The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy_ gentleman Laurence Sterne 1709 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The life and opinions of
Tristram Shandy, gentleman

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

Author: Laurence Sterne

Commentator: George Saintsbury

Release date: March 26, 2012 [eBook #39270]
Most recently updated: August 24, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39270

Credits: Louise Hope, Malcolm Farmer and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND
OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN ***

The text is from the 1912 Everyman edition of Tristram Shandy. It reproduces the
appearance of that edition, which may not be identical in design to editions printed in
Sterne’s lifetime. Where this edition has an illustration of a tombstone, some editions
have two consecutive black pages, placed immediately after “Alas, poor Yorick!” For
the e-text, some line breaks were added to the Latin Excommunicatio to
accommodate the alternative endings printed between lines.
In the printed book, lines are shorter than in most browsers:
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as
they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they
were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how
much depended upon what they were then doing;——
The “Excommunication” and “Slawkenbergius” sections were printed with Latin and
English on facing pages. They are shown here in parallel columns. Text shown in
bold sans-serif type was printed in blackletter (“Gothic”). Footnotes have been
renumbered continuously within each Book, and are grouped at the end of the Book.
The printed text does not distinguish between the author’s original footnotes and
modern editorial notes.
The editor’s Introduction says:
No attempt has been made to correct any oddities of spelling that are not
clearly mere misprints.
The same principle was used in the e-text. Unless otherwise noted, spelling,
punctuation and capitalization are as in the original. Changes—and a few unchanged
words—are marked with mouse-hover popups. Similarly, all Greek words and
phrases have mouse-hover transliterations: λόγος. All brackets are in the original.
Editor’s Introduction
Contents
Tristram Shandy
Detailed Contents

E V E RY M A N ’ S L I B R A RY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

FICTION

TRISTRAM SHANDY

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY

this is no. 617 of EVERYMAN’S
LIBRARY. the publishers will be pleased
to send freely to all applicants a list of
the published and projected volumes,
arranged under the following sections:

TRAVEL SCIENCE FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY CLASSICAL
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
ESSAYS ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
REFERENCE
ROMANCE

IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING: CLOTH, FLAT BACK,
COLOURED TOP; LEATHER, ROUND CORNERS, GILT
TOP; LIBRARY BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER
PIGSKIN

London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

First Issue of this Edition . 1912

Reprinted . . . . . 1915, 1917

INTRODUCTION

It can hardly be said that Sterne was an unfortunate person during his lifetime,
though he seems to have thought himself so. His childhood was indeed a little
necessitous, and he died early, and in debt, after some years of very bad health. But
from the time when he went to Cambridge, things went on the whole very fairly
well with him in respect of fortune; his ill-health does not seem to have caused
him much disquiet; his last ten years gave him fame, flirting, wandering, and other
pleasures and diversions to his heart’s content; and his debts only troubled those he
left behind him. He delighted in his daughter; he was able to get rid of his wife,
when he was more than usually fatigatus et aegrotus of her, with singular ease.
During the unknown, or almost unknown, middle of his life he had friends of the
kind most congenial to him; and both in his time of preparation and his time of
production in literature, he was able to indulge his genius in a way by no means
common with men of letters. If his wish to die in a certain manner and
circumstance was only bravado—and borrowed bravado—still it was granted; and
it is quite certain that to him an old age of real illness would have been
unmitigated torture. Even if we admit the ghastly stories of the fate of his remains,
there was very little reason why any one should not have anticipated Mr.
Swinburne’s words on the morrow of Sterne’s death and said, “Oh! brother, the
gods were good to you,” though even then he might have said it with a sort of
mental reservation on the question whether Sterne had been very good to the gods.
Nemesis, for the purpose of adjusting things, played him the exceptionally
savage trick of using the intervention of his idolised daughter. Little or nothing
seems to be known of “Lydia Sterne de Medalle,” as she was pleased to sign
herself; “Mrs. Medalle,” as her bluff British contemporaries call her. But that she
must have been either a very silly, a very stupid, or an excessively callous person,

appears certain. It would seem, indeed, to require a combination of the flightiness
and lack of taste which her father too often displayed, with the stolidity which
(from rather unfair inference through Mrs. Shandy) is sometimes supposed to have
characterised her mother, to prompt or permit a daughter to publish such a
collection of letters as those which were first given to the world in 1775. Charity,
not unsupported by probability, has trusted that Madame de Medalle could not
read Latin, but she certainly could read English; and only an utterly corrupted
heart, or an incurably dense or feather-brained head, could hide from her the fact
that not a few of the English letters she published were damaging to her father’s
character. Her alleged excuse—that her mother, who was then dead, had desired
her, if any letters should be published under her father’s name, to publish these,
and that the “Yorick and Eliza” correspondence had appeared—is utterly
insufficient. For Mrs. Sterne, of whose conduct we know nothing unfavourable,
and one or two things decidedly to her credit, could only have meant “such of
these as will put your father in a favourable light,” else she would have published
them herself. Yet though Lydia could, while taking no editorial trouble whatever,
go out of her way to make a silly missish apology for publishing a passage in
which her charms and merits are celebrated, she seems never to have given a
thought to what she was doing in other ways. Nor were Sterne’s misfortunes in this
way over with the publication of these things; for the subsequently discovered
Fourmentelle correspondence sunk him, with precise judges, a little deeper. No
doubt Tristram Shandy, the Sentimental Journey, and the curious stories or
traditions about their author, were not exactly calculated to give Sterne a very high
reputation with grave authorities. But it is these unlucky letters which put him
almost hopelessly out of court. Even the slight relenting of fortune which gave him
at last, in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, a biographer very good-natured, very indefatigable,
and with a natural genius for detecting undiscovered facts and documents, only
made matters worse in some ways. And the consequence is, that it has become a
commonplace and almost a necessity to make up for praising Sterne’s genius by
damning his character. Johnson, while declining to deny him ability, seems to have
been too much disgusted to talk freely about him; Scott’s natural kindliness, warm
admiration for my Uncle Toby, and total freedom from squeamish prudery, seem
yet to have left him ill at ease and tongue-tied in discussing Sterne; Thackeray, as
is well known, exceeded all measure in denouncing him; and his chief recent
critical biographer, Mr. Traill, who is probably as free from cant, Britannic or
other, as any man who ever wrote in English, speaks his mind in the most
unsparing fashion.
For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that I do not think letters of this kind
ought to be published at all; and though it may seem paradoxical or foolish, I am

by no means sure that, if they are published, they ought to be admitted as evidence.
That which is not written for the public, is no business of the public’s; and I never
read letters of this kind, published for the first time, without feeling like an
eavesdropper. 1 Unluckily, the evidence furnished by the letters fits in only too
well with that furnished by the published works, by his favourite cronies and
companions, and by his general reputation, so that “what the prisoner says” must,
no doubt, “be used against him.”

It may be doubted whether it was accident or his usual deliberate fantasticality
that made Sterne, in the well-known summary of his life which (very late in it) he
drew up for his daughter, devote almost the whole space to his childhood. Perhaps
it may be accounted for, reasonably enough, by supposing that of his later years he
thought his daughter knew quite as much as he wished her to know, while of the
middle period he had little or nothing to tell. In fact, of the two earlier divisions we
still know very little but what he has chosen to tell us in one of the most
characteristic and not the least charming excursions of his pen. Laurence Sterne
was, with two sisters, the only “permanent child” (to borrow a pleasant phrase of
Mr. Traill’s) out of a very plentiful but most impermanent family, borne in the
most inconvenient circumstances possible by Agnes Nuttle or Herbert or Sterne,
a widow, and daughter or stepdaughter of a sutler of our army in Flanders, to
Roger, second son of Simon Sterne of Elvington, in Yorkshire, who was the third
son of Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York. The Sternes were of a gentle if not
very distinguished family, which, after being seated in Suffolk, migrated to
Nottinghamshire. After the promotion of the archbishop (who had been a stout
cavalier, as Master of Jesus at Cambridge, in the bad times), they obtained, as was
fitting, divers establishments by marriage or benefice in Yorkshire itself. Very little
endowment of any kind, however, fell to the lot of Roger Sterne, who was an
ensign in what ranked later as the 34th regiment. Laurence, his eldest son, was
born at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his mother’s relations lived, and just after his
father’s regiment had been disbanded. It was shortly re-established, however, and
became the most “marching” of all marching corps; for though its headquarters
were generally in Ireland, it was constantly being ordered elsewhere, and Roger
Sterne saw active service both at Vigo and Gibraltar. In this latter station he fought
a duel of an extremely Shandean character “about a goose.” He was run through
the body and pinned to the wall; whereupon, it is said, he requested his antagonist
to be so kind as to wipe the plaster off the sword before pulling it out of his body.
In despite of this thoughtfulness, however, and of an immediate recovery, the
wound so weakened him that, being ordered to Jamaica, he took fever and died
there in March 1731. As Lawrence had been born on November 24, 1713, he was

nearly eighteen; and the family had meanwhile been increased by four other
children who all died, and a youngest daughter, Catherine, who, like the eldest,
Mary, lived. Till he was about nine or ten the boy followed the exceedingly
fluctuating fortunes of his family, which he diversified further on by falling
through, not a millrace, but a going mill. Then he was sent to school at Halifax, in
Yorkshire, and soon after practically adopted by his cousin Sterne of Elvington,
who, when the time came, sent him to Jesus College at Cambridge, the family
connection with which had begun with his great-grandfather. He was admitted
there on July 6, 1733, being then nearly twenty, and took his degree of B.A. in
1736, and that of M.A. in 1740. The only tradition of his school career is his own
story that, having written his name on the school ceiling, he was whipped by the
usher, but complimented as a “boy of genius” by the master, who said the name
should never be effaced. This anecdote, as might be expected, has not escaped the
aqua fortis of criticism.
We know practically nothing of Sterne’s Cambridge career except the dates
above mentioned, the fact of his being elected first to a sizarship and then as
founder’s kin to a scholarship endowed by Archbishop Sterne, and the incident
told by himself that he there contracted his lifelong friendship with a distant
relative and fellow Jesus man, John Hall, or John Hall Stevenson, of whom more
presently. But Sterne had further reason to acknowledge that his family stood
together. He had no sooner taken his degree, than he was taken up by a brother of
his father’s, Jaques Sterne, a great pluralist in the diocese of York, a very busy and
masterful person, and a strong Whig and Hanoverian. Under his care, Sterne took
deacon’s orders in March 1736 at the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln; and as soon
as, two years later, he had been ordained priest, he was appointed to the living of
Sutton-on-the-Forest, eight miles from York. The uncle and nephew some years
later quarrelled bitterly—according to the latter’s account, because he would not
write “dirty paragraphs in the newspapers,” being “no party man.” That Sterne
would have been particularly squeamish about what he wrote may be doubted; but
it is certain that he shows no partisan spirit anywhere, and very little interest in
politics as such. However, for some years his uncle was certainly his active patron,
and obtained for him two prebends and some other special preferments in
connection with the diocese and chapter of York, so that he became, as Tristram
shows, intimately acquainted with cathedral society there.
It has been a steady rule in the Anglican Church (if not, as in the Greek, a sine
quâ non) that when a man has been provided with a living, he should, if he has not
done so before, provide himself with a wife; and Sterne was a very unlikely man to
break good custom in this respect. Very soon at least after his ordination he fell in
love with Elizabeth Lumley, a young lady of a good Yorkshire family, and of some

little fortune, which, however, for a time she thought “not enough” to share with
him, but which, as she told him during a fit of illness, she left to him in her will.
On the strength of two quite unauthenticated and, I believe, not now traceable
portraits seen by this or that person in printshops or elsewhere, she is said to have
been plain. Certain expressions in Sterne’s letters seem to imply that she had a
rather exasperatingly steady and not too intelligent will of her own; and some
twenty or five and twenty years after the marriage, M. Tollot, a gossiping
Frenchman, with French ideas on the duty of husbands and wives going separate
ways, said that she wished to have a finger in every pie, and pestered “the good
and agreeable Tristram” with her presence. But Sterne, despite his reckless
confessions of conjugal indifference, and worse, says nothing serious or even ill-
natured of her; and one or two traits and sayings of hers, especially her refusal to
listen to a meddlesome person who wished to tell her tales about “Eliza,” seem to
argue sense and dignity. That in the latter years she cared little to be with a
husband who had long been “tired and sick” of her is not to her discredit. Their
daughter, with the almost invariable ill-luck or ill-judgment which seems to have
attended her, printed certain letters of this courtship time, though she gave nothing
for many years afterwards. The use made of these Strephon or Damon
blandishments, in contrast with the expressions used by the writer of his wife, and
of other women, long afterwards, is perhaps a little unfair; but it must be admitted
that though far too characteristic and amusing to be omitted, they are anything but
brilliant specimens of their kind. In particular, Thackeray’s bitter fun on the
ineffably lackadaisical passage, “My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December,”
is pretty fully justified.
If, however, the marriage, which, difficulties being removed, took place on
Easter Monday, March 30, 1741, did not bring lasting happiness to Sterne, it
probably brought him some at the time, and it certainly brought him an accession
of fortune; for in addition to what little money Miss Lumley had, a friend of hers
bestowed the additional living of Stillington on her husband. These various
sources of income must have made a tolerable revenue, which, after the
publication of Tristram, was further supplemented by yet another benefice given
him by Lord Falconbridge at Coxwold, a living of no great value, but a pleasant
place of residence. Add to this the profits of his books in the last eight years of his
life, which were for that day considerable, and it will be seen that, as has been said
above, Sterne might have been much worse off in this world’s goods than he was.
He seems, like other people, to have made some rather costly experiments in
farming; and his way of life latterly, what with his own journeys and sojourns in
London, and the long separate residence of his wife and daughter in France, was

expensive. But he complains little of poverty; and though he died in debt, much of
that debt was due to no fault of his, but to the burning of the parsonage of Sutton.
It is all the more remarkable in one way, though the absence of any pressure of
want may explain it in another, that Sterne’s great literary gifts should have
remained so long without finding any kind of literary expression, unless it was in
the newspaper way, in respect to which he first obliged and afterwards disobliged
his uncle. There is, I believe, no dispute about the fact that he distances, and that
by many years, every other man of letters of anything like his rank—except
Cowper, whose affliction puts him out of comparison—in the lateness of his
fruiting time. All but a quarter of a century had passed since he took his degree
when Tristram Shandy appeared; and, putting sermons aside, the very earliest
thing of his known, The History of a Good Watch Coat, only antedated Tristram by
two years or rather less. He was no doubt “making himself all this time;” but the
making must have been an uncommonly slow process. Nor did he, like a good
many writers, occupy the time in preparing what he was afterwards to publish,
unless in the case of a few of his sermons. It is positively known that Tristram was
written merely as it was published, and the Journey likewise. Nor is even the first
by any means a long book. It is as nearly as possible the same length as Fielding’s
Amelia when printed straight on; and even then more allowance has to be made,
not merely for its free and audacious plagiarisms, but for its constantly broken
paragraphs, stars, dashes, and other trickeries. If it were possible to squeeze it up,
as one squeezes a sponge, into the solid texture of an ordinary book, I doubt
whether it would be very much longer than Joseph Andrews.
It will probably be admitted, however, that the idiosyncrasy of the writings of
Sterne’s last and incomplete decade, even if it be in part only an idiosyncrasy of
mannerism, is almost great enough to justify the nearly three decades of Lehrjahre
(starting from his entrance at Cambridge) which preceded it. It is true that of the
actual occupations of these years we know extremely little—indeed, what we
know as distinguished from what is guesswork and inference is mostly summed up
by Sterne’s own current and curvetting pen thus: “I remained near twenty years at
Sutton, doing duty at both places [i.e., Sutton and Stillington]. I had then very
good health. Books, painting, fiddling, and shooting were my amusements;” to
which he adds only that he and the squire of Sutton were not very good friends,
but that at Stillington the Croft family were extremely kind and amiable. From
other sources, including, it is true, his own letters—though the dates and allusions
of these are so uncertain that they are very doubtful guides—we find that his chief
crony during this period, as during his life, was the already-mentioned John Hall,
who had taken to the name of Stevenson, and was master of Skelton Castle, a very
old and curious house on the border of the Cleveland moors, not far from the town

of Guisborough. The master of “Crazy” Castle—he liked to give his house this
name, which he afterwards used in entitling his book of Crazy Tales—his ways
and his library, have usually been charged with debauching Sterne’s innocent
mind, which I should imagine lent itself to that process in a most docile and
morigerant fashion; but whether this was the case or not, it is clear that Stevenson
bore no very good reputation. It is not certain, but was asserted, that he had been a
monk of Medmenham. He gathered about him at Skelton a society which, though
no such imputations were made on it as on that of Wilkes and Dashwood, was of a
pretty loose kind; he was a humourist, both in the old and the modern sense; and
his Crazy Tales were, if not very mad, rather sad and bad exercises of the
imagination.
Amid all this dream- and guess-work, almost the only solid facts in Sterne’s life
are the births of two daughters, one in 1745, and the other two years later. Both
were christened Lydia; the first died soon after she was born, the second lived to
be the darling of both her parents, the object of the most respectable emotions of
Sterne’s life, the wife of an unknown Frenchman, M. de Medalle, and, as has been
said, the probably unwitting destroyer of her father’s last chance of reputation.
Our exuberant nescience in matters Sternian extends up to the very publication
of Tristram, as far as the determining causes of its production are concerned. It is
true that in passages of the letters Sterne seems to say that his experiment with the
pen was prompted by a desire to make good some losses in farming, and elsewhere
that he was tired of employing his brains for other people’s advantage, as he had
done for some years for an ungrateful person, that is to say, his uncle. This last
passage was written just before Tristram came out; but at no time was Sterne a
very trustworthy reporter of his own motives, and it would seem that the quarrel
with his uncle must have been a good deal earlier. At any rate, the year 1759 seems
to have been spent in writing the first two volumes of the book, and The Life and
Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., published by John Hinxham, Stonegate, York,
but obtainable also from divers London booksellers, appeared on the 1st of
January 1760. I wish Sterne had thought of keeping it till the 1st of April, which he
would probably then have done.
The comparatively short last scenes of his life were as busy and varied as his
long middle course had been outwardly monotonous. Although his book was
nominally published at York, he had gone up to London to superintend
arrangements for its sale there, perhaps not without a hope of triumph. If so,
Fortune chose not to play him her usual tricks. In York, the extreme personality of
the book excited interest of a twofold and dubious kind; but, to play on some
words of Dryden’s, “London liked grossly” and swallowed Tristram Shandy whole
with singular avidity. Its author came to town just in time to enjoy the results of

this, and was one of the chief lions of the season of 1760, a position which he
enjoyed with a childish frankness that is not the least pleasant thing in his history.
One, probably of the least important, though by accident one of the best known of
his innumerable flirtations, with a Miss Fourmentelle, was apparently quenched by
this distraction when it was on the point of going such lengths that the lady had
actually come up alone to London to meet Sterne there. He was introduced to
persons as different as Garrick and Warburton, from the latter of whom he
received, in rather mysterious circumstances, a present of money. He haunted
Ministers and Knights of the Garter; he was overwhelmed with invitations and
callers; and, as has been said, he received one very solid present in the shape of the
living of Coxwold. Tristram went into a second edition rapidly; its author was
enabled to announce a collection of “Sermons by Mr. Yorick” in April; and he went
to his new living in the early summer, determined to set to work vigorously on
more of the work that had been so fortunate. By the end of the year he was ready
with two more volumes, again came up to town, and again, when vols. iii. and iv.
had appeared, at the end of January 1761, was besieged by admirers. For these two
he received £380 from Dodsley, who had fought shy of the book earlier. They were
quite as successful as the first pair; and again Sterne stayed all the spring and
earlier summer in London, returning to Yorkshire to make more Shandy in the
autumn. He was still quicker over the third batch, and it was published in
December 1761, when he was again in town, but he now meditated a longer flight.
His health had been really declining, and he obtained leave from the archbishop
for a year certain, and perhaps two, that he might go to the south of France. He
was warmly received in Paris, where his work had obtained a popularity which it
has never wholly lost, and the framework of fact (including the passport
difficulties) for the Sentimental Journey, as well as for the seventh volume of
Tristram, was laid during the spring. His plans were now changed, it being
determined that his wife and daughter (who had inherited his constitution) should
join him. They did so after some difficulties, and the consumptive novelist, having
spent all the winter in one of the worst climates in Europe, that of the French
capital, started with his family in the torrid heats of July for Toulouse, where at last
they were established about the middle of August.
Toulouse became Sterne’s abode for nearly a year, his headquarters for a
somewhat longer period, and the home of his wife and daughter, with migrations
to Bagnères, Montpellier, and a great many other places in France, for about five
years. He himself—he had been ill at Toulouse, and worse at Montpellier—
reached England again (after a short stay in Paris) during the early summer of
1764. Nor was it till January 1765 that the seventh and eighth volumes of Tristram
appeared. As usual Sterne went to town to receive the congratulations of the

public, which seem to have been fairly hearty; for though the instalment
immediately preceding had not been an entire success, the longer interval had now
had its effect not merely on the art and materials of the caterer, but on the appetite
of his guests. He followed this up with two more volumes of Sermons, of a much
more characteristic kind than his earlier venture in this way, and published partly
by subscription. These, however, were not actually issued till 1766. Meanwhile, in
October 1765, Sterne had set out for his second attempt in travel on the Continent,
which was to supply the remaining material for the Sentimental Journey, and to be
prolonged as far as Naples. Little is known of his winter stay at that city and in
Rome. On his way homeward he met his wife and daughter in Franche-Comté, but
at Mrs. Sterne’s request left them there, and went on alone to Coxwold.
He reached England in extremely bad health, and never left it again; but he had
still nearly two years of fairly well filled life to run. The ninth, or last volume of
Tristram occupied him during the autumn of 1766, and was produced with the
invariable accompaniment of its author’s appearance in London during January
1767. This visit, which lasted till May, saw the flirtation with “Eliza” Draper, the
young wife of an Indian official, who was at home for her health, an affair which
exalted Sterne in the eyes of eighteenth-century sensibility, especially in France,
about as much as it has depressed him in the eyes not merely of the propriety, not
merely of the common sense, but of the romance of later times. He was very ill
when he got back to Coxwold, but recovered, and in October was joined by his
wife and daughter. Even then, however, the community was a very temporary and
divided one, for he took a house for them at York, and they were not to stay in
England beyond the spring. He himself finished what we have of the Sentimental
Journey, and went to London with it, where it was published rather later than
usual, on the 27th February 1768. Three weeks later its author, at his lodgings at
41 New Bond Street, in the presence only of a hired nurse and a footman, who had
been sent by some of his friends to inquire after him, took a journey other than
sentimental, and so far unreported. Some odd but not very well authenticated
stories gathered round his death, which occurred on Friday the 18th March. It was
said, and it is probable enough, that his gold sleeve-links were stolen by his
landlady. After his funeral, scantily attended, at the burying-ground of St.
George’s, Hanover Square, opposite Hyde Park (which used to be known by the
squalid brown of its unrestored, and afterwards made more hideous by the
bedizened red of its restored chapel), his body is said to have been snatched by
resurrection men. And the myth is rounded off by the addition that the remains,
having been sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge, were dissected there
in public, one of the spectators, a friend of Sterne’s, recognising the face too late,
and fainting.

His affairs, which had never been managed in a very business-like manner, were
in considerable disorder. Some years before, the carelessness of his curate had
caused or allowed the parsonage at Sutton to be burnt to the ground; and Sterne,
besides losing valuable effects of his own, was of course liable for the rebuilding.
He managed to put this off till his death, after which his widow and administratrix
was sued for dilapidations. These, as she was in very poor circumstances, had to be
compounded for sixty pounds only, but they probably ranked for a much larger
sum in the £1100 at which Sterne’s indebtedness was reckoned. His widow had a
little money of her own: £800 was collected for her and her daughter at York races;
there must have been profits from the copyrights; and a fresh collection of
Sermons was issued by subscription. But though very little is known about the
pair, they are said to have been ill off. They applied first to Wilkes and then to
Stevenson to write a life of Sterne to prefix to his Works, but neither complied. Mr.
Fitzgerald, who seldom deserves the curse laid on those who use harsh judgment,
is very severe on both for this. Yet surely each, considering his own reputation,
must have felt that he was the last person to set Sterne right with the stricter part of
society, and that to write a “Crazy” or “Shandean” life of him would be a cruel
crime. It is not known exactly when Lydia married, or when either she or her
mother died. Mrs. Sterne must have been dead by 1775, the date of the publication
of the letters; Lydia is said to have perished in the French Revolution.
Beginning authorship very late in life, having schooled himself to an intensely
artificial method, both in style and in construction, and not allowed by Fate more
than a few years in which to write at all, Sterne, as is natural, displays a great
uniformity throughout his work. Indeed, it might be said that he has written but
one book, Tristram Shandy. The Sentimental Journey (as to the relative merits of
which, compared with the earlier and larger work, there is a polemos aspondos
between the Big-endians and the Little-endians of Sternism) is after all only an
expansion of the seventh book of Tristram, with fioriture, variations, and new
divertisements. The sermon which occurs so early is an actual sermon of
“Yorick’s,” and a sufficient specimen of his more serious concionatory vein; many,
if not most of his letters might have been twined into Tristram without being in the
least degree more out of place than most of its actual contents. And so there is
more propriety than depends upon the mere fact that Tristram Shandy is the
earliest and the largest part of its author’s work, in making no extremely scholastic
distinction between the specially Shandean and the generally Sternian
characteristics; for, indeed, all Sterne is in it more or less eminently.
No less a critic than M. Scherer has given his sanction to the idea that in Sterne
we have a special, if not even the special, type of the humourist; and probably few
people who have given no particular thought or attention to the matter, would

refuse to agree with him. I am myself inclined rather to a demur, or, at any rate, to
a distinction, though few better things have been written about humour itself than a
passage in M. Scherer’s essay on our author. Sterne has no doubt in a very eminent
degree the sense of contrast, which all the best critics admit to be the root of
humour—the note of the humourist. But he has it partially, occasionally, and,
I should even go as far as to say, not greatly. The great English humourists, I take
it, are Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Thackeray, and Carlyle. All these—even
Fielding, whose eighteenth-century manner, the contemporary and counterpart of
Sterne’s, cannot hide the truth—apply the humourist contrast, the humourist sense
of the irony of existence, to the great things, the prima et novissima. They see, and
feel, and show the simultaneous sense of Death and Life, of Love and Loss, of the
Finite and the Infinite. Sterne stops a long way short of this; les grands sujets lui
sont défendus in another sense than La Bruyère’s. It is scarcely too much to say
that his ostentatious preference for the bagatelle was a real, and not in the least
affected fact. Nowhere, not in the true pathos of the famous deathbed letter to Mrs.
James, not in the, as it seems to me, by no means wholly true pathos of the Le
Fever episode, does he pierce to “the accepted hells beneath.” He has an
unmatched command of the lesser and lower varieties of the humorous contrast—
over the odd, the petty, the queer, above all, over what the French untranslatably
call the saugrenu. His forte is the foible; his cheval de bataille, the hobby-horse. If
you want to soar into the heights, or plunge into the depths of humour, Sterne is
not for you. But if you want what his own generation called a frisk on middle, very
middle-earth, a hunt in curiosity-shops (especially of the technically “curious”
description), a peep into all manner of coulisses and behind-scenes of human
nature, a ride on a sort of intellectual switchback, a view of moral, mental,
religious, sentimental dancing of all the kinds that have delighted man, from the
rope to the skirt, then have with Sterne in any direction he pleases. He may
sometimes a very little disgust you, but you will seldom have just cause to
complain that he disappoints and deceives.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. (which, as it has been
excellently observed, is in reality based on the life of the gent’s uncle, and the
opinions of the gent’s father), is the largest and in every way the chief field for
these diversions. The apparatus, and, so far as there can be said to have been one,
the object with which Sterne marked it out and filled it up, are clear, and even the
former must have been clear enough to anybody of some reading and some
intelligence long before the excellent Dr. Ferriar, in the spirit of a reverent
iconoclast, set himself to work to point out Sterne’s exact indebtedness to
Rabelais, Burton, Beroalde (if Beroalde wrote the Moyen de Parvenir),
Bruscambille, and the rest. Of this particular part of the matter I do not think it

necessary to say much. The charge of plagiarism is usually an excessively idle
one; for when a man of genius steals, he always makes the thefts his own; and
when a man steals without genius, the thefts are mere fairy gold which turns to
leaves and pebbles under his hand. No doubt Sterne “lifted” in Tristram, and still
more in the Sermons, with rather more freedom and audacity than most men of
genius; but when we remember that he took Burton’s denunciation of the practice
and reproduced it (all but in Burton’s very words) as his own, it must be clear to
any one who is not very dull indeed that he was playing an audacious practical
joke. Where he is best, he does not steal at all, and that is the only point of real
importance.
It is somewhat more, I think, the business of the critic (who is here more
especially bound not to look only at the stop-watch) to note the far more striking
way in which Sterne borrowed, not actual passages and words, but manner and
style. Here, perhaps, we shall find him accountant for a greater debt; and here also
we may think that though his genius is indisputable, he gives more reason to those
who should deny him the highest kind of genius. Beyond doubt not merely his
reading, but his temper and his characteristics of all kinds, inclined him to the style
to which the French fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave the name of fatrasie, or
pillar-to-post divagation, with more or less of a covert satiric aim. But if we
compare the dealing of Swift with Cyrano de Bergerac, the dealing of Fielding
with the romance and novel as it existed before his time, nay, the dealing of
Shakespeare with the Marlowe drama, we shall note a marked difference in
Sterne’s procedure. Nobody, even in his own day, who knew Rabelais at all could
fail to detect the almost servile following of manner in great things and in small
which Tristram displays. No one—a much smaller designation—who knows the
strange, unedifying, but very far from commonplace book of which, as I have
hinted, I never can quite believe that Beroalde de Verville was the author, can fail
to detect an even closer, though a somewhat less obvious and, so to speak, less
verifiable following here.
In another region—the purgatory of all Sterne’s commentators—we can trace
this corrupt following as distinctly at least, though it has, I think, been less often
definitely attributed. Sterne’s too celebrated indecency, is, with one exception, sui
generis. No doubt much nonsense has been and is talked about “indecency” in
general literature. When it is indulged, as it has been, for instance, in French of
late, it becomes a nuisance of the most loathsome kind. It is always perhaps better
left alone. But if it be a sin to laugh now and then frankly at what were once called
“gentlemen’s stories,” then not merely many a gallant, noble, and not unwise
gentleman, but I fear not a few ladies, both fair and fine, are damned, with
Shakespeare and Scott and Southey, with Margaret of Navarre and Marie de

Sévigné, to keep them in countenance. Yet to merit indulgence, this questionable
quality, in addition to being treated as genius treats, must have certain sub-
qualities, or freedoms from quality, of its own. It must not be brutal and inhuman,
since the quality of humanity is the main thing that saves it. It must not be
underhand and sniggering. It must be frank and jovial, or frank and passionate.
Perhaps, in some cases, it may be saved, as Swift’s is to a great extent, by the
overmastering pessimism of despair, which enforces its contempt of man and
man’s fate by bringing forward these evidences of his weakness. But Sterne can
plead none of these exemptions. He has neither the frank laughter of Aristophanes
and Rabelais, nor the frank passion of Catullus and Donne. He was incapable of
feeling any sæva indignatio whatever. The attraction of the thing for him was,
I fear, merely the attraction of the improper, because it is improper; because it
shocks people, or makes them blush, or gives them an unholy little quiver of
sordid shamefaced delectation. His famous apology of the child playing on the
floor and showing in innocence what is not usually shown, was desperately
unlucky. For his displays are those of educated and economic un-innocency. And
he took this manner, I am nearly sure, wholly and directly from Voltaire, who
enjoys the unenviable copyright and patent of it.
The third characteristic which Sterne took from others, which dyed his work
deeply, and which injured more than it helped it, was his famous, his unrivalled,
Sensibility or Sentimentalism. A great deal has been written about this admired
eighteenth-century device, and there is no space here for discussing it. Suffice it to
say, that although Sterne certainly did not invent it—it had been inculcated by two
whole generations of French novelists before him, and had been familiar in
England for half a century—he has the glory, such as it is, of carrying it to the
farthest possible. The dead donkey and the live donkey, the latter (as I humbly but
proudly join myself to Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Traill in thinking) far the finer
animal; Le Fever and La Fleur; Maria and Eliza; Uncle Toby’s fly, and poor Mrs.
Sterne’s antenuptial polyanthus; the stoics that Mr. Sterne (with a generous sense
that he was in no danger of that lash) wished to be whipped, and the critics from
whom he would have fled from Dan to Beersheba to be delivered;—all the
celebrated persons and passages of his works, all the decorations and fireworks
thereof, are directed mainly to the exhibition of Sensibility, once so charming,
now, alas! hooted and contemned of the people!
And now it will be possible to have done with his foibles, all the rest in Sterne
being for praise, with hardly any mixture of blame. We have seen what he
borrowed from others, mostly to his hurt; let us now see what he contributed of his
own, almost wholly to his credit and advantage. He had, in the first place, what
most writers when they begin almost invariably and almost inevitably lack, a long

and carefully amassed store, not merely of reading, but of observation of mankind.
Although his nearly fifty years of life had been in the ordinary sense uneventful,
they had given him opportunities which he had amply taken. A “son of the
regiment,” he had evidently studied with the greatest and most loving care the
ways of an army which still included a large proportion of Marlborough’s
veterans; and it has been constantly and reasonably held that his chief study had
been his father, whom he evidently adored in a way. Roger Sterne is the admitted
model of my Uncle Toby; and I at least have no doubt that he was the original of
Mr. Shandy also, for some of the qualities which appear in his son’s character of
him are Walter’s, not Toby’s. It would have required, perhaps, even greater genius
than Sterne possessed, and an environment less saturated with the delusive theory
of the “ruling passion,” to have given us the mixed and blended temperament
instead of separating it into two gentlemen at once, and making Walter Shandy all
wayward intellect, and Tobias all gentle goodness. But if it had been done—as
Shakespeare perhaps alone could have done it—we should have had a greater and
more human figure than either. Mr. Shandy would then never have come near, as
he does sometimes, to being a bore; and my Uncle Toby (if I may say so without
taking the wings of the morning to flee from the wrath of the extreme Tobyolaters)
would have been saved from the occasional appearance of being something like a
fool.
Still, these two are delightful even in their present dichotomy; and Sterne was
amply provided by his genius, working on his experience, with company for them.
His fancy portrait of himself as “Yorick” (his unfeigned Shakespearianism is one
of his best traits) is a little vague and fantastic; and that of Eugenius, which is
supposed to represent John Hall Stevenson, is almost as slight as it is flattering.
But Dr. Slop, who is known to have been drawn (with somewhat unmerciful
fidelity in externals, but not at all unkindly when we look deeper) from Dr. Burton,
a well-known Jacobite practitioner who had suffered from the Hanoverian zeal of
Yorick’s uncle Jaques in the ’45, is a masterpiece. The York dignitaries are
veritable etchings in outline, more instinct with life and individuality than a
thousand elaborately painted pictures; all the servants, Obadiah, Susannah,
Bridget, and the rest, are the equals of Fielding’s, or of Thackeray’s domestics; and
though Tristram himself is the shadow of a shade, I confess that I seem to see a
vivid portrait in the three or four strokes which alone give us “my dear, dear
Jenny.” Mr. Fitzgerald, succumbing to a not unnatural temptation, considering the
close juxtaposition in time, approximates this to the “dear, dear Kitty” of the letters
to Miss Catherine de Fourmentelle. But this, taking all things together, would be a
rather serious scandalum damigellarum; and I do not think it necessary to identify,
though the traits seem to me to suit not ill with the few genuine ones in the letters

about Mrs. Sterne herself. That the “dear, dear” should be ironical more or less is
quite Shandean. All these, if not drawn directly from individuals (the lower
exercise), are first generalised and then precipitated into individuality from a large
observation (which is the infinitely higher and better). I fear I must except Widow
Wadman, save in the sentry-box scene, from this encomium. But then Widow
Wadman is not really a real person. She is partly an instrument to put my Uncle
Toby through some new motions, and partly a cue to enable Sterne to indulge in
his worst foible. As for Trim, quis vituperavit Trim? The lover of the “popish
clergywoman” is simply perfect, with a not much less good heart and a much
better head than his master’s, and in his own degree hardly less of a gentleman.
The manner in which these delightful persons (I observe with shame that I had
omitted the modest worth of Mrs. Shandy, nearly the most delightful of them all)
are introduced to the reader, may have suffered a little from that corrupt following
of which enough has been said. I can only say, that I would compound for a good
deal more corruption of the same kind, allied with a good deal less genius. It can
scarcely be doubted that there was a real pre-established harmony between
Sterne’s gifts and the fatrasie manner; certainly this manner, if it sometimes
exhibited his weaknesses, gave rare opportunities to his strength. And the same
may be said of his style. He might certainly have given us less of the typographical
tricks with which he chose to bedizen and bedaub it, and sometimes in his ultra-
Rabelaisian moods—I do not mean of gauloiserie but of sheer fooling—we feel
the falsetto rather disastrously. It is constantly forgotten by unfavourable critics of
Rabelais that his extravagances were to a great extent, at any rate, quite natural
outbursts of animal spirits. The Middle Ages, though it has become the fashion
with those who know nothing about them to represent them as ages of gloom, were
probably the merriest time of this world’s history; and the Reformation and the
Renaissance, with their pedantry and their puritanism, and worst of all their
physical science, had not quite killed the merriment when Rabelais wrote. But
though animal spirits still survived in Sterne’s day, it cannot be said that in
England, any more than elsewhere, there was much genuine merriment of the
honest, childish, mediæval kind, and thus his manner perpetually jars. Still the
style, independently of the tricks, was excellently suited for the work. It is a moot
point how far the extremely loose and ungirt character of this style, which
sometimes, and indeed often, reaches sheer slovenliness and solecism, was
intentional. I think myself that it was nearly as deliberate as the asterisks, and the
black and marble pages. We know from the Sermons that Sterne could write
carefully enough when he chose, and we know from the MS. of the Journey that
he corrected sedulously. Nor is it likely that he had the excuse of hurry. The
shortest time that he ever took over one of his two-volume batches was more than

six months; and looking at the practice, not of miracles of industry and facility like
Scott, but of rather dilatory writers like Thackeray, one would think that the
quantity (which is not more than a couple of hundred pages of one of these present
volumes) might be written in little more than six weeks. At any rate, the style,
conversational, unpretentious, too easy to be jerky, and yet too broken to be
sustained, suits subject and scheme as few others could.

But there is perhaps little need to say more about a book which, though some
say that few read it through nowadays, is thoroughly well known in outline and in
its salient passages, and which will pretty certainly lay hold of all fit readers as
soon as they take to it. Of its writer a very little more may perhaps be said, all the
more so because those who, not understanding critical admiration, think that
biographers and editors ought not only to be just and a little kind, but
extravagantly partial to their subjects, may conceive that I have been a little unjust,
or, at any rate, a little unkind to Sterne. If so, they have not read his own extremely
ingenious, and in general, if not in particular, very sound attack on the adage de
mortuis. But if not nil nisi, there is yet very much bonum to be said of Sterne. He
was not merely endowed with a singular and essential genius; he was not merely
the representative and mouthpiece, in a way hardly surpassed by any one, of a
certain way of thought and feeling more or less peculiar to his time. These were
his merits, his very great merits as a writer. But he had others, and great, if not
very great ones, as a man. Though never rich, he seems to have been free from the
fault of parsimony; and albeit he died in debt, not deeply tainted with that of
extravagance in money matters. For most of his later expenditure was on others,
and he might justly calculate on his pen paying, and more than paying, his shot.
Little love as there was lost between him and his wife, he always took the greatest
care to provide for her wants in the rather costly severance of their establishments,
and never even in his most indiscreet moments hints a grumble at her expenditure,
a vice of which some people of much higher general reputation have been known
to be guilty. Though he was certainly pleased at the attentions of “the great,” I do
not know that there is any just cause for accusing him of truckling to, or fawning
on them beyond the custom and courtesy of the time. For all his reckless humour,
there was no ill-nature in him. His worst enemies have admitted that his affection
for his daughter was very pretty and quite unaffected; and his letters to and of Mrs.
James show that he could think of a woman nobly and wholesomely as a friend,
for all his ignoble and unwholesome ways of thought in regard to the sex. If it had
not been for the cruel indiscretion of his Lydia (which, however, has something of
the old virtue of conveying the balm as well as the sting), he would probably have
been much better thought of than he is. And considering the delightful books here

once more presented, I think we may consent to forgive the faults which, after all,
were mainly his own business, for the merits by which we so largely benefit and
for which he reaped no over-bounteous guerdon.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

Works.—The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Vols. I. and II., 1759; III. and IV., 1761; V. and VI.,
1762; VII. and VIII., 1765; IX., 1767; first collected edition, 1767; numerous later editions, chiefly of recent
date. Sermons of Mr. Yorick, Vols. I. and II., 1760; III. and IV., 1766; V., VI., and VII., 1769. A Sentimental
Journey, 1768; many later editions; Letters from Yorick to Eliza, 1775; Sterne’s Letters to his Friends on
Various Occasions, 1775; Letters of Laurence Sterne to his most intimate friends, 1775; Original Letters never
before published, 1788; Letters of Yorick and Eliza, 1807; Seven Letters written by Sterne and his Friends,
hitherto unpublished, 1844; Unpublished Letters of Laurence Sterne, edited by J. Murray, 1856.
Collected editions of the works of Laurence Sterne appeared in 1779, 1780; edited by G. Saintsbury, 1894;
by Wilbur L. Cross, 1906.

Life.—An account of the life and writings of the author is prefixed to the edition of his Works, 1779; a life
of the author written by himself in edition of works, 1780; by Sir W. Scott in edition of Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, 1867; by H. D. Traill, 1878; by P. H. Fitzgerald, 1896; Laurence Sterne in Germany, by
H. W. Thayer, 1905; Life and Times, by Wilbur L. Cross, 1909; A Study, by Walter S. Sichel, 1910; Life and
Letters, by Lewis Melville, 1911.

1. It is perhaps barely necessary to observe that the parallel does not
extend to a further parallel between republication and tale-bearing. Once
published, the thing is public.

⁂ The text which has been here adopted is that of the ten-
volume edition, first printed in 1781, and reprinted several
times before the end of the century, which is as near as
anything to the “standard” Sterne. It seems, however, to have
had no competent editing; and the renumbering of the
chapters to suit the four volumes, in which Tristram was
printed, completely upsets the original and important division
into nine volumes, or books, which has here, as in some other
editions, been restored. Another piece of thoughtlessness was
that of sticking the Dedication, which originally came
between the eighth and ninth volumes, or books, at the

beginning of the fourth volume as reprinted, thereby making
nonsense or puzzle of Sterne’s joke about à priori. It should be
observed that the Dedication to Pitt, which here leads off, was
not prefixed till the second edition of the original, and that
sometimes in the last-century editions it appears displaced at
a later spot. No attempt has been made to correct any oddities
of spelling that are not clearly mere misprints.

CONTENTS
PAGE

Book I. 3

Book II. 59

Book III. 113

Book IV. 176

Book V. 251

Book VI. 300

Book VII. 349

Book VIII. 395

Book IX. 441

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF

TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
Ταράσσει τοὺς Ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα,
Ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν Πραγμάτων Δόγματα.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
MR. PITT

Sir,—Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication, than I
have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the kingdom, and in a
retir’d thatch’d house, where I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the
infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded
that every time a man smiles,——but much more so, when he laughs, it adds
something to this Fragment of Life.

I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it——(not under
your Protection,——it must protect itself, but)——into the country with you;
where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or can conceive it has beguiled you
of one moment’s pain——I shall think myself as happy as a minister of state;
———perhaps much happier than any one (one only excepted) that I have read or
heard of.
I am, great sir,
(and what is more to your Honour)
I am, good sir,
Your Well-wisher, and
most humble Fellow-subject,
THE AUTHOR.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty
both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me;
had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;—
that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that
possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and
the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the
fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and
dispositions which were then uppermost;——Had they duly weighed and
considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,——I am verily persuaded I should
have made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader is
likely to see me.—Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as
many of you may think it;—you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as
how they are transfused from father to son, &c., &c.—and a great deal to that
purpose:—Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or
his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their
motions and activity, and the different tracts and trains you put them into, so that
when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a halfpenny
matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps
over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a
garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes
shall not be able to drive them off it.

Pray, my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?
———Good G—! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to
moderate his voice at the same time,——Did ever woman, since the creation of the
world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father
saying?———Nothing.

CHAPTER II

———Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see, either good
or bad.——Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least,
—because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to
have escorted and gone hand in hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted
him safe to the place destined for his reception.
The Homunculus, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in
this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;—to the eye of reason in
scientifick research, he stands confess’d—a Being guarded and circumscribed with
rights.——The minutest philosophers, who, by the bye, have the most enlarged
understandings (their souls being inversely as their enquiries), shew us
incontestably, that the Homunculus is created by the same hand,—engender’d in
the same course of nature,—endow’d with the same locomotive powers and
faculties with us:—That he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins,
arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals,
humours, and articulations;—is a Being of as much activity,—and, in all senses of
the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of
England.—He may be benefited,—he may be injured,—he may obtain redress;—
in a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity, which Tully, Puffendorf, or
the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone!—or that,
through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little Gentleman had got to
his journey’s end miserably spent;—his muscular strength and virility worn down
to a thread;—his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description,—and that in this
sad disordered state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series
of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together.—I tremble
to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body
and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards
have set thoroughly to rights.

CHAPTER III

To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to
whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to
close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, and heavily complained of the
injury; but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby well remember’d, upon his
observing a most unaccountable obliquity (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting
up my top, and justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old
gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than
reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and
from a thousand other observations he had made upon me, That I should neither
think nor act like any other man’s child:—But alas! continued he, shaking his head
a second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, My
Tristram’s misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world.
—My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up,—but she knew no more than her
backside what my father meant,—but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been
often informed of the affair,—understood him very well.

CHAPTER IV

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who
are no readers at all, who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the
whole secret from first to last, of everything which concerns you.
It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in
my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have been so very particular
already. As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and, if
I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men
whatever,—be no less read than the Pilgrim’s Progress itself—and in the end,
prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is,
a book for a parlour-window;—I find it necessary to consult every one a little in
his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little farther in the same
way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in
the way I have done; and that I am able to go on, tracing everything in it, as
Horace says, ab Ovo.

Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that
gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;—(I forget which),—
besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace’s pardon;—for in writing what I
have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man’s rules
that ever lived.
To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can
give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part of this chapter;
for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.
——————Shut the door.——————————————————— I
was begot in the night, betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month
of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am
positive I was.—But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing
which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only
in our own family, but now made publick for the better clearing up this point.
My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left
off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate
in the county of ———, was, I believe, one of the most regular men in everything
he did, whether ’twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived.
As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a
slave,—he had made it a rule for many years of his life,—on the first Sunday-night
of every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as ever the Sunday-night
came,——to wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-
stairs head, with his own hands:—And being somewhere between fifty and sixty
years of age at the time I have been speaking of,—he had likewise gradually
brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he
would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and
be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.
It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon
myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely,
that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it
so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound
up,——but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head—
and vice versâ:——Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke, who
certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to
have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice whatsoever.
But this by the bye.
Now it appears by a memorandum in my father’s pocket-book, which now lies
upon the table, “That on Lady-day, which was on the 25th of the same month in
which I date my geniture,——my father set out upon his journey to London, with

my eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school;” and, as it appears from
the same authority, “That he did not get down to his wife and family till the second
week in May following,”—it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However, what
follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it beyond all possibility of doubt.
———But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December, January, and
February?——Why, Madam,—he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica.

CHAPTER V

On the fifth day of November, 1718, which to the æra fixed on, was as near nine
calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected,—was I Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and disasterous world of ours.
——I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or
Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared
worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for Venus) than it has in
this vile, dirty planet of ours,—which, o’ my conscience, with reverence be it
spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the rest;——not but the
planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in it to a great title or to a
great estate; or could any how contrive to be called up to publick charges, and
employments of dignity or power;——but that is not my case;——and therefore
every man will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it;———for which
cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;—for
I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that I can
now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in scating against the wind in
Flanders;—I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and
though I will not wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of
any great or signal evil;——yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of
her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get
fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful
misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained.

CHAPTER VI

In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly when I was born; but I
did not inform you how. No, that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by
itself;—besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it
would not have been proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating
to myself all at once.—You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see,
to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your
knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would
give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed farther with me, the slight
acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and
that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.—O diem præclarum!
—then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or
tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think
me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out—bear with me,—and
let me go on, and tell my story my own way:—Or, if I should seem now and then
to trifle upon the road,—or should sometimes put on a fool’s cap with a bell to it,
for a moment or two as we pass along,—don’t fly off,—but rather courteously give
me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my outside;—and as we jog
on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short, do anything,—only keep your
temper.

CHAPTER VII

In the same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin,
upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a
little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which
she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of dame
Nature,—had acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world:
——by which word world, need I in this place inform your worship, that I would
be understood to mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the circle
of the great world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts, of which the
cottage where the good old woman lived, is supposed to be the centre?—She had
been left, it seems, a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in
her forty-seventh year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage,—
grave deportment,—a woman moreover of few words, and withal an object of
compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, called out the louder for a
friendly lift: the wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity; and having

often lamented an inconvenience, to which her husband’s flock had for many years
been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or
degree, to be got at, let the case have been never so urgent, within less than six or
seven long miles riding; which seven said long miles in dark nights and dismal
roads, the country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to
fourteen; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at all; it
came into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a kindness to the whole
parish, as to the poor creature herself, to get her a little instructed in some of the
plain principles of the business, in order to set her up in it. As no woman
thereabouts was better qualified to execute the plan she had formed than herself,
the gentlewoman very charitably undertook it; and having great influence over the
female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in effecting it to the utmost of her
wishes. In truth, the parson join’d his interest with his wife’s in the whole affair;
and in order to do things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title
by law to practise, as his wife had given by institution,—he chearfully paid the
fees for the ordinary’s licence himself, amounting in the whole, to the sum of
eighteen shillings and four pence; so that betwixt them both, the good woman was
fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her office, together with all its
rights, members, and appurtenances whatsoever.
These last words, you must know, were not according to the old form in which
such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like cases had heretofore
been granted to the sisterhood. But it was according to a neat Formula of Didius
his own devising, who having a particular turn for taking to pieces, and new
framing over again, all kind of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this
dainty amendment, but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the
neighbourhood, to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this wham-wham of
his inserted.
I own I never could envy Didius in these kinds of fancies of his:—But every
man to his own taste.—Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure
hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses tails, and plucking
the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket?
Nay, if you come to that, Sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting
Solomon himself,—have they not had their Hobby-Horses;—their running horses,
—their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets, their fiddles,
their pallets,—their maggots and their butterflies?—and so long as a man rides his
Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’s highway, and neither
compels you or me to get up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to
do with it?

CHAPTER VIII

—De gustibus non est disputandum;—that is, there is no disputing against
Hobby-Horses; and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with any sort of grace,
had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for happening, at certain intervals and
changes of the moon, to be both fidler and painter, according as the fly stings:—Be
it known to you, that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns,
(nor do I care who knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air;—though
sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a
wise man would think altogether right.—But the truth is,—I am not a wise man;—
and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in the world, it is not much matter
what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at all about it: Nor does it much disturb my
rest, when I see such great Lords and tall Personages as hereafter follow;—such,
for instance, as my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on,
all of a row, mounted upon their several horses;—some with large stirrups, getting
on in a more grave and sober pace;——others on the contrary, tucked up to their
very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like
so many little party-coloured devils astride a mortgage,—and as if some of them
were resolved to break their necks.——So much the better—say I to myself;—for
in case the worst should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well
without them; and for the rest,——why——God speed them——e’en let them
ride on without opposition from me; for were their lordships unhorsed this very
night—’tis ten to one but that many of them would be worse mounted by one half
before to-morrow morning.
Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my rest.——
But there is an instance, which I own puts me off my guard, and that is, when I see
one born for great actions, and what is still more for his honour, whose nature ever
inclines him to good ones;—when I behold such a one, my Lord, like yourself,
whose principles and conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom,
for that reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment;—when I see such a one,
my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my love to
my country has prescribed to him, and my zeal for his glory wishes,—then, my
Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and in the first transport of an honest impatience,
I wish the Hobby-Horse, with all his fraternity, at the Devil.

“My Lord,
“I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in the three
great essentials of matter, form, and place: I beg, therefore, you will accept it as

such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with the most respectful humility, at
your Lordship’s feet,—when you are upon them,—which you can be when you
please;—and that is, my Lord, whenever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to
the best purposes too. I have the honour to be,
“My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient,
and most devoted,
and most humble servant,
Tristram Shandy.”

CHAPTER IX

I solemnly declare to all mankind, that the above dedication was made for no one
Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate,—Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, of
this, or any other Realm in Christendom;——nor has it yet been hawked about, or
offered publicly or privately, directly or indirectly, to any one person or personage,
great or small; but is honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul
living.
I labour this point so particularly, merely to remove any offence or objection
which might arise against it from the manner in which I propose to make the most
of it;—which is the putting it up fairly to public sale; which I now do.
——Every author has a way of his own in bringing his points to bear;—for my
own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas in a dark entry;—
I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal squarely and openly
with your Great Folks in this affair, and try whether I should not come off the
better by it.
If therefore there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, in these
his Majesty’s dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel dedication, and
whom the above will suit, (for by the bye, unless it suits in some degree, I will not
part with it)——it is much at his service for fifty guineas;——which I am positive
is twenty guineas less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius.
My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross piece of
daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship sees, is good,—the
colouring transparent,—the drawing not amiss;—or to speak more like a man of
science,—and measure my piece in the painter’s scale, divided into 20,—I believe,
my Lord, the outlines will turn out as 12,—the composition as 9,—the colouring as

6,—the expression 13 and a half,—and the design,—if I may be allowed, my Lord,
to understand my own design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to
be as 20,—I think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all this,—there is keeping
in it, and the dark strokes in the Hobby-Horse, (which is a secondary figure, and a
kind of back-ground to the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your
own figure, and make it come off wonderfully;——and besides, there is an air of
originality in the tout ensemble.
Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of Mr.
Dodsley, for the benefit of the author; and in the next edition care shall be taken
that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship’s titles, distinctions, arms, and
good actions, be placed at the front of the preceding chapter: All which, from the
words, De gustibus non est disputandum, and whatever else in this book relates to
Hobby-Horses, but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lordship.—The rest I
dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all the Patrons or Matrons I can think
of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world run mad after it.

Bright Goddess,
If thou art not too busy with Candid and Miss Cunegund’s affairs,—take
Tristram Shandy’s under thy protection also.

CHAPTER X

Whatever degree of small merit the act of benignity in favour of the midwife
might justly claim, or in whom that claim truly rested,—at first sight seems not
very material to this history;——certain however it was, that the gentlewoman, the
parson’s wife, did run away at that time with the whole of it: And yet, for my life,
I cannot help thinking but that the parson himself, though he had not the good
fortune to hit upon the design first,—yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment
it was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry it into
execution, had a claim to some share of it,—if not to a full half of whatever honour
was due to it.
The world at that time was pleased to determine the matter otherwise.
Lay down the book, and I will allow you half a day to give a probable guess at
the grounds of this procedure.
Be it known then, that, for about five years before the date of the midwife’s
licence, of which you have had so circumstantial an account,—the parson we have

to do with had made himself a country-talk by a breach of all decorum, which he
had committed against himself, his station, and his office;—and that was in never
appearing better, or otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jack-ass of a
horse, value about one pound fifteen shillings; who, to shorten all description of
him, was full brother to Rosinante, as far as similitude congenial could make him;
for he answered his description to a hair-breadth in every thing,—except that I do
not remember ’tis any where said, that Rosinante was broken-winded; and that,
moreover, Rosinante, as is the happiness of most Spanish horses, fat or lean,—was
undoubtedly a horse at all points.
I know very well that the Hero’s horse was a horse of chaste deportment, which
may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But it is as certain at the same
time, that Rosinante’s continency (as may be demonstrated from the adventure of
the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but
from the temperance and orderly current of his blood.—And let me tell you,
Madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which
you could not say more for your life.
Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do extra justice to every creature
brought upon the stage of this dramatic work,—I could not stifle this distinction in
favour of Don Quixote’s horse;——in all other points, the parson’s horse, I say,
was just such another,—for he was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as
Humility herself could have bestrided.
In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was greatly in the
parson’s power to have helped the figure of this horse of his,—for he was master
of a very handsome demi-peak’d saddle, quilted on the seat with green plush,
garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining
brass stirrups, with a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an
edging of black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, poudré d’or,—all
which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, together with a grand
embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it should be.——But not caring to
banter his beast, he had hung all these up behind his study door:—and, in lieu of
them, had seriously befitted him with just such a bridle and such a saddle, as the
figure and value of such a steed might well and truly deserve.
In the several sallies about his parish, and in the neighbouring visits to the
gentry who lived around him,—you will easily comprehend, that the parson, so
appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his philosophy from rusting.
To speak the truth, he never could enter a village, but he caught the attention of
both old and young.——Labour stood still as he pass’d——the bucket hung
suspended in the middle of the well,——the spinning-wheel forgot its round,——
even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of

sight; and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough
upon his hands to make his observations,—to hear the groans of the serious,—and
the laughter of the light-hearted;—all which he bore with excellent tranquillity.—
His character was,—he loved a jest in his heart—and as he saw himself in the true
point of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing him in
a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his friends, who knew his
foible was not the love of money, and who therefore made the less scruple in
bantering the extravagance of his humour,—instead of giving the true cause,—he
chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one single
ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his beast,
—he would sometimes insist upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider
deserved;—that they were, centaur-like,—both of a piece. At other times, and in
other moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,—he would
say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity,
would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat horse, without a dejection of
heart, and a sensible alteration in his pulse; and that he had made choice of the
lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in spirits.
At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for riding
a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one of mettle;—for
on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as delightfully de vanitate
mundi et fugâ sæculi, as with the advantage of a death’s-head before him;—that, in
all other exercitations, he could spend his time, as he rode slowly along,—to as
much account as in his study;—that he could draw up an argument in his sermon,
—or a hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the other;—that brisk
trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and judgment, were two incompatible
movements.—But that upon his steed—he could unite and reconcile every thing,
—he could compose his sermon—he could compose his cough,——and, in case
nature gave a call that way, he could likewise compose himself to sleep.—In short,
the parson upon such encounters would assign any cause but the true cause,—and
he with-held the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it did
honour to him.
But the truth of the story was as follows: In the first years of this gentleman’s
life, and about the time when the superb saddle and bridle were purchased by him,
it had been his manner, or vanity, or call it what you will,—to run into the opposite
extreme.—In the language of the county where he dwelt, he was said to have loved
a good horse, and generally had one of the best in the whole parish standing in his
stable always ready for saddling; and as the nearest midwife, as I told you, did not
live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile country,—it so fell out that
the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week together without some piteous

application for his beast; and as he was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case
was more pressing and more distressful than the last,—as much as he loved his
beast, he had never a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this,
that his horse was either clapp’d, or spavin’d, or greaz’d;—or he was twitter-
bon’d, or broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had befallen him, which
would let him carry no flesh;—so that he had every nine or ten months a bad horse
to get rid of,—and a good horse to purchase in his stead.
What the loss on such a balance might amount to, communibus annis, I would
leave to a special jury of sufferers in the same traffick, to determine;—but let it be
what it would, the honest gentleman bore it for many years without a murmur, till
at length, by repeated ill accidents of the kind, he found it necessary to take the
thing under consideration; and upon weighing the whole, and summing it up in his
mind, he found it not only disproportioned to his other expences, but withal so
heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any other act of generosity in his
parish: Besides this, he considered that with half the sum thus galloped away, he
could do ten times as much good;—and what still weighed more with him than all
other considerations put together, was this, that it confined all his charity into one
particular channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely, to the
child-bearing and child-getting part of his parish; reserving nothing for the
impotent,—nothing for the aged,—nothing for the many comfortless scenes he
was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness, and affliction dwelt
together.
For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there appeared but
two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it;—and these were, either to
make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his steed upon any application
whatever,—or else be content to ride the last poor devil, such as they had made
him, with all his aches and infirmities, to the very end of the chapter.
As he dreaded his own constancy in the first—he very chearfully betook himself
to the second; and though he could very well have explained it, as I said, to his
honour,—yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit above it; choosing rather to bear
the contempt of his enemies, and the laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain
of telling a story, which might seem a panegyrick upon himself.
I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverend
gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any
of the honest refinements of the peerless knight of La Mancha, whom, by the bye,
with all his follies, I love more, and would actually have gone farther to have paid
a visit to, than the greatest hero of antiquity.
But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to shew the
temper of the world in the whole of this affair.—For you must know, that so long

as this explanation would have done the parson credit,—the devil a soul could find
it out,—I suppose his enemies would not, and that his friends could not.——But
no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of
the ordinary’s licence to set her up,—but the whole secret came out; every horse
he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all the circumstances
of their destruction, were known and distinctly remembered.—The story ran like
wild-fire—“The parson had a returning fit of pride which had just seized him; and
he was going to be well mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, ’twas plain
as the sun at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the licence, ten times told,
the very first year:—So that every body was left to judge what were his views in
this act of charity.”
What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life,—or rather
what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other people concerning it,
was a thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in upon his
rest, when he should have been sound asleep.
About ten years ago this gentleman had the good fortune to be made entirely
easy upon that score,—it being just so long since he left his parish,—and the
whole world at the same time behind him,—and stands accountable to a Judge of
whom he will have no cause to complain.
But there is a fatality attends the actions of some men: Order them as they will,
they pass thro’ a certain medium, which so twists and refracts them from their true
directions——that, with all the titles to praise which a rectitude of heart can give,
the doers of them are nevertheless forced to live and die without it.
Of the truth of which, this gentleman was a painful example.——But to know
by what means this came to pass,—and to make that knowledge of use to you,
I insist upon it that you read the two following chapters, which contain such a
sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry its moral along with it.—When
this is done, if nothing stops us in our way, we will go on with the midwife.

CHAPTER XI

Yorick was this parson’s name, and, what is very remarkable in it (as appears from
a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect
preservation) it had been exactly so spelt for near,——I was within an ace of
saying nine hundred years;——but I would not shake my credit in telling an
improbable truth, however indisputable in itself;——and therefore I shall content

myself with only saying——It had been exactly so spelt, without the least
variation or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which is
more than I would venture to say of one half of the best surnames in the kingdom;
which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes
as their owners.—Has this been owing to the pride, or to the shame of the
respective proprietors?—In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one, and
sometimes to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it
is, and will one day so blend and confound us altogether, that no one shall be able
to stand up and swear, “That his own great grandfather was the man who did either
this or that.”
This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of the Yorick’s
family, and their religious preservation of these records I quote, which do farther
inform us, That the family was originally of Danish extraction, and had been
transplanted into England as early as in the reign of Horwendillus, king of
Denmark, in whose court, it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. Yorick’s, and from
whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death.
Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith not;—It only adds,
That, for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished, as altogether
unnecessary, not only in that court, but in every other court of the Christian world.
It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than that of the
king’s chief Jester;—and that Hamlet’s Yorick, in our Shakespeare, many of whose
plays, you know, are founded upon authenticated facts, was certainly the very man.
I have not the time to look into Saxo-Grammaticus’s Danish history, to know the
certainty of this;—but if you have leisure, and can easily get at the book, you may
do it full as well yourself.
I had just time, in my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy’s eldest son,
whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding along with him at a
prodigious rate thro’ most parts of Europe, and of which original journey
performed by us two, a most delectable narrative will be given in the progress of
this work; I had just time, I say, and that was all, to prove the truth of an
observation made by a long sojourner in that country;——namely, “That nature
was neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity
to its inhabitants;—but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to them all;
observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her favours, as to bring them,
in those points, pretty near to a level with each other; so that you will meet with
few instances in that kingdom of refined parts; but a great deal of good plain
household understanding amongst all ranks of people, of which everybody has a
share;” which is, I think, very right.

With us, you see, the case is quite different:—we are all ups and downs in this
matter;—you are a great genius;—or ’tis fifty to one, Sir, you are a great dunce
and a blockhead;—not that there is a total want of intermediate steps,—no,—we
are not so irregular as that comes to;—but the two extremes are more common,
and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and
dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself not
being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she.
This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to Yorick’s extraction, who, by
what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him,
seemed not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis; in
nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run out:——I will not philosophize
one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:—That
instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would
have looked for, in one so extracted;—he was, on the contrary, as mercurial and
sublimated a composition,—as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions;—with
as much life and whim, and gaité de cœur about him, as the kindliest climate could
have engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one
ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of twenty-
six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a romping,
unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his
spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody’s
tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,——you
may likewise imagine, ’twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most
entangled. For aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the
bottom of such Fracas:——For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike
and opposition in his nature to gravity;—not to gravity as such;—for where gravity
was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal men for days and
weeks together;—but he was an enemy to the affectation of it, and declared open
war against it, only as it appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then,
whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it
much quarter.
Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say that Gravity was an errant
scoundrel, and he would add,—of the most dangerous kind too,—because a sly
one; and that he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning people were bubbled
out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking
and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he
would say, there was no danger,—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of
gravity was design, and consequently deceit;—’twas a taught trick to gain credit of
the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, with all

its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long
ago defined it,—viz. A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the
mind;—which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say,
deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.
But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the world, and
was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse where
policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but one, and that was
what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of; which impression he would
usually translate into plain English without any periphrasis;—and too oft without
much distinction of either person, time, or place;—so that when mention was made
of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding——he never gave himself a moment’s
time to reflect who was the hero of the piece,——what his station,——or how far
he had power to hurt him hereafter;——but if it was a dirty action,—without more
ado,—The man was a dirty fellow,—and so on.—And as his comments had
usually the ill fate to be terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enlivened
throughout with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to Yorick’s
indiscretion. In a word, tho’ he never sought, yet, at the same time, as he seldom
shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without much ceremony;
——he had but too many temptations in life, of scattering his wit and his humour,
—his gibes and his jests about him.——They were not lost for want of gathering.
What were the consequences, and what was Yorick’s catastrophe thereupon, you
will read in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XII

The Mortgager and Mortgagée differ the one from the other, not more in length of
purse, than the Jester and Jestée do, in that of memory. But in this the comparison
between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is
upon one or two legs more than some of the best of Homer’s can pretend to;—
namely, That the one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and
thinks no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases;—the
periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the memory of the
affair alive; till, at length, in some evil hour,—pop comes the creditor upon each,
and by demanding principal upon the spot, together with full interest to the very
day, makes them both feel the full extent of their obligations.

As the reader (for I hate your ifs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature,
I need not say more to satisfy him, that my Hero could not go on at this rate
without some slight experience of these incidental mementos. To speak the truth,
he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small book-debts of this stamp,
which, notwithstanding Eugenius’s frequent advice, he too much disregarded;
thinking, that as not one of them was contracted thro’ any malignancy;—but, on
the contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they
would all of them be cross’d out in course.
Eugenius would never admit this; and would often tell him, that one day or
other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often add, in an accent of
sorrowful apprehension,—to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his usual
carelessness of heart, would as often answer with a pshaw!—and if the subject was
started in the fields—with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent
up in the social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado’d in, with a table
and a couple of armchairs, and could not so readily fly off in a tangent,—Eugenius
would then go on with his lecture upon discretion in words to this purpose, though
somewhat better put together.
Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring
thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can extricate thee out of.——
In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, that a person laughed at, considers
himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation
belonging to him; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his
friends, his family, his kindred and allies,——and musters up with them the many
recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;——’tis no
extravagant arithmetick to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast got an hundred
enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears,
and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.
I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from
spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies——I believe and know them to be
truly honest and sportive:—But consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish
this,—and that knaves will not: and thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke
the one, or to make merry with the other:——whenever they associate for mutual
defence, depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee,
my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too.
Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which
no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.——The fortunes of
thy house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on
every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—
thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, Cruelty and

Cowardice, twin ruffians, hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall strike
together at all thy infirmities and mistakes:——The best of us, my dear lad, lie
open there,——and trust me,——trust me, Yorick, when to gratify a private
appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature shall
be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it
has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.
Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over to him, but
with a fear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he was
resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more sobriety.—But, alas, too
late!—a grand confederacy, with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed
before the first prediction of it.—The whole plan of the attack, just as Eugenius
had foreboded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on the side
of the allies,—and so little suspicion in Yorick, of what was carrying on against
him,—that when he thought, good easy man! full surely preferment was o’
ripening,—they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had
fallen before him.
Yorick, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some time; till,
overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities of the war,—
but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which it was carried on,—he threw
down the sword; and though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last, he
died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, quite broken-hearted.
What inclined Eugenius to the same opinion was as follows:
A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an intent to
take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick’s curtain, and
asking how he felt himself, Yorick looking up in his face took hold of his hand,—
and after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he
said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter,—he would thank him again and again,—
he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.—
I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the
tenderest tone that ever man spoke.—I hope not, Yorick, said he.——Yorick
replied, with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius’s hand, and that was all,
—but it cut Eugenius to his heart,—Come—come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping
his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad, be comforted,—
let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wants
them;——who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may
yet do for thee?——Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;
—For my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—
I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee, and would gladly flatter my
hopes, added Eugenius, chearing up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee

to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it.——I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth
Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,——his right
being still grasped close in that of Eugenius,——I beseech thee to take a view of
my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said
Yorick, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows which
***** and *****, and some others have so unhandsomely given me, in the dark,
that I might say with Sancho Pança, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon
be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit
it.”——Yorick’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready to depart as
he uttered this:——yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantick tone;
——and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted
up for a moment in his eyes;——faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which
(as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!
Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke: he
squeezed his hand,——and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he
walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,—he then closed them,
—and never opened them more.

He lies buried in the corner of his churchyard, in the parish of ———, under a
plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon
his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his
epitaph and elegy.

Alas, poor YORICK!

Ten times a day has Yorick’s ghost the consolation to hear his monumental
inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity
and esteem for him;——a foot-way crossing the churchyard close by the side of
his grave,—not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it,—and
sighing as he walks on,
Alas, poor YORICK!

CHAPTER XIII

It is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted from the
midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in
mind that there is such a body still in the world, and whom, upon the best
judgment I can form upon my own plan at present,—I am going to introduce to
him for good and all: But as fresh matter may be started, and much unexpected
business fall out betwixt the reader and myself, which may require immediate
dispatch;——’twas right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the
meantime;—because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her.
I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note and
consequence throughout our whole village and township;—that her fame had
spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that circle of importance, of
which kind every soul living, whether he has a shirt to his back or no,——has one
surrounding him;—which said circle, by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a
one is of great weight and importance in the world,——I desire may be enlarged
or contracted in your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station,
profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways) of the
personage brought before you.
In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five miles, which not
only comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two or three of the

adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish; which made a considerable thing
of it. I must add, That she was, moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-
house, and some other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said,
from the smoke of her own chimney:——But I must here, once for all, inform
you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d in a map, now in
the hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developements of
this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume,—not to swell the
work,—I detest the thought of such a thing;—but by way of commentary,
scholium, illustration, and key to such passages, incidents, or innuendos as shall be
thought to be either of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after
my life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don’t forget the meaning
of the word) by all the world;——which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all
the gentlemen-reviewers in Great Britain, and of all that their worships shall
undertake to write or say to the contrary,—I am determined shall be the case.—
I need not tell your worship, that all this is spoke in confidence.

CHAPTER XIV

Upon looking into my mother’s marriage-settlement, in order to satisfy myself and
reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any farther in
this history;—I had the good fortune to pop upon the very thing I wanted before I
had read a day and a half straight forwards,—it might have taken me up a month;
—which shews plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history,—tho’ it be
but the history of Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his heels
what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way,—or what a
dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all is over. Could a
historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer drives on his mule,—straight
forward;——for instance, from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once
turning his head aside either to the right hand or to the left,——he might venture
to foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end;——but the
thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the least spirit, he will
have fifty deviations from a straight line to make with this or that party as he goes
along, which he can no ways avoid. He will have views and prospects to himself
perpetually soliciting his eye, which he can no more help standing still to look at
than he can fly; he will moreover have various
Accounts to reconcile:

Anecdotes to pick up:
Inscriptions to make out:
Stories to weave in:
Traditions to sift:
Personages to call upon:
Panegyricks to paste up at this door;
Pasquinades at that:——All which both the man and his mule are quite exempt
from. To sum up all; there are archives at every stage to be look’d into, and rolls,
records, documents, and endless genealogies, which justice ever and anon calls
him back to stay the reading of:——In short, there is no end of it;——for my own
part, I declare I had been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly
could,—and am not yet born:—I have just been able, and that’s all, to tell you
when it happen’d, but not how;—so that you see the thing is yet far from being
accomplished.
These unforeseen stoppages, which I own I had no conception of when I first set
out;—but which, I am convinced now, will rather increase than diminish as I
advance,—have struck out a hint which I am resolved to follow;——and that is,—
not to be in a hurry; but to go on leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of
my life every year;——which, if I am suffered to go on quietly, and can make a
tolerable bargain with my bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.

CHAPTER XV

The article in my mother’s marriage-settlement, which I told the reader I was at the
pains to search for, and which, now that I have found it, I think proper to lay
before him,—is so much more fully express’d in the deed itself, than ever I can
pretend to do it, that it would be barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s hand:—It is
as follows.
“And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said Walter Shandy,
merchant, in consideration of the said intended marriage to be had, and, by God’s
blessing, to be well and truly solemnised and consummated between the said
Walter Shandy and Elizabeth Mollineux aforesaid, and divers other good and
valuable causes and considerations him thereunto specially moving,—doth grant,
covenant, condescend, consent, conclude, bargain, and fully agree to and with
John Dixon, and James Turner, Esqrs. the above-named Trustees, &c. &c.—to
Wit,—That in case it should hereafter so fall out, chance, happen, or otherwise

come to pass,—That the said Walter Shandy, merchant, shall have left off business
before the time or times, that the said Elizabeth Mollineux shall, according to the
course of nature, or otherwise, have left off bearing and bringing forth children;—
and that, in consequence of the said Walter Shandy having so left off business, he
shall in despight, and against the free-will, consent, and good-liking of the said
Elizabeth Mollineux,—make a departure from the city of London, in order to retire
to, and dwell upon, his estate at Shandy Hall, in the county of ——, or at any other
country-seat, castle, hall, mansion-house, messuage or grainge-house, now
purchased, or hereafter to be purchased, or upon any part or parcel thereof:—That
then, and as often as the said Elizabeth Mollineux shall happen to be enceint with
child or children severally and lawfully begot, or to be begotten, upon the body of
the said Elizabeth Mollineux, during her said coverture,—he the said Walter
Shandy shall, at his own proper cost and charges, and out of his own proper
monies, upon good and reasonable notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six
weeks of her the said Elizabeth Mollineux’s full reckoning, or time of supposed
and computed delivery,—pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one hundred and
twenty pounds of good and lawful money, to John Dixon, and James Turner,
Esqrs. or assigns,—upon trust and confidence, and for and unto the use and uses,
intent, end, and purpose following:—That is to say,—That the said sum of one
hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid into the hands of the said Elizabeth
Mollineux, or to be otherwise applied by them the said Trustees, for the well and
truly hiring of one coach, with able and sufficient horses, to carry and convey the
body of the said Elizabeth Mollineux, and the child or children which she shall be
then and there enceint and pregnant with,—unto the city of London; and for the
further paying and defraying of all other incidental costs, charges, and expences
whatsoever,—in and about, and for, and relating to, her said intended delivery and
lying-in, in the said city or suburbs thereof. And that the said Elizabeth Mollineux
shall and may, from time to time, and at all such time and times as are here
covenanted and agreed upon,—peaceably and quietly hire the said coach and
horses, and have free ingress, egress, and regress throughout her journey, in and
from the said coach, according to the tenor, true intent, and meaning of these
presents, without any let, suit, trouble, disturbance, molestation, discharge,
hindrance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation, interruption, or incumbrance whatsoever.
—And that it shall moreover be lawful to and for the said Elizabeth Mollineux,
from time to time, and as oft or often as she shall well and truly be advanced in her
said pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and agreed upon,—to live and
reside in such place or places, and in such family or families, and with such
relations, friends, and other persons within the said city of London, as she at her
own will and pleasure, notwithstanding her present coverture, and as if she was a

femme sole and unmarried,—shall think fit.—And this Indenture further
Witnesseth, That for the more effectually carrying of the said covenant into
execution, the said Walter Shandy, merchant, doth hereby grant, bargain, sell,
release, and confirm unto the said John Dixon, and James Turner, Esqrs. their
heirs, executors, and assigns, in their actual possession now being, by virtue of an
indenture of bargain and sale for a year to them the said John Dickson, and James
Turner, Esqrs. by him the said Walter Shandy, merchant, thereof made; which said
bargain and sale for a year, bears date the day next before the date of these
presents, and by force and virtue of the statute for transferring of uses into
possession,—All that the manor and lordship of Shandy, in the county of ——,
with all the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof; and all and every the
messuages, houses, buildings, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, backsides, tofts,
crofts, garths, cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, marshes, commons,
woods, underwoods, drains, fisheries, waters, and water-courses;—together with
all rents, reversions, services, annuities, fee-farms, knights fees, views of
frankpledge, escheats, reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons and
fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in exigent, deodands, free warrens, and all
other royalties and seigniories, rights and jurisdictions, privileges and
hereditaments whatsoever.——And also the advowson, donation, presentation,
and free disposition of the rectory or parsonage of Shandy aforesaid, and all and
every the tenths, tythes, glebe-lands.”——In three words,——“My mother was to
lay in, (if she chose it) in London.”
But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the part of my
mother, which a marriage-article of this nature too manifestly opened a door to,
and which indeed had never been thought of at all, but for my uncle Toby Shandy;
—a clause was added in security of my father, which was this:—“That in case my
mother hereafter should, at any time, put my father to the trouble and expence of a
London journey, upon false cries and tokens;——that for every such instance, she
should forfeit all the right and title which the covenant gave her to the next turn;
——but to no more,—and so on, toties quoties, in as effectual a manner, as if such
a covenant betwixt them had not been made.”—This, by the way, was no more
than what was reasonable;—and yet, as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought it
hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon
myself.
But I was begot and born to misfortunes:—for my poor mother, whether it was
wind or water—or a compound of both,—or neither;—or whether it was simply
the mere swell of imagination and fancy in her;—or how far a strong wish and
desire to have it so, might mislead her judgment:—in short, whether she was
deceived or deceiving in this matter, it no way becomes me to decide. The fact was

this, That in the latter end of September 1717, which was the year before I was
born, my mother having carried my father up to town much against the grain,—he
peremptorily insisted upon the clause;—so that I was doom’d, by marriage-
articles, to have my nose squeez’d as flat to my face, as if the destinies had
actually spun me without one.
How this event came about,—and what a train of vexatious disappointments, in
one stage or other of my life, have pursued me from the mere loss, or rather
compression, of this one single member,—shall be laid before the reader all in due
time.

CHAPTER XVI

My father, as anybody may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the
country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty or five-and-twenty
miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze himself, and indeed my mother
too, about the cursed expence, which he said might every shilling of it have been
saved;—then what vexed him more than everything else was, the provoking time
of the year,—which, as I told you, was towards the end of September, when his
wall-fruit and green gages especially, in which he was very curious, were just
ready for pulling:——“Had he been whistled up to London, upon a Tom Fool’s
errand, in any other month of the whole year, he should not have said three words
about it.”
For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow
he had sustain’d from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon’d upon
in his mind, and register’d down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old
age, in case Bobby should fail him. The disappointment of this, he said, was ten
times more to a wise man, than all the money which the journey, etc., had cost
him, put together,—rot the hundred and twenty pounds,——he did not mind it a
rush.
From Stilton, all the way to Grantham, nothing in the whole affair provoked him
so much as the condolences of his friends, and the foolish figure they should both
make at church, the first Sunday;——of which, in the satirical vehemence of his
wit, now sharpen’d a little by vexation, he would give so many humorous and
provoking descriptions,—and place his rib and self in so many tormenting lights
and attitudes in the face of the whole congregation;—that my mother declared,

these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, that she did nothing but laugh and cry
in a breath, from one end to the other of them all the way.
From Grantham, till they had cross’d the Trent, my father was out of all kind of
patience at the vile trick and imposition which he fancied my mother had put upon
him in this affair—“Certainly,” he would say to himself, over and over again, “the
woman could not be deceived herself——if she could,——what weakness!”—
tormenting word!—which led his imagination a thorny dance, and, before all was
over, play’d the duce and all with him;——for sure as ever the word weakness was
uttered, and struck full upon his brain—so sure it set him upon running divisions
upon how many kinds of weaknesses there were;——that there was such a thing
as weakness of the body,——as well as weakness of the mind,—and then he
would do nothing but syllogize within himself for a stage or two together, How far
the cause of all these vexations might, or might not, have arisen out of himself.
In short, he had so many little subjects of disquietude springing out of this one
affair, all fretting successively in his mind as they rose up in it, that my mother,
whatever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey of it down.——In a word,
as she complained to my uncle Toby, he would have tired out the patience of any
flesh alive.

CHAPTER XVII

Though my father travelled homewards, as I told you, in none of the best of
moods,—pshawing and pishing all the way down,—yet he had the complaisance
to keep the worst part of the story still to himself;—which was the resolution he
had taken of doing himself the justice, which my uncle Toby’s clause in the
marriage-settlement empowered him; nor was it till the very night in which I was
begot, which was thirteen months after, that she had the least intimation of his
design: when my father, happening, as you remember, to be a little chagrin’d and
out of temper,——took occasion as they lay chatting gravely in bed afterwards,
talking over what was to come,——to let her know that she must accommodate
herself as well as she could to the bargain made between them in their marriage-
deeds; which was to lye-in of her next child in the country, to balance the last
year’s journey.
My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of that
in his temper, which might, or might not, add to the number.—’Tis known by the
name of perseverance in a good cause,—and of obstinacy in a bad one: Of this my

mother had so much knowledge, that she knew ’twas to no purpose to make any
remonstrance,—so she e’en resolved to sit down quietly, and make the most of it.

CHAPTER XVIII

As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother should
lye-in of me in the country, she took her measures accordingly; for which purpose,
when she was three days, or thereabouts, gone with child, she began to cast her
eyes upon the midwife, whom you have so often heard me mention; and before the
week was well got round, as the famous Dr. Manningham was not to be had, she
had come to a final determination in her mind,——notwithstanding there was a
scientific operator within so near a call as eight miles of us, and who, moreover,
had expressly wrote a five shillings book upon the subject of midwifery, in which
he had exposed, not only the blunders of the sisterhood itself,——but had likewise
superadded many curious improvements for the quicker extraction of the fœtus in
cross births, and some other cases of danger, which belay us in getting into the
world; notwithstanding all this, my mother, I say, was absolutely determined to
trust her life, and mine with it, into no soul’s hand but this old woman’s only.—
Now this I like;—when we cannot get at the very thing we wish——never to take
up with the next best in degree to it:—no; that’s pitiful beyond description;—it is
no more than a week from this very day, in which I am now writing this book for
the edification of the world;—which is March 9, 1759,——that my dear, dear
Jenny, observing I looked a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five-and-
twenty shillings a yard,—told the mercer, she was sorry she had given him so
much trouble;—and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide stuff of
tenpence a yard.—’Tis the duplication of one and the same greatness of soul; only
what lessened the honour of it, somewhat, in my mother’s case, was, that she could
not heroine it into so violent and hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation
might have wished, because the old widwife had really some little claim to be
depended upon,—as much, at least, as success could give her; having, in the
course of her practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought every mother’s
son of them into the world without any one slip or accident which could fairly be
laid to her account.
These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy some few
scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father’s spirits in relation to this
choice.—To say nothing of the natural workings of humanity and justice—or of

the yearnings of parental and connubial love, all which prompted him to leave as
little to hazard as possible in a case of this kind;——he felt himself concerned in a
particular manner, that all should go right in the present case;—from the
accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and child in
lying-in at Shandy-Hall.——He knew the world judged by events, and would add
to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by loading him with the whole blame of it.
——“Alas, o’day;—had Mrs. Shandy, poor gentlewoman! had but her wish in
going up to town just to lye-in and come down again;—which, they say, she
begged and prayed for upon her bare knees,——and which, in my opinion,
considering the fortune which Mr. Shandy got with her,—was no such mighty
matter to have complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been
alive at this hour.”
This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswerable;—and yet, it was not
merely to shelter himself,—nor was it altogether for the care of his offspring and
wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this point;—my father had
extensive views of things,——and stood moreover, as he thought, deeply
concerned in it for the publick good, from the dread he entertained of the bad uses
an ill-fated instance might be put to.
He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had unanimously
agreed and lamented, from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign down to his
own time, that the current of men and money towards the metropolis, upon one
frivolous errand or another,—set in so strong,—as to become dangerous to our
civil rights,—though, by the bye,——a current was not the image he took most
delight in,—a distemper was here his favourite metaphor, and he would run it
down into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it was identically the same in the
body national as in the body natural where the blood and spirits were driven up
into the head faster than they could find their ways down;——a stoppage of
circulation must ensue, which was death in both cases.
There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by French politicks
or French invasions;——nor was he so much in pain of a consumption from the
mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humours in our constitution, which he
hoped was not so bad as it was imagined;—but he verily feared, that in some
violent push, we should go off, all at once, in a state-apoplexy;—and then he
would say, The Lord have mercy upon us all.
My father was never able to give the history of this distemper,—without the
remedy along with it.
“Was I an absolute prince,” he would say, pulling up his breeches with both his
hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, “I would appoint able judges, at every
avenue of my metropolis, who should take cognizance of every fool’s business

who came there;—and if, upon a fair and candid hearing, it appeared not of weight
sufficient to leave his own home, and come up, bag and baggage, with his wife and
children, farmer’s sons, &c., &c., at his backside, they should be all sent back,
from constable to constable, like vagrants as they were, to the place of their legal
settlements. By this means I shall take care, that my metropolis totter’d not thro’
its own weight;—that the head be no longer too big for the body;—that the
extremes, now wasted and pinn’d in, be restored to their due share of nourishment,
and regain with it their natural strength and beauty:—I would effectually provide,
That the meadows and corn-fields of my dominions, should laugh and sing;—that
good chear and hospitality flourish once more;—and that such weight and
influence be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of my kingdom, as should
counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now taking from them.
“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s seats,” he would ask, with some
emotion, as he walked across the room, “throughout so many delicious provinces
in France? Whence is it that the few remaining Chateaus amongst them are so
dismantled,—so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate a condition?——
Because, Sir,” (he would say) “in that kingdom no man has any country-interest to
support;—the little interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is
concentrated in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of
whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every French man lives or
dies.”
Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard against
the least evil accident in my mother’s lying-in in the country,——was, That any
such instance would infallibly throw a balance of power, too great already, into the
weaker vessels of the gentry, in his own, or higher stations;——which, with the
many other usurped rights which that part of the constitution was hourly
establishing,—would, in the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of
domestick government established in the first creation of things by God.
In this point he was entirely of Sir Robert Filmer’s opinion, That the plans and
institutions of the greatest monarchies in the eastern parts of the world were,
originally, all stolen from that admirable pattern and prototype of this household
and paternal power;—which, for a century, he said, and more, had gradually been
degenerating away into a mix’d government;——the form of which, however
desirable in great combinations of the species,——was very troublesome in small
ones,—and seldom produced anything, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion.
For all these reasons, private and publick, put together,—my father was for
having the man-midwife by all means,—my mother by no means. My father
begg’d and intreated she would for once recede from her prerogative in this matter,
and suffer him to choose for her;—my mother, on the contrary, insisted upon her

privilege in this matter, to choose for herself,—and have no mortal’s help but the
old woman’s.—What could my father do? He was almost at his wit’s end;——
talked it over with her in all moods;—placed his arguments in all lights;—argued
the matter with her like a christian,—like a heathen,—like a husband,—like a
father,—like a patriot,—like a man:—My mother answered everything only like a
woman; which was a little hard upon her;—for as she could not assume and fight it
out behind such a variety of characters,—’twas no fair match:—’twas seven to
one.—What could my mother do?——She had the advantage (otherwise she had
been certainly overpowered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal at the
bottom, which bore her up, and enabled her to dispute the affair with my father
with so equal an advantage,——that both sides sung Te Deum. In a word, my
mother was to have the old woman,—and the operator was to have licence to drink
a bottle of wine with my father and my uncle Toby Shandy in the back parlour,—
for which he was to be paid five guineas.
I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the breast of
my fair reader;—and it is this,——Not to take it absolutely for granted, from an
unguarded word or two which I have dropp’d in it,——“That I am a married
man.”—I own, the tender appellation of my dear, dear Jenny,—with some other
strokes of conjugal knowledge, interspersed here and there, might, naturally
enough, have misled the most candid judge in the world into such a determination
against me.—All I plead for, in this case, Madam, is strict justice, and that you do
so much of it, to me as well as to yourself,—as not to prejudge, or receive such an
impression of me, till you have better evidence, than, I am positive, at present can
be produced against me.—Not that I can be so vain or unreasonable, Madam, as to
desire you should therefore think, that my dear, dear Jenny is my kept mistress;—
no,—that would be flattering my character in the other extreme, and giving it an
air of freedom, which, perhaps, it has no kind of right to. All I contend for, is the
utter impossibility, for some volumes, that you, or the most penetrating spirit upon
earth, should know how this matter really stands.—It is not impossible, but that
my dear, dear Jenny! tender as the appellation is, may be my child.——Consider,
—I was born in the year eighteen.—Nor is there anything unnatural or extravagant
in the supposition, that my dear Jenny may be my friend.—Friend!—My friend.—
Surely, Madam, a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported
without———Fy! Mr. Shandy:—Without anything, Madam, but that tender and
delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference of
sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of the best French
Romances;—it will really, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of
chaste expressions this delicious sentiment, which I have the honour to speak of, is
dress’d out.

CHAPTER XIX

I would sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry, than pretend
to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great good sense,——knowing,
as the reader must have observed him, and curious too in philosophy,—wise also
in political reasoning,—and in polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant,—could
be capable of entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track,—that I
fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick
temper, will immediately throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh most
heartily at it;—and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he will, at first sight,
absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant; and that was in respect to the
choice and imposition of christian names, on which he thought a great deal more
depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving.
His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick bias,
which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our
characters and conduct.
The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness,——nor had
he more faith,——or more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring
his deeds,—or on Dulcinea’s name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my father
had on those of Trismegistus or Archimedes, on the one hand—or of Nyky and
Simkin on the other. How many Cæsars and Pompeys, he would say, by mere
inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he
would add, are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not
their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicomedus’d into nothing?
I see plainly, Sir, by your looks (or as the case happened), my father would say
—that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine,—which, to those, he
would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom,—I own has an air more
of fancy than of solid reasoning in it;——and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to
know your character, I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case
to you,—not as a party in the dispute,—but as a judge, and trusting my appeal
upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this matter;——you are
a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as most men;—and, if I
may presume to penetrate farther into you,—of a liberality of genius above bearing
down an opinion, merely because it wants friends. Your son,—your dear son,—
from whose sweet and open temper you have so much to expect.—Your Billy, Sir!
—would you, for the world, have called him Judas?—Would you, my dear Sir, he
would say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,—and in
that soft and irresistible piano of voice, which the nature of the argumentum ad

hominem absolutely requires,—Would you, Sir, if a Jew of a godfather had
proposed the name for your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would
you have consented to such a desecration of him?——O my God! he would say,
looking up, if I know your temper right, Sir,—you are incapable of it;——you
would have trampled upon the offer;—you would have thrown the temptation at
the tempter’s head with abhorrence.
Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous
contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction, is really noble;
—and what renders it more so, is the principle of it;—the workings of a parent’s
love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, That was your
son called Judas,—the sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name,
would have accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a
miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example.
I never knew a man able to answer this argument.——But, indeed, to speak of
my father as he was;—he was certainly irresistible;—both in his orations and
disputations;—he was born an orator;—Θεοδίδακτος.—Persuasion hung upon his
lips, and the elements of Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,—and,
withal, he had so shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent,
——that Nature might have stood up and said,—“This man is eloquent.”—In
short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas
hazardous in either case to attack him.—And yet, ’tis strange, he had never read
Cicero, nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus
amongst the antients;—nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Ramus, nor Farnaby
amongst the moderns;—and what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole
life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture
upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator;—he
knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument ad ignorantiam, and an
argument ad hominem consisted; so that I well remember, when he went up along
with me to enter my name at Jesus College in ****,—it was a matter of just
wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,—
that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to
work after that fashion with them.
To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was,
however, perpetually forced upon;——for he had a thousand little sceptical
notions of the comick kind to defend——most of which notions, I verily believe,
at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and of a vive la Bagatelle; and as
such he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and having sharpened
his wit upon them, dismiss them till another day.

I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the progress
and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions,—but as a warning to the
learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such guests, who, after a free and
undisturbed entrance, for some years, into our brains,—at length claim a kind of
settlement there,——working sometimes like yeast;—but more generally after the
manner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest,—but ending in downright earnest.
Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions—or that his
judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;—or how far, in many of his
notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;——the reader, as he comes at
them, shall decide. All that I maintain here, is, that in this one, of the influence of
christian names, however it gained footing, he was serious;—he was all
uniformity;—he was systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would
move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support
his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again;—he was serious;—and, in
consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people,
especially of condition, who should have known better,——as careless and as
indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child,—or more so, than in the
choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy-dog.
This, he would say, look’d ill;—and had, moreover, this particular aggravation
in it, viz., That when once a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given,
’twas not like the case of a man’s character, which, when wrong’d, might hereafter
be cleared;——and, possibly, some time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least
after his death,—be, somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury
of this, he would say, could never be undone;—nay, he doubted even whether an
act of parliament could reach it:——He knew as well as you, that the legislature
assumed a power over surnames;—but for very strong reasons, which he could
give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, to go a step farther.
It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion, had, as I
have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names;—that
there were still numbers of names which hung so equally in the balance before
him, that they were absolutely indifferent to him. Jack, Dick, and Tom were of this
class: These my father called neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satire,
That there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men,
since the world began, who had indifferently borne them;—so that, like equal
forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they mutually
destroyed each other’s effects; for which reason, he would often declare, He would
not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them. Bob, which was my brother’s
name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which operated very
little either way; and as my father happen’d to be at Epsom, when it was given

him,—he would oft-times thank Heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something
like a negative quantity in Algebra with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.
—William stood pretty high:——Numps again was low with him:—and Nick, he
said, was the Devil.
But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable aversion
for Tristram;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of anything
in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in rerum naturâ, but
what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the midst of a dispute on the
subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved,——he would
sometimes break off in a sudden and spirited Epiphonema, or rather Erotesis,
raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and
demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say,
he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,—or even whether he had
ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing anything great or worth
recording?—No,—he would say,—Tristram!—The thing is impossible.
What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish this
notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle speculatist to stand single in
his opinions,—unless he gives them proper vent:—It was the identical thing which
my father did:—for in the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he
was at the pains of writing an express Dissertation simply upon the word Tristram,
—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the grounds of his great
abhorrence to the name.
When this story is compared with the title-page,—Will not the gentle reader pity
my father from his soul?—to see an orderly and well-disposed gentleman, who
tho’ singular,—yet inoffensive in his notions,—so played upon in them by cross
purposes;——to look down upon the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in
all his little systems and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out
against him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had purposedly been
plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.——In a word,
to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day
suffering sorrow;—ten times in a day calling the child of his prayers Tristram!—
Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop,
and every name vituperative under heaven.——By his ashes! I swear it,—if ever
malignant spirit took pleasure, or busied itself in traversing the purposes of mortal
man,—it must have been here;—and if it was not necessary I should be born
before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account of it.

CHAPTER XX

———How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told
you in it, That my mother was not a papist.——Papist! You told me no such thing,
Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that I told you as plain, at least,
as words, by direct inference, could tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, I must have
miss’d a page.—No, Madam,—you have not miss’d a word.——Then I was
asleep, Sir.—My pride, Madam, cannot allow you that refuge.——Then, I declare,
I know nothing at all about the matter.—That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to
your charge; and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately
turn back, that is, as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole
chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of
wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of motives; and therefore shall make her
no apology for it when she returns back:—’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has
crept into thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest
of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this
cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them——The mind
should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it
goes along; the habitude of which made Pliny the younger affirm, “That he never
read a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of Greece and
Rome, run over without this turn and application,—do less service, I affirm it, than
the history of Parismus and Parismenus, or of the Seven Champions of England,
read with it.
———But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter,
Madam, as I desired you?—You have: And did you not observe the passage, upon
the second reading, which admits the inference?——Not a word like it! Then,
Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the chapter, where I take
upon me to say, “It was necessary I should be born before I was christen’d.” Had
my mother, Madam, been a Papist, that consequence did not follow. 1
It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to the
Republick of letters;—so that my own is quite swallowed up in the consideration
of it,—that this selfsame vile pruriency for fresh adventures in all things, has got
so strongly into our habit and humour,—and so wholly intent are we upon
satisfying the impatience of our concupiscence that way,—that nothing but the
gross and more carnal parts of a composition will go down:—The subtle hints and
sly communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,——the heavy moral
escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much lost to the world,
as if they were still left in the bottom of the ink-horn.

I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and curious as
this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I wish it may have its
effects;—and that all good people, both male and female, from her example, may
be taught to think as well as read.

Memoire presenté à Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne 2
Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne,
qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne sçauroit accoucher, & même
où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre
aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui
conférer, du moins sous condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte,
prétend, par le moyen d’une petite canulle, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement
l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere.——Il demand si ce moyen, qu’il vient de
proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir dans les cas qu’il vient
d’exposer.

REPONSE
Le Conseil estime, que la question proposée souffre de grandes difficultés. Les
Théologiens posent d’un côté pour principe, que le baptême, qui est une naissance
spirituelle, suppose une premiere naissance; il faut être né dans le monde, pour
renaître en Jesus Christ, comme ils l’enseignent. S. Thomas, 3 part, quæst. 88,
artic. II, suit cette doctrine comme une verité constante; l’on ne peut, dit ce
S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, &
S. Thomas est fondé sur ce, que les enfans ne sont point nés, & ne peuvent être
comptés parmi les autres hommes; d’où il conclud, qu’ils ne peuvent être l’objet
d’une action extérieure, pour reçevoir par leur ministére, les sacremens
nécessaires au salut: Pueri in maternis uteris existentes nondum prodierunt in
lucem ut cum aliis hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni
humanæ, ut per eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. Les rituels
ordonnent dans la pratique ce que les théologiens ont établi sur les mêmes
matiéres, & ils deffendent tous d’une maniére uniforme, de baptiser les enfans qui
sont renfermés dans le sein de leurs meres, s’ils ne font paroître quelque partie de
leurs corps. Le concours des théologiens, & des rituels, qui sont les régles des
diocéses, paroit former une autorité qui termine la question presente; cependant le
conseil de conscience considerant d’un côté, que le raisonnement des théologiens
est uniquement fondé sur une raison de convenance, & que la deffense des rituels
suppose que l’on ne peut baptiser immediatement les enfans ainsi renfermés dans

le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre la supposition presente; & d’un autre côté,
considerant que les mêmes théologiens enseignent, que l’on peut risquer les
sacremens que Jesus Christ a établis comme des moyens faciles, mais nécessaires
pour sanctifier les hommes; & d’ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermés dans
le sein de leurs meres, pourroient être capables de salut, parcequ’ils sont capables
de damnation;—pour ces considerations, & en egard à l’exposé, suivant lequel on
assure avoir trouvé un moyen certain de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermés, sans
faire aucun tort à la mere, le Conseil estime que l’on pourroit se servir du moyen
proposé, dans la confiance qu’il a, que Dieu n’a point laissé ces sortes d’enfans
sans aucuns secours, & supposant, comme il est exposé, que le moyen dont il
s’agit est propre à leur procurer le baptême; cependant comme il s’agiroit, en
autorisant la pratique proposée, de changer une regie universellement établie, le
Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit s’addresser à son evêque, & à qui il
appartient de juger de l’utilité, & du danger du moyen proposé, & comme, sous le
bon plaisir de l’evêque, le Conseil estime qu’il faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le
droit d’expliquer les régles de l’eglise, & d’y déroger dans le cas, ou la loi ne
sçauroit obliger, quelque sage & quelque utile que paroisse la maniére de baptiser
dont il s’agit, le Conseil ne pourroit l’approuver sans le concours de ces deux
autorités. On conseile au moins à celui qui consulte, de s’addresser à son evêque,
& de lui faire part de la presente décision, afin que, si le prelat entre dans les
raisons sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignés s’appuyent, il puisse être autorisé
dans le cas de nécessité, ou il risqueroit trop d’attendre que la permission fût
demandée & accordée d’employer le moyen qu’il propose si avantageux au salut
de l’enfant. Au reste, le Conseil, en estimant que l’on pourroit s’en servir, croit
cependant, que si les enfans dont il s’agit, venoient au monde, contre l’esperance
de ceux qui se seroient servis du même moyen, il seroit nécessaire de les baptiser
sous condition; & en cela le Conseil se conforme à tous les rituels, qui en
autorisant le baptême d’un enfant qui fait paroître quelque partie de son corps,
enjoignent néantmoins, & ordonnent de le baptiser sous condition, s’il vient
heureusement au monde.
Deliberé en Sorbonne, le 10 Avril, 1733.
A. Le Moyne.
L. De Romigny.
De Marcilly.

Mr. Tristram Shandy’s compliments to Messrs. Le Moyne, De Romigny, and De
Marcilly; hopes they all rested well the night after so tiresome a consultation.—He
begs to know, whether after the ceremony of marriage, and before that of
consummation, the baptizing all the Homunculi at once, slapdash, by injection,

would not be a shorter and safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the
Homunculi do well, and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of
them shall be baptized again (sous condition)——And provided, in the second
place, That the thing can be done, which Mr. Shandy apprehends it may, par le
moyen d’une petite canulle, and sans faire aucun tort au pere.

CHAPTER XXI

——I wonder what’s all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for,
above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour and a half’s
silence, to my uncle Toby,——who, you must know, was sitting on the opposite
side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a
new pair of black plush-breeches which he had got on:—What can they be doing,
brother?—quoth my father,—we can scarce hear ourselves talk.
I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the
head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb, as he began his
sentence,——I think, says he:——But to enter rightly into my uncle Toby’s
sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his
character, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue
between him and my father will go on as well again.
Pray what was that man’s name,—for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to
recollect or look for it,——who first made the observation, “That there was great
inconstancy in our air and climate?” Whoever he was, ’twas a just and good
observation in him.—But the corollary drawn from it, namely, “That it is this
which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and whimsical characters;”—
that was not his;—it was found out by another man, at least a century and a half
after him: Then again,—that this copious store-house of original materials, is the
true and natural cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of France,
or any others that either have, or can be wrote upon the Continent:——that
discovery was not fully made till about the middle of King William’s reign,—when
the great Dryden, in writing one of his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most
fortunately hit upon it. Indeed toward the latter end of Queen Anne, the great
Addison began to patronize the notion, and more fully explained it to the world in
one or two of his Spectators;—but the discovery was not his.—Then, fourthly and
lastly, that this strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an
irregularity in our characters,——doth thereby, in some sort, make us amends, by

giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the weather will not suffer us to
go out of doors,—that observation is my own;—and was struck out by me this
very rainy day, March 26, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the
morning.
Thus—thus, my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of our
learning, now ripening before our eyes; thus it is, by slow steps of casual increase,
that our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical,
mathematical, ænigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and
obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending as these do, in ical)
have for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping upwards
towards that Ἀκμὴ of their perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture
from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off.
When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of writings
whatsoever;—the want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading;
—and that in time, As war begets poverty; poverty peace,——must, in course, put
an end to all kind of knowledge,—and then——we shall have all to begin over
again; or, in other words, be exactly where we started.
———Happy! thrice happy times! I only wish that the æra of my begetting, as
well as the mode and manner of it, had been a little alter’d,——or that it could
have been put off, with any convenience to my father or mother, for some twenty
or five-and-twenty years longer, when a man in the literary world might have stood
some chance.——
But I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes
out of his tobacco-pipe.
His humour was of that particular species, which does honour to our
atmosphere; and I should have made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of the
first-rate productions of it, had not there appeared too many strong lines in it of a
family-likeness, which shewed that he derived the singularity of his temper more
from blood, than either wind or water, or any modifications or combinations of
them whatever: And I have, therefore, oft-times wondered, that my father, tho’
I believe he had his reasons for it, upon his observing some tokens of eccentricity,
in my course, when I was a boy,—should never once endeavour to account for
them in this way: for all the Shandy Family were of an original character
throughout:——I mean the males,—the females had no character at all,—except,
indeed, my great aunt Dinah, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with
child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of
christian names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers.
It will seem very strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in
the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it

could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened,
should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise so
cordially subsisted, between my father and my uncle Toby. One would have
thought, that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself
in the family at first,—as is generally the case.—But nothing ever wrought with
our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this happened, it might
have something else to afflict it; and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and
that as this had never done the Shandy Family any good at all, it might lie waiting
till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its
office.——Observe, I determine nothing upon this.——My way is ever to point
out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of
the events I tell;—not with a pedantic Fescue,—or in the decisive manner of
Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader;—but with the officious humility of a
heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive;—to them I write,——and
by them I shall be read,——if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold
out so long,—to the very end of the world.
Why this cause of sorrow, therefore, was thus reserved for my father and uncle,
is undetermined by me. But how and in what direction it exerted itself so as to
become the cause of dissatisfaction between them, after it began to operate, is
what I am able to explain with great exactness, and is as follows:
My uncle Toby Shandy, Madam, was a gentleman, who, with the virtues which
usually constitute the character of a man of honour and rectitude,——possessed
one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom or never put into the catalogue; and
that was a most extreme and unparallel’d modesty of nature;——though I correct
the word nature, for this reason, that I may not prejudge a point which must shortly
come to a hearing, and that is, Whether this modesty of his was natural or
acquir’d.——Whichever way my uncle Toby came by it, ’twas nevertheless
modesty in the truest sense of it; and that is, Madam, not in regard to words, for he
was so unhappy as to have very little choice in them,—but to things;——and this
kind of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a height in him, as almost
to equal, if such a thing could be, even the modesty of a woman: That female
nicety, Madam, and inward cleanliness of mind and fancy, in your sex, which
makes you so much the awe of ours.
You will imagine, Madam, that my uncle Toby had contracted all this from this
very source;—that he had spent a great part of his time in converse with your sex;
and that from a thorough knowledge of you, and the force of imitation which such
fair examples render irresistible, he had acquired this amiable turn of mind.
I wish I could say so,—for unless it was with his sister-in-law, my father’s wife
and my mother——my uncle Toby scarce exchanged three words with the sex in

as many years;—no, he got it, Madam, by a blow.——A blow!—Yes, Madam, it
was owing to a blow from a stone, broke off by a ball from the parapet of a horn-
work at the siege of Namur, which struck full upon my uncle Toby’s groin.—
Which way could that effect it? The story of that, Madam, is long and interesting;
—but it would be running my history all upon heaps to give it you here.——’Tis
for an episode hereafter; and every circumstance relating to it, in its proper place,
shall be faithfully laid before you:—’Till then, it is not in my power to give farther
light into this matter, or say more than what I have said already,——That my uncle
Toby was a gentleman of unparallel’d modesty, which happening to be somewhat
subtilized and rarified by the constant heat of a little family pride,——they both so
wrought together within him, that he could never bear to hear the affair of my aunt
Dinah touch’d upon, but with the greatest emotion.——The least hint of it was
enough to make the blood fly into his face;—but when my father enlarged upon
the story in mixed companies, which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently
obliged him to do,—the unfortunate blight of one of the fairest branches of the
family, would set my uncle Toby’s honour and modesty o’bleeding; and he would
often take my father aside, in the greatest concern imaginable, to expostulate and
tell him, he would give him anything in the world, only to let the story rest.
My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle Toby, that
ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done any thing in nature,
which one brother in reason could have desir’d of another, to have made my uncle
Toby’s heart easy in this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power.
——My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,—speculative,—
systematical;—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to
him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:—The backslidings of
Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, called so after his name; and
the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing
my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be called the Shandean
System, after this.
In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame
as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say, Copernicus, would have
divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world,
but for the obligations they owed, as they thought, to truth.—Amicus Plato, my
father would say, construing the words to my uncle Toby, as he went along, Amicus
Plato; that is, Dinah was my aunt;—sed magis amica veritas——but Truth is my
sister.
This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of
many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family

disgrace recorded,——and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end
without some hint at it.
For God’s sake, my uncle Toby would cry,——and for my sake, and for all our
sakes, my dear brother Shandy,—do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes sleep
in peace;——how can you,——how can you have so little feeling and compassion
for the character of our family?——What is the character of a family to an
hypothesis? my father would reply.——Nay, if you come to that—what is the life
of a family?——The life of a family!—my uncle Toby would say, throwing
himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg.——
Yes, the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many
thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all civilized
countries at least)——and considered as nothing but common air, in competition
of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my uncle Toby would answer,——
every such instance is downright Murder, let who will commit it.——There lies
your mistake, my father would reply;——for, in Foro Scientiæ there is no such
thing as Murder,——’tis only Death, brother.
My uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument,
than that of whistling half a dozen bars of Lillabullero.——You must know it was
the usual channel thro’ which his passions got vent, when any thing shocked or
surprized him:——but especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd,
was offered.
As not one of our logical writers, nor any of the commentators upon them, that I
remember, have thought proper to give a name to this particular species of
argument,—I here take the liberty to do it myself, for two reasons. First, That, in
order to prevent all confusion in disputes, it may stand as much distinguished for
ever, from every other species of argument———as the Argumentum ad
Verecundiam, ex Absurdo, ex Fortiori, or any other argument whatsoever:——
And, secondly, That it may be said by my children’s children, when my head is
laid to rest,——that their learn’d grandfather’s head had been busied to as much
purpose once, as other people’s;—That he had invented a name,—and generously
thrown it into the Treasury of the Ars Logica, for one of the most unanswerable
arguments in the whole science. And, if the end of disputation is more to silence
than convince,—they may add, if they please, to one of the best arguments too.
I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it be known
and distinguished by the name and title of the Argumentum Fistulatorium, and no
other;—and that it rank hereafter with the Argumentum Baculinum and the
Argumentum ad Crumenam, and for ever hereafter be treated of in the same
chapter.

As for the Argumentum Tripodium, which is never used but by the woman
against the man;—and the Argumentum ad Rem, which, contrarywise, is made use
of by the man only against the woman;—As these two are enough in conscience
for one lecture;——and, moreover, as the one is the best answer to the other,—let
them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves.

CHAPTER XXII

The learned Bishop Hall, I mean the famous Dr. Joseph Hall, who was Bishop of
Exeter in King James the First’s reign, tells us in one of his Decads, at the end of
his divine art of meditation, imprinted at London, in the year 1610, by John Beal,
dwelling in Aldersgate-street, “That it is an abominable thing for a man to
commend himself;”——and I really think it is so.
And yet, on the other hand, when a thing is executed in a masterly kind of a
fashion, which thing is not likely to be found out;—I think it is full as abominable,
that a man should lose the honour of it, and go out of the world with the conceit of
it rotting in his head.
This is precisely my situation.
For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my
digressions (one only excepted) there is a masterstroke of digressive skill, the
merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader,—not for want
of penetration in him,—but because ’tis an excellence seldom looked for, or
expected indeed, in a digression;—and it is this: That tho’ my digressions are all
fair, as you observe,—and that I fly off from what I am about, as far, and as often
too, as any writer in Great Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so that
my main business does not stand still in my absence.
I was just going, for example, to have given you the great outlines of my uncle
Toby’s most whimsical character;—when my aunt Dinah and the coachman came
across us, and led us a vagary some millions of miles into the very heart of the
planetary system: Notwithstanding all this, you perceive that the drawing of my
uncle Toby’s character went on gently all the time;—not the great contours of it,—
that was impossible,—but some familiar strokes and faint designations of it, were
here and there touch’d on, as we went along, so that you are much better
acquainted with my uncle Toby now than you was before.
By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two
contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be

at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive
too,—and at the same time.
This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth’s moving round her axis,
in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit which brings about
the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though
I own it suggested the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted
improvements and discoveries have come from such trifling hints.
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the soul of
reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the
book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it;
restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All-hail;
brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.
All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be
not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress, in
this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a digression,—from that moment,
I observe, his whole work stands stock still;—and if he goes on with his main
work,—then there is an end of his digression.
——This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see,
I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such
intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive
movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has
been kept a-going;—and, what’s more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if
it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

CHAPTER XXIII

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will
not baulk my fancy.—Accordingly I set off thus:
If the fixture of Momus’s glass in the human breast, according to the proposed
emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,——first, This foolish
consequence would certainly have followed,—That the very wisest and very
gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-money every day of
our lives.
And, secondly, That had the said glass been there set up, nothing more would
have been wanting, in order to have taken a man’s character, but to have taken a
chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical beehive, and look’d in,—view’d

the soul stark naked;—observed all her motions,—her machinations;—traced all
her maggots from their first engendering to their crawling forth;—watched her
loose in her frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more
solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, etc.——then taken your pen and
ink and set down nothing but what you had seen, and could have sworn to:—But
this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this planet;—in the planet
Mercury (belike) it may be so, if not better still for him;——for there the intense
heat of the country, which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to
be more than equal to that of red-hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified
the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them for the climate
(which is the final cause); so that betwixt them both, all the tenements of their
souls, from top to bottom, may be nothing else, for aught the soundest philosophy
can shew to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of clear glass (bating the
umbilical knot)—so that, till the inhabitants grow old and tolerably wrinkled,
whereby the rays of light, in passing through them, become so monstrously
refracted,——or return reflected from their surfaces in such transverse lines to the
eye, that a man cannot be seen through;—his soul might as well, unless for mere
ceremony, or the trifling advantage which the umbilical point gave her,—might,
upon all other accounts, I say, as well play the fool out o’doors as in her own
house.
But this, as I said above, is not the case of the inhabitants of this earth;—our
minds shine not through the body, but are wrapt up here in a dark covering of
uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that, if we would come to the specific characters
of them, we must go some other way to work.
Many, in good truth, are the ways, which human wit has been forced to take, to
do this thing with exactness.
Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind-instruments.—Virgil
takes notice of that way in the affair of Dido and Æneas;—but it is as fallacious as
the breath of fame;—and, moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant
that the Italians pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one
particular sort of character among them, from the forte or piano of a certain wind-
instrument they use,—which they say is infallible.—I dare not mention the name
of the instrument in this place;—’tis sufficient we have it amongst us,—but never
think of making a drawing by it;—this is ænigmatical, and intended to be so, at
least ad populum:—And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you
read on as fast as you can, and never stop to make any inquiry about it.
There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other helps in
the world, but merely from his evacuations;—but this often gives a very incorrect

outline,—unless, indeed, you take a sketch of his repletions too; and by correcting
one drawing from the other, compound one good figure out of them both.
I should have no objection to this method, but that I think it must smell too
strong of the lamp,—and be render’d still more operose, by forcing you to have an
eye to the rest of his Non-naturals.——Why the most natural actions of a man’s
life should be called his Non-naturals,—is another question.
There are others, fourthly, who disdain every one of these expedients;—not
from any fertility of their own, but from the various ways of doing it, which they
have borrowed from the honourable devices which the Pentagraphic Brethren 3 of
the brush have shewn in taking copies.—These, you must know, are your great
historians.
One of these you will see drawing a full-length character against the light;—
that’s illiberal,—dishonest,—and hard upon the character of the man who sits.
Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the Camera;—that is
most unfair of all,—because, there you are sure to be represented in some of your
most ridiculous attitudes.
To avoid all and every one of these errors in giving you my uncle Toby’s
character, I am determined to draw it by no mechanical help whatever;——nor
shall my pencil be guided by any one wind-instrument which ever was blown
upon, either on this, or on the other side of the Alps;—nor will I consider either his
repletions or his discharges,—or touch upon his Non-naturals—but, in a word,
I will draw my uncle Toby’s character from his Hobby-Horse.

CHAPTER XXIV

If I was not morally sure that the reader must be out of all patience for my uncle
Toby’s character,——I would here previously have convinced him that there is no
instrument so fit to draw such a thing with, as that which I have pitch’d upon.
A man and his Hobby-Horse, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act exactly
after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each other: Yet
doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind; and my opinion
rather is, that there is something in it more of the manner of electrified bodies,—
and that, by means of the heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into
contact with the back of the Hobby-Horse,—by long journeys and much friction, it
so happens, that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of Hobby-Horsical
matter as it can hold;——so that if you are able to give but a clear description of

the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and
character of the other.
Now the Hobby-Horse which my uncle Toby always rode upon, was in my
opinion a Hobby-Horse well worth giving a description of, if it was only upon the
score of his great singularity;—for you might have travelled from York to Dover,
—from Dover to Penzance in Cornwall, and from Penzance to York back again,
and not have seen such another upon the road; or if you had seen such a one,
whatever haste you had been in, you must infallibly have stopp’d to have taken a
view of him. Indeed, the gait and figure of him was so strange, and so utterly
unlike was he, from his head to his tail, to any one of the whole species, that it was
now and then made a matter of dispute,——whether he was really a Hobby-Horse
or no: but as the Philosopher would use no other argument to the Sceptic, who
disputed with him against the reality of motion, save that of rising up upon his
legs, and walking across the room;—so would my uncle Toby use no other
argument to prove his Hobby-Horse was a Hobby-Horse indeed, but by getting
upon his back and riding him about;—leaving the world, after that, to determine
the point as it thought fit.
In good truth, my uncle Toby mounted him with so much pleasure, and he
carried my uncle Toby so well,——that he troubled his head very little with what
the world either said or thought about it.
It is now high time, however, that I give you a description of him:—But to go
on regularly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint you first, how my uncle
Toby came by him.

CHAPTER XXV

The wound in my uncle Toby’s groin, which he received at the siege of Namur,
rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he should return to
England, in order, if possible, to be set to rights.
He was four years totally confined,—part of it to his bed, and all of it to his
room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in hand, suffer’d
unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of exfoliations from the os pubis,
and the outward edge of that part of the coxendix called the os illium,——both
which bones were dismally crush’d, as much by the irregularity of the stone,
which I told you was broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho’ it was pretty
large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it

had done my uncle Toby’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the stone itself,
than to the projectile force of it,—which he would often tell him was a great
happiness.
My father at that time was just beginning business in London, and had taken a
house;—and as the truest friendship and cordiality subsisted between the two
brothers,—and that my father thought my uncle Toby could no where be so well
nursed and taken care of as in his own house,——he assign’d him the very best
apartment in it.—And what was a much more sincere mark of his affection still, he
would never suffer a friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on any
occasion, but he would take him by the hand, and lead him up stairs to see his
brother Toby, and chat an hour by his bedside.
The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it;—my uncle’s visitors at
least thought so, and in their daily calls upon him, from the courtesy arising out of
that belief, they would frequently turn the discourse to that subject,—and from that
subject the discourse would generally roll on to the siege itself.
These conversations were infinitely kind; and my uncle Toby received great
relief from them, and would have received much more, but that they brought him
into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three months together, retarded his
cure greatly; and if he had not hit upon an expedient to extricate himself out of
them, I verily believe they would have laid him in his grave.
What these perplexities of my uncle Toby were,——’tis impossible for you to
guess;—if you could,—I should blush; not as a relation,—not as a man,—nor even
as a woman,—but I should blush as an author; inasmuch as I set no small store by
myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at
anything. And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought
you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of
what was to come in the next page,—I would tear it out of my book.

1. The Romish Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases of
danger, before it is born;—but upon this proviso, That some part or other
of the child’s body be seen by the baptizer:——But the Doctors of the
Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10, 1733,—have
enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no
part of the child’s body should appear,——that baptism shall,
nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,—par le moyen d’une
petite canulle,—Anglicè a squirt.——’Tis very strange that St. Thomas
Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying
the knots of school-divinity,—should, after so much pains bestowed
upon this,—give up the point at last, as a second La chose impossible,
—“Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Thomas!) baptizari
possunt nullo modo.”—O Thomas! Thomas!
If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism by
injection, as presented to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, with their
consultation thereupon, it is as follows.
2. Vide Deventer, Paris edit., 4to, 1734, p. 366.
3. Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures mechanically,
and in any proportion.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to explain the
nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved, from the many
discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where he received his
wound.
I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King William’s wars,
—but if he has not,—I then inform him, that one of the most memorable attacks in
that siege, was that which was made by the English and Dutch upon the point of

the advanced counterscarp, between the gate of St. Nicolas, which inclosed the
great sluice or water-stop, where the English were terribly exposed to the shot of
the counter-guard and demi-bastion of St. Roch. The issue of which hot dispute, in
three words, was this; That the Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard,
—and that the English made themselves masters of the covered-way before St.
Nicolas-gate, notwithstanding the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed
themselves upon the glacis sword in hand.
As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Toby was an eye-witness at
Namur,——the army of the besiegers being cut off, by the confluence of the Maes
and Sambre, from seeing much of each other’s operations,——my uncle Toby was
generally more eloquent and particular in his account of it; and the many
perplexities he was in, arose out of the almost insurmountable difficulties he found
in telling his story intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the differences and
distinctions between the scarp and counter-scarp,—the glacis and covered-way,—
the half-moon and ravelin,—as to make his company fully comprehend where and
what he was about.
Writers themselves are too apt to confound these terms; so that you will the less
wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in opposition to many
misconceptions, that my uncle Toby did oft-times puzzle his visitors, and
sometimes himself too.
To speak the truth, unless the company my father led upstairs were tolerably
clear-headed, or my uncle Toby was in one of his explanatory moods, ’twas a
difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse free from obscurity.
What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle Toby,
was this,—that in the attack of the counterscarp, before the gate of St. Nicolas,
extending itself from the bank of the Maes, quite up to the great water-stop,—the
ground was cut and cross cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and
sluices, on all sides,—and he would get so sadly bewildered, and set fast amongst
them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his life;
and was oft-times obliged to give up the attack upon that very account only.
These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Toby Shandy more perturbations than
you would imagine: and as my father’s kindness to him was continually dragging
up fresh friends and fresh enquirers,——he had but a very uneasy task of it.
No doubt my uncle Toby had great command of himself, could guard
appearances, I believe, as well as most men;—yet any one may imagine, that when
he could not retreat out of the ravelin without getting into the half-moon, or get out
of the covered-way without falling down the counterscarp, nor cross the dyke
without danger of slipping into the ditch, but that he must have fretted and fumed
inwardly:—He did so; and the little and hourly vexations, which may seem trifling

and of no account to the man who has not read Hippocrates, yet, whoever has read
Hippocrates, or Dr. James Mackenzie, and has considered well the effects which
the passions and affections of the mind have upon the digestion—(Why not of a
wound as well as of a dinner?)—may easily conceive what sharp paroxysms and
exacerbations of his wound my uncle Toby must have undergone upon that score
only.
—My uncle Toby could not philosophize upon it;—’twas enough he felt it was
so,—and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three months together, he
was resolved some way or other to extricate himself.
He was one morning lying upon his back in his bed, the anguish and nature of
the wound upon his groin suffering him to lie in no other position, when a thought
came into his head, that if he could purchase such a thing, and have it pasted down
upon a board, as a large map of the fortification of the town and citadel of Namur,
with its environs, it might be a means of giving him ease.—I take notice of his
desire to have the environs along with the town and citadel, for this reason,—
because my uncle Toby’s wound was got in one of the traverses, about thirty toises
from the returning angle of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-
bastion of St. Roch:——so that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon
the identical spot of ground where he was standing on when the stone struck him.
All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of sad
explanations, but, in the end, it proved the happy means, as you will read, of
procuring my uncle Toby his Hobby-Horse.

CHAPTER II

There is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an
entertainment of this kind, as to order things so badly, as to let your criticks and
gentry of refined taste run it down: Nor is there anything so likely to make them do
it, as that of leaving them out of the party, or, what is full as offensive, of
bestowing your attention upon the rest of your guests in so particular a way, as if
there was no such thing as a critick (by occupation) at table.
——I guard against both; for, in the first place, I have left half a dozen places
purposely open for them;—and in the next place, I pay them all court.—
Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, I protest no company could give me half the
pleasure,—by my soul I am glad to see you———I beg only you will make no
strangers of yourselves, but sit down without any ceremony, and fall on heartily.

I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my
complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them,—and in this very spot
I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho’ not by occupation,—but by nature) that
I had acquitted myself well enough, I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the
meantime, that I shall be able to make a great deal of more room next year.
———How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle Toby, who, it seems, was
a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,——be at the same
time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, fellow, as—Go look.
So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it.—’Tis language unurbane,—
and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and satisfactory accounts of
things, or dive deep enough into the first causes of human ignorance and
confusion. It is moreover the reply valiant—and therefore I reject it: for tho’ it
might have suited my uncle Toby’s character as a soldier excellently well, and had
he not accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle the Lillabullero, as he
wanted no courage, ’tis the very answer he would have given; yet it would by no
means have done for me. You see as plain as can be, that I write as a man of
erudition;—that even my similies, my allusions, my illustrations, my metaphors,
are erudite,—and that I must sustain my character properly, and contrast it
properly too,—else what would become of me? Why, Sir, I should be undone;—at
this very moment that I am going here to fill up one place against a critick,—
I should have made an opening for a couple.
——Therefore I answer thus:
Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever read such a
book as Locke’s Essay upon the Human Understanding?——Don’t answer me
rashly—because many, I know, quote the book, who have not read it—and many
have read it who understand it not:—If either of these is your case, as I write to
instruct, I will tell you in three words what the book is.—It is a history.—
A history! of who? what? where? when? Don’t hurry yourself——It is a history-
book, Sir (which may possibly recommend it to the world) of what passes in a
man’s own mind; and if you will say so much of the book, and no more, believe
me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysick circle.
But this by the way.
Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom of
this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion, in the mind
of a man, is threefold.
Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and transient
impressions made by the objects, when the said organs are not dull. And thirdly,
a memory like unto a sieve, not able to retain what it has received.—Call down
Dolly your chambermaid, and I will give you my cap and bell along with it, if I

make not this matter so plain that Dolly herself should understand it as well as
Malbranch.——When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her
arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side;—take that
opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing
in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing which Dolly’s
hand is in search of.—Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you—’tis an
inch, Sir, of red seal-wax.
When this is melted, and dropped upon the letter, if Dolly fumbles too long for
her thimble, till the wax is over hardened, it will not receive the mark of her
thimble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint it. Very well. If Dolly’s
wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of a temper too soft,—tho’ it may receive,
—it will not hold the impression, how hard soever Dolly thrusts against it; and last
of all, supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied thereto in careless
haste, as her Mistress rings the bell;——in any one of these three cases the print
left by the thimble will be as unlike the prototype as a brass-jack.
Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the
confusion in my uncle Toby’s discourse; and it is for that very reason I enlarge
upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists—to shew the world,
what it did not arise from.
What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of obscurity it
is,—and ever will be,—and that is the unsteady uses of words, which have
perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings.
It is ten to one (at Arthur’s) whether you have ever read the literary histories of
past ages;—if you have, what terrible battles, ’yclept logomachies, have they
occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink-shed,—that a good-natured
man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes.
Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within thyself
how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has been pestered
and disordered at one time or other, by this, and this only:—What a pudder and
racket in Councils about οὐσία and ὑπόστασις; and in the Schools of the learned
about power and about spirit;—about essences, and about quintessences;——
about substances, and about space.——What confusion in greater Theatres from
words of little meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this,
thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby’s perplexities,—thou wilt drop a tear of pity
upon his scarp and his counterscarp;—his glacis and his covered way;—his ravelin
and his half-moon: ’Twas not by ideas,—by Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy
by words.

CHAPTER III

When my uncle Toby got his map of Namur to his mind, he began immediately to
apply himself, and with the utmost diligence, to the study of it; for nothing being
of more importance to him than his recovery, and his recovery depending, as you
have read, upon the passions and affections of his mind, it behoved him to take the
nicest care to make himself so far master of his subject, as to be able to talk upon it
without emotion.
In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, by the bye, did my uncle
Toby’s wound, upon his groin, no good,—he was enabled, by the help of some
marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, together with Gobesius’s military
architecture and pyroballogy, translated from the Flemish, to form his discourse
with passable perspicuity; and before he was two full months gone,—he was right
eloquent upon it, and could make not only the attack of the advanced counterscarp
with great order;——but having, by that time, gone much deeper into the art, than
what his first motive made necessary, my uncle Toby was able to cross the Maes
and Sambre; make diversions as far as Vauban’s line, the abbey of Salsines, etc.,
and give his visitors as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of the
gate of St. Nicolas, where he had the honour to receive his wound.
But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the
acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he took a
liking to it!—by the same process and electrical assimilation, as I told you,
through which I ween the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and
incumbition, have the happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d—be-pictured,—be-
butterflied, and befiddled.
The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet fountain of science, the greater was
the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that before the first year of his confinement
had well gone round, there was scarce a fortified town in Italy or Flanders, of
which, by one means or other, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got
them, and carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their
demolitions, their improvements, and new works, all which he would read with
that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, his wound, his
confinement, his dinner.
In the second year my uncle Toby purchased Ramelli and Cataneo, translated
from the Italian;—likewise Stevinus, Moralis, the Chevalier de Ville, Lorini,
Cochorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel, with
almost as many more books of military architecture, as Don Quixote was found to
have of chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library.

Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August, ninety-nine, my
uncle Toby found it necessary to understand a little of projectiles:—and having
judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain-head, he began with N.
Tartaglia, who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a
cannon-ball’s doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line—This
N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing.
——Endless is the search of Truth.
No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannon-ball did not go,
but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out
which road the ball did go: For which purpose he was obliged to set off afresh with
old Maltus, and studied him devoutly.—He proceeded next to Galileo and
Torricellius, wherein, by certain Geometrical rules, infallibly laid down, he found
the precise part to be a Parabola—or else an Hyperbola,—and that the parameter,
or latus rectum, of the conic section of the said path, was to the quantity and
amplitude in a direct ratio, as the whole line to the sine of double the angle of
incidence, formed by the breech upon an horizontal plane;—and that the
semiparameter,——stop! my dear uncle Toby——stop!—go not one foot farther
into this thorny and bewildered track,—intricate are the steps! intricate are the
mazes of this labyrinth! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this
bewitching phantom Knowledge will bring upon thee.—O my uncle;—fly—fly,
fly from it as from a serpent.——Is it fit——good-natured man! thou should’st sit
up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with hectic
watchings?——Alas! ’twill exasperate thy symptoms,—check thy perspirations—
evaporate thy spirits—waste thy animal strength,—dry up thy radical moisture,
bring thee into a costive habit of body,——impair thy health,——and hasten all
the infirmities of thy old age.——O my uncle! my uncle Toby.

CHAPTER IV

I would not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pencraft, who does not
understand this,——That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to
the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby——would have felt both cold and
vapid upon the reader’s palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter,
though I was in the middle of my story.
———Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. Where
an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil; deeming

it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than beauty. This is to be
understood cum grano salis; but be it as it will,—as the parallel is made more for
the sake of letting the apostrophe cool, than any thing else,—’tis not very material
whether upon any other score the reader approves of it or not.
In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the parameter
and semiparameter of the conic section angered his wound, he left off the study of
projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of
fortification only; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon
him with redoubled force.
It was in this year that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a
clean shirt,——to dismiss his barber unshaven,——and to allow his surgeon
scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself so little about it, as
not to ask him once in seven times dressing, how it went on: when, lo!—all of a
sudden, for the change was quick as lightning, he began to sigh heavily for his
recovery,——complained to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon:——and
one morning, as he heard his foot coming up stairs, he shut up his books, and
thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate with him upon the protraction
of the cure, which, he told him, might surely have been accomplished at least by
that time:—He dwelt long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the sorrows of
his four years melancholy imprisonment;—adding, that had it not been for the kind
looks and fraternal chearings of the best of brothers,—he had long since sunk
under his misfortunes.——My father was by: My uncle Toby’s eloquence brought
tears into his eyes;——’twas unexpected:——My uncle Toby, by nature was not
eloquent;—it had the greater effect:——The surgeon was confounded;——not
that there wanted grounds for such, or greater marks of impatience,—but ’twas
unexpected too; in the four years he had attended him, he had never seen anything
like it in my uncle Toby’s carriage; he had never once dropped one fretful or
discontented word;——he had been all patience,—all submission.
—We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;—but we often
treble the force:—The surgeon was astonished; but much more so, when he heard
my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist upon his healing up the wound
directly,—or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do it for
him.
The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature;——the love of liberty
and enlargement is a sister-passion to it: These my uncle Toby had in common with
his species;——and either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest
desire to get well and out of doors;——but I have told you before, that nothing
wrought with our family after the common way;——and from the time and
manner in which this eager desire shewed itself in the present case, the penetrating

reader will suspect there was some other cause or crotchet for it in my uncle Toby’s
head:——There was so, and ’tis the subject of the next chapter to set forth what
that cause and crotchet was. I own, when that’s done, ’twill be time to return back
to the parlour fire-side, where we left my uncle Toby in the middle of his sentence.

CHAPTER V

When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or, in other
words, when his Hobby-Horse grows headstrong,——farewel cool reason and fair
discretion!
My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his
surprize, and could get leave to say as much——he told him, ’twas just beginning
to incarnate; and that if no fresh exfoliation happened, which there was no sign of,
—it would be dried up in five or six weeks. The sound of as many Olympiads,
twelve hours before, would have conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle
Toby’s mind.——The succession of his ideas was now rapid,—he broiled with
impatience to put his design in execution;——and so, without consulting farther
with any soul living,—which, by the bye, I think is right, when you are
predetermined to take no one soul’s advice,——he privately ordered Trim, his
man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot-and-four to be at
the door exactly by twelve o’clock that day, when he knew my father would be
upon ’Change.——So leaving a banknote upon the table for the surgeon’s care of
him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother’s—he packed up his maps, his
books of fortification, his instruments, &c., and by the help of a crutch on one side,
and Trim on the other,——my uncle Toby embarked for Shandy-Hall.
The reason, or rather the rise of this sudden demigration was as follows:
The table in my uncle Toby’s room, and at which, the night before this change
happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c., about him—being somewhat of the
smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which
usually lay crowded upon it—he had the accident, in reaching over for his
tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and in stooping to take the compasses
up, with his sleeve he threw down his case of instruments and snuffers;—and as
the dice took a run against him, in his endeavouring to catch the snuffers in falling,
——he thrust Monsieur Blondel off the table, and Count de Pagan o’top of him.
’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of
redressing these evils by himself,—he rung his bell for his man Trim;———Trim,

quoth my uncle Toby, prithee see what confusion I have here been making—I must
have some better contrivance, Trim.——Can’st not thou take my rule, and measure
the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again?
——Yes, an’ please your Honour, replied Trim, making a bow; but I hope your
Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country-seat, where,—as
your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage this matter
to a T.
I must here inform you, that this servant of my uncle Toby’s, who went by the
name of Trim, had been a corporal in my uncle’s own company,—his real name
was James Butler,—but having got the nick-name of Trim in the regiment, my
uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call
him by any other name.
The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his left knee
by a musket-bullet, at the battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair
of Namur;—and as the fellow was well-beloved in the regiment, and a handy
fellow into the bargain, my uncle Toby took him for his servant; and of an
excellent use was he, attending my uncle Toby in the camp and in his quarters as a
valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, and nurse; and indeed, from first to last,
waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection.
My uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still,
was the similitude of their knowledge.——For Corporal Trim (for so, for the
future, I shall call him), by four years occasional attention to his Master’s
discourse upon fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping
continually into his Master’s plans, &c., exclusive and besides what he gained
Hobby-Horsically, as a body-servant, Non Hobby Horsical per se;——had
become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and
chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle Toby
himself.
I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal Trim’s character,——and it
is the only dark line in it.—The fellow loved to advise,—or rather to hear himself
talk; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, ’twas easy to keep him
silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going,—you had no hold of him
—he was voluble;—the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the
respectfulness of Corporal Trim’s manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his
elocution,—that though you might have been incommoded,——you could not
well be angry. My uncle Toby was seldom either the one or the other with him,—
or, at least, this fault, in Trim, broke no squares with them. My uncle Toby, as I
said, loved the man;——and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant,—

but as an humble friend,—he could not bear to stop his mouth.——Such was
Corporal Trim.
If I durst presume, continued Trim, to give your Honour my advice, and speak
my opinion in this matter.—Thou art welcome, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby—
speak,——speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without fear. Why
then, replied Trim (not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a country-lout,
but) stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his
division,—I think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little
forwards,—and pointing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk,
which was pinned against the hangings,——I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with
humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment,——that these ravelins,
bastions, curtins, and horn-works, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle
piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could
make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a
half of ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued
Trim, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography—(Call it
ichnography, quoth my uncle)——of the town or citadel, your Honour was pleased
to sit down before,—and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I
did not fortify it to your Honour’s mind——I dare say thou would’st, Trim, quoth
my uncle.—For if your Honour, continued the Corporal, could but mark me the
polygon, with its exact lines and angles—That I could do very well, quoth my
uncle.—I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me the proper
depth and breadth—I can to a hair’s breadth, Trim, replied my uncle.—I would
throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that
hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp.—Very right, Trim, quoth my
uncle Toby:——And when I had sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your
Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders,
with sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the
walls and parapets with sods too.—The best engineers call them gazons, Trim, said
my uncle Toby.——Whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied
Trim; your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or
stone.——I know they are, Trim, in some respects,——quoth my uncle Toby,
nodding his head;—for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without
bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé (as was the case at St.
Nicolas’s gate), and facilitate the passage over it.
Your Honour understands these matters, replied Corporal Trim, better than any
officer in his Majesty’s service;——but would your Honour please to let the
bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into the country, I would work
under your Honour’s directions like a horse, and make fortifications for you

something like a tansy, with all their batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it
should be worth all the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.
My uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet as Trim went on;—but it was not a
blush of guilt,—of modesty,—or of anger,—it was a blush of joy;—he was fired
with Corporal Trim’s project and description.——Trim! said my uncle Toby, thou
hast said enough.—We might begin the campaign, continued Trim, on the very day
that his Majesty and the Allies take the field, and demolish them town by town as
fast as—Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, say no more. Your Honour, continued Trim,
might sit in your arm-chair (pointing to it) this fine weather, giving me your
orders, and I would——Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby——Besides,
your Honour would get not only pleasure and good pastime,—but good air, and
good exercise, and good health,—and your Honour’s wound would be well in a
month. Thou hast said enough, Trim,—quoth my uncle Toby (putting his hand into
his breeches-pocket)——I like thy project mightily.—And if your Honour pleases,
I’ll this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take down with us, and I’ll
bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of——Say no more, Trim, quoth my
uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture,—and thrusting
a guinea into Trim’s hand,—Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more;—but go
down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up my supper this instant.
Trim ran down and brought up his master’s supper,——to no purpose:—Trim’s
plan of operation ran so in my uncle Toby’s head, he could not taste it.—Trim,
quoth my uncle Toby, get me to bed.—’Twas all one.—Corporal Trim’s description
had fired his imagination,—my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes.—The more he
considered it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him;—so that, two full
hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted
the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim’s decampment.
My uncle Toby had a little neat country-house of his own, in the village where
my father’s estate lay at Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle, with a
small estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. Behind this house, and
contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre; and at the bottom of
the garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green,
containing just about as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for;—so that as
Trim uttered the words, “A rood and a half of ground to do what they would
with,”—this identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became
curiously painted all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby’s fancy;—which
was the physical cause of making him change colour, or at least of heightening his
blush, to that immoderate degree I spoke of.
Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress with more heat and
expectation, than my uncle Toby did, to enjoy this self-same thing in private;—

I say in private;—for it was sheltered from the house, as I told you, by a tall yew
hedge, and was covered on the other three sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly
and thick-set flowering shrubs:—so that the idea of not being seen, did not a little
contribute to the idea of pleasure pre-conceived in my uncle Toby’s mind.—Vain
thought! however thick it was planted about,——or private soever it might seem,
—to think, dear uncle Toby, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rood and a
half of ground,——and not have it known!
How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter,——with the
history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,——may make no
uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this drama.—At present
the scene must drop,—and change for the parlour fire-side.

CHAPTER VI

——What can they be doing, brother? said my father.—I think, replied my
uncle Toby,—taking, as I told you, his pipe from his mouth, and striking the ashes
out of it as he began his sentence;——I think, replied he,—it would not be amiss,
brother, if we rung the bell.
Pray, what’s all that racket over our heads, Obadiah?——quoth my father;——
my brother and I can scarce hear ourselves speak.
Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow towards his left shoulder,—my Mistress
is taken very badly.—And where’s Susannah running down the garden there, as if
they were going to ravish her?——Sir, she is running the shortest cut into the
town, replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife.—Then saddle a horse, quoth my
father, and do you go directly for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife, with all our services,
——and let him know your mistress is fallen into labour——and that I desire he
will return with you with all speed.
It is very strange, says my father, addressing himself to my uncle Toby, as
Obadiah shut the door,——as there is so expert an operator as Dr. Slop so near,—
that my wife should persist to the very last in this obstinate humour of hers, in
trusting the life of my child, who has had one misfortune already, to the ignorance
of an old woman;——and not only the life of my child, brother,——but her own
life, and with it the lives of all the children I might, peradventure, have begot out
of her hereafter.
Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the expense:
—A pudding’s end,—replied my father,——the Doctor must be paid the same for

inaction as action,——if not better,—to keep him in temper.
——Then it can be out of nothing in the whole world, quoth my uncle Toby, in
the simplicity of his heart,—but Modesty.—My sister, I dare say, added he, does
not care to let a man come so near her ****. I will not say whether my uncle Toby
had completed the sentence or not;——’tis for his advantage to suppose he had,
——as, I think, he could have added no One Word which would have improved it.
If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period’s end,—
then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father’s tobacco-pipe
for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which
Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis.——Just Heaven! how does the Poco piu and
the Poco meno of the Italian artists;—the insensible more or less, determine the
precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statute! How do the slight
touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddle-stick, et cætera,—give the true
swell, which gives the true pleasure!—O my countrymen;—be nice;—be cautious
of your language;—and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small
particles your eloquence and your fame depend.
——“My sister, mayhap,” quoth my uncle Toby, “does not choose to let a man
come so near her ****.” Make this dash,—’tis an Aposiopesis.—Take the dash
away, and write Backside,——’tis Bawdy.—Scratch Backside out, and put
Cover’d way in, ’tis a Metaphor;—and, I dare say, as fortification ran so much in
my uncle Toby’s head, that if he had been left to have added one word to the
sentence,——that word was it.
But whether that was the case or not the case;—or whether the snapping of my
father’s tobacco-pipe, so critically, happened through accident or anger, will be
seen in due time.

CHAPTER VII

Tho’ my father was a good natural philosopher,—yet he was something of a moral
philosopher too; for which reason, when his tobacco-pipe snapp’d short in the
middle,—he had nothing to do, as such, but to have taken hold of the two pieces,
and thrown them gently upon the back of the fire.——He did no such thing;——
he threw them with all the violence in the world;—and, to give the action still
more emphasis,—he started upon both his legs to do it.
This looked something like heat;—and the manner of his reply to what my uncle
Toby was saying, proved it was so.

—“Not choose,” quoth my father, (repeating my uncle Toby’s words) “to let a
man come so near her!”——By Heaven, brother Toby! you would try the patience
of Job;—and I think I have the plagues of one already without it.——Why?——
Where?——Wherein?——Wherefore?——Upon what account? replied my uncle
Toby, in the utmost astonishment.—To think, said my father, of a man living to
your age, brother, and knowing so little about women!——I know nothing at all
about them,—replied my uncle Toby: And I think, continued he, that the shock I
received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with widow
Wadman;—which shock you know I should not have received, but from my total
ignorance of the sex,—has given me just cause to say, That I neither know nor do
pretend to know anything about ’em or their concerns either.—Methinks, brother,
replied my father, you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman
from the wrong.
It is said in Aristotle’s Master Piece, “That when a man doth think of anything
which is past,——he looketh down upon the ground;——but that when he
thinketh of something that is to come, he looketh up towards the heavens.”
My uncle Toby, I suppose, thought of neither, for he look’d horizontally.—Right
end! quoth my uncle Toby, muttering the two words low to himself, and fixing his
two eyes insensibly as he muttered them, upon a small crevice, formed by a bad
joint in the chimney-piece——Right end of a woman!——I declare, quoth my
uncle, I know no more which it is than the man in the moon;——and if I was to
think, continued my uncle Toby (keeping his eye still fixed upon the bad joint) this
month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it out.
Then, brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you.
Everything in this world, continued my father (filling a fresh pipe)—every thing
in this world, my dear brother Toby, has two handles.——Not always, quoth my
uncle Toby.——At least, replied my father, everyone has two hands,——which
comes to the same thing.——Now, if a man was to sit down coolly, and consider
within himself the make, the shape, the construction, come-at-ability, and
convenience of all the parts which constitute the whole of that animal, called
Woman, and compare them analogically——I never understood rightly the
meaning of that word,—quoth my uncle Toby.—
Analogy, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which
different——Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father’s definition (like
his tobacco-pipe) in two,—and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable
and curious a dissertation as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;—it
was some months before my father could get an opportunity to be safely delivered
of it:—And, at this hour, it is a thing full as problematical as the subject of the
dissertation itself,—(considering the confusion and distresses of our domestick

misadventures, which are now coming thick one upon the back of another)
whether I shall be able to find a place for it in the third volume or not.

CHAPTER VIII

It is about an hour and a half’s tolerable good reading since my uncle Toby rung
the bell, when Obadiah was ordered to saddle a horse, and go for Dr. Slop, the
man-midwife;—so that no one can say, with reason, that I have not allowed
Obadiah time enough, poetically speaking, and considering the emergency too,
both to go and come;——though, morally and truly speaking, the man perhaps has
scarce had time to get on his boots.
If the hypercritick will go upon this; and is resolved after all to take a pendulum,
and measure the true distance betwixt the ringing of the bell, and the rap at the
door;—and, after finding it to be no more than two minutes, thirteen seconds, and
three fifths,—should take upon him to insult over me for such a breach in the
unity, or rather probability of time;—I would remind him, that the idea of duration,
and of its simple modes, is got merely from the train and succession of our ideas,
——and is the true scholastic pendulum,——and by which, as a scholar, I will be
tried in this matter,—abjuring and detesting the jurisdiction of all other pendulums
whatever.
I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from
Shandy-Hall to Dr. Slop, the man-midwife’s house;—and that whilst Obadiah has
been going those said miles and back, I have brought my uncle Toby from Namur,
quite across all Flanders, into England:—That I have had him ill upon my hands
near four years;—and have since travelled him and Corporal Trim in a chariot-and-
four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into Yorkshire,——all which put
together, must have prepared the reader’s imagination for the entrance of Dr. Slop
upon the stage,—as much, at least (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto
between the acts.
If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and thirteen
seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds,—when I have said all
I can about them; and that this plea, though it might save me dramatically, will
damn me biographically, rendering my book from this very moment, a professed
Romance, which, before, was a book apocryphal:——If I am thus pressed—I then
put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once,——by
acquainting him, that Obadiah had not got above threescore yards from the stable-

yard before he met with Dr. Slop;—and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had
met with him, and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too.
Imagine to yourself;—but this had better begin a new chapter.

CHAPTER IX

Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four
feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality
of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards.
Such were the out-lines of Dr. Slop’s figure, which,—if you have read Hogarth’s
analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would;——you must know,
may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to the mind by three strokes as three
hundred.
Imagine such a one,——for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop’s figure,
coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the dirt upon the vertebræ of a
little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour——but of strength,——alack!——scarce
able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an
ambling condition.——They were not.——Imagine to yourself, Obadiah mounted
upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all
practicable speed the adverse way.
Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.
Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting in a narrow lane directly
towards him, at that monstrous rate,—splashing and plunging like a devil thro’
thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a phænomenon, with such a
vortex of mud and water moving along with it, round its axis,—have been a
subject of juster apprehension to Dr. Slop in his situation, than the worst of
Whiston’s comets?—To say nothing of the Nucleus; that is, of Obadiah and the
coach-horse.—In my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved
and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with it. What
then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, when
you read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily along
towards Shandy-Hall, and had approached to within sixty yards of it, and within
five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden-wall,—and in
the dirtiest part of a dirty lane,—when Obadiah and his coach-horse turned the
corner, rapid, furious,—pop,—full upon him!—Nothing, I think, in nature, can be

supposed more terrible than such a rencounter,—so imprompt! so ill prepared to
stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was.
What could Dr. Slop do?——he crossed himself + —Pugh!—but the doctor, Sir,
was a Papist.—No matter; he had better have kept hold of the pummel—He had
so;—nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all; for in crossing
himself he let go his whip,——and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee
and his saddle’s skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup,——in losing which he lost
his seat;——and in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews
what little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his presence
of mind. So that without waiting for Obadiah’s onset, he left his pony to its
destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the stile and manner of a pack of
wool, and without any other consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it
would have been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in
the mire.
Obadiah pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. Slop;—once as he was falling,—and
then again when he saw him seated.——Ill-timed complaisance;—had not the
fellow better have stopped his horse, and got off and help’d him?—Sir, he did all
that his situation would allow;—but the Momentum of the coach-horse was so
great, that Obadiah could not do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times round
Dr. Slop, before he could fully accomplish it any how;—and at the last, when he
did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion of mud, that Obadiah had
better have been a league off. In short, never was a Dr. Slop so beluted, and so
transubstantiated, since that affair came into fashion.

CHAPTER X

When Dr. Slop entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle Toby were
discoursing upon the nature of women,——it was hard to determine whether Dr.
Slop’s figure, or Dr. Slop’s presence, occasioned more surprize to them; for as the
accident happened so near the house, as not to make it worth while for Obadiah to
remount him,——Obadiah had led him in as he was, unwiped, unappointed,
unannealed, with all his stains and blotches on him.—He stood like Hamlet’s
ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a half at the parlour-door
(Obadiah still holding his hand) with all the majesty of mud. His hinder parts,
upon which he had received his fall, totally besmeared,——and in every other part

of him, blotched over in such a manner with Obadiah’s explosion, that you would
have sworn (without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.
Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle Toby to have triumphed over my father
in his turn;—for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. Slop in that pickle, could have
dissented from so much at least, of my uncle Toby’s opinion, “That mayhap his
sister might not care to let such a Dr. Slop come so near her ****.” But it was the
Argumentum ad hominem; and if my uncle Toby was not very expert at it, you may
think, he might not care to use it.——No; the reason was,—’twas not his nature to
insult.
Dr. Slop’s presence at that time, was no less problematical than the mode of it;
tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father might have solved it; for he
had apprized Dr. Slop but the week before, that my mother was at her full
reckoning; and as the doctor had heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very
political too in him, to have taken a ride to Shandy-Hall, as he did, merely to see
how matters went on.
But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the investigation;
running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the ringing of the bell and the rap
upon the door,—measuring their distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the
operation as to have power to think of nothing else,——common-place infirmity
of the greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the
demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in
them to draw the corollary, to do good with.
The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise strong upon
the sensorium of my uncle Toby,—but it excited a very different train of thoughts;
—the two irreconcileable pulsations instantly brought Stevinus, the great engineer,
along with them, into my uncle Toby’s mind. What business Stevinus had in this
affair,—is the greatest problem of all:——It shall be solved,—but not in the next
chapter.

CHAPTER XI

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a
different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about in good
company, would venture to talk all;——so no author, who understands the just
boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all: The truest

respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter
amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.
For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all
that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.
’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop’s sad
overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour;—his imagination must
now go on with it for a while.
Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. Slop has told his tale—and in what words,
and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses;—Let him suppose, that Obadiah
has told his tale also, and with such rueful looks of affected concern, as he thinks
best will contrast the two figures as they stand by each other.——Let him imagine,
that my father has stepped upstairs to see my mother.—And, to conclude this work
of imagination—let him imagine the doctor washed,—rubbed down, and condoled,
—felicitated,—got into a pair of Obadiah’s pumps, stepping forwards towards the
door, upon the very point of entering upon action.
Truce!—truce, good Dr. Slop:—stay thy obstetrick hand;——return it safe into
thy bosom to keep it warm;——little dost thou know what obstacles,———little
dost thou think what hidden causes, retard its operation!——Hast thou, Dr. Slop,
—hast thou been intrusted with the secret articles of the solemn treaty which has
brought thee into this place?—Art thou aware that at this instant, a daughter of
Lucina is put obstetrically over thy head? Alas!—’tis too true.—Besides, great son
of Pilumnus! what canst thou do?—Thou hast come forth unarm’d;—thou hast left
thy tire-tête,—thy new-invented forceps,—thy crotchet,—thy squirt, and all thy
instruments of salvation and deliverance, behind thee,—By Heaven! at this
moment they are hanging up in a green bays bag, betwixt thy two pistols, at the
bed’s head!—Ring;—call;—send Obadiah back upon the coach-horse to bring
them with all speed.
——Make great haste, Obadiah, quoth my father, and I’ll give thee a crown!—
and quoth my uncle Toby, I’ll give him another.

CHAPTER XII

Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to
Dr. Slop (all three of them sitting down to the fire together, as my uncle Toby
began to speak)—instantly brought the great Stevinus into my head, who, you must
know, is a favourite author with me.—Then, added my father, making use of the

argument Ad Crumenam,—I will lay twenty guineas to a single crown-piece
(which will serve to give away to Obadiah when he gets back) that this same
Stevinus was some engineer or other,—or has wrote something or other, either
directly or indirectly, upon the science of fortification.
He has so,—replied my uncle Toby.—I knew it, said my father, though, for the
soul of me, I cannot see what kind of connection there can be betwixt Dr. Slop’s
sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortification;—yet I fear’d it.—Talk of what
we will, brother,——or let the occasion be never so foreign or unfit for the subject,
—you are sure to bring it in. I would not, brother Toby, continued my father,
———I declare I would not have my head so full of curtins and hornworks.—That
I dare say you would not, quoth Dr. Slop, interrupting him, and laughing most
immoderately at his pun.
Dennis the critic could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun,
more cordially than my father;—he would grow testy upon it at any time;—but to
be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a
fillip upon the nose;——he saw no difference.
Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop,—the curtins my
brother Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with bedsteads;—tho’, I know
Du Cange says, “That bed-curtains, in all probability, have taken their name from
them;”—nor have the hornworks he speaks of, anything in the world to do with the
horn-works of cuckoldom:—But the Curtin, Sir, is the word we use in
fortification, for that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two
bastions and joins them—Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks directly
against the curtin, for this reason, because they are so well flanked. (’Tis the case
of other curtains, quoth Dr. Slop, laughing.) However, continued my uncle Toby, to
make them sure, we generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care
only to extend them beyond the fossé or ditch:——The common men, who know
very little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon together,—tho’
they are very different things;—not in their figure or construction, for we make
them exactly alike, in all points;—for they always consist of two faces, making a
salient angle, with the gorges, not straight, but in form of a crescent:——Where
then lies the difference? (quoth my father, a little testily).—In their situations,
answered my uncle Toby:—For when a ravelin, brother, stands before the curtin, it
is a ravelin; and when a ravelin stands before a bastion, then the ravelin is not a
ravelin;—it is a half-moon;—a half-moon likewise is a half-moon, and no more, so
long as it stands before its bastion;——but was it to change place, and get before
the curtin,—’twould be no longer a half-moon; a half-moon, in that case, is not a
half-moon;—’tis no more than a ravelin.——I think, quoth my father, that the
noble science of defence has its weak sides——as well as others.

—As for the horn-work (high! ho! sigh’d my father) which, continued my uncle
Toby, my brother was speaking of, they are a very considerable part of an outwork;
——they are called by the French engineers, Ouvrage à corne, and we generally
make them to cover such places as we suspect to be weaker than the rest;—’tis
formed by two epaulments or demi-bastions—they are very pretty,—and if you
will take a walk, I’ll engage to shew you one well worth your trouble.—I own,
continued my uncle Toby, when we crown them,—they are much stronger, but then
they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of ground, so that, in my opinion,
they are most of use to cover or defend the head of a camp; otherwise the double
tenaille—By the mother who bore us!——brother Toby, quoth my father, not able
to hold out any longer,——you would provoke a saint;——here have you got us,
I know not how, not only souse into the middle of the old subject again:—But so
full is your head of these confounded works, that though my wife is this moment
in the pains of labour, and you hear her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to
carry off the man-midwife.——Accoucheur,—if you please, quoth Dr. Slop.——
With all my heart, replied my father, I don’t care what they call you,—but I wish
the whole science of fortification, with all its inventors, at the devil;—it has been
the death of thousands,—and it will be mine in the end,—I would not, I would not,
brother Toby, have my brains so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, pallisadoes,
ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all the
towns in Flanders with it.
My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries;—not from want of courage,—
I have told you in a former chapter, “that he was a man of courage:”—And will
add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,—I know no man
under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;——nor did this arise from
any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;—for he felt this insult of
my father’s as feelingly as a man could do;—but he was of a peaceful, placid
nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up so kindly within him; my
uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.
—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed
about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which after
infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I’ll not hurt thee, says
my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his
hand,——I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and
opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why
should I hurt thee?——This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action
itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my
whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;—or how far the

manner and expression of it might go towards it;—or in what degree, or by what
secret magick,—a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy,
might find a passage to my heart, I know not;—this I know, that the lesson of
universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since
been worn out of my mind: And tho’ I would not depreciate what the study of the
Literæ humaniores, at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit
the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and
abroad since;—yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one
accidental impression.
This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon
the subject.
I could not give the reader this stroke in my uncle Toby’s picture, by the
instrument with which I drew the other parts of it,—that taking in no more than the
mere Hobby-Horsical likeness:——this is a part of his moral character. My father,
in this patient endurance of wrongs, which I mention, was very different, as the
reader must long ago have noted; he had a much more acute and quick sensibility
of nature, attended with a little soreness of temper; tho’ this never transported him
to anything which looked like malignancy:—yet in the little rubs and vexations of
life, ’twas apt to shew itself in a drollish and witty kind of peevishness:——He
was, however, frank and generous in his nature;——at all times open to
conviction; and in the little ebullitions of this subacid humour towards others, but
particularly towards my uncle Toby, whom he truly loved:——he would feel more
pain, ten times told (except in the affair of my aunt Dinah, or where an hypothesis
was concerned) than what he ever gave.
The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected light upon
each other, and appeared with great advantage in this affair which arose about
Stevinus.
I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a Hobby-Horse,——that a man’s Hobby-
Horse is as tender a part as he has about him; and that these unprovoked strokes at
my uncle Toby’s could not be unfelt by him.——No:———as I said above, my
uncle Toby did feel them, and very sensibly too.
Pray, Sir, what said he?—How did he behave?—O, Sir!—it was great: For as
soon as my father had done insulting his Hobby-Horse,———he turned his head
without the least emotion, from Dr. Slop, to whom he was addressing his
discourse, and looking up into my father’s face, with a countenance spread over
with so much good-nature;——so placid;——so fraternal;——so inexpressibly
tender towards him:—it penetrated my father to his heart: He rose up hastily from
his chair, and seizing hold of both my uncle Toby’s hands as he spoke:—Brother
Toby, said he,—I beg thy pardon;——forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour which

my mother gave me.——My dear, dear brother, answered my uncle Toby, rising up
by my father’s help, say no more about it;—you are heartily welcome, had it been
ten times as much, brother. But ’tis ungenerous, replied my father, to hurt any man;
——a brother worse;——but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners,—so
unprovoking,—and so unresenting;——’tis base:——By Heaven, ’tis cowardly.—
You are heartily welcome, brother, quoth my uncle Toby,———had it been fifty
times as much.——Besides, what have I to do, my dear Toby, cried my father,
either with your amusements or your pleasures, unless it was in my power (which
it is not) to increase their measure?
——Brother Shandy, answered my uncle Toby, looking wistfully in his face,
——you are much mistaken in this point:—for you do increase my pleasure very
much, in begetting children for the Shandy family at your time of life.—But, by
that, Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy increases his own.—Not a jot, quoth my
father.

CHAPTER XIII

My brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle.——In a family way,
I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop.——Pshaw!—said my father,—’tis not worth talking of.

CHAPTER XIV

At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both
standing, like Brutus and Cassius, at the close of the scene, making up their
accounts.
As my father spoke the three last words,——he sat down;—my uncle Toby
exactly followed his example, only, that before he took his chair, he rung the bell,
to order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step home for Stevinus:—my uncle
Toby’s house being no farther off than the opposite side of the way.
Some men would have dropped the subject of Stevinus;——but my uncle Toby
had no resentment in his heart, and he went on with the subject, to shew my father
that he had none.
Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, resuming the discourse,
instantly brought Stevinus into my head. (My father, you may be sure, did not offer

to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus’s head.)——Because, continued my uncle
Toby, the celebrated sailing chariot, which belonged to Prince Maurice, and was of
such wonderful contrivance and velocity, as to carry half a dozen people thirty
German miles, in I don’t know how few minutes,——was invented by Stevinus,
that great mathematician and engineer.
You might have spared your servant the trouble, quoth Dr. Slop (as the fellow is
lame) of going for Stevinus’s account of it, because in my return from Leyden thro’
the Hague, I walked as far as Schevling, which is two long miles, on purpose to
take a view of it.
That’s nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the learned Peireskius did, who
walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling, and
from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to see it,—and nothing else.
Some men cannot bear to be out-gone.
The more fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark, ’twas out of no contempt
of Peireskius at all;——but that Peireskius’s indefatigable labour in trudging so far
on foot, out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. Slop, in that affair,
to nothing:—the more fool Peireskius, said he again.—Why so?—replied my
father, taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation as fast as he could for
the insult he had given him, which sat still upon my father’s mind;——but partly,
that my father began really to interest himself in the discourse.——Why so?——
said he. Why is Peireskius, or any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that,
or any other morsel of sound knowledge: For notwithstanding I know nothing of
the chariot in question, continued he, the inventor of it must have had a very
mechanical head; and tho’ I cannot guess upon what principles of philosophy he
has atchieved it;—yet certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid ones,
be they what they will, or it could not have answered at the rate my brother
mentions.
It answered, replied my uncle Toby, as well, if not better; for, as Peireskius
elegantly expresses it, speaking of the velocity of its motion, Tam citus erat, quam
erat ventus; which, unless I have forgot my Latin, is, that it was as swift as the
wind itself.
But pray, Dr. Slop, quoth my father, interrupting my uncle (tho’ not without
begging pardon for it at the same time) upon what principles was this self-same
chariot set a-going?—Upon very pretty principles to be sure, replied Dr. Slop:—
And I have often wondered, continued he, evading the question, why none of our
gentry, who live upon large plains like this of ours,—(especially they whose wives
are not past child-bearing) attempt nothing of this kind; for it would not only be
infinitely expeditious upon sudden calls, to which the sex is subject,—if the wind
only served,—but would be excellent good husbandry to make use of the winds,

which cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than horses, which (the devil
take ’em) both cost and eat a great deal.
For that very reason, replied my father, “Because they cost nothing, and because
they eat nothing,”—the scheme is bad;—it is the consumption of our products, as
well as the manufactures of them, which gives bread to the hungry, circulates
trade,—brings in money, and supports the value of our lands:—and tho’, I own, if I
was a Prince, I would generously recompense the scientifick head which brought
forth such contrivances;—yet I would as peremptorily suppress the use of them.
My father here had got into his element,——and was going on as prosperously
with his dissertation upon trade, as my uncle Toby had before, upon his of
fortification;—but to the loss of much sound knowledge, the destinies in the
morning had decreed that no dissertation of any kind should be spun by my father
that day,——for as he opened his mouth to begin the next sentence.

CHAPTER XV

In popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus:—But ’twas too late,—all the discourse
had been exhausted without him, and was running into a new channel.—You may
take the book home again, Trim, said my uncle Toby, nodding to him.
But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,—look first into it, and see if
thou canst spy aught of a sailing chariot in it.
Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned to obey,—and not to
remonstrate;—so taking the book to a side-table, and running over the leaves; An’
please your Honour, said Trim, I can see no such thing;—however, continued the
Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please your
Honour;—so taking hold of the two covers of the book, one in each hand, and
letting the leaves fall down, as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a good
sound shake.
There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an’ please your Honour;—
but it is not a chariot, or anything like one:—Prithee, Corporal, said my father,
smiling, what is it then?—I think, answered Trim, stooping to take it up,——’tis
more like a sermon,———for it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter
and verse;—and then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a sermon directly.
The company smiled.
I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing as a
sermon to have got into my Stevinus.

I think ’tis a sermon, replied Trim;—but if it please your Honours, as it is a fair
hand, I will read you a page;—for Trim, you must know, loved to hear himself read
almost as well as talk.
I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to look into things which cross
my way, by such strange fatalities as these;—and as we have nothing better to do,
at least till Obadiah gets back, I shall be obliged to you, brother, if Dr. Slop has no
objection to it, to order the Corporal to give us a page or two of it,—if he is as able
to do it, as he seems willing. An’ please your Honour, quoth Trim, I officiated two
whole campaigns, in Flanders, as clerk to the chaplain of the regiment.——He can
read it, quoth my uncle Toby, as well as I can.——Trim, I assure you, was the best
scholar in my company, and should have had the next halberd, but for the poor
fellow’s misfortune. Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his heart, and made an
humble bow to his master;—then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up
the sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,——he advanced,
nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could best see, and be
best seen by his audience.

CHAPTER XVI

—If you have any objection,—said my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop. Not
in the least, replied Dr. Slop;—for it does not appear on which side of the question
it is wrote;——it may be a composition of a divine of our church, as well as yours,
—so that we run equal risques.——’Tis wrote upon neither side, quoth Trim, for
’tis only upon Conscience, an’ please your Honours.
Trim’s reason put his audience into good-humour,—all but Dr. Slop, who turning
his head about towards Trim, looked a little angry.
Begin, Trim,—and read distinctly, quoth my father.—I will, an’ please your
Honour, replied the Corporal, making a bow, and bespeaking attention with a
slight movement of his right hand.

CHAPTER XVII

——But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his
attitude;——otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in

an uneasy posture,—stiff,—perpendicular,—dividing the weight of his body
equally upon both legs;——his eye fixed, as if on duty;—his look determined,—
clenching the sermon in his left hand, like his firelock.——In a word, you would
be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action.—His
attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.
He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far, as to
make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon;—which
sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well to be the true persuasive
angle of incidence;—in any other angle you may talk and preach;—’tis certain;—
and it is done every day;—but with what effect,—I leave the world to judge!
The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical
exactness,——does it not shew us, by the way, how the arts and sciences mutually
befriend each other?
How the duce Corporal Trim, who knew not so much as an acute angle from an
obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;——or whether it was chance or nature, or
good sense or imitation, &c., shall be commented upon in that part of the
cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the eloquence of
the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side,
fall under consideration.
He stood,——for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with his
body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,—his right leg from under him,
sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,———the foot of his left leg, the
defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a little,—not
laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them;—his knee bent, but that not
violently,—but so as to fall within the limits of the line of beauty;—and I add, of
the line of science too;—for consider, it had one eighth part of his body to bear up;
—so that in this case the position of the leg is determined,—because the foot could
be no farther advanced, or the knee more bent, than what would allow him,
mechanically to receive an eighth part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it
too.
This I recommend to painters:—need I add,—to orators!—I think not; for
unless they practise it,———they must fall upon their noses.
So much for Corporal Trim’s body and legs.——He held the sermon loosely, not
carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his stomach, and detached a
little from his breast;——his right arm falling negligently by his side, as nature
and the laws of gravity ordered it,——but with the palm of it open and turned
towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need.
Corporal Trim’s eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony with the
other parts of him;—he looked frank,—unconstrained,—something assured,—but

not bordering upon assurance.
Let not the critic ask how Corporal Trim could come by all this.——I’ve told
him it should be explained;—but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and
Dr. Slop,—so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical
sweep throughout the whole figure,——a statuary might have modelled from it;
——nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College,—or the Hebrew
Professor himself, could have much mended it.
Trim made a bow, and read as follows:

The SERMON
Hebrews xiii. 18

——For we trust we have a good Conscience
“Trust!——Trust we have a good conscience!”
[Certainly, Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that sentence a
very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and read it with such a
sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse the Apostle.
He is, an’ please your Honour, replied Trim. Pugh! said my father, smiling.
Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Trim is certainly in the right; for the writer (who I perceive
is a Protestant) by the snappish manner in which he takes up the apostle, is
certainly going to abuse him;—if this treatment of him has not done it already. But
from whence, replied my father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. Slop, that the
writer is of our church?—for aught I can see yet,—he may be of any church.——
Because, answered Dr. Slop, if he was of ours,—he durst no more take such a
licence,—than a bear by his beard:—If, in our communion, Sir, a man was to insult
an apostle,——a saint,——or even the paring of a saint’s nail,—he would have his
eyes scratched out.—What, by the saint? quoth my uncle Toby. No, replied Dr.
Slop, he would have an old house over his head. Pray is the Inquisition an ancient
building, answered my uncle Toby, or is it a modern one?—I know nothing of
architecture, replied Dr. Slop.—An’ please your Honours, quoth Trim, the
Inquisition is the vilest——Prithee spare thy description, Trim, I hate the very
name of it, said my father.—No matter for that, answered Dr. Slop,—it has its
uses; for tho’ I’m no great advocate for it, yet, in such a case as this, he would soon
be taught better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be
flung into the Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth my uncle Toby.

Amen, added Trim; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor brother who has been
fourteen years a captive in it.—I never heard one word of it before, said my uncle
Toby, hastily:—How came he there, Trim?——O, Sir! the story will make your
heart bleed,—as it has made mine a thousand times;—but it is too long to be told
now;—your Honour shall hear it from first to last some day when I am working
beside you in our fortifications;—but the short of the story is this;—That my
brother Tom went over a servant to Lisbon,—and then married a Jew’s widow, who
kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which somehow or other, was the cause of
his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, where he was lying with
his wife and two small children, and carried directly to the Inquisition, where, God
help him, continued Trim, fetching a sigh from the bottom of his heart,—the poor
honest lad lies confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, added Trim, (pulling
out his handkerchief) as ever blood warmed.——
—The tears trickled down Trim’s cheeks faster than he could well wipe them
away.—And dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.—Certain proof of
pity!
Come, Trim, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow’s grief had got a little
vent,—read on,—and put this melancholy story out of thy head:—I grieve that I
interrupted thee; but prithee begin the sermon again;—for if the first sentence in it
is matter of abuse, as thou sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of
provocation the apostle has given.
Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his pocket,
and, making a bow as he did it,—he began again.]

The SERMON
Hebrews xiii. 18

——For we trust we have a good Conscience
“Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing in this life
which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he is capable of
arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be this very thing,—whether
he has a good conscience or no.”
[I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. Slop.]
“If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state of this
account;——he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;—he must

remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true springs and motives,
which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.”
[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. Slop.]
“In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the wise
man complains, hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon the earth,
and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But here the mind has all
the evidence and facts within herself;——is conscious of the web she has wove;
——knows its texture and fineness, and the exact share which every passion has
had in working upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before
her.”
[The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my father.]
“Now,—as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has
within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or censure, which it
unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives; ’tis plain you will say,
from the very terms of the proposition,—whenever this inward testimony goes
against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty
man.—And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his
heart condemns him not:—that it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle intimates,
but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man
must be good also.”
[Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop, and the
Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, replied my father, for I think it
will presently appear that St. Paul and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.
—As nearly so, quoth Dr. Slop, as east is to west;—but this, continued he, lifting
both hands, comes from the liberty of the press.
It is no more, at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the pulpit;
for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be.
Go on, Trim, quoth my father.]
“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I make no doubt
but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man,
—that did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long
habits of sin, might (as the scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;—and,
like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose
by degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it:
—Did this never happen;—or was it certain that self-love could never hang the
least bias upon the judgment;—or that the little interests below could rise up and
perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds
and thick darkness:——Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this
sacred Court:—Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;—or was ashamed to shew its

face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, lastly, were we assured
that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing—and that
Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of
Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:—Was
this truly so, as the objection must suppose;—no doubt then the religious and
moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it:—and the guilt
or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general, by no better measure,
than the degrees of his own approbation and censure.
“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it seldom
errs on that side) that he is guilty; and unless in melancholy and hypocondriac
cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is always sufficient grounds for
the accusation.
“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;—namely, that whenever
there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, that a man is therefore
innocent.——This is not fact———So that the common consolation which some
good christian or other is hourly administering to himself,—that he thanks God his
mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience,
because he hath a quiet one,—is fallacious;—and as current as the inference is,
and as infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet when you look nearer to it,
and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,——you see it liable to so much error
from a false application;——the principle upon which it goes so often perverted;
——the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful
to produce the common examples from human life, which confirm the account.
“A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles;—exceptionable
in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in the open commission of a sin
which no reason or pretence can justify,——a sin by which, contrary to all the
workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob
her of her best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour;—but
involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will
think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life; he can have no rest
night or day from its reproaches.
“Alas! Conscience had something else to do all this time, than break in upon
him; as Elijah reproached the god Baal,——this domestic god was either talking,
or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradventure he slept and could not be awoke.
“Perhaps He was gone out in company with Honour to fight a duel: to pay off
some debt at play;——or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust; Perhaps Conscience
all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud against petty larceny, and
executing vengeance upon some such puny crimes as his fortune and rank of life
secured him against all temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily”——

[If he was of our church, tho’, quoth Dr. Slop, he could not]—“sleeps as soundly in
his bed;—and at last meets death as unconcernedly;—perhaps much more so, than
a much better man.”
[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father,—the case
could not happen in our church.—It happens in ours, however, replied my father,
but too often.——I own, quoth Dr. Slop, (struck a little with my father’s frank
acknowledgment)—that a man in the Romish church may live as badly;—but then
he cannot easily die so.——’Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of
indifference,—how a rascal dies.—I mean, answered Dr. Slop, he would be denied
the benefits of the last sacraments.—Pray how many have you in all, said my uncle
Toby,——for I always forget?——Seven, answered Dr. Slop.——Humph!—said
my uncle Toby; tho’ not accented as a note of acquiescence,—but as an interjection
of that particular species of surprize, when a man in looking into a drawer, finds
more of a thing than he expected.——Humph! replied my uncle Toby. Dr. Slop,
who had an ear, understood my uncle Toby as well as if he had wrote a whole
volume against the seven sacraments.——Humph! replied Dr. Slop (stating my
uncle Toby’s argument over again to him)——Why, Sir, are there not seven
cardinal virtues?——Seven mortal sins?——Seven golden candlesticks?——
Seven heavens?—’Tis more than I know, replied my uncle Toby.———Are there
not seven wonders of the world?——Seven days of the creation?——Seven
planets?——Seven plagues?——That there are, quoth my father with a most
affected gravity. But prithee, continued he, go on with the rest of thy characters,
Trim.]
“Another is sordid, unmerciful,” (here Trim waved his right hand) “a strait-
hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship or public spirit. Take
notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in their distress, and sees all the
miseries incident to human life without a sigh or a prayer.” [An’ please your
honours, cried Trim, I think this a viler man than the other.]
“Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?——No; thank
God there is no occasion, I pay every man his own;—I have no fornication to
answer to my conscience;—no faithless vows or promises to make up;—I have
debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am not as other men, adulterers,
unjust, or even as this libertine, who stands before me.
“A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life;—’tis nothing
but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat
the true intent of all laws,——plain-dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several
properties.——You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon
the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man;—shall raise a fortune

upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper of his friend, who
would have trusted him with his life.
“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black
account, and state it over again with his conscience—Conscience looks into the
Statutes at Large;—finds no express law broken by what he has done;—
perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred;—sees no scourge
waving over his head, or prison opening his gates upon him:—What is there to
affright his conscience?—Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter
of the Law; sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly
on all sides;—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.”
[Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.—
Aye, aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,———these are but sorry
fortifications, Trim.———O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your
Honour and I make of it.——The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop,
interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been
taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us, a man’s
conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,——three times in a year,
at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight? quoth my uncle
Toby.——Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before
thou hast got to the end of thy sermon.——’Tis a very short one, replied Trim.
——I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.—Trim
went on.]
“A fourth man shall want even this refuge;—shall break through all their
ceremony of slow chicane;——scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and
cautious trains to bring about his purpose:——See the bare-faced villain, how he
cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!—Horrid!—But indeed much better was not to
be expected, in the present case—the poor man was in the dark!———his priest
had got the keeping of his conscience;——and all he would let him know of it,
was, That he must believe in the Pope;—go to Mass;—cross himself;—tell his
beads;—be a good Catholic, and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry
him to heaven. What;—if he perjures!—Why;—he had a mental reservation in it.
—But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;—if he
robs,—if he stabs, will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself?
—Aye,—but the man has carried it to confession;——the wound digests there, and
will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution.
O Popery! what hast thou to answer for?——when, not content with the too many
natural and fatal ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous
to itself above all things;—thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of deceit

before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of
himself; and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.
“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too notorious
to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of them, or thinks it
impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,—I must refer him a moment
to his own reflections, and will then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.
“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked
actions stand there, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own natures;—he will
soon find, that such of them as strong inclination and custom have prompted him
to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a
soft and a flattering hand can give them;—and that the others, to which he feels no
propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true
circumstances of folly and dishonour.
“When David surprized Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his
robe—we read his heart smote him for what he had done:——But in the matter of
Uriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and
honoured, fell to make way for his lust,—where conscience had so much greater
reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed
from the first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove
him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which he
testified, during all that time, for what he had done.
“Thus conscience, this once able monitor,——placed on high as a judge within
us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too,—by an unhappy
train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what
passes,——does its office so negligently,——sometimes so corruptly—that it is
not to be trusted alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute
necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its
determinations.
“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to
you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real merit you stand either as
an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your king, or a good servant
to your God,——call in religion and morality.—Look, What is written in the law
of God?——How readest thou?—Consult calm reason and the unchangeable
obligations of justice and truth;——what say they?
“Let Conscience determine the matter upon these reports;——and then if thy
heart condemns thee not, which is the case the apostle supposes,——the rule will
be infallible;”—[Here Dr. Slop fell asleep]—“thou wilt have confidence towards
God;——that is, have just grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon
thyself, is the judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that

righteous sentence which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to
whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions.
“Blessed is the man, indeed, then, as the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus
expresses it, who is not pricked with the multitude of his sins: Blessed is the man
whose heart hath not condemned him; whether he be rich, or whether he be poor,
if he have a good heart (a heart thus guided and informed) he shall at all times
rejoice in a chearful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-
men that sit above upon a tower on high.”—[A tower has no strength, quoth my
uncle Toby, unless ’tis flank’d.]—“In the darkest doubts it shall conduct him safer
than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in, a better security for his
behaviour than all the causes and restrictions put together which law-makers are
forced to multiply:—Forced, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a matter
of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the
mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well
intending, by the many provisions made,—that in all such corrupt and misguided
cases, where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us upright,—to
supply their force, and, by the terrors of gaols and halters, oblige us to it.”
[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be
preached at the Temple,——or at some Assize.—I like the reasoning,—and am
sorry that Dr. Slop has fallen asleep before the time of his conviction:—for it is
now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at first, never insulted St. Paul in the least;
—nor has there been, brother, the least difference between them.——A great
matter, if they had differed, replied my uncle Toby,—the best friends in the world
may differ sometimes.——True,—brother Toby, quoth my father, shaking hands
with him,—we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then Trim shall go on.
Well,——what dost thou think of it? said my father speaking to Corporal Trim,
as he reached his tobacco-box.
I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the tower, who,
I suppose, are all centinels there,—are more, an’ please your Honour, than were
necessary;—and, to go on at that rate, would harrass a regiment all to pieces,
which a commanding officer, who loves his men, will never do, if he can help it,
because two centinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty.—I have been a
commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde a hundred times, continued
Trim, rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke,—and all the time I had the
honour to serve his Majesty King William, in relieving the most considerable
posts, I never left more than two in my life.——Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle
Toby,—but you do not consider, Trim, that the towers, in Solomon’s days, were not
such things as our bastions, flanked and defended by other works;—this, Trim, was
an invention since Solomon’s death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before

the curtin, in his time;——or such a fossé as we make with a cuvette in the middle
of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard
against a Coup de main:—So that the seven men upon the tower were a party,
I dare say, from the Corps de Garde, set there, not only to look out, but to defend
it.—They could be no more, an’ please your Honour, than a Corporal’s Guard.—
My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly;—the subject being rather too
serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of.—So putting his pipe
into his mouth, which he had just lighted,—he contented himself with ordering
Trim to read on. He read on as follows:]
“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each
other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:——The
first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;—the second, those of
morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these
two tables, even in imagination (tho’ the attempt is often made in practice) without
breaking and mutually destroying them both.
“I said the attempt is often made; and so it is;——there being nothing more
common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and indeed has so
much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as the bitterest affront,
should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral character,——or imagine he was
not conscientiously just and scrupulous to the uttermost mite.
“When there is some appearance that it is so,—tho’ one is unwilling even to
suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, yet were we to
look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am persuaded we should find little
reason to envy such a one the honour of his motive.
“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be found
to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his pride, his ease, or
some such little and changeable passion as will give us but small dependence upon
his actions in matters of great distress.
“I will illustrate this by an example.
“I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in”—[There is no
need, cried Dr. Slop (waking), to call in any physician in this case]——“to be
neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make a jest of it every day, and
treat all its sanctions with so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well;—
notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one:—and what is
dearer still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.
“Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in the
first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them will employ the
power I put into their hands to my disadvantage;—I consider that honesty serves
the purposes of this life:—I know their success in the world depends upon the

fairness of their characters.—In a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me
without hurting themselves more.
“But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other side; that a
case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his reputation, could secrete
my fortune, and leave me naked in the world;—or that the other could send me out
of it, and enjoy an estate by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art:—In
this case, what hold have I of either of them?—Religion, the strongest of all
motives, is out of the question;—Interest, the next most powerful motive in the
world, is strongly against me:———What have I left to cast into the opposite
scale to balance this temptation?———Alas! I have nothing,——nothing but what
is lighter than a bubble———I must lie at the mercy of Honour, or some such
capricious principle—Strait security for two of the most valuable blessings!—my
property and myself.
“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;—
so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without
morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character
stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a
religious man.
“He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,—but even wanting in
points of common honesty; yet inasmuch as he talks aloud against the infidelity of
the age,——is zealous for some points of religion,——goes twice a day to church,
—attends the sacraments,—and amuses himself with a few instrumental parts of
religion,—shall cheat his conscience into a judgment, that, for this, he is a
religious man, and has discharged truly his duty to God: And you will find such a
man, through force of this delusion, generally looks down with spiritual pride upon
every other man who has less affectation of piety,—though, perhaps, ten times
more real honesty than himself.
“This likewise is a sore evil under the sun; and I believe, there is no one
mistaken principle, which, for its time, has wrought more serious mischiefs.
———For a general proof of this,—examine the history of the Romish church;”—
[Well, what can you make of that? cried Dr. Slop]—“see what scenes of cruelty,
murder, rapine, bloodshed,”——[They may thank their own obstinacy, cried Dr.
Slop]——“have all been sanctified by a religion not strictly governed by morality.
“In how many kingdoms of the world”—[Here Trim kept waving his right hand
from the sermon to the extent of his arm, returning it backwards and forwards to
the conclusion of the paragraph.]
“In how many kingdoms of the world has the crusading sword of this misguided
saint-errant, spared neither age nor merit, or sex, or condition?—and, as he fought
under the banners of a religion which set him loose from justice and humanity, he

shewed none; mercilessly trampled upon both,—heard neither the cries of the
unfortunate, nor pitied their distresses.”
[I have been in many a battle, an’ please your Honour, quoth Trim, sighing, but
never in so melancholy a one as this,—I would not have drawn a tricker in it
against these poor souls,——to have been made a general officer.——Why? what
do you understand of the affair? said Dr. Slop, looking towards Trim, with
something more of contempt than the Corporal’s honest heart deserved.——What
do you know, friend, about this battle you talk of?—I know, replied Trim, that I
never refused quarter in my life to any man who cried out for it;——but to a
woman or a child, continued Trim, before I would level my musket at them,
I would lose my life a thousand times.——Here’s a crown for thee, Trim, to drink
with Obadiah to-night, quoth my uncle Toby, and I’ll give Obadiah another too.—
God bless your Honour, replied Trim,——I had rather these poor women and
children had it.——Thou art an honest fellow, quoth my uncle Toby.——My
father nodded his head, as much as to say,—and so he is.——
But prithee, Trim, said my father, make an end,—for I see thou hast but a leaf or
two left.
Corporal Trim read on.]
“If the testimony of past centuries in this matter is not sufficient,—consider at
this instant, how the votaries of that religion are every day thinking to do service
and honour to God, by actions which are a dishonour and scandal to themselves.
“To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the
Inquisition.”—[God help my poor brother Tom.]—“Behold Religion, with Mercy
and Justice chained down under her feet,——there sitting ghastly upon a black
tribunal, propped up with racks and instruments of torment. Hark!—hark! what a
piteous groan!”—[Here Trim’s face turned as pale as ashes.]——“See the
melancholy wretch who uttered it”—[Here the tears began to trickle down.]
——“just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the
utmost pains that a studied system of cruelty has been able to invent.”—[D—n
them all, quoth Trim, his colour returning into his face as red as blood.]—“Behold
this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted with
sorrow and confinement.”——[Oh! ’tis my brother, cried poor Trim in a most
passionate exclamation, dropping the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his
hands together—I fear ’tis poor Tom. My father’s and my uncle Toby’s heart
yearned with sympathy for the poor fellow’s distress; even Slop himself
acknowledged pity for him.——Why, Trim, said my father, this is not a history,
——’tis a sermon thou art reading; prithee begin the sentence again.]——“Behold
this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors,—his body so wasted with
sorrow and confinement, you will see every nerve and muscle as it suffers.

“Observe the last movement of that horrid engine!”—[I would rather face a
cannon, quoth Trim, stamping.]—“See what convulsions it has thrown him into!
——Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched,—what
exquisite tortures he endures by it!”—[I hope ’tis not in Portugal.]—“’Tis all
nature can bear! Good God! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his
trembling lips!” [I would not read another line of it, quoth Trim, for all this world;
—I fear, an’ please your Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother
Tom is. I tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, ’tis not an historical account,—’tis
a description.—’Tis only a description, honest man, quoth Slop, there’s not a word
of truth in it.——That’s another story, replied my father.—However, as Trim reads
it with so much concern,—’tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.—Give me
hold of the sermon, Trim,—I’ll finish it for thee, and thou may’st go. I must stay
and hear it, too, replied Trim, if your Honour will allow me;—tho’ I would not
read it myself for a Colonel’s pay.———Poor Trim! quoth my uncle Toby. My
father went on.]—
“——Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched,—what
exquisite torture he endures by it!—’Tis all nature can bear! Good God! See how it
keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips,—willing to take its leave,
——but not suffered to depart!—Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his
cell!”——[Then, thank God, however, quoth Trim, they have not killed him.]
—“See him dragged out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last
agonies, which this principle,—this principle, that there can be religion without
mercy, has prepared for him.”——[Then, thank God,——he is dead, quoth Trim,
—he is out of his pain,—and they have done their worst at him.—O Sirs!—Hold
your peace, Trim, said my father, going on with the sermon, lest Trim should
incense Dr. Slop,—we shall never have done at this rate.]
“The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace down the
consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with the spirit of
Christianity;——’tis the short and decisive rule which our Saviour hath left us, for
these and such like cases, and it is worth a thousand arguments——By their fruits
ye shall know them.
“I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or three short and
independent rules deducible from it.
“First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is
not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his Creed. A bad life
and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they
separate, depend upon it, ’tis for no other cause but quietness’ sake.
“Secondly, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular instance,
——That such a thing goes against his conscience,——always believe he means

exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a thing goes against his stomach;
—a present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both.
“In a word,—trust that man in nothing, who has not a Conscience in everything.
“And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in which has
ruined thousands,—that your conscience is not a law:—No, God and reason made
the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine;——not, like an
Asiatic Cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions,—but like a
British judge in this land of liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but
faithfully declares that law which he knows already written.”
FINIS

Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, Trim, quoth my father.—If he had
spared his comments, replied Dr. Slop,——he would have read it much better.
I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so
full.—That was the very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made thee read
the sermon as well as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my
father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in what they deliver as
deeply as this poor fellow has done,—as their compositions are fine;—[I deny it,
quoth Dr. Slop]—I maintain it,—that the eloquence of our pulpits, with such
subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole world:——But alas!
continued my father, and I own it, Sir, with sorrow, that, like French politicians in
this respect, what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field.——’Twere a pity,
quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father,
——’tis dramatick,—and there is something in that way of writing, when skilfully
managed, which catches the attention.——We preach much in that way with us,
said Dr. Slop.—I know that very well, said my father,——but in a tone and
manner which disgusted Dr. Slop, full as much as his assent, simply, could have
pleased him.——But in this, added Dr. Slop, a little piqued,—our sermons have
greatly the advantage, that we never introduce any character into them below a
patriarch or a patriarch’s wife, or a martyr or a saint.—There are some very bad
characters in this, however, said my father, and I do not think the sermon a jot the
worse for ’em.——But pray, quoth my uncle Toby,—who’s can this be?—How
could it get into my Stevinus? A man must be as great a conjurer as Stevinus, said
my father, to resolve the second question:—The first, I think, is not so difficult;—
for unless my judgment greatly deceives me,——I know the author, for ’tis wrote,
certainly, by the parson of the parish.
The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had
heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his conjecture,—proving it

as strongly, as an argument à priori could prove such a thing to a philosophic
mind, That it was Yorick’s and no one’s else:—It was proved to be so, à posteriori,
the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my uncle Toby’s house to enquire
after it.
It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had
borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelessly popped his sermon, as
soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and by an act of forgetfulness,
to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to keep
him company.
Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time,
dropped thro’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down into a
treacherous and a tattered lining,—trod deep into the dirt by the left hind-foot of
his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou falledst;—buried ten days in
the mire,——raised up out of it by a beggar,—sold for a halfpenny to a parish-
clerk,——transferred to his parson,——lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of
his days,——nor restored to his restless Manes till this very moment, that I tell the
world the story.
Can the reader believe, that this sermon of Yorick’s was preached at an assize, in
the cathedral of York, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give oath of it, by a
certain prebendary of that church, and actually printed by him when he had done,
——and within so short a space as two years and three months after Yorick’s
death?—Yorick indeed, was never better served in his life;———but it was a little
hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.
However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with Yorick,—and,
in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give away;—and that I am told he
could moreover have made as good a one himself, had he thought fit,—I declare I
would not have published this anecdote to the world;——nor do I publish it with
an intent to hurt his character and advancement in the church;——I leave that to
others;—but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.
The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to Yorick’s ghost;——which—
as the country-people, and some others, believe,——still walks.
The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I gain an
opportunity of informing it,—That in case the character of parson Yorick, and this
sample of his sermons, is liked,——there are now in the possession of the Shandy
family, as many as will make a handsome volume, at the world’s service,——and
much good may they do it.

CHAPTER XVIII

Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute; for he came in jingling, with all
the instruments in the green bays bag we spoke of, slung across his body, just as
Corporal Trim went out of the room.
It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. Slop (clearing up his looks), as we are in a
condition to be of some service to Mrs. Shandy, to send upstairs to know how she
goes on.
I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us upon
the least difficulty;—for you must know, Dr. Slop, continued my father, with a
perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by express treaty, solemnly
ratified between me and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in this affair,
—and not so much as that,—unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs
cannot do without you.—Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this
nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much
acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the species,—they
claim a right of deciding, en Souveraines, in whose hands, and in what fashion,
they choose to undergo it.
They are in the right of it,——quoth my uncle Toby. But, Sir, replied Dr. Slop,
not taking notice of my uncle Toby’s opinion, but turning to my father,—they had
better govern in other points;——and a father of a family, who wishes its
perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, and
give up some other rights in lieu of it.——I know not, quoth my father, answering
a little too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said,—I know not, quoth he,
what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the world,
unless that,—of who shall beget them.———One would almost give up anything,
replied Dr. Slop.—I beg your pardon,——answered my uncle Toby.—Sir, replied
Dr. Slop, it would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late
years in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one single
point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the fœtus,——which has received
such lights, that, for my part (holding up his hands) I declare I wonder how the
world has——I wish, quoth my uncle Toby, you had seen what prodigious armies
we had in Flanders.

CHAPTER XIX

I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,——to remind you of one
thing,——and to inform you of another.
What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;——for it
should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that I foresaw then
’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage here than elsewhere.—
Writers had need look before them, to keep up the spirit and connection of what
they have in hand.
When these two things are done,—the curtain shall be drawn up again, and my
uncle Toby, my father, and Dr. Slop, shall go on with their discourse, without any
more interruption.
First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this;——that from the
specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point of christian-names, and
that other previous point thereto,—you was led, I think, into an opinion (and I am
sure I said as much), that my father was a gentleman altogether as odd and
whimsical in fifty other opinions. In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man,
from the very first act of his begetting,——down to the lean and slippered
pantaloon in his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion to himself,
springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the highway of thinking, as these
two which have been explained.
—Mr. Shandy, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which others
placed it;—he placed things in his own light;—he would weigh nothing in
common scales;—no, he was too refined a researcher to lie open to so gross an
imposition.—To come at the exact weight of things in the scientific steel-yard, the
fulcrum, he would say, should be almost invisible, to avoid all friction from
popular tenets;—without this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn
the balance, will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm,
was divisible in infinitum;——that the grains and scruples were as much a part of
it, as the gravitation of the whole world.—In a word, he would say, error was error,
—no matter where it fell,——whether in a fraction,—or a pound,—’twas alike
fatal to truth, and she was kept down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a
mistake in the dust of a butterfly’s wings,——as in the disk of the sun, the moon,
and all the stars of heaven put together.
He would often lament that it was for want of considering this properly, and of
applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to speculative truths, that so many
things in this world were out of joint;——that the political arch was giving way;
——and that the very foundations of our excellent constitution, in church and
state, were so sapped as estimators had reported.
You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would ask,
making use of the sorites or syllogism of Zeno and Chrysippus, without knowing it

belonged to them.—Why? why are we a ruined people?—Because we are
corrupted.—Whence is it, dear Sir, that we are corrupted?——Because we are
needy;——our poverty, and not our wills, consent.——And wherefore, he would
add, are we needy?—From the neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our
halfpence:—Our bank notes, Sir, our guineas,—nay, our shillings take care of
themselves.
’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the sciences;—the
great, the established points of them, are not to be broke in upon.—The laws of
nature will defend themselves;—but error——(he would add, looking earnestly at
my mother)——error, Sir, creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices
which human nature leaves unguarded.
This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:—The point
you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for this place, is as follows.
Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged my
mother to accept of Dr. Slop’s assistance preferably to that of the old woman,——
there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he had done arguing the
manner with her as a Christian, and came to argue it over again with her as a
philosopher, he had put his whole strength to, depending indeed upon it as his
sheet-anchor.——It failed him; tho’ from no defect in the argument itself; but that,
do what he could, he was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of
it.——Cursed luck!——said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out of the
room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to her, to no manner of
purpose;—cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as he shut the door,——for a man to
be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature,—and have a wife at
the same time with such a headpiece, that he cannot hang up a single inference
within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.
This argument, though it was entirely lost upon my mother,——had more
weight with him, than all his other arguments joined together:—I will therefore
endeavour to do it justice,—and set it forth with all the perspicuity I am master of.
My father set out upon the strength of these two following axioms:
First, That an ounce of a man’s own wit, was worth a ton of other people’s; and,
Secondly (Which by the bye, was the ground-work of the first axiom,——tho’ it
comes last), That every man’s wit must come from every man’s own soul,——and
no other body’s.
Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal,——and
that the great difference between the most acute and the most obtuse understanding
——was from no original sharpness or bluntness of one thinking substance above
or below another,——but arose merely from the lucky or unlucky organisation of

the body, in that part where the soul principally took up her residence,——he had
made it the subject of his enquiry to find out the identical place.
Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he was
satisfied it could not be where Des Cartes had fixed it, upon the top of the pineal
gland of the brain; which, as he philosophized, formed a cushion for her about the
size of a marrow pea; tho’, to speak the truth, as so many nerves did terminate all
in that one place,—’twas no bad conjecture;——and my father had certainly fallen
with that great philosopher plumb into the centre of the mistake, had it not been for
my uncle Toby, who rescued him out of it, by a story he told him of a Walloon
officer at the battle of Landen, who had one part of his brain shot away by a
musket-ball,—and another part of it taken out after by a French surgeon; and after
all, recovered, and did his duty very well without it.
If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of
the soul from the body; and if it is true that people can walk about and do their
business without brains,—then certes the soul does not inhabit there. Q. E. D.
As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which Coglionissimo
Borri, the great Milanese physician affirms, in a letter to Bartholine, to have
discovered in the cellulæ of the occipital parts of the cerebellum, and which he
likewise affirms to be the principal seat of the reasonable soul (for, you must
know, in these latter and more enlightened ages, there are two souls in every man
living,—the one, according to the great Metheglingius, being called the Animus,
the other, the Anima;)—as for the opinion, I say, of Borri,—my father could never
subscribe to it by any means; the very idea of so noble, so refined, so immaterial,
and so exalted a being as the Anima, or even the Animus, taking up her residence,
and sitting dabbling, like a tadpole all day long, both summer and winter, in a
puddle,——or in a liquid of any kind, how thick or thin soever, he would say,
shocked his imagination; he would scarce give the doctrine a hearing.
What, therefore, seemed the least liable to objections of any, was that the chief
sensorium, or head-quarters of the soul, and to which place all intelligences were
referred, and from whence all her mandates were issued,—was in, or near, the
cerebellum,—or rather somewhere about the medulla oblongata, wherein it was
generally agreed by Dutch anatomists, that all the minute nerves from all the
organs of the seven senses concentered, like streets and winding alleys, into a
square.
So far there was nothing singular in my father’s opinion,—he had the best of
philosophers, of all ages and climates, to go along with him.——But here he took
a road of his own, setting up another Shandean hypothesis upon these corner-
stones they had laid for him;——and which said hypothesis equally stood its
ground; whether the subtilty and fineness of the soul depended upon the

temperature and clearness of the said liquor, or of the finer network and texture in
the cerebellum itself; which opinion he favoured.
He maintained, that next to the due care to be taken in the act of propagation of
each individual, which required all the thought in the world, as it laid the
foundation of this incomprehensible contexture, in which wit, memory, fancy,
eloquence, and what is usually meant by the name of good natural parts, do
consist;—that next to this and his christian-name, which were the two original and
most efficacious causes of all;——that the third cause, or rather what logicians call
the Causa sine quâ non, and without which all that was done was of no manner of
significance,——was the preservation of this delicate and fine-spun web, from the
havock which was generally made in it by the violent compression and crush
which the head was made to undergo, by the nonsensical method of bringing us
into the world by that foremost.
——This requires explanation.
My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into Lithopædus
Senonesis de Partu difficili, 1 published by Adrianus Smelvgot, had found out, that
the lax and pliable state of a child’s head in parturition, the bones of the cranium
having no sutures at that time, was such,——that by force of the woman’s efforts,
which, in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470
pounds averdupois acting perpendicularly upon it;—it so happened, that in 49
instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into the shape of
an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook generally rolls up in order
to make a pye of.—Good God! cried my father, what havock and destruction must
this make in the infinitely fine and tender texture of the cerebellum!—Or if there is
such a juice as Borri pretends,—is it not enough to make the clearest liquid in the
world both feculent and mothery?
But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that this force
acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured the brain itself, or
cerebrum,—but that it necessarily squeezed and propelled the cerebrum towards
the cerebellum, which was the immediate seat of the understanding!——Angels
and ministers of grace defend us! cried my father,——can any soul withstand this
shock?—No wonder the intellectual web is so rent and tattered as we see it; and
that so many of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk,——all
perplexity,——all confusion within-side.
But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a child was
turned topsy-turvy, which was easy for an operator to do, and was extracted by the
feet;—that instead of the cerebrum being propelled towards the cerebellum, the
cerebellum, on the contrary, was propelled simply towards the cerebrum, where it
could do no manner of hurt:——By heavens! cried he, the world is in conspiracy

to drive out what little wit God has given us,——and the professors of the
obstetric art are lifted into the same conspiracy.—What is it to me which end of
my son comes foremost into the world, provided all goes right after, and his
cerebellum escapes uncrushed?
It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it
assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment
of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear,
read, or understand. This is of great use.
When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a
phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve by it;—it
accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in the family.——Poor
devil, he would say,—he made way for the capacity of his younger brothers.——It
unriddled the observations of drivellers and monstrous heads,——shewing
à priori, it could not be otherwise,——unless **** I don’t know what. It
wonderfully explained and accounted for the acumen of the Asiatic genius, and
that sprightlier turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates;
not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more
perpetual sunshine, &c.—which for aught he knew, might as well rarefy and dilute
the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme,—as they are condensed in
colder climates by the other;——but he traced the affair up to its spring-head;—
shewed that, in warmer climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts
of the creation;—their pleasures more;—the necessity of their pains less, insomuch
that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the whole
organisation of the cerebellum was preserved;——nay, he did not believe, in
natural births, that so much as a single thread of the net-work was broke or
displaced,——so that the soul might just act as she liked.
When my father had got so far,———what a blaze of light did the accounts of
the Cæsarian section, and of the towering geniuses who had come safe into the
world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he would say, there was no
injury done to the sensorium;—no pressure of the head against the pelvis;——no
propulsion of the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, either by the os pubis on this
side, or the os coxygis on that;———and pray, what were the happy
consequences? Why, Sir, your Julius Cæsar, who gave the operation a name;—and
your Hermes Trismegistus, who was born so before ever the operation had a name;
——your Scipio Africanus; your Manlius Torquatus; our Edward the Sixth,—who,
had he lived, would have done the same honour to the hypothesis:——These, and
many more who figured high in the annals of fame,—all came side-way, Sir, into
the world.

The incision of the abdomen and uterus ran for six weeks together in my
father’s head;——he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in the epigastrium,
and those in the matrix, were not mortal;—so that the belly of the mother might be
opened extremely well to give a passage to the child.—He mentioned the thing one
afternoon to my mother,———merely as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as
pale as ashes at the very mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his hopes,
—he thought it as well to say no more of it,——contenting himself with admiring,
—what he thought was to no purpose to propose.
This was my father Mr. Shandy’s hypothesis; concerning which I have only to
add, that my brother Bobby did as great honour to it (whatever he did to the
family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke of: For happening not only to be
christened, as I told you, but to be born too, when my father was at Epsom,——
being moreover my mother’s first child,—coming into the world with his head
foremost,—and turning out afterwards a lad of wonderful slow parts,——my
father spelt all these together into his opinion: and as he had failed at one end,—he
was determined to try the other.
This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not easily to be
put out of their way,——and was therefore one of my father’s great reasons in
favour of a man of science, whom he could better deal with.
Of all men in the world, Dr. Slop was the fittest for my father’s purpose;——for
though this new-invented forceps was the armour he had proved, and what he
maintained to be the safest instrument of deliverance, yet, it seems, he had
scattered a word or two in his book, in favour of the very thing which ran in my
father’s fancy;——tho’ not with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet,
as was my father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical.
This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. Slop, in the ensuing
discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle Toby.——In what manner a
plain man, with nothing but common sense, could bear up against two such allies
in science,—is hard to conceive.—You may conjecture upon it, if you please,——
and whilst your imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and
discover by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle
Toby got his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin.—You may raise a
system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles,—and shew the
world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to be called Tristam,
in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family,
Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted.—These, with fifty other points left yet
unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time;——but I tell you
beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage Alquife, the magician in Don

Belianis of Greece, nor the no less famous Urganda, the sorceress his wife, (were
they alive), could pretend to come within a league of the truth.
The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the
next year,——when a series of things will be laid open which he little expects.

1. The author is here twice mistaken; for Lithopædus should be wrote
thus, Lithopædii Senonensis Icon. The second mistake is, that this
Lithopædus is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The
account of this, published by Athosius 1580, may be seen at the end of
Cordæus’s works in Spachius. Mr. Tristram Shandy has been led into this
error, either from seeing Lithopædus’s name of late in a catalogue of
learned writers in Dr. ——, or by mistaking Lithopædus for
Trinecavellius,——from the too great similitude of the names.

BOOK III
Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia; meis tamen, rogo, parcant opusculis———in quibus fuit propositi
semper, a jocis ad seria, a seriis vicissim ad jocos transire.
—Joan. Saresberiensis, Episcopus Lugdun.

CHAPTER I

——“I WISH, Dr. Slop,” quoth my uncle Toby, (repeating his wish for Dr. Slop a
second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of
wishing, than he had wished at first 1)——“I wish, Dr. Slop,” quoth my uncle
Toby, “you had seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders.”
My uncle Toby’s wish did Dr. Slop a disservice which his heart never intended
any man,—Sir, it confounded him——and thereby putting his ideas first into
confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for the soul of him.
In all disputes,——male or female,——whether for honour, for profit, or for
love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more dangerous, Madam,
than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner upon a man: the safest
way in general to take off the force of the wish, is for the party wish’d at, instantly

to get upon his legs—and wish the wisher something in return, of pretty near the
same value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were—
nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.
This will be fully illustrated to the world in my chapter of wishes.—
Dr. Slop did not understand the nature of this defence;—he was puzzled with it,
and it put an entire stop to the dispute for four minutes and a half;—five had been
fatal to it:—my father saw the danger—the dispute was one of the most interesting
disputes in the world, “Whether the child of his prayers and endeavours should be
born without a head or with one:”—he waited to the last moment, to allow Dr.
Slop, in whose behalf the wish was made, his right of returning it; but perceiving,
I say, that he was confounded, and continued looking with that perplexed vacuity
of eye which puzzled souls generally stare with—first in my uncle Toby’s face—
then in his—then up—then down—then east—east and by east, and so on,——
coasting it along by the plinth of the wainscot till he had got to the opposite point
of the compass,——and that he had actually begun to count the brass nails upon
the arm of his chair,—my father thought there was no time to be lost with my
uncle Toby, so took up the discourse as follows.

CHAPTER II

“—What prodigious armies you had in Flanders!”——
Brother Toby, replied my father, taking his wig from off his head with his right
hand, and with his left pulling out a striped India handkerchief from his right coat
pocket, in order to rub his head, as he argued the point with my uncle Toby.——
——Now, in this I think my father was much to blame; and I will give you my
reasons for it.
Matters of no more seeming consequence in themselves than, “Whether my
father should have taken off his wig with his right hand or with his left,”——have
divided the greatest kingdoms, and made the crowns of the monarchs who
governed them, to totter upon their heads.——But need I tell you, Sir, that the
circumstances with which every thing in this world is begirt, give every thing in
this world its size and shape!—and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that,
make the thing to be, what it is—great—little—good—bad—indifferent or not
indifferent, just as the case happens?
As my father’s India handkerchief was in his right coat pocket, he should by no
means have suffered his right hand to have got engaged: on the contrary, instead of

taking off his wig with it, as he did, he ought to have committed that entirely to the
left; and then, when the natural exigency my father was under of rubbing his head,
called out for his handkerchief, he would have had nothing in the world to have
done, but to have put his right hand into his right coat pocket and taken it out;——
which he might have done without any violence, or the least ungraceful twist in
any one tendon or muscle of his whole body
In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a fool of
himself by holding the wig stiff in his left hand——or by making some
nonsensical angle or other at his elbow-joint, or arm-pit)—his whole attitude had
been easy—natural—unforced: Reynolds himself, as great and gracefully as he
paints, might have painted him as he sat.
Now as my father managed this matter,—consider what a devil of a figure my
father made of himself.
In the latter end of Queen Anne’s reign, and in the beginning of the reign of
King George the first—“Coat pockets were cut very low down in the skirt.”—
I need say no more—the father of mischief, had he been hammering at it a month,
could not have contrived a worse fashion for one in my father’s situation.

CHAPTER III

It was not an easy matter in any king’s reign (unless you were as lean a subject as
myself) to have forced your hand diagonally, quite across your whole body, so as
to gain the bottom of your opposite coat pocket.——In the year one thousand
seven hundred and eighteen, when this happened, it was extremely difficult; so
that when my uncle Toby discovered the transverse zig-zaggery of my father’s
approaches towards it, it instantly brought into his mind those he had done duty in,
before the gate of St. Nicolas;——the idea of which drew off his attention so
entirely from the subject in debate, that he had got his right hand to the bell to ring
up Trim to go and fetch his map of Namur, and his compasses and sector along
with it, to measure the returning angles of the traverses of that attack,—but
particularly of that one, where he received his wound upon his groin.
My father knit his brows, and as he knit them, all the blood in his body seemed
to rush up into his face——my uncle Toby dismounted immediately.
——I did not apprehend your uncle Toby was o’ horseback.———

CHAPTER IV

A man’s body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are
exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin’s lining;—rumple the one,—you rumple the
other. There is one certain exception however in this case, and that is, when you
are so fortunate a fellow, as to have had your jerkin made of gum-taffeta, and the
body-lining to it of a sarcenet, or thin persian.
Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes Babylonius, Dionysius, Heracleotes, Antipater,
Panætius, and Posidonius amongst the Greeks;——Cato and Varro and Seneca
amongst the Romans;——Pantæonus and Clemens Alexandrinus and Montaigne
amongst the Christians; and a score and a half of good, honest, unthinking
Shandean people as ever lived, whose names I can’t recollect,—all pretended that
their jerkins were made after this fashion,—you might have rumpled and
crumpled, and doubled and creased, and fretted and fridged the outside of them all
to pieces;——in short, you might have played the very devil with them, and at the
same time, not one of the insides of them would have been one button the worse,
for all you had done to them.
I believe in my conscience that mine is made up somewhat after this sort:——
for never poor jerkin has been tickled off at such a rate as it has been these last
nine months together,——and yet I declare, the lining to it,———as far as I am a
judge of the matter,——is not a three-penny piece the worse;—pell-mell, helter-
skelter, ding-dong, cut and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long
way, have they been trimming it for me:—had there been the least gumminess in
my lining,—by heaven! it had all of it long ago been frayed and fretted to a thread.
———You Messrs. the Monthly reviewers!———how could you cut and slash
my jerkin as you did?——how did you know but you would cut my lining too?
Heartily and from my soul, to the protection of that Being who will injure none
of us, do I recommend you and your affairs,—so God bless you;—only next
month, if any one of you should gnash his teeth, and storm and rage at me, as some
of you did last May (in which I remember the weather was very hot)—don’t be
exasperated, if I pass it by again with good temper,—being determined as long as I
live or write (which in my case means the same thing) never to give the honest
gentleman a worse word or a worse wish than my uncle Toby gave the fly which
buzz’d about his nose all dinner-time,———“Go,—go, poor devil,” quoth he,
—“get thee gone,—why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to
hold both thee and me.”

CHAPTER V

Any man, Madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious suffusion of
blood in my father’s countenance,—by means of which (as all the blood in his
body seemed to rush into his face, as I told you) he must have reddened,
pictorically and scientifically speaking, six whole tints and a half, if not a full
octave above his natural colour:—any man, Madam, but my uncle Toby, who had
observed this, together with the violent knitting of my father’s brows, and the
extravagant contortion of his body during the whole affair,—would have
concluded my father in a rage; and taking that for granted,—had he been a lover of
such kind of concord as arises from two such instruments being put in exact tune,
—he would instantly have skrew’d up his, to the same pitch;—and then the devil
and all had broke loose—the whole piece, Madam, must have been played off like
the sixth of Avison Scarlatti—con furia,—like mad.—Grant me patience!——
What has con furia,——con strepito,——or any other hurly burly whatever to do
with harmony?
Any man, I say, Madam, but my uncle Toby, the benignity of whose heart
interpreted every motion of the body in the kindest sense the motion would admit
of, would have concluded my father angry, and blamed him too. My uncle Toby
blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the pocket-hole;——so sitting still till my
father had got his handkerchief out of it, and looking all the time up in his face
with inexpressible good-will——my father, at length, went on as follows.

CHAPTER VI

“What prodigious armies you had in Flanders!”——Brother Toby, quoth my
father, I do believe thee to be as honest a man, and with as good and as upright a
heart as ever God created;—nor is it thy fault, if all the children which have been,
may, can, shall, will, or ought to be begotten, come with their heads foremost into
the world:——but believe me, dear Toby, the accidents which unavoidably waylay
them, not only in the article of our begetting ’em——though these, in my opinion,
are well worth considering,——but the dangers and difficulties our children are
beset with, after they are got forth into the world, are enow—little need is there to
expose them to unnecessary ones in their passage to it.——Are these dangers,
quoth my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon my father’s knee, and looking up

seriously in his face for an answer,——are these dangers greater now o’ days,
brother, than in times past? Brother Toby, answered my father, if a child was but
fairly begot, and born alive, and healthy, and the mother did well after it,—our
forefathers never looked farther.——My uncle Toby instantly withdrew his hand
from off my father’s knee, reclined his body gently back in his chair, raised his
head till he could just see the cornice of the room, and then directing the
buccinatory muscles along his cheeks, and the orbicular muscles around his lips to
do their duty—he whistled Lillabullero.

CHAPTER VII

Whilst my uncle Toby was whistling Lillabullero to my father,—Dr. Slop was
stamping, and cursing and damning at Obadiah at a most dreadful rate,———it
would have done your heart good, and cured you, Sir, for ever of the vile sin of
swearing, to have heard him; I am determined therefore to relate the whole affair
to you.
When Dr. Slop’s maid delivered the green bays bag with her master’s
instruments in it, to Obadiah, she very sensibly exhorted him to put his head and
one arm through the strings, and ride with it slung across his body: so undoing the
bow-knot, to lengthen the strings for him, without any more ado, she helped him
on with it. However, as this, in some measure, unguarded the mouth of the bag,
lest anything should bolt out in galloping back, at the speed Obadiah threatened,
they consulted to take it off again: and in the great care and caution of their hearts,
they had taken the two strings and tied them close (pursing up the mouth of the
bag first) with half a dozen hard knots, each of which Obadiah, to make all safe,
had twitched and drawn together with all the strength of his body.
This answered all that Obadiah and the maid intended; but was no remedy
against some evils which neither he or she foresaw. The instruments, it seems, as
tight as the bag was tied above, had so much room to play in it, towards the bottom
(the shape of the bag being conical) that Obadiah could not make a trot of it, but
with such a terrible jingle, what with the tire tête, forceps, and squirt, as would
have been enough, had Hymen been taking a jaunt that way, to have frightened him
out of the country; but when Obadiah accelerated his motion, and from a plain trot
assayed to prick his coach-horse into a full gallop——by Heaven! Sir, the jingle
was incredible.

As Obadiah had a wife and three children——the turpitude of fornication, and
the many other political ill consequences of this jingling, never once entered his
brain,——he had however his objection, which came home to himself, and
weighed with him, as it has oft-times done with the greatest patriots.——“The
poor fellow, Sir, was not able to hear himself whistle.”

CHAPTER VIII

As Obadiah loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music he carried
with him,—he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to
invent by what means he should put himself in a condition of enjoying it.
In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt
to enter a man’s head as his hat-band:——the philosophy of this is so near the
surface——I scorn to enter into it.
As Obadiah’s was a mix’d case——mark, Sirs,——I say, a mixed case; for it
was obstetrical,——scriptical, squirtical, papistical——and as far as the coach-
horse was concerned in it,——caballistical——and only partly musical;—
Obadiah made no scruple of availing himself of the first expedient which offered;
so taking hold of the bag and instruments, and griping them hard together with one
hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other putting the end of the hat-band
betwixt his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of it,—he tied and
cross-tied them all fast together from one end to the other (as you would cord a
trunk) with such a multiplicity of roundabouts and intricate cross turns, with a hard
knot at every intersection or point where the strings met,—that Dr. Slop must have
had three-fifths of Job’s patience at least to have unloosed them.—I think in my
conscience, that had Nature been in one of her nimble moods, and in humour for
such a contest——and she and Dr. Slop both fairly started together——there is no
man living who had seen the bag with all that Obadiah had done to it,——and
known likewise the great speed the Goddess can make when she thinks proper,
who would have had the least doubt remaining in his mind—which of the two
would have carried off the prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner
than the green bag infallibly——at least by twenty knots.——Sport of small
accidents, Tristram Shandy! that thou art, and ever will be! had that trial been for
thee, and it was fifty to one but it had,——thy affairs had not been so depress’d—
(at least by the depression of thy nose) as they have been; nor had the fortunes of
thy house and the occasions of making them, which have so often presented

themselves in the course of thy life, to thee, been so often, so vexatiously, so
tamely, so irrecoverably abandoned—as thou hast been forced to leave them;——
but ’tis over,——all but the account of ’em, which cannot be given to the curious
till I am got out into the world.

CHAPTER IX

Great wits jump: for the moment Dr. Slop cast his eyes upon his bag (which he
had not done till the dispute with my uncle Toby about midwifery put him in mind
of it)—the very same thought occurred.—’Tis God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself)
that Mrs. Shandy has had so bad a time of it,——else she might have been brought
to bed seven times told, before one half of these knots could have got untied.——
But here you must distinguish—the thought floated only in Dr. Slop’s mind,
without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your
worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of
a man’s understanding, without being carried backwards or forwards, till some
little gusts of passion or interest drive them to one side.
A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother’s bed, did the
proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that’s unfortunate, quoth Dr.
Slop, unless I make haste, the thing will actually befall me as it is.

CHAPTER X

In the case of knots,—by which, in the first place, I would not be understood to
mean slip-knots—because in the course of my life and opinions—my opinions
concerning them will come in more properly when I mention the catastrophe of
my great uncle Mr. Hammond Shandy,—a little man,—but of high fancy:—he
rushed into the duke of Monmouth’s affair:——nor, secondly, in this place, do I
mean that particular species of knots called bow-knots;—there is so little address,
or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below my giving
any opinion at all about them.—But by the knots I am speaking of, may it please
your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots,
made bona fide, as Obadiah made his;——in which there is no quibbling
provision made by the duplication and return of the two ends of the strings thro’

the annulus or noose made by the second implication of them—to get them slipp’d
and undone by.—I hope you apprehend me.
In the case of these knots then, and of the several obstructions, which, may it
please your reverences, such knots cast in our way in getting through life——
every hasty man can whip out his penknife and cut through them.——’Tis wrong.
Believe me, Sirs, the most virtuous way, and which both reason and conscience
dictate——is to take our teeth or our fingers to them.——Dr. Slop had lost his
teeth—his favourite instrument, by extracting in a wrong direction, or by some
misapplication of it, unfortunately slipping, he had formerly, in a hard labour,
knock’d out three of the best of them with the handle of it:———he tried his
fingers—alas; the nails of his fingers and thumbs were cut close.——The duce
take it! I can make nothing of it either way, cried Dr. Slop.——The trampling
overhead near my mother’s bedside increased.—Pox take the fellow! I shall never
get the knots untied as long as I live.——My mother gave a groan.——Lend me
your penknife——I must e’en cut the knots at last——pugh!——psha!—Lord!
I have cut my thumb quite across to the very bone——curse the fellow—if there
was not another man-midwife within fifty miles——I am undone for this bout—
I wish the scoundrel hang’d—I wish he was shot——I wish all the devils in hell
had him for a blockhead!———
My father had a great respect for Obadiah, and could not bear to hear him
disposed of in such a manner—he had moreover some little respect for himself—
and could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself in it.
Had Dr. Slop cut any part about him, but his thumb——my father had pass’d it
by—his prudence had triumphed: as it was, he was determined to have his
revenge.
Small curses, Dr. Slop, upon great occasions, quoth my father (condoling with
him first upon the accident), are but so much waste of our strength and soul’s
health to no manner of purpose.—I own it, replied Dr. Slop.—They are like
sparrow-shot, quoth my uncle Toby (suspending his whistling), fired against a
bastion.——They serve, continued my father, to stir the humours——but carry off
none of their acrimony:—for my own part, I seldom swear or curse at all—I hold it
bad——but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much presence of mind
(right, quoth my uncle Toby) as to make it answer my purpose——that is, I swear
on till I find myself easy. A wise and a just man however would always endeavour
to proportion the vent given to these humours, not only to the degree of them
stirring within himself—but to the size and ill intent of the offence upon which
they are to fall.—“Injuries come only from the heart,”—quoth my uncle Toby. For
this reason, continued my father, with the most Cervantick gravity, I have the
greatest veneration in the world for that gentleman, who, in distrust of his own

discretion in this point, sat down and composed (that is at his leisure) fit forms of
swearing suitable to all cases, from the lowest to the highest provocation which
could possibly happen to him——which forms being well considered by him, and
such moreover as he could stand to, he kept them ever by him on the chimney-
piece, within his reach, ready for use.—I never apprehended, replied Dr. Slop, that
such a thing was ever thought of——much less executed. I beg your pardon,
answered my father; I was reading, though not using, one of them to my brother
Toby this morning, whilst he pour’d out the tea—’tis here upon the shelf over my
head;—but if I remember right, ’tis too violent for a cut of the thumb.—Not at all,
quoth Dr. Slop—the devil take the fellow.——Then, answered my father, ’Tis
much at your service, Dr. Slop—on condition you will read it aloud;——so rising
up and reaching down a form of excommunication of the church of Rome, a copy
of which, my father (who was curious in his collections) had procured out of the
leger-book of the church of Rochester, writ by Ernulphus the bishop——with a
most affected seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled Ernulphus
himself—he put it into Dr. Slop’s hands.——Dr. Slop wrapt his thumb up in the
corner of his handkerchief, and with a wry face, though without any suspicion,
read aloud, as follows———my uncle Toby whistling Lillabullero as loud as he
could all the time.

Textus de Ecclesiâ Roffensi, per Ernulfum Episcopum.

CAP. XI CHAPTER XI
EXCOMMUNICATIO 2

Ex auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, “By the authority of God Almighty,
Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus Sancti, et the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and
sanctorum canonum, sanctæque et of the holy canons, and of the
intemeratæ Virginis Dei genetricis undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and
Mariæ,— patroness of our Saviour.”

I think there is no necessity, quoth Dr. Slop, dropping the paper down to his knee,
and addressing himself to my father——as you have read it over, Sir, so lately, to
read it aloud——and as Captain Shandy seems to have no great inclination to hear

it———I may as well read it to myself. That’s contrary to treaty, replied my
father:———besides, there is something so whimsical, especially in the latter part
of it, I should grieve to lose the pleasure of a second reading. Dr. Slop did not
altogether like it,———but my uncle Toby offering at that instant to give over
whistling, and read it himself to them;———Dr. Slop thought he might as well
read it under the cover of my uncle Toby’s whistling———as suffer my uncle Toby
to read it alone;——so raising up the paper to his face, and holding it quite parallel
to it, in order to hide his chagrin———he read it aloud as follows————my
uncle Toby whistling Lillabullero, though not quite so loud as before.

———Atque omnium cœlestium “By the authority of God Almighty,
virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and
thronorum, dominationum, of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother
potestatuum, cherubin ac seraphin, & and patroness of our Saviour, and of
sanctorum patriarchum, prophetarum, all the celestial virtues, angels,
& omnium apostolorum & archangels, thrones, dominions,
evangelistarum, & sanctorum powers, cherubins and seraphins, and
innocentum, qui in conspectu Agni of all the holy patriarchs, prophets,
soli digni inventi sunt canticum and of all the apostles and evangelists,
cantare novum, et sanctorum and of the holy innocents, who in the
martyrum et sanctorum confessorum, sight of the Holy Lamb, are found
et sanctarum virginum, atque omnium worthy to sing the new song of the
simul sanctorum et electorum Dei, holy martyrs and holy confessors, and
of the holy virgins, and of all the
saints, together with the holy and elect
of God,——May he” (Obadiah) “be
damn’d” (for tying these knots)
——Excommunicamus, et ——“We excommunicate, and
anathematizamus anathematize him, and from the
vel os s vel os s thresholds of the holy church of God
hunc furem, vel hunc malefactorem, Almighty we sequester him, that he
N. N. et a liminibus sanctæ Dei may be tormented, disposed, and
ecclesiæ sequestramus, et æternis delivered over with Dathan and
suppliciis Abiram, and with those who say unto
vel i n the Lord God, Depart from us, we
excruciandus, mancipetur, cum Dathan desire none of thy ways. And as fire is
et Abiram, et cum his qui dixerunt quenched with water, so let the light of
Domino Deo, Recede à nobis, him be put out for evermore, unless it
scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus: et shall repent him” (Obadiah, of the

sicut aquâ ignis extinguitur, sic knots which he has tied) “and make
extinguatur satisfaction” (for them) “Amen.”
vel eorum
lucerna ejus in secula seculorum nisi
n, n
resipuerit, et ad satisfactionem venerit.
Amen.
os
Maledicat illum Deus Pater qui “May the Father who created man,
hominem creavit. curse him.——May the Son who
os suffered for us, curse him.——May
Maledicat illum Dei Filius qui pro the Holy Ghost, who was given to us
homine passus est. in baptism, curse him (Obadiah)——
os May the holy cross which Christ, for
Maledicat illum Spiritus Sanctus qui in our salvation triumphing over his
baptismo effusus est. enemies, ascended, curse him.
os
Maledicat illum sancta crux, quam
Christus pro nostrâ salute hostem
triumphans ascendit.
os
Maledicat illum sancta Dei genetrix “May the holy and eternal Virgin
et perpetua Virgo Maria. Mary, mother of God, curse him.
os ———May St. Michael, the advocate
Maledicat illum sanctus Michael, of holy souls, curse him.——May all
animarum susceptor sacrarum. the angels and archangels,
os principalities and powers, and all the
Maledicant illum omnes angeli et heavenly armies, curse him.” [Our
archangeli, principatus et potestates, armies swore terribly in Flanders,
omnisque militia cœlestis. cried my uncle Toby,———but
nothing to this.———For my own
part I could not have a heart to curse
my dog so.]
os
Maledicat illum patriarcharum et “May St. John, the Præcursor, and
prophetarum laudabilis numerus. St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and
os St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other
Maledicat illum sanctus Johannes Christ’s apostles, together curse him.
Præcusor et Baptista Christi, et sanctus And may the rest of his disciples and

Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque four evangelists, who by their
sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi preaching converted the universal
apostoli, simul et cæteri world, and may the holy and
discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistæ, wonderful company of martyrs and
qui sua prædicatione mundum confessors who by their holy works
universum converterunt. are found pleasing to God Almighty,
os curse him” (Obadiah).
Maledicat illum cuneus martyrum et
confessorum mirificus, qui Deo bonis
operibus placitus inventus est.
os
Maledicant illum sacrarum “May the holy choir of the holy
virginum chori, quæ mundi vana causa virgins, who for the honour of Christ
honoris Christi respuenda have despised the things of the world,
contempserunt. damn him——May all the saints, who
os from the beginning of the world to
Maledicant illum omnes sancti qui ab everlasting ages are found to be
initio mundi usque in finem seculi Deo beloved of God, damn him———May
dilecti inveniuntur. the heavens and earth, and all the holy
os things remaining therein, damn him”
Maledicant illum cœli et terra, et (Obadiah) “or her” (or whoever else
omnia sancta in eis manentia. had a hand in tying these knots).
i n n
Maledictus sit ubicunque fuerit, sive “May he (Obadiah) be damn’d
in domo, sive in agro, sive in viâ, sive wherever he be——whether in the
in semitâ, sive in silvâ, sive in aquâ, house or the stables, the garden or the
sive in ecclesiâ. field, or the highway, or in the path, or
i n in the wood, or in the water, or in the
Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, church.——May he be cursed in
——— ——— living, in dying.” [Here my uncle
——— Toby, taking the advantage of a minim
——— ——— in the second bar of his tune, kept
——— whistling one continued note to the
——— ——— end of the sentence.——Dr. Slop, with
——— his division of curses moving under
manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, him, like a running bass all the way.]
sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, “May he be cursed in eating, and
dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, drinking, in being hungry, in being
stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in

quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, slumbering, in walking, in standing, in
flebotomando. sitting, in lying, in working, in resting,
in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-
letting!”
i n “May he” (Obadiah) “be cursed in
Maledictus sit in totis viribus all the faculties of his body!
corporis,
i n “May he be cursed inwardly and
Maledictus sit intus et exterius. outwardly!———May he be cursed in
i n the hair of his head!——May he be
Maledictus sit in capillis; cursed in his brains, and in his vertex”
i n (that is a sad curse, quoth my father),
maledictus sit in cerebro. “in his temples, in his forehead, in his
i n ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks,
Maledictus sit in vertice, in in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his
temporibus, in fronte, in auriculis, in fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in
superciliis, in oculis, in genis, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his
maxillis, in naribus, in dentibus, wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his
mordacibus, sive molaribus, in labiis, fingers!
in guttere, in humeris, in harnis, in “May he be damn’d in his mouth, in
brachiis, in manubus, in digitis, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance,
pectore, in corde, et in omnibus down to the very stomach!
interioribus stomacho tenus, in “May he be cursed in his reins, and
renibus, in inguinibus, in femore, in in his groin” (God in heaven forbid!
genitalibus, in coxis, in genubus, in quoth my uncle Toby), “in his thighs,
cruribus, in pedibus, et in inguibus. in his genitals” (my father shook his
head), “and in his hips, and in his
knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails!
Maledictus sit in totis compagibus “May he be cursed in all the joints
membrorum, a vertice capitis, usque and articulations of his members, from
ad plantam pedis—non sit in eo the top of his head to the sole of his
sanitas. foot! May there be no soundness in
him!
Maledicat illum Christus Filius Dei “May the Son of the living God,
vivi toto suæ majestatis imperio.—— with all the glory of his Majesty”——

[Here my uncle Toby, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous, long, loud Whew
—w—w————something betwixt the interjectional whistle of Hay-day! and the
word itself.———

——By the golden beard of Jupiter—and of Juno (if her majesty wore one) and
by the beards of the rest of your heathen worships, which by the bye was no small
number, since what with the beards of your celestial gods, and gods aerial and
aquatick—to say nothing of the beards of town-gods and country-gods, or of the
celestial goddesses your wives, or of the infernal goddesses your whores and
concubines (that is in case they wore them)———all which beards, as Varro tells
me, upon his word and honour, when mustered up together, made no less than
thirty thousand effective beards upon the Pagan establishment;——every beard of
which claimed the rights and privileges of being stroken and sworn by—by all
these beards together then——I vow and protest, that of the two bad cassocks I am
worth in the world, I would have given the better of them, as freely as ever Cid
Hamet offered his——to have stood by, and heard my uncle Toby’s
accompanyment.]

——et insurgat adversus illum ——“curse him!” continued Dr.
cœlum cum omnibus virtutibus quæ in Slop,—“and may heaven, with all the
eo moventur ad damnandum eum, nisi powers which move therein, rise up
penituerit et ad satisfactionem venerit. against him, curse and damn him”
Amen. Fiat, fiat. Amen. (Obadiah) “unless he repent and make
satisfaction! Amen. So be it,—so be it.
Amen.”

I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil
himself with so much bitterness.—He is the father of curses, replied Dr. Slop.——
So am not I, replied my uncle.——But he is cursed, and damn’d already, to all
eternity, replied Dr. Slop.
I am sorry for it, quoth my uncle Toby.
Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle Toby the
compliment of his Whu—u—u—or interjectional whistle——when the door
hastily opening in the next chapter but one——put an end to the affair.

CHAPTER XII

Now don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we
make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the
spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.

I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a
connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing,——
as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c., &c., the whole set of ’em are so
hung round and befetish’d with the bobs and trinkets of criticism,——or to drop
my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity,——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the
coast of Guiney;—their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and
have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of
genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and tortured to
death by ’em.
—And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all rule,
my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which
should agree together in number, case, and gender, he made a breach thus,—
stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and betwixt the nominative case, which
your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the
epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three-fifths by a stop-watch, my lord,
each time,—Admirable grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the
sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the
chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?———I look’d only at the
stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer!
And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh!
’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of the angles
at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and compasses, &c., my lord,
in my pocket.—Excellent critick!
——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the
length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact
scale of Bossu’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.—Admirable
connoisseur!
——And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?
—’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one
group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian—
the expression of Rubens—the grace of Raphael—the purity of Dominichino—the
corregiescity of Corregio—the learning of Poussin—the airs of Guido—the taste
of the Carrachis—or the grand contour of Angela.—Grant me patience, just
Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant
of hypocrites may be the worst——the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the
hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination
into his author’s hands——be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

Great Apollo! if thou art in a giving humour—give me—I ask no more, but one
stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire along with it——and
send Mercury, with the rules and compasses, if he can be spared, with my
compliments to—no matter.
Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and
imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two
hundred and fifty years last past as originals——except St. Paul’s thumb——
God’s flesh and God’s fish, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who
made them, not much amiss; and as kings’ oaths, ’tis not much matter whether
they were fish or flesh;—else I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst
them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus a thousand
times: but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the
original!—It is thought to be no bad oath——and by itself passes very well—“G—
d damn you.”—Set it beside Ernulphus’s——“God Almighty the Father damn you
—God the Son damn you—God the Holy Ghost damn you”—you see ’tis nothing.
—There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious
in his invention—possess’d more of the excellencies of a swearer——had such a
thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments,
knittings of the joints, and articulations,——that when Ernulphus cursed—no part
escaped him.—’Tis true there is something of a hardness in his manner——and, as
in Michael Angelo, a want of grace——but then there is such a greatness of gusto!
My father, who generally look’d upon everything in a light very different from
all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an original.——He considered
rather, Ernulphus’s anathema, as an institute of swearing, in which, as he
suspected, upon the decline of swearing in some milder pontificate, Ernulphus, by
order of the succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence collected
together all the laws of it;—for the same reason that Justinian, in the decline of the
empire, had ordered his chancellor Tribonian to collect the Roman or civil laws all
together into one code or digest——lest, through the rust of time——and the
fatality of all things committed to oral tradition—they should be lost to the world
for ever.
For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath, from
the great and tremendous oath of William the Conqueror (By the splendour of God)
down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (Damn your eyes) which was not to be
found in Ernulphus.—In short, he would add—I defy a man to swear out of it.
The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious too;——nor
have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.

CHAPTER XIII

——Bless my soul!—my poor mistress is ready to faint——and her pains are
gone—and the drops are done—and the bottle of julap is broke——and the nurse
has cut her arm—(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. Slop,) and the child is where it was,
continued Susannah,—and the midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the
fender, and bruised her hip as black as your hat.—I’ll look at it, quoth Dr. Slop.—
There is no need of that, replied Susannah,—you had better look at my mistress—
but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires
you would go up stairs and speak to her this moment.
Human nature is the same in all professions.
The midwife had just before been put over Dr. Slop’s head—He had not digested
it,—No, replied Dr. Slop, ’twould be full as proper, if the midwife came down to
me.—I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby,—and but for it, after the
reduction of Lisle, I know not what might have become of the garrison of Ghent,
in the mutiny for bread, in the year Ten.—Nor, replied Dr. Slop, (parodying my
uncle Toby’s hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical himself)
———do I know, Captain Shandy, what might have become of the garrison above
stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at present, but for the
subordination of fingers and thumbs to ******———the application of which,
Sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so à propos, that without it, the cut upon
my thumb might have been felt by the Shandy family, as long as the Shandy family
had a name.

CHAPTER XIV

Let us go back to the ******——in the last chapter.
It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence flourished
at Athens and Rome, and would be so now, did orators wear mantles) not to
mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing about you in petto, ready to
produce, pop, in the place you want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet,
a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny
pickle pot—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.—Tho’ if it was too
young, and the oration as long as Tully’s second Philippick—it must certainly have
beshit the orator’s mantle.—And then again, if too old,—it must have been

unwieldy and incommodious to his action—so as to make him lose by his child
almost as much as he could gain by it.—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the
precise age to a minute——hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no
mortal could smell it——and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it
came in by head and shoulders—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders—It has open’d the
sluices, and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politicks
of half a nation.
These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and times, I say,
where orators wore mantles——and pretty large ones too, my brethren, with some
twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple, superfine, marketable cloth in
them—with large flowing folds and doubles, and in a great style of design.—All
which plainly shews, may it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and
the little good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing to
nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of trunk-hose.——We can
conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.

CHAPTER XV

Dr. Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for
happening to have his green bays bag upon his knees, when he began to parody my
uncle Toby—’twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which
purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he
thrust his hand into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, when your
reverences took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed——my uncle
Toby had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the argument in that case
jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of
a ravelin,——Dr. Slop would never have given them up;—and my uncle Toby
would as soon have thought of flying, as taking them by force: but Dr. Slop
fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a
ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his
forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it.
When a proposition can be taken in two senses—’tis a law in disputation, That
the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient
for him.——This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby’s
side.——“Good God!” cried my uncle Toby, “are children brought into the world
with a squirt?”

CHAPTER XVI

—Upon my honour, Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the back of both
my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle Toby—and you have crush’d all my
knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly. ’Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slop
——you should have clinch’d your two fists together into the form of a child’s
head as I told you, and sat firm. I did so, answered my uncle Toby.——Then the
points of my forceps have not been sufficiently arm’d, or the rivet wants closing—
or else the cut in my thumb has made me a little aukward—or possibly—’Tis well,
quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities—that the experiment was
not first made upon my child’s head-piece.———It would not have been a cherry-
stone the worse, answered Dr. Slop.—I maintain it, said my uncle Toby, it would
have broke the cerebellum (unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado)
and turn’d it all into a perfect posset.———Pshaw! replied Dr. Slop, a child’s head
is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple;—the sutures give way—and besides,
I could have extracted by the feet after.—Not you, said she.——I rather wish you
would begin that way, quoth my father.
Pray do, added my uncle Toby.

CHAPTER XVII

——And pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it may not be
the child’s hip, as well as the child’s head?———’Tis most certainly the head,
replied the midwife. Because, continued Dr. Slop (turning to my father) as positive
as these old ladies generally are—’tis a point very difficult to know—and yet of
the greatest consequence to be known;——because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for
the head—there is a possibility (if it is a boy) that the forceps * * * * * *
——What the possibility was, Dr. Slop whispered very low to my father, and
then to my uncle Toby.——There is no such danger, continued he, with the head.
—No, in truth, quoth my father—but when your possibility has taken place at the
hip—you may as well take off the head too.
——It is morally impossible the reader should understand this——’tis enough
Dr. Slop understood it;——so taking the green bays bag in his hand, with the help
of Obadiah’s pumps, he tripp’d pretty nimbly, for a man of his size, across the

room to the door———and from the door was shewn the way, by the good old
midwife, to my mother’s apartments.

CHAPTER XVIII

It is two hours, and ten minutes—and no more—cried my father, looking at his
watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived—and I know not how it happens,
brother Toby—but to my imagination it seems almost an age.
——Here—pray, Sir, take hold of my cap—nay, take the bell along with it, and
my pantoufles too.
Now, Sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present of ’em, on
condition you give me all your attention to this chapter.
Though my father said, “he knew not how it happen’d,”—yet he knew very well
how it happen’d;——and at the instant he spoke it, was pre-determined in his
mind to give my uncle Toby a clear account of the matter by a metaphysical
dissertation upon the subject of duration and its simple modes, in order to shew
my uncle Toby by what mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass,
that the rapid succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of the discourse
from one thing to another, since Dr. Slop had come into the room, had lengthened
out so short a period to so inconceivable an extent.——“I know not how it
happens—cried my father,—but it seems an age.”
——’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the succession of our ideas.
My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon
everything which happened, and accounting for it too—proposed infinite pleasure
to himself in this, of the succession of ideas, and had not the least apprehension of
having it snatch’d out of his hands by my uncle Toby, who (honest man!) generally
took everything as it happened;——and who, of all things in the world, troubled
his brain the least with abstruse thinking;—the ideas of time and space—or how
we came by those ideas—or of what stuff they were made——or whether they
were born with us—or we picked them up afterwards as we went along—or
whether we did it in frocks——or not till we had got into breeches—with a
thousand other inquiries and disputes about infinity, prescience, liberty, necessity,
and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine
heads have been turned and cracked——never did my uncle Toby’s the least injury
at all; my father knew it—and was no less surprized than he was disappointed,
with my uncle’s fortuitous solution.

Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about?—
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.
Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands
together——there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby——’twere
almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.—But I’ll tell thee.——
To understand what time is aright, without which we never can comprehend
infinity, insomuch as one is a portion of the other——we ought seriously to sit
down and consider what idea it is we have of duration, so as to give a satisfactory
account how we came by it.——What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle Toby.
3For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind, continued my father, and
observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking
together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively
ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and so we estimate the existence, or
the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or anything else, commensurate to
the succession of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such
other thing co-existing with our thinking——and so according to that preconceived
———You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle Toby.
———’Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of time,
we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months——and of clocks (I wish
there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out their several portions to us,
and to those who belong to us——that ’twill be well, if in time to come, the
succession of our ideas be of any use or service to us at all.
Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man’s
head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each
other in train just like———A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby——A train of
a fiddle-stick!—quoth my father—which follow and succeed one another in our
minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned
round by the heat of a candle.—I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like
a smoak-jack.———Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon
that subject, said my father.

CHAPTER XIX

——What a conjecture was here lost!——My father in one of his best explanatory
moods—in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where
clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;—my uncle
Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;—his head like a smoak-
jack;——the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it,
all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!—By the tomb-stone of
Lucian——if it is in being——if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my
dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes!———my father and my uncle Toby’s
discourse upon time and eternity——was a discourse devoutly to be wished for!
and the petulancy of my father’s humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a
robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great
occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.

CHAPTER XX

Tho’ my father persisted in not going on with the discourse—yet he could not get
my uncle Toby’s smoak-jack out of his head—piqued as he was at first with it;—
there was something in the comparison at the bottom, which hit his fancy; for
which purpose, resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his
head upon the palm of his hand——but looking first stedfastly in the fire——he
began to commune with himself, and philosophize about it: but his spirits being
wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of
his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the
discourse———the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down
—so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about.
As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before
he fell asleep also.——Peace be with them both!——Dr. Slop is engaged with the
midwife and my mother above stairs.——Trim is busy in turning an old pair of
jackboots into a couple of mortars, to be employed in the siege of Messina next
summer—and is this instant boring the touch-holes with the point of a hot poker.
——All my heroes are off my hands;—’tis the first time I have had a moment to
spare—and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface.

THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE

No, I’ll not say a word about it——here it is;—in publishing it—I have appealed
to the world——and to the world I leave it;—it must speak for itself.
All I know of the matter is—when I sat down, my intent was to write a good
book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out—a wise, aye,
and a discreet—taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and the
judgment (be it more or less) which the great Author and Bestower of them had
thought fit originally to give me———so that, as your worships see—’tis just as
God pleases.
Now, Agelastes (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in
it, for aught he knows——but no judgment at all. And Triptolemus and
Phutatorius agreeing thereto, ask, How is it possible there should? for that wit and
judgment in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations
differing from each other as wide as east from west———So, says Locke——so
are farting and hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, Didius the great church
lawyer, in his code de fartendi et illustrandi fallaciis, doth maintain and make fully
appear, That an illustration is no argument——nor do I maintain the wiping of a
looking-glass clean to be a syllogism;——but you all, may it please your
worships, see the better for it———so that the main good these things do is only
to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in
order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular matter, which, if left
swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil all.
Now, my dear anti-Shandeans, and thrice able criticks, and fellow-labourers (for
to you I write this Preface)———and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet
doctors (do—pull off your beards) renowned for gravity and wisdom;——
Monopolus, my politician—Didius, my counsel; Kysarcius, my friend;—
Phutatorius, my guide;——Gastripheres, the preserver of my life; Somnolentius,
the balm and repose of it——not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as waking,
ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no resentment to you, I lump all
together.———Believe me, right worthy,
My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in
case the thing is not done already for us——is, that the great gifts and
endowments both of wit and judgment, with everything which usually goes along
with them———such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, quick parts, and what
not, may this precious moment, without stint or measure, let or hindrance, be
poured down warm as each of us could bear it—scum and sediment and all (for I
would not have a drop lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles,
dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains———in such sort, that
they might continue to be injected and tunn’d into, according to the true intent and
meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great and small, be so

replenish’d, saturated, and filled up therewith, that no more, would it save a man’s
life, could possibly be got either in or out.
Bless us!—what noble work we should make!——how should I tickle it off!
——and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for such readers!
——and you—just heaven!——with what raptures would you sit and read—but
oh!—’tis too much——I am sick——I faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it
—’tis more than nature can bear!—lay hold of me——I am giddy—I am stone
blind—I’m dying—I am gone.—Help! Help! Help!—But hold—I grow something
better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of
us continue to be great wits—we should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to
an end:——there would be so much satire and sarcasm——scoffing and flouting,
with raillying and reparteeing of it—thrusting and parrying in one corner or
another——there would be nothing but mischief among us——Chaste stars! what
biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should make, what with
breaking of heads, rapping of knuckles, and hitting of sore places—there would be
no such thing as living for us.
But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we should
make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we should abominate
each other ten times worse than so many devils or devilesses, we should
nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy and kindness, milk and honey
—’twould be a second land of promise—a paradise upon earth, if there was such a
thing to be had—so that upon the whole we should have done well enough.
All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at present, is how
to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships well know, that of these
heavenly emanations of wit and judgment, which I have so bountifully wished both
for your worships and myself—there is but a certain quantum stored up for us all,
for the use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of
’em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in one bye
corner or another—and in such narrow streams, and at such prodigious intervals
from each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for
the wants and emergencies of so many great estates, and populous empires.
Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland,
and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, which lie more directly under
the arctick and antarctick circles, where the whole province of a man’s
concernments lies for near nine months together within the narrow compass of his
cave—where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing—and where the
passions of a man, with everything which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone
itself—there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business—and of
wit——there is a total and an absolute saving—for as not one spark is wanted—so

not one spark is given. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! what a dismal
thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or
made a treaty, or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial
chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! For mercy’s
sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we can southwards into
Norway—crossing over Swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular
province of Angermania to the lake of Bothnia; coasting along it through east and
west Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces
which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north-east of the
Baltick, up to Petersbourg, and just stepping into Ingria;—then stretching over
directly from thence through the north parts of the Russian empire—leaving
Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we got into the very heart of Russian and
Asiatick Tartary.
Now throughout this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good
people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have just left:—
for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may
perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of wit, with a comfortable provision
of good plain household judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it
together, they make a very good shift with———and had they more of either the
one or the other, it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them, and I am
satisfied moreover they would want occasions to put them to use.
Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant
island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and humours runs high
———where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and lechery, and other
whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason———the
height of our wit, and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned
to the length and breadth of our necessities———and accordingly we have them
sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of descent and creditable plenty, that
no one thinks he has any cause to complain.
It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and cold—
wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way;—so
that sometimes for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or
judgment either to be seen or heard of amongst us:——the small channels of them
shall seem quite dried up——then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and
take a fit of running again like fury——you would think they would never stop:
——and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant things, we
drive all the world before us.
It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of
argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectick induction———that I draw

and set up this position as most true and veritable;
That of these two luminaries so much of their irradiations are suffered from time
to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses
everything in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our
way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships now find
out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent
wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating
How d’ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a
coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily
procured, as the exordium wished it—I tremble to think how many thousands for
it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and
blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives——running their heads
against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies
end;——some falling with their noses perpendicularly into sinks——others
horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession
tilting full but against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over
the other in the dirt like hogs.—Here the brethren of another profession, who
should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of
wild geese, all in a row the same way.—What confusion!—what mistakes!——
fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears—admirable!—trusting to the
passions excited—in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart——instead of
measuring them by a quadrant.
In the fore-ground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a
brute, the wrong way round——against the stream of corruption—by Heaven!
——instead of with it.
In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against
predestination; perhaps worse—feeling his patient’s pulse, instead of his
apothecary’s——a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his knees in
tears—drawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness;—offering
a fee—instead of taking one.
In that spacious hall, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a
damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the
wrong way!——kicking it out of the great doors, instead of in——and with such
fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as
if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind:
——perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still———a litigated
point fairly hung up;———for instance, Whether John o’Nokes his nose could
stand in Tom o’Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not—rashly determined by
them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required

in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months——and if
carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an action should be, with
all the stratagems practicable therein,———such as feints,——forced marches,
——surprizes——ambuscades——mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of
generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides———might
reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term
for a centumvirate of the profession.
As for the Clergy———No——if I say a word against them, I’ll be shot.——
I have no desire;—and besides, if I had—I durst not for my soul touch upon the
subject——with such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at
present, ’twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself
with so bad and melancholy an account—and therefore ’tis safer to draw a curtain
across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have
undertaken to clear up——and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of
least wit are reported to be men of most judgment.——But mark—I say, reported
to be—for it is no more, my dear Sirs, than a report, and which, like twenty others
taken up every day upon trust, I maintain to be a vile and a malicious report into
the bargain.
This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already
weighed and perpended by your reverences and worships, I shall forthwith make
appear.
I hate set dissertations——and above all things in the world, ’tis one of the
silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of
tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your
reader’s conception—when in all likelihood, if you had looked about, you might
have seen something standing, or hanging up, which would have cleared the point
at once—“for what hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the laudable desire of knowledge
bring to any man, if even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a stool, a winter-mittain,
a truckle for a pully, the lid of a goldsmith’s crucible, an oil bottle, an old slipper,
or a cane chair?”—I am this moment sitting upon one. Will you give me leave to
illustrate this affair of wit and judgment, by the two knobs on the top of the back
of it?—they are fastened on, you see, with two pegs stuck slightly into two gimlet-
holes, and will place what I have to say in so clear a light, as to let you see through
the drift and meaning of my whole preface, as plainly as if every point and particle
of it was made up of sun-beams.

I enter now directly upon the point.
—Here stands wit—and there stands judgment, close beside it, just like the two
knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same chair on which I am sitting.
—You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its frame—as wit
and judgment are of ours—and like them too, indubitably both made and fitted to
go together, in order, as we say in all such cases of duplicated embellishments
————to answer one another.
Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this matter—
let us for a moment take off one of these two curious ornaments (I care not which)
from the point or pinnacle of the chair it now stands on—nay, don’t laugh at it,—
but did you ever see, in the whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business
as this has made of it?—Why, ’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and
there is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the other:——do——
pray, get off your seats only to take a view of it.——Now would any man who
valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of work out of his hand in such a
condition?—nay, lay your hands upon your hearts, and answer this plain question,
Whether this one single knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself,
can serve any purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the other?
—and let me farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you would not in your
consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it would be ten times better without
any knob at all?
Now these two knobs———or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown
the whole entablature——being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all others,
as I have proved it, are the most needful——the most priz’d—the most calamitous
to be without, and consequently the hardest to come at—for all these reasons put
together, there is not a mortal among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or
feeding——or so ignorant of what will do him good therein—who does not wish
and stedfastly resolve in his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of
the one or the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems any way
feasible, or likely to be brought to pass.
Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at the one
—unless they laid hold of the other,——pray what do you think would become of
them?——Why, Sirs, in spite of all their gravities, they must e’en have been
contented to have gone with their insides naked——this was not to be borne, but
by an effort of philosophy not to be supposed in the case we are upon——so that
no one could well have been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what
little they could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great
perriwigs, had they not raised a hue and cry at the same time against the lawful
owners.

I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning and
artifice——that the great Locke, who was seldom outwitted by false sounds
———was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep and solemn
a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces, and other implements of
deceit, was rendered so general a one against the poor wits in this matter, that the
philosopher himself was deceived by it—it was his glory to free the world from
the lumber of a thousand vulgar errors;——but this was not of the number; so that
instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done, to have
examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it——on the contrary he
took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the cry, and halloo’d it as
boisterously as the rest.
This has been made the Magna Charta of stupidity ever since——but your
reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that the title to it is
not worth a groat:——which by the bye is one of the many and vile impositions
which gravity and grave folks have to answer for hereafter.
As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind too
freely———I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said to their
dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration——That I have no abhorrence
whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great wigs or long beards, any farther
than when I see they are bespoke and let grow on purpose to carry on this self-
same imposture—for any purpose——peace be with them!— mark only——
I write not for them.

CHAPTER XXI

Every day for at least ten years together did my father resolve to have it mended
—’tis not mended yet;—no family but ours would have borne with it an hour——
and what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in the world upon which my
father was so eloquent, as upon that of door-hinges.——And yet at the same time,
he was certainly one of the greatest bubbles to them, I think, that history can
produce: his rhetorick and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs.—Never did the
parlour-door open—but his philosophy or his principles fell a victim to it;——
three drops of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer, had saved his
honour for ever.
——Inconsistent soul that man is!——languishing under wounds, which he has
the power to heal!—his whole life a contradiction to his knowledge!—his reason,

that precious gift of God to him—(instead of pouring in oil) serving but to sharpen
his sensibilities—to multiply his pains, and render him more melancholy and
uneasy under them—Poor unhappy creature, that he should do so!——Are not the
necessary causes of misery in this life enow, but he must add voluntary ones to his
stock of sorrow;—struggle against evils which cannot be avoided, and submit to
others, which a tenth part of the trouble they create him would remove from his
heart for ever?
By all that is good and virtuous, if there are three drops of oil to be got, and a
hammer to be found within ten miles of Shandy Hall———the parlour door hinge
shall be mended this reign.

CHAPTER XXII

When Corporal Trim had brought his two mortars to bear, he was delighted with
his handy-work above measure; and knowing what a pleasure it would be to his
master to see them, he was not able to resist the desire he had of carrying them
directly into his parlour.
Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of hinges, I
had a speculative consideration arising out of it, and it is this.
Had the parlour door opened and turn’d upon its hinges, as a door should do—
Or for example, as cleverly as our government has been turning upon its hinges
——(that is, in case things have all along gone well with your worship,—
otherwise I give up my simile)—in this case, I say, there had been no danger either
to master or man, in Corporal Trim’s peeping in: the moment he had beheld my
father and my uncle Toby fast asleep—the respectfulness of his carriage was such,
he would have retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs,
dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally speaking, so
very impracticable, that for the many years in which this hinge was suffered to be
out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances my father submitted to upon its
account—this was one; that he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner,
but the thoughts of being unavoidably awakened by the first person who should
open the door, was always uppermost in his imagination, and so incessantly
stepp’d in betwixt him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to rob him, as
he often declared, of the whole sweets of it.
“When things move upon bad hinges, an’ please your lordships, how can it be
otherwise?”

Pray what’s the matter? Who is there? cried my father, waking, the moment the
door began to creak.——I wish the smith would give a peep at that confounded
hinge.——’Tis nothing, an’ please your honour, said Trim, but two mortars I am
bringing in.—They shan’t make a clatter with them here, cried my father hastily.—
If Dr. Slop has any drugs to pound, let him do it in the kitchen.—May it please
your honour, cried Trim, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer,
which I have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which Obadiah told me your
honour had left off wearing.—By Heaven! cried my father, springing out of his
chair, as he swore——I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so
much store by as I do by these jack-boots——they were our great grandfather’s,
brother Toby—they were hereditary. Then I fear, quoth my uncle Toby, Trim has
cut off the entail.—I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried Trim
——I hate perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father——but these
jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time) have been
in the family, brother, ever since the civil wars;——Sir Roger Shandy wore them
at the battle of Marston-Moor.—I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for
them.——I’ll pay you the money, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby, looking at
the two mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches
pocket as he viewed them——I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment with all my
heart and soul.——
Brother Toby, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what money you
dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but upon a siege.——Have I
not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides my half pay? cried my uncle
Toby.—What is that—replied my father hastily—to ten pounds for a pair of jack-
boots?—twelve guineas for your pontoons?—half as much for your Dutch draw-
bridge?—to say nothing of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last week,
with twenty other preparations for the siege of Messina: believe me, dear brother
Toby, continued my father, taking him kindly by the hand—these military
operations of yours are above your strength;—you mean well, brother——but they
carry you into greater expences than you were first aware of;—and take my word,
dear Toby, they will in the end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you.
—What signifies it if they do, brother, replied my uncle Toby, so long as we know
’tis for the good of the nation?——
My father could not help smiling for his soul—his anger at the worst was never
more than a spark;—and the zeal and simplicity of Trim—and the generous
(though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle Toby, brought him into perfect good
humour with them in an instant.
Generous souls!—God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth my
father to himself.

CHAPTER XXIII

All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs—I hear not one foot
stirring.—Prithee, Trim, who’s in the kitchen? There is no one soul in the kitchen,
answered Trim, making a low bow as he spoke, except Dr. Slop.—Confusion!
cried my father (getting up upon his legs a second time)—not one single thing was
gone right this day! had I faith in astrology, brother (which, by the bye, my father
had), I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this
unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its place.
——Why, I thought Dr. Slop had been above stairs with my wife, and so said you.
——What can the fellow be puzzling about in the kitchen!—He is busy, an’ please
your honour, replied Trim, in making a bridge.——’Tis very obliging in him,
quoth my uncle Toby:———pray, give my humble service to Dr. Slop, Trim, and
tell him I thank him heartily.
You must know, my uncle Toby mistook the bridge—as widely as my father
mistook the mortars;——but to understand how my uncle Toby could mistake the
bridge—I fear I must give you an exact account of the road which led to it;—or to
drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more dishonest in an historian than the use
of one)——in order to conceive the probability of this error in my uncle Toby
aright, I must give you some account of an adventure of Trim’s, though much
against my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense,
is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in, either amongst the
anecdotes of my uncle Toby’s amours with widow Wadman, in which corporal
Trim was no mean actor—or else in the middle of his and my uncle Toby’s
campaigns on the bowling-green—for it will do very well in either place;—but
then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my story——I ruin the story I’m
upon;——and if I tell it here—I anticipate matters, and ruin it there.
—What would your worships have me to do in this case?
—Tell it, Mr. Shandy, by all means.—You are a fool, Tristram, if you do.
O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)—which enable mortal man
to tell a story worth the hearing———that kindly shew him, where he is to begin
it—and where he is to end it——what he is to put into it——and what he is to
leave out—how much of it he is to cast into a shade—and whereabouts he is to
throw his light!—Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical
freebooters, and see how many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into;
——will you do one thing?
I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that wherever
in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one

point, as they have done just here——that at least you set up a guide-post in the
centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is
to take.

CHAPTER XXIV

Tho’ the shock my uncle Toby received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in
his affair with widow Wadman, had fixed him in a resolution never more to think
of the sex—or of aught which belonged to it;—yet corporal Trim had made no
such bargain with himself. Indeed in my uncle Toby’s case there was a strange and
unaccountable concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay
siege to that fair and strong citadel.——In Trim’s case there was a concurrence of
nothing in the world, but of him and Bridget in the kitchen;—though in truth, the
love and veneration he bore his master was such, and so fond was he of imitating
him in all he did, that had my uncle Toby employed his time and genius in tagging
of points——I am persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms,
and followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle Toby sat down
before the mistress—corporal Trim incontinently took ground before the maid.
Now, my dear friend Garrick, whom I have so much cause to esteem and
honour—(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)—can it escape your penetration—
I defy it—that so many playwrights, and opificers of chit-chat have ever since
been working upon Trim’s and my uncle Toby’s pattern.——I care not what
Aristotle, or Pacuvius, or Bossu, or Ricaboni say—(though I never read one of
them)——there is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and
madam Pompadour’s vis-à-vis; than betwixt a single amour, and an amour thus
nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand drama——
Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind—is quite lost in five acts;—but that is
neither here nor there.
After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my uncle
Toby’s quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which shall be given
in its proper place, my uncle Toby, honest man! found it necessary to draw off his
forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly.
Corporal Trim, as I said, had made no such bargain either with himself——or
with any one else——the fidelity however of his heart not suffering him to go into
a house which his master had forsaken with disgust——he contented himself with
turning his part of the siege into a blockade;—that is, he kept others off;—for

though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village,
but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her—or
(as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand—or ask her lovingly
how she did—or would give her a ribbon—and now-and-then, though never but
when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a—
Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that is, from the
demolition of Dunkirk in the year 13, to the latter end of my uncle Toby’s
campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I’m
speaking of.——When Trim, as his custom was, after he had put my uncle Toby to
bed, going down one moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his
fortifications——in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering
shrubs and holly—he espied his Bridget.
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth shewing as
the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and
gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but
that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it
reach’d my father’s, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle
Toby’s curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and
which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and somehow or other
crushed all to pieces that very night.
My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby’s
hobby-horse, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted;
and indeed unless my uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never think of it once,
without smiling at it——so that it could never get lame or happen any mischance,
but it tickled my father’s imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident
much more to his humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an
inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him.——Well——but dear Toby! my father
would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened.——How
can you tease me so much about it? my uncle Toby would reply—I have told it you
twenty times, word for word as Trim told it me.—Prithee, how was it then,
corporal? my father would cry, turning to Trim.—It was a mere misfortune, an’
please your honour;——I was shewing Mrs. Bridget our fortifications, and in
going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in——Very well,
Trim! my father would cry——(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod—but
without interrupting him)——and being link’d fast, an’ please your honour, arm in
arm with Mrs. Bridget, I dragg’d her after me, by means of which she fell
backwards soss against the bridge——and Trim’s foot (my uncle Toby would cry,
taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against
the bridge too.—It was a thousand to one, my uncle Toby would add, that the poor

fellow did not break his leg.———Ay truly, my father would say——a limb is
soon broke, brother Toby, in such encounters.——And so, an’ please your honour,
the bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down
betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.
At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say
a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards—my father would exhaust all the
stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) in a panegyric upon the
battering-rams of the ancients—the vinea which Alexander made use of at the
siege of Troy.—He would tell my uncle Toby of the catapultæ of the Syrians,
which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest
bulwarks from their very foundation:—he would go on and describe the wonderful
mechanism of the ballista which Marcellinus makes so much rout about!—the
terrible effects of the pyroboli, which cast fire;——the danger of the terebra and
scorpio, which cast javelins.——But what are these, would he say, to the
destructive machinery of corporal Trim?——Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge,
or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out
against such artillery.
My uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this
ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his pipe; in doing
which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father,
who was a little phthisical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle
Toby leap’d up without feeling the pain upon his groin—and, with infinite pity,
stood beside his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his
head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean cambrick
handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket.——The affectionate and
endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little offices—cut my father
thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him.——May my brains be
knock’d out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father
to himself—if ever I insult this worthy soul more!

CHAPTER XXV

The draw-bridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about
another———but not upon the same model: for cardinal Alberoni’s intrigues at
that time being discovered, and my uncle Toby rightly foreseeing that a flame
would inevitably break out betwixt Spain and the Empire, and that the operations

of the ensuing campaign must in all likelihood be either in Naples or Sicily——he
determined upon an Italian bridge—(my uncle Toby, by the bye, was not far out of
his conjectures)——but my father, who was infinitely the better politician, and
took the lead as far of my uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my uncle Toby took it of
him in the field———convinced him, that if the king of Spain and the Emperor
went together by the ears, England and France and Holland must, by force of their
pre-engagements, all enter the lists too;——and if so, he would say, the
combatants, brother Toby, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it again, pell-mell,
upon the old prizefighting stage of Flanders;—then what will you do with your
Italian bridge?
—We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle Toby.
When Corporal Trim had about half finished it in that style——my uncle Toby
found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly considered before.
It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it, opening in the middle, one half
of which turning to one side of the fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage
of which was this, that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal
portions, it impowered my uncle Toby to raise it up or let it down with the end of
his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as much as he
could well spare—but the disadvantages of such a construction were
insurmountable;——for by this means, he would say, I leave one half of my bridge
in my enemy’s possession——and pray of what use is the other?
The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only at one
end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together, and stand bolt
upright———but that was rejected for the reason given above.
For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that
particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to hinder a
passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage—of which sorts your
worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its destruction—and
one now at Brisac, if I mistake not;—but my father advising my uncle Toby, with
great earnestness, to have nothing more to do with thrusting bridges—and my
uncle foreseeing moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the
Corporal’s misfortune—he changed his mind for that of the marquis d’Hôpital’s
invention, which the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as
your worships may see———Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695—to these a lead weight is
an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of centinels, inasmuch as
the construction of them was a curve line approximating to a cycloid———if not
a cycloid itself.
My uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man in
England—but was not quite such a master of the cycloid;——he talked however

about it every day——the bridge went not forwards.——We’ll ask somebody
about it, cried my uncle Toby to Trim.

CHAPTER XXVI

When Trim came in and told my father, that Dr. Slop was in the kitchen, and busy
in making a bridge—my uncle Toby——the affair of the jack-boots having just
then raised a train of military ideas in his brain——took it instantly for granted
that Dr. Slop was making a model of the marquis d’Hôpital’s bridge.——’Tis very
obliging in him, quoth my uncle Toby;—pray give my humble service to Dr. Slop,
Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily.
Had my uncle Toby’s head been a Savoyard’s box, and my father peeping in all
the time at one end of it——it could not have given him a more distinct
conception of the operations of my uncle Toby’s imagination, than what he had; so,
notwithstanding the catapulta and battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about
them, he was just beginning to triumph——
When Trim’s answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and twisted it
to pieces.

CHAPTER XXVII

——This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father——God bless your
honour, cried Trim, ’tis a bridge for master’s nose.——In bringing him into the
world with his vile instruments, he has crushed his nose, Susannah says, as flat as
a pancake to his face, and he is making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a
thin piece of whalebone out of Susannah’s stays, to raise it up.
——Lead me, brother Toby, cried my father, to my room this instant.

CHAPTER XXVIII

From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world,
and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my

father.——A tide of little evils and distresses has been setting in against him.—
Not one thing, as he observed himself, has gone right: and now is the storm
thicken’d and going to break, and pour down full upon his head.
I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy frame of
mind that ever sympathetic breast was touched with.——My nerves relax as I tell
it.——Every line I write, I feel an abatement of the quickness of my pulse, and of
that careless alacrity with it, which every day of my life prompts me to say and
write a thousand things I should not.——And this moment that I last dipp’d my
pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad
composure and solemnity there appear’d in my manner of doing it.——Lord! how
different from the rash jerks and hair-brain’d squirts thou art wont, Tristram, to
transact it with in other humours—dropping thy pen——spurting thy ink about thy
table and thy books—as if thy pen and thy ink, thy books and furniture cost thee
nothing!

CHAPTER XXIX

——I won’t go about to argue the point with you—’tis so——and I am persuaded
of it, madam, as much as can be, “That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow
(and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.”
The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate
across the bed in the wildest disorder imaginable, but at the same time in the most
lamentable attitude of a man borne down with sorrows, that ever the eye of pity
dropp’d a tear for.——The palm of his right hand, as he fell upon the bed,
receiving his forehead, and covering the greatest part of both his eyes, gently sunk
down with his head (his elbow giving way backwards) till his nose touch’d the
quilt;——his left arm hung insensible over the side of the bed, his knuckles
reclining upon the handle of the chamber-pot, which peep’d out beyond the
valance—his right leg (his left being drawn up towards his body) hung half over
the side of the bed, the edge of it pressing upon his shin-bone—He felt it not.
A fix’d, inflexible sorrow took possession of every line of his face.—He sigh’d
once——heaved his breast often—but uttered not a word.
An old set-stitch’d chair, valanced and fringed around with party-coloured
worsted bobs, stood at the bed’s head, opposite to the side where my father’s head
reclined.—My uncle Toby sat him down in it.

Before an affliction is digested—consolation ever comes too soon;—and after it
is digested—it comes too late: so that you see, madam, there is but a mark between
these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at: my uncle Toby
was always either on this side, or on that of it, and would often say, he believed in
his heart he could as soon hit the longitude; for this reason, when he sat down in
the chair, he drew the curtain a little forwards, and having a tear at every one’s
service——he pull’d out a cambrick handkerchief——gave a low sigh——but
held his peace.

CHAPTER XXX

——“All is not gain that is got into the purse.”—So that notwithstanding my
father had the happiness of reading the oddest books in the universe, and had
moreover, in himself, the oddest way of thinking that ever man in it was bless’d
with, yet it had this drawback upon him after all———that it laid him open to
some of the oddest and most whimsical distresses; of which this particular one,
which he sunk under at present, is as strong an example as can be given.
No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child’s nose, by the edge of a
pair of forceps—however scientifically applied—would vex any man in the world,
who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as my father was—yet it will not
account for the extravagance of his affliction, nor will it justify the unchristian
manner he abandoned and surrendered him self up to.
To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour—and my uncle
Toby in his old fringed chair sitting beside him.

CHAPTER XXXI

——I think it a very unreasonable demand—cried my great-grandfather, twisting
up the paper, and throwing it upon the table.——By this account, madam, you
have but two thousand pounds fortune, and not a shilling more—and you insist
upon having three hundred pounds a year jointure for it.———
—“Because,” replied my great-grandmother, “you have little or no nose, Sir.”—
Now before I venture to make use of the word Nose a second time—to avoid all
confusion in what will be said upon it, in this interesting part of my story, it may

not be amiss to explain my own meaning, and define, with all possible exactness
and precision, what I would willingly be understood to mean by the term: being of
opinion, that ’tis owing to the negligence and perverseness of writers in despising
this precaution, and to nothing else——that all the polemical writings in divinity
are not as clear and demonstrative as those upon a Will o’ the Wisp, or any other
sound part of philosophy, and natural pursuit; in order to which, what have you to
do, before you set out, unless you intend to go puzzling on to the day of judgment
——but to give the world a good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you
have most occasion for——changing it, Sir, as you would a guinea, into small
coin?—which done—let the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can; or put a
different idea either into your head, or your reader’s head, if he knows how.
In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as this I am engaged in—
the neglect is inexcusable; and Heaven is witness, how the world has revenged
itself upon me for leaving so many openings to equivocal strictures—and for
depending so much as I have done, all along, upon the cleanliness of my readers’
imaginations.
——Here are two senses, cried Eugenius, as we walk’d along, pointing with the
forefinger of his right hand to the word Crevice, in the one hundred and seventy-
eighth page of the first volume of this book of books;———here are two senses—
quoth he—And here are two roads, replied I, turning short upon him——a dirty
and a clean one——which shall we take?—The clean, by all means, replied
Eugenius. Eugenius, said I, stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his
breast——to define—is to distrust.——Thus I triumph’d over Eugenius; but I
triumph’d over him as I always do, like a fool.——’Tis my comfort, however,
I am not an obstinate one: therefore
I define a nose as follows—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my
readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for
the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and
suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas
into their minds, than what I put into my definition—For by the word Nose,
throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work,
where the word Nose occurs—I declare, by that word I mean a nose, and nothing
more, or less.

CHAPTER XXXII

——“Because,” quoth my great-grandmother, repeating the words again—“you
have little or no nose, Sir.”———
S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose,—’tis not
so small as that comes to;——’tis a full inch longer than my father’s.—Now, my
great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world like unto the noses of all the men,
women, and children, whom Pantagruel found dwelling upon the island of
Ennasin.———By the way, if you would know the strange way of getting a-kin
amongst so flat-nosed a people——you must read the book;——find it out
yourself, you never can.——
—’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs.
—’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of his nose
with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion——’tis a full inch longer,
madam, than my father’s——You must mean your uncle’s, replied my great-
grandmother.
———My great-grandfather was convinced.—He untwisted the paper, and
signed the article.

CHAPTER XXXIII

——What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate
of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.
My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark,
than there is upon the back of my hand.
—Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather
twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds
half-yearly—(on Michaelmas and Lady-day),—during all that time.
No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father.
———And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table,
guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous
souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever
he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he generally gave a loud Hem! rubb’d the side of
his nose leisurely with the flat part of his fore finger——inserted his hand
cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every
guinea as he parted with it——and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds,
without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no
allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down in
their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education,
and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors!
For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually
been taking root in our family.———Tradition was all along on its side, and
Interest was every half-year stepping in to strengthen it; so that the whimsicality
of my father’s brain was far from having the whole honour of this, as it had of
almost all his other strange notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to
have suck’d this in with his mother’s milk. He did his part however.——If
education planted the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and
ripened it to perfection.
He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that he did
not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand it out against an
uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses.—And for the contrary
reason, he would generally add, That it must be one of the greatest problems in
civil life, where the same number of long and jolly noses, following one another in
a direct line, did not raise and hoist it up into the best vacancies in the kingdom.
———He would often boast that the Shandy family rank’d very high in King
Harry the VIIIth’s time, but owed its rise to no state engine—he would say—but to
that only;——but that, like other families, he would add——it had felt the turn of
the wheel, and had never recovered the blow of my great-grandfather’s nose.——
It was an ace of clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his head—and as vile a one
for an unfortunate family as ever turn’d up trumps.
———Fair and softly, gentle reader!———where is thy fancy carrying thee?
——If there is truth in man, by my great-grandfather’s nose, I mean the external
organ of smelling, or that part of man which stands prominent in his face——and
which painters say, in good jolly noses and well-proportioned faces, should
comprehend a full third——that is, measured downwards from the setting on of
the hair.——
——What a life of it has an author, at this pass!

CHAPTER XXXIV

It is a singular blessing, that nature has form’d the mind of man with the same
happy backwardness and renitency against conviction, which is observed in old

dogs—“of not learning new tricks.”
What a shuttlecock of a fellow would the greatest philosopher that ever existed
be whisk’d into at once, did he read such books, and observe such facts, and think
such thoughts, as would eternally be making him change sides!
Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all this—He pick’d up an
opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of nature picks up an apple.—It becomes his own
—and if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life rather than give it up.
I am aware that Didius, the great civilian, will contest this point; and cry out
against me, Whence comes this man’s right to this apple? ex confesso, he will say
—things were in a state of nature—The apple, as much Frank’s apple as John’s.
Pray, Mr. Shandy, what patent has he to shew for it? and how did it begin to be
his? was it, when he set his heart upon it? or when he gathered it? or when he
chew’d it? or when he roasted it? or when he peel’d, or when he brought it home?
or when he digested?—or when he——?——For ’tis plain, Sir, if the first picking
up of the apple, made it not his—that no subsequent act could.
Brother Didius, Tribonius will answer—(now Tribonius the civilian and church
lawyer’s beard being three inches and a half and three eighths longer than Didius
his beard—I’m glad he takes up the cudgels for me, so I give myself no farther
trouble about the answer).—Brother Didius, Tribonius will say, it is a decreed
case, as you may find it in the fragments of Gregorius and Hermogines’s codes,
and in all the codes from Justinian’s down to the codes of Louis and Des Eaux—
That the sweat of a man’s brows, and the exsudations of a man’s brains, are as
much a man’s own property as the breeches upon his backside;—which said
exsudations, &c., being dropp’d upon the said apple by the labour of finding it,
and picking it up; and being moreover indissolubly wasted, and as indissolubly
annex’d, by the picker up, to the thing pick’d up, carried home, roasted, peel’d,
eaten, digested, and so on;——’tis evident that the gatherer of the apple, in so
doing, has mix’d up something which was his own, with the apple which was not
his own, by which means he has acquired a property;—or, in other words, the
apple is John’s apple.
By the same learned chain of reasoning my father stood up for all his opinions;
he had spared no pains in picking them up, and the more they lay out of the
common way, the better still was his title.——No mortal claimed them; they had
cost him moreover as much labour in cooking and digesting as in the case above,
so that they might well and truly be said to be of his own goods and chattles.—
Accordingly he held fast by ’em, both by teeth and claws—would fly to whatever
he could lay his hands on—and, in a word, would intrench and fortify them round
with as many circumvallations and breast-works, as my uncle Toby would a
citadel.

There was one plaguy rub in the way of this——the scarcity of materials to
make anything of a defence with, in case of a smart attack; inasmuch as few men
of great genius had exercised their parts in writing books upon the subject of great
noses: by the trotting of my lean horse, the thing is incredible! and I am quite lost
in my understanding, when I am considering what a treasure of precious time and
talents together has been wasted upon worse subjects—and how many millions of
books in all languages, and in all possible types and bindings, have been fabricated
upon points not half so much tending to the unity and peace-making of the world.
What was to be had, however, he set the greater store by; and though my father
would oft-times sport with my uncle Toby’s library—which, by the bye, was
ridiculous enough—yet at the very same time he did it, he collected every book
and treatise which had been systematically wrote upon noses, with as much care as
my honest uncle Toby had done those upon military architecture.——’Tis true,
a much less table would have held them—but that was not thy transgression, my
dear uncle.—
Here——but why here——rather than in any other part of my story——I am
not able to tell:———but here it is———my heart stops me to pay to thee, my
dear uncle Toby, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness.——Here let me
thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the ground, whilst I am pouring forth
the warmest sentiment of love for thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy
character, that ever virtue and nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom.——Peace and
comfort rest for evermore upon thy head!—Thou enviedst no man’s comforts——
insultedst no man’s opinions——Thou blackenedst no man’s character—
devouredst no man’s bread: gently, with faithful Trim behind thee, didst thou
amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy way:—for
each one’s sorrow thou hadst a tear,—for each man’s need, thou hadst a shilling.
Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder—thy path from thy door to thy bowling-
green shall never be grown up.——Whilst there is a rood and a half of land in the
Shandy family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle Toby, shall never be demolish’d.

CHAPTER XXXV

My father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was curious; and
consequently he was some time in making it; he had the great good fortune
however, to set off well, in getting Bruscambille’s prologue upon long noses,
almost for nothing—for he gave no more for Bruscambille than three half-crowns;

owing indeed to the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the
book the moment he laid his hands upon it.——There are not three Bruscambilles
in Christendom—said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the libraries of
the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as lightning——took
Bruscambille into his bosom——hied home from Piccadilly to Coleman-street
with it, as he would have hied home with a treasure, without taking his hand once
off from Bruscambille all the way.
To those who do not yet know of which gender Bruscambille is———inasmuch
as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by either———’twill be no
objection against the simile—to say, That when my father got home, he solaced
himself with Bruscambille after the manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship
solaced yourself with your first mistress———that is, from morning even unto
night: which, by the bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato—is
of little or no entertainment at all to by-standers.——Take notice, I go no farther
with the simile—my father’s eye was greater than his appetite—his zeal greater
than his knowledge—he cool’d—his affections became divided——he got hold of
Prignitz—purchased Scroderus, Andrea Paræus, Bouchet’s Evening Conferences,
and above all, the great and learned Hafen Slawkenbergius; of which, as I shall
have much to say by and by—I will say nothing now.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Of all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in support of his
hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more cruel disappointment at
first, than in the celebrated dialogue between Pamphagus and Cocles, written by
the chaste pen of the great and venerable Erasmus, upon the various uses and
seasonable applications of long noses.———Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in
this chapter, take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your
imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to slip on—let me
beg of you, like an unback’d filly, to frisk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to
bound it—and to kick it, with long kicks and short kicks, till, like Tickletoby’s mare,
you break a strap or a crupper and throw his worship into the dirt.—You need not
kill him.—
—And pray who was Tickletoby’s mare?—’tis just as discreditable and
unscholarlike a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (ab. urb. con.) the second
Punic war broke out.—Who was Tickletoby’s mare?——Read, read, read, read, my

unlearned reader! read—or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon—
I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without
much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will
no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of
my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many
opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil
of the black one.

CHAPTER XXXVII

“Nihil me pœnitet hujus nasi,” quoth Pamphagus;——that is—“My nose has been
the making of me.”—————“Nec est cur pœniteat,” replies Cocles; that is,
“How the duce should such a nose fail?”
The doctrine, you see, was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with
the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in finding nothing more
from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty
or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man
on purpose to investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.——My father pish’d
and pugh’d at first most terribly———’tis worth something to have a good name.
As the dialogue was of Erasmus, my father soon came to himself, and read it over
and over again with great application, studying every word and every syllable of it
thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and literal interpretation—he could still make
nothing of it, that way. Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my
father.——Learned men, brother Toby, don’t write dialogues upon long noses for
nothing.———I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick sense——here is some
room to turn a man’s self in, brother.
My father read on.———Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and
worships, that besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by
Erasmus, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic
conveniencies also; for that in a case of distress—and for want of a pair of
bellows, it will do excellently well, ad ixcitandum focum (to stir up the fire).
Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and had
sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had done the seeds of
all other knowledge———so that he had got out his penknife, and was trying
experiments upon the sentence, to see if he could not scratch some better sense
into it.——I’ve got within a single letter, brother Toby, cried my father, of
Erasmus his mystic meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in
all conscience.———Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on——I might as well be
seven miles off.—I’ve done it—said my father, snapping his fingers—See, my
dear brother Toby, how I have mended the sense.——But you have marr’d a word,
replied my uncle Toby.——My father put on his spectacles——bit his lip———
and tore out the leaf in a passion.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

O Slawkenbergius! thou faithful analyzer of my Disgrazias—thou sad foreteller of
so many of the whips and short turns which in one stage or other of my life have
come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, and no other cause, that I am
conscious of.—Tell me, Slawkenbergius! what secret impulse was it? what
intonation of voice? whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?——art thou
sure thou heard’st it?——which first cried out to thee———go———go,
Slawkenbergius! dedicate the labours of thy life——neglect thy pastimes———
call forth all the powers and faculties of thy nature——macerate thyself in the
service of mankind, and write a grand folio for them, upon the subject of their
noses.
How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius’s sensorium——so
that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch’d the key—and whose hand
it was that blew the bellows——as Hafen Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid
in his grave above fourscore and ten years———we can only raise conjectures.
Slawkenbergius was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of Whitefield’s
disciples——that is, with such a distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two
masters it was that had been practising upon his instrument———as to make all
reasoning upon it needless.
———For in the account which Hafen Slawkenbergius gives the world of his
motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his life upon
this one work—towards the end of his prolegomena, which by the bye should have
come first——but the bookbinder has most injudiciously placed it betwixt the
analytical contents of the book, and the book itself—he informs his reader, that
ever since he had arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down
coolly, and consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and
distinguish the main end and design of his being;——or—to shorten my
translation, for Slawkenbergius’s book is in Latin, and not a little prolix in this
passage—ever since I understood, quoth Slawkenbergius, any thing——or rather
what was what——and could perceive that the point of long noses had been too
loosely handled by all who had gone before;——have I, Slawkenbergius, felt a
strong impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird up myself to
this undertaking.
And to do justice to Slawkenbergius, he has entered the list with a stronger
lance, and taken a much larger career in it than any one man who had ever entered
it before him——and indeed, in many respects, deserves to be en-nich’d as a
prototype for all writers, of voluminous works at least, to model their books by
——for he has taken in, Sir, the whole subject—examined every part of it
dialectically———then brought it into full day; dilucidating it with all the light
which either the collision of his own natural parts could strike—or the profoundest

knowledge of the sciences had impowered him to cast upon it—collating,
collecting, and compiling———begging, borrowing, and stealing, as he went
along, all that had been wrote or wrangled thereupon in the schools and porticos of
the learned: so that Slawkenbergius his book may properly be considered, not only
as a model—but as a thorough-stitched digest and regular institute of noses,
comprehending in it all that is or can be needful to be known about them.
For this cause it is that I forbear to speak of so many (otherwise) valuable books
and treatises of my father’s collecting, wrote either, plump upon noses——or
collaterally touching them;———such for instance as Prignitz, now lying upon
the table before me, who with infinite learning, and from the most candid and
scholar-like examination of above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of
twenty charnel-houses in Silesia, which he had rummaged———has informed us,
that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of human
noses, in any given tract of country, except Crim Tartary, where they are all
crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be formed upon them—are
much nearer alike, than the world imagines;—the difference amongst them being,
he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking notice of;——but that the size and jollity of
every individual nose, and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a
higher price, is owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose
ducts and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by the
warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it (bating the case of
idiots, whom Prignitz, who had lived many years in Turky, supposes under the
more immediate tutelage of Heaven)—it so happens, and ever must, says Prignitz,
that the excellency of the nose is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the
excellency of the wearer’s fancy.
It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in
Slawkenbergius, that I say nothing likewise of Scroderus (Andrea) who, all the
world knows, set himself to oppugn Prignitz with great violence—proving it in his
own way, first logically, and then by a series of stubborn facts, “That so far was
Prignitz from the truth, in affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the
contrary—the nose begat the fancy.”
—The learned suspected Scroderus of an indecent sophism in this—and
Prignitz cried out aloud in the dispute, that Scroderus had shifted the idea upon
him——but Scroderus went on, maintaining his thesis.
My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he should
take in this affair; when Ambrose Paræus decided it in a moment, and by
overthrowing the systems, both of Prignitz and Scroderus, drove my father out of
both sides of the controversy at once.
Be witness———

I don’t acquaint the learned reader—in saying it, I mention it only to shew the
learned, I know the fact myself———
That this Ambrose Paræus was chief surgeon and nose-mender to Francis the
ninth of France, and in high credit with him and the two preceding, or succeeding
kings (I know not which)—and that, except in the slip he made in his story of
Taliacotius’s noses, and his manner of setting them on—he was esteemed by the
whole college of physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than
any one who had ever taken them in hand.
Now Ambrose Paræus convinced my father, that the true and efficient cause of
what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon which Prignitz and
Scroderus had wasted so much learning and fine parts——was neither this nor that
——but that the length and goodness of the nose was owing simply to the softness
and flaccidity in the nurse’s breast———as the flatness and shortness of puisne
noses was to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in
the hale and lively—which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of the
child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated, and so
refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive ad mensuram suam legitimam;——but that
in case of the flaccidity and softness of the nurse or mother’s breast—by sinking
into it, quoth Paræus, as into so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d,
plump’d up, refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing for ever.
I have but two things to observe of Paræus; first, That he proves and explains
all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of expression:—for which may his
soul for ever rest in peace!
And, secondly, that besides the systems of Prignitz and Scroderus, which
Ambrose Paræus his hypothesis effectually overthrew—it overthrew at the same
time the system of peace and harmony of our family; and for three days together,
not only embroiled matters between my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise
the whole house and everything in it, except my uncle Toby, quite upside down.
Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never surely in
any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a street-door.
My mother, you must know———but I have fifty things more necessary to let
you know first——I have a hundred difficulties which I have promised to clear up,
and a thousand distresses and domestick misadventures crowding in upon me thick
and threefold, one upon the neck of another. A cow broke in (to-morrow morning)
to my uncle Toby’s fortifications, and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass,
tearing up the sods with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.——Trim
insists upon being tried by a court-martial—the cow to be shot—Slop to be
crucifix’d—myself to be tristram’d and at my very baptism made a martyr of;——
poor unhappy devils that we all are!——I want swaddling———but there is no

time to be lost in exclamations———I have left my father lying across his bed,
and my uncle Toby in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him, and promised I
would go back to them in half an hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are laps’d
already.———Of all the perplexities a mortal author was ever seen in——this
certainly is the greatest, for I have Hafen Slawkenbergius’s folio, Sir, to finish——
a dialogue between my father and my uncle Toby, upon the solution of Prignitz,
Scroderus, Ambrose Paræus, Ponocrates, and Grangousier to relate—a tale out of
Slawkenbergius to translate, and all this in five minutes less than no time at all;
———such a head!—would to Heaven my enemies only saw the inside of it!

CHAPTER XXXIX

There was not any one scene more entertaining in our family—and to do it justice
in this point;——and I here put off my cap and lay it upon the table close beside
my ink-horn, on purpose to make my declaration to the world concerning this one
article the more solemn——that I believe in my soul (unless my love and partiality
to my understanding blinds me) the hand of the supreme Maker and first Designer
of all things never made or put a family together (in that period at least of it which
I have sat down to write the story of)——where the characters of it were cast or
contrasted with so dramatick a felicity as ours was, for this end; or in which the
capacities of affording such exquisite scenes, and the powers of shifting them
perpetually from morning to night, were lodged and intrusted with so unlimited a
confidence, as in the Shandy Family.
Not any one of these was more diverting, I say, in this whimsical theatre of ours
——than what frequently arose out of this self-same chapter of long noses———
especially when my father’s imagination was heated with the enquiry, and nothing
would serve him but to heat my uncle Toby’s too.
My uncle Toby would give my father all possible fair play in this attempt; and
with infinite patience would sit smoaking his pipe for whole hours together, whilst
my father was practising upon his head, and trying every accessible avenue to
drive Prignitz and Scroderus’s solutions into it.
Whether they were above my uncle Toby’s reason———or contrary to it———
or that his brain was like damp timber, and no spark could possibly take hold——
or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military
disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus’s doctrines——

I say not—let schoolmen—scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it among
themselves——
’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father had every
word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle Toby, and render out of
Slawkenbergius’s Latin, of which, as he was no great master, his translation was
not always of the purest——and generally least so where ’twas most wanted.—
This naturally open’d a door to a second misfortune;——that in the warmer
paroxysms of his zeal to open my uncle Toby’s eyes———my father’s ideas ran on
as much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle Toby’s
———neither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of my father’s
lecture.

CHAPTER XL

The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms——I mean in man—for in
superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits——’tis all done, may it please
your worships, as they tell me, by Intuition;—and beings inferior, as your
worships all know——syllogize by their noses: though there is an island
swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its ease) whose inhabitants, if my
intelligence deceives me not, are so wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the
same fashion, and oft-times to make very well out too:———but that’s neither
here nor there———
The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or—the great and principal act
of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the finding out the agreement or
disagreement of two ideas one with another, by the intervention of a third (called
the medius terminus); just as a man, as Locke well observes, by a yard, finds two
men’s nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought
together, to measure their equality, by juxta-position.
Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of
noses, and observed my uncle Toby’s deportment—what great attention he gave to
every word—and as oft as he took his pipe from his mouth, with what wonderful
seriousness he contemplated the length of it——surveying it transversely as he
held it betwixt his finger and his thumb———then fore-right———then this way,
and then that, in all its possible directions and foreshortenings———he would
have concluded my uncle Toby had got hold of the medius terminus, and was
syllogizing and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in

order, as my father laid them before him. This, by the bye, was more than my
father wanted——his aim in all the pains he was at in these philosophick lectures
—was to enable my uncle Toby not to discuss——but comprehend——to hold the
grains and scruples of learning——not to weigh them.——My uncle Toby, as you
will read in the next chapter, did neither the one or the other.

CHAPTER XLI

’Tis a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours’ painful
translation of Slawkenbergius——’tis a pity, cried my father, putting my mother’s
thread-paper into the book for a mark, as he spoke——that truth, brother Toby,
should shut herself up in such impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to
surrender herself sometimes up upon the closest siege.——
Now it happened then, as indeed it had often done before, that my uncle Toby’s
fancy, during the time of my father’s explanation of Prignitz to him———having
nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to the bowling-green!———his
body might as well have taken a turn there too—so that with all the semblance of a
deep school-man intent upon the medius terminus———my uncle Toby was in
fact as ignorant of the whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had
been translating Hafen Slawkenbergius from the Latin tongue into the Cherokee.
But the word siege, like a talismanic power, in my father’s metaphor, wafting back
my uncle Toby’s fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch—he open’d his ears
——and my father observing that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled
his chair nearer the table, as with a desire to profit—my father with great pleasure
began his sentence again——changing only the plan, and dropping the metaphor
of the siege of it, to keep clear of some dangers my father apprehended from it.
’Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother Toby
———considering what ingenuity these learned men have all shewn in their
solutions of noses.——Can noses be dissolved? replied my uncle Toby.
———My father thrust back his chair———rose up—put on his hat———
took four long strides to the door———jerked it open——thrust his head half way
out——shut the door again——took no notice of the bad hinge——returned to the
table—pluck’d my mother’s thread-paper out of Slawkenbergius’s book———
went hastily to his bureau—walked slowly back—twisted my mother’s thread-
paper about his thumb—unbutton’d his waistcoat—threw my mother’s thread-
paper into the fire——bit her sattin pin-cushion in two, fill’d his mouth with bran

—confounded it;—but mark!—the oath of confusion was levell’d at my uncle
Toby’s brain—which was e’en confused enough already——the curse came
charged only with the bran—the bran, may it please your honours, was no more
than powder to the ball.
’Twas well my father’s passions lasted not long; for so long as they did last,
they led him a busy life on’t; and it is one of the most unaccountable problems that
ever I met with in my observations of human nature, that nothing should prove my
father’s mettle so much, or make his passions go off so like gunpowder, as the
unexpected strokes his science met with from the quaint simplicity of my uncle
Toby’s questions.——Had ten dozen of hornets stung him behind in so many
different places all at one time—he could not have exerted more mechanical
functions in fewer seconds———or started half so much, as with one single quære
of three words unseasonably popping in full upon him in his hobby-horsical career.
’Twas all one to my uncle Toby———he smoaked his pipe on with unvaried
composure——his heart never intended offence to his brother—and as his head
could seldom find out where the sting of it lay——he always gave my father the
credit of cooling by himself.——He was five minutes and thirty-five seconds
about it in the present case.
By all that’s good! said my father, swearing, as he came to himself, and taking
the oath out of Ernulphus’s digest of curses——(though to do my father justice it
was a fault (as he told Dr. Slop in the affair of Ernulphus) which he as seldom
committed as any man upon earth)———By all that’s good and great! brother
Toby, said my father, if it was not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so
much as they do—you would put a man beside all temper.——Why, by the
solutions of noses, of which I was telling you, I meant, as you might have known,
had you favoured me with one grain of attention, the various accounts which
learned men of different kinds of knowledge have given the world of the causes of
short and long noses.——There is no cause but one, replied my uncle Toby——
why one man’s nose is longer than another’s, but because that God pleases to have
it so.——That is Grangousier’s solution, said my father.—’Tis he, continued my
uncle Toby, looking up, and not regarding my father’s interruption, who makes us
all, and frames and puts us together in such forms and proportions, and for such
ends, as is agreeable to his infinite wisdom.——’Tis a pious account, cried my
father, but not philosophical——there is more religion in it than sound science.
’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle Toby’s character——that he feared God,
and reverenced religion.——So the moment my father finished his remark——my
uncle Toby fell a whistling Lillabullero with more zeal (though more out of tune)
than usual.—
What is become of my wife’s thread-paper?

CHAPTER XLII

No matter—as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of some
consequence to my mother—of none to my father, as a mark in Slawkenbergius.
Slawkenbergius in every page of him was a rich treasure of inexhaustible
knowledge to my father—he could not open him amiss; and he would often say in
closing the book, that if all the arts and sciences in the world, with the books
which treated of them, were lost—should the wisdom and policies of governments,
he would say, through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had
wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of courts and
kingdoms, should they be forgot also—and Slawkenbergius only left——there
would be enough in him in all conscience, he would say, to set the world a-going
again. A treasure therefore was he indeed! an institute of all that was necessary to
be known of noses, and everything else—at matin, noon, and vespers was Hafen
Slawkenbergius his recreation and delight: ’twas for ever in his hands——you
would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s prayer-book—so worn, so glazed, so
contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with thumbs in all its parts, from one
end even unto the other.
I am not such a bigot to Slawkenbergius as my father;——there is a fund in him,
no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the most profitable, but the most
amusing part of Hafen Slawkenbergius, is his tales———and, considering he was
a German, many of them told not without fancy:———these take up his second
book, containing nearly one half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads,
each decad containing ten tales———Philosophy is not built upon tales; and
therefore ’twas certainly wrong in Slawkenbergius to send them into the world by
that name!——there are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth decads,
which I own seem rather playful and sportive, than speculative—but in general
they are to be looked upon by the learned as a detail of so many independent facts,
all of them turning round somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject,
and collected by him with great fidelity, and added to his work as so many
illustrations upon the doctrines of noses.
As we have leisure enough upon our hands——if you give me leave, madam,
I’ll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad.

1. Vide page 105.
2. As the genuineness of the consultation of the Sorbonne upon the
question of baptism, was doubted by some, and denied by others

——’twas thought proper to print the original of this excommunication;
for the copy of which Mr. Shandy returns thanks to the chapter clerk of
the dean and chapter of Rochester.
3. Vide Locke.

BOOK IV BOOK IV

SLAWKENBERGII SLAWKENBERGIUS’S
FABELLA 1 TALE

Vespera quâdam frigidulâ, It was one cool refreshing evening,
posteriori in parte mensis Augusti, at the close of a very sultry day, in the
peregrinus, mulo fusco colore latter end of the month of August,
insidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis when a stranger, mounted upon a dark
indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque mule, with a small cloak-bag behind
sericis coccineis repleta, him, containing a few shirts, a pair of
Argentoratum ingressus est. shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of
breeches, entered the town of
Strasburg.
Militi eum percontanti, quum portas He told the centinel, who
intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum questioned him as he entered the gates,
promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum that he had been at the Promontory of
proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu ad Noses—was going on to Frankfort
fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo, ——and should be back again at
reversurum. Strasburg that day month, in his way
to the borders of Crim Tartary.
Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit The centinel looked up into the
——Dî boni, nova forma nasi! stranger’s face——he never saw such
a Nose in his life!
At multum mihi profuit, inquit —I have made a very good venture
peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, of it, quoth the stranger—so slipping

e quo pependit acinaces: Loculo his wrist out of the loop of a black
manum inseruit; et magnâ cum ribbon, to which a short scymetar was
urbanitate, pilei parte anteriore tactâ hung, he put his hand into his pocket,
manu sinistrâ, ut extendit dextram, and with great courtesy touching the
militi florinum dedit et processit. fore part of his cap with his left hand,
as he extended his right——he put a
florin into the centinel’s hand, and
passed on.
Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam It grieves me, said the centinel,
nanum et valgum alloquens, virum speaking to a little dwarfish bandy-
adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse: legg’d drummer, that so courteous a
itinerari haud poterit nudâ acinaci; soul should have lost his scabbard
neque vaginam toto Argentorato, ———he cannot travel without one to
habilem inveniet.———Nullam his scymetar, and will not be able to
unquam habui, respondit peregrinus get a scabbard to fit it in all Strasburg.
respiciens———seque comiter ——I never had one, replied the
inclinans—hoc more gesto, nudam stranger, looking back to the centinel,
acinacem elevans, mulo lentò and putting his hand up to his cap as
progrediente, ut nasum tueri possim. he spoke——I carry it, continued he,
thus——holding up his naked
scymetar, his mule moving on slowly
all the time—on purpose to defend my
nose.
Non immerito, benigne peregrine, It is well worth it, gentle stranger,
respondit miles. replied the centinel.
Nihili æstimo, ait ille tympanista, e ——’Tis not worth a single stiver,
pergamenâ factitius est. said the bandy-legg’d drummer
——’tis a nose of parchment.
Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, As I am a true catholic—except that
nasus ille, ni sexties major sit, meo it is six times as big—’tis a nose, said
esset conformis. the centinel, like my own.
Crepitare audivi ait tympanista. —I heard it crackle, said the
drummer.
Mehercule! sanguinem emisit, By dunder, said the centinel, I saw it
respondit miles. bleed.
Miseret me, inquit tympanista, qui What a pity, cried the bandy-legg’d
non ambo tetigimus! drummer, we did not both touch it!
Eodem temporis puncto, quo hæc At the very time that this dispute
res argumentata fuit inter militem et was maintaining by the centinel and

tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem the drummer—was the same point
tubicine et uxore suâ qui tunc debating betwixt a trumpeter and a
accesserunt, et peregrino prætereunte, trumpeter’s wife, who were just then
restiterunt. coming up, and had stopped to see the
stranger pass by.
Quantus nasus! æque longus est, ait Benedicity!———What a nose! ’tis
tubicina, ac tuba. as long, said the trumpeter’s wife, as a
trumpet.
Et ex eodem metallo, ait tubicen, And of the same metal, said the
velut sternutamento audias. trumpeter, as you hear by its sneezing.
Tantum abest, respondit illa, quod ’Tis as soft as a flute, said she.
fistulam dulcedine vincit.
Æneus est, ait tubicen. —’Tis brass, said the trumpeter.
Nequaquam, respondit uxor. —’Tis a pudding’s end, said his
wife.
Rursum affirmo, ait tubicen, quod I tell thee again, said the trumpeter,
æneus est. ’tis a brazen nose.
Rem penitus explorabo; prius, enim I’ll know the bottom of it, said the
digito tangam, ait uxor, quam trumpeter’s wife, for I will touch it
dormivero. with my finger before I sleep.
Mulus peregrini gradu lento The stranger’s mule moved on at so
progressus est, ut unumquodque slow a rate, that he heard every word
verbum controversiæ, non tantum inter of the dispute, not only betwixt the
militem et tympanistam, verum etiam centinel and the drummer, but betwixt
inter tubicinem et uxorem ejus, the trumpeter and trumpeter’s wife.
audiret.
Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum No! said he, dropping his reins upon
fræna demittens, et manibus ambabus his mule’s neck, and laying both his
in pectus positis, (mulo lentè hands upon his breast, the one over the
progrediente) nequaquam, ait ille other, in a saint-like position (his mule
respiciens, non necesse est ut res going on easily all the time) No! said
isthæc dilucidata foret. Minime he, looking up—I am not such a
gentium! meus nasus nunquam debtor to the world——slandered and
tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget artus disappointed as I have been—as to
—Ad quid agendum? ait uxor give it that conviction——no! said he,
burgomagistri. my nose shall never be touched whilst
Heaven gives me strength——To do
what? said a burgomaster’s wife.

Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum The stranger took no notice of the
faciebat tunc temporis sancto Nicolao; burgomaster’s wife———he was
quo facto, in sinum dextrum inserens, making a vow to Saint Nicolas; which
e quâ negligenter pependit acinaces, done, having uncrossed his arms with
lento gradu processit per plateam the same solemnity with which he
Argentorati latam quæ ad diversorium crossed them, he took up the reins of
templo ex adversum ducit. his bridle with his left hand, and
putting his right hand into his bosom,
with his scymetar hanging loosely to
the wrist of it, he rode on, as slowly as
one foot of the mule could follow
another, thro’ the principal streets of
Strasburg, till chance brought him to
the great inn in the market-place over
against the church.
Peregrinus mulo descendens The moment the stranger alighted,
stabulo includi, et manticam inferri he ordered his mule to be led into the
jussit: quâ apertâ et coccineis sericis stable, and his cloak-bag to be brought
femoralibus extractis cum argenteo in; then opening, and taking out of it
laciniato Περιζώματα, his sese induit, his crimson-sattin breeches, with a
statimque, acinaci in manu, ad forum silver-fringed—(appendage to them,
deambulavit. which I dare not translate)—he put his
breeches, with his fringed codpiece on,
and forthwith, with his short scymetar
in his hand, walked out on to the grand
parade.
Quod ubi peregrinus esset The stranger had just taken three
ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam turns upon the parade, when he
euntem aspicit; illico cursum flectit, perceived the trumpeter’s wife at the
metuens ne nasus suus exploraretur, opposite side of it—so turning short,
atque ad diversorium regressus est— in pain lest his nose should be
exuit se vestibus; braccas coccineas attempted, he instantly went back to
sericas manticæ imposuit mulumque his inn—undressed himself, packed up
educi jussit. his crimson-sattin breeches, &c., in his
cloak-bag, and called for his mule.
Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et I am going forwards, said the
Argentoratum quatuor abhinc stranger, for Frankfort——and shall
hebdomadis revertar. be back at Strasburg this day month.

Bene curasti hoc jumentum? (ait) I hope, continued the stranger,
muli faciem manu demulcens—me, stroking down the face of his mule
manticamque mean, plus sexcentis with his left hand as he was going to
mille passibus portavit. mount it, that you have been kind to
this faithful slave of mine—it has
carried me and my cloak-bag,
continued he, tapping the mule’s back,
above six hundred leagues.
Longa via est! respondet hospes, ——’Tis a long journey, Sir, replied
nisi plurimum esset negoti.— the master of the inn——unless a man
Enimvero, ait peregrinus, a Nasorum has great business.——Tut! tut! said
promontorio redii, et nasum the stranger, I have been at the
speciosissimum, egregiosissimumque Promontory of Noses; and have got
quem unquam quisquam sortitus est, me one of the goodliest, thank
acquisivi. Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s
lot.
Dum peregrinus hanc miram Whilst the stranger was giving this
rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et odd account of himself, the master of
uxor ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini the inn and his wife kept both their
nasum contemplantur——Per sanctos eyes fixed full upon the stranger’s
sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nose——By saint Radagunda, said the
nasis duodecim maximis in toto inn-keeper’s wife to herself, there is
Argentorato major est!—estne, ait illa more of it than in any dozen of the
mariti in aurem insusurrans, nonne est largest noses put together in all
nasus prægrandis? Strasburg! is it not, said she,
whispering her husband in his ear, is it
not a noble nose?
Dolus inest, anime mî, ait hospes— ’Tis an imposture, my dear, said the
nasus est falsus. master of the inn——’tis a false nose.
Verus est, respondit uxor—— ’Tis a true nose, said his wife.
Ex abiete factus est, ait ille, ’Tis made of fir-tree, said he, I smell
terebinthinum olet——— the turpentine.———
Carbunculus inest, ait uxor. There’s a pimple on it, said she.
Mortuus est nasus, respondit ’Tis a dead nose, replied the inn-
hospes. keeper.
Vivus est ait illa,—et si ipsa vivam ’Tis a live nose, and if I am alive
tangam. myself, said the inn-keeper’s wife,
I will touch it.

Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait I have made a vow to saint Nicolas
peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore this day, said the stranger, that my
usque ad—Quodnam tempus? illico nose shall not be touched till—Here
respondit illa. the stranger, suspending his voice,
looked up.———Till when? said she
hastily.
Minimo tangetur, inquit ille It never shall be touched, said he,
(manibus in pectus compositis) usque clasping his hands and bringing them
ad illam horam———Quam horam? close to his breast, till that hour—
ait illa———Nullam, respondit What hour? cried the inn-keeper’s
peregrinus, donec pervenio ad—Quem wife.—Never!—never! said the
locum,—obsecro? ait illa—— stranger, never till I am got—For
Peregrinus nil respondens mulo Heaven’s sake, into what place? said
conscenso discessit. she———The stranger rode away
without saying a word.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort before all
the city of Strasburg was in an uproar about his nose. The Compline bells were just
ringing to call the Strasburgers to their devotions, and shut up the duties of the day
in prayer:—no soul in all Strasburg heard ’em—the city was like a swarm of bees
———men, women, and children (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying
here and there—in at one door, out at another——this way and that way—long
ways and cross ways—up one street, down another street——in at this alley, out
of that———did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you see it?
———who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw it?
Alack o’day! I was at vespers!—I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring,
I was quilting——God help me! I never saw it——I never touch’d it!——would I
had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was
the general cry and lamentation in every street and corner of Strasburg.
Whilst all this confusion and disorder triumphed throughout the great city of
Strasburg, was the courteous stranger going on as gently upon his mule in his way
to Frankfort, as if he had no concern at all in the affair———talking all the way
he rode in broken sentences, sometimes to his mule—sometimes to himself—
sometimes to his Julia.
O Julia, my lovely Julia!—nay, I cannot stop to let thee bite that thistle——that
ever the suspected tongue of a rival should have robbed me of enjoyment when I
was upon the point of tasting it.——
——Pugh!—’tis nothing but a thistle—never mind it——thou shalt have a
better supper at night.

——Banish’d from my country——my friends——from thee.——
Poor devil, thou’rt sadly tired with thy journey!——come—get on a little faster
—there’s nothing in my cloak-bag but two shirts——a crimson-sattin pair of
breeches, and a fringed——Dear Julia.
——But why to Frankfort—is it that there is a hand unfelt, which secretly is
conducting me through these meanders and unsuspected tracts?
——Stumbling! by saint Nicolas! every step—why, at this rate we shall be all
night in getting in———
——To happiness——or am I to be the sport of fortune and slander—destined
to be driven forth unconvicted——unheard——untouch’d——if so, why did I not
stay at Strasburg, where justice—but I had sworn! Come, thou shalt drink—to St.
Nicolas—O Julia!———What dost thou prick up thy ears at?——’tis nothing but
a man, &c.
The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and Julia—till he
arrived at his inn, where, as soon as he arrived, he alighted———saw his mule, as
he had promised it, taken good care of——took off his cloak-bag, with his
crimson-sattin breeches, &c., in it—called for an omelet to his supper, went to his
bed about twelve o’clock, and in five minutes fell fast asleep.
It was about the same hour when the tumult in Strasburg being abated for that
night,—the Strasburgers had all got quietly into their beds—but not like the
stranger, for the rest either of their minds or bodies; queen Mab, like an elf as she
was, had taken the stranger’s nose, and without reduction of its bulk, had that night
been at the pains of slitting and dividing it into as many noses of different cuts and
fashions, as there were heads in Strasburg to hold them. The abbess of
Quedlingberg, who with the four great dignitaries of her chapter, the prioress, the
deaness, the sub-chantress, and senior canoness, had that week come to Strasburg
to consult the university upon a case of conscience relating to their placket-holes
———was ill all the night.
The courteous stranger’s nose had got perched upon the top of the pineal gland
of her brain, and made such rousing work in the fancies of the four great
dignitaries of her chapter, they could not get a wink of sleep the whole night thro’
for it——there was no keeping a limb still amongst them——in short, they got up
like so many ghosts.
The penitentiaries of the third order of saint Francis——the nuns of mount
Calvary——the Præmonstratenses——the Clunienses 2——the Carthusians, and
all the severer orders of nuns who lay that night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still
in a worse condition than the abbess of Quedlingberg—by tumbling and tossing,
and tossing and tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night
long——the several sisterhoods had scratch’d and maul’d themselves all to death

——they got out of their beds almost flay’d alive—everybody thought saint
Antony had visited them for probation with his fire——they had never once, in
short, shut their eyes the whole night long from vespers to matins.
The nuns of saint Ursula acted the wisest—they never attempted to go to bed at
all.
The dean of Strasburg, the prebendaries, the capitulars and domiciliars
(capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case of butter’d buns) all
wished they had followed the nuns of saint Ursula’s example.———
In the hurry and confusion everything had been in the night before, the bakers
had all forgot to lay their leaven—there were no butter’d buns to be had for
breakfast in all Strasburg—the whole close of the cathedral was in one eternal
commotion——such a cause of restlessness and disquietude, and such a zealous
inquiry into the cause of that restlessness, had never happened in Strasburg, since
Martin Luther, with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down.
If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into the dishes 3
of religious orders, &c., what a carnival did his nose make of it, in those of the
laity!—’tis more than my pen, worn to the stump as it is, has power to describe;
tho’ I acknowledge, (cries Slawkenbergius, with more gaiety of thought than I
could have expected from him) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in
the world which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of
such a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the greatest
part of my life——tho’ I own to them the simile is in being, yet would it not be
unreasonable in them to expect I should have either time or inclination to search
for it? Let it suffice to say, that the riot and disorder it occasioned in the
Strasburgers’ fantasies was so general—such an overpowering mastership had it
got of all the faculties of the Strasburgers’ minds—so many strange things, with
equal confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all places, were spoken
and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole stream of all discourse and
wonder towards it—every soul, good and bad—rich and poor—learned and
unlearned——doctor and student——mistress and maid——gentle and simple
——nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in Strasburg spent their time in hearing tidings
about it—every eye in Strasburg languished to see it——every finger——every
thumb in Strasburg burned to touch it.
Now what might add, if anything may be thought necessary to add, to so
vehement a desire—was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d drummer, the
trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgomaster’s widow, the master of the inn,
and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely soever they all differed every one
from another in their testimonies and description of the stranger’s nose—they all
agreed together in two points—namely, that he was gone to Frankfort, and would

not return to Strasburg till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was true
or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect paragons of beauty
—the finest-made man—the most genteel!—the most generous of his purse—the
most courteous in his carriage that had ever entered the gates of Strasburg—that as
he rode, with scymetar slung loosely to his wrist, thro’ the streets—and walked
with his crimson-sattin breeches across the parade—’twas with so sweet an air of
careless modesty, and so manly withal——as would have put the heart in jeopardy
(had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had cast her eyes upon
him.
I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and yearnings of
curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of Quedlingberg, the prioress, the
deaness, and sub-chantress, for sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she
went through the streets of Strasburg with her husband’s trumpet in her hand,——
the best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the illustration of
her theory—she staid no longer than three days.
The centinel and bandy-legg’d drummer!——nothing on this side of old Athens
could equal them! they read their lectures under the city-gates to comers and goers,
with all the pomp of a Chrysippus and a Crantor in their porticos.
The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also in the same
stile—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard—his wife, hers more
privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; not promiscuously—but to
this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and credulity marshal’d them——in a word,
each Strasburger came crouding for intelligence——and every Strasburger had
the intelligence he wanted.
’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural philosophy,
&c., that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the abbess of Quedlingberg’s
private lecture, and had begun to read in public, which she did upon a stool in the
middle of the great parade,——she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly,
by gaining incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of Strasburg for her
auditory——But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries Slawkenbergius) has a
trumpet for an apparatus, pray what rival in science can pretend to be heard
besides him?
Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all busied in
getting down to the bottom of the well, where Truth keeps her little court———
were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up thro’ the conduits of
dialect induction——they concerned themselves not with facts———they
reasoned———
Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the Faculty—
had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of Wens and œdematous

swellings, they could not keep clear of them for their bloods and souls———the
stranger’s nose had nothing to do either with wens or œdematous swellings.
It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous mass of
heterogeneous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to the nose,
whilst the infant was in Utero, without destroying the statical balance of the fœtus,
and throwing it plump upon its head nine months before the time.———
——The opponents granted the theory——they denied the consequences.
And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c., said they, was not laid in, for
the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first stamina and rudiments of its
formation, before it came into the world (bating the case of Wens) it could not
regularly grow and be sustained afterwards.
This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect which
nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and prolongation of the
muscular parts of the greatest growth and expansion imaginable—In the triumph
of which theory, they went so far as to affirm, that there was no cause in nature,
why a nose might not grow to the size of the man himself.
The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to them so
long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs——For the stomach, said
they, being the only organ destined for the reception of food, and turning it into
chyle—and the lungs the only engine of sanguification—it could possibly work off
no more, than what the appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s
overloading his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs—the engine
was of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a certain quantity in
a given time———that is, it could produce just as much blood as was sufficient
for one single man, and no more; so that, if there was as much nose as man——
they proved a mortification must necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could
not be a support for both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the
man inevitably fall off from his nose.
Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the opponents—else
what do you say to the case of a whole stomach—a whole pair of lungs, and but
half a man, when both his legs have been unfortunately shot off?
He dies of a plethora, said they—or must spit blood, and in a fortnight or three
weeks go off in a consumption.———
——It happens otherwise—replied the opponents.——
It ought not, said they.
The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings, though
they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided about the nose at
last, almost as much as the Faculty itself.

They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical arrangement
and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to its several destinations,
offices, and functions which could not be transgressed but within certain limits—
that nature, though she sported——she sported within a certain circle;—and they
could not agree about the diameter of it.
The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of the classes
of the literati;———they began and ended with the word Nose; and had it not
been for a petitio principii, which one of the ablest of them ran his head against in
the beginning of the combat, the whole controversy had been settled at once.
A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood—and not only blood—
but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a succession of drops—
(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops, that is included, said he).——
Now death, continued the logician, being nothing but the stagnation of the
blood——
I deny the definition——Death is the separation of the soul from the body, said
his antagonist——Then we don’t agree about our weapons, said the logician—
Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the antagonist.
The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in the nature
of a decree——than a dispute.
Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not possibly
have been suffered in civil society——and if false—to impose upon society with
such false signs and tokens, was a still greater violation of its rights, and must have
had still less mercy shewn it.
The only objection to this was, that if it proved anything, it proved the stranger’s
nose was neither true nor false.
This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the advocates
of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit a decree, since the
stranger ex mero motu had confessed he had been at the Promontory of Noses, and
had got one of the goodliest, &c. &c.———To this it was answered, it was
impossible there should be such a place as the Promontory of Noses, and the
learned be ignorant where it lay. The commissary of the bishop of Strasburg
undertook the advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial
phrases, shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick
expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long nose: in proof
of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten authorities, 4 which had
decided the point incontestably, had it not appeared that a dispute about some
franchises of dean and chapter-lands had been determined by it nineteen years
before.

It happened——I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving
her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of Strasburg——the
Lutheran, founded in the year 1538 by Jacobus Surmis, counsellor of the senate,
——and the Popish, founded by Leopold, arch-duke of Austria, were, during all
this time, employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the
affair of the abbess of Quedlingberg’s placket-holes required)——in determining
the point of Martin Luther’s damnation.
The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate à priori, that from the
necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of October 1483
———when the moon was in the twelfth house, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus in the
third, the Sun, Saturn, and Mercury, all got together in the fourth—that he must in
course, and unavoidably, be a damn’d man—and that his doctrines, by a direct
corollary, must be damn’d doctrines too.
By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once
with Scorpio 5 (in reading this my father would always shake his head) in the ninth
house, which the Arabians allotted to religion—it appeared that Martin Luther did
not care one stiver about the matter———and that from the horoscope directed to
the conjunction of Mars—they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and
blaspheming——with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) sailed
before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire.
The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be
the soul of another man, born Oct. 22, 83, which was forced to sail down before
the wind in that manner—inasmuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben in
the county of Mansfelt, that Luther was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and
not on the 22d day of October, but on the 10th of November, the eve of Martinmas
day, from whence he had the name of Martin.
[——I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I know I
should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess of Quedlingberg
——It is to tell the reader, that my father never read this passage of
Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby, but with triumph———not over my uncle
Toby, for he never opposed him in it——but over the whole world.
—Now you see, brother Toby, he would say, looking up, “that christian names
are not such indifferent things;”———had Luther here been called by any other
name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all eternity———Not that I look
upon Martin, he would add, as a good name——far from it——’tis something
better than a neutral, and but a little——yet little as it is, you see it was of some
service to him.
My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best
logician could shew him——yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same

time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was
certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen
Slawkenbergius’s Decads full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is
not one amongst them which my father read over with half the delight———it
flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together——his Names and his Noses.
——I will be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the Alexandrian
Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a book or
passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head at one stroke.]
The two universities of Strasburg were hard tugging at this affair of Luther’s
navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he had not sailed right
before the wind, as the Popish doctors had pretended; and as every one knew there
was no sailing full in the teeth of it—they were going to settle, in case he had
sailed, how many points he was off; whether Martin had doubled the cape, or had
fallen upon a lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at
least to those who understood this sort of navigation, they had gone on with it in
spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size of the stranger’s nose
drawn off the attention of the world from what they were about——it was their
business to follow.
The abbess of Quedlingberg and her four dignitaries was no stop; for the
enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their fancies as their case
of conscience——the affair of their placket-holes kept cold—in a word, the
printers were ordered to distribute their types——all controversies dropp’d.
’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it—to a nut-shell—to
have guessed on which side of the nose the two universities would split.
’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side.
’Tis below reason, cried the others.
’Tis faith, cried one.
’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.
’Tis possible, cried the one.
’Tis impossible, said the other.
God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do anything.
He can do nothing, replied the Antinosarians, which implies contradictions.
He can make matter think, said the Nosarians.
As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied the
Antinosarians.
He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors.——’Tis false,
said their other opponents.——
Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the reality of
the nose.—It extends only to all possible things, replied the Lutherans.

By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks fit,
as big as the steeple of Strasburg.
Now the steeple of Strasburg being the biggest and the tallest church-steeple to
be seen in the whole world, the Antinosarians denied that a nose of 575
geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least by a middle-siz’d man——The
Popish doctors swore it could—The Lutheran doctors said No;—it could not.
This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, upon the
extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God—That controversy
led them naturally into Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas to the devil.
The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute—it just served as a
frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity——and then they all sailed
before the wind.
Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.
The controversy about the attributes, &c., instead of cooling, on the contrary
had inflamed the Strasburgers’ imaginations to a most inordinate degree——The
less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it—they
were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied——saw their doctors, the
Parchmentarians, the Brassarians, the Turpentarians, on one side—the Popish
doctors on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of
the bottle, all embarked out of sight.
——The poor Strasburgers left upon the beach!
——What was to be done?—No delay—the uproar increased——every one in
disorder——the city gates set open.——
Unfortunate Strasburgers! was there in the storehouse of nature———was there
in the lumber-rooms of learning———was there in the great arsenal of chance,
one single engine left undrawn forth to torture your curiosities, and stretch your
desires, which was not pointed by the hand of Fate to play upon your hearts?——
I dip not my pen into my ink to excuse the surrender of yourselves—’tis to write
your panegyrick. Shew me a city so macerated with expectation——who neither
eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or
nature for seven-and-twenty days together, who could have held out one day
longer.
On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to
Strasburg.
Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenbergius must certainly have made some
mistake in his numerical characters) 7000 coaches——15,000 single-horse chairs
—20,000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with senators,
counsellors, syndicks—beguines, widows, wives, virgins, canons, concubines, all
in their coaches—The abbess of Quedlingberg, with the prioress, the deaness and

sub-chantress, leading the procession in one coach, and the dean of Strasburg, with
the four great dignitaries of his chapter, on her left-hand—the rest following
higglety-pigglety as they could; some on horseback——some on foot——some
led——some driven——some down the Rhine——some this way——some that
——all set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous stranger on the road.
Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale———I say Catastrophe (cries
Slawkenbergius) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly disposed, not only rejoiceth
(gaudet) in the Catastrophe and Peripetia of a Drama, but rejoiceth moreover in
all the essential and integrant parts of it——it has its Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis,
its Catastrophe or Peripetia growing one out of the other in it, in the order
Aristotle first planted them——without which a tale had better never be told at all,
says Slawkenbergius, but be kept to a man’s self.
In all my ten tales, in all my ten decads, have I Slawkenbergius tied down every
tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of the stranger and his nose.
——From his first parley with the sentinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg,
after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrance
——where the characters of the Personæ Dramatis are just touched in, and the
subject slightly begun.
The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and heightened, till
it arrives at its state or height called the Catastasis, and which usually takes up the
2d and 3d act, is included within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first
night’s uproar about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter’s wife’s lectures
upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking of the
learned in the dispute—to the doctors finally sailing away, and leaving the
Strasburgers upon the beach in distress, is the Catastasis or the ripening of the
incidents and passions for their bursting forth in the fifth act.
This commences with the setting out of the Strasburgers in the Frankfort road,
and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing the hero out of a state of
agitation (as Aristotle calls it) to a state of rest and quietness.
This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, constitutes the Catastrophe or Peripetia of
my tale—and that is the part of it I am going to relate.
We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep——he enters now upon the stage.
—What dost thou prick up thy ears at?—’tis nothing but a man upon a horse
——was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not proper then to
tell the reader, that the mule took his master’s word for it; and without any more ifs
or ands, let the traveller and his horse pass by.
The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to Strasburg that night.
What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had rode about a league
farther, to think of getting into Strasburg this night.—Strasburg!——the great

Strasburg!——Strasburg, the capital of all Alsatia! Strasburg, an imperial city!
Strasburg, a sovereign state! Strasburg, garrisoned with five thousand of the best
troops in all the world!—Alas! if I was at the gates of Strasburg this moment,
I could not gain admittance into it for a ducat—nay a ducat and half—’tis too
much——better go back to the last inn I have passed——than lie I know not
where——or give I know not what. The traveller, as he made these reflections in
his mind, turned his horse’s head about, and three minutes after the stranger had
been conducted into his chamber, he arrived at the same inn.
———We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread———and till
eleven o’clock this night had three eggs in it——but a stranger, who arrived an
hour ago, has had them dressed into an omelet, and we have nothing.———
Alas! said the traveller, harassed as I am, I want nothing but a bed.———I have
one as soft as is in Alsatia, said the host.
——The stranger, continued he, should have slept in it, for ’tis my best bed, but
upon the score of his nose.————He has got a defluxion, said the traveller.——
Not that I know, cried the host.——But ’tis a camp-bed, and Jacinta, said he,
looking towards the maid, imagined there was not room in it to turn his nose in.
———Why so? cried the traveller, starting back.—It is so long a nose, replied the
host.——The traveller fixed his eyes upon Jacinta, then upon the ground—
kneeled upon his right knee—had just got his hand laid upon his breast ———
Trifle not with my anxiety, said he, rising up again.——’Tis no trifle, said Jacinta,
’tis the most glorious nose!——The traveller fell upon his knee again—laid his
hand upon his breast—then, said he, looking up to heaven, thou hast conducted me
to the end of my pilgrimage.—’Tis Diego.
The traveller was the brother of the Julia, so often invoked that night by the
stranger as he rode from Strasburg upon his mule; and was come, on her part, in
quest of him. He had accompanied his sister from Valadolid across the Pyrenean
mountains through France, and had many an entangled skein to wind off in pursuit
of him through the many meanders and abrupt turnings of a lover’s thorny tracks.
——Julia had sunk under it———and had not been able to go a step farther
than to Lyons, where, with the many disquietudes of a tender heart, which all talk
of——but few feel—she sicken’d, but had just strength to write a letter to Diego;
and having conjured her brother never to see her face till he had found him out,
and put the letter into his hands, Julia took to her bed.
Fernandez (for that was her brother’s name)——tho’ the camp-bed was as soft
as any one in Alsace, yet he could not shut his eyes in it.——As soon as it was day
he rose, and hearing Diego was risen too, he entered his chamber, and discharged
his sister’s commission.
The letter was as follows:

“Seig. Diego,
“Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not———’tis not
now to inquire—it is enough I have not had firmness to put them to farther tryal.
“How could I know so little of myself, when I sent my Duenna to forbid your
coming more under my lattice? or how could I know so little of you, Diego, as to
imagine you would not have staid one day in Valadolid to have given ease to my
doubts?—Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to
take me at my word, whether my suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you
did, a prey to much uncertainty and sorrow?
“In what manner Julia has resented this——my brother, when he puts this letter
into your hands, will tell you; He will tell you in how few moments she repented
of the rash message she had sent you——in what frantic haste she flew to her
lattice, and how many days and nights together she leaned immoveably upon her
elbow, looking through it towards the way which Diego was wont to come.
“He will tell you, when she heard of your departure—how her spirits deserted
her——how her heart sicken’d——how piteously she mourned——how low she
hung her head. O Diego! how many weary steps has my brother’s pity led me by
the hand languishing to trace out yours; how far has desire carried me beyond
strength——and how oft have I fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with
only power to cry out—O my Diego!
“If the gentleness of your carriage has not belied your heart, you will fly to me,
almost as fast as you fled from me—haste as you will——you will arrive but to
see me expire.———’Tis a bitter draught, Diego, but oh! ’tis embitter’d still more
by dying un————”

She could proceed no farther.
Slawkenbergius supposes the word intended was unconvinced, but her strength
would not enable her to finish her letter.
The heart of the courteous Diego overflowed as he read the letter———he
ordered his mule forthwith and Fernandez’s horse to be saddled; and as no vent in
prose is equal to that of poetry in such conflicts——chance, which as often directs
us to remedies as to diseases, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the window
——Diego availed himself of it, and whilst the hostler was getting ready his mule,
he eased his mind against the wall as follows.

ODE
Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love,
Unless my Julia strikes the key,

Her hand alone can touch the part,
Whose dulcet move-
ment charms the heart,
And governs all the man with sympathetick sway.
2d
O Julia!

The lines were very natural——for they were nothing at all to the purpose, says
Slawkenbergius, and ’tis a pity there were no more of them; but whether it was that
Seig. Diego was slow in composing verses—or the hostler quick in saddling mules
——is not averred; certain it was, that Diego’s mule and Fernandez’s horse were
ready at the door of the inn, before Diego was ready for his second stanza; so
without staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth, passed the
Rhine, traversed Alsace, shaped their course towards Lyons, and before the
Strasburgers and the abbess of Quedlingberg had set out on their cavalcade, had
Fernandez, Diego, and his Julia, crossed the Pyrenean mountains, and got safe to
Valadolid.
’Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that when Diego was in Spain,
it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the Frankfort road; it is
enough to say, that of all restless desires, curiosity being the strongest——the
Strasburgers felt the full force of it; and that for three days and nights they were
tossed to and fro in the Frankfort road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion,
before they could submit to return home.——When alas! an event was prepared
for them, of all other, the most grievous that could befal a free people.
As this revolution of the Strasburgers’ affairs is often spoken of, and little
understood, I will, in ten words, says Slawkenbergius, give the world an
explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale.
Every body knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by order
of Mons. Colbert, and put in manuscript into the hands of Lewis the fourteenth, in
the year 1664.
’Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system, was the getting
possession of Strasburg, to favour an entrance at all times into Suabia, in order to
disturb the quiet of Germany——and that in consequence of this plan, Strasburg
unhappily fell at length into their hands.
It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such like revolutions
—The vulgar look too high for them—Statesmen look too low——Truth (for
once) lies in the middle.

What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one historian—The
Strasburgers deemed it a diminution of their freedom to receive an imperial
garrison——so fell a prey to a French one.
The fate, says another, of the Strasburgers, may be a warning to all free people
to save their money.———They anticipated their revenues——brought
themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength, and in the end became so weak a
people, they had not strength to keep their gates shut, and so the French pushed
them open.
Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, ’twas not the French,——’twas curiosity
pushed them open———The French indeed, who are ever upon the catch, when
they saw the Strasburgers, men, women, and children, all marched out to follow
the stranger’s nose——each man followed his own, and marched in.
Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever since—
but not from any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for it is owing to
this only, that Noses have ever so run in their heads, that the Strasburgers could
not follow their business.
Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, making an exclamation—it is not the first——
and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either won——or lost by
Noses.
the end of

Slawkenbergius’s Tale

CHAPTER I

With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father’s fancy——
with so many family prejudices—and ten decads of such tales running on for ever
along with them——how was it possible with such exquisite——was it a true
nose?——That a man with such exquisite feelings as my father had, could bear the
shock at all below stairs——or indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the
very posture I have described?
——Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times——taking care only to
place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do it—But was
the stranger’s nose a true nose, or was it a false one?
To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the best tales in
the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth decad, which immediately

follows this.
This tale, cried Slawkenbergius, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved by me
for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right well, that when I shall
have told it, and my reader shall have read it thro’—’twould be even high time for
both of us to shut up the book; inasmuch, continues Slawkenbergius, as I know of
no tale which could possibly ever go down after it.
’Tis a tale indeed!
This sets out with the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when Fernandez left
the courteous stranger and his sister Julia alone in her chamber, and is over-written

The Intricacies
of

Diego and Julia
Heavens! thou art a strange creature, Slawkenbergius! what a whimsical view of
the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this can ever be
translated, and yet if this specimen of Slawkenbergius’s tales, and the
exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the world—translated shall a couple of
volumes be.———Else, how this can ever be translated into good English, I have
no sort of conception.—There seems in some passages to want a sixth sense to do
it rightly.——What can he mean by the lambent pupilability of slow, low, dry chat,
five notes below the natural tone——which you know, madam, is little more than
a whisper? The moment I pronounced the words, I could perceive an attempt
towards a vibration in the strings, about the region of the heart.———The brain
made no acknowledgment.——There’s often no good understanding betwixt ’em
—I felt as if I understood it.——I had no ideas.——The movement could not be
without cause.—I’m lost. I can make nothing of it—unless, may it please your
worships, the voice, in that case being little more than a whisper, unavoidably
forces the eyes to approach not only within six inches of each other—but to look
into the pupils—is not that dangerous?——But it can’t be avoided—for to look up
to the ceiling, in that case the two chins unavoidably meet——and to look down
into each other’s lap, the foreheads come to immediate contact, which at once puts
an end to the conference——I mean to the sentimental part of it.——What is left,
madam, is not worth stooping for.

CHAPTER II

My father lay stretched across the bed as still as if the hand of death had pushed
him down, for a full hour and a half before he began to play upon the floor with
the toe of that foot which hung over the bed-side; my uncle Toby’s heart was a
pound lighter for it.———In a few moments, his left-hand, the knuckles of which
had all the time reclined upon the handle of the chamber-pot, came to its feeling—
he thrust it a little more within the valance—drew up his hand, when he had done,
into his bosom—gave a hem! My good uncle Toby, with infinite pleasure,
answered it; and full gladly would have ingrafted a sentence of consolation upon
the opening it afforded: but having no talents, as I said, that way, and fearing
moreover that he might set out with something which might make a bad matter
worse, he contented himself with resting his chin placidly upon the cross of his
crutch.
Now whether the compression shortened my uncle Toby’s face into a more
pleasurable oval—or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his brother
beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had braced up his muscles
——so that the compression upon his chin only doubled the benignity which was
there before, is not hard to decide.——My father, in turning his eyes, was struck
with such a gleam of sunshine in his face, as melted down the sullenness of his
grief in a moment.
He broke silence as follows.

CHAPTER III

Did ever man, brother Toby, cried my father, raising himself upon his elbow, and
turning himself round to the opposite side of the bed, where my uncle Toby was
sitting in his old fringed chair, with his chin resting upon his crutch——did ever a
poor unfortunate man, brother Toby, cried my father, receive so many lashes?——
The most I ever saw given, quoth my uncle Toby (ringing the bell at the bed’s head
for Trim) was to a grenadier, I think in Mackay’s regiment.
———Had my uncle Toby shot a bullet through my father’s heart, he could not
have fallen down with his nose upon the quilt more suddenly.
Bless me! said my uncle Toby.

CHAPTER IV

Was it Mackay’s regiment, quoth my uncle Toby, where the poor grenadier was so
unmercifully whipp’d at Bruges about the ducats?—O Christ! he was innocent!
cried Trim, with a deep sigh.—And he was whipp’d, may it please your honour,
almost to death’s door.—They had better have shot him outright, as he begg’d, and
he had gone directly to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour.———
I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby.——I never think of his, continued Trim,
and my poor brother Tom’s misfortunes, for we were all three school-fellows, but I
cry like a coward.——Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim.—I drop them oft-
times myself, cried my uncle Toby.——I know your honour does, replied Trim,
and so am not ashamed of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour,
continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think of
two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could
make them—the children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek
their fortunes in the world—and fall into such evils!—poor Tom! to be tortured
upon a rack for nothing—but marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages—honest
Dick Johnson’s soul to be scourged out of his body, for the ducats another man put
into his knapsack!—O!—these are misfortunes, cried Trim,—pulling out his
handkerchief—these are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down
and crying over.
—My father could not help blushing.
’Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of
thy own—thou feelest it so tenderly for others.—Alack-o-day, replied the corporal,
brightening up his face———your honour knows I have neither wife or child——
I can have no sorrows in this world.——My father could not help smiling.—As
few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle Toby; nor can I see how a fellow of thy
light heart can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old age—when thou
art passed all services, Trim—and hast outlived thy friends.——An’ please your
honour, never fear, replied Trim, chearily.——But I would have thee never fear,
Trim, replied my uncle Toby, and therefore, continued my uncle Toby, throwing
down his crutch, and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word therefore—in
recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that goodness of thy heart I have
had such proofs of—whilst thy master is worth a shilling——thou shalt never ask
elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Toby—but had not
power——tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them off—He
laid his hands upon his breast——made a bow to the ground, and shut the door.
——I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby.——My father
smiled.———I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby.——
My father looked grave.

CHAPTER V

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of pensions and grenadiers?

CHAPTER VI

When my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down
with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him;
but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly
relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first
described; so that when corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself
disposed to rise off the bed—he had all the little preparatory movements to run
over again, before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam——’tis the
transition from one attitude to another——like the preparation and resolution of
the discord into harmony, which is all in all.
For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the
floor——pushed the chamber-pot still a little farther within the valance—gave a
hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just beginning to address
himself to my uncle Toby—when recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first
effort in that attitude——he got upon his legs, and in making the third turn across
the room, he stopped short before my uncle Toby: and laying the three first fingers
of his right-hand in the palm of his left, and stooping a little, he addressed himself
to my uncle Toby as follows:

CHAPTER VII

When I reflect, brother Toby, upon man; and take a view of that dark side of him
which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble—when I consider,
brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of affliction, and that we are born to it, as to
the portion of our inheritance———I was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby,
interrupting my father—but my commission. Zooks! said my father, did not my
uncle leave you a hundred and twenty pounds a year?———What could I have
done without it? replied my uncle Toby———That’s another concern, said my

father testily—But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-
reckonings and sorrowful Items with which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis
wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear
itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.———’Tis by the
assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the
palms of his hands close together——’tis not from our own strength, brother
Shandy——a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out
against a detachment of fifty men.——We are upheld by the grace and the
assistance of the best of Beings.
——That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it.——But give
me leave to lead you, brother Toby, a little deeper into the mystery.
With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby.
My father instantly exchanged the attitude he was in, for that in which Socrates
is so finely painted by Raffael in his school of Athens; which your connoisseurship
knows is so exquisitely imagined, that even the particular manner of the reasoning
of Socrates is expressed by it—for he holds the forefinger of his left hand between
the forefinger and the thumb of his right, and seems as if he was saying to the
libertine he is reclaiming———“You grant me this——and this: and this, and this,
I don’t ask of you—they follow of themselves in course.”
So stood my father, holding fast his forefinger betwixt his finger and his thumb,
and reasoning with my uncle Toby as he sat in his old fringed chair, valanced
around with party-coloured worsted bobs——O Garrick!—what a rich scene of
this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such another
to avail myself of thy immortality, and secure my own behind it.

CHAPTER VIII

Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the
same time ’tis of so slight a frame, and so totteringly put together, that the sudden
jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would
overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day——was it not, brother Toby, that
there is a secret spring within us.—Which spring, said my uncle Toby, I take to be
Religion.—Will that set my child’s nose on? cried my father, letting go his finger,
and striking one hand against the other.——It makes everything straight for us,
answered my uncle Toby.——Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I
know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic

power within us of counterbalancing evil, which, like a secret spring in a well-
ordered machine, though it can’t prevent the shock——at least it imposes upon our
sense of it.
Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his forefinger, as he was
coming closer to the point——had my child arrived safe into the world,
unmartyr’d in that precious part of him—fanciful and extravagant as I may appear
to the world in my opinion of christian names, and of that magic bias which good
or bad names irresistibly impress upon our characters and conducts—Heaven is
witness! that in the warmest transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my
child, I never once wished to crown his head with more glory and honour than
what George or Edward would have spread around it.
But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen him——I must
counteract and undo it with the greatest good.
He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother.
I wish it may answer——replied my uncle Toby, rising up.

CHAPTER IX

What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first
landing, as he and my uncle Toby were going downstairs—what a long chapter of
chances do the events of this world lay open to us! Take pen and ink in hand,
brother Toby, and calculate it fairly——I know no more of calculation than this
balluster, said my uncle Toby (striking short of it with his crutch, and hitting my
father a desperate blow souse upon his shin-bone)——’Twas a hundred to one—
cried my uncle Toby—I thought, quoth my father (rubbing his shin), you had
known nothing of calculations, brother Toby. ’Tis a mere chance, said my uncle
Toby.———Then it adds one to the chapter——replied my father.
The double success of my father’s repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at
once—it was well it so fell out—(chance! again)—or the world to this day had
never known the subject of my father’s calculation——to guess it—there was no
chance——What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned out! for it has saved
me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I have enough already upon my
hands without it.—Have not I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters
upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter
upon wishes?——a chapter of noses?—No, I have done that—a chapter upon my
uncle Toby’s modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will

finish before I sleep—by my great-grandfather’s whiskers, I shall never get half of
’em through this year.
Take pen and ink in hand, and calculate it fairly, brother Toby, said my father,
and it will turn out a million to one, that of all the parts of the body, the edge of the
forceps should have the ill luck just to fall upon and break down that one part,
which should break down the fortunes of our house with it.
It might have been worse, replied my uncle Toby.——I don’t comprehend, said
my father.———Suppose the hip had presented, replied my uncle Toby, as Dr.
Slop foreboded.
My father reflected half a minute—looked down——touched the middle of his
forehead slightly with his finger———
—True, said he.

CHAPTER X

Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of
stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen
more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I know, as my father and my uncle
Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps:——let that
be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny:—A sudden impulse comes
across me——drop the curtain, Shandy——I drop it—Strike a line here across the
paper, Tristram—I strike it—and hey for a new chapter.
The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair—and if I
had one—as I do all things out of all rule—I would twist it and tear it to pieces,
and throw it into the fire when I had done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause
demands it——a pretty story! is a man to follow rules———or rules to follow
him?
Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I promised to
write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my conscience entirely
before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew about the matter at once: Is not
this ten times better than to set out dogmatically with a sententious parade of
wisdom, and telling the world a story of a roasted horse——that chapters relieve
the mind—that they assist—or impose upon the imagination—and that in a work
of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes——with fifty
other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted him?—O! but to
understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana’s temple—you must read

Longinus—read away—if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time
over—never fear—read him again—Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle’s
metaphysicks forty times through apiece, and never understood a single word.—
But mark the consequence—Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of
writing—for he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all
the world knows he was born a fœtus, 6 of no more than five inches and a half in
length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a
title as long as himself———the learned know I mean his
Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul.
So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best chapter in
my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full as well employed, as
in picking straws.

CHAPTER XI

We shall bring all things to rights, said my father, setting his foot upon the first
step from the landing.—This Trismegistus, continued my father, drawing his leg
back and turning to my uncle Toby——was the greatest (Toby) of all earthly beings
—he was the greatest king——the greatest law-giver——the greatest philosopher
——and the greatest priest——and engineer—said my uncle Toby.
———In course, said my father.

CHAPTER XII

—And how does your mistress? cried my father, taking the same step over again
from the landing, and calling to Susannah, whom he saw passing by the foot of the
stairs with a huge pincushion in her hand—how does your mistress? As well, said
Susannah, tripping by, but without looking up, as can be expected.—What a fool
am I! said my father, drawing his leg back again—let things be as they will,
brother Toby, ’tis ever the precise answer——And how is the child, pray?——No
answer. And where is Dr. Slop? added my father, raising his voice aloud, and
looking over the ballusters—Susannah was out of hearing.
Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, crossing the landing in order
to set his back against the wall, whilst he propounded it to my uncle Toby——of

all the puzzling riddles, said he, in a marriage state,——of which you may trust
me, brother Toby, there are more asses loads than all Job’s stock of asses could
have carried——there is not one that has more intricacies in it than this—that from
the very moment the mistress of the house is brought to bed, every female in it,
from my lady’s gentlewoman down to the cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for
it; and give themselves more airs upon that single inch, than all their other inches
put together.
I think rather, replied my uncle Toby, that ’tis we who sink an inch lower.—If I
meet but a woman with child—I do it.—’Tis a heavy tax upon that half of our
fellow-creatures, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby—’Tis a piteous burden upon
’em, continued he, shaking his head—Yes, yes, ’tis a painful thing—said my
father, shaking his head too——but certainly since shaking of heads came into
fashion, never did two heads shake together, in concert, from two such different
springs.
God bless
’em all———said my uncle Toby and my father, each to himself.
Deuce take

CHAPTER XIII

Holla!——you, chairman!——here’s sixpence——do step into that bookseller’s
shop, and call me a day-tall critick. I am very willing to give any one of ’em a
crown to help me with his tackling, to get my father and my uncle Toby off the
stairs, and to put them to bed.
—’Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got whilst Trim
was boring the jack-boots—and which, by the bye, did my father no sort of good,
upon the score of the bad hinge—they have not else shut their eyes, since nine
hours before the time that Dr. Slop was led into the back parlour in that dirty pickle
by Obadiah.
Was every day of my life to be as busy a day as this—and to take up—Truce.
I will not finish that sentence till I have made an observation upon the strange
state of affairs between the reader and myself, just as things stand at present—an
observation never applicable before to any one biographical writer since the
creation of the world, but to myself—and I believe, will never hold good to any
other, until its final destruction—and therefore, for the very novelty of it alone, it
must be worth your worships attending to.

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and
having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume 7—and no
farther than to my first day’s life—’tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and
sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead
of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it—
on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back—was every day of my
life to be as busy a day as this—And why not?——and the transactions and
opinions of it to take up as much description—And for what reason should they be
cut short? as at this rate I should just live 364 times faster than I should write—It
must follow, an’ please your worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have
to write—and consequently, the more your worships read, the more your worships
will have to read.
Will this be good for your worships’ eyes?
It will do well for mine; and, was it not that my Opinions will be the death of
me, I perceive I shall lead a fine life of it out of this self-same life of mine; or, in
other words, shall lead a couple of fine lives together.
As for the proposal of twelve volumes a year, or a volume a month, it no way
alters my prospect—write as I will, and rush as I may into the middle of things, as
Horace advises—I shall never overtake myself whipp’d and driven to the last
pinch; at the worst I shall have one day the start of my pen—and one day is
enough for two volumes——and two volumes will be enough for one year.—
Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, which is
now opened to us——as I trust its providence will prosper everything else in it
that is taken in hand.——
As for the propagation of Geese—I give myself no concern—Nature is all
bountiful—I shall never want tools to work with.
—So then, friend! you have got my father and my uncle Toby off the stairs, and
seen them to bed?———And how did you manage it?——You dropp’d a curtain
at the stair-foot—I thought you had no other way for it———Here’s a crown for
your trouble.

CHAPTER XIV

—Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to Susannah.——There
is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried Susannah—the child is as black in
the face as my——As your what? said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear

searcher into comparisons.—Bless me, Sir, said Susannah, the child’s in a fit.—
And where’s Mr. Yorick?—Never where he should be, said Susannah, but his
curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name—
and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as captain Shandy is the
godfather, whether it should not be called after him.
Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that the child
was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not—and it would
be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him
——but he may recover.
No, no,——said my father to Susannah, I’ll get up———There is no time,
cried Susannah, the child’s as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father
———But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father; canst thou
carry Trismegistus in thy head, the length of the gallery without scattering?———
Can I? cried Susannah, shutting the door in a huff.——If she can, I’ll be shot, said
my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery.
My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.
Susannah got the start, and kept it—’Tis Tris—something, cried Susannah—
There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, beginning with Tris—but
Tristram. Then ’tis Tristram-gistus, quoth Susannah.
——There is no gistus to it, noodle!—’tis my own name, replied the curate,
dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the bason—Tristram! said he, &c. &c. &c. &c.,
so Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death.
My father followed Susannah, with his night-gown across his arm, with nothing
more than his breeches on, fastened through haste with but a single button, and
that button through haste thrust only half into the button-hole.
——She has not forgot the name? cried my father, half opening the door.——
No, no, said the curate, with a tone of intelligence.——And the child is better,
cried Susannah.——And how does your mistress? As well, said Susannah, as can
be expected.—Pish! said my father, the button of his breeches slipping out of the
button-hole—So that whether the interjection was levelled at Susannah, or the
button-hole—whether Pish was an interjection of contempt or an interjection of
modesty, is a doubt, and must be a doubt till I shall have time to write the three
following favourite chapters, that is, my chapter of chamber-maids, my chapter of
pishes, and my chapter of button-holes.
All the light I am able to give the reader at present is this, that the moment my
father cried Pish! he whisk’d himself about—and with his breeches held up by one
hand, and his night-gown thrown across the arm of the other, he turned along the
gallery to bed, something slower than he came.

CHAPTER XV

I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep.
A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this moment
offers, when all the curtains of the family are drawn—the candles put out—and no
creature’s eyes are open but a single one, for the other has been shut these twenty
years, of my mother’s nurse.
It is a fine subject!
And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters upon
button-holes, both quicker and with more fame, than a single chapter upon this.
Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of ’em——and trust me,
when I get amongst ’em——You gentry with great beards——look as grave as
you will———I’ll make merry work with my button-holes—I shall have ’em all
to myself—’tis a maiden subject—I shall run foul of no man’s wisdom or fine
sayings in it.
But for sleep——I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin—I am no dab
at your fine sayings in the first place—and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a
grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world—’tis the refuge of the unfortunate
—the enfranchisement of the prisoner—the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary,
and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming,
that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author
of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompense the sufferings wherewith his
justice and his good pleasure has wearied us——that this is the chiefest (I know
pleasures worth ten of it); or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and
passions of the day are over, and he lies down upon his back, that his soul shall be
so seated within him, that whichever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall
look calm and sweet above her—no desire—or fear—or doubt that troubles the air,
nor any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over
without offence, in that sweet secession.
“God’s blessing,” said Sancho Pança, “be upon the man who first invented this
self-same thing called sleep—it covers a man all over like a cloak.” Now there is
more to me in this, and it speaks warmer to my heart and affections, than all the
dissertations squeez’d out of the heads of the learned together upon the subject.
—Not that I altogether disapprove of what Montaigne advances upon it—’tis
admirable in its way—(I quote by memory).
The world enjoys other pleasures, says he, as they do that of sleep, without
tasting or feeling it as it slips and passes by.—We should study and ruminate upon
it, in order to render proper thanks to him who grants it to us.—For this end I