THE
LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY,
GENTLEMAN
———
Volume the Third
———

Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis.——                  HOR.

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

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

TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
J  O  H  N,
LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER

MY LORD,

I HUMBLY beg leave to offer you these two Volumes^[22]; they are the best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce:—had Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.

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

    I am,

MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s most devoted  
and most humble Servant,  

LAUR. STERNE.

[22] Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition.

C H A P.   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 ωεσι φυσεως called him—the SHEKINAH of the divine presence, as Chrysostom——the image of God, as Moses——the ray of divinity, as Plato—the marvel of marvels, as Aristotle—to go sneaking on at this pitiful—pimping——pettifogging rate?

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

UPON WHISKERS.

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

THE FRAGMENT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——The Lady Baussiere rode on.

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

The Lady Baussiere rode on.

A decayed kinsman bowed himself to the ground.

——The Lady Baussiere rode on.

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

——The Lady Baussiere rode on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C H A P.   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.—

C H A P.   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 Budæus, or Petrarch, or Stella—or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms that it is an irresistible and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children—and Seneca (I’m positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel—And accordingly we find, that David wept for his son Absalom—Adrian for his Antinous—Niobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death.

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

——He got rid of it, however.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—’Twas to his wife,—said my father.

C H A P.   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 prætor—which, I dare say, brother Toby, you have read.—I dare say I have not, replied my uncle.—He died, said my father as * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * —And if it was with his wife, said my uncle Toby—there could be no hurt in it.—That’s more than I know—replied my father.

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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?

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   XII

——BUT to return to my mother.

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

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

From the strange mode of Cornelius’s death, my father had made a transition to that of Socrates, and was giving my uncle Toby an abstract of his pleading before his judges;——’twas irresistible:——not the oration of Socrates,—but my father’s temptation to it.——He had wrote the Life of Socrates^[23] himself the year before he left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of hastening him out of it;——so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling a tide of heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in Socrates’s oration, which closed with a shorter word than transmigration, or annihilation,—or a worse thought in the middle of it than to be—or not to be,—the entering upon a new and untried state of things,—or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance?——That we and our children were born to die,—but neither of us born to be slaves.——No—there I mistake; that was part of Eleazer’s oration, as recorded by Josephus (de Bell. Judaic)——Eleazer owns he had it from the philosophers of India; in all likelihood Alexander the Great, in his irruption into India, after he had over-run Persia, amongst the many things he stole,—stole that sentiment also; by which means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he died at Babylon), at least by some of his maroders, into Greece,—from Greece it got to Rome,—from Rome to France,—and from France to England:——So things come round.——

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

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

[23] 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.

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

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

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

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.

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

Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle—hum—dum—drum.

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

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

C H A P.   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-pædia, or system of education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an INSTITUTE for the government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father’s last stake—he had lost my brother Bobby entirely,—he had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths of me—that is, he had been unfortunate in his three first great casts for me—my geniture, nose, and name,—there was but this one left; and accordingly my father gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of projectils.—The difference between them was, that my uncle Toby drew his whole knowledge of projectils from Nicholas Tartaglia—My father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain,—or reeled and cross-twisted what all other spinners and spinsters had spun before him, that ’twas pretty near the same torture to him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C H A P.   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.

C H A P.   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.