals about it--as every soul who had mentioned the affair,
did it with the greatest pity imaginable;--'twas like flying in the very
face of his best friends:--And yet to acquiesce under the report, in
silence--was to acknowledge it openly,--at least in the opinion of one half
of the world; and to make a bustle again, in contradicting it,--was to
confirm it as strongly in the opinion of the other half.--

--Was ever poor devil of a country gentleman so hampered? said my father.

I would shew him publickly, said my uncle Toby, at the market cross.

--'Twill have no effect, said my father.

Chapter 3.LVIII.

--I'll put him, however, into breeches, said my father,--let the world say
what it will.

Chapter 3.LIX.

There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well as
in matters, Madam, of a more private concern;--which, though they have
carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and entered upon in
a hasty, hare-brained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding this,
(and could you or I have got into the cabinet, or stood behind the curtain,
we should have found it was so) weighed, poized, and perpended--argued
upon--canvassed through--entered into, and examined on all sides with so
much coolness, that the Goddess of Coolness herself (I do not take upon me
to prove her existence) could neither have wished it, or done it better.

Of the number of these was my father's resolution of putting me into
breeches; which, though determined at once,--in a kind of huff, and a
defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro'd and conn'd, and
judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month before, in
two several beds of justice, which my father had held for that purpose. I
shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my next chapter; and
in the chapter following that, you shall step with me, Madam, behind the
curtain, only to hear in what kind of manner my father and my mother
debated between themselves, this affair of the breeches,--from which you
may form an idea, how they debated all lesser matters.

Chapter 3.LX.

The ancient Goths of Germany, who (the learned Cluverius is positive) were
first seated in the country between the Vistula and the Oder, and who
afterwards incorporated the Herculi, the Bugians, and some other Vandallick
clans to 'em--had all of them a wise custom of debating every thing of
importance to their state, twice, that is,--once drunk, and once sober:--
Drunk--that their councils might not want vigour;--and sober--that they
might not want discretion.

Now my father being entirely a water-drinker,--was a long time gravelled
almost to death, in turning this as much to his advantage, as he did every
other thing which the ancients did or said; and it was not till the seventh
year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless experiments and devices,
that he hit upon an expedient which answered the purpose;--and that was,
when any difficult and momentous point was to be settled in the family,
which required great sobriety, and great spirit too, in its determination,-
-he fixed and set apart the first Sunday night in the month, and the
Saturday night which immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in bed with
my mother: By which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself,. .
..

These my father, humorously enough, called his beds of justice;--for from
the two different counsels taken in these two different humours, a middle
one was generally found out which touched the point of wisdom as well, as
if he had got drunk and sober a hundred times.

I must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as well
in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it is not
every author that can try the experiment as the Goths and Vandals did it--
or, if he can, may it be always for his body's health; and to do it, as my
father did it,--am I sure it would be always for his soul's.

My way is this:--

In all nice and ticklish discussions,--(of which, heaven knows, there are
but too many in my book)--where I find I cannot take a step without the
danger of having either their worships or their reverences upon my back--I
write one-half full,--and t'other fasting;--or write it all full,--and
correct it fasting;--or write it fasting,--and correct it full, for they
all come to the same thing:--So that with a less variation from my father's
plan, than my father's from the Gothick--I feel myself upon a par with him
in his first bed of justice,--and no way inferior to him in his second.--
These different and almost irreconcileable effects, flow uniformly from the
wise and wonderful mechanism of nature,--of which,--be her's the honour.--
All that we can do, is to turn and work the machine to the improvement and
better manufactory of the arts and sciences.--

Now, when I write full,--I write as if I was never to write fasting again
as long as I live;--that is, I write free from the cares as well as the
terrors of the world.--I count not the number of my scars,--nor does my
fancy go forth into dark entries and bye-corners to ante-date my stabs.--In
a word, my pen takes its course; and I write on as much from the fulness of
my heart, as my stomach.--

But when, an' please your honours, I indite fasting, 'tis a different
history.--I pay the world all possible attention and respect,--and have as
great a share (whilst it lasts) of that under strapping virtue of
discretion as the best of you.--So that betwixt both, I write a careless
kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured Shandean book, which will do
all your hearts good--

--And all your heads too,--provided you understand it.

Chapter 3.LXI.

We should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and
shifting his pillow a little towards my mother's, as he opened the debate--
We should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this boy into breeches.--

We should so,--said my mother.--We defer it, my dear, quoth my father,
shamefully.--

I think we do, Mr. Shandy,--said my mother.

--Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests and
tunicks.--

He does look very well in them,--replied my mother.--

--And for that reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to take
him out of 'em.--

--It would so,--said my mother:--But indeed he is growing a very tall lad,-
-rejoined my father.

--He is very tall for his age, indeed,--said my mother.--

--I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who the
deuce he takes after.--

I cannot conceive, for my life, said my mother.--

Humph!--said my father.

(The dialogue ceased for a moment.)

--(I am very short myself,--continued my father gravely.

You are very short, Mr Shandy,--said my mother.

Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, he
plucked his pillow a little further from my mother's,--and turning about
again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half.

--When he gets these breeches made, cried my father in a higher tone, he'll
look like a beast in 'em.

He will be very awkward in them at first, replied my mother.

--And 'twill be lucky, if that's the worst on't, added my father.

It will be very lucky, answered my mother.

I suppose, replied my father,--making some pause first,--he'll be exactly
like other people's children.--

Exactly, said my mother.--

--Though I shall be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate
stopp'd again.--

--They should be of leather, said my father, turning him about again.--

They will last him, said my mother, the longest.

But he can have no linings to 'em, replied my father.--

He cannot, said my mother.

'Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my father.

Nothing can be better, quoth my mother.--

--Except dimity,--replied my father:--'Tis best of all,--replied my mother.

--One must not give him his death, however,--interrupted my father.

By no means, said my mother:--and so the dialogue stood still again.

I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth time,
he shall have no pockets in them.--

--There is no occasion for any, said my mother.--

I mean in his coat and waistcoat,--cried my father.

--I mean so too,--replied my mother.

--Though if he gets a gig or top--Poor souls! it is a crown and a sceptre
to them,--they should have where to secure it.--

Order it as you please, Mr. Shandy, replied my mother.--

--But don't you think it right? added my father, pressing the point home to
her.

Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. Shandy.--

--There's for you! cried my father, losing his temper--Pleases me!--You
never will distinguish, Mrs. Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it,
betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience.--This was on the
Sunday night:--and further this chapter sayeth not.

Chapter 3.LXII.

After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother,--he
consulted Albertus Rubenius upon it; and Albertus Rubenius used my father
ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my father had
used my mother: For as Rubenius had wrote a quarto express, De re
Vestiaria Veterum,--it was Rubenius's business to have given my father some
lights.--On the contrary, my father might as well have thought of
extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long beard,--as of
extracting a single word out of Rubenius upon the subject.

Upon every other article of ancient dress, Rubenius was very communicative
to my father;--gave him a full satisfactory account of
The Toga, or loose gown.
The Chlamys.
The Ephod.
The Tunica, or Jacket.
The Synthesis.
The Paenula.
The Lacema, with its Cucullus.
The Paludamentum.
The Praetexta.
The Sagum, or soldier's jerkin.
The Trabea: of which, according to Suetonius, there was three kinds.--

--But what are all these to the breeches? said my father.

Rubenius threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had been
in fashion with the Romans.--

There was,
The open shoe.
The close shoe.
The slip shoe.
The wooden shoe.
The soc.
The buskin.
And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which Juvenal takes notice of.

There were,
The clogs.
The pattins.
The pantoufles.
The brogues.
The sandals, with latchets to them.

There was,
The felt shoe.
The linen shoe.
The laced shoe.
The braided shoe.
The calceus incisus.
And The calceus rostratus.

Rubenius shewed my father how well they all fitted,--in what manner they
laced on,--with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands, jaggs, and
ends.--

--But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father.

Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the Romans manufactured stuffs of
various fabrics,--some plain,--some striped,--others diapered throughout
the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and gold--That linen did not
begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire, when
the Egyptians coming to settle amongst them, brought it into vogue.

--That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the
fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple,
which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and wore
on their birth-days and public rejoicings.--That it appeared from the best
historians of those times, that they frequently sent their clothes to the
fuller, to be clean'd and whitened:--but that the inferior people, to avoid
that expence, generally wore brown clothes, and of a something coarser
texture,--till towards the beginning of Augustus's reign, when the slave
dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of habiliment was
lost, but the Latus Clavus.

And what was the Latus Clavus? said my father.

Rubenius told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the
learned:--That Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius Ticinensis, Bayfius Budaeus,
Salmasius, Lipsius, Lazius, Isaac Casaubon, and Joseph Scaliger, all
differed from each other,--and he from them: That some took it to be the
button,--some the coat itself,--others only the colour of it;--That the
great Bayfuis in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12--honestly said, he
knew not what it was,--whether a tibula,--a stud,--a button,--a loop,--a
buckle,--or clasps and keepers.--

--My father lost the horse, but not the saddle--They are hooks and eyes,
said my father--and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches to be made.

Chapter 3.LXIII.

We are now going to enter upon a new scene of events.--

--Leave we then the breeches in the taylor's hands, with my father standing
over him with his cane, reading him as he sat at work a lecture upon the
latus clavus, and pointing to the precise part of the waistband, where he
was determined to have it sewed on.--

Leave we my mother--(truest of all the Poco-curante's of her sex!)--
careless about it, as about every thing else in the world which concerned
her;--that is,--indifferent whether it was done this way or that,--provided
it was but done at all.--

Leave we Slop likewise to the full profits of all my dishonours.--

Leave we poor Le Fever to recover, and get home from Marseilles as he can.-
-And last of all,--because the hardest of all--

Let us leave, if possible, myself:--But 'tis impossible,--I must go along
with you to the end of the work.

Chapter 3.LXIV.

If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of ground
which lay at the bottom of my uncle Toby's kitchen-garden, and which was
the scene of so many of his delicious hours,--the fault is not in me,--but
in his imagination;--for I am sure I gave him so minute a description, I
was almost ashamed of it.

When Fate was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great transactions
of future times,--and recollected for what purposes this little plot, by a
decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined,--she gave a nod to
Nature,--'twas enough--Nature threw half a spade full of her kindliest
compost upon it, with just so much clay in it, as to retain the forms of
angles and indentings,--and so little of it too, as not to cling to the
spade, and render works of so much glory, nasty in foul weather.

My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans along
with him, of almost every fortified town in Italy and Flanders; so let the
duke of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before what town they
pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared for them.

His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as soon as ever
a town was invested--(but sooner when the design was known) to take the
plan of it (let it be what town it would), and enlarge it upon a scale to
the exact size of his bowling-green; upon the surface of which, by means of
a large role of packthread, and a number of small piquets driven into the
ground, at the several angles and redans, he transferred the lines from his
paper; then taking the profile of the place, with its works, to determine
the depths and slopes of the ditches,--the talus of the glacis, and the
precise height of the several banquets, parapets, &c.--he set the corporal
to work--and sweetly went it on:--The nature of the soil,--the nature of
the work itself,--and above all, the good-nature of my uncle Toby sitting
by from morning to night, and chatting kindly with the corporal upon past-
done deeds,--left Labour little else but the ceremony of the name.

When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper posture
of defence,--it was invested,--and my uncle Toby and the corporal began to
run their first parallel.--I beg I may not be interrupted in my story, by
being told, That the first parallel should be at least three hundred toises
distant from the main body of the place,--and that I have not left a single
inch for it;--for my uncle Toby took the liberty of incroaching upon his
kitchen-garden, for the sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green,
and for that reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt
two rows of his cabbages and his cauliflowers; the conveniences and
inconveniences of which will be considered at large in the history of my
uncle Toby's and the corporal's campaigns, of which, this I'm now writing
is but a sketch, and will be finished, if I conjecture right, in three
pages (but there is no guessing)--The campaigns themselves will take up as
many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a
weight of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to
rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the work--surely they
had better be printed apart,--we'll consider the affair--so take the
following sketch of them in the mean time.

Chapter 3.LXV.

When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and the corporal
began to run their first parallel--not at random, or any how--but from the
same points and distances the allies had begun to run theirs; and
regulating their approaches and attacks, by the accounts my uncle Toby
received from the daily papers,--they went on, during the whole siege, step
by step with the allies.

When the duke of Marlborough made a lodgment,--my uncle Toby made a
lodgment too.--And when the face of a bastion was battered down, or a
defence ruined,--the corporal took his mattock and did as much,--and so
on;--gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works one after
another, till the town fell into their hands.

To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others,--there could not
have been a greater sight in world, than on a post morning, in which a
practicable breach had been made by the duke of Marlborough, in the main
body of the place,--to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and observed
the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind him, sallied forth;--
the one with the Gazette in his hand,--the other with a spade on his
shoulder to execute the contents.--What an honest triumph in my uncle
Toby's looks as he marched up to the ramparts! What intense pleasure
swimming in his eye as he stood over the corporal, reading the paragraph
ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest, peradventure, he should
make the breach an inch too wide,--or leave it an inch too narrow.--But
when the chamade was beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and
followed with the colours in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts--
Heaven! Earth! Sea!--but what avails apostrophes?--with all your elements,
wet or dry, ye never compounded so intoxicating a draught.

In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to it,
except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a week or
ten days together, which detained the Flanders mail, and kept them so long
in torture,--but still 'twas the torture of the happy--In this track, I
say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, every year of which,
and sometimes every month, from the invention of either the one or the
other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their
operations, which always opened fresh springs of delight in carrying them
on.

The first year's campaign was carried on from beginning to end, in the
plain and simple method I've related.

In the second year, in which my uncle Toby took Liege and Ruremond, he
thought he might afford the expence of four handsome draw-bridges; of two
of which I have given an exact description in the former part of my work.

At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates with port-
cullises:--These last were converted afterwards into orgues, as the better
thing; and during the winter of the same year, my uncle Toby, instead of a
new suit of clothes, which he always had at Christmas, treated himself with
a handsome sentry-box, to stand at the corner of the bowling-green, betwixt
which point and the foot of the glacis, there was left a little kind of an
esplanade for him and the corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon.

--The sentry-box was in case of rain.

All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which
enabled my uncle Toby to take the field with great splendour.

My father would often say to Yorick, that if any mortal in the whole
universe had done such a thing except his brother Toby, it would have been
looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires upon the parade
and prancing manner in which Lewis XIV. from the beginning of the war, but
particularly that very year, had taken the field--But 'tis not my brother
Toby's nature, kind soul! my father would add, to insult any one.

--But let us go on.

Chapter 3.LXVI.

I must observe, that although in the first year's campaign, the word town
is often mentioned,--yet there was no town at that time within the polygon;
that addition was not made till the summer following the spring in which
the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the third year of my
uncle Toby's campaigns,--when upon his taking Amberg, Bonn, and Rhinberg,
and Huy and Limbourg, one after another, a thought came into the corporal's
head, that to talk of taking so many towns, without one Town to shew for
it,--was a very nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my
uncle Toby, that they should have a little model of a town built for them,-
-to be run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within
the interior polygon to serve for all.

My uncle Toby felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly agreed
to it, but with the addition of two singular improvements, of which he was
almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of the project
itself.

The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of which
it was most likely to be the representative:--with grated windows, and the
gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c.--as those in Ghent
and Bruges, and the rest of the towns in Brabant and Flanders.

The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal
proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off, so as to
form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put directly
into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation was exchanged
between my uncle Toby and the corporal, as the carpenter did the work.

--It answered prodigiously the next summer--the town was a perfect Proteus-
-It was Landen, and Trerebach, and Santvliet, and Drusen, and Hagenau,--and
then it was Ostend and Menin, and Aeth and Dendermond.

--Surely never did any Town act so many parts, since Sodom and Gomorrah, as
my uncle Toby's town did.

In the fourth year, my uncle Toby thinking a town looked foolishly without
a church, added a very fine one with a steeple.--Trim was for having bells
in it;--my uncle Toby said, the metal had better be cast into cannon.

This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass field-pieces, to
be planted three and three on each side of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; and
in a short time, these led the way for a train of somewhat larger,--and so
on--(as must always be the case in hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of
half an inch bore, till it came at last to my father's jack boots.

The next year, which was that in which Lisle was besieged, and at the close
of which both Ghent and Bruges fell into our hands,--my uncle Toby was
sadly put to it for proper ammunition;--I say proper ammunition--because
his great artillery would not bear powder; and 'twas well for the Shandy
family they would not--For so full were the papers, from the beginning to
the end of the siege, of the incessant firings kept up by the besiegers,--
and so heated was my uncle Toby's imagination with the accounts of them,
that he had infallibly shot away all his estate.

Something therefore was wanting as a succedaneum, especially in one or two
of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something like a
continual firing in the imagination,--and this something, the corporal,
whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an entire new system
of battering of his own,--without which, this had been objected to by
military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the great desiderata
of my uncle Toby's apparatus.

This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally do,
at a little distance from the subject.

Chapter 3.LXVII.

With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great regard,
which poor Tom, the corporal's unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with
the account of his marriage with the Jew's widow--there was

A Montero-cap and two Turkish tobacco-pipes.

The Montero-cap I shall describe by and bye.--The Turkish tobacco-pipes had
nothing particular in them, they were fitted up and ornamented as usual,
with flexible tubes of Morocco leather and gold wire, and mounted at their
ends, the one of them with ivory,--the other with black ebony, tipp'd with
silver.

My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the
world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two
presents more as tokens of his brother's nicety, than his affection.--Tom
did not care, Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, or to smoke in the
tobacco-pipe of a Jew.--God bless your honour, the corporal would say
(giving a strong reason to the contrary)--how can that be?

The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish cloth, dyed in grain,
and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the front,
which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered,--and seemed to
have been the property of a Portuguese quarter-master, not of foot, but of
horse, as the word denotes.

The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as the
sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon Gala-days; and yet
never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all controverted
points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal was sure he was
in the right,--it was either his oath,--his wager,--or his gift.

--'Twas his gift in the present case.

I'll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to give away my
Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door, if I do not manage
this matter to his honour's satisfaction.

The completion was no further off, than the very next morning; which was
that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the Lower Deule, to the
right, and the gate St. Andrew,--and on the left, between St. Magdalen's
and the river.

As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war,--the most gallant
and obstinate on both sides,--and I must add the most bloody too, for it
cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred men,--my uncle
Toby prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary solemnity.

The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to bed, he ordered his
ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years in the corner of an
old campaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out and laid
upon the lid of it, ready for the morning;--and the very first thing he did
in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle Toby, after he had
turned the rough side outwards,--put it on:--This done, he proceeded next
to his breeches, and having buttoned the waist-band, he forthwith buckled
on his sword-belt, and had got his sword half way in,--when he considered
he should want shaving, and that it would be very inconvenient doing it
with his sword on,--so took it off:--In essaying to put on his regimental
coat and waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in his wig,--so
that went off too:--So that what with one thing and what with another, as
always falls out when a man is in the most haste,--'twas ten o'clock, which
was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle Toby sallied
out.

Chapter 3.LXVIII.

My uncle Toby had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which
separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived the
corporal had begun the attack without him.--

Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal's apparatus; and of the
corporal himself in the height of his attack, just as it struck my uncle
Toby, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal was at work,-
-for in nature there is not such another,--nor can any combination of all
that is grotesque and whimsical in her works produce its equal.

The corporal--

--Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius,--for he was your kinsman:

Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness,--for he was your brother.--Oh
corporal! had I thee, but now,--now, that I am able to give thee a dinner
and protection,--how would I cherish thee! thou should'st wear thy Montero-
cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week.--and when it was worn
out, I would purchase thee a couple like it:--But alas! alas! alas! now
that I can do this in spite of their reverences--the occasion is lost--for
thou art gone;--thy genius fled up to the stars from whence it came;--and
that warm heart of thine, with all its generous and open vessels,
compressed into a clod of the valley!

--But what--what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I look
towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy master-
-the first--the foremost of created beings;--where, I shall see thee,
faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a trembling hand
across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to the door, to take
his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as he directed
thee;--where--all my father's systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and,
in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the lackered
plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe away the dew
which nature has shed upon them--When I see him cast in the rosemary with
an air of disconsolation, which cries through my ears,--O Toby! in what
corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow?

--Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his
distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain--when I shall
arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted hand.

Chapter 3.LXIX.

The corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply the
grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon
the enemy during the heat of the attack,--had no further idea in his fancy
at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out
of one of my uncle Toby's six field-pieces, which were planted on each side
of his sentry-box; the means of effecting which occurring to his fancy at
the same time, though he had pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger
from the miscarriage of his projects.

Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began to
find out, that by means of his two Turkish tobacco-pipes, with the
supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their lower
ends, to be tagg'd by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the touch-
holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied hermetically
with waxed silk at their several insertions into the Morocco tube,--he
should be able to fire the six field-pieces all together, and with the same
ease as to fire one.--

--Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for the
advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my father's first
and second beds of justice, ever rise up and say again, from collision of
what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck out, to carry the arts
and sciences up to perfection.--Heaven! thou knowest how I love them;--thou
knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I would this moment give my
shirt--Thou art a fool, Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in
the world,--and 'twill break thy set.--

No matter for that, Eugenius; I would give the shirt off my back to be
burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer, how many
sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into the
tail of it.--Think ye not that in striking these in,--he might, per-
adventure, strike something out? as sure as a gun.--

--But this project, by the bye.

The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing his to
perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with charging
them to the top with tobacco,--he went with contentment to bed.

Chapter 3.LXX.

The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle Toby, in
order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two before my
uncle Toby came.

He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together in
front of my uncle Toby's sentry-box, leaving only an interval of about a
yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the
convenience of charging, &c.--and the sake possibly of two batteries, which
he might think double the honour of one.

In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the
sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his
post:--He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the right,
betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand,--and the ebony pipe tipp'd
with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, betwixt the
finger and thumb of the other--and with his right knee fixed firm upon the
ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the corporal, with his
Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off his two cross batteries at
the same time against the counter-guard, which faced the counterscarp,
where the attack was to be made that morning. His first intention, as I
said, was no more than giving the enemy a single puff or two;--but the
pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got hold of
the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the very height of
the attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined him.

'Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had not his will to make that
day.

Chapter 3.LXXI.

My uncle Toby took the ivory pipe out of the corporal's hand,--looked at it
for half a minute, and returned it.

In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe from the corporal
again, and raised it half way to his mouth--then hastily gave it back a
second time.

The corporal redoubled the attack,--my uncle Toby smiled,--then looked
grave,--then smiled for a moment,--then looked serious for a long time;--
Give me hold of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby--my uncle Toby put
it to his lips,--drew it back directly,--gave a peep over the horn-beam
hedge;--never did my uncle Toby's mouth water so much for a pipe in his
life.--My uncle Toby retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his
hand.--

--Dear uncle Toby! don't go into the sentry-box with the pipe,--there's no
trusting a man's self with such a thing in such a corner.

Chapter 3.LXXII.

I beg the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle Toby's ordnance
behind the scenes,--to remove his sentry-box, and clear the theatre, if
possible, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest of his military
apparatus out of the way;--that done, my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff
the candles bright,--sweep the stage with a new broom,--draw up the
curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character, throughout
which the world can have no idea how he will act: and yet, if pity be a-
kin to love,--and bravery no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle
Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses, betwixt the two passions
(in case there is one) to your heart's content.

Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kind--and thou puzzlest
us in every one.

There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart which misled him
so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this nature
usually go on; you can--you can have no conception of it: with this, there
was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting
ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman;--and so naked
and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege was out of his
head,) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks,
and shot my uncle Toby ten times in a day, through his liver, if nine times
in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.

With all this, Madam,--and what confounded every thing as much on the other
hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you
of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you
might as soon--But where am I going? these reflections crowd in upon me ten
pages at least too soon, and take up that time, which I ought to bestow
upon facts.

Chapter 3.LXXIII.

Of the few legitimate sons of Adam whose breasts never felt what the sting
of love was,--(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be bastards,)--the
greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst them
nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their sakes I had the key
of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their
names--recollect them I cannot--so be content to accept of these, for the
present, in their stead.

There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and
Dardanus, and Pontus, and Asius,--to say nothing of the iron-hearted
Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K..... herself could make nothing
of.--There was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus,
and Prusicus, not one of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both
a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess--The
truth is, they had all of them something else to do--and so had my uncle
Toby--till Fate--till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being
handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus's and the rest,--she basely
patched up the peace of Utrecht.

--Believe me, Sirs, 'twas the worst deed she did that year.

Chapter 3.LXXIV.

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a
point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered
his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary's
heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby's. To the end of his life he never
could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,--or so much as read
an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a
sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great Motive-Monger, and consequently a very dangerous
person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,--for he generally
knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself--
would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which
shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole
affair, so much as the loss of his hobby-horse.--Never mind, brother Toby,
he would say,--by God's blessing we shall have another war break out again
some of these days; and when it does,--the belligerent powers, if they
would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.--I defy 'em, my dear
Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns,--or towns
without sieges.

My uncle Toby never took this back-stroke of my father's at his hobby-horse
kindly.--He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in
striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part
a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his
pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not
eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:--I
repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.--He was not
eloquent,--it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,--and he
hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the
man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle
Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus--but in others, in my own
opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of
my uncle Toby's, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick,
that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers,
with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus (. .
.), and is endorsed,

My Brother Toby's Justification of His Own Principles and Conduct in
Wishing to Continue the War.

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle
Toby's a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence,--and shews
so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give
it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.

Chapter 3.LXXV.

My Uncle Toby's Apologetical Oration.

I am not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man whose profession is
arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,--it has an ill aspect to the world;-
-and that, how just and right soever his motives the intentions may be,--he
stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in
doing it.

For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without
being a jot the less brave, he will be sure not to utter his wish in the
hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe him.--
He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,--lest he may suffer in
his esteem:--But if his heart is overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms
must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a brother, who knows
his character to the bottom, and what his true notions, dispositions, and
principles of honour are: What, I hope, I have been in all these, brother
Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say:--much worse, I know, have I been
than I ought,--and something worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I
am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the same breasts with me,-
-and with whom I have been brought up from my cradle,--and from whose
knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I
have concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in it--Such
as I am, brother, you must by this time know me, with all my vices, and
with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or
my understanding.

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I
condemned the peace of Utrecht, and grieved the war was not carried on with
vigour a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon unworthy
views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of
his fellow-creatures slain,--more slaves made, and more families driven
from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own pleasure:--Tell me,
brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it? (The devil a
deed do I know of, dear Toby, but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent
thee to carry on these cursed sieges.)

If, when I was a school-boy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart
beat with it--was it my fault?--Did I plant the propensity there?--Did I
sound the alarm within, or Nature?

When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and Parismenus, and Valentine and
Orson, and the Seven Champions of England, were handed around the school,--
were they not all purchased with my own pocket-money? Was that selfish,
brother Shandy? When we read over the siege of Troy, which lasted ten
years and eight months,--though with such a train of artillery as we had at
Namur, the town might have been carried in a week--was I not as much
concerned for the destruction of the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of the
whole school? Had I not three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my
right hand, and one on my left, for calling Helena a bitch for it? Did any
one of you shed more tears for Hector? And when king Priam came to the
camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy without it,--you
know, brother, I could not eat my dinner.--

--Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out
into the camp, and my heart panted for war,--was it a proof it could not
ache for the distresses of war too?

O brother! 'tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,--and 'tis
another to scatter cypress.--(Who told thee, my dear Toby, that cypress was
used by the antients on mournful occasions?)

--'Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his own life--to
leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in pieces:--
'Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the
breach the first man,--to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on
with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears:--'Tis one
thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this,--and 'tis another thing to
reflect on the miseries of war;--to view the desolations of whole
countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues and hardships which the
soldier himself, the instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a
day, if he can get it) to undergo.

Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fever's funeral sermon,
That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness,
as man is, was not shaped for this?--But why did you not add, Yorick,--if
not by Nature--that he is so by Necessity?--For what is war? what is it,
Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon
principles of honour--what is it, but the getting together of quiet and
harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious
and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy,
that the pleasure I have taken in these things,--and that infinite delight,
in particular, which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose
within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both
had, that in carrying them on, we were answering the great ends of our
creation.

Chapter 3.LXXVI.

I told the Christian reader--I say Christian--hoping he is one--and if he
is not, I am sorry for it--and only beg he will consider the matter with
himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book--

I told him, Sir--for in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the
strange way I do mine, he is obliged continually to be going backwards and
forwards to keep all tight together in the reader's fancy--which, for my
own part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there is so much
unfixed and equivocal matter starting up, with so many breaks and gaps in
it,--and so little service do the stars afford, which, nevertheless, I hang
up in some of the darkest passages, knowing that the world is apt to lose
its way, with all the lights the sun itself at noon-day can give it--and
now you see, I am lost myself!--

--But 'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be dissected,
you will perceive, without spectacles, that he has left a large uneven
thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of cambrick, running
along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly, you cannot so much as
cut out a. . ., (here I hang up a couple of lights again)--or a fillet, or
a thumb-stall, but it is seen or felt.--

Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum, sayeth Cardan. All
which being considered, and that you see 'tis morally impracticable for me
to wind this round to where I set out--

I begin the chapter over again.

Chapter 3.LXXVII.

I told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which preceded
my uncle Toby's apologetical oration,--though in a different trope from
what I should make use of now, That the peace of Utrecht was within an ace
of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobby-horse, as
it did betwixt the queen and the rest of the confederating powers.

There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse,
which, as good as says to him, 'I'll go afoot, Sir, all the days of my life
before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.'  Now my uncle Toby
could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for in strictness
of language, he could not be said to dismount his horse at all--his horse
rather flung him--and somewhat viciously, which made my uncle Toby take it
ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be settled by state-jockies as
they like.--It created, I say, a sort of shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and
his hobby-horse.--He had no occasion for him from the month of March to
November, which was the summer after the articles were signed, except it
was now and then to take a short ride out, just to see that the
fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk were demolished, according to
stipulation.

The French were so backwards all that summer in setting about that affair,
and Monsieur Tugghe, the deputy from the magistrates of Dunkirk, presented
so many affecting petitions to the queen,--beseeching her majesty to cause
only her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works, which might have
incurred her displeasure,--but to spare--to spare the mole, for the mole's
sake; which, in its naked situation, could be no more than an object of
pity--and the queen (who was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition,--
and her ministers also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town
dismantled, for these private reasons,. . .--. . .; so that the whole went
heavily on with my uncle Toby; insomuch, that it was not within three full
months, after he and the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a
condition to be destroyed, that the several commandants, commissaries,
deputies, negociators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it.--
Fatal interval of inactivity!

The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the
ramparts, or main fortifications of the town--No,--that will never do,
corporal, said my uncle Toby, for in going that way to work with the town,
the English garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if the French
are treacherous--They are as treacherous as devils, an' please your honour,
said the corporal--It gives me concern always when I hear it, Trim, said my
uncle Toby;--for they don't want personal bravery; and if a breach is made
in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the
place when they please:--Let them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up
his pioneer's spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him
with it,--let them enter, an' please your honour, if they dare.--In cases
like this, corporal, said my uncle Toby, slipping his right hand down to
the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheon-wise with his
fore-finger extended,--'tis no part of the consideration of a commandant,
what the enemy dare,--or what they dare not do; he must act with prudence.
We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and the land, and
particularly with fort Louis, the most distant of them all, and demolish it
first,--and the rest, one by one, both on our right and left, as we retreat
towards the town;--then we'll demolish the mole,--next fill up the
harbour,--then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the air: and
having done that, corporal, we'll embark for England.--We are there, quoth
the corporal, recollecting himself--Very true, said my uncle Toby--looking
at the church.

Chapter 3.LXXVIII.

A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle
Toby and Trim, upon the demolition of Dunkirk,--for a moment rallied back
the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from under him:--still--
still all went on heavily--the magic left the mind the weaker--Stillness,
with Silence at her back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew their
gauzy mantle over my uncle Toby's head;--and Listlessness, with her lax
fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down beside him in his arm-chair.--No
longer Amberg and Rhinberg, and Limbourg, and Huy, and Bonn, in one year,--
and the prospect of Landen, and Trerebach, and Drusen, and Dendermond, the
next,--hurried on the blood:--No longer did saps, and mines, and blinds,
and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man's repose:--No
more could my uncle Toby, after passing the French lines, as he eat his egg
at supper, from thence break into the heart of France,--cross over the
Oyes, and with all Picardie open behind him, march up to the gates of
Paris, and fall asleep with nothing but ideas of glory:--No more was he to
dream, he had fixed the royal standard upon the tower of the Bastile, and
awake with it streaming in his head.

--Softer visions,--gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his slumbers;--
the trumpet of war fell out of his hands,--he took up the lute, sweet
instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most difficult!--how wilt
thou touch it, my dear uncle Toby?

Chapter 3.LXXIX.

Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking,
That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle Toby's courtship of
widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn out one of the
most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love
and love-making, that ever was addressed to the world--are you to imagine
from thence, that I shall set out with a description of what love is?
whether part God and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it--

--Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be as
ten--to determine with Ficinus, 'How many parts of it--the one,--and how
many the other;'--or whether it is all of it one great Devil, from head to
tail, as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of
his, I shall not offer my opinion:--but my opinion of Plato is this; that
he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same temper
and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to
blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of 'em at once, would draw a man
as surely to his grave, as a herse and six--rashly concluded, that the
Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing
Cantharidis.--

I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty
in arguing, but what Nazianzen cried out (that is, polemically) to
Philagrius--

'(Greek)!' O rare! 'tis fine reasoning, Sir indeed!--'(Greek)' and most
nobly do you aim at truth, when you philosophize about it in your moods and
passions.

Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire,
whether love is a disease,--or embroil myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides,
whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver;--because this would lead
me on, to an examination of the two very opposite manners, in which
patients have been treated--the one, of Aoetius, who always begun with a
cooling clyster of hempseed and bruised cucumbers;--and followed on with
thin potations of water-lilies and purslane--to which he added a pinch of
snuff, of the herb Hanea;--and where Aoetius durst venture it,--his topaz-
ring.

--The other, that of Gordonius, who (in his cap. 15. de Amore) directs they
should be thrashed, 'ad putorem usque,'--till they stink again.

These are disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great stock of
knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my uncle
Toby's affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his theories of
love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby's
mind, almost as much as his amours themselves,)--he took a single step into
practice;--and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he found means to
impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a
new pair of breeches, he produced Gordonius's effect upon my uncle Toby
without the disgrace.

What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is
needful to be added to the anecdote, is this--That whatever effect it had
upon my uncle Toby,--it had a vile effect upon the house;--and if my uncle
Toby had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect
upon my father too.

Chapter 3.LXXX.

--'Twill come out of itself by and bye.--All I contend for is, that I am
not obliged to set out with a definition of what love is; and so long as I
can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the word itself,
without any other idea to it, than what I have in common with the rest of
the world, why should I differ from it a moment before the time?--When I
can get on no further,--and find myself entangled on all sides of this
mystic labyrinth,--my Opinion will then come in, in course,--and lead me
out.

At present, I hope I shall be sufficiently understood, in telling the
reader, my uncle Toby fell in love:

--Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is fallen in
love,--or that he is deeply in love,--or up to the ears in love,--and
sometimes even over head and ears in it,--carries an idiomatical kind of
implication, that love is a thing below a man:--this is recurring again to
Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship,--I hold to be damnable
and heretical:--and so much for that.

Let love therefore be what it will,--my uncle Toby fell into it.

--And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation--so wouldst thou:
For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet any thing in this
world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

Chapter 3.LXXXI.

To conceive this right,--call for pen and ink--here's paper ready to your
hand.--Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind--as like your mistress as
you can--as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you--'tis all one
to me--please but your own fancy in it.

(blank page)

--Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet!--so exquisite!

--Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle Toby resist it?

Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers,
which Malice will not blacken, and which Ignorance cannot misrepresent.

Chapter 3.LXXXII.

As Susannah was informed by an express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle
Toby's falling in love with her mistress fifteen days before it happened,--
the contents of which express, Susannah communicated to my mother the next
day,--it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby's
amours a fortnight before their existence.

I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, quoth my mother, which
will surprise you greatly.--

Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was
musing within himself about the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke
silence.--

'--My brother Toby,' quoth she, 'is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.'

--Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed
again as long as he lives.

It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my mother never asked the
meaning of a thing she did not understand.

--That she is not a woman of science, my father would say--is her
misfortune--but she might ask a question.--

My mother never did.--In short, she went out of the world at last without
knowing whether it turned round, or stood still.--My father had officiously
told her above a thousand times which way it was,--but she always forgot.

For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them,
than a proposition,--a reply, and a rejoinder; at the end of which, it
generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches),
and then went on again.

If he marries, 'twill be the worse for us,--quoth my mother.

Not a cherry-stone, said my father,--he may as well batter away his means
upon that, as any thing else,

--To be sure, said my mother: so here ended the proposition--the reply,--
and the rejoinder, I told you of.

It will be some amusement to him, too,--said my father.

A very great one, answered my mother, if he should have children.--

--Lord have mercy upon me,--said my father to himself--. . ..

Chapter 3.LXXXIII.

I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a
vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall
be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable
straight line. Now,

(four very squiggly lines across the page signed Inv.T.S and Scw.T.S)

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and
fourth volumes (Alluding to the first edition.)--In the fifth volume I have
been very good,--the precise line I have described in it being this:

(one very squiggly line across the page with loops marked A,B,C,C,C,C,C,D)

By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a
trip to Navarre,--and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when
I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,--I have not taken the
least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's devils led me the
round you see marked D.--for as for C C C C C they are nothing but
parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the
greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,--or
with my own transgressions at the letters ABD--they vanish into nothing.

In this last volume I have done better still--for from the end of Le
Fever's episode, to the beginning of my uncle Toby's campaigns,--I have
scarce stepped a yard out of my way.

If I mend at this rate, it is not impossible--by the good leave of his
grace of Benevento's devils--but I may arrive hereafter at the excellency
of going on even thus:

(straight line across the page)

which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writing-master's
ruler (borrowed for that purpose), turning neither to the right hand or to
the left.

This right line,--the path-way for Christians to walk in! say divines--

--The emblem of moral rectitude! says Cicero--

--The best line! say cabbage planters--is the shortest line, says
Archimedes, which can be drawn from one given point to another.--

I wish your ladyships would lay this matter to heart, in your next birth-
day suits!

--What a journey!

Pray can you tell me,--that is, without anger, before I write my chapter
upon straight lines--by what mistake--who told them so--or how it has come
to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along confounded this
line, with the line of Gravitation?

Chapter 3.LXXXIV.

No--I think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the
vile cough which then tormented me, and which to this hour I dread worse
than the devil, would but give me leave--and in another place--(but where,
I can't recollect now) speaking of my book as a machine, and laying my pen
and ruler down cross-wise upon the table, in order to gain the greater
credit to it--I swore it should be kept a going at that rate these forty
years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless me so long with
health and good spirits.

Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their charge--nay so very
little (unless the mounting me upon a long stick and playing the fool with
me nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, be accusations) that on the
contrary, I have much--much to thank 'em for: cheerily have ye made me
tread the path of life with all the burthens of it (except its cares) upon
my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye once
deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either with sable,
or with a sickly green; in dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when
Death himself knocked at my door--ye bad him come again; and in so gay a
tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he doubted of his
commission--

'--There must certainly be some mistake in this matter,' quoth he.

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be
interrupted in a story--and I was that moment telling Eugenius a most
tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shell-fish, and of a
monk damn'd for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and
justice of the procedure--

'--Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?' quoth Death.
Thou hast had a narrow escape, Tristram, said Eugenius, taking hold of my
hand as I finished my story--

But there is no living, Eugenius, replied I, at this rate; for as this son
of a whore has found out my lodgings--

--You call him rightly, said Eugenius,--for by sin, we are told, he enter'd
the world--I care not which way he enter'd, quoth I, provided he be not in
such a hurry to take me out with him--for I have forty volumes to write,
and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say
and do for me, except thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the
throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the table), and that
I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few
scatter'd spirits remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of
them up to him) are able to support me--had I not better, Eugenius, fly for
my life? 'Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius--Then by heaven!
I will lead him a dance he little thinks of--for I will gallop, quoth I,
without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear
him clattering at my heels--I'll scamper away to mount Vesuvius--from
thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows
me, I pray God he may break his neck--

--He runs more risk there, said Eugenius, than thou.

Eugenius's wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it
had been some months banish'd--'twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led
me to my chaise--Allons! said I; the post-boy gave a crack with his whip--
off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.

Chapter 3.LXXXV.

Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coast--a man should
know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad--and I never
gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the dock of Chatham,
or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way--

--But mine, indeed, is a particular case--

So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o'Becket, or any one
else--I skip'd into the boat, and in five minutes we got under sail, and
scudded away like the wind.

Pray, captain, quoth I, as I was going down into the cabin, is a man never
overtaken by Death in this passage?

Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied he--What a
cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse, quoth I, already--what a brain!--
upside down!--hey-day! the cells are broke loose one into another, and the
blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile
salts, are all jumbled into one mass--good G..! every thing turns round in
it like a thousand whirlpools--I'd give a shilling to know if I shan't
write the clearer for it--

Sick! sick! sick! sick!--

--When shall we get to land? captain--they have hearts like stones--O I am
deadly sick!--reach me that thing, boy--'tis the most discomfiting
sickness--I wish I was at the bottom--Madam! how is it with you? Undone!
undone! un. . .--O! undone! sir--What the first time?--No, 'tis the second,
third, sixth, tenth time, sir,--hey-day!--what a trampling over head!--
hollo! cabin boy! what's the matter?

The wind chopp'd about! s'Death--then I shall meet him full in the face.

What luck!--'tis chopp'd about again, master--O the devil chop it--

Captain, quoth she, for heaven's sake, let us get ashore.

Chapter 3.LXXXVI.

It is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three
distinct roads between Calais and Paris, in behalf of which there is so
much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along
them, that half a day is easily lost in settling which you'll take.

First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the most about--but most
interesting, and instructing.

The second, that by Amiens, which you may go, if you would see Chantilly--

And that by Beauvais, which you may go, if you will.

For this reason a great many chuse to go by Beauvais.

Chapter 3.LXXXVII.

'Now before I quit Calais,' a travel-writer would say, 'it would not be
amiss to give some account of it.'--Now I think it very much amiss--that a
man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not
meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at
every kennel he crosses over, merely o' my conscience for the sake of
drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these
things, by all who have wrote and gallop'd--or who have gallop'd and wrote,
which is a different way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest,
have wrote galloping, which is the way I do at present--from the great
Addison, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a. . .,
and galling his beast's crupper at every stroke--there is not a gallopper
of us all who might not have gone on ambling quietly in his own ground (in
case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dry-shod, as well as
not.

For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make my
last appeal--I know no more of Calais (except the little my barber told me
of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of Grand Cairo;
for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark as pitch in the
morning when I set out, and yet by merely knowing what is what, and by
drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and putting
this and that together in another--I would lay any travelling odds, that I
this moment write a chapter upon Calais as long as my arm; and with so
distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which is worth a
stranger's curiosity in the town--that you would take me for the town-clerk
of Calais itself--and where, sir, would be the wonder? was not Democritus,
who laughed ten times more than I--town-clerk of Abdera? and was not (I
forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, town-clerk of
Ephesus?--it should be penn'd moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and
good sense, and truth, and precision--

--Nay--if you don't believe me, you may read the chapter for your pains.

Chapter 3.LXXXVIII.

Calais, Calatium, Calusium, Calesium.

This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see no
reason to call in question in this place--was once no more than a small
village belonging to one of the first Counts de Guignes; and as it boasts
at present of no less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of four
hundred and twenty distinct families in the basse ville, or suburbs--it
must have grown up by little and little, I suppose, to its present size.

Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial church in the
whole town; I had not an opportunity of taking its exact dimensions, but it
is pretty easy to make a tolerable conjecture of 'em--for as there are
fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all it
must be considerably large--and if it will not--'tis a very great pity they
have not another--it is built in form of a cross, and dedicated to the
Virgin Mary; the steeple, which has a spire to it, is placed in the middle
of the church, and stands upon four pillars elegant and light enough, but
sufficiently strong at the same time--it is decorated with eleven altars,
most of which are rather fine than beautiful. The great altar is a master-
piece in its kind; 'tis of white marble, and, as I was told, near sixty
feet high--had it been much higher, it had been as high as mount Calvary
itself--therefore, I suppose it must be high enough in all conscience.

There was nothing struck me more than the great Square; tho' I cannot say
'tis either well paved or well built; but 'tis in the heart of the town,
and most of the streets, especially those in that quarter, all terminate in
it; could there have been a fountain in all Calais, which it seems there
cannot, as such an object would have been a great ornament, it is not to be
doubted, but that the inhabitants would have had it in the very centre of
this square,--not that it is properly a square,--because 'tis forty feet
longer from east to west, than from north to south; so that the French in
general have more reason on their side in calling them Places than Squares,
which, strictly speaking, to be sure, they are not.

The town-house seems to be but a sorry building, and not to be kept in the
best repair; otherwise it had been a second great ornament to this place;
it answers however its destination, and serves very well for the reception
of the magistrates, who assemble in it from time to time; so that 'tis
presumable, justice is regularly distributed.

I have heard much of it, but there is nothing at all curious in the
Courgain; 'tis a distinct quarter of the town, inhabited solely by sailors
and fishermen; it consists of a number of small streets, neatly built and
mostly of brick; 'tis extremely populous, but as that may be accounted for,
from the principles of their diet,--there is nothing curious in that
neither.--A traveller may see it to satisfy himself--he must not omit
however taking notice of la Tour de Guet, upon any account; 'tis so called
from its particular destination, because in war it serves to discover and
give notice of the enemies which approach the place, either by sea or
land;--but 'tis monstrous high, and catches the eye so continually, you
cannot avoid taking notice of it if you would.

It was a singular disappointment to me, that I could not have permission to
take an exact survey of the fortifications, which are the strongest in the
world, and which, from first to last, that is, for the time they were set
about by Philip of France, Count of Bologne, to the present war, wherein
many reparations were made, have cost (as I learned afterwards from an
engineer in Gascony)--above a hundred millions of livres. It is very
remarkable, that at the Tete de Gravelenes, and where the town is naturally
the weakest, they have expended the most money; so that the outworks
stretch a great way into the campaign, and consequently occupy a large
tract of ground--However, after all that is said and done, it must be
acknowledged that Calais was never upon any account so considerable from
itself, as from its situation, and that easy entrance which it gave our
ancestors, upon all occasions, into France: it was not without its
inconveniences also; being no less troublesome to the English in those
times, than Dunkirk has been to us, in ours; so that it was deservedly
looked upon as the key to both kingdoms, which no doubt is the reason that
there have arisen so many contentions who should keep it: of these, the
siege of Calais, or rather the blockade (for it was shut up both by land
and sea), was the most memorable, as it with-stood the efforts of Edward
the Third a whole year, and was not terminated at last but by famine and
extreme misery; the gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre, who first offered
himself a victim for his fellow-citizens, has rank'd his name with heroes.
As it will not take up above fifty pages, it would be injustice to the
reader, not to give him a minute account of that romantic transaction, as
well as of the siege itself, in Rapin's own words:

Chapter 3.LXXXIX.

--But courage! gentle reader!--I scorn it--'tis enough to have thee in my
power--but to make use of the advantage which the fortune of the pen has
now gained over thee, would be too much--No--! by that all-powerful fire
which warms the visionary brain, and lights the spirits through unworldly
tracts! ere I would force a helpless creature upon this hard service, and
make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages, which I have no right to sell
thee,--naked as I am, I would browse upon the mountains, and smile that the
north wind brought me neither my tent or my supper.

--So put on, my brave boy! and make the best of thy way to Boulogne.

Chapter 3.XC.

Boulogne!--hah!--so we are all got together--debtors and sinners before
heaven; a jolly set of us--but I can't stay and quaff it off with you--I'm
pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken, before I can
well change horses:--for heaven's sake, make haste--'Tis for high-treason,
quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man,
that stood next him--Or else for murder; quoth the tall man--Well thrown,
Size-ace! quoth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has been committing--

A! ma chere fille! said I, as she tripp'd by from her matins--you look as
rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the compliment the
more gracious)--No; it can't be that, quoth a fourth--(she made a curt'sy
to me--I kiss'd my hand) 'tis debt, continued he: 'Tis certainly for debt;
quoth a fifth; I would not pay that gentleman's debts, quoth Ace, for a
thousand pounds; nor would I, quoth Size, for six times the sum--Well
thrown, Size-ace, again! quoth I;--but I have no debt but the debt of
Nature, and I want but patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I
owe her--How can you be so hard-hearted, Madam, to arrest a poor traveller
going along without molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do
stop that death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is
posting after me--he never would have followed me but for you--if it be but
for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you, madam--do,
dear lady--

--Now, in troth, 'tis a great pity, quoth mine Irish host, that all this
good courtship should be lost; for the young gentlewoman has been after
going out of hearing of it all along.--

--Simpleton! quoth I.

--So you have nothing else in Boulogne worth seeing?

--By Jasus! there is the finest Seminary for the Humanities--

--There cannot be a finer; quoth I.

Chapter 3.XCI.

When the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times
faster than the vehicle he rides in--woe be to truth! and woe be to the
vehicle and its tackling (let 'em be made of what stuff you will) upon
which he breathes forth the disappointment of his soul!

As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, 'the
most haste the worse speed,' was all the reflection I made upon the affair,
the first time it happen'd;--the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I
confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly blamed only the
second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, without carrying my
reflections further; but the event continuing to befal me from the fifth,
to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one
exception, I then could not avoid making a national reflection of it, which
I do in these words;

That something is always wrong in a French post-chaise, upon first setting
out.

Or the proposition may stand thus:

A French postilion has always to alight before he has got three hundred
yards out of town.

What's wrong now?--Diable!--a rope's broke!--a knot has slipt!--a staple's
drawn!--a bolt's to whittle!--a tag, a rag, a jag, a strap, a buckle, or a
buckle's tongue, want altering.

Now true as all this is, I never think myself impowered to excommunicate
thereupon either the post-chaise, or its driver--nor do I take it into my
head to swear by the living G.., I would rather go a-foot ten thousand
times--or that I will be damn'd, if ever I get into another--but I take the
matter coolly before me, and consider, that some tag, or rag, or jag, or
bolt, or buckle, or buckle's tongue, will ever be a wanting or want
altering, travel where I will--so I never chaff, but take the good and the
bad as they fall in my road, and get on:--Do so, my lad! said I; he had
lost five minutes already, in alighting in order to get at a luncheon of
black bread, which he had cramm'd into the chaise-pocket, and was
remounted, and going leisurely on, to relish it the better.--Get on, my
lad, said I, briskly--but in the most persuasive tone imaginable, for I
jingled a four-and-twenty sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold
the flat side towards him, as he look'd back: the dog grinn'd intelligence
from his right ear to his left, and behind his sooty muzzle discovered such
a pearly row of teeth, that Sovereignty would have pawn'd her jewels for
them.

Just heaven! What masticators!--/What bread!--

and so as he finished the last mouthful of it, we entered the town of
Montreuil.

Chapter 3.XCII.

There is not a town in all France which, in my opinion, looks better in the
map, than Montreuil;--I own, it does not look so well in the book of post-
roads; but when you come to see it--to be sure it looks most pitifully.

There is one thing, however, in it at present very handsome; and that is,
the inn-keeper's daughter: She has been eighteen months at Amiens, and six
at Paris, in going through her classes; so knits, and sews, and dances, and
does the little coquetries very well.--

--A slut! in running them over within these five minutes that I have stood
looking at her, she has let fall at least a dozen loops in a white thread
stocking--yes, yes--I see, you cunning gipsy!--'tis long and taper--you
need not pin it to your knee--and that 'tis your own--and fits you
exactly.--

--That Nature should have told this creature a word about a statue's thumb!

--But as this sample is worth all their thumbs--besides, I have her thumbs
and fingers in at the bargain, if they can be any guide to me,--and as
Janatone withal (for that is her name) stands so well for a drawing--may I
never draw more, or rather may I draw like a draught-horse, by main
strength all the days of my life,--if I do not draw her in all her
proportions, and with as determined a pencil, as if I had her in the
wettest drapery.--

--But your worships chuse rather that I give you the length, breadth, and
perpendicular height of the great parish-church, or drawing of the facade
of the abbey of Saint Austreberte which has been transported from Artois
hither--every thing is just I suppose as the masons and carpenters left
them,--and if the belief in Christ continues so long, will be so these
fifty years to come--so your worships and reverences may all measure them
at your leisures--but he who measures thee, Janatone, must do it now--thou
carriest the principles of change within thy frame; and considering the
chances of a transitory life, I would not answer for thee a moment; ere
twice twelve months are passed and gone, thou mayest grow out like a
pumpkin, and lose thy shapes--or thou mayest go off like a flower, and lose
thy beauty--nay, thou mayest go off like a hussy--and lose thyself.--I
would not answer for my aunt Dinah, was she alive--'faith, scarce for her
picture--were it but painted by Reynolds.

But if I go on with my drawing, after naming that son of Apollo, I'll be
shot--

So you must e'en be content with the original; which, if the evening is
fine in passing thro' Montreuil, you will see at your chaise-door, as you
change horses: but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I have--you
had better stop:--She has a little of the devote: but that, sir, is a
terce to a nine in your favour--

-L... help me! I could not count a single point: so had been piqued and
repiqued, and capotted to the devil.

Chapter 3.XCIII.

All which being considered, and that Death moreover might be much nearer me
than I imagined--I wish I was at Abbeville, quoth I, were it only to see
how they card and spin--so off we set.

(Vid. Book of French post-roads, page 36. edition of 1762.)
de Montreuil a Nampont - poste et demi
de Nampont a Bernay --- poste
de Bernay a Nouvion --- poste
de Nouvion a Abbeville  poste
--but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed.

Chapter 3.XCIV.

What a vast advantage is travelling! only it heats one; but there is a
remedy for that, which you may pick out of the next chapter.

Chapter 3.XCV.

Was I in a condition to stipulate with Death, as I am this moment with my
apothecary, how and where I will take his clyster--I should certainly
declare against submitting to it before my friends; and therefore I never
seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe, which
generally takes up and torments my thoughts as much as the catastrophe
itself; but I constantly draw the curtain across it with this wish, that
the Disposer of all things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my
own house--but rather in some decent inn--at home, I know it,--the concern
of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows, and smoothing my
pillow, which the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so
crucify my soul, that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not
aware of: but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be purchased
with a few guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but punctual
attention--but mark. This inn should not be the inn at Abbeville--if there
was not another inn in the universe, I would strike that inn out of the
capitulation: so

Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the morning--Yes, by
four, Sir,--or by Genevieve! I'll raise a clatter in the house shall wake
the dead.

Chapter 3.XCVI.

'Make them like unto a wheel,' is a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned
know, against the grand tour, and that restless spirit for making it, which
David prophetically foresaw would haunt the children of men in the latter
days; and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop Hall, 'tis one of the
severest imprecations which David ever utter'd against the enemies of the
Lord--and, as if he had said, 'I wish them no worse luck than always to be
rolling about.'--So much motion, continues he (for he was very corpulent)--
is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so
much of heaven.

Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is
so much of life, and so much of joy--and that to stand still, or get on but
slowly, is death and the devil--

Hollo! Ho!--the whole world's asleep!--bring out the horses--grease the
wheels--tie on the mail--and drive a nail into that moulding--I'll not lose
a moment--

Now the wheel we are talking of, and whereinto (but not whereonto, for that
would make an Ixion's wheel of it) he curseth his enemies, according to the
bishop's habit of body, should certainly be a post-chaise wheel, whether
they were set up in Palestine at that time or not--and my wheel, for the
contrary reasons, must as certainly be a cart-wheel groaning round its
revolution once in an age; and of which sort, were I to turn commentator, I
should make no scruple to affirm, they had great store in that hilly
country.

I love the Pythagoreans (much more than ever I dare tell my dear Jenny) for
their '(Greek)'--(their) 'getting out of the body, in order to think well.'
No man thinks right, whilst he is in it; blinded as he must be, with his
congenial humours, and drawn differently aside, as the bishop and myself
have been, with too lax or too tense a fibre--Reason is, half of it, Sense;
and the measure of heaven itself is but the measure of our present
appetites and concoctions.--

--But which of the two, in the present case, do you think to be mostly in
the wrong?

You, certainly: quoth she, to disturb a whole family so early.

Chapter 3.XCVII.

--But she did not know I was under a vow not to shave my beard till I got
to Paris;--yet I hate to make mysteries of nothing;--'tis the cold
cautiousness of one of those little souls from which Lessius (lib. 13. de
moribus divinis, cap. 24.) hath made his estimate, wherein he setteth
forth, That one Dutch mile, cubically multiplied, will allow room enough,
and to spare, for eight hundred thousand millions, which he supposes to be
as great a number of souls (counting from the fall of Adam) as can possibly
be damn'd to the end of the world.

From what he has made this second estimate--unless from the parental
goodness of God--I don't know--I am much more at a loss what could be in
Franciscus Ribbera's head, who pretends that no less a space than one of
two hundred Italian miles multiplied into itself, will be sufficient to
hold the like number--he certainly must have gone upon some of the old
Roman souls, of which he had read, without reflecting how much, by a
gradual and most tabid decline, in the course of eighteen hundred years,
they must unavoidably have shrunk so as to have come, when he wrote, almost
to nothing.

In Lessius's time, who seems the cooler man, they were as little as can be
imagined--

--We find them less now--

And next winter we shall find them less again; so that if we go on from
little to less, and from less to nothing, I hesitate not one moment to
affirm, that in half a century at this rate, we shall have no souls at all;
which being the period beyond which I doubt likewise of the existence of
the Christian faith, 'twill be one advantage that both of 'em will be
exactly worn out together.

Blessed Jupiter! and blessed every other heathen god and goddess! for now
ye will all come into play again, and with Priapus at your tails--what
jovial times!--but where am I? and into what a delicious riot of things am
I rushing? I--I who must be cut short in the midst of my days, and taste
no more of 'em than what I borrow from my imagination--peace to thee,
generous fool! and let me go on.

Chapter 3.XCVIII.

--'So hating, I say, to make mysteries of nothing'--I intrusted it with the
post-boy, as soon as ever I got off the stones; he gave a crack with his
whip to balance the compliment; and with the thill-horse trotting, and a
sort of an up and a down of the other, we danced it along to Ailly au
clochers, famed in days of yore for the finest chimes in the world; but we
danced through it without music--the chimes being greatly out of order--(as
in truth they were through all France).

And so making all possible speed, from

Ailly au clochers, I got to Hixcourt,
from Hixcourt I got to Pequignay, and
from Pequignay, I got to Amiens,
concerning which town I have nothing to inform you, but what I have
informed you once before--and that was--that Janatone went there to school.

Chapter 3.XCIX.

In the whole catalogue of those whiffling vexations which come puffing
across a man's canvass, there is not one of a more teasing and tormenting
nature, than this particular one which I am going to describe--and for
which (unless you travel with an avance-courier, which numbers do in order
to prevent it)--there is no help: and it is this.

That be you in never so kindly a propensity to sleep--though you are
passing perhaps through the finest country--upon the best roads, and in the
easiest carriage for doing it in the world--nay, was you sure you could
sleep fifty miles straight forwards, without once opening your eyes--nay,
what is more, was you as demonstratively satisfied as you can be of any
truth in Euclid, that you should upon all accounts be full as well asleep
as awake--nay, perhaps better--Yet the incessant returns of paying for the
horses at every stage,--with the necessity thereupon of putting your hand
into your pocket, and counting out from thence three livres fifteen sous
(sous by sous), puts an end to so much of the project, that you cannot
execute above six miles of it (or supposing it is a post and a half, that
is but nine)--were it to save your soul from destruction.

--I'll be even with 'em, quoth I, for I'll put the precise sum into a piece
of paper, and hold it ready in my hand all the way: 'Now I shall have
nothing to do,' said I (composing myself to rest), 'but to drop this gently
into the post-boy's hat, and not say a word.'--Then there wants two sous
more to drink--or there is a twelve sous piece of Louis XIV. which will not
pass--or a livre and some odd liards to be brought over from the last
stage, which Monsieur had forgot; which altercations (as a man cannot
dispute very well asleep) rouse him: still is sweet sleep retrievable; and
still might the flesh weigh down the spirit, and recover itself of these
blows--but then, by heaven! you have paid but for a single post--whereas
'tis a post and a half; and this obliges you to pull out your book of post-
roads, the print of which is so very small, it forces you to open your
eyes, whether you will or no: Then Monsieur le Cure offers you a pinch of
snuff--or a poor soldier shews you his leg--or a shaveling his box--or the
priestesse of the cistern will water your wheels--they do not want it--but
she swears by her priesthood (throwing it back) that they do:--then you
have all these points to argue, or consider over in your mind; in doing of
which, the rational powers get so thoroughly awakened--you may get 'em to
sleep again as you can.

It was entirely owing to one of these misfortunes, or I had pass'd clean by
the stables of Chantilly--

--But the postillion first affirming, and then persisting in it to my face,
that there was no mark upon the two sous piece, I open'd my eyes to be
convinced --and seeing the mark upon it as plain as my nose--I leap'd out
of the chaise in a passion, and so saw every thing at Chantilly in spite.--
I tried it but for three posts and a half, but believe 'tis the best
principle in the world to travel speedily upon; for as few objects look
very inviting in that mood--you have little or nothing to stop you; by
which means it was that I passed through St. Dennis, without turning my
head so much as on one side towards the Abby--

--Richness of their treasury! stuff and nonsense!--bating their jewels,
which are all false, I would not give three sous for any one thing in it,
but Jaidas's lantern--nor for that either, only as it grows dark, it might
be of use.

Chapter 3.C.

Crack, crack--crack, crack--crack, crack--so this is Paris! quoth I
(continuing in the same mood)--and this is Paris!--humph!--Paris! cried I,
repeating the name the third time--

The first, the finest, the most brilliant--

The streets however are nasty.

But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells--crack, crack--crack, crack-
-what a fuss thou makest!--as if it concerned the good people to be
informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the honour to be
driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny
yellow jerkin, turned up with red calamanco--crack, crack--crack, crack--
crack, crack,--I wish thy whip--

--But 'tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack--crack on.

Ha!--and no one gives the wall!--but in the School of Urbanity herself, if
the walls are besh..t--how can you do otherwise?

And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?--never in the summer
months!--Ho! 'tis the time of sallads.--O rare! sallad and soup--soup and
sallad--sallad and soup, encore--

--'Tis too much for sinners.

Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable coachman
talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don't you see, friend, the streets
are so villanously narrow, that there is not room in all Paris to turn a
wheelbarrow? In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have
been amiss, if they had been left a thought wider; nay, were it only so
much in every single street, as that a man might know (was it only for
satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking.

One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten.--Ten cooks
shops! and twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes
driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great
merry-meeting with the barbers, by joint consent had said--Come, let us all
go live at Paris: the French love good eating--they are all gourmands--we
shall rank high; if their god is their belly--their cooks must be
gentlemen: and forasmuch as the periwig maketh the man, and the periwig-
maker maketh the periwig--ergo, would the barbers say, we shall rank higher
still--we shall be above you all--we shall be Capitouls (Chief Magistrate
in Toulouse, &c. &c. &c.) at least--pardi! we shall all wear swords--

--And so, one would swear, (that is, by candle-light,--but there is no
depending upon it,) they continued to do, to this day.

Chapter 3.CI.

The French are certainly misunderstood:--but whether the fault is theirs,
in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact
limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such
importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by us--or
whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not understanding
their language always so critically as to know 'what they would be at'--I
shall not decide; but 'tis evident to me, when they affirm, 'That they who
have seen Paris, have seen every thing,' they must mean to speak of those
who have seen it by day-light.

As for candle-light--I give it up--I have said before, there was no
depending upon it--and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and
shades are too sharp--or the tints confounded--or that there is neither
beauty or keeping, &c.. . .for that's not truth--but it is an uncertain
light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand Hotels, which
they number up to you in Paris--and the five hundred good things, at a
modest computation (for 'tis only allowing one good thing to a Hotel),
which by candle-light are best to be seen, felt, heard, and understood
(which, by the bye, is a quotation from Lilly)--the devil a one of us out
of fifty, can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them.

This is no part of the French computation: 'tis simply this,

That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven hundred and
sixteen, since which time there have been considerable augmentations, Paris
doth contain nine hundred streets; (viz)

In the quarter called the City--there are fifty-three streets.
In St. James of the Shambles, fifty-five streets.
In St. Oportune, thirty-four streets.
In the quarter of the Louvre, twenty-five streets.
In the Palace Royal, or St. Honorius, forty-nine streets.
In Mont. Martyr, forty-one streets.
In St. Eustace, twenty-nine streets.
In the Halles, twenty-seven streets.
In St. Dennis, fifty-five streets.
In St. Martin, fifty-four streets.
In St. Paul, or the Mortellerie, twenty-seven streets.
The Greve, thirty-eight streets.
In St. Avoy, or the Verrerie, nineteen streets.
In the Marais, or the Temple, fifty-two streets.
In St. Antony's, sixty-eight streets.
In the Place Maubert, eighty-one streets.
In St. Bennet, sixty streets.
In St. Andrews de Arcs, fifty-one streets.
In the quarter of the Luxembourg, sixty-two streets.
And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets, into any of which you may
walk; and that when you have seen them with all that belongs to them,
fairly by day-light--their gates, their bridges, their squares, their
statues. . .and have crusaded it moreover, through all their parish-
churches, by no means omitting St. Roche and Sulpice. . .and to crown all,
have taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may see, either with or
without the statues and pictures, just as you chuse--

--Then you will have seen--

--but 'tis what no one needeth to tell you, for you will read of it
yourself upon the portico of the Louvre, in these words,

Earth No Such Folks!--No Folks E'er Such A Town
As Paris Is!--Sing, Derry, Derry, Down.
(Non orbis gentem, non urbem gens habet ullam
--ulla parem.)

The French have a gay way of treating every thing that is Great; and that
is all can be said upon it.

Chapter 3.CII.

In mentioning the word gay (as in the close of the last chapter) it puts
one (i.e. an author) in mind of the word spleen--especially if he has any
thing to say upon it: not that by any analysis--or that from any table of
interest or genealogy, there appears much more ground of alliance betwixt
them, than betwixt light and darkness, or any two of the most unfriendly
opposites in nature--only 'tis an undercraft of authors to keep up a good
understanding amongst words, as politicians do amongst men--not knowing how
near they may be under a necessity of placing them to each other--which
point being now gain'd, and that I may place mine exactly to my mind, I
write it down here--

Spleen.

This, upon leaving Chantilly, I declared to be the best principle in the
world to travel speedily upon; but I gave it only as matter of opinion. I
still continue in the same sentiments--only I had not then experience
enough of its working to add this, that though you do get on at a tearing
rate, yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same time; for which
reason I here quit it entirely, and for ever, and 'tis heartily at any
one's service--it has spoiled me the digestion of a good supper, and
brought on a bilious diarrhoea, which has brought me back again to my first
principle on which I set out--and with which I shall now scamper it away to
the banks of the Garonne--

--No;--I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people--
their genius--their manners--their customs--their laws--their religion--
their government--their manufactures--their commerce--their finances, with
all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them: qualified as I may
be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that
time making these things the entire subject of my enquiries and
reflections--

Still--still I must away--the roads are paved--the posts are short--the
days are long--'tis no more than noon--I shall be at Fontainebleau before
the king--

--Was he going there? not that I know--

End of the Third Volume.

Volume the Fourth.

Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est.

Plin. Lib. V. Epist. 6.

Si quid urbaniuscule lusum a nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium
poetarum Numina, Oro te, ne me male capias.

A Dedication to a Great Man.

Having, a priori, intended to dedicate The Amours of my Uncle Toby to Mr.
...--I see more reasons, a posteriori, for doing it to Lord ........

I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of their
Reverences; because a posteriori, in Court-latin, signifies the kissing
hands for preferment--or any thing else--in order to get it.

My opinion of Lord ....... is neither better nor worse, than it was of Mr.
.... Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local
value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world
over without any other recommendation than their own weight.

The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour's
amusement to Mr. ... when out of place--operates more forcibly at present,
as half an hour's amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after
labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast.

Nothing is so perfectly amusement as a total change of ideas; no ideas are
so totally different as those of Ministers, and innocent Lovers: for which
reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and Patriots, and set such marks
upon them as will prevent confusion and mistakes concerning them for the
future--I propose to dedicate that Volume to some gentle Shepherd,

Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray,
Far as the Statesman's walk or Patriot-way;
Yet simple Nature to his hopes had given
Out of a cloud-capp'd head a humbler heaven;
Some untam'd World in depths of wood embraced--
Some happier Island in the wat'ry-waste--
And where admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful Dogs should bear him company.

In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his
Imagination, I shall unavoidably give a Diversion to his passionate and
love-sick Contemplations. In the mean time,

I am

The Author.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.

Chapter 4.I.

Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that
we do not get on so fast in France as we do in England; whereas we get on
much faster, consideratis considerandis; thereby always meaning, that if
you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both
before and behind upon them--and then consider their puny horses, with the
very little they give them--'tis a wonder they get on at all: their
suffering is most unchristian, and 'tis evident thereupon to me, that a
French post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for
the two words ...... and ...... in which there is as much sustenance, as if
you give him a peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from
my soul to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question--they
must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it
will answer no end--and yet to do it in that plain way--though their
reverences may laugh at it in the bed-chamber--full well I wot, they will
abuse it in the parlour: for which cause, I have been volving and
revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device or
facette contrivance I might so modulate them, that whilst I satisfy that
ear which the reader chuses to lend me--I might not dissatisfy the other
which he keeps to himself.

--My ink burns my finger to try--and when I have--'twill have a worse
consequence--It will burn (I fear) my paper.

--No;--I dare not--

But if you wish to know how the abbess of Andouillets and a novice of her
convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all imaginable
success)--I'll tell you without the least scruple.

Chapter 4.II.

The abbess of Andouillets, which if you look into the large set of
provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst the
hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an Anchylosis or
stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins), and
having tried every remedy--first, prayers and thanksgiving; then
invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuously--then particularly to
every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before her--then touching it with
all the reliques of the convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man
of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youth--then wrapping it up in her
veil when she went to bed--then cross-wise her rosary--then bringing in to
her aid the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals-
-then treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations--then with
poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and
fenugreek--then taking the woods, I mean the smoak of 'em, holding her
scapulary across her lap--then decoctions of wild chicory, water-cresses,
chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia--and nothing all this while answering,
was prevailed on at last to try the hot-baths of Bourbon--so having first
obtained leave of the visitor-general to take care of her existence--she
ordered all to be got ready for her journey: a novice of the convent of
about seventeen, who had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger,
by sticking it constantly into the abbess's cast poultices, &c.--had gained
such an interest, that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been
set up for ever by the hot-baths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice,
was elected as the companion of the journey.

An old calesh, belonging to the abbesse, lined with green frize, was
ordered to be drawn out into the sun--the gardener of the convent being
chosen muleteer, led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the rump-
ends of their tails, whilst a couple of lay-sisters were busied, the one in
darning the lining, and the other in sewing on the shreds of yellow
binding, which the teeth of time had unravelled--the under-gardener dress'd
the muleteer's hat in hot wine-lees--and a taylor sat musically at it, in a
shed over-against the convent, in assorting four dozen of bells for the
harness, whistling to each bell, as he tied it on with a thong.--

--The carpenter and the smith of Andouillets held a council of wheels; and
by seven, the morning after, all look'd spruce, and was ready at the gate
of the convent for the hot-baths of Bourbon--two rows of the unfortunate
stood ready there an hour before.

The abbess of Andouillets, supported by Margarita the novice, advanced
slowly to the calesh, both clad in white, with their black rosaries hanging
at their breasts--

--There was a simple solemnity in the contrast: they entered the calesh;
the nuns in the same uniform, sweet emblem of innocence, each occupied a
window, and as the abbess and Margarita look'd up--each (the sciatical poor
nun excepted)--each stream'd out the end of her veil in the air--then
kiss'd the lilly hand which let it go: the good abbess and Margarita laid
their hands saint-wise upon their breasts--look'd up to heaven--then to
them--and look'd 'God bless you, dear sisters.'

I declare I am interested in this story, and wish I had been there.

The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer, was a little, hearty,
broad-set, good-natured, chattering, toping kind of a fellow, who troubled
his head very little with the hows and whens of life; so had mortgaged a
month of his conventical wages in a borrachio, or leathern cask of wine,
which he had disposed behind the calesh, with a large russet-coloured
riding-coat over it, to guard it from the sun; and as the weather was hot,
and he not a niggard of his labours, walking ten times more than he rode--
he found more occasions than those of nature, to fall back to the rear of
his carriage; till by frequent coming and going, it had so happen'd, that
all his wine had leak'd out at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one
half of the journey was finish'd.

Man is a creature born to habitudes. The day had been sultry--the evening
was delicious--the wine was generous--the Burgundian hill on which it grew
was steep--a little tempting bush over the door of a cool cottage at the
foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the passions--a gentle air
rustled distinctly through the leaves--'Come--come, thirsty muleteer,--come
in.'

--The muleteer was a son of Adam, I need not say a word more. He gave the
mules, each of 'em, a sound lash, and looking in the abbess's and
Margarita's faces (as he did it)--as much as to say 'here I am'--he gave a
second good crack--as much as to say to his mules, 'get on'--so slinking
behind, he enter'd the little inn at the foot of the hill.

The muleteer, as I told you, was a little, joyous, chirping fellow, who
thought not of to-morrow, nor of what had gone before, or what was to
follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little
chit-chat along with it; so entering into a long conversation, as how he
was chief gardener to the convent of Andouillets, &c. &c. and out of
friendship for the abbess and Mademoiselle Margarita, who was only in her
noviciate, he had come along with them from the confines of Savoy, &c. &c.-
-and as how she had got a white swelling by her devotions--and what a
nation of herbs he had procured to mollify her humours, &c. &c. and that if
the waters of Bourbon did not mend that leg--she might as well be lame of
both--&c. &c. &c.--He so contrived his story, as absolutely to forget the
heroine of it--and with her the little novice, and what was a more ticklish
point to be forgot than both--the two mules; who being creatures that take
advantage of the world, inasmuch as their parents took it of them--and they
not being in a condition to return the obligation downwards (as men and
women and beasts are)--they do it side-ways, and long-ways, and back-ways--
and up hill, and down hill, and which way they can.--Philosophers, with all
their ethicks, have never considered this rightly--how should the poor
muleteer, then in his cups, consider it at all? he did not in the least--
'tis time we do; let us leave him then in the vortex of his element, the
happiest and most thoughtless of mortal men--and for a moment let us look
after the mules, the abbess, and Margarita.

By virtue of the muleteer's two last strokes the mules had gone quietly on,
following their own consciences up the hill, till they had conquer'd about
one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty old devil, at the
turn of an angle, giving a side glance, and no muleteer behind them,--

By my fig! said she, swearing, I'll go no further--And if I do, replied the
other, they shall make a drum of my hide.--

And so with one consent they stopp'd thus--

Chapter 4.III.

--Get on with you, said the abbess.

--Wh...ysh--ysh--cried Margarita.

Sh...a--shu..u--shu..u--sh..aw--shaw'd the abbess.

--Whu--v--w--whew--w--w--whuv'd Margarita, pursing up her sweet lips
betwixt a hoot and a whistle.

Thump--thump--thump--obstreperated the abbess of Andouillets with the end
of her gold-headed cane against the bottom of the calesh--

The old mule let a f...  

Chapter 4.IV.

We are ruin'd and undone, my child, said the abbess to Margarita,--we shall
be here all night--we shall be plunder'd--we shall be ravished--

--We shall be ravish'd, said Margarita, as sure as a gun.

Sancta Maria! cried the abbess (forgetting the O!)--why was I govern'd by
this wicked stiff joint? why did I leave the convent of Andouillets? and
why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go unpolluted to her tomb?

O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word
servant--why was I not content to put it here, or there, any where rather
than be in this strait?

Strait! said the abbess.

Strait--said the novice; for terror had struck their understandings--the
one knew not what she said--the other what she answer'd.

O my virginity! virginity! cried the abbess.

...inity! ...inity! said the novice, sobbing.

Chapter 4.V.

My dear mother, quoth the novice, coming a little to herself,--there are
two certain words, which I have been told will force any horse, or ass, or
mule, to go up a hill whether he will or no; be he never so obstinate or
ill-will'd, the moment he hears them utter'd, he obeys. They are words
magic! cried the abbess in the utmost horror--No; replied Margarita calmly-
-but they are words sinful--What are they? quoth the abbess, interrupting
her: They are sinful in the first degree, answered Margarita,--they are
mortal--and if we are ravished and die unabsolved of them, we shall both-
but you may pronounce them to me, quoth the abbess of Andouillets--They
cannot, my dear mother, said the novice, be pronounced at all; they will
make all the blood in one's body fly up into one's face--But you may
whisper them in my ear, quoth the abbess.

Heaven! hadst thou no guardian angel to delegate to the inn at the bottom
of the hill? was there no generous and friendly spirit unemployed--no agent
in nature, by some monitory shivering, creeping along the artery which led
to his heart, to rouse the muleteer from his banquet?--no sweet minstrelsy
to bring back the fair idea of the abbess and Margarita, with their black
rosaries!

Rouse! rouse!--but 'tis too late--the horrid words are pronounced this
moment--

--and how to tell them--Ye, who can speak of every thing existing, with
unpolluted lips--instruct me--guide me--

Chapter 4.VI.

All sins whatever, quoth the abbess, turning casuist in the distress they
were under, are held by the confessor of our convent to be either mortal or
venial: there is no further division. Now a venial sin being the
slightest and least of all sins--being halved--by taking either only the
half of it, and leaving the rest--or, by taking it all, and amicably
halving it betwixt yourself and another person--in course becomes diluted
into no sin at all.

Now I see no sin in saying, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, a hundred times
together; nor is there any turpitude in pronouncing the syllable ger, ger,
ger, ger, ger, were it from our matins to our vespers: Therefore, my dear
daughter, continued the abbess of Andouillets--I will say bou, and thou
shalt say ger; and then alternately, as there is no more sin in fou than in
bou--Thou shalt say fou--and I will come in (like fa, sol, la, re, mi, ut,
at our complines) with ter. And accordingly the abbess, giving the pitch
note, set off thus:

Abbess,.....)  Bou...bou...bou..
Margarita,..)  ---ger,..ger,..ger.

Margarita,..)  Fou...fou...fou..
Abbess,.....)  ---ter,..ter,..ter.

The two mules acknowledged the notes by a mutual lash of their tails; but
it went no further--'Twill answer by an' by, said the novice.

Abbess,.....)  Bou. bou. bou. bou. bou. bou.
Margarita,..)  ---ger,  ger,  ger,  ger,  ger,  ger.

Quicker still, cried Margarita. Fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou, fou,
fou.

Quicker still, cried Margarita. Bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou,
bou.

Quicker still--God preserve me; said the abbess--They do not understand us,
cried Margarita--But the Devil does, said the abbess of Andouillets.

Chapter 4.VII.

What a tract of country have I run!--how many degrees nearer to the warm
sun am I advanced, and how many fair and goodly cities have I seen, during
the time you have been reading and reflecting, Madam, upon this story!
There's Fontainbleau, and Sens, and Joigny, and Auxerre, and Dijon the
capital of Burgundy, and Challon, and Macon the capital of the Maconese,
and a score more upon the road to Lyons--and now I have run them over--I
might as well talk to you of so many market towns in the moon, as tell you
one word about them: it will be this chapter at the least, if not both
this and the next entirely lost, do what I will--

--Why, 'tis a strange story! Tristram.

Alas! Madam, had it been upon some melancholy lecture of the cross--the
peace of meekness, or the contentment of resignation--I had not been
incommoded: or had I thought of writing it upon the purer abstractions of
the soul, and that food of wisdom and holiness and contemplation, upon
which the spirit of man (when separated from the body) is to subsist for
ever--You would have come with a better appetite from it--

--I wish I never had wrote it: but as I never blot any thing out--let us
use some honest means to get it out of our heads directly.

--Pray reach me my fool's cap--I fear you sit upon it, Madam--'tis under
the cushion--I'll put it on--

Bless me! you have had it upon your head this half hour.--There then let it
stay, with a
Fa-ra diddle di
and a fa-ri diddle d
and a high-dum--dye-dum
fiddle. . .dumb-c.

And now, Madam, we may venture, I hope a little to go on.

Chapter 4.VIII.

--All you need say of Fontainbleau (in case you are ask'd) is, that it
stands about forty miles (south something) from Paris, in the middle of a
large forest--That there is something great in it--That the king goes there
once every two or three years, with his whole court, for the pleasure of
the chace--and that, during that carnival of sporting, any English
gentleman of fashion (you need not forget yourself) may be accommodated
with a nag or two, to partake of the sport, taking care only not to out-
gallop the king--

Though there are two reasons why you need not talk loud of this to every
one.

First, Because 'twill make the said nags the harder to be got; and

Secondly, 'Tis not a word of it true.--Allons!

As for Sens--you may dispatch--in a word--''Tis an archiepiscopal see.'

--For Joigny--the less, I think, one says of it the better.

But for Auxerre--I could go on for ever: for in my grand tour through
Europe, in which, after all, my father (not caring to trust me with any
one) attended me himself, with my uncle Toby, and Trim, and Obadiah, and
indeed most of the family, except my mother, who being taken up with a
project of knitting my father a pair of large worsted breeches--(the thing
is common sense)--and she not caring to be put out of her way, she staid at
home, at Shandy Hall, to keep things right during the expedition; in which,
I say, my father stopping us two days at Auxerre, and his researches being
ever of such a nature, that they would have found fruit even in a desert--
he has left me enough to say upon Auxerre: in short, wherever my father
went--but 'twas more remarkably so, in this journey through France and
Italy, than in any other stages of his life--his road seemed to lie so much
on one side of that, wherein all other travellers have gone before him--he
saw kings and courts and silks of all colours, in such strange lights--and
his remarks and reasonings upon the characters, the manners, and customs of
the countries we pass'd over, were so opposite to those of all other mortal
men, particularly those of my uncle Toby and Trim--(to say nothing of
myself)--and to crown all--the occurrences and scrapes which we were
perpetually meeting and getting into, in consequence of his systems and
opiniotry--they were of so odd, so mix'd and tragi-comical a contexture--
That the whole put together, it appears of so different a shade and tint
from any tour of Europe, which was ever executed--that I will venture to
pronounce--the fault must be mine and mine only--if it be not read by all
travellers and travel-readers, till travelling is no more,--or which comes
to the same point--till the world, finally, takes it into its head to stand
still.--

--But this rich bale is not to be open'd now; except a small thread or two
of it, merely to unravel the mystery of my father's stay at Auxerre.

--As I have mentioned it--'tis too slight to be kept suspended; and when
'tis wove in, there is an end of it.

We'll go, brother Toby, said my father, whilst dinner is coddling--to the
abbey of Saint Germain, if it be only to see these bodies, of which
Monsieur Sequier has given such a recommendation.--I'll go see any body,
quoth my uncle Toby; for he was all compliance through every step of the
journey--Defend me! said my father--they are all mummies--Then one need not
shave; quoth my uncle Toby--Shave! no--cried my father--'twill be more like
relations to go with our beards on--So out we sallied, the corporal lending
his master his arm, and bringing up the rear, to the abbey of Saint
Germain.

Every thing is very fine, and very rich, and very superb, and very
magnificent, said my father, addressing himself to the sacristan, who was a
younger brother of the order of Benedictines--but our curiosity has led us
to see the bodies, of which Monsieur Sequier has given the world so exact a
description.--The sacristan made a bow, and lighting a torch first, which
he had always in the vestry ready for the purpose; he led us into the tomb
of St. Heribald--This, said the sacristan, laying his hand upon the tomb,
was a renowned prince of the house of Bavaria, who under the successive
reigns of Charlemagne, Louis le Debonnair, and Charles the Bald, bore a
great sway in the government, and had a principal hand in bringing every
thing into order and discipline--

Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field, as in the cabinet--
I dare say he has been a gallant soldier--He was a monk--said the
sacristan.

My uncle Toby and Trim sought comfort in each other's faces--but found it
not: my father clapped both his hands upon his cod-piece, which was a way
he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for though he hated a monk and
the very smell of a monk worse than all the devils in hell--yet the shot
hitting my uncle Toby and Trim so much harder than him, 'twas a relative
triumph; and put him into the gayest humour in the world.

--And pray what do you call this gentleman? quoth my father, rather
sportingly: This tomb, said the young Benedictine, looking downwards,
contains the bones of Saint Maxima, who came from Ravenna on purpose to
touch the body--

--Of Saint Maximus, said my father, popping in with his saint before him,--
they were two of the greatest saints in the whole martyrology, added my
father--Excuse me, said the sacristan--'twas to touch the bones of Saint
Germain, the builder of the abbey--And what did she get by it? said my
uncle Toby--What does any woman get by it? said my father--Martyrdome;
replied the young Benedictine, making a bow down to the ground, and
uttering the word with so humble, but decisive a cadence, it disarmed my
father for a moment. 'Tis supposed, continued the Benedictine, that St.
Maxima has lain in this tomb four hundred years, and two hundred before her
canonization--'Tis but a slow rise, brother Toby, quoth my father, in this
self-same army of martyrs.--A desperate slow one, an' please your honour,
said Trim, unless one could purchase--I should rather sell out entirely,
quoth my uncle Toby--I am pretty much of your opinion, brother Toby, said
my father.

--Poor St. Maxima! said my uncle Toby low to himself, as we turn'd from her
tomb: She was one of the fairest and most beautiful ladies either of Italy
or France, continued the sacristan--But who the duce has got lain down
here, besides her? quoth my father, pointing with his cane to a large tomb
as we walked on--It is Saint Optat, Sir, answered the sacristan--And
properly is Saint Optat plac'd! said my father: And what is Saint Optat's
story? continued he. Saint Optat, replied the sacristan, was a bishop--

--I thought so, by heaven! cried my father, interrupting him--Saint Optat!-
-how should Saint Optat fail? so snatching out his pocket-book, and the
young Benedictine holding him the torch as he wrote, he set it down as a
new prop to his system of Christian names, and I will be bold to say, so
disinterested was he in the search of truth, that had he found a treasure
in Saint Optat's tomb, it would not have made him half so rich: 'Twas as
successful a short visit as ever was paid to the dead; and so highly was
his fancy pleas'd with all that had passed in it,--that he determined at
once to stay another day in Auxerre.

--I'll see the rest of these good gentry to-morrow, said my father, as we
cross'd over the square--And while you are paying that visit, brother
Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby--the corporal and I will mount the ramparts.

Chapter 4.IX.

--Now this is the most puzzled skein of all--for in this last chapter, as
far at least as it has help'd me through Auxerre, I have been getting
forwards in two different journies together, and with the same dash of the
pen--for I have got entirely out of Auxerre in this journey which I am
writing now, and I am got half way out of Auxerre in that which I shall
write hereafter--There is but a certain degree of perfection in every
thing; and by pushing at something beyond that, I have brought myself into
such a situation, as no traveller ever stood before me; for I am this
moment walking across the market-place of Auxerre with my father and my
uncle Toby, in our way back to dinner--and I am this moment also entering
Lyons with my post-chaise broke into a thousand pieces--and I am moreover
this moment in a handsome pavillion built by Pringello (The same Don
Pringello, the celebrated Spanish architect, of whom my cousin Antony has
made such honourable mention in a scholium to the Tale inscribed to his
name. Vid. p.129, small edit.), upon the banks of the Garonne, which Mons.
Sligniac has lent me, and where I now sit rhapsodising all these affairs.

--Let me collect myself, and pursue my journey.

Chapter 4.X.

I am glad of it, said I, settling the account with myself, as I walk'd into
Lyons--my chaise being all laid higgledy-piggledy with my baggage in a
cart, which was moving slowly before me--I am heartily glad, said I, that
'tis all broke to pieces; for now I can go directly by water to Avignon,
which will carry me on a hundred and twenty miles of my journey, and not
cost me seven livres--and from thence, continued I, bringing forwards the
account, I can hire a couple of mules--or asses, if I like, (for nobody
knows me,) and cross the plains of Languedoc for almost nothing--I shall
gain four hundred livres by the misfortune clear into my purse: and
pleasure! worth--worth double the money by it. With what velocity,
continued I, clapping my two hands together, shall I fly down the rapid
Rhone, with the Vivares on my right hand, and Dauphiny on my left, scarce
seeing the ancient cities of Vienne, Valence, and Vivieres. What a flame
will it rekindle in the lamp, to snatch a blushing grape from the Hermitage
and Cote roti, as I shoot by the foot of them! and what a fresh spring in
the blood! to behold upon the banks advancing and retiring, the castles of
romance, whence courteous knights have whilome rescued the distress'd--and
see vertiginous, the rocks, the mountains, the cataracts, and all the hurry
which Nature is in with all her great works about her.

As I went on thus, methought my chaise, the wreck of which look'd stately
enough at the first, insensibly grew less and less in its size; the
freshness of the painting was no more--the gilding lost its lustre--and the
whole affair appeared so poor in my eyes--so sorry!--so contemptible! and,
in a word, so much worse than the abbess of Andouillets' itself--that I was
just opening my mouth to give it to the devil--when a pert vamping chaise-
undertaker, stepping nimbly across the street, demanded if Monsieur would
have his chaise refitted--No, no, said I, shaking my head sideways--Would
Monsieur choose to sell it? rejoined the undertaker--With all my soul, said
I--the iron work is worth forty livres--and the glasses worth forty more--
and the leather you may take to live on.

What a mine of wealth, quoth I, as he counted me the money, has this post-
chaise brought me in? And this is my usual method of book-keeping, at
least with the disasters of life--making a penny of every one of 'em as
they happen to me--

--Do, my dear Jenny, tell the world for me, how I behaved under one, the
most oppressive of its kind, which could befal me as a man, proud as he
ought to be of his manhood--

'Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my garters
in my hand, reflecting upon what had not pass'd--'Tis enough, Tristram, and
I am satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in my ear, .... .. ....
... ......;--...... ...--any other man would have sunk down to the centre--

--Every thing is good for something, quoth I.

--I'll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat's whey--and I'll gain
seven years longer life for the accident. For which reason I think myself
inexcusable, for blaming Fortune so often as I have done, for pelting me
all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call'd her, with so many
small evils: surely, if I have any cause to be angry with her, 'tis that
she has not sent me great ones--a score of good cursed, bouncing losses,
would have been as good as a pension to me.

--One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wish--I would not be at the
plague of paying land-tax for a larger.

Chapter 4.XI.

To those who call vexations, Vexations, as knowing what they are, there
could not be a greater, than to be the best part of a day at Lyons, the
most opulent and flourishing city in France, enriched with the most
fragments of antiquity--and not be able to see it. To be withheld upon any
account, must be a vexation; but to be withheld by a vexation--must
certainly be, what philosophy justly calls
Vexation
upon
Vexation.

I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently
good for a consumption, but you must boil the milk and coffee together--
otherwise 'tis only coffee and milk)--and as it was no more than eight in
the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had time to see
enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all the friends I had in the world
with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list,
and see the wonderful mechanism of this great clock of Lippius of Basil, in
the first place--

Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanism--I
have neither genius, or taste, or fancy--and have a brain so entirely unapt
for every thing of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet able
to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or a common
knife-grinder's wheel--tho' I have many an hour of my life look'd up with
great devotion at the one--and stood by with as much patience as any
christian ever could do, at the other--

I'll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very
first thing I do: and then I will pay a visit to the great library of the
Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the
general history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarean, but) in the Chinese
language, and in the Chinese character too.

Now I almost know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the
mechanism of Lippius's clock-work; so, why these should have jostled
themselves into the two first articles of my list--I leave to the curious
as a problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her ladyship's
obliquities; and they who court her, are interested in finding out her
humour as much as I.

When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my
valet de place, who stood behind me--'twill be no hurt if we go to the
church of St. Irenaeus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tied--and
after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived--'Twas at the next town,
said the valet de place--at Vienne; I am glad of it, said I, rising briskly
from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as my
usual pace--'for so much the sooner shall I be at the Tomb of the two
lovers.'

What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in
uttering this--I might leave to the curious too; but as no principle of
clock-work is concerned in it--'twill be as well for the reader if I
explain it myself.

Chapter 4.XII.

O! there is a sweet aera in the life of man, when (the brain being tender
and fibrillous, and more like pap than any thing else)--a story read of two
fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more
cruel destiny--

Amandus--He
Amanda--She--
each ignorant of the other's course,
He--east
She--west
Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the emperor of Morocco's
court, where the princess of Morocco falling in love with him, keeps him
twenty years in prison for the love of the his Amanda.--

She--(Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell'd hair,
o'er rocks and mountains, enquiring for Amandus!--Amandus! Amandus!--making
every hill and valley to echo back his name--
Amandus! Amandus!
at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate--Has Amandus!--has
my Amandus enter'd?--till,--going round, and round, and round the world--
chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by
different ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native city, and each in well-
known accents calling out aloud,
Is Amandus / Is my Amanda still alive?
they fly into each other's arms, and both drop down dead for joy.

There is a soft aera in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story
affords more pabulum to the brain, than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and
Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.

--'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of
what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it; and
finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows--That sacred to
the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates,
where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their truths--I
never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of the
lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the close--nay such a kind of
empire had it establish'd over me, that I could seldom think or speak of
Lyons--and sometimes not so much as see even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this
remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often
said in my wild way of running on--tho' I fear with some irreverence--'I
thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and
so little short, except in wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time
or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons)
on purpose to pay it a visit.'

In my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, tho' last,--was not, you
see, least; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than usual cross my
room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the basse
cour, in order to sally forth; and having called for my bill--as it was
uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid it--had moreover
given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of
Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the Rhone--when I was stopped
at the gate--

Chapter 4.XIII.

--'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large
panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-
leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside of the
threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing
very well whether he was to go in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike--there
is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks
and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me;
and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the
contrary, meet him where I will--whether in town or country--in cart or
under panniers--whether in liberty or bondage--I have ever something civil
to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as
little to do as I)--I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely
never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the
etchings of his countenance--and where those carry me not deep enough--in
flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to
think--as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only
creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this:
for parrots, jackdaws, &c.--I never exchange a word with them--nor with the
apes, &c. for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others
speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my cat, though I
value them both--(and for my dog he would speak if he could)--yet somehow
or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation--I can
make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the proposition, the reply,
and rejoinder, which terminated my father's and my mother's conversations,
in his beds of justice--and those utter'd--there's an end of the dialogue--

--But with an ass, I can commune for ever.

Come, Honesty! said I,--seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and
the gate--art thou for coming in, or going out?

The ass twisted his head round to look up the street--

Well--replied I--we'll wait a minute for thy driver:

--He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite
way--

I understand thee perfectly, answered I--If thou takest a wrong step in
this affair, he will cudgel thee to death--Well! a minute is but a minute,
and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as
ill-spent.

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in
the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness,
had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again--
God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't--and many a
bitter day's labour,--and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages--'tis
all--all bitterness to thee, whatever life is to others.--And now thy
mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot--(for
he had cast aside the stem) and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this
world, that will give thee a macaroon.--In saying this, I pull'd out a
paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave him one--and at this
moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me, that there was more of
pleasantry in the conceit, of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon--than
of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.

When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press'd him to come in--the poor
beast was heavy loaded--his legs seem'd to tremble under him--he hung
rather backwards, and as I pull'd at his halter, it broke short in my hand-
-he look'd up pensive in my face--'Don't thrash me with it--but if you
will, you may'--If I do, said I, I'll be d....d.

The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of
Andouillet's--(so there was no sin in it)--when a person coming in, let
fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end
to the ceremony.

Out upon it!
cried I--but the interjection was equivocal--and, I think, wrong placed
too--for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture of
the ass's panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as he rush'd by
me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can imagine--so that
the

Out upon it! in my opinion, should have come in here--but this I leave to
be settled by
The
Reviewers
of
My Breeches,
which I have brought over along with me for that purpose.

Chapter 4.XIV.

When all was set to rights, I came down stairs again into the basse cour
with my valet de place, in order to sally out towards the tomb of the two
lovers, &c.--and was a second time stopp'd at the gate--not by the ass--but
by the person who struck him; and who, by that time, had taken possession
(as is not uncommon after a defeat) of the very spot of ground where the
ass stood.

It was a commissary sent to me from the post-office, with a rescript in his
hand for the payment of some six livres odd sous.

Upon what account? said I.--'Tis upon the part of the king, replied the
commissary, heaving up both his shoulders--

--My good friend, quoth I--as sure as I am I--and you are you--

--And who are you? said he.--Don't puzzle me; said I.

Chapter 4.XV.

--But it is an indubitable verity, continued I, addressing myself to the
commissary, changing only the form of my asseveration--that I owe the king
of France nothing but my good will; for he is a very honest man, and I wish
him all health and pastime in the world--

Pardonnez moi--replied the commissary, you are indebted to him six livres
four sous, for the next post from hence to St. Fons, in your route to
Avignon--which being a post royal, you pay double for the horses and
postillion--otherwise 'twould have amounted to no more than three livres
two sous--

--But I don't go by land; said I.

--You may if you please; replied the commissary--

Your most obedient servant--said I, making him a low bow--

The commissary, with all the sincerity of grave good breeding--made me one,
as low again.--I never was more disconcerted with a bow in my life.

--The devil take the serious character of these people! quoth I--(aside)
they understand no more of Irony than this--

The comparison was standing close by with his panniers--but something
seal'd up my lips--I could not pronounce the name--

Sir, said I, collecting myself--it is not my intention to take post--

--But you may--said he, persisting in his first reply--you may take post if
you chuse--

--And I may take salt to my pickled herring, said I, if I chuse--

--But I do not chuse--

--But you must pay for it, whether you do or no.

Aye! for the salt; said I (I know)--

--And for the post too; added he. Defend me! cried I--

I travel by water--I am going down the Rhone this very afternoon--my
baggage is in the boat--and I have actually paid nine livres for my
passage--

C'est tout egal--'tis all one; said he.

Bon Dieu! what, pay for the way I go! and for the way I do not go!

--C'est tout egal; replied the commissary--

--The devil it is! said I--but I will go to ten thousand Bastiles first--

O England! England! thou land of liberty, and climate of good sense, thou
tenderest of mothers--and gentlest of nurses, cried I, kneeling upon one
knee, as I was beginning my apostrophe.

When the director of Madam Le Blanc's conscience coming in at that instant,
and seeing a person in black, with a face as pale as ashes, at his
devotions--looking still paler by the contrast and distress of his drapery-
-ask'd, if I stood in want of the aids of the church--

I go by Water--said I--and here's another will be for making me pay for
going by Oil.

Chapter 4.XVI.

As I perceived the commissary of the post-office would have his six livres
four sous, I had nothing else for it, but to say some smart thing upon the
occasion, worth the money:

And so I set off thus:--

--And pray, Mr. Commissary, by what law of courtesy is a defenceless
stranger to be used just the reverse from what you use a Frenchman in this
matter?

By no means; said he.

Excuse me; said I--for you have begun, Sir, with first tearing off my
breeches-and now you want my pocket--

Whereas--had you first taken my pocket, as you do with your own people--and
then left me bare a..'d after--I had been a beast to have complain'd--

As it is--

--'Tis contrary to the law of nature.

--'Tis contrary to reason.

--'Tis contrary to the Gospel.

But not to this--said he--putting a printed paper into my hand,

Par le Roy.

--'Tis a pithy prolegomenon, quoth I--and so read on. . ..

--By all which it appears, quoth I, having read it over, a little too
rapidly, that if a man sets out in a post-chaise from Paris--he must go on
travelling in one, all the days of his life--or pay for it.--Excuse me,
said the commissary, the spirit of the ordinance is this--That if you set
out with an intention of running post from Paris to Avignon, &c. you shall
not change that intention or mode of travelling, without first satisfying
the fermiers for two posts further than the place you repent at--and 'tis
founded, continued he, upon this, that the Revenues are not to fall short
through your fickleness--

--O by heavens! cried I--if fickleness is taxable in France--we have
nothing to do but to make the best peace with you we can--

And So the Peace Was Made;

--And if it is a bad one--as Tristram Shandy laid the corner-stone of it--
nobody but Tristram Shandy ought to be hanged.

Chapter 4.XVII.

Though I was sensible I had said as many clever things to the commissary
as came to six livres four sous, yet I was determined to note down the
imposition amongst my remarks before I retired from the place; so putting
my hand into my coat-pocket for my remarks--(which, by the bye, may be a
caution to travellers to take a little more care of their remarks for the
future) 'my remarks were stolen'--Never did sorry traveller make such a
pother and racket about his remarks as I did about mine, upon the occasion.

Heaven! earth! sea! fire! cried I, calling in every thing to my aid but
what I should--My remarks are stolen!--what shall I do?--Mr. Commissary!
pray did I drop any remarks, as I stood besides you?--

You dropp'd a good many very singular ones; replied he--Pugh! said I, those
were but a few, not worth above six livres two sous--but these are a large
parcel--He shook his head--Monsieur Le Blanc! Madam Le Blanc! did you see
any papers of mine?--you maid of the house! run up stairs--Francois! run up
after her--

--I must have my remarks--they were the best remarks, cried I, that ever
were made--the wisest--the wittiest--What shall I do?--which way shall I
turn myself?

Sancho Panca, when he lost his ass's Furniture, did not exclaim more
bitterly.

Chapter 4.XVIII.

When the first transport was over, and the registers of the brain were
beginning to get a little out of the confusion into which this jumble of
cross accidents had cast them--it then presently occurr'd to me, that I had
left my remarks in the pocket of the chaise--and that in selling my chaise,
I had sold my remarks along with it, to the chaise-vamper.         I leave
this void space that the reader may swear into it any oath that he is most
accustomed to--For my own part, if ever I swore a whole oath into a vacancy
in my life, I think it was into that--........., said I--and so my remarks
through France, which were as full of wit, as an egg is full of meat, and
as well worth four hundred guineas, as the said egg is worth a penny--have
I been selling here to a chaise-vamper--for four Louis d'Ors--and giving
him a post-chaise (by heaven) worth six into the bargain; had it been to
Dodsley, or Becket, or any creditable bookseller, who was either leaving
off business, and wanted a post-chaise--or who was beginning it--and wanted
my remarks, and two or three guineas along with them--I could have borne
it--but to a chaise-vamper!--shew me to him this moment, Francois,--said I-
-The valet de place put on his hat, and led the way--and I pull'd off mine,
as I pass'd the commissary, and followed him.

Chapter 4.XIX.

When we arrived at the chaise-vamper's house, both the house and the shop
were shut up; it was the eighth of September, the nativity of the blessed
Virgin Mary, mother of God--

--Tantarra-ra-tan-tivi--the whole world was gone out a May-poling--frisking
here--capering there--no body cared a button for me or my remarks; so I sat
me down upon a bench by the door, philosophating upon my condition: by a
better fate than usually attends me, I had not waited half an hour, when
the mistress came in to take the papilliotes from off her hair, before she
went to the May-poles--

The French women, by the bye, love May-poles, a la folie--that is, as much
as their matins--give 'em but a May-pole, whether in May, June, July or
September--they never count the times--down it goes--'tis meat, drink,
washing, and lodging to 'em--and had we but the policy, an' please your
worships (as wood is a little scarce in France), to send them but plenty of
May-poles--

The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance round
them (and the men for company) till they were all blind.

The wife of the chaise-vamper stepp'd in, I told you, to take the
papilliotes from off her hair--the toilet stands still for no man--so she
jerk'd off her cap, to begin with them as she open'd the door, in doing
which, one of them fell upon the ground--I instantly saw it was my own
writing--

O Seigneur! cried I--you have got all my remarks upon your head, Madam!--
J'en suis bien mortifiee, said she--'tis well, thinks I, they have stuck
there--for could they have gone deeper, they would have made such confusion
in a French woman's noddle--She had better have gone with it unfrizled, to
the day of eternity.

Tenez--said she--so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she
took them from her curls, and put them gravely one by one into my hat--one
was twisted this way--another twisted that--ey! by my faith; and when they
are published, quoth I,--

They will be worse twisted still.

Chapter 4.XX.

And now for Lippius's clock! said I, with the air of a man, who had got
thro' all his difficulties--nothing can prevent us seeing that, and the
Chinese history, &c. except the time, said Francois--for 'tis almost
eleven--then we must speed the faster, said I, striding it away to the
cathedral.

I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by one
of the minor canons, as I was entering the west door,--That Lippius's great
clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for some years--It will give
me the more time, thought I, to peruse the Chinese history; and besides I
shall be able to give the world a better account of the clock in its decay,
than I could have done in its flourishing condition--

--And so away I posted to the college of the Jesuits.

Now it is with the project of getting a peep at the history of China in
Chinese characters--as with many others I could mention, which strike the
fancy only at a distance; for as I came nearer and nearer to the point--my
blood cool'd--the freak gradually went off, till at length I would not have
given a cherry-stone to have it gratified--The truth was, my time was
short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the Lovers--I wish to God, said I,
as I got the rapper in my hand, that the key of the library may be but
lost; it fell out as well--

For all the Jesuits had got the cholic--and to that degree, as never was
known in the memory of the oldest practitioner.

Chapter 4.XXI.

As I knew the geography of the Tomb of the Lovers, as well as if I had
lived twenty years in Lyons, namely, that it was upon the turning of my
right hand, just without the gate, leading to the Fauxbourg de Vaise--I
dispatched Francois to the boat, that I might pay the homage I so long ow'd
it, without a witness of my weakness--I walk'd with all imaginable joy
towards the place--when I saw the gate which intercepted the tomb, my heart
glowed within me--

--Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to Amandus and
Amanda--long--long have I tarried to drop this tear upon your tomb--I come-
-I come--

When I came--there was no tomb to drop it upon.

What would I have given for my uncle Toby, to have whistled Lillo bullero!

Chapter 4.XXII.

No matter how, or in what mood--but I flew from the tomb of the lovers--or
rather I did not fly from it--(for there was no such thing existing) and
just got time enough to the boat to save my passage;--and ere I had sailed
a hundred yards, the Rhone and the Saon met together, and carried me down
merrily betwixt them.

But I have described this voyage down the Rhone, before I made it--

--So now I am at Avignon, and as there is nothing to see but the old house,
in which the duke of Ormond resided, and nothing to stop me but a short
remark upon the place, in three minutes you will see me crossing the bridge
upon a mule, with Francois upon a horse with my portmanteau behind him, and
the owner of both, striding the way before us, with a long gun upon his
shoulder, and a sword under his arm, lest peradventure we should run away
with his cattle. Had you seen my breeches in entering Avignon,--Though
you'd have seen them better, I think, as I mounted--you would not have
thought the precaution amiss, or found in your heart to have taken it in
dudgeon; for my own part, I took it most kindly; and determined to make him
a present of them, when we got to the end of our journey, for the trouble
they had put him to, of arming himself at all points against them.

Before I go further, let me get rid of my remark upon Avignon, which is
this: That I think it wrong, merely because a man's hat has been blown off
his head by chance the first night he comes to Avignon,--that he should
therefore say, 'Avignon is more subject to high winds than any town in all
France:'  for which reason I laid no stress upon the accident till I had
enquired of the master of the inn about it, who telling me seriously it was
so--and hearing, moreover, the windiness of Avignon spoke of in the country
about as a proverb--I set it down, merely to ask the learned what can be
the cause--the consequence I saw--for they are all Dukes, Marquisses, and
Counts, there--the duce a Baron, in all Avignon--so that there is scarce
any talking to them on a windy day.

Prithee, friend, said I, took hold of my mule for a moment--for I wanted to
pull off one of my jack-boots, which hurt my heel--the man was standing
quite idle at the door of the inn, and as I had taken it into my head, he
was someway concerned about the house or stable, I put the bridle into his
hand--so begun with the boot:--when I had finished the affair, I turned
about to take the mule from the man, and thank him--

--But Monsieur le Marquis had walked in--

Chapter 4.XXIII.

I had now the whole south of France, from the banks of the Rhone to those
of the Garonne, to traverse upon my mule at my own leisure--at my own
leisure--for I had left Death, the Lord knows--and He only--how far behind
me--'I have followed many a man thro' France, quoth he--but never at this
mettlesome rate.'--Still he followed,--and still I fled him--but I fled him
cheerfully--still he pursued--but, like one who pursued his prey without
hope--as he lagg'd, every step he lost, softened his looks--why should I
fly him at this rate?

So notwithstanding all the commissary of the post-office had said, I
changed the mode of my travelling once more; and, after so precipitate and
rattling a course as I had run, I flattered my fancy with thinking of my
mule, and that I should traverse the rich plains of Languedoc upon his
back, as slowly as foot could fall.

There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller--or more terrible to travel-
writers, than a large rich plain; especially if it is without great rivers
or bridges; and presents nothing to the eye, but one unvaried picture of
plenty: for after they have once told you, that 'tis delicious! or
delightful! (as the case happens)--that the soil was grateful, and that
nature pours out all her abundance, &c. . .they have then a large plain
upon their hands, which they know not what to do with--and which is of
little or no use to them but to carry them to some town; and that town,
perhaps of little more, but a new place to start from to the next plain--
and so on.

--This is most terrible work; judge if I don't manage my plains better.

Chapter 4.XXIV.

I had not gone above two leagues and a half, before the man with his gun
began to look at his priming.

I had three several times loiter'd terribly behind; half a mile at least
every time; once, in deep conference with a drum-maker, who was making
drums for the fairs of Baucaira and Tarascone--I did not understand the
principles--

The second time, I cannot so properly say, I stopp'd--for meeting a couple
of Franciscans straitened more for time than myself, and not being able to
get to the bottom of what I was about--I had turn'd back with them--

The third, was an affair of trade with a gossip, for a hand-basket of
Provence figs for four sous; this would have been transacted at once; but
for a case of conscience at the close of it; for when the figs were paid
for, it turn'd out, that there were two dozen of eggs covered over with
vine-leaves at the bottom of the basket--as I had no intention of buying
eggs--I made no sort of claim of them--as for the space they had occupied--
what signified it? I had figs enow for my money--

--But it was my intention to have the basket--it was the gossip's intention
to keep it, without which, she could do nothing with her eggs--and unless I
had the basket, I could do as little with my figs, which were too ripe
already, and most of 'em burst at the side: this brought on a short
contention, which terminated in sundry proposals, what we should both do--

--How we disposed of our eggs and figs, I defy you, or the Devil himself,
had he not been there (which I am persuaded he was), to form the least
probable conjecture: You will read the whole of it--not this year, for I
am hastening to the story of my uncle Toby's amours--but you will read it
in the collection of those which have arose out of the journey across this
plain--and which, therefore, I call my

Plain Stories.

How far my pen has been fatigued, like those of other travellers, in this
journey of it, over so barren a track--the world must judge--but the traces
of it, which are now all set o'vibrating together this moment, tell me 'tis
the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for as I had made no
convention with my man with the gun, as to time--by stopping and talking to
every soul I met, who was not in a full trot--joining all parties before
me--waiting for every soul behind--hailing all those who were coming
through cross-roads--arresting all kinds of beggars, pilgrims, fiddlers,
friars--not passing by a woman in a mulberry-tree without commending her
legs, and tempting her into conversation with a pinch of snuff--In short,
by seizing every handle, of what size or shape soever, which chance held
out to me in this journey--I turned my plain into a city--I was always in
company, and with great variety too; and as my mule loved society as much
as myself, and had some proposals always on his part to offer to every
beast he met--I am confident we could have passed through Pall-Mall, or St.
James's-Street, for a month together, with fewer adventures--and seen less
of human nature.

O! there is that sprightly frankness, which at once unpins every plait of a
Languedocian's dress--that whatever is beneath it, it looks so like the
simplicity which poets sing of in better days--I will delude my fancy, and
believe it is so.

'Twas in the road betwixt Nismes and Lunel, where there is the best
Muscatto wine in all France, and which by the bye belongs to the honest
canons of Montpellier--and foul befal the man who has drunk it at their
table, who grudges them a drop of it.

--The sun was set--they had done their work; the nymphs had tied up their
hair afresh--and the swains were preparing for a carousal--my mule made a
dead point--'Tis the fife and tabourin, said I--I'm frighten'd to death,
quoth he--They are running at the ring of pleasure, said I, giving him a
prick--By saint Boogar, and all the saints at the backside of the door of
purgatory, said he--(making the same resolution with the abbesse of
Andouillets) I'll not go a step further--'Tis very well, sir, said I--I
never will argue a point with one of your family, as long as I live; so
leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch, and t'other
into that--I'll take a dance, said I--so stay you here.

A sun-burnt daughter of Labour rose up from the groupe to meet me, as I
advanced towards them; her hair, which was a dark chesnut approaching
rather to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress.

We want a cavalier, said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer
them--And a cavalier ye shall have; said I, taking hold of both of them.

Hadst thou, Nannette, been array'd like a duchesse!

--But that cursed slit in thy petticoat!

Nannette cared not for it.

We could not have done without you, said she, letting go one hand, with
self-taught politeness, leading me up with the other.

A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had
added a tabourin of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat
upon the bank--Tie me up this tress instantly, said Nannette, putting a
piece of string into my hand--It taught me to forget I was a stranger--The
whole knot fell down--We had been seven years acquainted.

The youth struck the note upon the tabourin--his pipe followed, and off we
bounded--'the duce take that slit!'

The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from heaven, sung
alternately with her brother--'twas a Gascoigne roundelay.

Viva la Joia!
Fidon la Tristessa!

The nymphs join'd in unison, and their swains an octave below them--

I would have given a crown to have it sew'd up--Nannette would not have
given a sous--Viva la joia! was in her lips--Viva la joia! was in her eyes.
A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt us--She look'd
amiable!--Why could I not live, and end my days thus? Just Disposer of our
joys and sorrows, cried I, why could not a man sit down in the lap of
content here--and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven
with this nut-brown maid? Capriciously did she bend her head on one side,
and dance up insidious--Then 'tis time to dance off, quoth I; so changing
only partners and tunes, I danced it away from Lunel to Montpellier--from
thence to Pescnas, Beziers--I danced it along through Narbonne, Carcasson,
and Castle Naudairy, till at last I danced myself into Perdrillo's
pavillion, where pulling out a paper of black lines, that I might go on
straight forwards, without digression or parenthesis, in my uncle Toby's
amours--

I begun thus--

Chapter 4.XXV.

--But softly--for in these sportive plains, and under this genial sun,
where at this instant all flesh is running out piping, fiddling, and
dancing to the vintage, and every step that's taken, the judgment is
surprised by the imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been
said upon straight lines (Vid. Vol. III.) in sundry pages of my book--I
defy the best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants
backwards or forwards, it makes little difference in the account (except
that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in the other)--I
defy him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically, planting his
cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical distances, especially
if slits in petticoats are unsew'd up--without ever and anon straddling
out, or sidling into some bastardly digression--In Freeze-land, Fog-land,
and some other lands I wot of--it may be done--

But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea,
sensible and insensible, gets vent--in this land, my dear Eugenius--in this
fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing my ink-
horn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with all the meanders of Julia's
track in quest of her Diego, in full view of my study window--if thou
comest not and takest me by the hand--

What a work it is likely to turn out!

Let us begin it.

Chapter 4.XXVI.

It is with Love as with Cuckoldom--

But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon my
mind to be imparted to the reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be
imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the Comparison may be imparted
to him any hour in the day)--I'll just mention it, and begin in good
earnest.

The thing is this.

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice
throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the
best--I'm sure it is the most religious--for I begin with writing the first
sentence--and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his
street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with
the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. only to
observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows
the whole.

I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I
grasp the elbow of it, I look up--catching the idea, even sometimes before
it half way reaches me--

I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended
for another man.

Pope and his Portrait (Vid. Pope's Portrait.) are fools to me--no martyr is
ever so full of faith or fire--I wish I could say of good works too--but I
have no
Zeal or Anger--or
Anger or Zeal--
And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name--the
errantest Tartuffe, in science--in politics--or in religion, shall never
kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting,
than what he will read in the next chapter.

Chapter 4.XXVII.

--Bon jour!--good morrow!--so you have got your cloak on betimes!--but 'tis
a cold morning, and you judge the matter rightly--'tis better to be well
mounted, than go o' foot--and obstructions in the glands are dangerous--And
how goes it with thy concubine--thy wife,--and thy little ones o' both
sides? and when did you hear from the old gentleman and lady--your sister,
aunt, uncle, and cousins--I hope they have got better of their colds,
coughs, claps, tooth-aches, fevers, stranguries, sciaticas, swellings, and
sore eyes.

--What a devil of an apothecary! to take so much blood--give such a vile
purge--puke--poultice--plaister--night-draught--clyster--blister?--And why
so many grains of calomel? santa Maria! and such a dose of opium! peri-
clitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to tail--By my great-
aunt Dinah's old black velvet mask! I think there is no occasion for it.

Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off and
on, before she was got with child by the coachman--not one of our family
would wear it after. To cover the Mask afresh, was more than the mask was
worth--and to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be half seen
through, was as bad as having no mask at all--

This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that in all our numerous
family, for these four generations, we count no more than one archbishop, a
Welch judge, some three or four aldermen, and a single mountebank--

In the sixteenth century, we boast of no less than a dozen alchymists.

Chapter 4.XXVIII.

'It is with Love as with Cuckoldom'--the suffering party is at least the
third, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing about the
matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen words
for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the human frame, is
Love--may be Hatred, in that--Sentiment half a yard higher--and Nonsense--
no, Madam,--not there--I mean at the part I am now pointing to with my
forefinger--how can we help ourselves?

Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, who ever soliloquized
upon this mystic subject, my uncle Toby was the worst fitted, to have
push'd his researches, thro' such a contention of feelings; and he had
infallibly let them all run on, as we do worse matters, to see what they
would turn out--had not Bridget's pre-notification of them to Susannah, and
Susannah's repeated manifestoes thereupon to all the world, made it
necessary for my uncle Toby to look into the affair.

Chapter 4.XXIX.

Why weavers, gardeners, and gladiators--or a man with a pined leg
(proceeding from some ailment in the foot)--should ever have had some
tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and
duly settled and accounted for, by ancient and modern physiologists.

A water-drinker, provided he is a profess'd one, and does it without fraud
or covin, is precisely in the same predicament: not that, at first sight,
there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, 'That a rill of cold
water dribbling through my inward parts, should light up a torch in my
Jenny's--'

--The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run
opposite to the natural workings of causes and effects--

But it shews the weakness and imbecility of human reason.

--'And in perfect good health with it?'

--The most perfect,--Madam, that friendship herself could wish me--

'And drink nothing!--nothing but water?'

--Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the flood-gates of the
brain--see how they give way!--

In swims Curiosity, beckoning to her damsels to follow--they dive into the
center of the current--

Fancy sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream,
turns straws and bulrushes into masts and bow-sprits--And Desire, with vest
held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they swim by her,
with the other--

O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so
often governed and turn'd this world about like a mill-wheel--grinding the
faces of the impotent--bepowdering their ribs--bepeppering their noses, and
changing sometimes even the very frame and face of nature--

If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, Eugenius--And, if I
was you, Yorick, replied Eugenius, so would I.

Which shews they had both read Longinus--

For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as long
as I live.

Chapter 4.XXX.

I wish my uncle Toby had been a water-drinker; for then the thing had been
accounted for, That the first moment Widow Wadman saw him, she felt
something stirring within her in his favour--Something!--something.

--Something perhaps more than friendship--less than love--something--no
matter what--no matter where--I would not give a single hair off my mule's
tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed the villain has not
many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain), to be let by
your worships into the secret--

But the truth is, my uncle Toby was not a water-drinker; he drank it
neither pure nor mix'd, or any how, or any where, except fortuitously upon
some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be had--or during the
time he was under cure; when the surgeon telling him it would extend the
fibres, and bring them sooner into contact--my uncle Toby drank it for
quietness sake.

Now as all the world knows, that no effect in nature can be produced
without a cause, and as it is as well known, that my uncle Toby was neither
a weaver--a gardener, or a gladiator--unless as a captain, you will needs
have him one--but then he was only a captain of foot--and besides, the
whole is an equivocation--There is nothing left for us to suppose, but that
my uncle Toby's leg--but that will avail us little in the present
hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment in the foot--whereas
his leg was not emaciated from any disorder in his foot--for my uncle
Toby's leg was not emaciated at all. It was a little stiff and awkward,
from a total disuse of it, for the three years he lay confined at my
father's house in town; but it was plump and muscular, and in all other
respects as good and promising a leg as the other.

I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where
my understanding was more at a loss to make ends meet, and torture the
chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it,
than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running
into difficulties of this kind, merely to make fresh experiments of getting
out of 'em--Inconsiderate soul that thou art! What! are not the
unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm'd
in on every side of thee--are they, Tristram, not sufficient, but thou must
entangle thyself still more?

Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cart-loads
of thy fifth and sixth volumes (Alluding to the first edition.) still--
still unsold, and art almost at thy wit's ends, how to get them off thy
hands?

To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest
in skating against the wind in Flanders? and is it but two months ago, that
in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a quirister
(with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two
hours, thou lost as many quarts of blood; and hadst thou lost as much more,
did not the faculty tell thee--it would have amounted to a gallon?--

Chapter 4.XXXI.

--But for heaven's sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallons--let us take
the story straight before us; it is so nice and intricate a one, it will
scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow or other,
you have got me thrust almost into the middle of it--

--I beg we may take more care.

Chapter 4.XXXII.

My uncle Toby and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and
precipitation, to take possession of the spot of ground we have so often
spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the
allies; that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the
whole affair, it was neither a pioneer's spade, a pickax, or a shovel--

--It was a bed to lie on: so that as Shandy-Hall was at that time
unfurnished; and the little inn where poor Le Fever died, not yet built; my
uncle Toby was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. Wadman's, for a night
or two, till corporal Trim (who to the character of an excellent valet,
groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and engineer, super-added that of an
excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of
taylors, constructed one in my uncle Toby's house.

A daughter of Eve, for such was widow Wadman, and 'tis all the character I
intend to give of her--

--'That she was a perfect woman--' had better be fifty leagues off--or in
her warm bed--or playing with a case-knife--or any thing you please--than
make a man the object of her attention, when the house and all the
furniture is her own.

There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad day-light, where a woman
has a power, physically speaking, of viewing a man in more lights than one-
-but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without mixing
something of her own goods and chattels along with him--till by reiterated
acts of such combination, he gets foisted into her inventory--

--And then good night.

But this is not matter of System; for I have delivered that above--nor is
it matter of Breviary--for I make no man's creed but my own--nor matter of
Fact--at least that I know of; but 'tis matter copulative and introductory
to what follows.

Chapter 4.XXXIII.

I do not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them--or
the strength of their gussets--but pray do not night-shifts differ from
day-shifts as much in this particular, as in any thing else in the world;
that they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are laid down
in them, they fall almost as much below the feet, as the day-shifts fall
short of them?

Widow Wadman's night-shifts (as was the mode I suppose in King William's
and Queen Anne's reigns) were cut however after this fashion; and if the
fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)--so much the
worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length, so
that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to
do what she would with.

Now from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak and
decemberley nights of a seven years widow-hood, things had insensibly come
to this pass, and for the two last years had got establish'd into one of
the ordinances of the bed-chamber--That as soon as Mrs. Wadman was put to
bed, and had got her legs stretched down to the bottom of it, of which she
always gave Bridget notice--Bridget, with all suitable decorum, having
first open'd the bed-clothes at the feet, took hold of the half-ell of
cloth we are speaking of, and having gently, and with both her hands, drawn
it downwards to its furthest extension, and then contracted it again side-
long by four or five even plaits, she took a large corking-pin out of her
sleeve, and with the point directed towards her, pinn'd the plaits all fast
together a little above the hem; which done, she tuck'd all in tight at the
feet, and wish'd her mistress a good night.

This was constant, and without any other variation than this; that on
shivering and tempestuous nights, when Bridget untuck'd the feet of the
bed, &c. to do this--she consulted no thermometer but that of her own
passions; and so performed it standing--kneeling--or squatting, according
to the different degrees of faith, hope, and charity, she was in, and bore
towards her mistress that night. In every other respect, the etiquette was
sacred, and might have vied with the most mechanical one of the most
inflexible bed-chamber in Christendom.

The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle Toby up
stairs, which was about ten--Mrs. Wadman threw herself into her arm-chair,
and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a resting-place for
her elbow, she reclin'd her cheek upon the palm of her hand, and leaning
forwards, ruminated till midnight upon both sides of the question.

The second night she went to her bureau, and having ordered Bridget to
bring her up a couple of fresh candles and leave them upon the table, she
took out her marriage-settlement, and read it over with great devotion:
and the third night (which was the last of my uncle Toby's stay) when
Bridget had pull'd down the night-shift, and was assaying to stick in the
corking pin--

--With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most natural
kick that could be kick'd in her situation--for supposing ......... to be
the sun in its meridian, it was a north-east kick--she kick'd the pin out
of her fingers--the etiquette which hung upon it, down--down it fell to the
ground, and was shiver'd into a thousand atoms.

From all which it was plain that widow Wadman was in love with my uncle
Toby.

Chapter 4.XXXIV.

My uncle Toby's head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was
not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe
were settled, that he found leisure to return this.

This made an armistice (that is, speaking with regard to my uncle Toby--but
with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)--of almost eleven years. But in
all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, happen at what distance
of time it will, which makes the fray--I chuse for that reason to call
these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours
of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.

This is not a distinction without a difference.

It is not like the affair of an old hat cock'd--and a cock'd old hat, about
which your reverences have so often been at odds with one another--but
there is a difference here in the nature of things--

And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too.

Chapter 4.XXXV.

Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby--and my uncle Toby did not love
widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and
love my uncle Toby--or let it alone.

Widow Wadman would do neither the one or the other.

--Gracious heaven!--but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for
whenever it so falls out, which it sometimes does about the equinoxes, that
an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I cannot
eat my breakfast for her--and that she careth not three halfpence whether I
eat my breakfast or no--

--Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del
Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in short, there is not an infernal nitch
where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow
ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again; and as I do all
things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the milky-way--

Brightest of stars! thou wilt shed thy influence upon some one--

--The duce take her and her influence too--for at that word I lose all
patience--much good may it do him!--By all that is hirsute and gashly! I
cry, taking off my furr'd cap, and twisting it round my finger--I would not
give sixpence for a dozen such!

--But 'tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it
close to my ears)--and warm--and soft; especially if you stroke it the
right way--but alas! that will never be my luck--(so here my philosophy is
shipwreck'd again.)

--No; I shall never have a finger in the pye (so here I break my metaphor)-
-

Crust and Crumb
Inside and out
Top and bottom--I detest it, I hate it, I repudiate it--I'm sick at the
sight of it--

'Tis all pepper,
garlick,
staragen,
salt, and
devil's dung--by the great arch-cooks of cooks, who does nothing, I think,
from morning to night, but sit down by the fire-side and invent
inflammatory dishes for us, I would not touch it for the world--

--O Tristram! Tristram! cried Jenny.

O Jenny! Jenny! replied I, and so went on with the thirty-sixth chapter.

Chapter 4.XXXVI.

--'Not touch it for the world,' did I say--

Lord, how I have heated my imagination with this metaphor!

Chapter 4.XXXVII.

Which shews, let your reverences and worships say what you will of it (for
as for thinking--all who do think--think pretty much alike both upon it and
other matters)--Love is certainly, at least alphabetically speaking, one of
the most
A gitating
B ewitching
C onfounded
D evilish affairs of life--the most
E xtravagant
F utilitous
G alligaskinish
H andy-dandyish
I racundulous (there is no K to it) and
L yrical of all human passions: at the same time, the most
M isgiving
N innyhammering
O bstipating
P ragmatical
S tridulous
R idiculous--though by the bye the R should have gone first--But in short
'tis of such a nature, as my father once told my uncle Toby upon the close
of a long dissertation upon the subject--'You can scarce,' said he,
'combine two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage'--
What's that? cried my uncle Toby.

The cart before the horse, replied my father--

--And what is he to do there? cried my uncle Toby.

Nothing, quoth my father, but to get in--or let it alone.

Now widow Wadman, as I told you before, would do neither the one or the
other.

She stood however ready harnessed and caparisoned at all points, to watch
accidents.

Chapter 4.XXXVIII.

The Fates, who certainly all fore-knew of these amours of widow Wadman and
my uncle Toby, had, from the first creation of matter and motion (and with
more courtesy than they usually do things of this kind), established such a
chain of causes and effects hanging so fast to one another, that it was
scarce possible for my uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the
world, or to have occupied any other garden in Christendom, but the very
house and garden which join'd and laid parallel to Mrs. Wadman's; this,
with the advantage of a thickset arbour in Mrs. Wadman's garden, but
planted in the hedge-row of my uncle Toby's, put all the occasions into her
hands which Love-militancy wanted; she could observe my uncle Toby's
motions, and was mistress likewise of his councils of war; and as his
unsuspecting heart had given leave to the corporal, through the mediation
of Bridget, to make her a wicker-gate of communication to enlarge her
walks, it enabled her to carry on her approaches to the very door of the
sentry-box; and sometimes out of gratitude, to make an attack, and
endeavour to blow my uncle Toby up in the very sentry-box itself.

Chapter 4.XXXIX.

It is a great pity--but 'tis certain from every day's observation of man,
that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end--provided there is
a sufficient wick standing out; if there is not--there's an end of the
affair; and if there is--by lighting it at the bottom, as the flame in that
case has the misfortune generally to put out itself--there's an end of the
affair again.

For my part, could I always have the ordering of it which way I would be
burnt myself--for I cannot bear the thoughts of being burnt like a beast--I
would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the top; for then I
should burn down decently to the socket; that is, from my head to my heart,
from my heart to my liver, from my liver to my bowels, and so on by the
meseraick veins and arteries, through all the turns and lateral insertions
of the intestines and their tunicles to the blind gut--

--I beseech you, doctor Slop, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting him as he
mentioned the blind gut, in a discourse with my father the night my mother
was brought to bed of me--I beseech you, quoth my uncle Toby, to tell me
which is the blind gut; for, old as I am, I vow I do not know to this day
where it lies.

The blind gut, answered doctor Slop, lies betwixt the Ilion and Colon--

In a man? said my father.

--'Tis precisely the same, cried doctor Slop, in a woman.--

That's more than I know; quoth my father.

Chapter 4.XL.

--And so to make sure of both systems, Mrs. Wadman predetermined to light
my uncle Toby neither at this end or that; but, like a prodigal's candle,
to light him, if possible, at both ends at once.

Now, through all the lumber rooms of military furniture, including both of
horse and foot, from the great arsenal of Venice to the Tower of London
(exclusive), if Mrs. Wadman had been rummaging for seven years together,
and with Bridget to help her, she could not have found any one blind or
mantelet so fit for her purpose, as that which the expediency of my uncle
Toby's affairs had fix'd up ready to her hands.

I believe I have not told you--but I don't know--possibly I have--be it as
it will, 'tis one of the number of those many things, which a man had
better do over again, than dispute about it--That whatever town or fortress
the corporal was at work upon, during the course of their campaign, my
uncle Toby always took care, on the inside of his sentry-box, which was
towards his left hand, to have a plan of the place, fasten'd up with two or
three pins at the top, but loose at the bottom, for the conveniency of
holding it up to the eye, &c. . .as occasions required; so that when an
attack was resolved upon, Mrs. Wadman had nothing more to do, when she had
got advanced to the door of the sentry-box, but to extend her right hand;
and edging in her left foot at the same movement, to take hold of the map
or plan, or upright, or whatever it was, and with out-stretched neck
meeting it half way,--to advance it towards her; on which my uncle Toby's
passions were sure to catch fire--for he would instantly take hold of the
other corner of the map in his left hand, and with the end of his pipe in
the other, begin an explanation.

When the attack was advanced to this point;--the world will naturally enter
into the reasons of Mrs. Wadman's next stroke of generalship--which was, to
take my uncle Toby's tobacco-pipe out of his hand as soon as she possibly
could; which, under one pretence or other, but generally that of pointing
more distinctly at some redoubt or breastwork in the map, she would effect
before my uncle Toby (poor soul!) had well march'd above half a dozen
toises with it.

--It obliged my uncle Toby to make use of his forefinger.

The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, as in
the first case, with the end of her fore-finger against the end of my uncle
Toby's tobacco-pipe, she might have travelled with it, along the lines,
from Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby's lines reach'd so far, without
any effect: For as there was no arterial or vital heat in the end of the
tobacco-pipe, it could excite no sentiment--it could neither give fire by
pulsation--or receive it by sympathy--'twas nothing but smoke.

Whereas, in following my uncle Toby's forefinger with hers, close thro' all
the little turns and indentings of his works--pressing sometimes against
the side of it--then treading upon its nail--then tripping it up--then
touching it here--then there, and so on--it set something at least in
motion.

This, tho' slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet
drew on the rest; for here, the map usually falling with the back of it,
close to the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of
his soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his
explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as
certainly place her's close beside it; this at once opened a communication,
large enough for any sentiment to pass or re-pass, which a person skill'd
in the elementary and practical part of love-making, has occasion for--

By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby's--it
unavoidably brought the thumb into action--and the forefinger and thumb
being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear
uncle Toby! was never now in 'ts right place--Mrs. Wadman had it ever to
take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, and equivocal
compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receiving--to get it
press'd a hair breadth of one side out of her way.

Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it
was her leg (and no one's else) at the bottom of the sentry-box, which
slightly press'd against the calf of his--So that my uncle Toby being thus
attack'd and sore push'd on both his wings--was it a wonder, if now and
then, it put his centre into disorder?--

--The duce take it! said my uncle Toby.

Chapter 4.XLI.

These attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different
kinds; varying from each other, like the attacks which history is full of,
and from the same reasons. A general looker-on would scarce allow them to
be attacks at all--or if he did, would confound them all together--but I
write not to them: it will be time enough to be a little more exact in my
descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for some
chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of
original papers and drawings which my father took care to roll up by
themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall
be kept so, whilst I have power to preserve any thing), upon the lower
corner of which, on the right hand side, there is still remaining the marks
of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to
imagine, were Mrs. Wadman's; for the opposite side of the margin, which I
suppose to have been my uncle Toby's, is absolutely clean: This seems an
authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia of the
two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of
the map, which are unquestionably the very holes, through which it has been
pricked up in the sentry-box--

By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its stigmata
and pricks, more than all the relicks of the Romish church--always
excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered
the flesh of St. Radagunda in the desert, which in your road from Fesse to
Cluny, the nuns of that name will shew you for love.

Chapter 4.XLII.

I think, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, the fortifications are quite
destroyed--and the bason is upon a level with the mole--I think so too;
replied my uncle Toby with a sigh half suppress'd--but step into the
parlour, Trim, for the stipulation--it lies upon the table.

It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal, till this very
morning that the old woman kindled the fire with it--

--Then, said my uncle Toby, there is no further occasion for our services.
The more, an' please your honour, the pity, said the corporal; in uttering
which he cast his spade into the wheel-barrow, which was beside him, with
an air the most expressive of disconsolation that can be imagined, and was
heavily turning about to look for his pickax, his pioneer's shovel, his
picquets, and other little military stores, in order to carry them off the
field--when a heigh-ho! from the sentry-box, which being made of thin slit
deal, reverberated the sound more sorrowfully to his ear, forbad him.

--No; said the corporal to himself, I'll do it before his honour rises to-
morrow morning; so taking his spade out of the wheel-barrow again, with a
little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the glacis--but
with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in order to divert
him--he loosen'd a sod or two--pared their edges with his spade, and having
given them a gentle blow or two with the back of it, he sat himself down
close by my uncle Toby's feet and began as follows.

Chapter 4.XLIII.

It was a thousand pities--though I believe, an' please your honour, I am
going to say but a foolish kind of a thing for a soldier--

A soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the corporal, is no more
exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a man of letters--But not so
often, an' please your honour, replied the corporal--my uncle Toby gave a
nod.

It was a thousand pities then, said the corporal, casting his eye upon
Dunkirk, and the mole, as Servius Sulpicius, in returning out of Asia (when
he sailed from Aegina towards Megara), did upon Corinth and Pyreus--

--'It was a thousand pities, an' please your honour, to destroy these
works--and a thousand pities to have let them stood.'--

--Thou art right, Trim, in both cases; said my uncle Toby.--This, continued
the corporal, is the reason, that from the beginning of their demolition to
the end--I have never once whistled, or sung, or laugh'd, or cry'd, or
talk'd of past done deeds, or told your honour one story good or bad--

--Thou hast many excellencies, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and I hold it not
the least of them, as thou happenest to be a story-teller, that of the
number thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful hours, or divert
me in my grave ones--thou hast seldom told me a bad one--

--Because, an' please your honour, except one of a King of Bohemia and his
seven castles,--they are all true; for they are about myself--

I do not like the subject the worse, Trim, said my uncle Toby, on that
score: But prithee what is this story? thou hast excited my curiosity.

I'll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal, directly--Provided, said my
uncle Toby, looking earnestly towards Dunkirk and the mole again--provided
it is not a merry one; to such, Trim, a man should ever bring one half of
the entertainment along with him; and the disposition I am in at present
would wrong both thee, Trim, and thy story--It is not a merry one by any
means, replied the corporal--Nor would I have it altogether a grave one,
added my uncle Toby--It is neither the one nor the other, replied the
corporal, but will suit your honour exactly--Then I'll thank thee for it
with all my heart, cried my uncle Toby; so prithee begin it, Trim.

The corporal made his reverence; and though it is not so easy a matter as
the world imagines, to pull off a lank Montero-cap with grace--or a whit
less difficult, in my conceptions, when a man is sitting squat upon the
ground, to make a bow so teeming with respect as the corporal was wont; yet
by suffering the palm of his right hand, which was towards his master, to
slip backwards upon the grass, a little beyond his body, in order to allow
it the greater sweep--and by an unforced compression, at the same time, of
his cap with the thumb and the two forefingers of his left, by which the
diameter of the cap became reduced, so that it might be said, rather to be
insensibly squeez'd--than pull'd off with a flatus--the corporal acquitted
himself of both in a better manner than the posture of his affairs
promised; and having hemmed twice, to find in what key his story would best
go, and best suit his master's humour,--he exchanged a single look of
kindness with him, and set off thus.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles.

There was a certain king of Bo..he-

As the corporal was entering the confines of Bohemia, my uncle Toby obliged
him to halt for a single moment; he had set out bare-headed, having, since
he pull'd off his Montero-cap in the latter end of the last chapter, left
it lying beside him on the ground.

--The eye of Goodness espieth all things--so that before the corporal had
well got through the first five words of his story, had my uncle Toby twice
touch'd his Montero-cap with the end of his cane, interrogatively--as much
as to say, Why don't you put it on, Trim? Trim took it up with the most
respectful slowness, and casting a glance of humiliation as he did it, upon
the embroidery of the fore-part, which being dismally tarnish'd and fray'd
moreover in some of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern,
he lay'd it down again between his two feet, in order to moralize upon the
subject.

--'Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle Toby, that thou art
about to observe--

'Nothing in this world, Trim, is made to last for ever.'

--But when tokens, dear Tom, of thy love and remembrance wear out, said
Trim, what shall we say?

There is no occasion, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, to say any thing else; and
was a man to puzzle his brains till Doom's day, I believe, Trim, it would
be impossible.

The corporal, perceiving my uncle Toby was in the right, and that it would
be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer moral from his
cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and passing his hand
across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, which the text and the
doctrine between them had engender'd, he return'd, with the same look and
tone of voice, to his story of the king of Bohemia and his seven castles.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles, Continued.

There was a certain king of Bohemia, but in whose reign, except his own, I
am not able to inform your honour--

I do not desire it of thee, Trim, by any means, cried my uncle Toby.

--It was a little before the time, an' please your honour, when giants were
beginning to leave off breeding:--but in what year of our Lord that was--

I would not give a halfpenny to know, said my uncle Toby.

--Only, an' please your honour, it makes a story look the better in the
face--

--'Tis thy own, Trim, so ornament it after thy own fashion; and take any
date, continued my uncle Toby, looking pleasantly upon him--take any date
in the whole world thou chusest, and put it to--thou art heartily welcome--

The corporal bowed; for of every century, and of every year of that
century, from the first creation of the world down to Noah's flood; and
from Noah's flood to the birth of Abraham; through all the pilgrimages of
the patriarchs, to the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt--and
throughout all the Dynasties, Olympiads, Urbeconditas, and other memorable
epochas of the different nations of the world, down to the coming of
Christ, and from thence to the very moment in which the corporal was
telling his story--had my uncle Toby subjected this vast empire of time and
all its abysses at his feet; but as Modesty scarce touches with a finger
what Liberality offers her with both hands open--the corporal contented
himself with the very worst year of the whole bunch; which, to prevent your
honours of the Majority and Minority from tearing the very flesh off your
bones in contestation, 'Whether that year is not always the last cast-year
of the last cast-almanack'--I tell you plainly it was; but from a different
reason than you wot of--

--It was the year next him--which being the year of our Lord seventeen
hundred and twelve, when the Duke of Ormond was playing the devil in
Flanders--the corporal took it, and set out with it afresh on his
expedition to Bohemia.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles, Continued.

In the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve, there was,
an' please your honour--

--To tell thee truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, any other date would have
pleased me much better, not only on account of the sad stain upon our
history that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to cover the
siege of Quesnoi, though Fagel was carrying on the works with such
incredible vigour--but likewise on the score, Trim, of thy own story;
because if there are--and which, from what thou hast dropt, I partly
suspect to be the fact--if there are giants in it--

There is but one, an' please your honour--

--'Tis as bad as twenty, replied my uncle Toby--thou should'st have carried
him back some seven or eight hundred years out of harm's way, both of
critics and other people: and therefore I would advise thee, if ever thou
tellest it again--

--If I live, an' please your honour, but once to get through it, I will
never tell it again, quoth Trim, either to man, woman, or child--Poo--poo!
said my uncle Toby--but with accents of such sweet encouragement did he
utter it, that the corporal went on with his story with more alacrity than
ever.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles, Continued.

There was, an' please your honour, said the corporal, raising his voice and
rubbing the palms of his two hands cheerily together as he begun, a certain
king of Bohemia--

--Leave out the date entirely, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaning forwards,
and laying his hand gently upon the corporal's shoulder to temper the
interruption--leave it out entirely, Trim; a story passes very well without
these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of 'em--Sure of 'em! said the
corporal, shaking his head--

Right; answered my uncle Toby, it is not easy, Trim, for one, bred up as
thou and I have been to arms, who seldom looks further forward than to the
end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, to know much about
this matter--God bless your honour! said the corporal, won by the manner of
my uncle Toby's reasoning, as much as by the reasoning itself, he has
something else to do; if not on action, or a march, or upon duty in his
garrison--he has his firelock, an' please your honour, to furbish--his
accoutrements to take care of--his regimentals to mend--himself to shave
and keep clean, so as to appear always like what he is upon the parade;
what business, added the corporal triumphantly, has a soldier, an' please
your honour, to know any thing at all of geography?

--Thou would'st have said chronology, Trim, said my uncle Toby; for as for
geography, 'tis of absolute use to him; he must be acquainted intimately
with every country and its boundaries where his profession carries him; he
should know every town and city, and village and hamlet, with the canals,
the roads, and hollow ways which lead up to them; there is not a river or a
rivulet he passes, Trim, but he should be able at first sight to tell thee
what is its name--in what mountains it takes its rise--what is its course--
how far it is navigable--where fordable--where not; he should know the
fertility of every valley, as well as the hind who ploughs it; and be able
to describe, or, if it is required, to give thee an exact map of all the
plains and defiles, the forts, the acclivities, the woods and morasses,
thro' and by which his army is to march; he should know their produce,
their plants, their minerals, their waters, their animals, their seasons,
their climates, their heats and cold, their inhabitants, their customs,
their language, their policy, and even their religion.

Is it else to be conceived, corporal, continued my uncle Toby, rising up in
his sentry-box, as he began to warm in this part of his discourse--how
Marlborough could have marched his army from the banks of the Maes to
Belburg; from Belburg to Kerpenord--(here the corporal could sit no longer)
from Kerpenord, Trim, to Kalsaken; from Kalsaken to Newdorf; from Newdorf
to Landenbourg; from Landenbourg to Mildenheim; from Mildenheim to
Elchingen; from Elchingen to Gingen; from Gingen to Balmerchoffen; from
Balmerchoffen to Skellenburg, where he broke in upon the enemy's works;
forced his passage over the Danube; cross'd the Lech--push'd on his troops
into the heart of the empire, marching at the head of them through
Fribourg, Hokenwert, and Schonevelt, to the plains of Blenheim and
Hochstet?--Great as he was, corporal, he could not have advanced a step, or
made one single day's march without the aids of Geography.--As for
Chronology, I own, Trim, continued my uncle Toby, sitting down again coolly
in his sentry-box, that of all others, it seems a science which the soldier
might best spare, was it not for the lights which that science must one day
give him, in determining the invention of powder; the furious execution of
which, renversing every thing like thunder before it, has become a new aera
to us of military improvements, changing so totally the nature of attacks
and defences both by sea and land, and awakening so much art and skill in
doing it, that the world cannot be too exact in ascertaining the precise
time of its discovery, or too inquisitive in knowing what great man was the
discoverer, and what occasions gave birth to it.

I am far from controverting, continued my uncle Toby, what historians agree
in, that in the year of our Lord 1380, under the reign of Wencelaus, son of
Charles the Fourth--a certain priest, whose name was Schwartz, shew'd the
use of powder to the Venetians, in their wars against the Genoese; but 'tis
certain he was not the first; because if we are to believe Don Pedro, the
bishop of Leon--How came priests and bishops, an' please your honour, to
trouble their heads so much about gun-powder? God knows, said my uncle
Toby--his providence brings good out of every thing--and he avers, in his
chronicle of King Alphonsus, who reduced Toledo, That in the year 1343,
which was full thirty-seven years before that time, the secret of powder
was well known, and employed with success, both by Moors and Christians,
not only in their sea-combats, at that period, but in many of their most
memorable sieges in Spain and Barbary--And all the world knows, that Friar
Bacon had wrote expressly about it, and had generously given the world a
receipt to make it by, above a hundred and fifty years before even Schwartz
was born--And that the Chinese, added my uncle Toby, embarrass us, and all
accounts of it, still more, by boasting of the invention some hundreds of
years even before him--

They are a pack of liars, I believe, cried Trim--

--They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle Toby, in this matter,
as is plain to me from the present miserable state of military architecture
amongst them; which consists of nothing more than a fosse with a brick wall
without flanks--and for what they gave us as a bastion at each angle of it,
'tis so barbarously constructed, that it looks for all the world--Like one
of my seven castles, an' please your honour, quoth Trim.

My uncle Toby, tho' in the utmost distress for a comparison, most
courteously refused Trim's offer--till Trim telling him, he had half a
dozen more in Bohemia, which he knew not how to get off his hands--my uncle
Toby was so touch'd with the pleasantry of heart of the corporal--that he
discontinued his dissertation upon gun-powder--and begged the corporal
forthwith to go on with his story of the King of Bohemia and his seven
castles.

The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles, Continued.

This unfortunate King of Bohemia, said Trim,--Was he unfortunate, then?
cried my uncle Toby, for he had been so wrapt up in his dissertation upon
gun-powder, and other military affairs, that tho' he had desired the
corporal to go on, yet the many interruptions he had given, dwelt not so
strong upon his fancy as to account for the epithet--Was he unfortunate,
then, Trim? said my uncle Toby, pathetically--The corporal, wishing first
the word and all its synonimas at the devil, forthwith began to run back in
his mind, the principal events in the King of Bohemia's story; from every
one of which, it appearing that he was the most fortunate man that ever
existed in the world--it put the corporal to a stand: for not caring to
retract his epithet--and less to explain it--and least of all, to twist his
tale (like men of lore) to serve a system--he looked up in my uncle Toby's
face for assistance--but seeing it was the very thing my uncle Toby sat in
expectation of himself--after a hum and a haw, he went on--

The King of Bohemia, an' please your honour, replied the corporal, was
unfortunate, as thus--That taking great pleasure and delight in navigation
and all sort of sea affairs--and there happening throughout the whole
kingdom of Bohemia, to be no sea-port town whatever--

How the duce should there--Trim? cried my uncle Toby; for Bohemia being
totally inland, it could have happen'd no otherwise--It might, said Trim,
if it had pleased God--

My uncle Toby never spoke of the being and natural attributes of God, but
with diffidence and hesitation--

--I believe not, replied my uncle Toby, after some pause--for being inland,
as I said, and having Silesia and Moravia to the east; Lusatia and Upper
Saxony to the north; Franconia to the west; and Bavaria to the south;
Bohemia could not have been propell'd to the sea without ceasing to be
Bohemia--nor could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia,
without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions of
unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against it--Scandalous!
cried Trim--Which would bespeak, added my uncle Toby, mildly, such a want
of compassion in him who is the father of it--that, I think, Trim--the
thing could have happen'd no way.

The corporal made the bow of unfeign'd conviction; and went on.

Now the King of Bohemia with his queen and courtiers happening one fine
summer's evening to walk out--Aye! there the word happening is right, Trim,
cried my uncle Toby; for the King of Bohemia and his queen might have
walk'd out or let it alone:--'twas a matter of contingency, which might
happen, or not, just as chance ordered it.

King William was of an opinion, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, that
every thing was predestined for us in this world; insomuch, that he would
often say to his soldiers, that 'every ball had its billet.'  He was a
great man, said my uncle Toby--And I believe, continued Trim, to this day,
that the shot which disabled me at the battle of Landen, was pointed at my
knee for no other purpose, but to take me out of his service, and place me
in your honour's, where I should be taken so much better care of in my old
age--It shall never, Trim, be construed otherwise, said my uncle Toby.

The heart, both of the master and the man, were alike subject to sudden
over-flowings;--a short silence ensued.

Besides, said the corporal, resuming the discourse--but in a gayer accent--
if it had not been for that single shot, I had never, 'an please your
honour, been in love--

So, thou wast once in love, Trim! said my uncle Toby, smiling--

Souse! replied the corporal--over head and ears! an' please your honour.
Prithee when? where?--and how came it to pass?--I never heard one word of
it before; quoth my uncle Toby:--I dare say, answered Trim, that every
drummer and serjeant's son in the regiment knew of it--It's high time I
should--said my uncle Toby.

Your honour remembers with concern, said the corporal, the total rout and
confusion of our camp and army at the affair of Landen; every one was left
to shift for himself; and if it had not been for the regiments of Wyndham,
Lumley, and Galway, which covered the retreat over the bridge Neerspeeken,
the king himself could scarce have gained it--he was press'd hard, as your
honour knows, on every side of him--

Gallant mortal! cried my uncle Toby, caught up with enthusiasm--this
moment, now that all is lost, I see him galloping across me, corporal, to
the left, to bring up the remains of the English horse along with him to
support the right, and tear the laurel from Luxembourg's brows, if yet 'tis
possible--I see him with the knot of his scarfe just shot off, infusing
fresh spirits into poor Galway's regiment--riding along the line--then
wheeling about, and charging Conti at the head of it--Brave, brave, by
heaven! cried my uncle Toby--he deserves a crown--As richly, as a thief a
halter; shouted Trim.

My uncle Toby knew the corporal's loyalty;--otherwise the comparison was
not at all to his mind--it did not altogether strike the corporal's fancy
when he had made it--but it could not be recall'd--so he had nothing to do,
but proceed.

As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think of
any thing but his own safety--Though Talmash, said my uncle Toby, brought
off the foot with great prudence--But I was left upon the field, said the
corporal. Thou wast so; poor fellow! replied my uncle Toby--So that it was
noon the next day, continued the corporal, before I was exchanged, and put
into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more, in order to be convey'd to our
hospital.

There is no part of the body, an' please your honour, where a wound
occasions more intolerable anguish than upon the knee--

Except the groin; said my uncle Toby. An' please your honour, replied the
corporal, the knee, in my opinion, must certainly be the most acute, there
being so many tendons and what-d'ye-call-'ems all about it.

It is for that reason, quoth my uncle Toby, that the groin is infinitely
more sensible--there being not only as many tendons and what-d'ye-call-'ems
(for I know their names as little as thou dost)--about it--but moreover
...--

Mrs. Wadman, who had been all the time in her arbour--instantly stopp'd her
breath--unpinn'd her mob at the chin, and stood upon one leg--

The dispute was maintained with amicable and equal force betwixt my uncle
Toby and Trim for some time; till Trim at length recollecting that he had
often cried at his master's sufferings, but never shed a tear at his own--
was for giving up the point, which my uncle Toby would not allow--'Tis a
proof of nothing, Trim, said he, but the generosity of thy temper--

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (caeteris paribus) is
greater than the pain of a wound in the knee--or

Whether the pain of a wound in