Laurence Sterne......................................................................................................................................1

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 painI shall think myself as happy as a minister of state;perhaps much

I am, Great Sir, (and, what is more to your Honour) I am, Good Sir, Your Wellwisher, and most humble

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, a great deal to that purpose:Well, you may take my word, that

nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon

their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set

agoing, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a half penny matter,away they go cluttering like heygo 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 gardenwalk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive

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

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

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 scientific research, he stands confesseda 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,engendered 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 fellowcreature as my Lord

Chancellor of England.He may be benefitted,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

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 disorder'd 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

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

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at

all,who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing

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 itselfand in the end, prove the very thing which

Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlourwindow;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

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 beforehand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and

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 every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived.

As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule

for many years of his life,on the first Sundaynight of every month throughout the whole year,as certain

as ever the Sundaynight came,to wind up a large houseclock, which we had standing on the backstairs

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

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 headvice versa: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.

Now it appears by a memorandum in my father's pocketbook, which now lies upon the table, 'That on

Ladyday, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture,my father set 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

But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December, January, and February?Why, Madam,he

On the fifth day of November, 1718, which to the aera fixed on, was as near nine kalendar months as any

husband could in reason have expected,was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy

and disastrous 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 public charges, and employments of dignity or power;but that is not my

case;and therefore every man will speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it;for which cause I

affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;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

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

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 praeclarum!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 outbear 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

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 fortyseventh 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 said seven 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 cheerfully 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

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

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 HobbyHorses;their running horses,their coins and their cockleshells, their drums and their

trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets,their maggots and their butterflies?and so long as a man rides his

HobbyHorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up

De gustibus non est disputandum;that is, there is no disputing against HobbyHorses; 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 bettersay 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,whyGod

speed theme'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 tomorrow 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

'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 feetwhen 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

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;

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

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

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 HobbyHorse, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of

background to the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your own figure, and make it come off

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 HobbyHorses, 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 agoing, and make the world run mad after

Bright Goddess, If thou art not too busy with Candid and Miss Cunegund's affairs,take Tristram Shandy's

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

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 countrytalk by a breach of

all decorum, which he had committed against himself, his station, and his office;and that was in never

appearing better, or otherwise mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, jackass of a horse, value about one pound

fifteen shillings; 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 hairbreadth in every thing,except that I

do not remember 'tis any where said, that Rosinante was brokenwinded; 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 exact justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this

dramatic work,I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote's horse;in all other points, the

parson's horse, I say, was just such another, for he was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade, as Humility

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 demipeaked saddle, quilted on

the seat with green plush, garnished with a double row of silverheaded studs, and a noble pair of shining

brass stirrups, with a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of black lace,

terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, poudre d'or,all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of

his life, together with a grand embossed bridle, ornamented at all points as it should be.But not caring to

banter his beast, he had 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

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'dthe bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well,the

spinning wheel forgot its round,even chuckfarthing and shufflecap 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 lighthearted; all

which he bore with excellent tranquillity.His character was,he loved a jest in his heartand 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, centaurlike,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 meekspirited jade of a

brokenwinded horse, preferably to one of mettle;for on such a one he could fit mechanically, and

meditate as delightfully de vanitate mundi et fuga faeculi, as with the advantage of a death'shead 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 steedhe could unite and reconcile every thing,he could

compose his sermonhe could compose his cough,and, in case nature gave a call that way, he could

likewise compose himself to sleep.In short, the parson upon such encounters would assign any cause but

the true cause,and he withheld the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it did

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 unkindhearted 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 twitterbon'd, or brokenwinded, 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

What the loss in 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 childbearing and childgetting 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

As he dreaded his own constancy in the firsthe 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

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

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 wildfire.'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

noonday, he would pocket the expence of the licence ten times told, the very first year:So that every body

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

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

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 directionsthat, 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

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 sayingIt

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 all together, that no one shall be able to stand up and swear, 'That his own great

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

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,

I have not the time to look into SaxoGrammaticus'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

houshold understanding amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;' which is, I think, very

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

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 gaite de coeur 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 twentysix, 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 slowpaced 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

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,

wellmeaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelvemonth, than by

pocketpicking and shoplifting 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 proceedinghe

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.

The Mortgager and Mortgagee differ the one from the other, not more in length of purse, than the Jester and

Jestee do, in that of memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all

four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more than some of the best of Homer's can pretend

to;namely, That the one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your 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

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 bookdebts 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

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

chimneycorner, 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

Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and

difficulties, which no afterwit 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 arithmetic 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

I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent

in these salliesI 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

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 tear stealing from his

eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more

sobriety.But, alas, too late!a grand 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,

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

nightcap 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 misshapened with the blows which. . .and. . ., and some

others have so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Panca, 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

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

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

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 footway crossing the

churchyard close by the side of his grave,not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon

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

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 outedge 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

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

grangehouse, 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

inuendos 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 gentlemenreviewers 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

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 have 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

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

The article in my mother's marriagesettlement, 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

'And this Indenture further witnesseth, That the said Walter Shandy, merchant, in consideration of the said

intended marriage to be had, and, by God's blessing, to be well and truly solemnized and consummated

between the said Walter Shandy and Elizabeth Mollineux aforesaid, and divers other good and 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 abovenamed

Trustees, 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 freewill, consent, and goodliking 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 countryseat, castle, hall, mansionhouse, messuage or graingehouse, 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 lyingin, 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, hinderance,

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 Dixon, 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 watercourses;together with all rents, reversions,

services, annuities, feefarms, 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, glebelands.'In three words,'My mother was to lay in (if she chose

But in order to put a stop to the practice of any unfair play on the part of my mother, which a

marriagearticle 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

But I was begot and born to misfortunes;for my poor mother, whether it was wind or wateror 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

marriagearticles, to have my nose squeez'd as flat to my face, as if the destinies had actually spun me

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

My father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the country, in but a pettish

kind of a humour. The first twenty or five andtwenty 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 every thing else was, the provoking time of the year,which,

as I told you, was towards the end of September, when his wallfruit 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 pocketbook, 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, had cost him, put together,rot the hundred and

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 tragicomical, 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,

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

brainso 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

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

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

marriagesettlement 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 marriagedeeds; which was to lyein of her next child in the country, to

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

As the point was that night agreed, or rather determined, that my mother should lyein 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 foetus 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 wishnever 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 fiveandtwenty shillings a yard,told

the mercer, she was sorry she had given him so much trouble;and immediately went and bought herself a

yardwide stuff of ten pence a yard.'Tis the duplication of one and the same greatness of soul; only what

lessened the honour of it, somewhat, in my mother's case, was, that she could not heroine it into so violent

and hazardous an extreme, as one in her situation might have wished, because the old midwife had really

some little claim to be depended upon,as much, at least, as success could give her; having, in the course of

her practice of near twenty years in the parish, brought every mother's son of them into the world without any

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 justiceor 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 lyingin 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 lyein 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

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 illfated 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

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 stateapoplexy;and then he would say, The Lord have mercy upon

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

armchair, '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, 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

'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 countryinterest to support;the little interest of any

kind which any man has any where in it, is concentrated in the court, and the looks of the Grand 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 lyingin 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 houshold 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 any thing, that he saw, but sorrow

For all these reasons, private and publick, put together,my father was for having the manmidwife 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 every thing 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

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 any thing unnatural or extravagant in

the supposition, that my dear Jenny may be my friend.Friend!My friend. Surely, Madam, a friendship

between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported withoutFy! Mr Shandy:Without any thing,

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

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 immediatly 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

His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as

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 handor of Nyky and Simkin

on the other. How many Caesars 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 Nicodemus'd into nothing?

I see plainly, Sir, by your looks, (or as the case happened) my father would saythat 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 forbid 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

orator;(Greek).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

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 defendmost 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

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

Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father's notionsor that his judgment, at length, became

the dupe of his wit;or how far, in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;the

reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here, is, that in this one, of the influence of

christian names, however it gained footing, he was serious;he was all uniformity;he was systematical,

and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in

nature to support his hypothesis. In a word I repeat it over again;he was serious;and, in consequence of

it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have

known better,as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child,or more so,

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 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 cherrystone 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 ofttimes 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

But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion for Tristram;he had the lowest

and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world,thinking it could possibly produce nothing in

rerum natura, 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 any thing great or worth recording?No,he would say, Tristram!The thing is

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

When this story is compared with the titlepage,Will not the gentle reader pity my father from his

soul?to see an orderly and welldisposed 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, illfitted 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

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

themThe 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

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. (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,Anglice

a squirt.'Tis very strange that St. Thomas Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and

untying the knots of schooldivinity,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

It is 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

I wish the malereader has not pass'd by many a one, as quaint and curious as this one, in which the

femalereader has been detected. I wish it may have its effects;and that all good people, both male and

Memoire presente a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne Vide Deventer. Paris Edit. 4to, 1734, p. 366.

Un Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne, qu'il y a des cas, quoique tres

rares, ou une mere ne scauroit accoucher, meme ou l'enfant est tellement renferme dans le sein de sa mere,

qu'il ne fait paroitre aucune partie de son corps, ce qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conferer, du

moins sous condition, le bapteme. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, pretend, par le moyen d'une petite canulle, de

pouvoir baptiser immediatement l'enfant, sans faire aucun tort a la mere. Il demand si ce moyen, qu'il vient

de proposer, est permis legitime, s'il peut s'en servir dans les cas qu'il vient d'exposer.

Le Conseil estime, que la question proposee souffre de grandes difficultes. Les Theologiens posent d'un cote

pour principe, que le bapteme, qui est une naissance spirituelle, suppose une premiere naissance; il faut etre

ne dans le monde, pour renaitre en Jesus Christ, comme ils l'enseignent. S. Thomas, 3 part. quaest. 88 artic.

II. suit cette doctrine comme une verite constante; l'on ne peut, dit ce S. Docteur, baptiser les enfans qui sont

renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, S. Thomas est fonde sur ce, que les enfans ne sont point nes, ne

peuvent etre comptes parmi les autres hommes; d'ou il conclud, qu'ils ne peuvent etre l'objet d'une action

exterieure, pour recevoir par leur ministere, les sacremens necessaires au salut: Pueri in maternis uteris

existentes nondum prodierunt in lucem ut cum aliis hominibus vitam ducant; unde non possunt subjici actioni

humanae, ut per eorum ministerium sacramenta recipiant ad salutem. Les rituels ordonnent dans la pratique

ce que les theologiens ont etabli sur les memes matieres, ils deffendent tous d'une maniere uniforme, de

baptiser les enfans qui sont renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, s'ils ne sont paroitre quelque partie de leurs

corps. Le concours des theologiens, des rituels, qui sont les regles des dioceses, paroit former une autorite qui

termine la question presente; cependant le conseil de conscience considerant d'un cote, que le raisonnement

des theologiens est uniquement fonde sur une raison de convenance, que la deffense des rituels suppose que

l'on ne peut baptiser immediatement les enfans ainsi renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, ce qui est contre

la supposition presente; d'un autre cote, considerant que les memes theologiens enseignent, que l'on peut

risquer les sacremens que Jesus Christ a etablis comme des moyens faciles, mais necessaires pour sanctifier

les hommes; d'ailleurs estimant, que les enfans renfermes dans le sein de leurs meres, pourroient etre capables

de salut, parcequ'ils sont capables de damnation;pour ces considerations, en egard a l'expose, suivant

lequel on assure avoir trouve un moyen certain de baptiser ces enfans ainsi renfermes, sans faire aucun tort a

la mere, le Conseil estime que l'on pourroit se servir du moyen propose, dans la confiance qu'il a, que Dieu

n'a point laisse ces sortes d'enfans sans aucuns secours, supposant, comme il est expose, que le moyen dont il

s'agit est propre a leur procurer le bapteme; cependant comme il s'agiroit, en autorisant la pratique proposee,

de changer une regle universellement etablie, le Conseil croit que celui qui consulte doit s'addresser a son

eveque, a qui il appartient de juger de l'utilite, du danger du moyen propose, comme, sous le bon plaisir de

l'eveque, le Conseil estime qu'il faudroit recourir au Pape, qui a le droit d'expliquer les regles de l'eglise, d'y

deroger dans le cas, ou la loi ne scauroit obliger, quelque sage quelque utile que paroisse la maniere de

baptiser dont il s'agit, le Conseil ne pourroit l'approver sans le concours de ces deux autorites. On conseile au

moins a celui qui consulte, de s'addresser a son eveque, de lui faire part de la presente decision, afin que, si le

prelat entre dans les raisons sur lesquelles les docteurs soussignes s'appuyent, il puisse etre autorise dans le

cas de necessite, ou il risqueroit trop d'attendre que la permission fut demandee accordee 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 meme moyen, il seroit necessaire de les baptiser sous condition; en cela le Conseil se

conforme a tous les rituels, qui en autorisant le bapteme d'un enfant qui fait paroitre quelque partie de son

corps, enjoignent neantmoins, ordonnent de le baptiser sous condition, s'il vient heureusement au monde.

Delibere 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

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, smoaking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of

black plushbreeches which he had got on: What can they be doing, brother?quoth my father,we can

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

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 storehouse 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

Thusthus, my fellowlabourers 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, aenigmatical, 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 Akme 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 thenwe shall have all to begin over

Happy! Thrice happy times! I only wish that the aera 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 fiveandtwenty years longer, when a man in the literary world might have stood some

But I forget my uncle Toby, whom all this while we have left knocking the ashes out of his tobaccopipe.

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 firstrate productions of it, had not there appeared too many

strong lines in it of a familylikeness, 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, ofttimes 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 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 or 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

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 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 sisterinlaw, my father's wife and my mothermy 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

hornwork 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 any thing in the world, only to let

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

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

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

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 legYes, 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 Scientiae 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 Lillebullero.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

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 argumentas 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

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.

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 Decads, at the end of his divine art of meditation, imprinted at London, in the

year 1610, by John Beal, dwelling in Aldersgatestreet, 'That it is an abominable thing for a man to commend

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

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

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

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

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 Allhail; brings in

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

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 agoing these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my

If the fixture of Momus's glass in the human breast, according to the proposed emendation of that

archcritick, 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

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, 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 redhot 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

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

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 windinstruments. Virgil takes notice of that way in the

affair of Dido and Aeneas;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 windinstrument 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 aenigmatical, and

intended to be so, at least ad populum:And therefore, I beg, Madam, when you come here, that you read on

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 Nonnaturals.Why the most

natural actions of a man's life should be called his Nonnaturals,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 (Pentagraph, an instrument to copy Prints and Pictures mechanically, and in any

proportion.) 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

Others, to mend the matter, will make a drawing of you in the Camera;that is most unfair of all, because,

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 windinstrument 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

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

A man and his HobbyHorse, tho' I cannot say that they act and react 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 journies and much friction, it so happens, that the body of the rider is at length

fill'd as full of HobbyHorsical 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 HobbyHorse which my uncle Toby always rode upon, was in my opinion an HobbyHorse 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 HobbyHorse 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 HobbyHorse was a HobbyHorse indeed, but by getting upon his back and riding him

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

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

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

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

any thing. 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

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

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 waterstop, where the English were terribly exposed to the shot of the counterguard and

demibastion of St. Roch: The issue of which hot dispute, in three words, was this; That the Dutch lodged

themselves upon the counterguard,and that the English made themselves masters of the coveredway

before St. Nicolasgate, notwithstanding the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed themselves upon

As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Toby was an eyewitness 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

counterscarp,the glacis and coveredway,the halfmoon and ravelin,as to make his company fully

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 ofttimes puzzle his

To speak the truth, unless the company my father led up stairs were tolerably clearheaded, or my uncle

Toby was in one of his explanatory moods, 'twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse

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 waterstop,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 ofttimes obliged to give up the attack upon

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

No doubt my uncle Toby had great command of himself,and 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 coveredway 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

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

demibastion of St. Roch:so that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon the identical spot of

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 HobbyHorse.

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 any thing 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

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 youI beg only you will make no strangers of yourselves,

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 mean time,

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, puddingheaded, muddleheaded,

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 valiantand 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

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 rashlybecause many, I know, quote the book, who have not

read itand 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 yourselfIt is a historybook, 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

Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom of this matter, it will be found

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 sealwax.

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 beeswax, 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 brassjack.

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

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

inkshed,that a goodnatured 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 (Greek); 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:

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, 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

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 bevirtu'dbepictured,bebutterflied, 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

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

Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August, ninetynine, my uncle Toby found it

necessary to understand a little of projectiles: and having judged it best to draw his knowledge from the

fountainhead, he began with N. Tartaglia, who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a

cannonball's doing all that mischief under the notion of a right lineThis N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle

No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannonball 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 path to be a

Parabolaor 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 Tobystop!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;flyfly,fly from it as from a serpent.Is it

fitgoodnatured 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 perspirationsevaporate thy

spiritswaste 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.

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 Tobywould have

felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate;therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I

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

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

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 any thing like it in my uncle Toby's carriage; he

had never once dropped one fretful or discontented word;he had been all patience,all submission.

We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it;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

The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature;the love of liberty and enlargement is a

sisterpassion to it: These my uncle Toby had in common with his speciesand 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

When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,or, in other words, when his

My uncle Toby's wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave

to say as muchhe 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 chariotandfour 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'she packed up his maps, his books of fortification, his instruments,

and by the help of a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other,my uncle Toby embarked for ShandyHall.

The table in my uncle Toby's room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with

his maps, about himbeing somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of

knowledge which usually lay crowded upon ithe had the accident, in reaching over for his tobaccobox, 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 Pagon 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 makingI 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 countryseat, where,as your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could manage this

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 nickname of

Trim, in the regiment, my uncle Toby, unless when he happened to be very angry with him, would never call

The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his left knee by a musketbullet, at the

battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair of Namur;and as the fellow was wellbeloved 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

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, exclusive and besides what he gained HobbyHorsically, as a bodyservant, Non Hobby

Horsical per se; had become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and

chambermaid, 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 himhe 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

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 Tobyspeak,speak what thou thinkest upon the

subject, man, without fear.Why then, replied Trim, (not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a

countrylout, 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

hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddlefaddle 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 fosse, and if your Honour could tell me the

proper depth and breadthI 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,and'

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 cannonball enters

into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fosse, (as was

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

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 asTrim, quoth my uncle

Toby, say no more. Your Honour, continued Trim, might sit in your armchair (pointing to it) this fine

weather, giving me your orders, and I wouldSay no more, Trim, quoth my uncle TobyBesides, your

Honour would get not only pleasure and good pastimebut 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 breechespocket)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

pickaxe, and a couple ofSay 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

daylight, he had come to a final determination and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's

My uncle Toby had a little neat countryhouse 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 ayear.

Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchengarden of about half an acre, and at the bottom of the

garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowlinggreen, 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 bowlinggreen 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 selfsame 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 thickset

flowering shrubs:so that the idea of not being seen, did not a little contribute to the idea of pleasure

preconceived 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

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 underplot in the epitasis and workingup of

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

Pray, what's all that racket over our heads, Obadiah?quoth my father;my brother and I can scarce hear

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 labourand 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

Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister does it to save the expence: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

If, on the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period's endthen the world stands indebted

to the sudden snapping of my father's tobaccopipe 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 statue! How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, the pen, the fiddlestick, et

caetera,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

'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 tobaccopipe, so

Tho' my father was a good natural philosopher,yet he was something of a moral philosopher too; for which

reason, when his tobaccopipe 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

This looked something like heat;and the manner of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying, proved it

'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 any thing 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

It is said in Aristotle's Master Piece, 'That when a man doth think of any thing 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

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 chimneypieceRight 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 eyes still fixed upon the bad joint) this month together, I am sure I should not be able to find it

Every thing 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, every one

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, comeatability, and convenience of all the parts which

constitute the whole of that animal, called Woman, and compare them analogicallyI never understood

Analogy, replied my father, is the certain relation and agreement which differentHere a devil of a rap at the

door snapped my father's definition (like his tobaccopipe) 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

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 manmidwife;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 threefifths,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 ideasand 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

I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from ShandyHall to Dr. Slop, the

manmidwife'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 chariotandfour, 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

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 pressedI 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 stableyard, before he met with Dr. Slop;and indeed he gave a dirty proof that

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

Such were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, whichif 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

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 vertebrae of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colourbut 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.

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

phaenomenon, 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 coachhorse.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 ShandyHall, and had approached to within

sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the gardenwall,and in

the dirtiest part of a dirty lane,when Obadiah and his coachhorse 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

Obadiah pull'd off his cap twice to Dr. Slop;once as he was falling,and then again when he saw him

seated.Illtimed 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

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 parlourdoor (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

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

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 ShandyHall, 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, commonplace 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.

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 goodbreeding, 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

For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to

'Tis his turn now;I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop's sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance

Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. Slop has told his taleand 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 up stairs 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 entrusted 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 tiretete,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 coachhorse 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

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 crownpiece (which will serve to give away

to Obadiah when he gets back) that this same Stevinus was some engineer or otheror has wrote something

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,

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,

Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop,the curtins my brother Shandy mentions here,

have nothing to do with beadsteads;tho', I know Du Cange says, 'That bedcurtains, in all probability, have

taken their name from them;'nor have the hornworks he speaks of, any thing in the world to do with the

hornworks 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 themBesiegers 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 fosse or ditch:The common men,

who know very little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the halfmoon 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 halfmoon;a halfmoon likewise is a

halfmoon, 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 halfmoon; a halfmoon, in that case, is not a halfmoon;'tis no more

than a ravelin.I think, quoth my father, that the noble science of defence has its weak sidesas well as

As for the hornwork (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 a

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 demibastionsthey 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 tenailleBy 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

manmidwife.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, halfmoons, and such trumpery,

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

Gosays he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented

him cruelly all dinnertime,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

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 goodwill 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

Literae 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

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 HobbyHorsical 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 any thing 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

The characters of the two brothers, in this view of them, reflected light upon each other, and appeared with

I need not tell the reader, if he keeps a HobbyHorse,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

Pray, Sir, what said he?How did he behave?O, Sir!it was great: For as soon as my father had done

insulting his HobbyHorse,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

goodnature;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

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.

My brother does it, quoth my uncle Toby, out of principle.In a family way, I suppose, quoth Dr.

At the end of the last chapter, my father and my uncle Toby were left both standing, like Brutus and Cassius,

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,

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

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,

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

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 selfsame chariot set agoing?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 childbearing)

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

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

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

In popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus:But 'twas too late,all the discourse had been exhausted without

But prithee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling,look first into it, and see if thou canst spy aught of a

Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned to obey,and not to remonstrate,so taking the book to

a sidetable, 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

There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an' please your Honour;but it is not a chariot, or any

thing 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

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle Toby, for such a thing as a sermon to have got into my

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

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

Trim's reason put his audience into good humour,all but Dr. Slop, who turning his head about towards

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.

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

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

The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical exactness,does it not shew

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, shall be commented upon in that

part of the cyclopaedia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the

pulpit, and the bar, the coffeehouse, the bedchamber, and fireside, 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 seveneighths 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

>This I recommend to painters;need I add,to orators!I think not; for unless they practise it,they

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

Corporal Trim's eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony with the other parts of him;he

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

(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.

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

vilestPrithee 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

The tears trickled down Trim's cheeks faster than he could well wipe them away.A dead silence in the

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

Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his pocket, and, making a bow as he did

'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

'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

'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

'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 selfaccused, 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

(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,

It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the

'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 selflove 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 CourtDid 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 hearingand that Passion never got

into the judgmentseat, 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

'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

'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 factSo 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,

'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

'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

'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 unconcernedly;perhaps

(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,

'Another is sordid, unmerciful,' (here Trim waved his right hand) 'a straithearted, 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,

'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

'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 conscienceConscience 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

(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 has 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 barefaced

villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!Horrid!But indeed much better was not to be

expected, in the present casethe 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,

'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 robewe 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 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

'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

'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

'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 watchmen 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

(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 tobaccobox.

I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watchmen 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 hornworks, or

ravelins before the curtin, in his time;or such a fosse 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 outwardlythe 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

'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

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

'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

'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

'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 bubbleI must lie at the mercy of Honour, or some such capricious principleStrait security for two

'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

'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 that 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

'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

'In how many kingdoms of the world'(Here Trim kept waving his righthand 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 sainterrant, spared neither

age or 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

(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 loose my

life a thousand times.Here's a crown for thee, Trim, to drink with Obadiah tonight, 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

But prithee, Trim, said my father, make an end,for I see thou hast but a leaf or two left.

'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

'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 Trims'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 togetherI 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

'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

how 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

'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 argumentsBy their fruits ye

'I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or three short and independent rules deducible

'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.

'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

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 has 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,

The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had heard preached in his

parishchurch, was the ground of his conjecture,proving it as strongly, as an argument a 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, a

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 carelesly 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

Illfated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thru' an unsuspected

fissure in thy master's pocket, down into a treacherous and a tattered lining,trod deep into the dirt by the

left hindfoot 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 parishclerk,transferred to his

parson,lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,nor restored to his restless Manes till this very

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

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

The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to Yorick's ghost; whichas the countrypeople, and

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

Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute;for he came in jingling, with all the instruments in the

green baize bag we spoke of, flung 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

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

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 letter 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 any thing, 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 foetus,which has received such lights,

that, for my part (holding up his hand) I declare I wonder how the world hasI wish, quoth my uncle Toby,

I have dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,to remind you of one thing,and to inform you of

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

When these two things are done,the curtain shall be drawn up again, and my uncle Toby, my father, and

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 Christiannames, 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

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 steelyard, the fulcrum, he

would say, should be almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets;without this the minutiae 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 wing,as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and

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

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

'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

This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:The point you are to be informed of, and

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 matter 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 sheetanchor.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

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

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 groundwork of the first axiom,tho' it comes last) That every man'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 understandingwas from no original sharpness or bluntness of one

thinking substance above or below another,but arose merely from the lucky or unlucky organization of the

body, in that part where the soul principally took up her residence,he had made it the subject of his enquiry

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

musketball,and another part of it taken out after by a French surgeon; and after all, recovered, and did his

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

As for that certain, very thin, subtle and very fragrant juice which Coglionissimo Borri, the great Milaneze

physician affirms, in a letter to Bartholine, to have discovered in the cellulae 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 headquarters

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

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 cornerstones 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 sina qua non, and without which all that

was done was of no manner of significance,was the preservation of this delicate and finespun 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.

My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into Lithopaedus Senonesis de Portu difficili,

(The author is here twice mistaken; for Lithopaedus should be wrote thus, Lithopaedii Senonensis Icon. The

second mistake is, that this Lithopaedus 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 Cordaeus's works in Spachius. Mr. Tristram

Shandy has been led into this error, either from seeing Lithopaedus's name of late in a catalogue of learned

writers in Dr. . ., or by mistaking Lithopaedus for Trinecavellius,from the too great similitude of the

names.) 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 labourpains, was equal, upon an average, to the weight of 470 pounds avoirdupois

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 pastrycook 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 pretendsis it not

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

But when my father read on, and was let into the secret, that when a child was turned topsyturvy, 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 listed 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

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

When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a phaenomenon 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 a 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

commonplace solution of a clearer sky, and a more perpetual sunshine, 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 springhead;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

organization 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 Caesarian 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 os coxygis on that;and pray,

what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your Julius Caesar, 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 sideway, Sir, into

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

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

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 newinvented

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

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

marriagearticles,and shew the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to be called

Tristram, 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 Alquise, the magician in Don

Belianis of Greece, nor the no less famous Urganda, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive) could pretend to

The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the next year,when a series of

'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 (Vide.))'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

himand thereby putting his ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for

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 legsand wish the wisher something in return, of pretty near the same value,so balancing the account

upon the spot, you stand as you werenay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.

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 dangerthe 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 withfirst in my

uncle Toby's facethen in histhen upthen downthen easteast 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

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

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

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,

In this case, (unless, indeed, my father had been resolved to make a fool of himself by holding the wig stiff in

his left handor by making some nonsensical angle or other at his elbowjoint, or armpit)his whole

attitude had been easynaturalunforced: Reynolds himself, as great and gracefully as he paints, might

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 morethe 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.

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 zigzaggery 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 intirely 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 facemy

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 gumtaffeta, and the

Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes Babylonius, Dionysius, Heracleotes, Antipater, Panaetius, and Possidonius

amongst the Greeks;Cato and Varro and Seneca amongst the Romans;Pantenus 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 threepenny piece the worse; pellmell, helterskelter,

dingdong, cut and thrust, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and longway, 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

You Messrs. the Monthly Reviewers!how could you cut and slash my jerkin as you did?how did you

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 dinnertime, '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.'

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 loosethe whole piece, Madam,

must have been played off like the sixth of Avison Scarlatticon 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 pockethole;so sitting still till my

father had got his handkerchief out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with inexpressible

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 'emthough 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 enowlittle 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

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

When Dr. Slop's maid delivered the green baize 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 bowknot, 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 any thing 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

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 tete, 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 coachhorse into a full gallopby Heaven! Sir, the jingle

As Obadiah had a wife and three childrenthe 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 ofttimes done with the greatest patriots.'The poor

As Obadiah loved windmusic 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

In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt to enter a man's head as his

As Obadiah's was a mixed casemark, Sirs,I say, a mixed case; for it was obstetrical,scriptical,

squirtical, papisticaland as far as the coach horse was concerned in it,caballisticaland 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 hatband betwixt his teeth, and then slipping his hand down to the middle of

it,he tied and crosstied 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

contestand she and Dr. Slop both fairly started togetherthere is no man living which 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 mindwhich of the two would have

carried off the prize. My mother, Madam, had been delivered sooner than the green bag infalliblyat 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 abandonedas 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.

Multitudinis imperitae non formido judicia, meis tamen, rogo, parcant opusculisin quibus fuit propositi

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

distinguishthe 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

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

In the case of knots,by which, in the first place, I would not be understood to mean slipknotsbecause in

the course of my life and opinionsmy 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 bowknots;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 themto get them slipp'd and

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 lifeevery 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

dictateis to take our teeth or our fingers to them.Dr. Slop had lost his teethhis 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 fingersalas; 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 over head 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 penknifeI must

e'en cut the knots at lastpugh!psha!Lord! I have cut my thumb quite across to the very bonecurse

the fellowif there was not another manmidwife within fifty milesI am undone for this boutI wish the

scoundrel hang'dI wish he was shotI 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 mannerhe

had moreover some little respect for himselfand could as ill bear with the indignity offered to himself in it.

Had Dr. Slop cut any part about him, but his thumbmy father had pass'd it byhis prudence had

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 sparrowshot, 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 allI hold it badbut 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 purposethat is, I swear on

till I find myself easy. A wife 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 himselfbut 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 himwhich forms being well considered by him, and such moreover as he could stand

to, he kept them ever by him on the chimneypiece, within his reach, ready for use.I never apprehended,

replied Dr. Slop, that such a thing was ever thought ofmuch 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. Slopthe devil take the fellow.Then, answered my father, 'Tis much at

your service, Dr. Slopon 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 legerbook of the church of Rochester, writ by Ernulphus the bishopwith a most

affected seriousness of look and voice, which might have cajoled Ernulphus himselfhe 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 followsmy uncle Toby whistling Lillabullero as loud as he could all

(As the geniuneness 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.)

'By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the

undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and 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 fatheras you have read it over, Sir, so

lately, to read it aloudand as Captain Shandy seems to have no great inclination to hear itI 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 whistlingas 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 chagrinhe read it aloud as followsmy uncle Toby whistling Lillabullero, though not

'By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary,

mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,

powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and

evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new

song of the 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)'We excommunicate, and

anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he

may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the

Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of

him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him' (Obadiah, of the knots which he has tied) 'and make

'May the Father who created man, curse him.May the Son who suffered for us curse him.May the Holy

Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him' (Obadiah)'May the holy cross which Christ, for our

'May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him.May St. Michael, the advocate of holy

souls, curse him.May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies,

curse him.' (Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,but nothing to this.For my own

'May St. John, the Praecursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all

other Christ's apostles, together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by

their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and

confessors who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him' (Obadiah.)

'May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ have despised the things of the world,

damn himMay all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be

beloved of God, damn himMay the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, damn

'May he (Obadiah) be damn'd wherever he bewhether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or

the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the 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 him, like

a running bass all the way.) 'May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in

fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in

'May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly!May he be cursed in the hair of his head!May he be cursed

in his brains, and in his vertex,' (that is a sad curse, quoth my father) 'in his temples, in his forehead, in his

ears, in his eyebrows, in his cheeks, in his jawbones, in his nostrils, in his foreteeth and grinders, in his

lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers!

'May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach!

'May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin,' (God in heaven forbid! quoth my uncle Toby) 'in his thighs,

in his genitals,' (my father shook his head) 'and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe nails!

'May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, from the top of his head to the sole of his

'May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty'(Here my uncle Toby, throwing back his

head, gave a monstrous, long, loud Whew wwsomething betwixt the interjectional whistle of

By the golden beard of Jupiterand 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 aquatickto say nothing of the beards of towngods 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 byby all these beards together thenI 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 histo have stood by, and heard my uncle Toby's accompanyment.

'curse him!'continued Dr. Slop,'and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up

against him, curse and damn him' (Obadiah) 'unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. So be it,so be

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,

Dr. Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to return my uncle Toby the compliment of his

Whuuuor interjectional whistlewhen the door hastily opening in the next chapter but oneput an

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

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, 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 pityfor 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 voicewas 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 stopwatch, my

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 for the epick poem your lordship bid me look atupon 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

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 Titianthe expression of Rubensthe grace of Raphaelthe purity of Dominichinothe

corregiescity of Corregiothe learning of Poussinthe airs of Guidothe taste of the Carrachisor the

grand contour of Angelo. Grant me patience, just Heaven!Of all the cants which are canted in this

canting worldthough the cant of hypocrites may be the worstthe cant of criticism is the most

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 handsbe pleased he knows not

Great Apollo! if thou art in a giving humourgive meI ask no more, but one stroke of native humour,

with a single spark of thy own fire along with itand send Mercury, with the rules and compasses, if he can

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 originalsexcept 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 oathand by itself passes very well'Gd damn you.'Set it beside

Ernulphus's'God almighty the Father damn youGod the Son damn youGod 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 inventionpossess'd more of the excellencies of a swearerhad such a thorough knowledge of the

human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, and articulations,that when

Ernulphus cursedno part escaped him.'Tis true there is something of a hardness in his mannerand, as

My father, who generally look'd upon every thing 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 digestlest, through the rust of timeand the fatality of all things

For this reason my father would ofttimes 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 addI 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

Bless my soul!my poor mistress is ready to faintand her pains are goneand the drops are

doneand the bottle of julap is brokeand 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 mistressbut 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.

The midwife had just before been put over Dr. Slop's headHe 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

hobbyhorsical reflection; though full as hobbyhorsical 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 a propos, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by the Shandy family, as

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 threehalfpenny pickle potbut above all, a tender

infant royally accoutred.Tho' if it was too young, and the oration as long as Tully's second Philippickit

must certainly have beshit the orator's mantle.And then again, if too old,it must have been unwieldly

and incommodious to his actionso 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 minutehid his Bambino in his mantle so

cunningly that no mortal could smell itand produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by

head and shouldersOh Sirs! it has done wondersIt has open'd the sluices, and turn'd the brains, and

These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and times, I say, where orators wore

mantlesand pretty large ones too, my brethren, with some twenty or fiveandtwenty yards of good

purple, superfine, marketable cloth in themwith 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 trunkhose.We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.

Dr. Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green

baize 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 managedmy 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,

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

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 Tobyand you have crush'd all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly.

'Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slopyou 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 closingor else the cut on my thumb has made me a little

aukwardor possibly'Tis well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilitiesthat the

experiment was not first made upon my child's headpiece.It would not have been a cherrystone 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 wayand besides, I could

have extracted by the feet after.Not you, said she.I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my

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 knowand yet of the

greatest consequence to be known; because, Sir, if the hip is mistaken for the headthere is a possibility

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 fatherbut when your possibility

It is morally impossible the reader should understand this'tis enough Dr. Slop understood it;so taking

the green baize 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 doorand from the door was shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my

It is two hours, and ten minutesand no morecried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slop and

Obadiah arrivedand I know not how it happens, Brother Tobybut to my imagination it seems almost an

Herepray, Sir, take hold of my capnay, 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

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 predetermined 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 happenscried my

My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon every thing which happened,

and accounting for it tooproposed 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 every thing as it happened; and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least

with abstruse thinking;the ideas of time and spaceor how we came by those ideasor of what stuff they

were madeor whether they were born with us or we picked them up afterwards as we went alongor

whether we did it in frocksor not till we had got into breecheswith 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 crackednever did my uncle Toby's the least injury at all;

my father knew itand was no less surprized than he was disappointed, with my uncle's fortuitous solution.

Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands togetherthere is a worth in

thy honest ignorance, brother Toby 'twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.But I'll tell

To understand what time is aright, without which we never can comprehend infinity, insomuch as one is a

portion of the otherwe 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 any body? quoth my uncle Toby. (Vide

Locke.) For 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 any thing else, commensurate to the succession

of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing coexisting with our

thinkingand so according to that preconceivedYou 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 monthsand 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 usthat 'twill be well, if in time to come, the succession of our

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 likeA train of artillery? said

my uncle TobyA train of a fiddlestick!quoth my fatherwhich 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 smokejack,Then, brother Toby, I have

What a conjuncture was here lost!My father in one of his best explanatory moodsin 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

smokejack;the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and

darkened over with fuliginous matter!By the tombstone of Lucianif it is in beingif 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.

Tho' my father persisted in not going on with the discourseyet he could not get my uncle Toby's

smokejack out of his headpiqued 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 handbut looking first stedfastly in the firehe 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

discoursethe idea of the smoke jack soon turned all his ideas upside downso that he fell asleep almost

As for my uncle Toby, his smokejack 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

summerand is this instant boring the touchholes with the point of a hot poker.All my heroes are off my

hands;'tis the first time I have had a moment to spareand I'll make use of it, and write my preface.

No, I'll not say a word about ithere it is;in publishing itI have appealed to the worldand to the

All I know of the matter iswhen I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity

of my understanding would hold outa wise, aye, and a discreettaking 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 meso that, as your worships see'tis just as God pleases.

Now, Agalastes (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in it, for aught he knowsbut

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 westSo, says Lockeso 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 argumentnor do I maintain the wiping of a lookingglass clean to be

a syllogism;but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for itso 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

Now, my dear antiShandeans, and thrice able criticks, and fellowlabourers (for to you I write this

Preface)and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (dopull off your beards) renowned for

gravity and wisdom;Monopolus, my politicianDidius, my counsel; Kysarcius, my friend;Phutatorius,

my guide;Gastripheres, the preserver of my life; Somnolentius, the balm and repose of itnot forgetting

all others, as well sleeping as waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom for brevity, but out of no resentment to

My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in case the thing is not done

already for usis, that the great gifts and endowments both of wit and judgment, with every thing which

usually goes along with themsuch 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 itscum 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 brainsin 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

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 youjust heaven!with what raptures would you sit

and read but oh!'tis too muchI am sickI faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it'tis more than

nature can bear!lay hold of meI am giddyI am stone blindI'm dyingI am gone.Help! Help!

Help!But holdI 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 witswe should never agree amongst ourselves, one day to an

end:there would be so much satire and sarcasmscoffing and flouting, with raillying and reparteeing of

itthrusting and parrying in one corner or anotherthere would be nothing but mischief among usChaste

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 placesthere 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 promisea paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be hadso

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 myselfthere 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

Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and

dreary tracks of the globe, which lie more directly under the arctick and antartick circles, where the whole

province of a man's concernments lies for near nine months together within the narrow compass of his

cavewhere the spirits are compressed almost to nothingand where the passions of a man, with every

thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itselfthere the least quantity of judgment imaginable

does the businessand of witthere is a total and an absolute savingfor as not one spark is wantedso

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 Norwaycrossing over

Swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angermania to the lake of Bothmia;

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 northeast of the Baltick, up to

Petersbourg, and just stepping into Ingria;then stretching over directly from thence through the north parts

of the Russian empireleaving Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we got into the very heart of Russian

Now through 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 houshold 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

Now, Sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island, where you perceive the

springtide of our blood and humours runs highwhere we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and

lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reasonthe height of our wit,

and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our

necessitiesand accordingly we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and

It must however be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and coldwet 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 upthen all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of running again like

furyyou would think they would never stop:and then it is, that in writing, and fighting, and twenty other

It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which

Suidas calls dialectick inductionthat 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 every thing 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 itI 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 sinksothers 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

earsadmirable!trusting to the passions excitedin an air sung, or a story painted to the heart instead

In the foreground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way

In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worsefeeling

his patient's pulse, instead of his apothecary'sa brother of the Faculty in the background upon his knees in

tearsdrawing the curtains of a mangled victim to beg his forgiveness; offering a feeinstead of taking

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,

inand 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 stilla 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 notrashly determined by them in

fiveandtwenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might

have taken up as many monthsand 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,

surprizesambuscadesmaskbatteries, 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

As for the ClergyNoif I say a word against them, I'll be shot.I have no desire; and besides, if I hadI

durst not for my soul touch upon the subjectwith 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 accountand 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 upand that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least

wit are reported to be men of most judgment.But markI say, reported to befor 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

This by the help of the observation already premised, and I hope already weighed and perpended by your

I hate set dissertationsand 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 conceptionwhen 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 wintermittain, 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 gimletholes, 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

Here stands witand there stands judgment, close beside it, just like the two knobs I'm speaking of, upon

You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its frameas wit and judgment are of

oursand like them too, indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in all such cases

Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating this matterlet 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:dopray, 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 knobsor top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown the whole entablaturebeing, as

I said, wit and judgment, which of all others, as I have proved it, are the most needfulthe most priz'dthe

most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest to come atfor all these reasons put together,

there is not a mortal among us, so destitute of a love of good fame or feedingor so ignorant of what will do

him good thereinwho 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

Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at the oneunless 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 nakedthis was not to be borne, but by an effort of

philosophy not to be supposed in the case we are uponso 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 artificethat 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

itit 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 iton the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in

This has been made the Magna Charta of stupidity ever sincebut your reverences plainly see, it has been

obtained in such a manner, that the title to it is not worth a groat:which bythebye is one of the many and

As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind too freelyI beg leave to qualify

whatever has been unguardedly said to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declarationThat 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 selfsame imposturefor any purposepeace

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 hourand what is most astonishing, there was not a subject in

the world upon which my father was so eloquent, as upon that of doorhinges.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 handycuffs.Never did the parlourdoor openbut 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

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 sensibilitiesto 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

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

When Corporal Trim had brought his two mortars to bear, he was delighted with his handywork above

measure; and knowing what a pleasure it would be to his master to see them, he was not able to resist the

Now next to the moral lesson I had in view in mentioning the affair of hinges, I had a speculative

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 asleepthe respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have retired as silent as

death, and left them both in their armchairs, 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 accountthis 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

'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 jackboots, which

Obadiah told me your honour had left off wearing.By Heaven! cried my father, springing out of his chair,

as he sworeI have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these

jackbootsthey were our great grandfather's brother Tobythey 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 fatherbut these jackboots, 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 MarstonMoor.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 themI'll pay you the ten

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 thatreplied my father hastilyto ten pounds for a pair of

jackboots?twelve guineas for your pontoons?half as much for your Dutch drawbridge?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 handthese

military operations of yours are above your strength;you mean well brotherbut 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

My father could not help smiling for his soulhis anger at the worst was never more than a spark;and the

zeal and simplicity of Trimand the generous (though hobbyhorsical) gallantry of my uncle Toby, brought

Generous souls!God prosper you both, and your mortarpieces too! quoth my father to himself.

All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairsI 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 upon his legs a second time)not one single thing

has 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

You must know, my uncle Toby mistook the bridgeas widely as my father mistook the mortars:but to

understand how my uncle Toby could mistake the bridgeI 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 actoror

else in the middle of his and my uncle Toby's campaigns on the bowlinggreenfor it will do very well in

either place;but then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my storyI ruin the story I'm upon;and if

O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the

hearingthat kindly shew him, where he is to begin itand where he is to end itwhat he is to put into

itand what he is to leave outhow much of it he is to cast into a shadeand whereabouts he is to throw

his light!Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes and

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 herethat at least you set up

a guidepost in the centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to

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 sexor 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

pointsI 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 mistresscorporal Trim incontinently took

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 penetrationI defy itthat 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 singlehorse chair and madam Pompadour's visavis; than betwixt a single amour, and an amour

thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand dramaSir, a simple, single, silly

affair of that kind is quite lost in five actsbut 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

Corporal Trim, as I said, had made no such bargain either with himselfor with any one elsethe fidelity

however of his heart not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgusthe

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 heror (as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the handor ask her

lovingly how she didor would give her a ribbonand nowandthen, though never but when it could be

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 every thing was right at his fortificationsin the lane

separated from the bowlinggreen with flowering shrubs and hollyhe 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 foulmouth'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 ditchwas

My Father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Toby's hobbyhorse; 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 itso 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 himWellbut

dear Toby! my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened.How can you

teaze me so much about it? my uncle Toby would replyI 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 inVery well, Trim! my father would cry(smiling mysteriously,

and giving a nodbut 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 bridgeand

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 saya 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,

At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say a syllable about cannons,

bombs, or petardsmy father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great)

in a panegyric upon the BatteringRams of the ancientsthe Vinea which Alexander made use of at the

siege of Troy.He would tell my uncle Toby of the Catapultae 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 Pyraboli, 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 sallyport, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out

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 groinand, 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 officescut my father thro' his reins, for the pain he had just been giving

him.May my brains be knock'd out with a batteringram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father

The drawbridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about anotherbut 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 Sicilyhe determined upon an Italian

bridge(my uncle Toby, bythebye, 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 fieldconvinced 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 preengagements, 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, pellmell, upon

the old prizefighting stage of Flanders;then what will you do with your Italian bridge?

When corporal Trim had about half finished it in that stylemy 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 sparebut 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

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 uprightbut 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 passageof

which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its destructionand 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 bridgesand my uncle foreseeing moreover that it would but perpetuate the

memory of the Corporal's misfortunehe changed his mind for that of the marquis d'Hopital's invention,

which the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as your worships may seeAct. Erud.

Lips. an. 1695to 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 cycloidif not a cycloid itself.

My uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man in Englandbut was not quite such a

master of the cycloid;he talked however about it every daythe bridge went not forwards.We'll ask

When Trim came in and told my father, that Dr. Slop was in the kitchen, and busy in making a bridgemy

uncle Tobythe affair of the jackboots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his braintook it

instantly for granted that Dr. Slop was making a model of the marquis d'Hopital'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

Had my uncle Toby's head been a Savoyard's box, and my father peeping in all the time at one end of itit

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 batteringram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he

When Trim's answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and twisted it to pieces.

This unfortunate drawbridge of yours, quoth my fatherGod 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

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

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 notAnd 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 hairbrain'd squirts thou art wont, Tristram, to transact it

with in other humours dropping thy penspurting thy ink about thy table and thy booksas if thy pen

I won't go about to argue the point with you'tis soand 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

The moment my father got up into his chamber, he threw himself prostrate across his 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 chamberpot, which peep'd out beyond the valancehis 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 boneHe felt it not. A fix'd, inflexible sorrow took possession of every line of his face.He sigh'd

An old setstitch'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 digestedconsolation ever comes too soon;and after it is digestedit 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 servicehe pull'd out a cambrick

'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 allthat 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

No doubt, the breaking down of the bridge of a child's nose, by the edge of a pair of forcepshowever

scientifically appliedwould vex any man in the world, who was at so much pains in begetting a child, as

my father wasyet it will not account for the extravagance of his affliction, nor will it justify the

To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hourand my uncle Toby in his old fringed chair

I think it a very unreasonable demandcried my greatgrandfather, 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

Now before I venture to make use of the word Nose a second timeto 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 judgmentbut to give the world a

good definition, and stand to it, of the main word you have most occasion forchanging it, Sir, as you would

a guinea, into small coin?which donelet the father of confusion puzzle you, if he can; or put a different

In books of strict morality and close reasoning, such as 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

stricturesand for depending so much as I have done, all along, upon the cleanliness of my readers

Here are two senses, cried Eugenius, as we walk'd along, pointing with the fore finger of his right hand to

the word Crevice, in the one hundred and seventyeighth page of the first volume of this book of

books,here are two sensesquoth he.And here are two roads, replied I, turning short upon hima

dirty and a clean onewhich shall we take?The clean, by all means, replied Eugenius. Eugenius, said I,

stepping before him, and laying my hand upon his breastto defineis 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

I define a nose as followsintreating 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 definitionFor by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses,

and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occursI declare, by that word I mean a nose, and

'Because,' quoth my great grandmother, repeating the words again'you have little or no nose, Sir.'

S'death! cried my greatgrandfather, 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 greatgrandfather'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 akin amongst so flatnosed a

'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'sYou must mean your uncle's,

My greatgrandfather was convinced.He untwisted the paper, and signed the article.

What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours, quoth my

My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark, than there is upon the back

Now, you must know, that my greatgrandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years; so that my father

had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds halfyearly(on Michaelmas and Ladyday,)during

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 fiftyhe generally gave a loud Hem! rubb'd the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of

his fore fingerinserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl of his wiglook'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

Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings

within us.NeverO never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the

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 halfyear 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,

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 enginehe would saybut to that only;but

that, like other families, he would addit had felt the turn of the wheel, and had never recovered the blow of

my greatgrandfather's nose.It was an ace of clubs indeed, he would cry, shaking his headand as vile a

Fair and softly, gentle reader!where is thy fancy carrying thee!If there is truth in man, by my

greatgrandfather'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 wellproportioned faces, should comprehend a

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

Now, my father, as I told you last year, detested all thisHe pick'd up an opinion, Sir, as a man in a state of

nature picks up an apple.It becomes his ownand if he is a man of spirit, he would lose his life rather

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 saythings were in a state of natureThe apple, is 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

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 beardI'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 EauxThat 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, 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,

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 chattels.Accordingly he held fast by 'em,

both by teeth and clawswould fly to whatever he could lay his hands onand, in a word, would intrench

and fortify them round with as many circumvallations and breastworks, as my uncle Toby would a citadel.

There was one plaguy rub in the way of thisthe scarcity of materials to make any thing 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 subjectsand 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 peacemaking 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 librarywhich, bythebye, was ridiculous enoughyet 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

Herebut why hererather than in any other part of my storyI am not able to tell:but here it ismy

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

comfortsinsultedst no man's opinionsThou blackenedst no man's characterdevouredst 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 sorrows, thou hadst a tear,for each man's need, thou hadst a shilling.

Whilst I am worth one, to payeederthy path from thy door to thy bowlinggreen 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,

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 hewever, to set off well, in getting Bruscambille's prologue upon

long noses, almost for nothingfor he gave no more for Bruscambille than three halfcrowns; owing indeed

to the strong fancy which the stallman saw my father had for the book the moment he laid his hands upon

it.There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendomsaid the stallman, except what are chain'd up in the

libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as lightningtook Bruscambille into his

bosomhied home from Piccadilly to Colemanstreet with it, as he would have hied home with a treasure,

To those who do not yet know of which gender Bruscambille isinasmuch as a prologue upon long noses

might easily be done by either'twill be no objection against the simileto 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 mistressthat is, from morning even unto night: which, bythebye, how delightful

soever it may prove to the inamoratois of little or no entertainment at all to by standers.Take notice, I

go no farther with the similemy father's eye was greater than his appetitehis zeal greater than his

knowledgehe cool'dhis affections became dividedhe got hold of Prignitzpurchased Scroderus,

Andrea Paraeus, Bouchet's Evening Conferences, and above all, the great and learned Hafen Slawkenbergius;

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 onlet me beg of you, like an unback'd filly, to frisk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to

rear it, to bound itand to kick it, with long kicks and short kicks, till like Tickletoby's mare, you break a

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! reador by the knowledge of the great saint ParaleipomenonI tell

you beforehand, 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 (motley 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.

'Nihil me paenitet hujus nasi,' quoth Pamphagus;that is'My nose has been the making of me.''Nec est

cur poeniteat,' 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 interpretationhe 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 sensehere is some room to turn a

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

conveniences also; for that in a case of distressand for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well,

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 knowledgeso 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 onI might

as well be seven miles off.I've done itsaid my father, snapping his fingersSee, 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

O Slawkenbergius! thou faithful analyzer of my Disgraziasthou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and

short turns which on 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 theegogo, Slawkenbergius! dedicate the labours of thy lifeneglect thy

pastimescall forth all the powers and faculties of thy nature macerate thyself in the service of mankind,

How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius's sensoriumso that Slawkenbergius should

know whose finger touch'd the keyand whose hand it was that blew the bellowsas Hafen

Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten yearswe can only raise

Slawkenbergius was play'd upon, for aught I know, like one of Whitefield's disciplesthat is, with such a

distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two masters it was that had been practising upon his instrumentas

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 worktowards the end of his prolegomena, which

bythebye should have come firstbut the bookbinder has most injudiciously placed it betwixt the

analytical contents of the book, and the book itselfhe informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived at

the age of discernment, and was able to sit down cooly, and consider within himself the true state and

condition of man, and distinguish the main end and design of his being;orto shorten my translation, for

Slawkenbergius's book is in Latin, and not a little prolix in this passageever since I understood, quoth

Slawkenbergius, any thingor rather what was whatand 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

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 himand indeed, in many respects, deserves to

be ennich'd as a prototype for all writers, of voluminous works at least, to model their books byfor he has

taken in, Sir, the whole subject examined every part of it dialecticallythen brought it into full day;

dilucidating it with all the light which either the collision of his own natural parts could strikeor the

profoundest knowledge of the sciences had impowered him to cast upon itcollating, 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 thoroughstitched Digest and regular institute of noses,

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 nosesor 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 scholarlike

examination of above four thousand different skulls, in upwards of twenty charnelhouses in Silesia, which

he had rummagedhas 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 themare 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

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 contrarythe nose begat the fancy.'

The learned suspected Scroderus of an indecent sophism in thisand Prignitz cried out aloud in the

dispute, that Scroderus had shifted the idea upon himbut 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 Paraeus decided it in a moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of Prignitz and Scroderus,

I don't acquaint the learned readerin saying it, I mention it only to shew the learned, I know the fact

That this Ambrose Paraeus was chief surgeon and nosemender 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 onhe was esteemed by the

whole college of physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any one who had ever

Now Ambrose Paraeus 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

partswas neither this nor thatbut that the length and goodness of the nose was owing simply to the

softness and flaccidity in the nurse's breastas the flatness and shortness of puisne noses was to the firmness

and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the hale and livelywhich, 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 breastby sinking into it, quoth Paraeus, 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 Paraeus; first, That he proves and explains all this with the utmost chastity

And, secondly, that besides the systems of Prignitz and Scroderus, which Ambrose Paraeus his hypothesis

effectually overthrewit 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

Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never surely in any age or country got vent

My mother, you must knowbut I have fifty things more necessary to let you know firstI 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 (tomorrow 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 hornwork and covered way.Trim insists upon being tried by a court martialthe cow

to be shotSlop to be crucifix'dmyself to be tristram'd and at my very baptism made a martyr of;poor

unhappy devils that we all are!I want swaddlingbut there is no time to be lost in exclamationsI 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 fiveandthirty minutes are laps'd already.Of all

the perplexities a mortal author was ever seen inthis certainly is the greatest, for I have Hafen

Slawkenbergius's folio, Sir, to finisha dialogue between my father and my uncle Toby, upon the solution

of Prignitz, Scroderus, Ambrose Paraeus, Panocrates, and Grangousier to relatea tale out of

Slawkenbergius to translate, and all this in five minutes less than no time at all;such a head!would to

There was not any one scene more entertaining in our familyand to do it justice in this point;and I here

put off my cap and lay it upon the table close beside my inkhorn, on purpose to make my declaration to the

world concerning this one article the more solemnthat 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 instrusted 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 oursthan what frequently arose

out of this selfsame chapter of long nosesespecially when my father's imagination was heated with the

My uncle Toby would give my father all possible fair play in this attempt; and with infinite patience would

sit smoking his pipe for whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, and trying

Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reasonor contrary to itor that his brain was like damp timber,

and no spark could possibly take holdor that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military

disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrinesI say notlet

'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 purestand 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

eyesmy father's ideas ran on as much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle

Toby'sneither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of my father's lecture.

The gift of ratiocination and making syllogismsI mean in manfor 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 knowsyllogize 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 ofttimes to make very well out too:but that's neither

The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, orthe 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 mens ninepinalleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought together, to measure their

Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle

Toby's deportmentwhat great attention he gave to every wordand as oft as he took his pipe from his

mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of itsurveying it transversely as he

held it betwixt his finger and his thumbthen fore rightthen this way, and then that, in all its possible

directions and foreshorteningshe 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, bythebye, was more than my father wantedhis aim in all the pains

he was at in these philosophick lectureswas to enable my uncle Toby not to discussbut comprehendto

hold the grains and scruples of learning not to weigh them.My uncle Toby, as you will read in the next

'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 threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he spokethat truth,

brother Toby, should shut herself up in such impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender

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 himhaving nothing to stay it there, had taken a short flight to the

bowlinggreen;his body might as well have taken a turn there tooso that with all the semblance of a

deep schoolman intent upon the medius terminusmy 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 touchhe open'd his earsand my father observing

that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer the table, as with a desire to profitmy

father with great pleasure began his sentence againchanging only the plan, and dropping the metaphor of

'Tis a pity, said my father, that truth can only be on one side, brother Tobyconsidering what ingenuity

these learned men have all shewn in their solutions of noses.Can noses be dissolved? replied my uncle

My father thrust back his chairrose upput on his hattook four long strides to the doorjerked it

openthrust his head half way outshut the door againtook no notice of the bad hingereturned to the

tablepluck'd my mother's threadpaper out of Slawkenbergius's bookwent hastily to his

bureauwalked slowly backtwisted my mother's threadpaper about his thumbunbutton'd his

waistcoatthrew my mother's threadpaper into the firebit her sattin pincushion in two, fill'd his mouth

with bran confounded it;but mark!the oath of confusion was levell'd at my uncle Toby's

brainwhich was e'en confused enough alreadythe curse came charged only with the branthe bran,

'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 timehe could not have exerted

more mechanical functions in fewer seconds or started half so much, as with one single quaere of three

'Twas all one to my uncle Tobyhe smoked his pipe on with unvaried composurehis heart never intended

offence to his brotherand as his head could seldom find out where the sting of it layhe always gave my

father the credit of cooling by himself.He was five minutes and thirtyfive seconds about it in the present

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 doyou 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 Tobywhy 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 philosophicalthere is more religion in it than sound science. 'Twas no inconsistent part of

my uncle Toby's characterthat he feared God, and reverenced religion.So the moment my father

finished his remarkmy uncle Toby fell a whistling Lillabullero with more zeal (though more out of tune)

No matteras an appendage to seamstressy, the threadpaper might be of some consequence to my

motherof none to my father, as a mark in Slawkenbergius. Slawkenbergius in every page of him was a rich

treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my fatherhe 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

lostshould 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 alsoand Slawkenbergius only leftthere would be enough in him in

all conscience, he would say, to set the world agoing again. A treasure therefore was he indeed! an institute

of all that was necessary to be known of noses, and every thing elseat matin, noon, and vespers was Hafen

Slawkenbergius his recreation and delight: 'twas for ever in his handsyou would have sworn, Sir, it had

been a canon's prayerbookso worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with

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

talesand, 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 speculativebut 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 added to his work as so many illustrations upon the doctrines of noses.

As we have leisure enough upon our handsif you give me leave, madam, I'll tell you the ninth tale of his

Slawkenbergii Fabella (As Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis is extremely scarce, it may not be unacceptable to

the learned reader to see the specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no reflection upon it, but

that his storytelling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic and, I think, has more of Latinity in

Vespera quadam frigidula, posteriori in parte mensis Augusti, peregrinus, mulo fusco colore incidens,

mantica a tergo, paucis indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta, Argentoratum ingressus

Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum

proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu ad fines Sarmatiae mensis intervallo, reversurum.

At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, e quo pependit acinaces: Loculo

manum inseruit; et magna cum urbanitate, pilei parte anteriore tacta manu sinistra, ut extendit dextram, militi

Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum alloquens, virum adeo urbanum vaginam perdidisse:

itinerari haud poterit nuda acinaci; neque vaginam toto Argentorato, habilem inveniet.Nullam unquam

habui, respondit peregrinus respiciensseque comiter inclinanshoc more gesto, nudam acinacem elevans,

Prout christianus sum, inquit miles, nasus ille, ni sexties major fit, meo esset conformis.

Eodem temporis puncto, quo haec res argumentata fuit inter militem et tympanistam, disceptabatur ibidem

tubicine et uxore sua qui tunc accesserunt, et peregrino praetereunte, restiterunt.

Mulus peregrini gradu lento progressus est, ut unumquodque verbum controversiae, non tantum inter militem

Nequaquam, ait ille, in muli collum fraena demittens, et manibus ambabus in pectus positis, (mulo lente

progrediente) nequaquam, ait ille respiciens, non necesse est ut res isthaec dilucidata foret. Minime gentium!

meus nasus nunquam tangetur, dum spiritus hos reget artusAd quid agendum? air uxor burgomagistri.

Peregrinus illi non respondit. Votum faciebat tunc temporis sancto Nicolao; quo facto, sinum dextrum

inserens, e qua negligenter pependit acinaces, lento gradu processit per plateam Argentorati latam quae ad

Peregrinus mulo descendens stabulo includi, et manticam inferri jussit: qua aperta et coccineis sericis

femoralibus extractis cum argento laciniato (Greek), his sese induit, statimque, acinaci in manu, ad forum

Quod ubi peregrinus esset ingressus, uxorem tubicinis obviam euntem aspicit; illico cursum flectit, metuens

ne nasus suus exploraretur, atque ad diversorium regressus estexuit se vestibus; braccas coccineas sericas

Francofurtum proficiscor, ait ille, et Argentoratum quatuor abhinc hebdomadis revertar.

Bene curasti hoc jumentam? (ait) muli faciem manu demulcensme, manticamque meam, plus sexcentis

Longa via est! respondet hospes, nisi plurimum esset negoti.Enimvero, ait peregrinus, a Nasorum

promontorio redii, et nasum speciosissimum, egregiosissimumque quem unquam quisquam sortitus est,

Dum peregrinus hanc miram rationem de seipso reddit, hospes et uxor ejus, oculis intentis, peregrini nasum

contemplanturPer sanctos sanctasque omnes, ait hospitis uxor, nasis duodecim maximis in toto

Argentorato major est!estne, ait illa mariti in aurem insusurrans, nonne est nasus praegrandis?

Votum feci sancto Nicolao, ait peregrinus, nasum meum intactum fore usque adQuodnam tempus? illico

Minimo tangetur, inquit ille (manibus in pectus compositis) usque ad illam horamQuam horam? ait

illaNullam, respondit peregrinus, donec pervenio adQuem locum,obsecro? ait illaPeregrinus nil

It was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day, in the latter end of the month of August,

when a stranger, mounted upon a dark mule, with a small cloakbag behind him, containing a few shirts, a

pair of shoes, and a crimsonsattin pair of breeches, entered the town of Strasburg.

He told the centinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that he had been at the Promontory of

Noseswas going on to Frankfortand should be back again at Strasburg that day month, in his way to the

The centinel looked up into the stranger's facehe never saw such a Nose in his life!

I have made a very good venture of it, quoth the strangerso slipping his wrist out of the loop of a black

ribbon, to which a short scymetar was hung, he put his hand into his pocket, and with great courtesy touching

the fore part of his cap with his left hand, as he extended his righthe put a florin into the centinel's hand,

It grieves, me, said the centinel, speaking to a little dwarfish bandy legg'd drummer, that so courteous a soul

should have lost his scabbardhe cannot travel without one to his scymetar, and will not be able to get a

scabbard to fit it in all Strasburg.I never had one, replied the stranger, looking back to the centinel, and

putting his hand up to his cap as he spokeI carry it, continued he, thusholding up his naked scymetar,

'Tis not worth a single stiver, said the bandylegg'd drummer'tis a nose of parchment.

As I am a true catholicexcept that it is six times as big'tis a nose, said the centinel, like my own.

At the very time that this dispute was maintaining by the centinel and the drummerwas the same point

debating betwixt a trumpeter and a trumpeter's wife, who were just then coming up, and had stopped to see

I'll know the bottom of it, said the trumpeter's wife, for I will touch it with my finger before I sleep.

The stranger's mule moved on at so slow a rate, that he heard every word of the dispute, not only betwixt the

No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule's neck, and laying both his hands upon his breast, the one over

the other in a saintlike position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking upI am not

such a debtor to the worldslandered and disappointed as I have beenas to give it that convictionno!

said he, my nose shall never be touched whilst Heaven gives me strengthTo do what? said a burgomaster's

The stranger took no notice of the burgomaster's wifehe was making a vow to Saint Nicolas; which done,

having uncrossed his arms with the same solemnity with which he crossed them, he took up the reins of his

bridle with his lefthand, and putting his right hand into his bosom, with the 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 marketplace overagainst the church.

The moment the stranger alighted, he ordered his mule to be led into the stable, and his cloakbag to be

brought in; then opening, and taking out of it his crimsonsattin breeches, with a silverfringed(appendage

to them, which I dare not translate)he put his breeches, with his fringed cod piece on, and forthwith,

The stranger had just taken three turns upon the parade, when he perceived the trumpeter's wife at the

opposite side of itso turning short, in pain lest his nose should be attempted, he instantly went back to his

inn undressed himself, packed up his crimsonsattin breeches, in his cloak bag, and called for his mule.

I am going forwards, said the stranger, for Frankfortand shall be back at Strasburg this day month.

I hope, continued the stranger, stroking down the face of his mule with his left hand as he was going to mount

it, that you have been kind to this faithful slave of mineit has carried me and my cloakbag, continued he,

'Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the innunless a man has great business.Tut! tut! said the

stranger, I have been at the promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank Heaven, that

Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master of the inn and his wife kept both their

eyes fixed full upon the stranger's noseBy saint Radagunda, said the innkeeper's wife to herself, there is

more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put together in all Strasburg! is it not, said she, whispering

'Tis a live nose, and if I am alive myself, said the innkeeper's, wife, I will touch it.

I have made a vow to saint Nicolas this day, said the stranger, that my nose shall not be touched tillHere

It never shall be touched, said he, clasping his hands and bringing them close to his breast, till that

hourWhat hour? cried the inn keeper's wife.Never!never! said the stranger, never till I am gotFor

Heaven's sake, into what place? said sheThe 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 'emthe city was like a swarm of

beesmen, women, and children, (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and therein at one

door, out at anotherthis way and that waylong ways and cross waysup one street, down another

streetin at this alley, out of thatdid you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you see it?who

Alack o'day! I was at vespers!I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring, I was quiltingGod help

me! I never saw itI never touch'd it!would I had been a centinel, a bandylegg'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

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 thistlenever mind itthou shalt have a better supper at night.

Poor devil, thou'rt sadly tired with thy journey!comeget on a little fasterthere's nothing in my

cloakbag but two shirtsa crimsonsattin pair of breeches, and a fringedDear Julia!

But why to Frankfort?is it that there is a hand unfelt, which secretly is conducting me through these

Stumbling! by saint Nicolas! every stepwhy at this rate we shall be all night in getting in

To happinessor am I to be the sport of fortune and slanderdestined to be driven forth

unconvictedunhearduntouch'dif so, why did I not stay at Strasburg, where justicebut I had sworn!

Come, thou shalt drinkto St. NicolasO Julia!What dost thou prick up thy ears at?'tis nothing but a

The stranger rode on communing in this manner with his mule and Juliatill he arrived at his inn, where, as

soon as he arrived, he alightedsaw his mule, as he had promised it, taken good care oftook off his

cloakbag, with his crimsonsattin breeches, in itcalled for an omelet to his supper, went to his bed about

It was about the same hour when the tumult in Strasburg being abated for that night,the Strasburgers had

all got quietly into their bedsbut 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 subchantress, and senior canonness, had that week come to Strasburg

to consult the university upon a case of conscience relating to their placket holeswas 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 itthere was no keeping a limb still amongst them in short, they got up like so many

The penitentiaries of the third order of saint Francisthe nuns of mount Calvarythe

Praemonstratensesthe Clunienses (Hafen Slawkenbergius means the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded

in the year 940, by Odo, abbe de Cluny.)the Carthusians, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that

night in blankets or haircloth, were still in a worse condition than the abbess of Quedlingbergby tumbling

and tossing, and tossing and tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night longthe

several sisterhoods had scratch'd and maul'd themselves all to deaththey got out of their beds almost flay'd

aliveevery body thought saint Antony had visited them for probation with his firethey had never once,

The nuns of saint Ursula acted the wisestthey 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 every thing had been in the night before, the bakers had all forgot to lay their

leaventhere were no butter'd buns to be had for breakfast in all Strasburgthe whole close of the cathedral

was in one eternal commotionsuch a cause of restlessness and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into

that cause of the restlessness, had never happened in Strasburg, since Martin Luther, with his doctrines, had

If the stranger's nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into the dishes (Mr. Shandy's compliments to

oratorsis very sensible that Slawkenbergius has here changed his metaphorwhich he is very guilty of:

that as a translator, Mr. Shandy has all along done what he could to make him stick to itbut that here 'twas

impossible.) of religious orders, 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 lifetho' 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 mindsso 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 itevery soul, good and

badrich and poorlearned and unlearned doctor and studentmistress and maidgentle and

simplenun's flesh and woman's flesh, in Strasburg spent their time in hearing tidings about it every eye

in Strasburg languished to see itevery fingerevery thumb in Strasburg burned to touch it.

Now what might add, if any thing may be thought necessary to add, to so vehement a desirewas this, that

the centinel, the bandylegg'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 nosethey all agreed together in two

pointsnamely, 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

beautythe finestmade manthe most genteel!the most generous of his pursethe most courteous in

his carriage, that had ever entered the gates of Strasburgthat as he rode, with scymetar slung loosely to his

wrist, thro' the streetsand walked with his crimsonsattin breeches across the parade'twas with so sweet

an air of careless modesty, and so manly withalas would have put the heart in jeopardy (had his nose not

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 subchantress, for sending at noonday 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 theoryshe staid no longer

The centinel and bandylegg'd drummer!nothing on this side of old Athens could equal them! they read

their lectures under the citygates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a Chrysippus and a Crantor in

The master of the inn, with his ostler on his lefthand, read his also in the same stileunder the portico or

gateway of his stableyardhis wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; not

promiscuouslybut to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and credulity marshal'd themin a word, each

Strasburger came crouding for intelligenceand every Strasburger had the intelligence he wanted.

'Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural philosophy, 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 auditoryBut

when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries Slawkenbergius) has a trumpet for an apparatus, pray what rival in

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 courtwere the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up thro' the

conduits of dialect inductionthey concerned themselves not with facts they reasoned

Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the Facultyhad not all their disputes about

it run into the affair of Wens and oedematous swellings, they could not keep clear of them for their bloods

and soulsthe stranger's nose had nothing to do either with wens or oedematous swellings.

It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous mass of heterogenous matter could

not be congested and conglomerated to the nose, whilst the infant was in Utera, without destroying the

statical balance of the foetus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine months before the time.

And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, 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

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 to the greatest growth and expansion

imaginableIn the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to affirm, that there was no cause in nature,

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 lungsFor the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception of

food, and turning it into chyleand the lungs the only engine of sanguificationit 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 lungsthe engine was of a determined size and strength, and could

elaborate but a certain quantity in a given timethat 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 manthey proved a mortification

must necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for both, that the nose must either fall

Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the opponentselse what do you say to the case of

a whole stomacha whole pair of lungs, and but half a man, when both his legs have been unfortunately

He dies of a plethora, said theyor must spit blood, and in a fortnight or three weeks go off in a

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 limitsthat nature, though she sported she sported within a certain circle;and they

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 bloodand not only bloodbut blood circulating in it to

supply the phaenomenon 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 definitionDeath is the separation of the soul from the body, said his antagonistThen we don't

agree about our weapons, said the logicianThen 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 decreethan a dispute.

Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not possibly have been suffered in civil

societyand if falseto impose upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater violation

The only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved the stranger's nose was neither true nor

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, 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,

(Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formula utun. Quinimo Logistae CanonistaeVid. Parce Barne Jas

in d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. I. n. 7 qua etiam in re conspir. Om de

Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de contrahend. empt. necnon J. Scrudr. in

cap. para refut. per totum. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. Prov. cap. 9. ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. Librum,

cui Tit. de Terris Phras. Belg. ad finem, cum comment. N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentotarens. de Antiq.

Ecc. in Episc Archiv. fid coll. per Von Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583. praecip. ad finem. Quibus

add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. de jure Gent. Civil. de protib. aliena feud. per federa, test.

Joha. Luxius in prolegom. quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2, 3. Vid. Idea.) which had decided the point

incontestably, had it not appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapterlands had been

It happenedI must say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving her a lift another way in so doing; that

the two universities of Strasburgthe Lutheran, founded in the year 1538 by Jacobus Surmis, counsellor of

the senate,and the Popish, founded by Leopold, archduke 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

The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate a priori, that from the necessary influence of the planets

on the twentysecond day of October 1483when 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 manand 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 (Haec mira,

satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio Asterismo in nona coeli statione, quam Arabes religioni

deputabant efficit Martinum Lutherum sacrilegum hereticum, Christianae religionis hostem acerrimum atque

prophanum, ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum, religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad

infernos navigavitab Alecto, Tisiphone Megara flagellis igneis cruciata perenniter.Lucas Gaurieus in

Tractatu astrologico de praeteritis multorum hominum accidentibus per genituras examinatis.) (in reading this

my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, with the Arabians allotted to religionit

appeared that Martin Luther did not care one stiver about the matterand that from the horoscope directed to

the conjunction of Mars they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blasphemingwith the blast

of which his soul (being steep'd in guilt) sailed before the wind, in the lake of hellfire.

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 mannerinasmuch 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

(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 QuedlingbergIt is to tell the reader; that my father never read this passage

of Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby, but with triumphnot over my uncle Toby, for he never opposed him

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

eternityNot that I look upon Martin, he would add, as a good namefar from it'tis something better

than a neutral, and but a littleyet 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 himyet

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

Decades full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read

over with half the delightit flattered two of his strangest hypotheses togetherhis 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 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 itthey 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 leeshore;

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 aboutit was their business to

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 consciencethe affair of their placketholes kept

coldin a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their typesall controversies dropp'd.

'Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of itto a nut shellto have guessed on which side

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

By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks fit, as big as the steeple of

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 manThe Popish doctors swore it couldThe 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 GodThat controversy led them naturally into Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas

The stranger's nose was no more heard of in the disputeit just served as a frigate to launch them into the

The controversy about the attributes, instead of cooling, on the contrary had inflamed the Strasburgers

imaginations to a most inordinate degreeThe less they understood of the matter the greater was their

wonder about itthey were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfiedsaw their doctors, the

Parchmentarians, the Brasssarians, the Turpentarians, on one sidethe Popish doctors on the other, like

Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked out of sight.

What was to be done?No delaythe uproar increasedevery one in disorderthe city gates set

Unfortunate Strasbergers! was there in the storehouse of naturewas there in the lumberrooms of

learningwas 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 expectationwho neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls

either of religion or nature, for sevenandtwenty days together, who could have held out one day longer.

Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenbergius must certainly have made some mistake in his numeral characters)

7000 coaches15000 singlehorse chairs 20000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with

senators, counsellors, syndicksbeguines, widows, wives, virgins, canons, concubines, all in their

coachesThe abbess of Quedlingberg, with the prioress, the deaness and subchantress, leading the

procession in one coach, and the dean of Strasburg, with the four great dignitaries of his chapter, on her

lefthandthe rest following higgletypigglety as they could; some on horsebacksome on footsome

ledsome drivensome down the Rhinesome this waysome thatall set out at sunrise to meet the

Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my taleI say Catastrophe (cries Slawkenbergius) inasmuch as a

tale, with parts rightly disposed, not only rejoiceth (gaudet) in the Catastrophe and Peripeitia of a Drama, but

rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and integrant parts of itit has its Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis, its

Catastrophe or Peripeitia 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 decades, have I Slawkenbergius tied down every tale of them as tightly to

From his first parley with the centinel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg, after pulling off his

crimsonsattin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrancewhere the characters of the Personae

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 disputeto the doctors

finally sailing away, and leaving the Strasburgers upon the beach in distress, is the Catastasis or the ripening

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

This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, constitutes the Catastrophe or Peripeitia of my taleand that is the part of

What dost thou prick up thy ears at?'tis nothing but a man upon a horsewas 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

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

ducatnay a ducat and half'tis too muchbetter go back to the last inn I have passedthan lie I know

not whereor 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

We have bacon in the house, said the host, and breadand till eleven o'clock this night had three eggs in

itbut 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 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 campbed,

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 groundkneeled upon his right kneehad just got his hand laid upon his

breastTrifle 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 againlaid his hand upon his breastthen, said he, looking up to

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 itand had not been able to go a step farther than to Lyons, where, with the many

disquietudes of a tender heart, which all talk ofbut few feelshe 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

Fernandez (for that was her brother's name)tho' the campbed 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

'Whether my suspicions of your nose were justly excited or not'tis not now to inquireit is enough I have

'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

'In what manner Julia has resented thismy 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 youin what frantic

haste she flew to her lattice, and how many days and nights together she leaned immoveably upon her elbow,

'He will tell you, when she heard of your departurehow her spirits deserted herhow her heart

sicken'dhow piteously she mournedhow 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

strengthand how oft have I fainted by the way, and sunk into his arms, with only power to cry outO my

'If the gentleness of your carriage has not belied your heart, you will fly to me, almost as fast as you fled from

mehaste as you willyou will arrive but to see me expire.'Tis a bitter draught, Diego, but oh! 'tis

Slawkenbergius supposes the word intended was unconvinced, but her strength would not enable her to finish

The heart of the courteous Diego overflowed as he read the letterhe 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 conflictschance,

which as often directs us to remedies as to diseases, having thrown a piece of charcoal into the

windowDiego availed himself of it, and whilst the hostler was getting ready his mule, he eased his mind

Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love, Unless my Julia strikes the key, Her hand alone can touch the part,

Whose dulcet movement charms the heart, And governs all the man with sympathetick sway.

The lines were very naturalfor 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 versesor the

hostler quick in saddling mulesis 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

strongestthe 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

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

'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 Germanyand that in

It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such like revolutionsThe vulgar look too high

What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one historianThe Strasburgers deemed it a

diminution of their freedom to receive an imperial garrisonso 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 revenuesbrought 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 openThe French

indeed, who are ever upon the catch, when they saw the Strasburgers, men, women and children, all marched

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

Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, making an exclamationit is not the firstand I fear will not be the last

With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father's fancy with so many family

prejudicesand ten decades of such tales running on for ever along with themhow was it possible with

such exquisitewas it a true nose?That a man with such exquisite feelings as my father had, could bear

the shock at all below stairsor indeed above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have

Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen timestaking care only to place a lookingglass 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 beforehand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the best tales in the Christianworld; and

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

This sets out with the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when Fernandez left the courteous stranger and his

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 worldtranslated shall a couple of volumes

be.Else, how this can ever be translated into good English, I have no sort of conceptionThere 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

'emI 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 itunless, 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 otherbut to look into

the pupilsis not that dangerous?But it can't be avoidedfor to look up to the cieling, in that case the

two chins unavoidably meetand to look down into each other's lap, the foreheads come to immediate

contact, which at once puts an end to the conferenceI mean to the sentimental part of it.What is left,

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 bedside; my uncle

Toby's heart was a pound lighter for it.In a few moments, his lefthand, the knuckles of which had all the

time reclined upon the handle of the chamberpot, came to its feelinghe thrust it a little more within the

valancedrew up his hand, when he had done, into his bosomgave 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

Now whether the compression shortened my uncle Toby's face into a more pleasurable ovalor that the

philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had

braced up his musclesso 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

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 crutchdid 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

Had my uncle Toby shot a bullet through my father's heart, he could not have fallen down with his nose

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

schoolfellows, but I cry like a coward.Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim.I drop them ofttimes

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 spoketo think of two virtuous lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest as God could

make themthe children of honest people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their fortunes in the

worldand fall into such evils!poor Tom! to be tortured upon a rack for nothingbut 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

handkerchiefthese are misfortunes, may it please your honour, worth lying down and crying over.

'Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy ownthou feelest it so

tenderly for others.Alackoday, replied the corporal, brightening up his faceyour honour knows I have

neither wife or childI 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 agewhen thou art passed all services, Trimand 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 thereforein recompence, Trim, of thy long fidelity to me, and that

goodness of thy heart I have had such proofs ofwhilst thy master is worth a shilling thou shalt never ask

elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim attempted to thank my uncle Tobybut had not powertears trickled

down his cheeks faster than he could wipe them offHe laid his hands upon his breastmade a bow to the

I have left Trim my bowlinggreen, cried my uncle TobyMy father smiled.I have left him moreover

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

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 bedhe 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 anotherlike the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony,

For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floorpushed the

chamberpot still a little farther within the valancegave a hemraised himself up upon his elbowand

was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Tobywhen recollecting the unsuccessfulness of his first

effort in that attitudehe 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 righthand in the palm of his left, and stooping

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 troublewhen 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 inheritanceI was born to nothing, quoth my uncle Toby,

interrupting my fatherbut 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 testilyBut I say Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the

crossreckonings 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 Shandya centinel in a wooden

centrybox might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.We are upheld by the

That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead of untying it,But give me leave to lead you, brother

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 itfor he holds the forefinger of his

lefthand 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 thisand this: and this, and this, I don't ask of youthey follow of

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 partycoloured worsted bobsO

Garrick!what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! and how gladly would I write such

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 daywas 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

every thing 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 wellordered machine, though it can't prevent the

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his forefinger, as he was coming closer to the pointhad

my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyr'd in that precious part of himfanciful 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 conductsHeaven 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

But alas! continued my father, as the greatest evil has befallen himI must counteract and undo it with the

What a chapter of chances, said my father, turning himself about upon the first landing, as he and my uncle

Toby were going down stairs, 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 fairlyI 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

shinbone)'Twas a hundred to onecried my uncle TobyI thought, quoth my father, (rubbing his shin)

you had known nothing of calculations, brother Toby. a mere chance, said my uncle Toby.Then it adds one

The double success of my father's repartees tickled off the pain of his shin at onceit was well it so fell

out(chance! again)or the world to this day had never known the subject of my father's calculationto

guess itthere was no chanceWhat 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 thata chapter upon my

uncle Toby's modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep by my

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

My father reflected half a minutelooked downtouched the middle of his forehead slightly with his

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 medrop the curtain,

ShandyI drop itStrike a line here across the paper, TristramI strike itand hey for a new chapter.

The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affairand if I had oneas I do all things out

of all ruleI would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had doneAm I warm? I

am, and the cause demands ita pretty story! is a man to follow rulesor 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 horsethat chapters relieve the mindthat they assistor impose

upon the imaginationand that in a work of this dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of

sceneswith 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 templeyou must read Longinusread away if you

are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time overnever fearread him againAvicenna and

Licetus read Aristotle's metaphysicks forty times through apiece, and never understood a single word.But

mark the consequenceAvicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of writingfor he wrote books

de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus, (Ce Foetus

n'etoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais son pere l'ayant examine en qualite de Medecin, ayant

trouve que c'etoit quelque chose de plus qu'un Embryon, le fit transporter tout vivant a Rapallo, ou il le fit

voir a Jerome Bardi a d'autres Medecins du lieu. On trouva qu'il ne lui manquoit rien d'essentiel a la vie; son

pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience, entreprit d'achever l'ouvrage de la Nature, de travailler a la

formation de l'Enfant avec le meme artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire ecclorre les Poulets en Egypte.

Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce qu'elle avoit a faire, ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour proprement

accommode, il reussit a l'elever a lui faire prendre ses accroissemens necessaires, par l'uniformite d'une

chaleur etrangere mesuree exactement sur les degres d'un Thermometre, ou d'un autre instrument equivalent.

(Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri a 223. 488.) On auroit toujours ete tres satisfait de l'industrie d'un

pere si experimente dans l'Art de la Generation, quand il n'auroit pu prolonger la vie a son fils que pour

Puelques mois, ou pour peu d'annees. Mais quand on se represente que l'Enfant a vecu pres de quatrevingts

ans, qu'il a compose quatrevingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits d'une longue lectureil faut convenir que

tout ce qui est incroyable n'est pas toujours faux, que la Vraisemblance n'est pas toujours du cote la Verite. Il

n'avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu'il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animae humanae. (Les

Enfans celebres, revus corriges par M. de la Monnoye de l'Academie Francoise.)) 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 himselfthe 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

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 Tobywas the greatest

(Toby) of all earthly beingshe was the greatest kingthe greatest lawgiverthe greatest

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

handhow 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 againlet things be as they will, brother

Toby, 'tis ever the precise answerAnd how is the child, pray?No answer. And where is Dr. Slop? added

my father, raising his voice aloud, 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 Tobyof 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

carriedthere is not one that has more intricacies in it than thisthat 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 cinderwench,

becomes an inch taller for it; and give themselves more airs upon that single inch, than all their other inches

I think rather, replied my uncle Toby, that 'tis we who sink an inch lower.If I meet but a woman with

childI do it.'Tis a heavy tax upon that half of our fellowcreatures, brother Shandy, said my uncle

Toby'Tis a piteous burden upon 'em, continued he, shaking his headYes, yes, 'tis a painful thingsaid

my father, shaking his head toobut certainly since shaking of heads came into fashion, never did two heads

God bless / Deuce take 'em allsaid my uncle Toby and my father, each to himself.

Holla!you, chairman!here's sixpencedo step into that bookseller's shop, and call me a daytall 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

'Tis even high time; for except a short nap, which they both got whilst Trim was boring the

jackbootsand which, bythebye, did my father no sort of good, upon the score of the bad hingethey

have not else shut their eyes, since nine hours before the time that doctor Slop was led into the back parlour

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 presentan observation never applicable before to any one

biographical writer since the creation of the world, but to myselfand 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

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelvemonth; and having got, as you perceive,

almost into the middle of my third volume (According to the preceding Editions.)and no farther than to my

first day's life'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixtyfour 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 iton the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes backwas every day of my life to be as

busy a day as thisAnd why not?and the transactions and opinions of it to take up as much

descriptionAnd for what reason should they be cut short? as at this rate I should just live 364 times faster

than I should writeIt must follow, an' please your worships, that the more I write, the more I shall have to

writeand consequently, the more your worships read, the more your worships will have to read.

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 prospectwrite as I

will, and rush as I may into the middle of things, as Horace advisesI shall never overtake myself whipp'd

and driven to the last pinch; at the worst I shall have one day the start of my penand one day is enough for

Heaven prosper the manufacturers of paper under this propitious reign, which is now opened to usas I trust

As for the propagation of GeeseI give myself no concernNature is all bountifulI shall never want

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 stairfootI thought you had no other way for

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 Susannahthe child is as black in the face as myAs 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

dressingroom, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the nameand 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

No, no,said my father to Susannah, I'll get upThere is no time, cried Susannah, the child's as black as

my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father But staythou 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

Susannah got the start, and kept it'Tis Trissomething, cried Susannah There is no christianname in

the world, said the curate, beginning with Trisbut Tristram. Then 'tis Tristramgistus, quoth Susannah.

There is no gistus to it, noodle!'tis my own name, replied the curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into

the basonTristram! said he, Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death.

My father followed Susannah, with his nightgown 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

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

buttonholeSo that whether the interjection was levelled at Susannah, or the buttonholewhether 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 chambermaids, my chapter of

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 aboutand with his breeches held up by one hand, and his nightgown thrown across the arm of the

A fitter occasion could never have presented itself, than what this moment offers, when all the curtains of the

family are drawnthe candles put out and no creature's eyes are open but a single one, for the other has

And yet, as fine as it is, I would undertake to write a dozen chapters upon buttonholes, both quicker and

Buttonholes! there is something lively in the very idea of 'emand trust me, when I get amongst 'emYou

gentry with great beardslook as grave as you willI'll make merry work with my buttonholesI shall

have 'em all to myself'tis a maiden subjectI shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it.

But for sleepI know I shall make nothing of it before I beginI am no dab at your fine sayings in the first

placeand 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 unfortunatethe enfranchisement of the prisonerthe downy lap of the hopeless, the weary,

and the brokenhearted; 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

recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied usthat 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 herno desireor fearor

doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty past, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over

'God's blessing,' said Sancho Panca, 'be upon the man who first invented this selfsame thing called sleepit

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

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 cause myself to be disturbed in my sleep, that I may the better and more sensibly relish

it.And yet I see few, says he again, who live with less sleep, when need requires; my body is capable of a

firm, but not of a violent and sudden agitationI evade of late all violent exercisesI am never weary with

walkingbut from my youth, I never looked to ride upon pavements. I love to lie hard and alone, and even

without my wifeThis last word may stagger the faith of the worldbut remember, 'La Vraisemblance' (as

Bayle says in the affair of Liceti) 'n'est pas toujours du Cote de la Verite.' And so much for sleep.

If my wife will but venture himbrother Toby, Trismegistus shall be dress'd and brought down to us, whilst

She is run up stairs, answered Obadiah, this very instant, sobbing and crying, and wringing her hands as if her

We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from Obadiah, and looking wistfully in my

uncle Toby's face for some timewe shall have a devilish month of it, brother Toby, said my father, setting

his arms a'kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, women, windbrother Toby!'Tis some misfortune,

quoth my uncle Toby.That it is, cried my fatherto have so many jarring elements breaking loose, and

riding triumph in every corner of a gentleman's houseLittle boots it to the peace of a family, brother Toby,

that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmovedwhilst such a storm is whistling over our

And what's the matter, Susannah? They have called the child Tristramand my mistress is just got out of an

hysterick fit about itNo!'tis not my fault, said SusannahI told him it was Tristramgistus.

Make tea for yourself, brother Toby, said my father, taking down his hat but how different from the

sallies and agitations of voice and members which a common reader would imagine!

For he spake in the sweetest modulationand took down his hat with the genteelest movement of limbs,

Go to the bowlinggreen for corporal Trim, said my uncle Toby, speaking to Obadiah, as soon as my

When the misfortune of my Nose fell so heavily upon my father's head;the reader remembers that he

walked instantly up stairs, and cast himself down upon his bed; and from hence, unless he has a great insight

into human nature, he will be apt to expect a rotation of the same ascending and descending movements from

The different weight, dear Sirnay even the different package of two vexations of the same weightmakes

a very wide difference in our manner of bearing and getting through with them.It is not half an hour ago,

when (in the great hurry and precipitation of a poor devil's writing for daily bread) I threw a fair sheet, which

I had just finished, and carefully wrote out, slap into the fire, instead of the foul one.

Instantly I snatch'd off my wig, and threw it perpendicularly, with all imaginable violence, up to the top of the

roomindeed I caught it as it fellbut there was an end of the matter; nor do I think any think else in

Nature would have given such immediate ease: She, dear Goddess, by an instantaneous impulse, in all

provoking cases, determines us to a sally of this or that memberor else she thrusts us into this or that place,

or posture of body, we know not whyBut mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteriesthe most

obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and

even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost

every cranny of nature's works: so that this, like a thousand other things, falls out for us in a way, which tho'

we cannot reason upon ityet we find the good of it, may it please your reverences and your worshipsand

Now, my father could not lie down with this affliction for his lifenor could he carry it up stairs like the

Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which way to have gonereason, with

all her force, could not have directed him to any think like it: there is something, Sir, in fishpondsbut

what it is, I leave to systembuilders and fishponddiggers betwixt 'em to find out but there is

something, under the first disorderly transport of the humours, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly and

a sober walk towards one of them, that I have often wondered that neither Pythagoras, nor Plato, nor Solon,

nor Lycurgus, nor Mahomet, nor any one of your noted lawgivers, ever gave order about them.

Your honour, said Trim, shutting the parlourdoor before he began to speak, has heard, I imagine, of this

unlucky accidentO yes, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and it gives me great concern.I am heartily

concerned too, but I hope your honour, replied Trim, will do me the justice to believe, that it was not in the

least owing to me.To theeTrim?cried my uncle Toby, looking kindly in his face'twas Susannah's

and the curate's folly betwixt them.What business could they have together, an' please your honour, in the

Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped short with a low bowTwo misfortunes, quoth the

corporal to himself, are twice as many at least as are needful to be talked over at one time;the mischief the

cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, may be told his honour hereafter. Trim's casuistry and

address, under the cover of his low bow, prevented all suspicion in my uncle Toby, so he went on with what

For my own part, Trim, though I can see little or no difference betwixt my nephew's being called Tristram

or Trismegistusyet as the thing sits so near my brother's heart, TrimI would freely have given a hundred

pounds rather than it should have happened.A hundred pounds, an' please your honour! replied Trim,I

would not give a cherrystone to boot.Nor would I, Trim, upon my own account, quoth my uncle

Tobybut my brother, whom there is no arguing with in this casemaintains that a great deal more

depends, Trim, upon christiannames, than what ignorant people imaginefor he says there never was a

great or heroic action performed since the world began by one called Tristramnay, he will have it, Trim,

that a man can neither be learned, or wise, or brave.'Tis all fancy, an' please your honourI fought just as

well, replied the corporal, when the regiment called me Trim, as when they called me James Butler.And

for my own part, said my uncle Toby, though I should blush to boast of myself, Trimyet had my name

been Alexander, I could have done no more at Namur than my duty. Bless your honour! cried Trim,

advancing three steps as he spoke, does a man think of his christianname when he goes upon the

attack?Or when he stands in the trench, Trim? cried my uncle Toby, looking firm.Or when he enters a

breach? said Trim, pushing in between two chairs.Or forces the lines? cried my uncle, rising up, and

pushing his crutch like a pike.Or facing a platoon? cried Trim, presenting his stick like a firelock.Or

when he marches up the glacis? cried my uncle Toby, looking warm and setting his foot upon his stool.

My father was returned from his walk to the fishpondand opened the parlourdoor in the very height of

the attack, just as my uncle Toby was marching up the glacisTrim recovered his armsnever was my

uncle Toby caught in riding at such a desperate rate in his life! Alas! my uncle Toby! had not a weightier

matter called forth all the ready eloquence of my fatherhow hadst thou then and thy poor HobbyHorse

My father hung up his hat with the same air he took it down; and after giving a slight look at the disorder of

the room, he took hold of one of the chairs which had formed the corporal's breach, and placing it over

against my uncle Toby, he sat down in it, and as soon as the teathings were taken away, and the door shut,

It is in vain longer, said my father, addressing himself as much to Ernulphus's curse, which was laid upon the

corner of the chimneypieceas to my uncle Toby who sat under itit is in vain longer, said my father, in

the most querulous monotony imaginable, to struggle as I have done against this most uncomfortable of

human persuasionsI see it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, or the sins and follies of the

Shandy family, Heaven has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its artillery against me; and that the

prosperity of my child is the point upon which the whole force of it is directed to play.Such a thing would

batter the whole universe about our ears, brother Shandy, said my uncle Tobyif it was so Unhappy

Tristram! child of wrath! child of decrepitude! interruption! mistake! and discontent! What one misfortune or

disaster in the book of embryotic evils, that could unmechanize thy frame, or entangle thy filaments! which

has not fallen upon thy head, or ever thou camest into the worldwhat evils in thy passage into it!what

evils since!produced into being, in the decline of thy father's dayswhen the powers of his imagination

and of his body were waxing feeblewhen radical heat and radical moisture, the elements which should

have temper'd thine, were drying up; and nothing left to found thy stamina in, but negations'tis

pitifulbrother Toby, at the best, and called out for all the little helps that care and attention on both sides

could give it. But how were we defeated! You know the event, brother Toby'tis too melancholy a one to be

repeated nowwhen the few animal spirits I was worth in the world, and with which memory, fancy, and

quick parts should have been convey'dwere all dispersed, confused, confounded, scattered, and sent to the

Here then was the time to have put a stop to this persecution against him; and tried an experiment at

leastwhether calmness and serenity of mind in your sister, with a due attention, brother Toby, to her

evacuations and repletionsand the rest of her nonnaturals, might not, in a course of nine months gestation,

have set all things to rights.My child was bereft of these!What a teazing life did she lead herself, and

consequently her foetus too, with that nonsensical anxiety of hers about lyingin in town? I thought my sister

submitted with the greatest patience, replied my uncle TobyI never heard her utter one fretful word about

it.She fumed inwardly, cried my father; and that, let me tell you, brother, was ten times worse for the

childand then! what battles did she fight with me, and what perpetual storms about the midwife.There

But what was all this, my dear Toby, to the injuries done us by my child's coming head foremost into the

world, when all I wished, in this general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket unbroke,

With all my precautions, how was my system turned topsideturvy in the womb with my child! his head

exposed to the hand of violence, and a pressure of 470 pounds avoirdupois weight acting so perpendicularly

upon its apexthat at this hour 'tis ninety per Cent. insurance, that the fine network of the intellectual web

Still we could have done.Fool, coxcomb, puppygive him but a Nose Cripple, Dwarf, Driveller,

Goosecap(shape him as you will) the door of fortune stands openO Licetus! Licetus! had I been blest

with a foetus five inches long and a half, like theeFate might have done her worst.

Still, brother Toby, there was one cast of the dye left for our child after allO Tristram! Tristram! Tristram!

What a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and striking it away, two up and two down for three volumes

(According to the preceding Editions.) together, without looking once behind, or even on one side of me, to

see whom I trod upon!I'll tread upon no onequoth I to myself when I mountedI'll take a good rattling

gallop; but I'll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road.So off I setup one lanedown another,

through this turnpikeover that, as if the archjockey of jockeys had got behind me.

Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you may'tis a million to one you'll do some

one a mischief, if not yourselfHe's flunghe's offhe's lost his hathe's downhe'll break his

necksee! if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of the undertaking criticks!he'll knock his

brains out against some of their postshe's bounced out!lookhe's now riding like a madcap full tilt

through a whole crowd of painters, fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players,

schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, prelates, popes, and engineers.Don't

fear, said II'll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the king's highway.But your horse throws dirt; see

you've splash'd a bishopI hope in God, 'twas only Ernulphus, said I.But you have squirted full in the

faces of Mess. Le Moyne, De Romigny, and De Marcilly, doctors of the Sorbonne.That was last year,

replied I.But you have trod this moment upon a king.Kings have bad times on't, said I, to be trod upon

I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and with my cap in

As Francis the first of France was one wint night warming himself over the embers of a wood fire, and

talking with his first minister of sundry things for the good of the state (Vide Menagiana, Vol. I.)It would

not be amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this good understanding betwixt ourselves

and Switzerland was a little strengthened. There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving money to

these peoplethey would swallow up the treasury of France.Poo! poo! answered the kingthere are

more ways, Mons. le Premier, of bribing states, besides that of giving moneyI'll pay Switzerland the

honour of standing godfather for my next child.Your majesty, said the minister, in so doing, would have

all the grammarians in Europe upon your back;Switzerland, as a republic, being a female, can in no

construction be godfather.She may be godmother, replied Francis hastilyso announce my intentions by a

I am astonished, said Francis the First, (that day fortnight) speaking to his minister as he entered the closet,

that we have had no answer from Switzerland.Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said Mons. le Premier, to

lay before you my dispatches upon that business.They take it kindly, said the king.They do, Sire, replied

the minister, and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done thembut the republick, as

In all reason, quoth the kingshe will christen him Francis, or Henry, or Lewis, or some name that she

knows will be agreeable to us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the ministerI have this hour received a

dispatch from our resident, with the determination of the republic on that point also.And what name has

the republick fixed upon for the Dauphin? Shadrach, Mesech, Abednego, replied the minister.By Saint

Peter's girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss, cried Francis the First, pulling up his breeches and

Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the minister.I'll pawn the best jewel in

Albeit, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavoured carefully (according to the measure of such a

slender skill as God has vouchsafed me, and as convenient leisure from other occasions of needful profit and

healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead

of many bigger booksyet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of careless disport, that

right sore am I ashamed now to intreat thy lenity seriouslyin beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in the

story of my father and his christiannamesI have no thoughts of treading upon Francis the Firstnor in

the affair of the noseupon Francis the Ninthnor in the character of my uncle Tobyof characterizing

the militiating spirits of my countrythe wound upon his groin, is a wound to every comparison of that

kindnor by Trimthat I meant the duke of Ormondor that my book is wrote against predestination, or

freewill, or taxesIf 'tis wrote against any thing, 'tis wrote, an' please your worships, against the spleen!

in order, by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the diaphragm, and the

succussations of the intercostal and abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the gall and other bitter juices

from the gall bladder, liver, and sweetbread of his majesty's subjects, with all the inimicitious passions

But can the thing be undone, Yorick? said my fatherfor in my opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a

vile canonist, replied Yorickbut of all evils, holding suspence to be the most tormenting, we shall at least

know the worst of this matter. I hate these great dinnerssaid my fatherThe size of the dinner is not the

point, answered Yorickwe want, Mr. Shandy, to dive into the bottom of this doubt, whether the name can

be changed or notand as the beards of so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and

of the most eminent of our schooldivines, and others, are all to meet in the middle of one table, and Didius

has so pressingly invited youwho in your distress would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite,

continued Yorick, is to apprize Didius, and let him manage a conversation after dinner so as to introduce the

subject.Then my brother Toby, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall go with us.

Let my old tyewig, quoth my uncle Toby, and my laced regimentals, be hung to the fire all night, Trim.

No doubt, Sir,there is a whole chapter wanting hereand a chasm of ten pages made in the book by

itbut the bookbinder is neither a fool, or a knave, or a puppynor is the book a jot more imperfect (at

least upon that score)but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter,

than having it, as I shall demonstrate to your reverences in this manner.I question first, bythebye,

whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters but there is no

end, an' please your reverences, in trying experiments upon chapterswe have had enough of itSo there's

But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the chapter which I have torn out, and which

otherwise you would all have been reading just now, instead of thiswas the description of my father's, my

uncle Toby's, Trim's, and Obadiah's setting out and journeying to the visitation at. . ..

We'll go in the coach, said my fatherPrithee, have the arms been altered, Obadiah?It would have made

my story much better to have begun with telling you, that at the time my mother's arms were added to the

Shandy's, when the coach was repainted upon my father's marriage, it had so fallen out that the

coachpainter, whether by performing all his works with the left hand, like Turpilius the Roman, or Hans

Holbein of Basilor whether 'twas more from the blunder of his head than handor whether, lastly, it was

from the sinister turn which every thing relating to our family was apt to takeit so fell out, however, to our

reproach, that instead of the benddexter, which since Harry the Eighth's reign was honestly our duea

bendsinister, by some of these fatalities, had been drawn quite across the field of the Shandy arms. 'Tis

scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my father was, could be so much incommoded with so

small a matter. The word coachlet it be whose it wouldor coachman, or coachhorse, or coachhire,

could never be named in the family, but he constantly complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy

upon the door of his own; he never once was able to step into the coach, or out of it, without turning round to

take a view of the arms, and making a vow at the same time, that it was the last time he would ever set his

foot in it again, till the bendsinister was taken outbut like the affair of the hinge, it was one of the many

things which the Destinies had set down in their books ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser families than

Has the bendsinister been brush'd out, I say? said my father.There has been nothing brush'd out, Sir,

answered Obadiah, but the lining. We'll go o'horseback, said my father, turning to YorickOf all things in

the world, except politicks, the clergy know the least of heraldry, said Yorick.No matter for that, cried my

fatherI should be sorry to appear with a blot in my escutcheon before them.Never mind the

bendsinister, said my uncle Toby, putting on his tyewig.No, indeed, said my fatheryou may go with

my aunt Dinah to a visitation with a bendsinister, if you think fitMy poor uncle Toby blush'd. My father

was vexed at himself.Nomy dear brother Toby, said my father, changing his tonebut the damp of the

coach lining about my loins, may give me the sciatica again, as it did December, January, and February last

winterso if you please you shall ride my wife's padand as you are to preach, Yorick, you had better

make the best of your way beforeand leave me to take care of my brother Toby, and to follow at our own

Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this cavalcade, in which Corporal Trim and

Obadiah, upon two coachhorses a breast, led the way as slow as a patrolewhilst my uncle Toby, in his

laced regimentals and tyewig, kept his rank with my father, in deep roads and dissertations alternately upon

But the painting of this journey, upon reviewing it, appears to be so much above the stile and manner of

any thing else I have been able to paint in this book, that it could not have remained in it, without

depreciating every other scene; and destroying at the same time that necessary equipoise and balance,

(whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the

whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it but, in my

opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a songbe but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis

This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that some of the lowest and flattest compositions pass off

very well(as Yorick told my uncle Toby one night) by siege.My uncle Toby looked brisk at the sound of

I'm to preach at court next Sunday, said Homenasrun over my notesso I humm'd over doctor Homenas's

notesthe modulation's very well'twill do, Homenas, if it holds on at this rateso on I humm'dand a

tolerable tune I thought it was; and to thisr, may it please your reverences, had never found out how low, how

flat, how spiritless and jejune it was, but that all of a sudden, up started an air in the middle of it, so fine, so

rich, so heavenly,it carried my soul up with it into the other world; now had I (as Montaigne complained in

a parallel accident)had I found the declivity easy, or the ascent accessiblecertes I had been outwitted.

Your notes, Homenas, I should have said, are good notes;but it was so perpendicular a precipiceso

wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first note I humm'd I found myself flying into the other

world, and from thence discovered the vale from whence I came, so deep, so low, and dismal, that I shall

> A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size take my word, is a dwarf in more

See if he is not cutting it into slips, and giving them about him to light their pipes!'Tis abominable,

answered Didius; it should not go unnoticed, said doctor Kysarcius he was of the Kysarcii of the Low

Methinks, said Didius, half rising from his chair, in order to remove a bottle and a tall decanter, which stood

in a direct line betwixt him and Yorickyou might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a

more proper place, Mr. Yorickor at least upon a more proper occasion to have shewn your contempt of

what we have been about: If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with'twas certainly, Sir,

not good enough to be preached before so learned a body; and if 'twas good enough to be preached before so

learned a body'twas certainly Sir, too good to light their pipes with afterwards.

I have got him fast hung up, quoth Didius to himself, upon one of the two horns of my dilemmalet him

I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this

occasionthat I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdomand if it was possible my horse with me, a

thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end

of meit came from my head instead of my heartand it is for the pain it gave me, both in the writing and

preaching of it, that I revenge myself of it, in this mannerTo preach, to shew the extent of our reading, or

the subtleties of our witto parade in the eyes of the vulgar with the beggarly accounts of a little learning,

tinsel'd over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmthis a dishonest use of the

poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands'Tis not preaching the gospelbut

ourselvesFor my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words pointblank to the heart.

As Yorick pronounced the word pointblank, myle Toby rose up to say something upon projectileswhen a

single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one's ears towards ita word

of all others in the dictionary the last in that place to be expecteda word I am ashamed to writeyet must

be writtenmust be readillegaluncanonical guess ten thousand guesses, multiplied into

themselvesracktorture your invention for ever, you're where you wasIn short, I'll tell it in the next

Zounds!Z...ds! cried Phutatorius, partly to himselfand yet high enough to be heardand what seemed

odd, 'twas uttered in a construction of look, and in a tone of voice, somewhat between that of a man in

One or two who had very nice ears, and could distinguish the expression and mixture of the two tones as

plainly as a third or a fifth, or any other chord in musickwere the most puzzled and perplexed with itthe

concord was good in itselfbut then 'twas quite out of the key, and no way applicable to the subject

started;so that with all their knowledge, they could not tell what in the world to make of it.

Others who knew nothing of musical expression, and merely lent their ears to the plain import of the word,

imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out

of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purposeand that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds

was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of

handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's goodnature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But

seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or desire to go ona third party began to suppose, that it

was no more than an involuntary respiration, casually forming itself into the shape of a twelvepenny

Others, and especially one or two who sat next him, looked upon it on the contrary as a real and substantial

oath, propensly formed against Yorick, to whom he was known to bear no good likingwhich said oath, as

my father philosophized upon it, actually lay fretting and fuming at that very time in the upper regions of

Phutatorius's purtenance; and so was naturally, and according to the due course of things, first squeezed out

by the sudden influx of blood which was driven into the right ventricle of Phutatorius's heart, by the stroke of

There was not a soul busied in all these various reasonings upon the monosyllable which Phutatorius

utteredwho did not take this for granted, proceeding upon it as from an axiom, namely, that Phutatorius's

mind was intent upon the subject of debate which was arising between Didius and Yorick; and indeed as he

looked first towards the one and then towards the other, with the air of a man listening to what was going

forwardswho would not have thought the same? But the truth was, that Phutatorius knew not one word or

one syllable of what was passingbut his whole thoughts and attention were taken up with a transaction

which was going forwards at that very instant within the precincts of his own Galligaskins, and in a part of

them, where of all others he stood most interested to watch accidents: So that notwithstanding he looked with

all the attention in the world, and had gradually skrewed up every nerve and muscle in his face, to the utmost

pitch the instrument would bear, in order, as it was thought, to give a sharp reply to Yorick, who sat

overagainst himyet, I say, was Yorick never once in any one domicile of Phutatorius's brainbut the

You must be informed then, that Gastripheres, who had taken a turn into the kitchen a little before dinner, to

see how things went onobserving a wickerbasket of fine chesnuts standing upon the dresser, had ordered

that a hundred or two of them might be roasted and sent in, as soon as dinner was overGastripheres

inforcing his orders about them, that Didius, but Phutatorius especially, were particularly fond of 'em.

About two minutes before the time that my uncle Toby interrupted Yorick's harangueGastripheres's

chesnuts were brought inand as Phutatorius's fondness for 'em was uppermost in the waiter's head, he laid

Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all thrust into the napkin at a timebut

that some one chesnut, of more life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motionit so fell out,

however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddling underit fell

perpendicularly into that particular aperture of Phutatorius's breeches, for which, to the shame and indelicacy

of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout all Johnson's dictionarylet it suffice to

sayit was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of decorum do strictly require, like

The neglect of this punctilio in Phutatorius (which bythebye should be a warning to all mankind) had

Accident I call it, in compliance to a received mode of speakingbut in no opposition to the opinion either

of Acrites or Mythogeras in this matter; I know they were both prepossessed and fully persuaded of itand

are so to this hour, That there was nothing of accident in the whole eventbut that the chesnut's taking that

particular course, and in a manner of its own accordand then falling with all its heat directly into that one

particular place, and no otherwas a real judgment upon Phutatorius for that filthy and obscene treatise de

Concubinis retinendis, which Phutatorius had published about twenty years agoand was that identical week

It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversymuch undoubtedly may be wrote on both sides of

the questionall that concerns me as an historian, is to represent the matter of fact, and render it credible to

the reader, that the hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut;and that

the chesnut, somehow or other, did fall perpendicularly, and piping hot into it, without Phutatorius's

The genial warmth which the chesnut imparted, was not undelectable for the first twenty or fiveandtwenty

secondsand did no more than gently solicit Phutatorius's attention towards the part:But the heat

gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then

advancing with all speed into the regions of pain, the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his

thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, memory, fancy, with

ten battalions of animal spirits, all tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles and circuits, to the

place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as you may imagine, as empty as my purse.

With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back, Phutatorius was not able to dive

into the secret of what was going forwards below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil

was the matter with it: However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most

prudent in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help of some

wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued

neuter;but the sallies of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kinda thought instantly darted

into his mind, that tho' the anguish had the sensation of glowing heatit might, notwithstanding that, be a

bite as well as a burn; and if so, that possibly a Newt or an Asker, or some such detested reptile, had crept up,

and was fastening his teeththe horrid idea of which, with a fresh glow of pain arising that instant from the

chesnut, seized Phutatorius with a sudden panick, and in the first terrifying disorder of the passion, it threw

him, as it has done the best generals upon earth, quite off his guard:the effect of which was this, that he

leapt incontinently up, uttering as he rose that interjection of surprise so much descanted upon, with the

aposiopestic break after it, marked thus, Z...dswhich, though not strictly canonical, was still as little as any

man could have said upon the occasion;and which, bythebye, whether canonical or not, Phutatorius

Though this has taken up some time in the narrative, it took up little more time in the transaction, than just to

allow time for Phutatorius to draw forth the chesnut, and throw it down with violence upon the floorand

It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind: What incredible weight they have in

forming and governing our opinions, both of men and thingsthat trifles, light as air, shall waft a belief into

the soul, and plant it so immoveably within itthat Euclid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter

Yorick, I said, picked up the chesnut which Phutatorius's wrath had flung downthe action was triflingI

am ashamed to account for ithe did it, for no reason, but that he thought the chesnut not a jot worse for the

adventureand that he held a good chesnut worth stooping for.But this incident, trifling as it was,

wrought differently in Phutatorius's head: He considered this act of Yorick's in getting off his chair and

picking up the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was originally hisand in

course, that it must have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a

prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and

very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for Yorick, who sat directly over against Phutatorius, of slipping

the chesnut inand consequently that he did it. The look of something more than suspicion, which

Phutatorius cast full upon Yorick as these thoughts arose, too evidently spoke his opinionand as

Phutatorius was naturally supposed to know more of the matter than any person besides, his opinion at once

became the general one;and for a reason very different from any which have been yet givenin a little

When great or unexpected events fall out upon the stage of this sublunary worldthe mind of man, which is

an inquisitive kind of a substance, naturally takes a flight behind the scenes to see what is the cause and first

It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of the treatise which Phutatorius had wrote de

Concubinis retinendis, as a thing which he feared had done hurt in the worldand 'twas easily found out,

that there was a mystical meaning in Yorick's prankand that his chucking the chesnut hot into

Phutatorius's. . .. . ., was a sarcastical fling at his book the doctrines of which, they said, had enflamed

This conceit awaken'd Somnolentusmade Agelastes smileand if you can recollect the precise look and

air of a man's face intent in finding out a riddleit threw Gastripheres's into that formand in short was

This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as groundless as the dreams of philosophy:

Yorick, no doubt, as Shakespeare said of his ancestor'was a man of jest,' but it was temper'd with

something which withheld him from that, and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly

bore the blame;but it was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying and doing a

thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable. All I blame him foror

rather, all I blame and alternately like him for, was that singularity of his temper, which would never suffer

him to take pains to set a story right with the world, however in his power. In every ill usage of that sort, he

acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horsehe could have explained it to his honour, but his spirit was

above it; and besides, he ever looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of an illiberal report alike

so injurious to himhe could not stoop to tell his story to themand so trusted to time and truth to do it for

This heroic cast produced him inconveniences in many respectsin the present it was followed by the fixed

resentment of Phutatorius, who, as Yorick had just made an end of his chesnut, rose up from his chair a

second time, to let him know itwhich indeed he did with a smile; saying only that he would endeavour

But you must mark and carefully separate and distinguish these two things in your mind.

Can you tell me, quoth Phutatorius, speaking to Gastripheres who sat next to himfor one would not

apply to a surgeon in so foolish an affaircan you tell me, Gastripheres, what is best to take out the

fire?Ask Eugenius, said Gastripheres.That greatly depends, said Eugenius, pretending ignorance of the

adventure, upon the nature of the partIf it is a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be wrapt

upIt is both the one and the other, replied Phutatorius, laying his hand as he spoke, with an emphatical nod

of his head, upon the part in question, and lifting up his right leg at the same time to ease and ventilate it.If

that is the case, said Eugenius, I would advise you, Phutatorius, not to tamper with it by any means; but if you

will send to the next printer, and trust your cure to such a simple thing as a soft sheet of paper just come off

the press you need do nothing more than twist it round.The damp paper, quoth Yorick (who sat next to

his friend Eugenius) though I know it has a refreshing coolness in ityet I presume is no more than the

vehicleand that the oil and lampblack with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, does the

business.Right, said Eugenius, and is, of any outward application I would venture to recommend, the most

Was it my case, said Gastripheres, as the main thing is the oil and lamp black, I should spread them thick

upon a rag, and clap it on directly. That would make a very devil of it, replied Yorick.And besides,

added Eugenius, it would not answer the intention, which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the

prescription, which the Faculty hold to be half in half;for consider, if the type is a very small one (which it

should be) the sanative particles, which come into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so

infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs and large capitals excepted) as no art

or management of the spatula can come up to.It falls out very luckily, replied Phutatorius, that the second

edition of my treatise de Concubinis retinendis is at this instant in the press.You may take any leaf of it,

They are just now, replied Phutatorius, printing off the ninth chapter which is the last chapter but one in

the book.Pray what is the title of that chapter? said Yorick; making a respectful bow to Phutatorius as he

Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand with his fingers spread upon his breasthad such

a blunder about a christianname happened before the Reformation(It happened the day before yesterday,

quoth my uncle Toby to himself)and when baptism was administer'd in Latin('Twas all in English, said

my uncle)many things might have coincided with it, and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to

have pronounced the baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new nameHad a priest, for instance,

which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptized a child of Tomo'Stiles, in

nomine patriae filia spiritum sanctosthe baptism was held null.I beg your pardon, replied Kysarciusin

that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the baptism was validand to have rendered it null, the

blunder of the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each nounand not, as in your case, upon

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

Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John Stradling's in Gomine gatris, instead

of in Nomine patris, this a baptism? Nosay the ablest canonists; in as much as the radix of each word is

hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for Gomine

does not signify a name, nor gatris a father.What do they signify? said my uncle Toby.Nothing at

But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patriae is put for patris, filia for filii, and so onas it is a

fault only in the declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the inflections of their branches

either this way or that, does not in any sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the

words as before.But then, said Didius, the intention of the priest's pronouncing them grammatically must

have been proved to have gone along with it.Right, answered Kysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we

have an instance in a decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the IIId.But my brother's child, cried my uncle

Toby, has nothing to do with the Pope'tis the plain child of a Protestant gentleman, christen'd Tristram

against the wills and wishes both of his father and mother, and all who are akin to it.

If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of those only who stand related to Mr.

Shandy's child, were to have weight in this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in it.My

uncle Toby lay'd down his pipe, and my father drew his chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of

It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the (Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. para

8.) best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued Kysarcius, 'Whether the mother be of kin to her child,'

but, after much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sidesit has been adjudged for

the negativenamely, 'That the mother is not of kin to her child.' (Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N.

47.) My father instantly clapp'd his hand upon my uncle Toby's mouth, under colour of whispering in his

ear;the truth was, he was alarmed for Lillabulleroand having a great desire to hear more of so curious an

argumenthe begg'd my uncle Toby, for heaven's sake, not to disappoint him in it.My uncle Toby gave a

nodresumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling Lillabullero inwardlyKysarcius, Didius,

This determination, continued Kysarcius, how contrary soever it may seem to run to the stream of vulgar

ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side; and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous case,

known commonly by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's case.It is cited in Brook, said TriptolemusAnd

taken notice of by Lord Coke, added Didius.And you may find it in Swinburn on Testaments, said

In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles duke of Suffolk having issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by

another venter, made his last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose death the son

died alsobut without will, without wife, and without childhis mother and his sister by the father's side

(for she was born of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration of her son's goods,

according to the statute of the 21st of Harry the Eighth, whereby it is enacted, That in case any person die

intestate the administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin.

The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, the sister by the father's side

commenced a suit before the Ecclesiastical Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; and 2dly,

That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; and therefore prayed the court, that the

administration granted to the mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to the

Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its issueand many causes of great property

likely to be decided in times to come, by the precedent to be then madethe most learned, as well in the

laws of this realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, whether the mother was of kin to her son, or

no.Whereunto not only the temporal lawyersbut the church lawyersthe jurisconsultithe

jurisprudentesthe civiliansthe advocatesthe commissariesthe judges of the consistory and

prerogative courts of Canterbury and York, with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion,

That the mother was not of (Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de Verb. signific.) kin

The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby's question, confounded Kysarcius more than the ablest advocateHe

stopp'd a full minute, looking in my uncle Toby's face without replyingand in that single minute

'Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things do not ascend, but descend in it; and I

make no doubt 'tis for this cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and seed of its

parentsthat the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not

begot by the child, but the child by the parentsFor so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patris matris, sed

But this, Triptolemus, cried Didius, proves too muchfor from this authority cited it would follow, not

only what indeed is granted on all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her childbut the father

likewise.It is held, said Triptolemus, the better opinion; because the father, the mother, and the child,

though they be three persons, yet are they but (una caro (Vide Brook Abridg. tit. Administr. N .47.)) one

flesh; and consequently no degree of kindredor any method of acquiring one in nature.There you push

the argument again too far, cried Didiusfor there is no prohibition in nature, though there is in the Levitical

lawbut that a man may beget a child upon his grandmotherin which case, supposing the issue a

daughter, she would stand in relation both ofBut who ever thought, cried Kysarcius, of laying with his

grandmother?The young gentleman, replied Yorick, whom Selden speaks ofwho not only thought of it,

but justified his intention to his father by the argument drawn from the law of retaliation.'You laid, Sir,

with my mother,' said the lad 'why may not I lay with yours?''Tis the Argumentum commune, added

And pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, as he and my father were helping him leisurely down

the stairsdon't be terrified, madam, this staircase conversation is not so long as the lastAnd pray,

Yorick, said my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of Tristram at length settled by these learned men?

Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with itfor Mrs. Shandy the mother is

nothing at all akin to himand as the mother's is the surest sideMr. Shandy, in course is still less than

Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle Toby, have been some sort of

Though my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned discourses'twas still but like the

anointing of a broken boneThe moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so

much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under us.He became

pensivewalked frequently forth to the fishpondlet down one loop of his hatsigh'd oftenforbore to

snapand, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and

digestion, as Hippocrates tells ushe had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his thoughts

been critically drawn off, and his health rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a

My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right end, he instantly began to plague and

puzzle his head how to lay it out mostly to the honour of his family.A hundredandfifty odd projects took

possession of his brains by turnshe would do this, and that and t'other He would go to Romehe would

go to lawhe would buy stockhe would buy John Hobson's farmhe would new fore front his house,

and add a new wing to make it evenThere was a fine watermill on this side, and he would build a

windmill on the other side of the river in full view to answer it But above all things in the world, he

would inclose the great Oxmoor, and send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels.

But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thingand in truth very few of these to any

purposeof all the projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the

deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at once, but for the small

inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the

This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though 'tis certain my father had long before set his heart upon

this necessary part of my brother's education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to carry it into

execution, with the first money that returned from the second creation of actions in the Missisippischeme, in

which he was an adventureryet the Oxmoor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained, unimproved

common, belonging to the Shandyestate, had almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately

But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things, as made it necessary to settle either

the priority or justice of their claimslike a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical

examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project at this crisisthe two old

projects, the Oxmoor and my Brother, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as

to become the occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mindwhich of the two should be set

It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost become a matter of common

right, that the eldest son of it should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before

marriagenot only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise and change of so

much airbut simply for the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been

Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgenceto deprive him of it, without why

or whereforeand thereby make an example of him, as the first Shandy unwhirl'd about Europe in a

postchaise, and only because he was a heavy ladwould be using him ten times worse than a Turk.

Exclusive of the original purchasemoney, which was eight hundred pounds it had cost the family eight

hundred pounds more in a lawsuit about fifteen years beforebesides the Lord knows what trouble and

It had been moreover in possession of the Shandyfamily ever since the middle of the last century; and

though it lay full in view before the house, bounded on one extremity by the watermill, and on the other by

the projected windmill spoken of aboveand for all these reasons seemed to have the fairest title of any

part of the estate to the care and protection of the familyyet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men,

as well as the ground they tread onit had all along most shamefully been overlook'd; and to speak the truth

of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who

understood the value of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.

However, as neither the purchasing this tract of groundnor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either

of them, properly speaking, of my father's doinghe had never thought himself any way concerned in the

affairtill the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed lawsuit mentioned above (and

which had arose about its boundaries)which being altogether my father's own act and deed, it naturally

awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he saw, not merely in

interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something for itand that now or never was the time.

I think there must certainly have been a mixture of illluck in it, that the reasons on both sides should happen

to be so equally balanced by each other; for though my father weigh'd them in all humours and conditions

spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and abstracted meditation upon what was best to be

donereading books of farming one daybooks of travels anotherlaying aside all passion

whateverviewing the arguments on both sides in all their lights and circumstancescommuning every day

with my uncle Tobyarguing with Yorick, and talking over the whole affair of the Oxmoor with

Obadiahyet nothing in all that time appeared so strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly

applicable to the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of equal weight, as to keep

For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho' the Oxmoor would undoubtedly have

made a different appearance in the world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it layyet every

tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother Bobbylet Obadiah say what he would.

In point of interestthe contest, I own, at first sight, did not appear so undecisive betwixt them; for

whenever my father took pen and ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and

burning, and fencing in the Oxmoor, the certain profit it would bring him in returnthe latter turned out so

prodigiously in his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the Oxmoor would have carried

all before it. For it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first

yearbesides an excellent crop of wheat the year followingand the year after that, to speak within

bounds, a hundredbut in all likelihood, a hundred and fiftyif not two hundred quarters of pease and

beansbesides potatoes without end.But then, to think he was all this while breeding up my brother, like

a hog to eat them knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state of

suspensethat, as he often declared to my uncle Tobyhe knew no more than his heels what to do.

No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by

two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for to say

nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of

the nerves, which you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart to the head, and

so onit is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and

solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time as it goes backwards and forwards.

My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done under that of my Christian

Namehad he not been rescued out of it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evilthe misfortune of my

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

From this moment I am to be considered as heirapparent to the Shandy familyand it is from this point

properly, that the story of my Life and my Opinions sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have but

been clearing the ground to raise the buildingand such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was

planned, and as never was executed since Adam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the

fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of my inkhorn, after itI have but

half a score things to do in the timeI have a thing to namea thing to lamenta thing to hopea thing

to promise, and a thing to threatenI have a thing to supposea thing to declarea thing to conceala

thing to choose, and a thing to pray for This chapter, therefore, I name the chapter of Thingsand my

next chapter to it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon Whiskers, in

The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I have not been able to get into that

part of my work, towards which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is

the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby, the events of which are of so singular a nature,

and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other

brain, which the occurrences themselves excite in my ownI will answer for it the book shall make its way

in the world, much better than its master has done before it.Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once

brought aboutthe credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils will have

befallen thee as a manthou wilt feast upon the onewhen thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the

No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amoursThey are the choicest morsel of my whole story!

and when I do get at 'emassure yourselves, good folks(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes

offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words!and that's the thing I have to declare.I

shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fearand the thing I hope is, that your worships and

reverences are not offendedif you are, depend upon't I'll give you something, my good gentry, next year to

be offended atthat's my dear Jenny's waybut who my Jenny isand which is the right and which the

wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealedit shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my

And now that you have just got to the end of these (According to the preceding Editions.) three

volumesthe thing I have to ask is, how you feel your heads? my own akes dismally!as for your healths, I

know, they are much better.True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and

like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run

freely through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round.

Was I left, like Sancho Panca, to choose my kingdom, it should not be maritimeor a kingdom of blacks to

make a penny of;no, it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more

saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have as bad an influence, I see, upon the

body politick as body naturaland as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passions, and

subject them to reasonI should add to my prayerthat God would give my subjects grace to be as Wise as

they were Merry; and then should I be the happiest monarch, and they are the happiest people under heaven.

And so with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and your reverences, I take my leave of

you till this time twelvemonth, when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the mean time) I'll have another

I Humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes (Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition.); they are the

best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce:had Providence granted me a larger stock of

I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate this work to you, I join Lady Spencer, in

the liberty I take of inscribing the story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other motive, which my

If it had not been for those two mettlesome tits, and that madcap of a postillion who drove them from Stilton

to Stamford, the thought had never entered my head. He flew like lightningthere was a slope of three miles

and a halfwe scarce touched the groundthe motion was most rapidmost impetuous'twas

communicated to my brainmy heart partook of it'By the great God of day,' said I, looking towards the

sun, and thrusting my arm out of the forewindow of the chaise, as I made my vow, 'I will lock up my

studydoor the moment I get home, and throw the key of it ninety feet below the surface of the earth, into the

The London waggon confirmed me in my resolution; it hung tottering upon the hill, scarce progressive,

drag'ddrag'd up by eight heavy beasts'by main strength!quoth I, noddingbut your betters draw the

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

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

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

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holydays, as well as workingdays, to be shewing the relicks

of learning, as monks do the relicks of their saintswithout working oneone single miracle with them?

Who made Man, with powers which dart him from earth to heaven in a moment that great, that most

excellent, and most noble creature of the worldthe miracle of nature, as Zoroaster in his book (Greek)

called himthe Shekinah of the divine presence, as Chrysostomthe image of God, as Moses the ray of

I scorn to be as abusive as Horace upon the occasionbut if there is no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in

it, I wish from my soul, that every imitator in Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for his pains;

and that there was a good farcical house, large enough to holdaye and sublimate them, shag rag and

bobtail, male and female, all together: and this leads me to the affair of Whiskersbut, by what chain of

ideasI leave as a legacy in mortmain to Prudes and Tartufs, to enjoy and make the most of.

I'm sorry I made it'twas as inconsiderate a promise as ever entered a man's headA chapter upon

whiskers! alas! the world will not bear it'tis a delicate worldbut I knew not of what mettle it was

madenor had I ever seen the underwritten fragment; otherwise, as surely as noses are noses, and whiskers

are whiskers still (let the world say what it will to the contrary); so surely would I have steered clear of this

. . .You are half asleep, my good lady, said the old gentleman, taking hold of the old lady's hand, and

giving it a gentle squeeze, as he pronounced the word Whiskersshall we change the subject? By no means,

replied the old ladyI like your account of those matters; so throwing a thin gauze handkerchief over her

head, and leaning it back upon the chair with her face turned towards him, and advancing her two feet as she

The old gentleman went on as follows:Whiskers! cried the queen of Navarre, dropping her knotting ball, as

La Fosseuse uttered the word Whiskers, madam, said La Fosseuse, pinning the ball to the queen's apron,

La Fosseuse's voice was naturally soft and low, yet 'twas an articulate voice: and every letter of the word

Whiskers fell distinctly upon the queen of Navarre's earWhiskers! cried the queen, laying a greater stress

upon the word, and as if she had still distrusted her earsWhiskers! replied La Fosseuse, repeating the word

a third timeThere is not a cavalier, madam, of his age in Navarre, continued the maid of honour, pressing

the page's interest upon the queen, that has so gallant a pairOf what? cried Margaret, smilingOf

The word Whiskers still stood its ground, and continued to be made use of in most of the best companies

throughout the little kingdom of Navarre, notwithstanding the indiscreet use which La Fosseuse had made of

it: the truth was, La Fosseuse had pronounced the word, not only before the queen, but upon sundry other

occasions at court, with an accent which always implied something of a mysteryAnd as the court of

Margaret, as all the world knows, was at that time a mixture of gallantry and devotionand whiskers being

as applicable to the one, as the other, the word naturally stood its groundit gained full as much as it lost;

that is, the clergy were for itthe laity were against itand for the women,they were divided.

The excellency of the figure and mien of the young Sieur De Croix, was at that time beginning to draw the

attention of the maids of honour towards the terrace before the palace gate, where the guard was mounted.

The lady De Baussiere fell deeply in love with him,La Battarelle did the sameit was the finest weather

for it, that ever was remembered in NavarreLa Guyol, La Maronette, La Sabatiere, fell in love with the

Sieur De Croix alsoLa Rebours and La Fosseuse knew betterDe Croix had failed in an attempt to

recommend himself to La Rebours; and La Rebours and La Fosseuse were inseparable.

The queen of Navarre was sitting with her ladies in the painted bowwindow, facing the gate of the second

court, as De Croix passed through itHe is handsome, said the Lady BaussiereHe has a good mien, said

La Battarelle He is finely shaped, said La GuyolI never saw an officer of the horse guards in my life,

said La Maronette, with two such legsOr who stood so well upon them, said La SabatiereBut he has no

The queen went directly to her oratory, musing all the way, as she walked through the gallery, upon the

subject; turning it this way and that way in her fancyAve Maria!what can LaFosseuse mean? said she,

La Guyol, La Battarelle, La Maronette, La Sabatiere, retired instantly to their chambersWhiskers! said all

The Lady Carnavallette was counting her beads with both hands, unsuspected, under her farthingalfrom St.

Antony down to St. Ursula inclusive, not a saint passed through her fingers without whiskers; St. Francis, St.

The Lady Baussiere had got into a wilderness of conceits, with moralizing too intricately upon La Fosseuse's

textShe mounted her palfrey, her page followed herthe host passed bythe Lady Baussiere rode on.

One denier, cried the order of mercyone single denier, in behalf of a thousand patient captives, whose eyes

Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoaryheaded man, meekly holding up a box, begirt with iron, in

his withered handsI beg for the unfortunategood my Lady, 'tis for a prisonfor an hospital'tis for an

old mana poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by fireI call God and all his angels to

witness'tis to clothe the nakedto feed the hungry'tis to comfort the sick and the brokenhearted.

He ran begging bareheaded on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by the former bonds of friendship,

alliance, consanguinity, aunt, sister, mother,for virtue's sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ's sake,

Take hold of my whiskers, said the Lady BaussiereThe page took hold of her palfrey. She dismounted at

There are some trains of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eyebrows; and

there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make these etchings the

Ha, ha! he, hee! cried La Guyol and La Sabatiere, looking close at each other's printsHo, ho! cried La

Battarelle and Maronette, doing the same: Whist! cried oneft, ft,said a secondhush, quoth a

thirdpoo, poo, replied a fourthgramercy! cried the Lady Carnavallette;'twas she who bewhisker'd St.

La Fosseuse drew her bodkin from the knot of her hair, and having traced the outline of a small whisker, with

the blunt end of it, upon one side of her upper lip, put in into La Rebours' handLa Rebours shook her head.

The Lady Baussiere coughed thrice into the inside of her muffLa Guyol smiledFy, said the Lady

Baussiere. The queen of Navarre touched her eye with the tip of her forefingeras much as to say, I

'Twas plain to the whole court the word was ruined: La Fosseuse had given it a wound, and it was not the

better for passing through all these defilesIt made a faint stand, however, for a few months, by the

expiration of which, the Sieur De Croix, finding it high time to leave Navarre for want of whiskersthe

word in course became indecent, and (after a few efforts) absolutely unfit for use.

The best word, in the best language of the best world, must have suffered under such combinations.The

curate of d'Estella wrote a book against them, setting forth the dangers of accessory ideas, and warning the

Does not all the world know, said the curate d'Estella at the conclusion of his work, that Noses ran the same

fate some centuries ago in most parts of Europe, which Whiskers have now done in the kingdom of

Navarre?The evil indeed spread no farther thenbut have not beds and bolsters, and night caps and

chamberpots stood upon the brink of destruction ever since? Are not trouse, and placketholes, and

pumphandlesand spigots and faucets, in danger still from the same association?Chastity, by nature, the

gentlest of all affectionsgive it but its head'tis like a ramping and a roaring lion.

The drift of the curate d'Estella's argument was not understood.They ran the scent the wrong way.The

world bridled his ass at the tail.And when the extremes of Delicacy, and the beginnings of Concupiscence,

When my father received the letter which brought him the melancholy account of my brother Bobby's death,

he was busy calculating the expence of his riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyons.

'Twas a most inauspicious journey; my father having had every foot of it to travel over again, and his

calculation to begin afresh, when he had almost got to the end of it, by Obadiah's opening the door to

acquaint him the family was out of yeastand to ask whether he might not take the great coachhorse early

in the morning and ride in search of some.With all my heart, Obadiah, said my father (pursuing his

journey)take the coach horse, and welcome.But he wants a shoe, poor creature! said Obadiah. Poor

creature! said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back again, like a string in unison. Then ride the Scotch

horse, quoth my father hastily.He cannot bear a saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole

world. The devil's in that horse; then take Patriot, cried my father, and shut the door.Patriot is sold, said

Obadiah. Here's for you! cried my father, making a pause, and looking in my uncle Toby's face, as if the thing

had not been a matter of fact.Your worship ordered me to sell him last April, said Obadiah.Then go on

foot for your pains, cried my fatherI had much rather walk than ride, said Obadiah, shutting the door.

What plagues, cried my father, going on with his calculation.But the waters are out, said

Till that moment, my father, who had a map of Sanson's, and a book of the postroads before him, had kept

his hand upon the head of his compasses, with one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage he had paid

for purposing to go on from that point with his journey and calculation, as soon as Obadiah quitted the

room: but this second attack of Obadiah's, in opening the door and laying the whole country under water, was

too much. He let go his compassesor rather with a mixed motion between accident and anger, he threw

them upon the table; and then there was nothing for him to do, but to return back to Calais (like many others)

When the letter was brought into the parlour, which contained the news of my brother's death, my father had

got forwards again upon his journey to within a stride of the compasses of the very same stage of

Nevers.By your leave, Mons. Sanson, cried my father, striking the point of his compasses through Nevers

into the tableand nodding to my uncle Toby to see what was in the lettertwice of one night, is too much

for an English gentleman and his son, Mons. Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a town as Nevers

What think'st thou, Toby? added my father in a sprightly tone.Unless it be a garrison town, said my uncle

Tobyfor thenI shall be a fool, said my father, smiling to himself, as long as I live.So giving a second

nod and keeping his compasses still upon Nevers with one hand, and holding his book of the postroads in

the otherhalf calculating and half listening, he leaned forwards upon the table with both elbows, as my

. . .he's gone! said my uncle TobyWhereWho? cried my father.My nephew, said my uncle

Toby.Whatwithout leavewithout moneywithout governor? cried my father in amazement.

No:he is dead, my dear brother, quoth my uncle Toby.Without being ill? cried my father again.I dare

say not, said my uncle Toby, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, he has

When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, that, not being able to moderate the violence

of her passions, she abruptly broke off her workMy father stuck his compasses into Nevers, but so much

the faster.What contrarieties! his, indeed, was matter of calculation! Agrippina's must have been quite a

. . .And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one tooso look to yourselves.

'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucianor some

one perhaps of later dateeither Cardan, or Budaeus, or Petrarch, or Stellaor possibly it may be some

divine or father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms that it is an irresistible and

natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or childrenand Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere,

that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channelAnd accordingly we find, that David

wept for his son AbsalomAdrian for his AntinousNiobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito

My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from most men either ancient or modern;

for he neither wept it away, as the Hebrews and the Romansor slept it off, as the Laplandersor hanged

it, as the English, or drowned it, as the Germans,nor did he curse it, or damn it, or excommunicate it, or

When Tully was bereft of his dear daughter Tullia, at first he laid it to his heart,he listened to the voice of

nature, and modulated his own unto it.O my Tullia! my daughter! my child!still, still, still,'twas O my

Tullia!my Tullia! Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.But as soon as he

began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the

occasionno body upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.

My father was as proud of his eloquence as Marcus Tullius Cicero could be for his life, and, for aught I am

convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strengthand his weakness

too. His strengthfor he was by nature eloquent; and his weaknessfor he was hourly a dupe to it; and,

provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a

shrewd one (bating the case of a systematic misfortune)he had all he wanted.A blessing which tied

up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes,

indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten,

and the pain of the misfortune but as fivemy father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again

This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem very inconsistent in my father's domestic character; and it

is this, that, in the provocations arising from the neglects and blunders of servants, or other mishaps

unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all conjecture.

My father had a favourite little mare, which he had consigned over to a most beautiful Arabian horse, in order

to have a pad out of her for his own riding: he was sanguine in all his projects; so talked about his pad every

day with as absolute a security, as if it had been reared, broke,and bridled and saddled at his door ready for

mounting. By some neglect or other in Obadiah, it so fell out, that my father's expectations were answered

with nothing better than a mule, and as ugly a beast of the kind as ever was produced.

My mother and my uncle Toby expected my father would be the death of Obadiahand that there never

would be an end of the disasterSee here! you rascal, cried my father, pointing to the mule, what you have

Triumph swam in my father's eyes, at the reparteethe Attic salt brought water into themand so Obadiah

Philosophy has a fine saying for every thing.For Death it has an entire set; the misery was, they all at once

rushed into my father's head, that 'twas difficult to string them together, so as to make any thing of a

''Tis an inevitable chancethe first statute in Magna Chartait is an everlasting act of parliament, my dear

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

'To die, is the great debt and tribute due unto nature: tombs and monuments, which should perpetuate our

memories, pay it themselves; and the proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and science have erected,

has lost its apex, and stands obtruncated in the traveller's horizon.' (My father found he got great ease, and

went on)'Kingdoms and provinces, and towns and cities, have they not their periods? and when those

principles and powers, which at first cemented and put them together, have performed their several

evolutions, they fall back.'Brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, laying down his pipe at the word

evolutionsRevolutions, I meant, quoth my father,by heaven! I meant revolutions, brother

Tobyevolutions is nonsense.'Tis not nonsensesaid my uncle Toby.But is it not nonsense to break

the thread of such a discourse upon such an occasion? cried my fatherdo notdear Toby, continued he,

taking him by the hand, do notdo not, I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis.My uncle Toby put his

'Where is Troy and Mycenae, and Thebes and Delos, and Persepolis and Agrigentum?'continued my

father, taking up his book of postroads, which he had laid down.'What is become, brother Toby, of

Nineveh and Babylon, of Cizicum and Mitylenae? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no

more; the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by

piecemeals to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual

'Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara,' (when can this have been? thought my

uncle Toby,) ' I began to view the country round about. Aegina was behind me, Megara was before, Pyraeus

on the right hand, Corinth on the left.What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said

I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried

Now my uncle Toby knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of Servius Sulpicius's consolatory letter

to Tully.He had as little skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity.

And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the Turkey trade, had been three or four different times in the

Levant, in one of which he had stayed a whole year and an half at Zant, my uncle Toby naturally concluded,

that, in some one of these periods, he had taken a trip across the Archipelago into Asia; and that all this

sailing affair with Aegina behind, and Megara before, and Pyraeus on the right hand, was nothing more than

the true course of my father's voyage and reflections.'Twas certainly in his manner, and many an

undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations.And pray, brother, quoth

my uncle Toby, laying the end of his pipe upon my father's hand in a kindly way of interruptionbut waiting

till he finished the accountwhat year of our Lord was this? 'Twas no year of our Lord, replied my

father.That's impossible, cried my uncle Toby.Simpleton! said my father,'twas forty years before

My uncle Toby had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother to be the wandering Jew, or that his

misfortunes had disordered his brain. 'May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him!'

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

'There is not such great odds, brother Toby, betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines'(this way of

setting off, by the bye, was not likely to cure my uncle Toby's suspicions).'Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness,

want, and woe, are the sauces of life.'Much good may do themsaid my uncle Toby to himself.

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

'But he is gone for ever from us!be it so. He is got from under the hands of his barber before he was

baldhe is but risen from a feast before he was surfeitedfrom a banquet before he had got drunken.

'The Thracians wept when a child was born,'(and we were very near it, quoth my uncle Toby,)'and

feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world; and with reason.Death opens the gate of fame,

and shuts the gate of envy after it,it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into

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

Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for markour appetites are but diseases,)is it not better not to

Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of

life, than, like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?

There is no terrour, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsionsand the

blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man's room.Strip it

of these, what is it?'Tis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle Toby. Take away its hearses, its

mutes, and its mourning,its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aidsWhat is it?Better in battle!

continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby'tis terrible no wayfor

consider, brother Toby,when we are death is not;and when death iswe are not. My uncle Toby laid

down his pipe to consider the proposition; my father's eloquence was too rapid to stay for any manaway it

For this reason, continued my father, 'tis worthy to recollect, how little alteration, in great men, the

approaches of death have made.Vespasian died in a jest upon his closestoolGalba with a

sentenceSeptimus Severus in a dispatchTiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a

And lastlyfor all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my

'Tis of Cornelius Gallus, the praetorwhich, I dare say, brother Toby, you have read.I dare say I have not,

replied my uncle.He died, said my father as. . .And if it was with his wife, said my uncle Tobythere

My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which led to the parlour, as my uncle Toby

pronounced the word wife.'Tis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it by leaving the

door a little ajar, so that my mother heard enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so

laying the edge of her finger across her two lipsholding in her breath, and bending her head a little

downwards, with a twist of her neck(not towards the door, but from it, by which means her ear was

brought to the chink)she listened with all her powers: the listening slave, with the Goddess of Silence at

In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as

Though in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels; yet there

was thus much to be said for it, that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted

one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and impulsesthat though it was a simple

machine, it had all the honour and advantages of a complex one,and a number of as odd movements within

Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, it was not altogether so singular, as

in many others; and it was this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was

going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the same subject,

Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was delivered in the parlouror a

discourse suspended till a servant went out or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the

brows of my father or motheror, in short, when any thing was supposed to be upon the tapis worth

knowing or listening to, 'twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat ajaras it stands

just now,which, under covert of the bad hinge, (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it

was never mended,) it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was

generally left, not indeed as wide as the Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this

windward trade, as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;my mother at this

moment stands profiting by it. Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table

which brought the news of my brother's death, so that before my father had well got over his surprise, and

entered upon his harangue,had Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.

A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Job's stockthough by the bye, your

curious observers are seldom worth a groat would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim

and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier.

My fathera man of deep readingprompt memorywith Cato, and Seneca, and Epictetus, at his fingers

The corporalwith nothingto rememberof no deeper reading than his musterrollor greater names at

The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along

(as men of wit and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.

The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and

the picture on the other, going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O Trim! would to

heaven thou had'st a better historian!would!thy historian had a better pair of breeches!O ye critics!

A green sattin nightgown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which

Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susannah's head.Well might Locke write a chapter upon the

imperfections of words. Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning.But note a second time:

the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself failed also of doing its office; it

excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black,all was green.The green sattin nightgown

O! 'twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried Susannah.My mother's whole wardrobe

followed.What a procession! her red damask,her orange tawney,her white and yellow

lutestrings,her brown taffata,her bone laced caps, her bedgowns, and comfortable

underpetticoats.Not a rag was left behind.'No,she will never look up again,' said Susannah.

We had a fat, foolish scullionmy father, I think, kept her for her simplicity;she had been all autumn

struggling with a dropsy.He is dead, said Obadiah,he is certainly dead!So am not I, said the foolish

Here is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepp'd into the kitchen,master Bobby

is dead and buriedthe funeral was an interpolation of Susannah'swe shall have all to go into mourning,

I hope not, said Trim.You hope not! cried Susannah earnestly.The mourning ran not in Trim's head,

whatever it did in Susannah's.I hope said Trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I

heard the letter read with my own ears, answered Obadiah; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in

stubbing the oxmoor.Oh! he's dead, said Susannah.As sure, said the scullion, as I'm alive.

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

He was alive last Whitsontide! said the coachman.Whitsontide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right

arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon,what is Whitsontide, Jonathan

(for that was the coachman's name), or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now,

continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of

health and stability)and are we not(dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment!'Twas

infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears. We are not stocks and stones.Jonathan, Obadiah,

the cookmaid, all melted.The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fishkettle upon her knees,

Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in church and state,and possibly the

preservation of the whole worldor what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and

power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal's

eloquenceI do demand your attentionyour worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, take

them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.

I said, 'we were not stocks and stones''tis very well. I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish we

were,but men clothed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations;and what a junketing piece of

work of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own part, I own it, I

am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch,

though most of your Barbati, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul,gives a smarter

stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either conveyor

I've gone a little aboutno matter, 'tis for healthlet us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of

Trim's hat'Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?'There was nothing in the sentence'twas

one of your selfevident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more

'Are we not here now;' continued the corporal, 'and are we not' (dropping his hat plumb upon the

groundand pausing, before he pronounced the word)'gone! in a moment?' The descent of the hat was as

if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.Nothing could have expressed the sentiment

of mortality, of which it was the type and fore runner, like it,his hand seemed to vanish from under it,it

fell dead, the corporal's eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse,and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.

NowTen thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways

by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect.Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it,

or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven,or in the best

direction that could be given to it,had he dropped it like a gooselike a puppylike an assor in doing

it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a foollike a ninny like a nincompoopit had fail'd, and

Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the engines of eloquence,who heat it, and

Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having done it, lead the owners of them,

Ye, lastly, who driveand why not, Ye also who are driven, like turkeys to market with a stick and a red

StayI have a small account to settle with the reader before Trim can go on with his harangue.It shall be

Amongst many other bookdebts, all of which I shall discharge in due time, I own myself a debtor to the

world for two items,a chapter upon chamber maids and buttonholes, which, in the former part of my

work, I promised and fully intended to pay off this year: but some of your worships and reverences telling

me, that the two subjects, especially so connected together, might endanger the morals of the world,I pray

the chapter upon chambermaids and buttonholes may be forgiven me,and that they will accept of the

last chapter in lieu of it; which is nothing, an't please your reverences, but a chapter of chambermaids, green

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

To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care iswho live here in the service of two of the best of

masters(bating in my own case his majesty King William the Third, whom I had the honour to serve both

in Ireland and Flanders)I own it, that from Whitsontide to within three weeks of Christmas,'tis not

long'tis like nothing;but to those, Jonathan, who know what death is, and what havock and destruction

he can make, before a man can well wheel about'tis like a whole age.O Jonathan! 'twould make a

goodnatured man's heart bleed, to consider, continued the corporal (standing perpendicularly), how low

many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that time!And trust me, Susy, added the corporal,

turning to Susannah, whose eyes were swimming in water,before that time comes round again,many a

bright eye will be dim.Susannah placed it to the right side of the pageshe weptbut she court'sied

too.Are we not, continued Trim, looking still at Susannahare we not like a flower of the fielda tear of

pride stole in betwixt every two tears of humiliation else no tongue could have described Susannah's

afflictionis not all flesh grass?Tis clay,'tis dirt.They all looked directly at the scullion, the

What is the finest face that ever man looked at!I could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried

Susannah,what is it! (Susannah laid her hand upon Trim's shoulder)but corruption?Susannah took it

Now I love you for thisand 'tis this delicious mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you

areand he who hates you for itall I can say of the matter isThat he has either a pumpkin for his

Whether Susannah, by taking her hand too suddenly from off the corporal's shoulder (by the whisking about

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

Or whether. . .Or whetherfor in all such cases a man of invention and parts may with pleasure fill a couple

of pages with suppositionswhich of all these was the cause, let the curious physiologist, or the curious any

body determine'tis certain, at least, the corporal went on thus with his harangue.

For my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I value not death at all:not this. . .added the corporal,

snapping his fingers,but with an air which no one but the corporal could have given to the sentiment.In

battle, I value death not this. . .and let him not take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbins, in scouring his

gun.What is he? A pull of a triggera push of a bayonet an inch this way or thatmakes the

difference.Look along the lineto the rightsee! Jack's down! well,'tis worth a regiment of horse to

him.No'tis Dick. Then Jack's no worse.Never mind which,we pass on,in hot pursuit the wound

itself which brings him is not felt,the best way is to stand up to him,the man who flies, is in ten times

more danger than the man who marches up into his jaws.I've look'd him, added the corporal, an hundred

times in the face,and know what he is.He's nothing, Obadiah, at all in the field.But he's very frightful

in a house, quoth Obadiah.I never mind it myself, said Jonathan, upon a coachbox.It must, in my

opinion, be most natural in bed, replied Susannah.And could I escape him by creeping into the worst calf's

skin that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it theresaid Trimbut that is nature.

Nature is nature, said Jonathan.And that is the reason, cried Susannah, I so much pity my

mistress.She will never get the better of it.Now I pity the captain the most of any one in the family,

answered Trim.Madam will get ease of heart in weeping,and the Squire in talking about it, but my

poor master will keep it all in silence to himself.I shall hear him sigh in his bed for a whole month

together, as he did for lieutenant Le Fever. An' please your honour, do not sigh so piteously, I would say to

him as I laid besides him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would say, 'tis so melancholy an accidentI

cannot get it off my heart.Your honour fears not death yourself.I hope, Trim, I fear nothing, he would

say, but the doing a wrong thing.Well, he would add, whatever betides, I will take care of Le Fever's

I like to hear Trim's stories about the captain, said Susannah.He is a kindlyhearted gentleman, said

Obadiah, as ever lived.Aye, and as brave a one too, said the corporal, as ever stept before a

platoon.There never was a better officer in the king's army,or a better man in God's world; for he would

march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touchhole,and yet, for all

that, he has a heart as soft as a child for other people.He would not hurt a chicken.I would sooner, quoth

Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a year than some for eight.Thank thee, Jonathan! for

thy twenty shillings,as much, Jonathan, said the corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put the

money into my own pocket.I would serve him to the day of my death out of love. He is a friend and a

brother to me,and could I be sure my poor brother Tom was dead,continued the corporal, taking out his

handkerchief,was I worth ten thousand pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the captain.Trim

could not refrain from tears at this testamentary proof he gave of his affection to his master.The whole

kitchen was affected.Do tell us the story of the poor lieutenant, said Susannah.With all my heart,

Susannah, the cook, Jonathan, Obadiah, and corporal Trim, formed a circle about the fire; and as soon as the

I am a Turk if I had not as much forgot my mother, as if Nature had plaistered me up, and set me down naked

upon the banks of the river Nile, without one.Your most obedient servant, MadamI've cost you a great

deal of trouble,I wish it may answer;but you have left a crack in my back, and here's a great piece

fallen off here before,and what must I do with this foot?I shall never reach England with it.

For my own part, I never wonder at any thing;and so often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I

always suspect it, right or wrong,at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth

as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and

search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without,I'll go to the world's

end with him:But I hate disputes,and therefore (bating religious points, or such as touch society) I

would almost subscribe to any thing which does not choak me in the first passage, rather than be drawn into

oneBut I cannot bear suffocation,and bad smells worst of all.For which reasons, I resolved from the

beginning, That if ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented,or a new one raised,I would have no

My uncle Toby's opinion, Madam, 'that there could be no harm in Cornelius Gallus, the Roman praetor's

lying with his wife;'or rather the last word of that opinion,(for it was all my mother heard of it) caught

hold of her by the weak part of the whole sex:You shall not mistake me,I mean her curiosity,she

instantly concluded herself the subject of the conversation, and with that prepossession upon her fancy, you

will readily conceive every word my father said, was accommodated either to herself, or her family concerns.

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

From the strange mode of Cornelius's death, my father had made a transition to that of Socrates, and was

giving my uncle Toby an abstract of his pleading before his judges;'twas irresistible:not the oration of

Socrates,but my father's temptation to it.He had wrote the Life of Socrates (This book my father would

never consent to publish; 'tis in manuscript, with some other tracts of his, in the family, all, or most of which

will be printed in due time.) himself the year before he left off trade, which, I fear, was the means of

hastening him out of it;so that no one was able to set out with so full a sail, and in so swelling a tide of

heroic loftiness upon the occasion, as my father was. Not a period in Socrates's oration, which closed with a

shorter word than transmigration, or annihilation,or a worse thought in the middle of it than to beor not

to be,the entering upon a new and untried state of things,or, upon a long, a profound and peaceful sleep,

without dreams, without disturbance? That we and our children were born to die,but neither of us born

to be slaves.Nothere I mistake; that was part of Eleazer's oration, as recorded by Josephus (de Bell.

Judaic)Eleazer owns he had it from the philosophers of India; in all likelihood Alexander the Great, in his

irruption into India, after he had overrun Persia, amongst the many things he stole,stole that sentiment

also; by which means it was carried, if not all the way by himself (for we all know he died at Babylon), at

least by some of his maroders, into Greece,from Greece it got to Rome,from Rome to France,and

By water the sentiment might easily have come down the Ganges into the Sinus Gangeticus, or Bay of

Bengal, and so into the Indian Sea; and following the course of trade (the way from India by the Cape of

Good Hope being then unknown), might be carried with other drugs and spices up the Red Sea to Joddah, the

port of Mekka, or else to Tor or Sues, towns at the bottom of the gulf; and from thence by karrawans to

Coptos, but three days journey distant, so down the Nile directly to Alexandria, where the Sentiment would

be landed at the very foot of the great staircase of the Alexandrian library,and from that storehouse it

would be fetched.Bless me! what a trade was driven by the learned in those days!

Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a manif not, there's an

Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise aera in which so

great a man lived;whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, vote, therefore, that he never lived at

all, is a little cruel,'tis not doing as they would be done by, happen that as it may)My father, I say,

had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his

impatience,of wondering why he was begot,wishing himself dead; sometimes worse:And when

the provocation ran high, and grief touched his lips with more than ordinary powersSir, you scarce could

have distinguished him from Socrates himself.Every word would breathe the sentiments of a soul

disdaining life, and careless about all its issues; for which reason, though my mother was a woman of no deep

reading, yet the abstract of Socrates's oration, which my father was giving my uncle Toby, was not altogether

new to her.She listened to it with composed intelligence, and would have done so to the end of the chapter,

had not my father plunged (which he had no occasion to have done) into that part of the pleading where the

great philosopher reckons up his connections, his alliances, and children; but renounces a security to be so

won by working upon the passions of his judges.'I have friendsI have relations,I have three desolate

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

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

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

My uncle Toby was no chronologerso not caring to advance one step but upon safe ground, he laid down

his pipe deliberately upon the table, and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without

saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out after my father, that he might finish the

Had this volume been a farce, which, unless every one's life and opinions are to be looked upon as a farce as

well as mine, I see no reason to supposethe last chapter, Sir, had finished the first act of it, and then this

Ptr. . .r. . .r. . .ingtwingtwangpruttrut'tis a cursed bad fiddle.Do you know whether my

fiddle's in tune or no?trut. . .prut. . .They should be fifths.'Tis wickedly strungtr. .

.a.e.i.o.u.twang. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down,else trut. .

.pruthark! tis not so bad a tone.Diddle diddle, diddle diddle, diddle diddle, dum. There is nothing in

playing before good judges,but there's a man therenonot him with the bundle under his armthe

grave man in black.'Sdeath! not the gentleman with the sword on.Sir, I had rather play a Caprichio to

Calliope herself, than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet I'll stake my Cremona to a

Jew's trump, which is the greatest musical odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred

and fifty leagues out of tune upon my fiddle, without punishing one single nerve that belongs to

himTwaddle diddle, tweddle diddle,twiddle diddle,twoddle diddle,twuddle diddle, prut

trutkrishkrashkrush.I've undone you, Sir,but you see he's no worse,and was Apollo to take

Your worships and your reverences love musicand God has made you all with good earsand some of

O! there iswhom I could sit and hear whole days,whose talents lie in making what he fiddles to be

felt,who inspires me with his joys and hopes, and puts the most hidden springs of my heart into

motion.If you would borrow five guineas of me, Sir,which is generally ten guineas more than I have to

spareor you Messrs. Apothecary and Taylor, want your bills paying,that's your time.

The first thing which entered my father's head, after affairs were a little settled in the family, and Susanna had

got possession of my mother's green sattin nightgown,was to sit down coolly, after the example of

Xenophon, and write a Tristrapaedia, or system of education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own

scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an Institute for the

government of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father's last stakehe had lost my brother Bobby

entirely,he had lost, by his own computation, full three fourths of methat is, he had been unfortunate in

his three first great casts for memy geniture, nose, and name,there was but this one left; and accordingly

my father gave himself up to it with as much devotion as ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of

projectils.The difference between them was, that my uncle Toby drew his whole knowledge of projectils

from Nicholas TartagliaMy father spun his, every thread of it, out of his own brain,or reeled and

crosstwisted what all other spinners and spinsters had spun before him, that 'twas pretty near the same

In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced almost into the middle of his

work.Like all other writers, he met with disappointments.He imagined he should be able to bring

whatever he had to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and bound, it might be rolled up in

my mother's hussive.Matter grows under our hands.Let no man say,'ComeI'll write a duodecimo.'

My father gave himself up to it, however, with the most painful diligence, proceeding step by step in every

line, with the same kind of caution and circumspection (though I cannot say upon quite so religious a

principle) as was used by John de la Casse, the lord archbishop of Benevento, in compassing his Galatea; in

which his Grace of Benevento spent near forty years of his life; and when the thing came out, it was not of

above half the size or the thickness of a Rider's Almanack.How the holy man managed the affair, unless he

spent the greatest part of his time in combing his whiskers, or playing at primero with his chaplain,would

pose any mortal not let into the true secret;and therefore 'tis worth explaining to the world, was it only for

the encouragement of those few in it, who write not so much to be fedas to be famous.

I own had John de la Casse, the archbishop of Benevento, for whose memory (notwithstanding his Galatea,) I

retain the highest veneration,had he been, Sir, a slender clerkof dull witslow partscostive head,

and so forth,he and his Galatea might have jogged on together to the age of Methuselah for me,the

But the reverse of this was the truth: John de la Casse was a genius of fine parts and fertile fancy; and yet

with all these great advantages of nature, which should have pricked him forwards with his Galatea, he lay

under an impuissance at the same time of advancing above a line and a half in the compass of a whole

summer's day: this disability in his Grace arose from an opinion he was afflicted with,which opinion was

this,viz. that whenever a Christian was writing a book (not for his private amusement, but) where his intent

and purpose was, bona fide, to print and publish it to the world, his first thoughts were always the temptations

of the evil one.This was the state of ordinary writers: but when a personage of venerable character and

high station, either in church or state, once turned author,he maintained, that from the very moment he

took pen in handall the devils in hell broke out of their holes to cajole him.'Twas Termtime with

them,every thought, first and last, was captious;how specious and good soever,'twas all one;in

whatever form or colour it presented itself to the imagination,'twas still a stroke of one or other of 'em

levell'd at him, and was to be fenced off.So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the

contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that

of any other man militant upon earth,both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his

My father was hugely pleased with this theory of John de la Casse, archbishop of Benevento; and (had it not

cramped him a little in his creed) I believe would have given ten of the best acres in the Shandy estate, to

have been the broacher of it.How far my father actually believed in the devil, will be seen, when I come to

speak of my father's religious notions, in the progress of this work: 'tis enough to say here, as he could not

have the honour of it, in the literal sense of the doctrinehe took up with the allegory of it; and would often

say, especially when his pen was a little retrograde, there was as much good meaning, truth, and knowledge,

couched under the veil of John de la Casse's parabolical representation, as was to be found in any one

poetic fiction or mystic record of antiquity.Prejudice of education, he would say, is the devil,and the

multitudes of them which we suck in with our mother's milkare the devil and all.We are haunted with

them, brother Toby, in all our lucubrations and researches; and was a man fool enough to submit tamely to

what they obtruded upon him,what would his book be? Nothing,he would add, throwing his pen away

with a vengeance,nothing but a farrago of the clack of nurses, and of the nonsense of the old women (of

This is the best account I am determined to give of the slow progress my father made in his Tristrapaedia; at

which (as I said) he was three years, and something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, had scarce

completed, by this own reckoning, one half of his undertaking: the misfortune was, that I was all that time

totally neglected and abandoned to my mother; and what was almost as bad, by the very delay, the first part

of the work, upon which my father had spent the most of his pains, was rendered entirely useless,every day

Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, That the wisest of us all should

thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.

In short my father was so long in all his acts of resistance,or in other words,he advanced so very slow

with his work, and I began to live and get forwards at such a rate, that if an event had not happened,which,

when we get to it, if it can be told with decency, shall not be concealed a moment from the readerI verily

believe, I had put by my father, and left him drawing a sundial, for no better purpose than to be buried under

'Twas nothing,I did not lose two drops of blood by it'twas not worth calling in a surgeon, had he

lived next door to usthousands suffer by choice, what I did by accident.Doctor Slop made ten times

more of it, than there was occasion:some men rise, by the art of hanging great weights upon small

wires,and I am this day (August the 10th, 1761) paying part of the price of this man's reputation.O

'twould provoke a stone, to see how things are carried on in this world!The chambermaid had left no .......

... under the bed:Cannot you contrive, master, quoth Susannah, lifting up the sash with one hand, as she

spoke, and helping me up into the windowseat with the other,cannot you manage, my dear, for a single

I was five years old.Susannah did not consider that nothing was well hung in our family,so slap came

the sash down like lightning upon us;Nothing is left,cried Susannah,nothing is leftfor me, but to

When Susannah told the corporal the misadventure of the sash, with all the circumstances which attended the

murder of me,(as she called it,)the blood forsook his cheeks,all accessaries in murder being

principals, Trim's conscience told him he was as much to blame as Susannah,and if the doctrine had

been true, my uncle Toby had as much of the bloodshed to answer for to heaven, as either of 'em;so that

neither reason or instinct, separate or together, could possibly have guided Susannah's steps to so proper an

asylum. It is in vain to leave this to the Reader's imagination:to form any kind of hypothesis that will

render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore,and to do it without,he must have such

brains as no reader ever had before him.Why should I put them either to trial or to torture? 'Tis my own

'Tis a pity, Trim, said my uncle Toby, resting with his hand upon the corporal's shoulder, as they both stood

surveying their works,that we have not a couple of fieldpieces to mount in the gorge of that new

redoubt;'twould secure the lines all along there, and make the attack on that side quite complete:get me

It was the joy of Trim's heart, nor was his fertile head ever at a loss for expedients in doing it, to supply my

uncle Toby in his campaigns, with whatever his fancy called for; had it been his last crown, he would have

sate down and hammered it into a paderero, to have prevented a single wish in his master. The corporal had

already,what with cutting off the ends of my uncle Toby's spoutshacking and chiseling up the sides of

his leaden gutters,melting down his pewter shavingbason,and going at last, like Lewis the Fourteenth,

on to the top of the church, for spare ends, had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering

cannons, besides three demiculverins, into the field; my uncle Toby's demand for two more pieces for the

redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden

weights from the nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he

had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages.

He had dismantled every sashwindow in my uncle Toby's house long before, in the very same

way,though not always in the same order; for sometimes the pullies have been wanted, and not the

lead,so then he began with the pullies,and the pullies being picked out, then the lead became useless,

A great Moral might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not time'tis enough to say, wherever

The corporal had not taken his measures so badly in this stroke of artilleryship, but that he might have kept

the matter entirely to himself, and left Susannah to have sustained the whole weight of the attack, as she

could;true courage is not content with coming off so.The corporal, whether as general or comptroller of

the train,'twas no matter,had done that, without which, as he imagined, the misfortune could never have

happened,at least in Susannah's hands;How would your honours have behaved?He determined at

once, not to take shelter behind Susannah,but to give it; and with this resolution upon his mind, he

marched upright into the parlour, to lay the whole manoeuvre before my uncle Toby.

My uncle Toby had just then been giving Yorick an account of the Battle of Steenkirk, and of the strange

conduct of count Solmes in ordering the foot to halt, and the horse to march where it could not act; which was

There are incidents in some families so pat to the purpose of what is going to follow,they are scarce

Trim, by the help of his forefinger, laid flat upon the table, and the edge of his hand striking across it at right

angles, made a shift to tell his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;and the story being

I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded Susannah's story, before I would suffer

the woman to come to any harm, 'twas my fault, an' please your honour,not her's.

Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the table,if any thing can be said

to be a fault, when the service absolutely requires it should be done,'tis I certainly who deserve the

Had count Solmes, Trim, done the same at the battle of Steenkirk, said Yorick, drolling a little upon the

corporal, who had been run over by a dragoon in the retreat,he had saved thee;Saved! cried Trim,

interrupting Yorick, and finishing the sentence for him after his own fashion,he had saved five battalions,

an' please your reverence, every soul of them:there was Cutt's,continued the corporal, clapping the

forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand,there was

Cutt's,Mackay's,Angus's,Graham's,and Leven's, all cut to pieces;and so had the English

lifeguards too, had it not been for some regiments upon the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and

received the enemy's fire in their faces, before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket,they'll

go to heaven for it,added Trim. Trim is right, said my uncle Toby, nodding to Yorick,he's perfectly

right. What signified his marching the horse, continued the corporal, where the ground was so strait, that the

French had such a nation of hedges, and copses, and ditches, and fell'd trees laid this way and that to cover

them (as they always have).Count Solmes should have sent us,we would have fired muzzle to muzzle

with them for their lives.There was nothing to be done for the horse:he had his foot shot off however for

his pains, continued the corporal, the very next campaign at Landen.Poor Trim got his wound there, quoth

my uncle Toby.'Twas owing, an' please your honour, entirely to count Solmes,had he drubbed them

soundly at Steenkirk, they would not have fought us at Landen.Possibly not,Trim, said my uncle

Toby;though if they have the advantage of a wood, or you give them a moment's time to intrench

themselves, they are a nation which will pop and pop for ever at you.There is no way but to march coolly

up to them,receive their fire, and fall in upon them, pellmellDing dong, added Trim.Horse and foot,

said my uncle Toby.Helter Skelter, said Trim.Right and left, cried my uncle Toby.Blood an' ounds,

shouted the corporal;the battle raged,Yorick drew his chair a little to one side for safety, and after a

moment's pause, my uncle Toby sinking his voice a note,resumed the discourse as follows.

King William, said my uncle Toby, addressing himself to Yorick, was so terribly provoked at count Solmes

for disobeying his orders, that he would not suffer him to come into his presence for many months after.I

fear, answered Yorick, the squire will be as much provoked at the corporal, as the King at the count.But

'twould be singularly hard in this case, continued be, if corporal Trim, who has behaved so diametrically

opposite to count Solmes, should have the fate to be rewarded with the same disgrace:too oft in this world,

do things take that train.I would spring a mine, cried my uncle Toby, rising up,and blow up my

fortifications, and my house with them, and we would perish under their ruins, ere I would stand by and see

it.Trim directed a slight,but a grateful bow towards his master,and so the chapter ends.

Then, Yorick, replied my uncle Toby, you and I will lead the way abreast,and do you, corporal, follow a

few paces behind us.And Susannah, an' please your honour, said Trim, shall be put in the rear. 'Twas an

excellent disposition,and in this order, without either drums beating, or colours flying, they marched

I wish, said Trim, as they entered the door,instead of the sash weights, I had cut off the church spout, as

As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in different airs and attitudes,not

one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think,

speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.There was that infinitude of oddities in him,

and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing,it baffled, Sir, all calculations.The

truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled,that every object

before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of

it seen by the rest of mankind.In other words, 'twas a different object, and in course was differently

This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal

squabbles about nothing.She looks at her outside,I, at her in. . .. How is it possible we should agree

'Tis a point settled,and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius, (Mr Shandy is supposed to mean. . ., Esq;

member for. . .,and not the Chinese Legislator.) who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain storythat

provided he keeps along the line of his story,he may go backwards and forwards as he will,'tis still held

Fifty thousand pannier loads of devils(not of the Archbishop of Benevento'sI mean of Rabelais's devils),

with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did when

the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery,so that Susannah had but just

Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,and young enough, I hope, to have done it

without malignity; yet Susannah, in passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in shorthand

with the cookthe cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the

time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above,was Obadiah

enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.I thought as much, said my father,

One would imagine from this(though for my own part I somewhat question it)that my father, before that

time, had actually wrote that remarkable character in the Tristrapaedia, which to me is the most original and

entertaining one in the whole book;and that is the chapter upon sash windows, with a bitter Philippick at

the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chambermaids.I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.

First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would

have nailed up the sash window for good an' all;which, considering with what difficulty he composed

books,he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this argument

I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter, even after the event; but 'tis obviated under the second

reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write

the chapter upon sashwindows and chamberpots, at the time supposed,and it is this.

My father put on his spectacleslooked,took them off,put them into the caseall in less than a

statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my

mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios

under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large readingdesk, she took it for granted 'twas an herbal,

and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.

If it be but right done,said my father, turning to the Sectionde sede vel subjecto circumcisionis,for

he had brought up Spenser de Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibusand Maimonides, in order to confront and

If it be but right done, quoth he:only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs?For that,

. . .Very well,said my father,. . .nay, if it has that convenience and so without stopping a moment

to settle it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews,he

rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we rub

out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded,he shut the book, and

walked down stairs.Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step as he set

his foot upon itif the Egyptians,the Syrians,the Phoenicians,the Arabians,the Cappadocians,if

the Colchi, and Troglodytes did itif Solon and Pythagoras submitted,what is Tristram? Who am I,

Dear Yorick, said my father smiling (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle Toby in coming through

the narrow entry, and so had stept first into the parlour)this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by

all his religious rites.Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated into them in so oblique

and slovenly a manner.But he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick.There has been certainly, continued my

father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was

formed.That, you are a better judge of than I, replied Yorick.Astrologers, quoth my father, know better

than us both: the trine and sextil aspects have jumped awry,or the opposite of their ascendents have not

hit it, as they should,or the lords of the genitures (as they call them) have been at bopeep,or something

'Tis possible, answered Yorick.But is the child, cried my uncle Toby, the worse?The Troglodytes say

not, replied my father. And your theologists, Yorick, tell usTheologically? said Yorick,or speaking after

the manner of apothecaries? (footnote in Greek Philo.)statesmen? (footnote in Greek)or

I'm not sure, replied my father,but they tell us, brother Toby, he's the better for it.Provided, said

Yorick, you travel him into Egypt.Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when he sees

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

Ilus, (footnote in Greek Sanchuniatho.) continued my father, circumcised his whole army one

morning.Not without a court martial? cried my uncle Toby.Though the learned, continued he, taking no

notice of my uncle Toby's remark, but turning to Yorick,are greatly divided still who Ilus was;some say

Saturn;some the Supreme Being;others, no more than a brigadier general under Pharaohneco.Let

him be who he will, said my uncle Toby, I know not by what article of war he could justify it.

The controvertists, answered my father, assign twoandtwenty different reasons for it:others, indeed,

who have drawn their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the

greatest part of them.But then again, our best polemic divinesI wish there was not a polemic divine, said

Yorick, in the kingdom;one ounce of practical divinityis worth a painted shipload of all their

reverences have imported these fifty years.Pray, Mr. Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby,do tell me what a

polemic divine is?The best description, captain Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of 'em, replied

Yorick, in the account of the battle fought single hands betwixt Gymnast and captain Tripet; which I have in

my pocket.I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle Toby earnestly. You shall, said Yorick.And as the

corporal is waiting for me at the door,and I know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more

good than his supper,I beg, brother, you'll give him leave to come in. With all my soul, said my

father.Trim came in, erect and happy as an emperor; and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from

'which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers of them being inwardly terrified, did

shrink back and make room for the assailant: all this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and

therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting

side, he most nimbly (with his short sword by this thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the

stirrupleather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft

into the air, and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards

his horse's head,Now, (said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was,

he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the lefthand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round,

just into his former position, without missing one jot.Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,and

not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength

and agility, turning towards the righthand, he fetched another striking gambol as before; which done, he set

his right hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and

upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself

about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back,

without touching any thing, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, and then giving himself a jerking

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

'Then (Tripet) pass'd his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself en croup.But, said he, 'twere better

for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and there

upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the

air, and strait found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then springing into the air with a

summerset, he turned him about like a windmill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and

demipommadas.'Good God! cried Trim, losing all patience,one home thrust of a bayonet is worth it

No,I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which Yorick had

taken the liberty to put to him,I have advanced nothing in the Tristrapaedia, but what is as clear as any

one proposition in Euclid.Reach me, Trim, that book from off the scrutoir: it has ofttimes been in my

mind, continued my father, to have read it over both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and I think it a

little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long ago:shall we have a short chapter or two now,and

a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the whole? My uncle Toby and

Yorick made the obeisance which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the

compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time.The company smiled. Trim,

quoth my father, has paid the full price for staying out the entertainment.He did not seem to relish the play,

replied Yorick.'Twas a Tomfoolbattle, an' please your reverence, of captain Tripet's and that other

officer, making so many summersets, as they advanced;the French come on capering now and then in that

My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency than what the corporal's,

and his own reflections, made him do at that moment;he lighted his pipe,Yorick drew his chair closer to

the table,Trim snuff'd the candle,my father stirr'd up the fire,took up the book,cough'd twice, and

The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves,are a little dry; and as they are not closely

connected with the subject,for the present we'll pass them by: 'tis a prefatory introduction, continued my

father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil

government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for

procreation of the speciesI was insensibly led into it.'Twas natural, said Yorick.

The original of society, continued my father, I'm satisfied is, what Politian tells us, i. e. merely conjugal; and

nothing more than the getting together of one man and one woman;to which, (according to Hesiod) the

philosopher adds a servant:but supposing in the first beginning there were no men servants bornhe lays

the foundation of it, in a man,a womanand a bull.I believe 'tis an ox, quoth Yorick, quoting the

passage (Greek)A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth.But there is a better

reason still, said my father (dipping his pen into his ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the

most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,was the properest instrument, and emblem

too, for the new joined couple, that the creation could have associated with them.And there is a stronger

reason, added my uncle Toby, than them all for the ox.My father had not power to take his pen out of his

inkhorn, till he had heard my uncle Toby's reason.For when the ground was tilled, said my uncle Toby,

and made worth inclosing, then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of

fortification.True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place.

I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely

to shew the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction over

whom he acquires these several ways 1st, by marriage. 2d, by adoption. 3d, by legitimation. And 4th, by

I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied Yorickthe act, especially where it ends there, in my opinion

lays as little obligation upon the child, as it conveys power to the father.You are wrong,said my father

argutely, and for this plain reason. . ..I own, added my father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not

so under the power and jurisdiction of the mother.But the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for

her. She is under authority herself, said my father:and besides, continued my father, nodding his head,

and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason,she is not the principal agent,

Yorick.In what, quoth my uncle Toby? stopping his pipe.Though by all means, added my father (not

attending to my uncle Toby), 'The son ought to pay her respect,' as you may read, Yorick, at large in the first

book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh title and the tenth section.I can read it as well, replied

Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle Toby.Pugh! said my father, not caring to be

interrupted with Trim's saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle Toby.Ask him,

The fifth Commandment, Trim,said Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest

Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.You don't ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, and

giving it rapidly like the word of command:The fifthcried my uncle Toby.I must begin with the first,

Yorick could not forbear smiling.Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his

stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,that 'tis exactly the

'Join your righthand to your firelock,' cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the

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

'Rest your firelock;'one motion, an' please your reverence, you see leads into another.If his honour will

The Secondcried my uncle Toby, waving his tobaccopipe, as he would have done his sword at the head

of a regiment.The corporal went through his manual with exactness; and having honoured his father and

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

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

Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund grinders, and bearleaders to view

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

Yorick thought my father inspired.I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all

my aunt Dinah's legacy in charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if the

corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated. Prithee, Trim, quoth my

father, turning round to him,What dost thou mean, by 'honouring thy father and mother?'

Allowing them, an' please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my pay, when they grow old.And

didst thou do that, Trim? said Yorick.He did indeed, replied my uncle Toby.Then, Trim, said Yorick,

springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part

of the Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it, corporal Trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud

O blessed health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next chapter,

thou art before all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul,and openest all its powers to receive

instruction and to relish virtue.He that has thee, has little more to wish for;and he that is so wretched as

I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my father, into a very little room,

'The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the

radical moisture'You have proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently, replied

In saying this, my father shut the book,not as if he resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his

forefinger in the chapter:nor pettishly, for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had

done it, upon the upperside of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side of it, without the least

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

Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote a chapter, sufficiently

demonstrating, That the secret of all health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical

heat and the radical moisture,and that he had managed the point so well, that there was not one single word

wet or dry upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter,or a single syllable in it, pro

or con, directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal

'O thou eternal Maker of all beings!'he would cry, striking his breast with his right hand (in case he had

one)'Thou whose power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of

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

The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his

sorrowful complaint of the Ars longa,and Vita brevis.Life short, cried my father,and the art of

healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks

themselves,and the stageloads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they

O my lord Verulam! cried my father, turning from Hippocrates, and making his second stroke at him, as

the principal of nostrummongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,What shall I say to

thee, my great lord Verulam? What shall I say to thy internal spirit,thy opium, thy saltpetre,thy greasy

My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the

exordium of any man breathing: how he dealt with his lordship's opinion,you shall see;but whenI

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

'The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame wastes the body down to death:And secondly, the external

air, that parches the body up to ashes: which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies

together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions of life.'

This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; nothing more being required, says his

lordship, but to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick

and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three

Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of the air without;but this was fenced off

again by a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could

enter;nor could any one get out.This put a stop to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being

the cause of so many scurvy distempersa course of clysters was requisite to carry off redundant

What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam's opiates, his saltpetre, and greasy unctions and clysters,

you shall read,but not todayor to morrow: time presses upon me,my reader is impatientI must

get forwardsYou shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you chuse it), as soon as ever the Tristrapaedia

Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned

The whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due

contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us;the least imaginable skill had been

sufficient to have maintained it, had not the schoolmen confounded the task, merely (as Van Helmont, the

famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal

Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily and balsamous substance; for the fat

and tallow, as also the phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively

heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle, 'Quod omne animal post coitum est triste.'

Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but whether vice versa, is a doubt:

however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which

causes an unnatural drynessor an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.So that if a child, as he

grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of 'em threaten his

The description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby more

powerfully than the last chapter;his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;he never mentioned

radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and

as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the

following question, aside.. . .. It was at the siege of Limerick, an' please your honour, replied the

The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my father, were scarce able to crawl out

of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention.Now what

can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried my father, mentally.By

Heaven! continued he, communing still with himself, it would puzzle an Oedipus to bring it in point.

I believe, an' please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set

fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off;And the geneva, Trim,

added my uncle Toby , which did us more good than allI verily believe, continued the corporal, we had

both, an' please your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them too.The noblest grave,

corporal! cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in.But

All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites of the Colchi and Troglodites had been before to my

my uncle Toby, turning are Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun

It was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all along

a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst, during the whole fiveandtwenty days the flux was upon

us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have

got the better.My father drew in his lungs topfull of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as slowly as

It was Heaven's mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal's head to maintain

that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he did all

along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were) a continual firing, so that the

radical heat stood its ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the moisture, terrible as

it was.Upon my honour, added my uncle Toby, you might have heard the contention within our bodies,

Wellsaid my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after the wordWas I a judge, and the

laws of the country which made me one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors,

provided they had had their clergy. . .Yorick, foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort of

mercy, laid his hand upon my father's breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked

the corporal a question.Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my father's leave,tell us

honestlywhat is thy opinion concerning this selfsame radical heat and radical moisture?

With humble submission to his honour's better judgment, quoth the corporal, making a bow to my uncle

TobySpeak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my uncle Toby.The poor fellow is my servant,not my

The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging upon the wrist of it, by a black thong

split into a tassel about the knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; then

touching his underjaw with the thumb and fingers of his right hand before he opened his mouth,he

Just as the corporal was humming, to beginin waddled Dr. Slop.'Tis not twopence matterthe

Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of his passions were unaccountably

Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppydog he could not have done it in a

more careless air: the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such

Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered, in what condition is the

I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Tobyreturning his pipe into his mouth.Then let the corporal

go on, said my father, with his medical lecture.The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and

then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words.

The city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his majesty king William himself, the year after I

went into the armylies, an' please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country.'Tis

quite surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified

I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical lecture.'Tis all true, answered

Trim.Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of it, said Yorick.'Tis all cut through, an' please your

reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during

the siege, the whole country was like a puddle,'twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, and

which had like to have killed both his honour and myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten

days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off

the water;nor was that enough, for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire

every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent

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

I infer, an' please your worship, replied Trim, that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but

ditchwaterand that the radical heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy,the

radical heat and moisture of a private man, an' please your honour, is nothing but ditchwaterand a dram

of genevaand give us but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the

I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop, to determine in which branch of learning your servant

shines most, whether in physiology or divinity.Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon.

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

The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and

foundation of our beingas the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation.It is inherent in

the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but principally in my opinion by consubstantials,

impriments, and occludents.Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the

misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice point.That he has,said my

Doctor Slop being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave my father an opportunity of going

on with another chapter in the Tristra paedia.Come! cheer up, my lads; I'll shew you landfor when we

have tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this twelvemonth.Huzza!

Four years at his probations and his negationsthe fine statue still lying in the middle of the marble

block,and nothing done, but his tools sharpened to hew it out!'Tis a piteous delay!Was not the great

Julius Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all?Forty four years old was he

before he could manage his Greek;and Peter Damianus, lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could

not so much as read, when he was of man's estate.And Baldus himself, as eminent as he turned out after,

entered upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined he intended to be an advocate in the other

world: no wonder, when Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventyfive disputing

about wisdom, that he asked gravely,If the old man be yet disputing and enquiring concerning

Yorick listened to my father with great attention; there was a seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up

with his strangest whims, and he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as almost

I am convinced, Yorick, continued my father, half reading and half discoursing, that there is a Northwest

passage to the intellectual world; and that the soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in furnishing

itself with knowledge and instruction, than we generally take with it. But, alack! all fields have not a river

or a spring running besides them; every child, Yorick, has not a parent to point it out.

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

Had Yorick trod upon Virgil's snake, he could not have looked more surprised.I am surprised too, cried my

father, observing it,and I reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the republic of letters,

That those who have been entrusted with the education of our children, and whose business it was to open

their minds, and stock them early with ideas, in order to set the imagination loose upon them, have made so

little use of the auxiliary verbs in doing it, as they have done So that, except Raymond Lullius, and the

elder Pelegrini, the last of which arrived to such perfection in the use of 'em, with his topics, that, in a few

lessons, he could teach a young gentleman to discourse with plausibility upon any subject, pro and con, and

to say and write all that could be spoken or written concerning it, without blotting a word, to the admiration

of all who beheld him.I should be glad, said Yorick, interrupting my father, to be made to comprehend this

The highest stretch of improvement a single word is capable of, is a high metaphor,for which, in my

opinion, the idea is generally the worse, and not the better;but be that as it may,when the mind has done

that with itthere is an end,the mind and the idea are at rest,until a second idea enters;and so on.

Now the use of the Auxiliaries is, at once to set the soul agoing by herself upon the materials as they are

brought her; and by the versability of this great engine, round which they are twisted, to open new tracts of

For my own part, quoth my uncle Toby, I have given it up.The Danes, an' please your honour, quoth the

corporal, who were on the left at the siege of Limerick, were all auxiliaries.And very good ones, said my

uncle Toby.But the auxiliaries, Trim, my brother is talking about,I conceive to be different things.

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

The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, continued my father, are, am; was; have; had; do; did; make;

made; suffer; shall; should; will; would; can; could; owe; ought; used; or is wont.And these varied with

tenses, present, past, future, and conjugated with the verb see,or with these questions added to them;Is

it? Was it? Will it be? Would it be? May it be? Might it be? And these again put negatively, Is it not? Was it

not? Ought it not?Or affirmatively,It is; It was; It ought to be. Or chronologically,Has it been

always? Lately? How long ago?Or hypothetically,If it was? If it was not? What would follow?If the

Now, by the right use and application of these, continued my father, in which a child's memory should be

exercised, there is no one idea can enter his brain, how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and

conclusions may be drawn forth from it.Didst thou ever see a white bear? cried my father, turning his head

round to Trim, who stood at the back of his chair:No, an' please your honour, replied the corporal.But

thou couldst discourse about one, Trim, said my father, in case of need?How is it possible, brother, quoth

my uncle Toby, if the corporal never saw one? 'Tis the fact I want, replied my father,and the possibility

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

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

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

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear? What would they give? How

would they behave? How would the white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?

We'll not stop two moments, my dear Sir,only, as we have got through these five volumes (In the first

edition, the sixth volume began with this chapter.), (do, Sir, sit down upon a setthey are better than

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

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack Asses?How they view'd and

review'd us as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of that little valley!and when we climbed over that

hill, and were just getting out of sightgood God! what a braying did they all set up together!

Heaven be their comforterWhat! are they never curried?Are they never taken in in winter?Bray

braybray. Bray on,the world is deeply your debtor;louder stillthat's nothing:in good sooth, you

are illused: Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in Gsolreut from morning, even unto

When my father had danced his white bear backwards and forwards through half a dozen pages, he closed the

book for good an' all,and in a kind of triumph redelivered it into Trim's hand, with a nod to lay it upon the

'scrutoire, where he found it.Tristram, said he, shall be made to conjugate every word in the dictionary,

backwards and forwards the same way;every word, Yorick, by this means, you see, is converted into a

thesis or an hypothesis;every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of propositions;and each

proposition has its own consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind on again, into fresh

tracks of enquiries and doubtings.The force of this engine, added my father, is incredible in opening a

child's head.'Tis enough, brother Shandy, cried my uncle Toby, to burst it into a thousand splinters.

I presume, said Yorick, smiling,it must be owing to this,(for let logicians say what they will, it is not to

be accounted for sufficiently from the bare use of the ten predicaments)That the famous Vincent Quirino,

amongst the many other astonishing feats of his childhood, of which the Cardinal Bembo has given the world

so exact a story,should be able to paste up in the public schools at Rome, so early as in the eighth year of

his age, no less than four thousand five hundred and fifty different theses, upon the most abstruse points of

the most abstruse theology;and to defend and maintain them in such sort, as to cramp and dumbfound his

opponents.What is that, cried my father, to what is told us of Alphonsus Tostatus, who, almost in his

nurse's arms, learned all the sciences and liberal arts without being taught any one of them?What shall we

say of the great Piereskius?That's the very man, cried my uncle Toby, I once told you of, brother Shandy,

who walked a matter of five hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Shevling, and from Shevling back again,

merely to see Stevinus's flying chariot.He was a very great man! added my uncle Toby (meaning

Stevinus)He was so, brother Toby, said my father (meaning Piereskius)and had multiplied his ideas so

fast, and increased his knowledge to such a prodigious stock, that, if we may give credit to an anecdote

concerning him, which we cannot withhold here, without shaking the authority of all anecdotes whateverat

seven years of age, his father committed entirely to his care the education of his younger brother, a boy of

five years old,with the sole management of all his concerns.Was the father as wise as the son? quoth my

uncle Toby:I should think not, said Yorick:But what are these, continued my father(breaking out in a

kind of enthusiasm)what are these, to those prodigies of childhood in Grotius, Scioppius, Heinsius,

Politian, Pascal, Joseph Scaliger, Ferdinand de Cordoue, and otherssome of which left off their substantial

forms at nine years old, or sooner, and went on reasoning without them;others went through their classics

at seven;wrote tragedies at eight;Ferdinand de Cordoue was so wise at nine,'twas thought the Devil

was in him;and at Venice gave such proofs of his knowledge and goodness, that the monks imagined he

was Antichrist, or nothing.Others were masters of fourteen languages at ten,finished the course of their

rhetoric, poetry, logic, and ethics, at eleven,put forth their commentaries upon Servius and Martianus

Capella at twelve,and at thirteen received their degrees in philosophy, laws, and divinity:but you forget

the great Lipsius, quoth Yorick, who composed a work (Nous aurions quelque interet, says Baillet, de

montrer qu'il n'a rien de ridicule s'il etoit veritable, au moins dans le sens enigmatique que Nicius Erythraeus

a ta he de lui donner. Cet auteur dit que pour comprendre comme Lipse, il a pu composer un ouvrage le

premier jour de sa vie, il faut s'imaginer, que ce premier jour n'est pas celui de sa naissance charnelle, mais

celui au quel il a commence d'user de la raison; il veut que c'ait ete a l'age de neuf ans; et il nous veut

persuader que ce fut en cet age, que Lipse fit un poeme.Le tour est ingenieux, the day he was born:They

When the cataplasm was ready, a scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up in Susannah's conscience,

about holding the candle, whilst Slop tied it on; Slop had not treated Susannah's distemper with

Oh! oh!said Slop, casting a glance of undue freedom in Susannah's face, as she declined the

office;then, I think I know you, madamYou know me, Sir! cried Susannah fastidiously, and with a toss

of her head, levelled evidently, not at his profession, but at the doctor himself,you know me! cried

Susannah again.Doctor Slop clapped his finger and his thumb instantly upon his nostrils;Susannah's

spleen was ready to burst at it; 'Tis false, said Susannah.Come, come, Mrs Modesty, said Slop, not a

little elated with the success of his last thrust,If you won't hold the candle, and lookyou may hold it and

shut your eyes:That's one of your popish shifts, cried Susannah:'Tis better, said Slop, with a nod, than

no shift at all, young woman;I defy you, Sir, cried Susannah, pulling her shift sleeve below her elbow.

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

Slop snatched up the cataplasmSusannah snatched up the candle;A little this way, said Slop; Susannah

looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop's wig, which being somewhat bushy and

unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.You impudent whore! cried Slop,(for what is

passion, but a wild beast?)you impudent whore, cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his

hand;I never was the destruction of any body's nose, said Susannah,which is more than you can

say:Is it? cried Slop, throwing the cataplasm in her face;Yes, it is, cried Susannah, returning the

Doctor Slop and Susannah filed crossbills against each other in the parlour; which done, as the cataplasm

had failed, they retired into the kitchen to prepare a fomentation for me;and whilst that was doing, my

You see 'tis high time, said my father, addressing himself equally to my uncle Toby and Yorick, to take this

young creature out of these women's hands, and put him into those of a private governor. Marcus Antoninus

provided fourteen governors all at once to superintend his son Commodus's education,and in six weeks he

cashiered five of them;I know very well, continued my father, that Commodus's mother was in love with a

gladiator at the time of her conception, which accounts for a great many of Commodus's cruelties when he

became emperor;but still I am of opinion, that those five whom Antoninus dismissed, did Commodus's

temper, in that short time, more hurt than the other nine were able to rectify all their lives long.

Now as I consider the person who is to be about my son, as the mirror in which he is to view himself from

morning to night, by which he is to adjust his looks, his carriage, and perhaps the inmost sentiments of his

heart;I would have one, Yorick, if possible, polished at all points, fit for my child to look into.This is

There is, continued my father, a certain mien and motion of the body and all its parts, both in acting and

speaking, which argues a man well within; and I am not at all surprised that Gregory of Nazianzum, upon

observing the hasty and untoward gestures of Julian, should foretel he would one day become an

apostate;or that St. Ambrose should turn his Amanuensis out of doors, because of an indecent motion of

his head, which went backwards and forwards like a flail;or that Democritus should conceive Protagoras to

be a scholar, from seeing him bind up a faggot, and thrusting, as he did it, the small twigs inwards.There

are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul;

and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room,or take it

It is for these reasons, continued my father, that the governor I make choice of shall neither (Vid. Pellegrina.)

lisp, or squint, or wink, or talk loud, or look fierce, or foolish;or bite his lips, or grind his teeth, or speak

He shall neither walk fast,or slow, or fold his arms,for that is laziness;or hang them down,for that

He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickleor bite, or cut his nails, or hawk, or spit, or snift, or drum with his

feet or fingers in company;nor (according to Erasmus) shall he speak to any one in making water,nor

shall he point to carrion or excrement.Now this is all nonsense again, quoth my uncle Toby to himself.

I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, facete, jovial; at the same time, prudent, attentive to business,

vigilant, acute, argute, inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative questions;he shall be wise, and

judicious, and learned:And why not humble, and moderate, and gentle tempered, and good? said

Yorick:And why not, cried my uncle Toby, free, and generous, and bountiful, and brave?He shall, my

dear Toby, replied my father, getting up and shaking him by his hand.Then, brother Shandy, answered my

uncle Toby, raising himself off the chair, and laying down his pipe to take hold of my father's other hand,I

humbly beg I may recommend poor Le Fever's son to you;a tear of joy of the first water sparkled in my

uncle Toby's eye, and another, the fellow to it, in the corporal's, as the proposition was made;you will see

why when you read Le Fever's story:fool that I was! nor can I recollect (nor perhaps you) without turning

back to the place, what it was that hindered me from letting the corporal tell it in his own words;but the

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies,which was

about seven years before my father came into the country,and about as many, after the time, that my uncle

Toby and Trim the privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order to lay some of the finest

sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europewhen my uncle Toby was one evening getting his

supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard,I say, sittingfor in consideration of the

corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave him exquisite pain)when my uncle Toby dined or supped

alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand; and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such,

that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself, with less trouble than he

was able to gain this point over him; for many a time when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal's leg was at

rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect: this bred more

little squabbles betwixt them, than all other causes for fiveandtwenty years togetherBut this is neither

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the

parlour, with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack; 'Tis for a poor gentleman,I think, of

the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head

since, or had a desire to taste any thing, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin

If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thingadded the landlord, I would almost steal it for the

poor gentleman, he is so ill.I hope in God he will still mend, continued he,we are all of us concerned for

Thou art a goodnatured soul, I will answer for thee, cried my uncle Toby; and thou shalt drink the poor

gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself,and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell him he is

Though I am persuaded, said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, he is a very compassionate

fellowTrim,yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something more

than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his host;And of his

whole family, added the corporal, for they are all concerned for him,.Step after him, said my uncle

I have quite forgot it truly, said the landlord, coming back into the parlour with the corporal,but I can

ask his son again:Has he a son with him then? said my uncle Toby.A boy, replied the landlord, of about

eleven or twelve years of age;but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing

but mourn and lament for him night and day: He has not stirred from the bedside these two days.

My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him

the account; and Trim, without being ordered, took away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes

Trim!said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, and smoak'd about a dozen whiffs.Trim came in

front of his master, and made his bow;my uncle Toby smoak'd on, and said no more.Corporal! said my

uncle Tobythe corporal made his bow.My uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished his pipe.

Trim! said my uncle Toby, I have a project in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in

my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman.Your honour's roquelaure, replied the corporal,

has not once been had on, since the night before your honour received your wound, when we mounted guard

in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicholas;and besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with

the roquelaure, and what with the weather, 'twill be enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your

honour's torment in your groin. I fear so, replied my uncle Toby; but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since

the account the landlord has given me.I wish I had not known so much of this affair,added my uncle

Toby,or that I had known more of it:How shall we manage it? Leave it, an't please your honour, to me,

quoth the corporal;I'll take my hat and stick and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I

will bring your honour a full account in an hour.Thou shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here's a

shilling for thee to drink with his servant.I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door.

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now and then wandered from the point,

with considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tennaile a straight line, as a crooked

one,he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fever and his boy the whole time he

It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe, that corporal Trim returned from

I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence

concerning the poor sick lieutenantIs he in the army, then? said my uncle TobyHe is, said the

corporalAnd in what regiment? said my uncle TobyI'll tell your honour, replied the corporal, every

thing straight forwards, as I learnt it.Then, Trim, I'll fill another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not

interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in the windowseat, and begin thy story

again. The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could speak itYour honour

is good:And having done that, he sat down, as he was ordered,and begun the story to my uncle Toby

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back any intelligence to your honour, about the

lieutenant and his son; for when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing

every thing which was proper to be asked,That's a right distinction, Trim, said my uncle TobyI was

answered, an' please your honour, that he had no servant with him;that he had come to the inn with hired

horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the

morning after he came.If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man,we

can hire horses from hence.But alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to

me,for I heard the deathwatch all night long;and when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die

I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin

toast the landlord spoke of;but I will do it for my father myself, said the youth.Pray let my save you the

trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down

upon by the fire,whilst I did it.I believe, Sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best myself.I

am sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier.The youth

took hold of my hand, and instantly burst into tears.Poor youth! said my uncle Toby,he has been bred

up from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a

I never, in the longest march, said the corporal, had so great a mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him

for company:What could be the matter with me, an' please your honour? Nothing in the world, Trim, said

When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, I thought it was proper to tell him I was captain Shandy's

servant, and that your honour (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father;and that if there

was any thing in your house or cellar(And thou might'st have added my purse too, said my uncle

Toby),he was heartily welcome to it:He made a very low bow (which was meant to your honour), but

no answerfor his heart was fullso he went up stairs with the toast;I warrant you, my dear, said I, as I

opened the kitchendoor, your father will be well again.Mr. Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the

kitchen fire,but said not a word good or bad to comfort the youth.I thought it wrong; added the

When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into

the kitchen, to let me know, that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up stairs.I believe,

said the landlord, he is going to say his prayers,for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bedside,

I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.I heard

the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I

could not have believed it.Are you sure of it? replied the curate.A soldier, an' please your reverence,

said I, prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson;and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own

life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world'Twas

well said of thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby.But when a soldier, said I, an' please your reverence, has been

standing for twelve hours together in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water,or engaged, said I, for

months together in long and dangerous marches;harassed, perhaps, in his rear today;harassing others

tomorrow;detached here; countermanded there;resting this night out upon his arms;beat up in his

shirt the next;benumbed in his joints;perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on;must say his

prayers how and when he can.I believe, said I,for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the reputation of

the army, I believe, an' please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier gets time to pray,he prays as

heartily as a parson,though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim,

said my uncle Toby,for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not:At the great and general

review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then)it will be seen who has done their duties

in this world,and who has not; and we shall be advanced, Trim, accordingly.I hope we shall, said

Trim.It is in the Scripture, said my uncle Toby; and I will shew it thee tomorrow:In the mean time we

may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort, said my uncle Toby, that God Almighty is so good and just a

governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it,it will never be enquired into, whether we

have done them in a red coat or a black one:I hope not, said the corporalBut go on, Trim, said my uncle

When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant's room, which I did not do till the expiration of

the ten minutes,he was lying in his bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow,

and a clean white cambrick handkerchief beside it:The youth was just stooping down to take up the

cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneeling, the book was laid upon the bed,and, as he rose,

in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time. Let it

He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed side:If you are captain Shandy's

servant, said he, you must present my thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for

his courtesy to me;if he was of Levens'ssaid the lieutenant.I told him your honour wasThen, said

he, I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remember him,but 'tis most likely, as I had not the

honour of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me.You will tell him, however, that the

person his goodnature has laid under obligations to him, is one Le Fever, a lieutenant in Angus'sbut he

knows me not,said he, a second time, musing;possibly he may my storyadded hepray tell the

captain, I was the ensign at Breda, whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a musketshot, as she lay

in my arms in my tent.I remember the story, an't please your honour, said I, very well.Do you so? said

he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchiefthen well may I.In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his

bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribband about his neck, and kiss'd it twiceHere, Billy, said

he,the boy flew across the room to the bedside,and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his

hand, and kissed it too,then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept.

Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned;shall I pour your honour out a glass of sack to

I remember, said my uncle Toby, sighing again, the story of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his

modesty omitted;and particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what)

was universally pitied by the whole regiment;but finish the story thou art upon:'Tis finished already,

said the corporal,for I could stay no longer,so wished his honour a good night; young Le Fever rose

from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and as we went down together, told me, they had

come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in Flanders.But alas! said the

corporal,the lieutenant's last day's march is over.Then what is to become of his poor boy? cried my

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,though I tell it only for the sake of those, who, when coop'd in

betwixt a natural and a positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn

themselvesThat notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege

of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him

time to get his dinnerthat nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment

upon the counterscarp;and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except that

he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of

Dendermond into a blockade,he left Dendermond to itselfto be relieved or not by the French king, as the

French king thought good; and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.

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

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed,and I will

tell thee in what, Trim.In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fever,as

sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to

subsist as well as himself out of his pay,that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had

he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.Your honour knows, said the

corporal, I had no orders;True, quoth my uncle Toby,thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier,but

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby,when thou

offeredst him whatever was in my house,thou shouldst have offered him my house too:A sick brother

officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,we could tend and look to

him:Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim, and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's and

his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs.

In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling,he might march.He will never march;

an' please your honour, in this world, said the corporal:He will march; said my uncle Toby, rising up from

the side of the bed, with one shoe off:An' please your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to

his grave:He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without

advanceing an inch, he shall march to his regiment.He cannot stand it, said the corporal;He shall be

supported, said my uncle Toby;He'll drop at last, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy?He

shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.Awello'day,do what we can for him, said Trim,

maintaining his point,the poor soul will die:He shall not die, by G.., cried my uncle Toby.

The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in;and the

Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

My once Toby went to his bureau,put his purse into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the

corporal to go early in the morning for a physician,he went to bed, and fell asleep.

The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his afflicted son's; the

hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids,and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its

circle,when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's

room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bedside, and, independently

of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done

it, and asked him how he did,how he had rested in the night,what was his complaint,where was his

pain,and what he could do to help him:and without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries,

went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for

You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to

see what's the matter,and we'll have an apothecary,and the corporal shall be your nurse;and I'll be

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby,not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it,which let you

at once into his soul, and shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks, and

voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under

him, so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son

insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it

towards him.The blood and spirits of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were

retreating to their last citadel, the heartrallied back,the film forsook his eyes for a moment,he looked

up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face,then cast a look upon his boy,and that ligament, fine as it

Nature instantly ebb'd again,the film returned to its place,the pulse flutteredstopp'dwent

I am so impatient to return to my own story, that what remains of young Le Fever's, that is, from this turn of

his fortune, to the time my uncle Toby recommended him for my preceptor, shall be told in a very few words

in the next chapter.All that is necessary to be added to this chapter is as follows.

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

That the governor of Dendermond paid his obsequies all military honours, and that Yorick, not to be

behindhandpaid him all ecclesiasticfor he buried him in his chancel:And it appears likewise, he

preached a funeral sermon over himI say it appears,for it was Yorick's custom, which I suppose a

general one with those of his profession, on the first leaf of every sermon which he composed, to chronicle

down the time, the place, and the occasion of its being preached: to this, he was ever wont to add some short

comment or stricture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its credit:For instance, This sermon

upon the Jewish dispensationI don't like it at all;Though I own there is a world of WaterLandish

knowledge in it;but 'tis all tritical, and most tritically put together. This is but a flimsy kind of a

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

For this sermon I shall be hanged,for I have stolen the greatest part of it. Doctor Paidagunes found me

On the back of half a dozen I find written, So, so, and no moreand upon a couple Moderato; by which, as

far as one may gather from Altieri's Italian dictionary,but mostly from the authority of a piece of green

whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of Yorick's whiplash, with which he has left us the

two sermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So, so, tied fast together in one bundle by

There is but one difficulty in the way of this conjecture, which is this, that the moderato's are five times better

than the so, so's;show ten times more knowledge of the human heart;have seventy times more wit and

spirit in them;(and, to rise properly in my climax)discovered a thousand times more genius;and to

crown all, are infinitely more entertaining than those tied up with them:for which reason, whene'er

Yorick's dramatic sermons are offered to the world, though I shall admit but one out of the whole number of

the so, so's, I shall, nevertheless, adventure to print the two moderato's without any sort of scruple.

What Yorick could mean by the words lentamente,tenute,grave,and sometimes adagio,as applied

to theological compositions, and with which he has characterised some of these sermons, I dare not venture to

guess.I am more puzzled still upon finding a l'octava alta! upon one;Con strepito upon the back of

another;Scicilliana upon a third;Alla capella upon a fourth;Con l'arco upon this;Senza l'arco upon

that.All I know is, that they are musical terms, and have a meaning;and as he was a musical man, I will

make no doubt, but that by some quaint application of such metaphors to the compositions in hand, they

impressed very distinct ideas of their several characters upon his fancy,whatever they may do upon that of

Amongst these, there is that particular sermon which has unaccountably led me into this digressionThe

funeral sermon upon poor Le Fever, wrote out very fairly, as if from a hasty copy.I take notice of it the

more, because it seems to have been his favourite compositionIt is upon mortality; and is tied lengthways

and crossways with a yarn thrum, and then rolled up and twisted round with a halfsheet of dirty blue paper,

which seems to have been once the cast cover of a general review, which to this day smells horribly of horse

drugs.Whether these marks of humiliation were designed,I something doubt;because at the end of the

sermon (and not at the beginning of it)very different from his way of treating the rest, he had

Though not very offensively,for it is at two inches, at least, and a half's distance from, and below the

concluding line of the sermon, at the very extremity of the page, and in that right hand corner of it, which,

you know, is generally covered with your thumb; and, to do it justice, it is wrote besides with a crow's quill

so faintly in a small Italian hand, as scarce to solicit the eye towards the place, whether your thumb is there or

not,so that from the manner of it, it stands half excused; and being wrote moreover with very pale ink,

diluted almost to nothing,'tis more like a ritratto of the shadow of vanity, than of Vanity herselfof the

two; resembling rather a faint thought of transient applause, secretly stirring up in the heart of the composer;

With all these extenuations, I am aware, that in publishing this, I do no service to Yorick's character as a

modest man;but all men have their failings! and what lessens this still farther, and almost wipes it away, is

this; that the word was struck through sometime afterwards (as appears from a different tint of the ink) with a

line quite across it in this manner, BRAVO (crossed out)as if he had retracted, or was ashamed of the

These short characters of his sermons were always written, excepting in this one instance, upon the first leaf

of his sermon, which served as a cover to it; and usually upon the inside of it, which was turned towards the

text;but at the end of his discourse, where, perhaps, he had five or six pages, and sometimes, perhaps, a

whole score to turn himself in,he took a large circuit, and, indeed, a much more mettlesome one;as if he

had snatched the occasion of unlacing himself with a few more frolicksome strokes at vice, than the straitness

of the pulpit allowed.These, though hussarlike, they skirmish lightly and out of all order, are still

auxiliaries on the side of virtue;tell me then, Mynheer Vander Blonederdondergewdenstronke, why they

When my uncle Toby had turned every thing into money, and settled all accounts betwixt the agent of the

regiment and Le Fever, and betwixt Le Fever and all mankind,there remained nothing more in my uncle

Toby's hands, than an old regimental coat and a sword; so that my uncle Toby found little or no opposition

from the world in taking administration. The coat my uncle Toby gave the corporal;Wear it, Trim, said my

uncle Toby, as long as it will hold together, for the sake of the poor lieutenantAnd this,said my uncle

Toby, taking up the sword in his hand, and drawing it out of the scabbard as he spokeand this, Le Fever,

I'll save for thee, 'tis all the fortune, continued my uncle Toby, hanging it up upon a crook, and pointing to

it,'tis all the fortune, my dear Le Fever, which God has left thee; but if he has given thee a heart to fight thy

way with it in the world,and thou doest it like a man of honour,'tis enough for us.

As soon as my uncle Toby had laid a foundation, and taught him to inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, he

sent him to a public school, where, excepting Whitsontide and Christmas, at which times the corporal was

punctually dispatched for him,he remained to the spring of the year, seventeen; when the stories of the

emperor's sending his army into Hungary against the Turks, kindling a spark of fire in his bosom, he left his

Greek and Latin without leave, and throwing himself upon his knees before my uncle Toby, begged his

father's sword, and my uncle Toby's leave along with it, to go and try his fortune under Eugene.Twice did

my uncle Toby forget his wound and cry out, Le Fever! I will go with thee, and thou shalt fight beside

meAnd twice he laid his hand upon his groin, and hung down his head in sorrow and disconsolation.

My uncle Toby took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the lieutenant's

death, and delivered it to the corporal to brighten up;and having detained Le Fever a single fortnight to

equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn,he put the sword into his hand.If thou art brave, Le

Fever, said my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee,but Fortune, said he (musing a little),Fortune

mayAnd if she does,added my uncle Toby, embracing him, come back again to me, Le Fever, and we

The greatest injury could not have oppressed the heart of Le Fever more than my uncle Toby's paternal

kindness;he parted from my uncle Toby, as the best of sons from the best of fathersboth dropped

tearsand as my uncle Toby gave him his last kiss, he slipped sixty guineas, tied up in an old purse of his

Le Fever got up to the Imperial army just time enough to try what metal his sword was made of, at the defeat

of the Turks before Belgrade; but a series of unmerited mischances had pursued him from that moment, and

trod close upon his heels for four years together after; he had withstood these buffetings to the last, till

sickness overtook him at Marseilles, from whence he wrote my uncle Toby word, he had lost his time, his

services, his health, and, in short, every thing but his sword;and was waiting for the first ship to return

As this letter came to hand about six weeks before Susannah's accident, Le Fever was hourly expected; and

was uppermost in my uncle Toby's mind all the time my father was giving him and Yorick a description of

what kind of a person he would chuse for a preceptor to me: but as my uncle Toby thought my father at first

somewhat fanciful in the accomplishments he required, he forbore mentioning Le Fever's name,till the

character, by Yorick's interposition, ending unexpectedly, in one, who should be gentle tempered, and

generous, and good, it impressed the image of Le Fever, and his interest, upon my uncle Toby so forcibly, he

rose instantly off his chair; and laying down his pipe, in order to take hold of both my father's handsI beg,

brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, I may recommend poor Le Fever's son to youI beseech you do, added

YorickHe has a good heart, said my uncle TobyAnd a brave one too, an' please your honour, said the

The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest, replied my uncle Toby.And the greatest cowards, an' please

your honour, in our regiment, were the greatest rascals in it.There was serjeant Kumber, and ensign

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable

labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

Doctor Slop, like a son of a w. . ., as my father called him for it,to exalt himself,debased me to

death,and made ten thousand times more of Susannah's accident, than there was any grounds for; so that in

a week's time, or less, it was in every body's mouth, That poor Master Shandy. . .entirely.And Fame, who

loves to double every thing,in three days more, had sworn, positively she saw it,and all the world, as

usual, gave credit to her evidence'That the nursery window had not only. . .;but that. . .'s also.'

Could the world have been sued like a BodyCorporate,my father had brought an action upon the case,

and trounced it sufficiently; but to fall foul of individuals about itas every soul who had mentioned the

affair, did it with the greatest pity imaginable;'twas like flying in the very face of his best friends:And

yet to acquiesce under the report, in silencewas to acknowledge it openly,at least in the opinion of one

half of the world; and to make a bustle again, in contradicting it,was to confirm it as strongly in the

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

There are a thousand resolutions, Sir, both in church and state, as well as in matters, Madam, of a more

private concern;which, though they have carried all the appearance in the world of being taken, and

entered upon in a hasty, harebrained, and unadvised manner, were, notwithstanding this, (and could you or I

have got into the cabinet, or stood behind the curtain, we should have found it was so) weighed, poized, and

perpendedargued uponcanvassed throughentered into, and examined on all sides with so much

coolness, that the Goddess of Coolness herself (I do not take upon me to prove her existence) could neither

Of the number of these was my father's resolution of putting me into breeches; which, though determined at

once,in a kind of huff, and a defiance of all mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro'd and conn'd, and

judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother about a month before, in two several beds of justice, which

my father had held for that purpose. I shall explain the nature of these beds of justice in my next chapter; and

in the chapter following that, you shall step with me, Madam, behind the curtain, only to hear in what kind of

manner my father and my mother debated between themselves, this affair of the breeches,from which you

The ancient Goths of Germany, who (the learned Cluverius is positive) were first seated in the country

between the Vistula and the Oder, and who afterwards incorporated the Herculi, the Bugians, and some other

Vandallick clans to 'emhad all of them a wise custom of debating every thing of importance to their state,

twice, that is,once drunk, and once sober: Drunkthat their councils might not want vigour;and

Now my father being entirely a waterdrinker,was a long time gravelled almost to death, in turning this as

much to his advantage, as he did every other thing which the ancients did or said; and it was not till the

seventh year of his marriage, after a thousand fruitless experiments and devices, that he hit upon an expedient

which answered the purpose;and that was, when any difficult and momentous point was to be settled in the

family, which required great sobriety, and great spirit too, in its determination, he fixed and set apart the

first Sunday night in the month, and the Saturday night which immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in

bed with my mother: By which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself,. . ..

These my father, humorously enough, called his beds of justice;for from the two different counsels taken

in these two different humours, a middle one was generally found out which touched the point of wisdom as

I must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as well in literary discussions, as either in

military or conjugal; but it is not every author that can try the experiment as the Goths and Vandals did it

or, if he can, may it be always for his body's health; and to do it, as my father did it,am I sure it would be

In all nice and ticklish discussions,(of which, heaven knows, there are but too many in my book)where I

find I cannot take a step without the danger of having either their worships or their reverences upon my

backI write onehalf full,and t'other fasting;or write it all full,and correct it fasting;or write it

fasting,and correct it full, for they all come to the same thing:So that with a less variation from my

father's plan, than my father's from the GothickI feel myself upon a par with him in his first bed of

justice,and no way inferior to him in his second. These different and almost irreconcileable effects, flow

uniformly from the wise and wonderful mechanism of nature,of which,be her's the honour. All that

we can do, is to turn and work the machine to the improvement and better manufactory of the arts and

Now, when I write full,I write as if I was never to write fasting again as long as I live;that is, I write free

from the cares as well as the terrors of the world.I count not the number of my scars,nor does my fancy

go forth into dark entries and byecorners to antedate my stabs.In a word, my pen takes its course; and I

But when, an' please your honours, I indite fasting, 'tis a different history.I pay the world all possible

attention and respect,and have as great a share (whilst it lasts) of that under strapping virtue of discretion

as the best of you.So that betwixt both, I write a careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, goodhumoured

We should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and shifting his pillow a little towards my

mother's, as he opened the debate We should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this boy into

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

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

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

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

Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, he plucked his pillow a little further

from my mother's,and turning about again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half.

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

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

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

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

Though if he gets a gig or topPoor souls! it is a crown and a sceptre to them,they should have where

There's for you! cried my father, losing his temperPleases me!You never will distinguish, Mrs.

Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience.This was

After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother,he consulted Albertus Rubenius

upon it; and Albertus Rubenius used my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my

father had used my mother: For as Rubenius had wrote a quarto express, De re Vestiaria Veterum,it was

Rubenius's business to have given my father some lights.On the contrary, my father might as well have

thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long beard,as of extracting a single word out of

Upon every other article of ancient dress, Rubenius was very communicative to my father;gave him a full

satisfactory account of The Toga, or loose gown. The Chlamys. The Ephod. The Tunica, or Jacket. The

Synthesis. The Paenula. The Lacema, with its Cucullus. The Paludamentum. The Praetexta. The Sagum, or

soldier's jerkin. The Trabea: of which, according to Suetonius, there was three kinds.

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

There was, The open shoe. The close shoe. The slip shoe. The wooden shoe. The soc. The buskin. And The

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

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

Rubenius shewed my father how well they all fitted,in what manner they laced on,with what points,

Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the Romans manufactured stuffs of various fabrics,some

plain,some striped,others diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and

goldThat linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire, when the

That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their

clothes; which colour (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and

wore on their birthdays and public rejoicings.That it appeared from the best historians of those times, that

they frequently sent their clothes to the fuller, to be clean'd and whitened:but that the inferior people, to

avoid that expence, generally wore brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture,till towards the

beginning of Augustus's reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of

Rubenius told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the learned:That Egnatius, Sigonius, Bossius

Ticinensis, Bayfius Budaeus, Salmasius, Lipsius, Lazius, Isaac Casaubon, and Joseph Scaliger, all differed

from each other,and he from them: That some took it to be the button,some the coat itself,others only

the colour of it;That the great Bayfuis in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12honestly said, he knew

not what it was,whether a tibula,a stud,a button,a loop,a buckle,or clasps and keepers.

My father lost the horse, but not the saddleThey are hooks and eyes, said my fatherand with hooks

Leave we then the breeches in the taylor's hands, with my father standing over him with his cane, reading

him as he sat at work a lecture upon the latus clavus, and pointing to the precise part of the waistband, where

Leave we my mother(truest of all the Pococurante's of her sex!) careless about it, as about every thing

else in the world which concerned her;that is,indifferent whether it was done this way or

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

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

If the reader has not a clear conception of the rood and the half of ground which lay at the bottom of my uncle

Toby's kitchengarden, and which was the scene of so many of his delicious hours,the fault is not in

me,but in his imagination;for I am sure I gave him so minute a description, I was almost ashamed of it.

When Fate was looking forwards one afternoon, into the great transactions of future times,and recollected

for what purposes this little plot, by a decree fast bound down in iron, had been destined,she gave a nod to

Nature,'twas enoughNature threw half a spade full of her kindliest compost upon it, with just so much

clay in it, as to retain the forms of angles and indentings,and so little of it too, as not to cling to the spade,

My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been informed, with plans along with him, of almost every

fortified town in Italy and Flanders; so let the duke of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before what

His way, which was the simplest one in the world, was this; as soon as ever a town was invested(but

sooner when the design was known) to take the plan of it (let it be what town it would), and enlarge it upon a

scale to the exact size of his bowlinggreen; upon the surface of which, by means of a large role of

packthread, and a number of small piquets driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he

transferred the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the place, with its works, to determine the

depths and slopes of the ditches,the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of the several banquets,

parapets, set the corporal to workand sweetly went it on:The nature of the soil,the nature of the work

itself,and above all, the goodnature of my uncle Toby sitting by from morning to night, and chatting

kindly with the corporal upon past done deeds,left Labour little else but the ceremony of the name.

When the place was finished in this manner, and put into a proper posture of defence,it was

invested,and my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first parallel.I beg I may not be

interrupted in my story, by being told, That the first parallel should be at least three hundred toises distant

from the main body of the place,and that I have not left a single inch for it;for my uncle Toby took the

liberty of incroaching upon his kitchengarden, for the sake of enlarging his works on the bowlinggreen,

and for that reason generally ran his first and second parallels betwixt two rows of his cabbages and his

cauliflowers; the conveniences and inconveniences of which will be considered at large in the history of my

uncle Toby's and the corporal's campaigns, of which, this I'm now writing is but a sketch, and will be

finished, if I conjecture right, in three pages (but there is no guessing)The campaigns themselves will take

up as many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a weight of one kind of matter in

so flimsy a performance as this, to rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the worksurely

they had better be printed apart,we'll consider the affairso take the following sketch of them in the mean

When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first

parallelnot at random, or any howbut from the same points and distances the allies had begun to run

theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks, by the accounts my uncle Toby received from the daily

When the duke of Marlborough made a lodgment,my uncle Toby made a lodgment too.And when the

face of a bastion was battered down, or a defence ruined,the corporal took his mattock and did as

much,and so on;gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works one after another, till the

To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others,there could not have been a greater sight in world,

than on a post morning, in which a practicable breach had been made by the duke of Marlborough, in the

main body of the place,to have stood behind the hornbeam hedge, and observed the spirit with which my

uncle Toby, with Trim behind him, sallied forth; the one with the Gazette in his hand,the other with a

spade on his shoulder to execute the contents.What an honest triumph in my uncle Toby's looks as he

marched up to the ramparts! What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood over the corporal,

reading the paragraph ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest, peradventure, he should make the breach

an inch too wide,or leave it an inch too narrow.But when the chamade was beat, and the corporal helped

my uncle up it, and followed with the colours in his hand, to fix them upon the ramparts Heaven! Earth!

Sea!but what avails apostrophes?with all your elements, wet or dry, ye never compounded so

In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to it, except now and then when the wind

continued to blow due west for a week or ten days together, which detained the Flanders mail, and kept them

so long in torture,but still 'twas the torture of the happyIn this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim

move for many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the invention of either the one

or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always

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

In the second year, in which my uncle Toby took Liege and Ruremond, he thought he might afford the

expence of four handsome drawbridges; of two of which I have given an exact description in the former part

At the latter end of the same year he added a couple of gates with port cullises:These last were converted

afterwards into orgues, as the better thing; and during the winter of the same year, my uncle Toby, instead of

a new suit of clothes, which he always had at Christmas, treated himself with a handsome sentrybox, to

stand at the corner of the bowlinggreen, betwixt which point and the foot of the glacis, there was left a little

kind of an esplanade for him and the corporal to confer and hold councils of war upon.

All these were painted white three times over the ensuing spring, which enabled my uncle Toby to take the

My father would often say to Yorick, that if any mortal in the whole universe had done such a thing except

his brother Toby, it would have been looked upon by the world as one of the most refined satires upon the

parade and prancing manner in which Lewis XIV. from the beginning of the war, but particularly that very

year, had taken the fieldBut 'tis not my brother Toby's nature, kind soul! my father would add, to insult any

I must observe, that although in the first year's campaign, the word town is often mentioned,yet there was

no town at that time within the polygon; that addition was not made till the summer following the spring in

which the bridges and sentrybox were painted, which was the third year of my uncle Toby's

campaigns,when upon his taking Amberg, Bonn, and Rhinberg, and Huy and Limbourg, one after another,

a thought came into the corporal's head, that to talk of taking so many towns, without one Town to shew for

it,was a very nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my uncle Toby, that they should have

a little model of a town built for them, to be run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped

My uncle Toby felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly agreed to it, but with the addition of two

singular improvements, of which he was almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of the project

The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of which it was most likely to be the

representative:with grated windows, and the gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, those in Ghent

The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal proposed, but to have every house

independent, to hook on, or off, so as to form into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This was put

directly into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation was exchanged between my uncle

It answered prodigiously the next summerthe town was a perfect Proteus It was Landen, and

Trerebach, and Santvliet, and Drusen, and Hagenau,and then it was Ostend and Menin, and Aeth and

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

In the fourth year, my uncle Toby thinking a town looked foolishly without a church, added a very fine one

with a steeple.Trim was for having bells in it;my uncle Toby said, the metal had better be cast into

This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass fieldpieces, to be planted three and three on each

side of my uncle Toby's sentrybox; and in a short time, these led the way for a train of somewhat

larger,and so on(as must always be the case in hobbyhorsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch bore,

The next year, which was that in which Lisle was besieged, and at the close of which both Ghent and Bruges

fell into our hands,my uncle Toby was sadly put to it for proper ammunition;I say proper

ammunitionbecause his great artillery would not bear powder; and 'twas well for the Shandy family they

would notFor so full were the papers, from the beginning to the end of the siege, of the incessant firings

kept up by the besiegers, and so heated was my uncle Toby's imagination with the accounts of them, that

Something therefore was wanting as a succedaneum, especially in one or two of the more violent paroxysms

of the siege, to keep up something like a continual firing in the imagination,and this something, the

corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an entire new system of battering of his

own,without which, this had been objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the

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

With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great regard, which poor Tom, the corporal's

unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with the account of his marriage with the Jew's widowthere was

The Monterocap I shall describe by and bye.The Turkish tobaccopipes had nothing particular in them,

they were fitted up and ornamented as usual, with flexible tubes of Morocco leather and gold wire, and

mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory,the other with black ebony, tipp'd with silver.

My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the world, would say to the corporal, that he

ought to look upon these two presents more as tokens of his brother's nicety, than his affection.Tom did

not care, Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, or to smoke in the tobaccopipe of a Jew.God bless your

honour, the corporal would say (giving a strong reason to the contrary)how can that be?

The Monterocap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish cloth, dyed in grain, and mounted all round with fur,

except about four inches in the front, which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered,and seemed

to have been the property of a Portuguese quartermaster, not of foot, but of horse, as the word denotes.

The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as the sake of the giver, so seldom or never

put it on but upon Galadays; and yet never was a Monterocap put to so many uses; for in all controverted

points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal was sure he was in the right,it was either his

I'll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to give away my Monterocap to the first beggar who

The completion was no further off, than the very next morning; which was that of the storm of the

counterscarp betwixt the Lower Deule, to the right, and the gate St. Andrew,and on the left, between St.

As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war,the most gallant and obstinate on both

sides,and I must add the most bloody too, for it cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven

hundred men,my uncle Toby prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary solemnity.

The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to bed, he ordered his ramallie wig, which had laid inside

out for many years in the corner of an old campaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out and

laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning;and the very first thing he did in his shirt, when he had

stepped out of bed, my uncle Toby, after he had turned the rough side outwards,put it on:This done, he

proceeded next to his breeches, and having buttoned the waistband, he forthwith buckled on his swordbelt,

and had got his sword half way in,when he considered he should want shaving, and that it would be very

inconvenient doing it with his sword on,so took it off:In essaying to put on his regimental coat and

waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in his wig,so that went off too:So that what with

one thing and what with another, as always falls out when a man is in the most haste,'twas ten o'clock,

which was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle Toby sallied out.

My uncle Toby had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which separated his kitchengarden from his

Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal's apparatus; and of the corporal himself in the height of his

attack, just as it struck my uncle Toby, as he turned towards the sentrybox, where the corporal was at

work, for in nature there is not such another,nor can any combination of all that is grotesque and

Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness,for he was your brother.Oh corporal! had I thee, but

now,now, that I am able to give thee a dinner and protection,how would I cherish thee! thou should'st

wear thy Montero cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week.and when it was worn out, I

would purchase thee a couple like it:But alas! alas! alas! now that I can do this in spite of their

reverencesthe occasion is lostfor thou art gone;thy genius fled up to the stars from whence it

came;and that warm heart of thine, with all its generous and open vessels, compressed into a clod of the

But whatwhat is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I look towards the velvet pall, decorated

with the military ensigns of thy master the firstthe foremost of created beings;where, I shall see thee,

faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a trembling hand across his coffin, and then returning

pale as ashes to the door, to take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as he directed

thee;whereall my father's systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and, in spite of his philosophy, I shall

behold him, as he inspects the lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe away the

dew which nature has shed upon themWhen I see him cast in the rosemary with an air of disconsolation,

which cries through my ears,O Toby! in what corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow?

Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his distress, and made the tongue of the

stammerer speak plainwhen I shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted hand.

The corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply the grand desideratum, of keeping up

something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,had no further idea in his

fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out of one of my uncle Toby's six

fieldpieces, which were planted on each side of his sentrybox; the means of effecting which occurring to

his fancy at the same time, though he had pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger from the miscarriage of

Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began to find out, that by means of his two

Turkish tobaccopipes, with the supplement of three smaller tubes of washleather at each of their lower

ends, to be tagg'd by the same number of tinpipes fitted to the touch holes, and sealed with clay next the

cannon, and then tied hermetically with waxed silk at their several insertions into the Morocco tube,he

should be able to fire the six fieldpieces all together, and with the same ease as to fire one.

Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for the advancement of human

knowledge. Let no man, who has read my father's first and second beds of justice, ever rise up and say again,

from collision of what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck out, to carry the arts and sciences up to

perfection.Heaven! thou knowest how I love them;thou knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I

would this moment give my shirtThou art a fool, Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in the

No matter for that, Eugenius; I would give the shirt off my back to be burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy

one feverish enquirer, how many sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into the tail of

it.Think ye not that in striking these in,he might, per adventure, strike something out? as sure as a

The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing his to perfection; and having made a sufficient proof

of his cannon, with charging them to the top with tobacco,he went with contentment to bed.

The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle Toby, in order to fix his apparatus, and just

He had drawn the six fieldpieces for this end, all close up together in front of my uncle Toby's sentrybox,

leaving only an interval of about a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the convenience

of charging, the sake possibly of two batteries, which he might think double the honour of one.

In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the sentrybox, for fear of being flanked, had

the corporal wisely taken his post:He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the right, betwixt

the finger and thumb of his right hand,and the ebony pipe tipp'd with silver, which appertained to the

battery on the left, betwixt the finger and thumb of the otherand with his right knee fixed firm upon the

ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the corporal, with his Monterocap upon his head, furiously

playing off his two cross batteries at the same time against the counterguard, which faced the counterscarp,

where the attack was to be made that morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the

enemy a single puff or two;but the pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got hold of

the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time my uncle

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

In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe from the corporal again, and raised it half way to his

The corporal redoubled the attack,my uncle Toby smiled,then looked grave,then smiled for a

moment,then looked serious for a long time; Give me hold of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle

Tobymy uncle Toby put it to his lips,drew it back directly,gave a peep over the hornbeam

hedge;never did my uncle Toby's mouth water so much for a pipe in his life.My uncle Toby retired into

Dear uncle Toby! don't go into the sentrybox with the pipe,there's no trusting a man's self with such a

I beg the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle Toby's ordnance behind the scenes,to remove

his sentrybox, and clear the theatre, if possible, of hornworks and half moons, and get the rest of his

military apparatus out of the way;that done, my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff the candles bright,sweep

the stage with a new broom,draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character,

throughout which the world can have no idea how he will act: and yet, if pity be a kin to love,and bravery

no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses, betwixt the

Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kindand thou puzzlest us in every one.

There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart which misled him so far out of the little

serpentine tracks in which things of this nature usually go on; you canyou can have no conception of it:

with this, there was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the plies

and foldings of the heart of woman;and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege

was out of his head,) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks, and shot my uncle

Toby ten times in a day, through his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.

With all this, Madam,and what confounded every thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had

that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his

feelings, that you might as soonBut where am I going? these reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at

Of the few legitimate sons of Adam whose breasts never felt what the sting of love was,(maintaining first,

all mysogynists to be bastards,)the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst

them nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their sakes I had the key of my study, out of my

drawwell, only for five minutes, to tell you their namesrecollect them I cannotso be content to accept

There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and Dardanus, and Pontus, and

Asius,to say nothing of the ironhearted Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K..... herself could make

nothing of.There was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus, and Prusicus, not one

of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both a little suspected) ever once bowed down his

breast to the goddessThe truth is, they had all of them something else to doand so had my uncle

Tobytill Fatetill Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being handed down to posterity with

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a

surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in

Mary's heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby's. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht

mentioned upon any account whatever,or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht

My father, who was a great MotiveMonger, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by,

either laughing or crying,for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it

yourself would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which shewed plainly, he

imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his

hobbyhorse.Never mind, brother Toby, he would say,by God's blessing we shall have another war

break out again some of these days; and when it does,the belligerent powers, if they would hang

themselves, cannot keep us out of play.I defy 'em, my dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without

My uncle Toby never took this backstroke of my father's at his hobbyhorse kindly.He thought the stroke

ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable

part a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave

an instance to the contrary:I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.He was not

eloquent,it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,and he hated florid ones; but there

were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some

parts my uncle Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullusbut in others, in my own opinion, infinitely

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby's, which he had

delivered one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers, with here and there an insertion of his

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

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle Toby's a hundred times, and think it

so fine a model of defence,and shews so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that

I am not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, for

war,it has an ill aspect to the world; and that, how just and right soever his motives the intentions may

be,he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in doing it.

For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which he may be without being a jot the less brave, he will be

sure not to utter his wish in the hearing of an enemy; for say what he will, an enemy will not believe him.

He will be cautious of doing it even to a friend,lest he may suffer in his esteem:But if his heart is

overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms must have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a brother, who

knows his character to the bottom, and what his true notions, dispositions, and principles of honour are:

What, I hope, I have been in all these, brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say:much worse, I

know, have I been than I ought,and something worse, perhaps, than I think: But such as I am, you, my dear

brother Shandy, who have sucked the same breasts with me, and with whom I have been brought up from

my cradle,and from whose knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pastimes, down to this, I have

concealed no one action of my life, and scarce a thought in itSuch as I am, brother, you must by this time

know me, with all my vices, and with all my weaknesses too, whether of my age, my temper, my passions, or

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of Utrecht,

and grieved the war was not carried on with vigour a little longer, you should think your brother did it upon

unworthy views; or that in wishing for war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his fellowcreatures

slain,more slaves made, and more families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely for his own

pleasure:Tell me, brother Shandy, upon what one deed of mine do you ground it? (The devil a deed do I

know of, dear Toby, but one for a hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these cursed sieges.)

If, when I was a schoolboy, I could not hear a drum beat, but my heart beat with itwas it my fault?Did

When Guy, Earl of Warwick, and Parismus and Parismenus, and Valentine and Orson, and the Seven

Champions of England, were handed around the school, were they not all purchased with my own

pocketmoney? Was that selfish, brother Shandy? When we read over the siege of Troy, which lasted ten

years and eight months,though with such a train of artillery as we had at Namur, the town might have been

carried in a weekwas I not as much concerned for the destruction of the Greeks and Trojans as any boy of

the whole school? Had I not three strokes of a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my left, for

calling Helena a bitch for it? Did any one of you shed more tears for Hector? And when king Priam came to

the camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy without it,you know, brother, I could not eat

Did that bespeak me cruel? Or because, brother Shandy, my blood flew out into the camp, and my heart

O brother! 'tis one thing for a soldier to gather laurels,and 'tis another to scatter cypress.(Who told thee,

'Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his own lifeto leap first down into the trench,

where he is sure to be cut in pieces: 'Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the

breach the first man,to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and

colours flying about his ears:'Tis one thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this,and 'tis another thing to

reflect on the miseries of war;to view the desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable

fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a

Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fever's funeral sermon, That so soft and gentle a creature,

born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?But why did you not add,

Yorick,if not by Naturethat he is so by Necessity?For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as

ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honourwhat is it, but the getting together

of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within

bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,and that

infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my sieges in my bowlinggreen, has arose within me, and I

hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that in carrying them on, we were answering

I told the Christian readerI say Christianhoping he is oneand if he is not, I am sorry for itand only

beg he will consider the matter with himself, and not lay the blame entirely upon this book

I told him, Sirfor in good truth, when a man is telling a story in the strange way I do mine, he is obliged

continually to be going backwards and forwards to keep all tight together in the reader's fancywhich, for

my own part, if I did not take heed to do more than at first, there is so much unfixed and equivocal matter

starting up, with so many breaks and gaps in it,and so little service do the stars afford, which, nevertheless,

I hang up in some of the darkest passages, knowing that the world is apt to lose its way, with all the lights the

But 'tis my father's fault; and whenever my brains come to be dissected, you will perceive, without

spectacles, that he has left a large uneven thread, as you sometimes see in an unsaleable piece of cambrick,

running along the whole length of the web, and so untowardly, you cannot so much as cut out a. . ., (here I

hang up a couple of lights again)or a fillet, or a thumbstall, but it is seen or felt.

Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum, sayeth Cardan. All which being considered, and that

I told the Christian reader in the beginning of the chapter which preceded my uncle Toby's apologetical

oration,though in a different trope from what I should make use of now, That the peace of Utrecht was

within an ace of creating the same shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobbyhorse, as it did betwixt the

There is an indignant way in which a man sometimes dismounts his horse, which, as good as says to him, 'I'll

go afoot, Sir, all the days of my life before I would ride a single mile upon your back again.' Now my uncle

Toby could not be said to dismount his horse in this manner; for in strictness of language, he could not be

said to dismount his horse at allhis horse rather flung himand somewhat viciously, which made my

uncle Toby take it ten times more unkindly. Let this matter be settled by statejockies as they like.It

created, I say, a sort of shyness betwixt my uncle Toby and his hobbyhorse.He had no occasion for him

from the month of March to November, which was the summer after the articles were signed, except it was

now and then to take a short ride out, just to see that the fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk were

The French were so backwards all that summer in setting about that affair, and Monsieur Tugghe, the deputy

from the magistrates of Dunkirk, presented so many affecting petitions to the queen,beseeching her

majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall upon the martial works, which might have incurred her

displeasure,but to spareto spare the mole, for the mole's sake; which, in its naked situation, could be no

more than an object of pityand the queen (who was but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition, and her

ministers also, they not wishing in their hearts to have the town dismantled, for these private reasons,. . .. .

.; so that the whole went heavily on with my uncle Toby; insomuch, that it was not within three full months,

after he and the corporal had constructed the town, and put it in a condition to be destroyed, that the several

commandants, commissaries, deputies, negociators, and intendants, would permit him to set about it. Fatal

The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by making a breach in the ramparts, or main fortifications of

the townNo,that will never do, corporal, said my uncle Toby, for in going that way to work with the

town, the English garrison will not be safe in it an hour; because if the French are treacherousThey are as

treacherous as devils, an' please your honour, said the corporalIt gives me concern always when I hear it,

Trim, said my uncle Toby;for they don't want personal bravery; and if a breach is made in the ramparts,

they may enter it, and make themselves masters of the place when they please:Let them enter it, said the

corporal, lifting up his pioneer's spade in both his hands, as if he was going to lay about him with it,let

them enter, an' please your honour, if they dare.In cases like this, corporal, said my uncle Toby, slipping

his right hand down to the middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards truncheonwise with his forefinger

extended,'tis no part of the consideration of a commandant, what the enemy dare,or what they dare not

do; he must act with prudence. We will begin with the outworks both towards the sea and the land, and

particularly with fort Louis, the most distant of them all, and demolish it first,and the rest, one by one, both

on our right and left, as we retreat towards the town;then we'll demolish the mole,next fill up the

harbour,then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the air: and having done that, corporal, we'll embark

for England.We are there, quoth the corporal, recollecting himselfVery true, said my uncle

A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this kind, betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim, upon the demolition

of Dunkirk,for a moment rallied back the ideas of those pleasures, which were slipping from under

him:still still all went on heavilythe magic left the mind the weakerStillness, with Silence at her

back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew their gauzy mantle over my uncle Toby's head;and

Listlessness, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat quietly down beside him in his armchair.No longer

Amberg and Rhinberg, and Limbourg, and Huy, and Bonn, in one year, and the prospect of Landen, and

Trerebach, and Drusen, and Dendermond, the next,hurried on the blood:No longer did saps, and mines,

and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out this fair enemy of man's repose:No more could my uncle

Toby, after passing the French lines, as he eat his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of

France,cross over the Oyes, and with all Picardie open behind him, march up to the gates of Paris, and fall

asleep with nothing but ideas of glory:No more was he to dream, he had fixed the royal standard upon the

Softer visions,gentler vibrations stole sweetly in upon his slumbers; the trumpet of war fell out of his

hands,he took up the lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most delicate! the most difficult!how wilt

Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, That I was confident the

following memoirs of my uncle Toby's courtship of widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them,

would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love and

lovemaking, that ever was addressed to the worldare you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with

a description of what love is? whether part God and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it

Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be as tento determine with Ficinus,

'How many parts of itthe one,and how many the other;'or whether it is all of it one great Devil, from

head to tail, as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my

opinion:but my opinion of Plato is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the

same temper and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining

that half a dozen of 'em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a herse and sixrashly

concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing Cantharidis.

I have nothing to say to people who allow themselves this monstrous liberty in arguing, but what Nazianzen

'(Greek)!' O rare! 'tis fine reasoning, Sir indeed!'(Greek)' and most nobly do you aim at truth, when you

Nor is it to be imagined, for the same reason, I should stop to inquire, whether love is a disease,or embroil

myself with Rhasis and Dioscorides, whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver;because this would lead

me on, to an examination of the two very opposite manners, in which patients have been treatedthe one, of

Aoetius, who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and bruised cucumbers;and followed on

with thin potations of waterlilies and purslaneto which he added a pinch of snuff, of the herb

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

These are disquisitions which my father, who had laid in a great stock of knowledge of this kind, will be very

busy with in the progress of my uncle Toby's affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his theories of

love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby's mind, almost as much as his amours

themselves,)he took a single step into practice;and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he

found means to impose upon the taylor for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of

breeches, he produced Gordonius's effect upon my uncle Toby without the disgrace.

What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is

thisThat whatever effect it had upon my uncle Toby,it had a vile effect upon the house;and if my

uncle Toby had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too.

'Twill come out of itself by and bye.All I contend for is, that I am not obliged to set out with a definition

of what love is; and so long as I can go on with my story intelligibly, with the help of the word itself, without

any other idea to it, than what I have in common with the rest of the world, why should I differ from it a

moment before the time?When I can get on no further,and find myself entangled on all sides of this

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

Not that the phrase is at all to my liking: for to say a man is fallen in love,or that he is deeply in

love,or up to the ears in love,and sometimes even over head and ears in it,carries an idiomatical kind

of implication, that love is a thing below a man:this is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all

And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptationso wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or

thy concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

To conceive this right,call for pen and inkhere's paper ready to your hand.Sit down, Sir, paint her to

your own mindas like your mistress as you canas unlike your wife as your conscience will let you'tis

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

As Susannah was informed by an express from Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle Toby's falling in love with her

mistress fifteen days before it happened, the contents of which express, Susannah communicated to my

mother the next day,it has just given me an opportunity of entering upon my uncle Toby's amours a

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

Now my father was then holding one of his second beds of justice, and was musing within himself about the

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

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

That she is not a woman of science, my father would sayis her misfortunebut she might ask a

My mother never did.In short, she went out of the world at last without knowing whether it turned round,

or stood still.My father had officiously told her above a thousand times which way it was,but she

For these reasons, a discourse seldom went on much further betwixt them, than a proposition,a reply, and a

rejoinder; at the end of which, it generally took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the breeches), and

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

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

I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold

seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby's story, and my own, in a tolerable

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes (Alluding to the first

edition.)In the fifth volume I have been very good,the precise line I have described in it being this:

By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,and the indented

curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,I have not taken

the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse's devils led me the round you see marked D.for as for C

C C C C they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest

ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,or with my own transgressions at the

In this last volume I have done better stillfor from the end of Le Fever's episode, to the beginning of my

If I mend at this rate, it is not impossibleby the good leave of his grace of Benevento's devilsbut I may

which is a line drawn as straight as I could draw it, by a writingmaster's ruler (borrowed for that purpose),

The best line! say cabbage plantersis the shortest line, says Archimedes, which can be drawn from one

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

Pray can you tell me,that is, without anger, before I write my chapter upon straight linesby what

mistakewho told them soor how it has come to pass, that your men of wit and genius have all along

NoI think, I said, I would write two volumes every year, provided the vile cough which then tormented

me, and which to this hour I dread worse than the devil, would but give me leaveand in another

place(but where, I can't recollect now) speaking of my book as a machine, and laying my pen and ruler

down crosswise upon the table, in order to gain the greater credit to itI swore it should be kept a going at

that rate these forty years, if it pleased but the fountain of life to bless me so long with health and good

Now as for my spirits, little have I to lay to their chargenay so very little (unless the mounting me upon a

long stick and playing the fool with me nineteen hours out of the twentyfour, be accusations) that on the

contrary, I have muchmuch to thank 'em for: cheerily have ye made me tread the path of life with all the

burthens of it (except its cares) upon my back; in no one moment of my existence, that I remember, have ye

once deserted me, or tinged the objects which came in my way, either with sable, or with a sickly green; in

dangers ye gilded my horizon with hope, and when Death himself knocked at my doorye bad him come

again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a storyand I was that

moment telling Eugenius a most tawdry one in my way, of a nun who fancied herself a shellfish, and of a

monk damn'd for eating a muscle, and was shewing him the grounds and justice of the procedure

'Did ever so grave a personage get into so vile a scrape?' quoth Death. Thou hast had a narrow escape,

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

You call him rightly, said Eugenius,for by sin, we are told, he enter'd the worldI care not which way

he enter'd, quoth I, provided he be not in such a hurry to take me out with himfor I have forty volumes to

write, and forty thousand things to say and do which no body in the world will say and do for me, except

thyself; and as thou seest he has got me by the throat (for Eugenius could scarce hear me speak across the

table), and that I am no match for him in the open field, had I not better, whilst these few scatter'd spirits

remain, and these two spider legs of mine (holding one of them up to him) are able to support mehad I not

better, Eugenius, fly for my life? 'Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said EugeniusThen by heaven! I will

lead him a dance he little thinks offor I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks

of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my heelsI'll scamper away to mount Vesuviusfrom thence

to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he may break his neck

Eugenius's wit and affection brought blood into the cheek from whence it had been some months

banish'd'twas a vile moment to bid adieu in; he led me to my chaiseAllons! said I; the postboy gave a

crack with his whip off I went like a cannon, and in half a dozen bounds got into Dover.

Now hang it! quoth I, as I look'd towards the French coasta man should know something of his own

country too, before he goes abroadand I never gave a peep into Rochester church, or took notice of the

dock of Chatham, or visited St. Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three laid in my way

So without arguing the matter further with Thomas o'Becket, or any one elseI skip'd into the boat, and in

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

Why, there is not time for a man to be sick in it, replied heWhat a cursed lyar! for I am sick as a horse,

quoth I, alreadywhat a brain! upside down!heyday! the cells are broke loose one into another, and

the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one

massgood G..! every thing turns round in it like a thousand whirlpoolsI'd give a shilling to know if I

When shall we get to land? captainthey have hearts like stonesO I am deadly sick!reach me that

thing, boy'tis the most discomfiting sicknessI wish I was at the bottomMadam! how is it with you?

Undone! undone! un. . .O! undone! sirWhat the first time?No, 'tis the second, third, sixth, tenth time,

It is a great inconvenience to a man in a haste, that there are three distinct roads between Calais and Paris, in

behalf of which there is so much to be said by the several deputies from the towns which lie along them, that

First, the road by Lisle and Arras, which is the most aboutbut most interesting, and instructing.

'Now before I quit Calais,' a travelwriter would say, 'it would not be amiss to give some account of

it.'Now I think it very much amissthat a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it

does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses

over, merely o' my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote

of these things, by all who have wrote and gallop'dor who have gallop'd and wrote, which is a different

way still; or who, for more expedition than the rest, have wrote galloping, which is the way I do at

presentfrom the great Addison, who did it with his satchel of school books hanging at his a. . ., and galling

his beast's crupper at every strokethere is not a gallopper of us all who might not have gone on ambling

quietly in his own ground (in case he had any), and have wrote all he had to write, dryshod, as well as not.

For my own part, as heaven is my judge, and to which I shall ever make my last appealI know no more of

Calais (except the little my barber told me of it as he was whetting his razor) than I do this moment of Grand

Cairo; for it was dusky in the evening when I landed, and dark as pitch in the morning when I set out, and yet

by merely knowing what is what, and by drawing this from that in one part of the town, and by spelling and

putting this and that together in anotherI would lay any travelling odds, that I this moment write a chapter

upon Calais as long as my arm; and with so distinct and satisfactory a detail of every item, which is worth a

stranger's curiosity in the townthat you would take me for the townclerk of Calais itselfand where, sir,

would be the wonder? was not Democritus, who laughed ten times more than Itownclerk of Abdera? and

was not (I forget his name) who had more discretion than us both, townclerk of Ephesus?it should be

penn'd moreover, sir, with so much knowledge and good sense, and truth, and precision

This town, if we may trust its archives, the authority of which I see no reason to call in question in this

placewas once no more than a small village belonging to one of the first Counts de Guignes; and as it

boasts at present of no less than fourteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of four hundred and twenty distinct

families in the basse ville, or suburbsit must have grown up by little and little, I suppose, to its present size.

Though there are four convents, there is but one parochial church in the whole town; I had not an opportunity

of taking its exact dimensions, but it is pretty easy to make a tolerable conjecture of 'emfor as there are

fourteen thousand inhabitants in the town, if the church holds them all it must be considerably largeand if

it will not'tis a very great pity they have not anotherit is built in form of a cross, and dedicated to the

Virgin Mary; the steeple, which has a spire to it, is placed in the middle of the church, and stands upon four

pillars elegant and light enough, but sufficiently strong at the same timeit is decorated with eleven altars,

most of which are rather fine than beautiful. The great altar is a master piece in its kind; 'tis of white marble,

and, as I was told, near sixty feet highhad it been much higher, it had been as high as mount Calvary

There was nothing struck me more than the great Square; tho' I cannot say 'tis either well paved or well built;

but 'tis in the heart of the town, and most of the streets, especially those in that quarter, all terminate in it;

could there have been a fountain in all Calais, which it seems there cannot, as such an object would have been

a great ornament, it is not to be doubted, but that the inhabitants would have had it in the very centre of this

square,not that it is properly a square,because 'tis forty feet longer from east to west, than from north to

south; so that the French in general have more reason on their side in calling them Places than Squares,

The townhouse seems to be but a sorry building, and not to be kept in the best repair; otherwise it had been

a second great ornament to this place; it answers however its destination, and serves very well for the

reception of the magistrates, who assemble in it from time to time; so that 'tis presumable, justice is regularly

I have heard much of it, but there is nothing at all curious in the Courgain; 'tis a distinct quarter of the town,

inhabited solely by sailors and fishermen; it consists of a number of small streets, neatly built and mostly of

brick; 'tis extremely populous, but as that may be accounted for, from the principles of their diet,there is

nothing curious in that neither.A traveller may see it to satisfy himselfhe must not omit however taking

notice of la Tour de Guet, upon any account; 'tis so called from its particular destination, because in war it

serves to discover and give notice of the enemies which approach the place, either by sea or land;but 'tis

monstrous high, and catches the eye so continually, you cannot avoid taking notice of it if you would.

It was a singular disappointment to me, that I could not have permission to take an exact survey of the

fortifications, which are the strongest in the world, and which, from first to last, that is, for the time they were

set about by Philip of France, Count of Bologne, to the present war, wherein many reparations were made,

have cost (as I learned afterwards from an engineer in Gascony)above a hundred millions of livres. It is

very remarkable, that at the Tete de Gravelenes, and where the town is naturally the weakest, they have

expended the most money; so that the outworks stretch a great way into the campaign, and consequently

occupy a large tract of groundHowever, after all that is said and done, it must be acknowledged that Calais

was never upon any account so considerable from itself, as from its situation, and that easy entrance which it

gave our ancestors, upon all occasions, into France: it was not without its inconveniences also; being no less

troublesome to the English in those times, than Dunkirk has been to us, in ours; so that it was deservedly

looked upon as the key to both kingdoms, which no doubt is the reason that there have arisen so many

contentions who should keep it: of these, the siege of Calais, or rather the blockade (for it was shut up both by

land and sea), was the most memorable, as it withstood the efforts of Edward the Third a whole year, and

was not terminated at last but by famine and extreme misery; the gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre, who first

offered himself a victim for his fellowcitizens, has rank'd his name with heroes. As it will not take up above

fifty pages, it would be injustice to the reader, not to give him a minute account of that romantic transaction,

But courage! gentle reader!I scorn it'tis enough to have thee in my powerbut to make use of the

advantage which the fortune of the pen has now gained over thee, would be too muchNo! by that

allpowerful fire which warms the visionary brain, and lights the spirits through unworldly tracts! ere I

would force a helpless creature upon this hard service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages, which I

have no right to sell thee,naked as I am, I would browse upon the mountains, and smile that the north wind

Boulogne!hah!so we are all got togetherdebtors and sinners before heaven; a jolly set of usbut I

can't stay and quaff it off with youI'm pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken, before

I can well change horses:for heaven's sake, make haste'Tis for hightreason, quoth a very little man,

whispering as low as he could to a very tall man, that stood next himOr else for murder; quoth the tall

manWell thrown, Sizeace! quoth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has been committing

A! ma chere fille! said I, as she tripp'd by from her matinsyou look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was

rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious)No; it can't be that, quoth a fourth(she made a

curt'sy to meI kiss'd my hand) 'tis debt, continued he: 'Tis certainly for debt; quoth a fifth; I would not pay

that gentleman's debts, quoth Ace, for a thousand pounds; nor would I, quoth Size, for six times the

sumWell thrown, Sizeace, again! quoth I;but I have no debt but the debt of Nature, and I want but

patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe herHow can you be so hardhearted, Madam, to

arrest a poor traveller going along without molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do stop that

deathlooking, longstriding scoundrel of a scaresinner, who is posting after mehe never would have

followed me but for youif it be but for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you,

Now, in troth, 'tis a great pity, quoth mine Irish host, that all this good courtship should be lost; for the

When the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides

inwoe be to truth! and woe be to the vehicle and its tackling (let 'em be made of what stuff you will) upon

As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, 'the most haste the worse speed,' was all

the reflection I made upon the affair, the first time it happen'd;the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I

confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly blamed only the second, third, fourth, and fifth

postboy for it, without carrying my reflections further; but the event continuing to befal me from the fifth, to

the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one exception, I then could not avoid making a

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

What's wrong now?Diable!a rope's broke!a knot has slipt!a staple's drawn!a bolt's to

whittle!a tag, a rag, a jag, a strap, a buckle, or a buckle's tongue, want altering.

Now true as all this is, I never think myself impowered to excommunicate thereupon either the postchaise,

or its drivernor do I take it into my head to swear by the living G.., I would rather go afoot ten thousand

timesor that I will be damn'd, if ever I get into anotherbut I take the matter coolly before me, and

consider, that some tag, or rag, or jag, or bolt, or buckle, or buckle's tongue, will ever be a wanting or want

altering, travel where I willso I never chaff, but take the good and the bad as they fall in my road, and get

on:Do so, my lad! said I; he had lost five minutes already, in alighting in order to get at a luncheon of

black bread, which he had cramm'd into the chaisepocket, and was remounted, and going leisurely on, to

relish it the better.Get on, my lad, said I, brisklybut in the most persuasive tone imaginable, for I jingled

a fourandtwenty sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold the flat side towards him, as he look'd

back: the dog grinn'd intelligence from his right ear to his left, and behind his sooty muzzle discovered such a

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

There is not a town in all France which, in my opinion, looks better in the map, than Montreuil;I own, it

does not look so well in the book of post roads; but when you come to see itto be sure it looks most

There is one thing, however, in it at present very handsome; and that is, the innkeeper's daughter: She has

been eighteen months at Amiens, and six at Paris, in going through her classes; so knits, and sews, and

A slut! in running them over within these five minutes that I have stood looking at her, she has let fall at

least a dozen loops in a white thread stockingyes, yesI see, you cunning gipsy!'tis long and

taperyou need not pin it to your kneeand that 'tis your ownand fits you exactly.

But as this sample is worth all their thumbsbesides, I have her thumbs and fingers in at the bargain, if

they can be any guide to me,and as Janatone withal (for that is her name) stands so well for a

drawingmay I never draw more, or rather may I draw like a draughthorse, by main strength all the days

of my life,if I do not draw her in all her proportions, and with as determined a pencil, as if I had her in the

But your worships chuse rather that I give you the length, breadth, and perpendicular height of the great

parishchurch, or drawing of the facade of the abbey of Saint Austreberte which has been transported from

Artois hitherevery thing is just I suppose as the masons and carpenters left them,and if the belief in

Christ continues so long, will be so these fifty years to comeso your worships and reverences may all

measure them at your leisuresbut he who measures thee, Janatone, must do it nowthou carriest the

principles of change within thy frame; and considering the chances of a transitory life, I would not answer for

thee a moment; ere twice twelve months are passed and gone, thou mayest grow out like a pumpkin, and lose

thy shapesor thou mayest go off like a flower, and lose thy beautynay, thou mayest go off like a

hussyand lose thyself.I would not answer for my aunt Dinah, was she alive'faith, scarce for her

So you must e'en be content with the original; which, if the evening is fine in passing thro' Montreuil, you

will see at your chaisedoor, as you change horses: but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I

haveyou had better stop:She has a little of the devote: but that, sir, is a terce to a nine in your favour

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

All which being considered, and that Death moreover might be much nearer me than I imaginedI wish I

was at Abbeville, quoth I, were it only to see how they card and spinso off we set.

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

Was I in a condition to stipulate with Death, as I am this moment with my apothecary, how and where I will

take his clysterI should certainly declare against submitting to it before my friends; and therefore I never

seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe, which generally takes up and torments

my thoughts as much as the catastrophe itself; but I constantly draw the curtain across it with this wish, that

the Disposer of all things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my own housebut rather in some

decent innat home, I know it,the concern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows, and

smoothing my pillow, which the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify my soul, that I

shall die of a distemper which my physician is not aware of: but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted,

would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but punctual attentionbut mark.

This inn should not be the inn at Abbevilleif there was not another inn in the universe, I would strike that

Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the morningYes, by four, Sir,or by Genevieve! I'll

'Make them like unto a wheel,' is a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned know, against the grand tour, and that

restless spirit for making it, which David prophetically foresaw would haunt the children of men in the latter

days; and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop Hall, 'tis one of the severest imprecations which David ever

utter'd against the enemies of the Lordand, as if he had said, 'I wish them no worse luck than always to be

rolling about.'So much motion, continues he (for he was very corpulent) is so much unquietness; and so

Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of

Hollo! Ho!the whole world's asleep!bring out the horsesgrease the wheelstie on the mailand

Now the wheel we are talking of, and whereinto (but not whereonto, for that would make an Ixion's wheel of

it) he curseth his enemies, according to the bishop's habit of body, should certainly be a postchaise wheel,

whether they were set up in Palestine at that time or notand my wheel, for the contrary reasons, must as

certainly be a cartwheel groaning round its revolution once in an age; and of which sort, were I to turn

commentator, I should make no scruple to affirm, they had great store in that hilly country.

I love the Pythagoreans (much more than ever I dare tell my dear Jenny) for their '(Greek)'(their) 'getting

out of the body, in order to think well.' No man thinks right, whilst he is in it; blinded as he must be, with his

congenial humours, and drawn differently aside, as the bishop and myself have been, with too lax or too tense

a fibreReason is, half of it, Sense; and the measure of heaven itself is but the measure of our present

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

But she did not know I was under a vow not to shave my beard till I got to Paris;yet I hate to make

mysteries of nothing;'tis the cold cautiousness of one of those little souls from which Lessius (lib. 13. de

moribus divinis, cap. 24.) hath made his estimate, wherein he setteth forth, That one Dutch mile, cubically

multiplied, will allow room enough, and to spare, for eight hundred thousand millions, which he supposes to

be as great a number of souls (counting from the fall of Adam) as can possibly be damn'd to the end of the

From what he has made this second estimateunless from the parental goodness of GodI don't knowI

am much more at a loss what could be in Franciscus Ribbera's head, who pretends that no less a space than

one of two hundred Italian miles multiplied into itself, will be sufficient to hold the like numberhe

certainly must have gone upon some of the old Roman souls, of which he had read, without reflecting how

much, by a gradual and most tabid decline, in the course of eighteen hundred years, they must unavoidably

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

And next winter we shall find them less again; so that if we go on from little to less, and from less to nothing,

I hesitate not one moment to affirm, that in half a century at this rate, we shall have no souls at all; which

being the period beyond which I doubt likewise of the existence of the Christian faith, 'twill be one advantage

Blessed Jupiter! and blessed every other heathen god and goddess! for now ye will all come into play again,

and with Priapus at your tailswhat jovial times!but where am I? and into what a delicious riot of things

am I rushing? II who must be cut short in the midst of my days, and taste no more of 'em than what I

'So hating, I say, to make mysteries of nothing'I intrusted it with the postboy, as soon as ever I got off

the stones; he gave a crack with his whip to balance the compliment; and with the thillhorse trotting, and a

sort of an up and a down of the other, we danced it along to Ailly au clochers, famed in days of yore for the

finest chimes in the world; but we danced through it without musicthe chimes being greatly out of

And so making all possible speed, from Ailly au clochers, I got to Hixcourt, from Hixcourt I got to

Pequignay, and from Pequignay, I got to Amiens, concerning which town I have nothing to inform you, but

what I have informed you once beforeand that wasthat Janatone went there to school.

In the whole catalogue of those whiffling vexations which come puffing across a man's canvass, there is not

one of a more teasing and tormenting nature, than this particular one which I am going to describeand for

which (unless you travel with an avancecourier, which numbers do in order to prevent it)there is no help:

That be you in never so kindly a propensity to sleepthough you are passing perhaps through the finest

countryupon the best roads, and in the easiest carriage for doing it in the worldnay, was you sure you

could sleep fifty miles straight forwards, without once opening your eyesnay, what is more, was you as

demonstratively satisfied as you can be of any truth in Euclid, that you should upon all accounts be full as

well asleep as awakenay, perhaps betterYet the incessant returns of paying for the horses at every

stage,with the necessity thereupon of putting your hand into your pocket, and counting out from thence

three livres fifteen sous (sous by sous), puts an end to so much of the project, that you cannot execute above

six miles of it (or supposing it is a post and a half, that is but nine)were it to save your soul from

I'll be even with 'em, quoth I, for I'll put the precise sum into a piece of paper, and hold it ready in my hand

all the way: 'Now I shall have nothing to do,' said I (composing myself to rest), 'but to drop this gently into

the postboy's hat, and not say a word.'Then there wants two sous more to drinkor there is a twelve sous

piece of Louis XIV. which will not passor a livre and some odd liards to be brought over from the last

stage, which Monsieur had forgot; which altercations (as a man cannot dispute very well asleep) rouse him:

still is sweet sleep retrievable; and still might the flesh weigh down the spirit, and recover itself of these

blowsbut then, by heaven! you have paid but for a single postwhereas 'tis a post and a half; and this

obliges you to pull out your book of post roads, the print of which is so very small, it forces you to open

your eyes, whether you will or no: Then Monsieur le Cure offers you a pinch of snuffor a poor soldier

shews you his legor a shaveling his boxor the priestesse of the cistern will water your wheelsthey do

not want itbut she swears by her priesthood (throwing it back) that they do:then you have all these

points to argue, or consider over in your mind; in doing of which, the rational powers get so thoroughly

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

But the postillion first affirming, and then persisting in it to my face, that there was no mark upon the two

sous piece, I open'd my eyes to be convinced and seeing the mark upon it as plain as my noseI leap'd

out of the chaise in a passion, and so saw every thing at Chantilly in spite. I tried it but for three posts and

a half, but believe 'tis the best principle in the world to travel speedily upon; for as few objects look very

inviting in that moodyou have little or nothing to stop you; by which means it was that I passed through St.

Richness of their treasury! stuff and nonsense!bating their jewels, which are all false, I would not give

three sous for any one thing in it, but Jaidas's lanternnor for that either, only as it grows dark, it might be of

Crack, crackcrack, crackcrack, crackso this is Paris! quoth I (continuing in the same mood)and

But it looks, I suppose, better than it smellscrack, crackcrack, crack what a fuss thou makest!as if

it concerned the good people to be informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the honour to be

driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with red

Ha!and no one gives the wall!but in the School of Urbanity herself, if the walls are besh..thow can

And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?never in the summer months!Ho! 'tis the time of

Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean

horse? don't you see, friend, the streets are so villanously narrow, that there is not room in all Paris to turn a

wheelbarrow? In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have been amiss, if they had been left a

thought wider; nay, were it only so much in every single street, as that a man might know (was it only for

number of barbers! and all within three minutes driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world, on

some great merrymeeting with the barbers, by joint consent had saidCome, let us all go live at Paris: the

French love good eatingthey are all gourmandswe shall rank high; if their god is their bellytheir

cooks must be gentlemen: and forasmuch as the periwig maketh the man, and the periwig maker maketh the

periwigergo, would the barbers say, we shall rank higher stillwe shall be above you allwe shall be

Capitouls (Chief Magistrate in Toulouse, at leastpardi! we shall all wear swords

And so, one would swear, (that is, by candlelight,but there is no depending upon it,) they continued to

The French are certainly misunderstood:but whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining

themselves; or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such

importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by usor whether the fault may not be

altogether on our side, in not understanding their language always so critically as to know 'what they would

be at'I shall not decide; but 'tis evident to me, when they affirm, 'That they who have seen Paris, have seen

As for candlelightI give it upI have said before, there was no depending upon itand I repeat it again;

but not because the lights and shades are too sharpor the tints confoundedor that there is neither beauty

or keeping, . .for that's not truthbut it is an uncertain light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand

Hotels, which they number up to you in Parisand the five hundred good things, at a modest computation

(for 'tis only allowing one good thing to a Hotel), which by candlelight are best to be seen, felt, heard, and

understood (which, by the bye, is a quotation from Lilly)the devil a one of us out of fifty, can get our heads

That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixteen, since which time there

have been considerable augmentations, Paris doth contain nine hundred streets; (viz)

In the quarter called the Citythere are fiftythree streets. In St. James of the Shambles, fiftyfive streets. In

St. Oportune, thirtyfour streets. In the quarter of the Louvre, twentyfive streets. In the Palace Royal, or St.

Honorius, fortynine streets. In Mont. Martyr, fortyone streets. In St. Eustace, twentynine streets. In the

Halles, twentyseven streets. In St. Dennis, fiftyfive streets. In St. Martin, fiftyfour streets. In St. Paul, or

the Mortellerie, twentyseven streets. The Greve, thirtyeight streets. In St. Avoy, or the Verrerie, nineteen

streets. In the Marais, or the Temple, fiftytwo streets. In St. Antony's, sixtyeight streets. In the Place

Maubert, eightyone streets. In St. Bennet, sixty streets. In St. Andrews de Arcs, fiftyone streets. In the

quarter of the Luxembourg, sixtytwo streets. And in that of St. Germain, fiftyfive streets, into any of which

you may walk; and that when you have seen them with all that belongs to them, fairly by daylighttheir

gates, their bridges, their squares, their statues. . .and have crusaded it moreover, through all their parish

churches, by no means omitting St. Roche and Sulpice. . .and to crown all, have taken a walk to the four

palaces, which you may see, either with or without the statues and pictures, just as you chuse

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

Earth No Such Folks!No Folks E'er Such A Town As Paris Is!Sing, Derry, Derry, Down. (Non orbis

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

In mentioning the word gay (as in the close of the last chapter) it puts one (i.e. an author) in mind of the word

spleenespecially if he has any thing to say upon it: not that by any analysisor that from any table of

interest or genealogy, there appears much more ground of alliance betwixt them, than betwixt light and

darkness, or any two of the most unfriendly opposites in natureonly 'tis an undercraft of authors to keep up

a good understanding amongst words, as politicians do amongst mennot knowing how near they may be

under a necessity of placing them to each otherwhich point being now gain'd, and that I may place mine

This, upon leaving Chantilly, I declared to be the best principle in the world to travel speedily upon; but I

gave it only as matter of opinion. I still continue in the same sentimentsonly I had not then experience

enough of its working to add this, that though you do get on at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily to

yourself at the same time; for which reason I here quit it entirely, and for ever, and 'tis heartily at any one's

serviceit has spoiled me the digestion of a good supper, and brought on a bilious diarrhoea, which has

brought me back again to my first principle on which I set outand with which I shall now scamper it away

No;I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people their geniustheir

mannerstheir customstheir lawstheir religion their governmenttheir manufacturestheir

commercetheir finances, with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them: qualified as I may

be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that time making these things the

Stillstill I must awaythe roads are pavedthe posts are shortthe days are long'tis no more than

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

Having, a priori, intended to dedicate The Amours of my Uncle Toby to Mr. ...I see more reasons, a

I should lament from my soul, if this exposed me to the jealousy of their Reverences; because a posteriori, in

Courtlatin, signifies the kissing hands for prefermentor any thing elsein order to get it.

My opinion of Lord ....... is neither better nor worse, than it was of Mr. .... Honours, like impressions upon

coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over

The same goodwill that made me think of offering up half an hour's amusement to Mr. ... when out of

placeoperates more forcibly at present, as half an hour's amusement will be more serviceable and

Nothing is so perfectly amusement as a total change of ideas; no ideas are so totally different as those of

Ministers, and innocent Lovers: for which reason, when I come to talk of Statesmen and Patriots, and set such

marks upon them as will prevent confusion and mistakes concerning them for the futureI propose to

Whose thoughts proud Science never taught to stray, Far as the Statesman's walk or Patriotway; Yet simple

Nature to his hopes had given Out of a cloudcapp'd head a humbler heaven; Some untam'd World in depths

of wood embraced Some happier Island in the wat'rywaste And where admitted to that equal sky, His

In a word, by thus introducing an entire new set of objects to his Imagination, I shall unavoidably give a

Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in France as

we do in England; whereas we get on much faster, consideratis considerandis; thereby always meaning, that

if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon

themand then consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them'tis a wonder they get on at

all: their suffering is most unchristian, and 'tis evident thereupon to me, that a French posthorse would not

know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words ...... and ...... in which there is as much sustenance,

as if you give him a peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from my soul to tell the reader

what they are; but here is the questionthey must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation,

or it will answer no endand yet to do it in that plain waythough their reverences may laugh at it in the

bedchamberfull well I wot, they will abuse it in the parlour: for which cause, I have been volving and

revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device or facette contrivance I might so

modulate them, that whilst I satisfy that ear which the reader chuses to lend meI might not dissatisfy the

My ink burns my finger to tryand when I have'twill have a worse consequenceIt will burn (I fear)

But if you wish to know how the abbess of Andouillets and a novice of her convent got over the difficulty

(only first wishing myself all imaginable success)I'll tell you without the least scruple.

The abbess of Andouillets, which if you look into the large set of provincial maps now publishing at Paris,

you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an Anchylosis

or stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins), and having tried every remedyfirst,

prayers and thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuouslythen particularly to

every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before herthen touching it with all the reliques of the convent,

principally with the thighbone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youththen wrapping

it up in her veil when she went to bedthen crosswise her rosarythen bringing in to her aid the secular

arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals then treating it with emollient and resolving

fomentationsthen with poultices of marshmallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and

fenugreekthen taking the woods, I mean the smoak of 'em, holding her scapulary across her lapthen

decoctions of wild chicory, watercresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochleariaand nothing all this while

answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hotbaths of Bourbonso having first obtained leave of the

visitorgeneral to take care of her existenceshe ordered all to be got ready for her journey: a novice of the

convent of about seventeen, who had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it

constantly into the abbess's cast poultices, gained such an interest, that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who

might have been set up for ever by the hotbaths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice, was elected as the

An old calesh, belonging to the abbesse, lined with green frize, was ordered to be drawn out into the

sunthe gardener of the convent being chosen muleteer, led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the

rump ends of their tails, whilst a couple of laysisters were busied, the one in darning the lining, and the

other in sewing on the shreds of yellow binding, which the teeth of time had unravelledthe undergardener

dress'd the muleteer's hat in hot wineleesand a taylor sat musically at it, in a shed overagainst the

convent, in assorting four dozen of bells for the harness, whistling to each bell, as he tied it on with a

The carpenter and the smith of Andouillets held a council of wheels; and by seven, the morning after, all

look'd spruce, and was ready at the gate of the convent for the hotbaths of Bourbontwo rows of the

The abbess of Andouillets, supported by Margarita the novice, advanced slowly to the calesh, both clad in

There was a simple solemnity in the contrast: they entered the calesh; the nuns in the same uniform, sweet

emblem of innocence, each occupied a window, and as the abbess and Margarita look'd upeach (the

sciatical poor nun excepted)each stream'd out the end of her veil in the airthen kiss'd the lilly hand

which let it go: the good abbess and Margarita laid their hands saintwise upon their breastslook'd up to

The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer, was a little, hearty, broadset, goodnatured, chattering,

toping kind of a fellow, who troubled his head very little with the hows and whens of life; so had mortgaged a

month of his conventical wages in a borrachio, or leathern cask of wine, which he had disposed behind the

calesh, with a large russetcoloured ridingcoat over it, to guard it from the sun; and as the weather was hot,

and he not a niggard of his labours, walking ten times more than he rode he found more occasions than

those of nature, to fall back to the rear of his carriage; till by frequent coming and going, it had so happen'd,

that all his wine had leak'd out at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one half of the journey was finish'd.

Man is a creature born to habitudes. The day had been sultrythe evening was deliciousthe wine was

generousthe Burgundian hill on which it grew was steepa little tempting bush over the door of a cool

cottage at the foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the passionsa gentle air rustled distinctly

The muleteer was a son of Adam, I need not say a word more. He gave the mules, each of 'em, a sound

lash, and looking in the abbess's and Margarita's faces (as he did it)as much as to say 'here I am'he gave

a second good crackas much as to say to his mules, 'get on'so slinking behind, he enter'd the little inn at

The muleteer, as I told you, was a little, joyous, chirping fellow, who thought not of tomorrow, nor of what

had gone before, or what was to follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little

chitchat along with it; so entering into a long conversation, as how he was chief gardener to the convent of

Andouillets, and out of friendship for the abbess and Mademoiselle Margarita, who was only in her noviciate,

he had come along with them from the confines of Savoy, and as how she had got a white swelling by her

devotionsand what a nation of herbs he had procured to mollify her humours, and that if the waters of

Bourbon did not mend that legshe might as well be lame of bothso contrived his story, as absolutely to

forget the heroine of itand with her the little novice, and what was a more ticklish point to be forgot than

boththe two mules; who being creatures that take advantage of the world, inasmuch as their parents took it

of themand they not being in a condition to return the obligation downwards (as men and women and

beasts are)they do it sideways, and longways, and backways and up hill, and down hill, and which

way they can.Philosophers, with all their ethicks, have never considered this rightlyhow should the poor

muleteer, then in his cups, consider it at all? he did not in the least 'tis time we do; let us leave him then in

the vortex of his element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal menand for a moment let us look

By virtue of the muleteer's two last strokes the mules had gone quietly on, following their own consciences

up the hill, till they had conquer'd about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd crafty old devil, at

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

Thumpthumpthumpobstreperated the abbess of Andouillets with the end of her goldheaded cane

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

Sancta Maria! cried the abbess (forgetting the O!)why was I govern'd by this wicked stiff joint? why did I

leave the convent of Andouillets? and why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go unpolluted to her tomb?

O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word servantwhy was I not content to put it

Straitsaid the novice; for terror had struck their understandingsthe one knew not what she saidthe

My dear mother, quoth the novice, coming a little to herself,there are two certain words, which I have been

told will force any horse, or ass, or mule, to go up a hill whether he will or no; be he never so obstinate or

illwill'd, the moment he hears them utter'd, he obeys. They are words magic! cried the abbess in the utmost

horrorNo; replied Margarita calmly but they are words sinfulWhat are they? quoth the abbess,

interrupting her: They are sinful in the first degree, answered Margarita,they are mortaland if we are

ravished and die unabsolved of them, we shall both but you may pronounce them to me, quoth the abbess of

AndouilletsThey cannot, my dear mother, said the novice, be pronounced at all; they will make all the

blood in one's body fly up into one's faceBut you may whisper them in my ear, quoth the abbess.

Heaven! hadst thou no guardian angel to delegate to the inn at the bottom of the hill? was there no generous

and friendly spirit unemployedno agent in nature, by some monitory shivering, creeping along the artery

which led to his heart, to rouse the muleteer from his banquet?no sweet minstrelsy to bring back the fair

and how to tell themYe, who can speak of every thing existing, with unpolluted lipsinstruct

All sins whatever, quoth the abbess, turning casuist in the distress they were under, are held by the confessor

of our convent to be either mortal or venial: there is no further division. Now a venial sin being the slightest

and least of all sinsbeing halvedby taking either only the half of it, and leaving the restor, by taking it

all, and amicably halving it betwixt yourself and another personin course becomes diluted into no sin at

Now I see no sin in saying, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, a hundred times together; nor is there any turpitude in

pronouncing the syllable ger, ger, ger, ger, ger, were it from our matins to our vespers: Therefore, my dear

daughter, continued the abbess of AndouilletsI will say bou, and thou shalt say ger; and then alternately, as

there is no more sin in fou than in bouThou shalt say fouand I will come in (like fa, sol, la, re, mi, ut, at

our complines) with ter. And accordingly the abbess, giving the pitch note, set off thus:

The two mules acknowledged the notes by a mutual lash of their tails; but it went no further'Twill answer

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

Quicker stillGod preserve me; said the abbessThey do not understand us, cried MargaritaBut the

What a tract of country have I run!how many degrees nearer to the warm sun am I advanced, and how

many fair and goodly cities have I seen, during the time you have been reading and reflecting, Madam, upon

this story! There's Fontainbleau, and Sens, and Joigny, and Auxerre, and Dijon the capital of Burgundy, and

Challon, and Macon the capital of the Maconese, and a score more upon the road to Lyonsand now I have

run them overI might as well talk to you of so many market towns in the moon, as tell you one word about

them: it will be this chapter at the least, if not both this and the next entirely lost, do what I will

Alas! Madam, had it been upon some melancholy lecture of the crossthe peace of meekness, or the

contentment of resignationI had not been incommoded: or had I thought of writing it upon the purer

abstractions of the soul, and that food of wisdom and holiness and contemplation, upon which the spirit of

man (when separated from the body) is to subsist for everYou would have come with a better appetite

I wish I never had wrote it: but as I never blot any thing outlet us use some honest means to get it out of

Pray reach me my fool's capI fear you sit upon it, Madam'tis under the cushionI'll put it on

Bless me! you have had it upon your head this half hour.There then let it stay, with a Fara diddle di and a

All you need say of Fontainbleau (in case you are ask'd) is, that it stands about forty miles (south

something) from Paris, in the middle of a large forestThat there is something great in itThat the king

goes there once every two or three years, with his whole court, for the pleasure of the chaceand that,

during that carnival of sporting, any English gentleman of fashion (you need not forget yourself) may be

accommodated with a nag or two, to partake of the sport, taking care only not to out gallop the king

But for AuxerreI could go on for ever: for in my grand tour through Europe, in which, after all, my father

(not caring to trust me with any one) attended me himself, with my uncle Toby, and Trim, and Obadiah, and

indeed most of the family, except my mother, who being taken up with a project of knitting my father a pair

of large worsted breeches(the thing is common sense)and she not caring to be put out of her way, she

staid at home, at Shandy Hall, to keep things right during the expedition; in which, I say, my father stopping

us two days at Auxerre, and his researches being ever of such a nature, that they would have found fruit even

in a desert he has left me enough to say upon Auxerre: in short, wherever my father wentbut 'twas more

remarkably so, in this journey through France and Italy, than in any other stages of his lifehis road seemed

to lie so much on one side of that, wherein all other travellers have gone before himhe saw kings and

courts and silks of all colours, in such strange lightsand his remarks and reasonings upon the characters,

the manners, and customs of the countries we pass'd over, were so opposite to those of all other mortal men,

particularly those of my uncle Toby and Trim(to say nothing of myself)and to crown allthe

occurrences and scrapes which we were perpetually meeting and getting into, in consequence of his systems

and opiniotrythey were of so odd, so mix'd and tragicomical a contexture That the whole put together,

it appears of so different a shade and tint from any tour of Europe, which was ever executedthat I will

venture to pronouncethe fault must be mine and mine onlyif it be not read by all travellers and

travelreaders, till travelling is no more,or which comes to the same pointtill the world, finally, takes it

But this rich bale is not to be open'd now; except a small thread or two of it, merely to unravel the mystery

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

We'll go, brother Toby, said my father, whilst dinner is coddlingto the abbey of Saint Germain, if it be

only to see these bodies, of which Monsieur Sequier has given such a recommendation.I'll go see any

body, quoth my uncle Toby; for he was all compliance through every step of the journeyDefend me! said

my fatherthey are all mummiesThen one need not shave; quoth my uncle TobyShave! nocried my

father'twill be more like relations to go with our beards onSo out we sallied, the corporal lending his

Every thing is very fine, and very rich, and very superb, and very magnificent, said my father, addressing

himself to the sacristan, who was a younger brother of the order of Benedictinesbut our curiosity has led us

to see the bodies, of which Monsieur Sequier has given the world so exact a description.The sacristan

made a bow, and lighting a torch first, which he had always in the vestry ready for the purpose; he led us into

the tomb of St. HeribaldThis, said the sacristan, laying his hand upon the tomb, was a renowned prince of

the house of Bavaria, who under the successive reigns of Charlemagne, Louis le Debonnair, and Charles the

Bald, bore a great sway in the government, and had a principal hand in bringing every thing into order and

Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field, as in the cabinet I dare say he has been a gallant

My uncle Toby and Trim sought comfort in each other's facesbut found it not: my father clapped both his

hands upon his codpiece, which was a way he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for though he hated a

monk and the very smell of a monk worse than all the devils in hellyet the shot hitting my uncle Toby and

Trim so much harder than him, 'twas a relative triumph; and put him into the gayest humour in the world.

And pray what do you call this gentleman? quoth my father, rather sportingly: This tomb, said the young

Benedictine, looking downwards, contains the bones of Saint Maxima, who came from Ravenna on purpose

Of Saint Maximus, said my father, popping in with his saint before him, they were two of the greatest

saints in the whole martyrology, added my fatherExcuse me, said the sacristan'twas to touch the bones

of Saint Germain, the builder of the abbeyAnd what did she get by it? said my uncle TobyWhat does

any woman get by it? said my fatherMartyrdome; replied the young Benedictine, making a bow down to

the ground, and uttering the word with so humble, but decisive a cadence, it disarmed my father for a

moment. 'Tis supposed, continued the Benedictine, that St. Maxima has lain in this tomb four hundred years,

and two hundred before her canonization'Tis but a slow rise, brother Toby, quoth my father, in this

selfsame army of martyrs.A desperate slow one, an' please your honour, said Trim, unless one could

purchaseI should rather sell out entirely, quoth my uncle TobyI am pretty much of your opinion, brother

Poor St. Maxima! said my uncle Toby low to himself, as we turn'd from her tomb: She was one of the

fairest and most beautiful ladies either of Italy or France, continued the sacristanBut who the duce has got

lain down here, besides her? quoth my father, pointing with his cane to a large tomb as we walked onIt is

Saint Optat, Sir, answered the sacristanAnd properly is Saint Optat plac'd! said my father: And what is

Saint Optat's story? continued he. Saint Optat, replied the sacristan, was a bishop

I thought so, by heaven! cried my father, interrupting himSaint Optat! how should Saint Optat fail?

so snatching out his pocketbook, and the young Benedictine holding him the torch as he wrote, he set it

down as a new prop to his system of Christian names, and I will be bold to say, so disinterested was he in the

search of truth, that had he found a treasure in Saint Optat's tomb, it would not have made him half so rich:

'Twas as successful a short visit as ever was paid to the dead; and so highly was his fancy pleas'd with all that

I'll see the rest of these good gentry tomorrow, said my father, as we cross'd over the squareAnd while

you are paying that visit, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Tobythe corporal and I will mount the ramparts.

Now this is the most puzzled skein of allfor in this last chapter, as far at least as it has help'd me through

Auxerre, I have been getting forwards in two different journies together, and with the same dash of the

penfor I have got entirely out of Auxerre in this journey which I am writing now, and I am got half way

out of Auxerre in that which I shall write hereafterThere is but a certain degree of perfection in every

thing; and by pushing at something beyond that, I have brought myself into such a situation, as no traveller

ever stood before me; for I am this moment walking across the marketplace of Auxerre with my father and

my uncle Toby, in our way back to dinnerand I am this moment also entering Lyons with my postchaise

broke into a thousand piecesand I am moreover this moment in a handsome pavillion built by Pringello

(The same Don Pringello, the celebrated Spanish architect, of whom my cousin Antony has made such

honourable mention in a scholium to the Tale inscribed to his name. Vid. p.129, small edit.), upon the banks

of the Garonne, which Mons. Sligniac has lent me, and where I now sit rhapsodising all these affairs.

I am glad of it, said I, settling the account with myself, as I walk'd into Lyonsmy chaise being all laid

higgledypiggledy with my baggage in a cart, which was moving slowly before meI am heartily glad, said

I, that 'tis all broke to pieces; for now I can go directly by water to Avignon, which will carry me on a

hundred and twenty miles of my journey, and not cost me seven livresand from thence, continued I,

bringing forwards the account, I can hire a couple of mulesor asses, if I like, (for nobody knows me,) and

cross the plains of Languedoc for almost nothingI shall gain four hundred livres by the misfortune clear

into my purse: and pleasure! worthworth double the money by it. With what velocity, continued I,

clapping my two hands together, shall I fly down the rapid Rhone, with the Vivares on my right hand, and

Dauphiny on my left, scarce seeing the ancient cities of Vienne, Valence, and Vivieres. What a flame will it

rekindle in the lamp, to snatch a blushing grape from the Hermitage and Cote roti, as I shoot by the foot of

them! and what a fresh spring in the blood! to behold upon the banks advancing and retiring, the castles of

romance, whence courteous knights have whilome rescued the distress'dand see vertiginous, the rocks, the

mountains, the cataracts, and all the hurry which Nature is in with all her great works about her.

As I went on thus, methought my chaise, the wreck of which look'd stately enough at the first, insensibly

grew less and less in its size; the freshness of the painting was no morethe gilding lost its lustreand the

whole affair appeared so poor in my eyesso sorry!so contemptible! and, in a word, so much worse than

the abbess of Andouillets' itselfthat I was just opening my mouth to give it to the devilwhen a pert

vamping chaise undertaker, stepping nimbly across the street, demanded if Monsieur would have his chaise

refittedNo, no, said I, shaking my head sidewaysWould Monsieur choose to sell it? rejoined the

undertakerWith all my soul, said Ithe iron work is worth forty livresand the glasses worth forty

What a mine of wealth, quoth I, as he counted me the money, has this post chaise brought me in? And this is

my usual method of bookkeeping, at least with the disasters of lifemaking a penny of every one of 'em as

Do, my dear Jenny, tell the world for me, how I behaved under one, the most oppressive of its kind, which

'Tis enough, saidst thou, coming close up to me, as I stood with my garters in my hand, reflecting upon what

had not pass'd'Tis enough, Tristram, and I am satisfied, saidst thou, whispering these words in my ear, .... ..

I'll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat's wheyand I'll gain seven years longer life for the

accident. For which reason I think myself inexcusable, for blaming Fortune so often as I have done, for

pelting me all my life long, like an ungracious duchess, as I call'd her, with so many small evils: surely, if I

have any cause to be angry with her, 'tis that she has not sent me great onesa score of good cursed,

One of a hundred a year, or so, is all I wishI would not be at the plague of paying landtax for a larger.

To those who call vexations, Vexations, as knowing what they are, there could not be a greater, than to be the

best part of a day at Lyons, the most opulent and flourishing city in France, enriched with the most fragments

of antiquityand not be able to see it. To be withheld upon any account, must be a vexation; but to be

I had got my two dishes of milk coffee (which by the bye is excellently good for a consumption, but you must

boil the milk and coffee together otherwise 'tis only coffee and milk)and as it was no more than eight in

the morning, and the boat did not go off till noon, I had time to see enough of Lyons to tire the patience of all

the friends I had in the world with it. I will take a walk to the cathedral, said I, looking at my list, and see the

Now, of all things in the world, I understand the least of mechanismI have neither genius, or taste, or

fancyand have a brain so entirely unapt for every thing of that kind, that I solemnly declare I was never yet

able to comprehend the principles of motion of a squirrel cage, or a common knifegrinder's wheeltho' I

have many an hour of my life look'd up with great devotion at the oneand stood by with as much patience

I'll go see the surprising movements of this great clock, said I, the very first thing I do: and then I will pay a

visit to the great library of the Jesuits, and procure, if possible, a sight of the thirty volumes of the general

history of China, wrote (not in the Tartarean, but) in the Chinese language, and in the Chinese character too.

Now I almost know as little of the Chinese language, as I do of the mechanism of Lippius's clockwork; so,

why these should have jostled themselves into the two first articles of my listI leave to the curious as a

problem of Nature. I own it looks like one of her ladyship's obliquities; and they who court her, are interested

When these curiosities are seen, quoth I, half addressing myself to my valet de place, who stood behind

me'twill be no hurt if we go to the church of St. Irenaeus, and see the pillar to which Christ was tiedand

after that, the house where Pontius Pilate lived'Twas at the next town, said the valet de placeat Vienne; I

am glad of it, said I, rising briskly from my chair, and walking across the room with strides twice as long as

What was the cause of this movement, and why I took such long strides in uttering thisI might leave to the

curious too; but as no principle of clockwork is concerned in it'twill be as well for the reader if I explain

O! there is a sweet aera in the life of man, when (the brain being tender and fibrillous, and more like pap than

any thing else)a story read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still

Amandus taken captive by the Turks, and carried to the emperor of Morocco's court, where the princess of

Morocco falling in love with him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of the his Amanda.

She(Amanda) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell'd hair, o'er rocks and mountains,

enquiring for Amandus!Amandus! Amandus!making every hill and valley to echo back his name

at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gateHas Amandus!has my Amandus

enter'd?till,going round, and round, and round the world chance unexpected bringing them at the

same moment of the night, though by different ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native city, and each in well

There is a soft aera in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story affords more pabulum to the brain, than

all the Frusts, and Crusts, and Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.

'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of what Spon and others, in their accounts

of Lyons, had strained into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knowsThat sacred

to the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called

upon them to attest their truthsI never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this tomb of the

lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the closenay such a kind of empire had it establish'd over me,

that I could seldom think or speak of Lyonsand sometimes not so much as see even a Lyonswaistcoat, but

this remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running

ontho' I fear with some irreverence'I thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of

Mecca, and so little short, except in wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time or other, I would go a

pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons) on purpose to pay it a visit.'

In my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, tho' last,was not, you see, least; so taking a dozen or two of

longer strides than usual cross my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the basse

cour, in order to sally forth; and having called for my billas it was uncertain whether I should return to my

inn, I had paid ithad moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of

Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the Rhonewhen I was stopped at the gate

'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect

eleemosynary turniptops and cabbage leaves; and stood dubious, with his two forefeet on the inside of

the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strikethere is a patient endurance of

sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always

disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I

willwhether in town or countryin cart or under pannierswhether in liberty or bondageI have ever

something civil to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I)I

generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his

responses from the etchings of his countenanceand where those carry me not deep enoughin flying from

my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to thinkas well as a man, upon the occasion. In

truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots,

jackdaws, never exchange a word with themnor with the apes, for pretty near the same reason; they act by

rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my cat, though I value them

both(and for my dog he would speak if he could)yet somehow or other, they neither of them possess the

talents for conversationI can make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the proposition, the reply, and

rejoinder, which terminated my father's and my mother's conversations, in his beds of justiceand those

Come, Honesty! said I,seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gateart thou for coming

I understand thee perfectly, answered IIf thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to

deathWell! a minute is but a minute, and if it saves a fellowcreature a drubbing, it shall not be set down

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in the little peevish contentions of

nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up

again God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on'tand many a bitter day's labour,and

many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages'tis allall bitterness to thee, whatever life is to others.And now

thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot(for he had cast aside the stem) and

thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will give thee a macaroon.In saying this, I pull'd out a

paper of 'em, which I had just purchased, and gave him oneand at this moment that I am telling it, my heart

smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit, of seeing how an ass would eat a

When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press'd him to come inthe poor beast was heavy loadedhis legs

seem'd to tremble under himhe hung rather backwards, and as I pull'd at his halter, it broke short in my

hand he look'd up pensive in my face'Don't thrash me with itbut if you will, you may'If I do, said

The word was but onehalf of it pronounced, like the abbess of Andouillet's(so there was no sin in

it)when a person coming in, let fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end

Out upon it! cried Ibut the interjection was equivocaland, I think, wrong placed toofor the end of an

osier which had started out from the contexture of the ass's panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as

he rush'd by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can imagineso that the

Out upon it! in my opinion, should have come in herebut this I leave to be settled by The Reviewers of My

When all was set to rights, I came down stairs again into the basse cour with my valet de place, in order to

sally out towards the tomb of the two lovers, was a second time stopp'd at the gatenot by the assbut by

the person who struck him; and who, by that time, had taken possession (as is not uncommon after a defeat)

It was a commissary sent to me from the postoffice, with a rescript in his hand for the payment of some six

Upon what account? said I.'Tis upon the part of the king, replied the commissary, heaving up both his

But it is an indubitable verity, continued I, addressing myself to the commissary, changing only the form

of my asseverationthat I owe the king of France nothing but my good will; for he is a very honest man, and

Pardonnez moireplied the commissary, you are indebted to him six livres four sous, for the next post from

hence to St. Fons, in your route to Avignonwhich being a post royal, you pay double for the horses and

The commissary, with all the sincerity of grave good breedingmade me one, as low again.I never was

The devil take the serious character of these people! quoth I(aside) they understand no more of Irony

The comparison was standing close by with his panniersbut something seal'd up my lipsI could not

I travel by waterI am going down the Rhone this very afternoonmy baggage is in the boatand I have

O England! England! thou land of liberty, and climate of good sense, thou tenderest of mothersand gentlest

When the director of Madam Le Blanc's conscience coming in at that instant, and seeing a person in black,

with a face as pale as ashes, at his devotionslooking still paler by the contrast and distress of his drapery

I go by Watersaid Iand here's another will be for making me pay for going by Oil.

As I perceived the commissary of the postoffice would have his six livres four sous, I had nothing else for it,

And pray, Mr. Commissary, by what law of courtesy is a defenceless stranger to be used just the reverse

Excuse me; said Ifor you have begun, Sir, with first tearing off my breechesand now you want my

Whereashad you first taken my pocket, as you do with your own peopleand then left me bare a..'d

By all which it appears, quoth I, having read it over, a little too rapidly, that if a man sets out in a

postchaise from Parishe must go on travelling in one, all the days of his lifeor pay for it.Excuse me,

said the commissary, the spirit of the ordinance is thisThat if you set out with an intention of running post

from Paris to Avignon, you shall not change that intention or mode of travelling, without first satisfying the

fermiers for two posts further than the place you repent atand 'tis founded, continued he, upon this, that the

O by heavens! cried Iif fickleness is taxable in Francewe have nothing to do but to make the best

And if it is a bad oneas Tristram Shandy laid the cornerstone of it nobody but Tristram Shandy

Though I was sensible I had said as many clever things to the commissary as came to six livres four sous, yet

I was determined to note down the imposition amongst my remarks before I retired from the place; so putting

my hand into my coatpocket for my remarks(which, by the bye, may be a caution to travellers to take a

little more care of their remarks for the future) 'my remarks were stolen'Never did sorry traveller make

such a pother and racket about his remarks as I did about mine, upon the occasion.

Heaven! earth! sea! fire! cried I, calling in every thing to my aid but what I shouldMy remarks are

stolen!what shall I do?Mr. Commissary! pray did I drop any remarks, as I stood besides you?

You dropp'd a good many very singular ones; replied hePugh! said I, those were but a few, not worth

above six livres two sousbut these are a large parcelHe shook his headMonsieur Le Blanc! Madam

Le Blanc! did you see any papers of mine?you maid of the house! run up stairsFrancois! run up after

I must have my remarksthey were the best remarks, cried I, that ever were madethe wisestthe

When the first transport was over, and the registers of the brain were beginning to get a little out of the

confusion into which this jumble of cross accidents had cast themit then presently occurr'd to me, that I

had left my remarks in the pocket of the chaiseand that in selling my chaise, I had sold my remarks along

with it, to the chaisevamper. I leave this void space that the reader may swear into it any oath that he is most

accustomed toFor my own part, if ever I swore a whole oath into a vacancy in my life, I think it was into

that........., said Iand so my remarks through France, which were as full of wit, as an egg is full of meat,

and as well worth four hundred guineas, as the said egg is worth a pennyhave I been selling here to a

chaisevamperfor four Louis d'Orsand giving him a postchaise (by heaven) worth six into the bargain;

had it been to Dodsley, or Becket, or any creditable bookseller, who was either leaving off business, and

wanted a postchaiseor who was beginning itand wanted my remarks, and two or three guineas along

with themI could have borne itbut to a chaisevamper!shew me to him this moment, Francois,said

I The valet de place put on his hat, and led the wayand I pull'd off mine, as I pass'd the commissary, and

When we arrived at the chaisevamper's house, both the house and the shop were shut up; it was the eighth of

Tantarraratantivithe whole world was gone out a Maypolingfrisking herecapering thereno

body cared a button for me or my remarks; so I sat me down upon a bench by the door, philosophating upon

my condition: by a better fate than usually attends me, I had not waited half an hour, when the mistress came

The French women, by the bye, love Maypoles, a la foliethat is, as much as their matinsgive 'em but a

Maypole, whether in May, June, July or Septemberthey never count the timesdown it goes'tis meat,

drink, washing, and lodging to 'emand had we but the policy, an' please your worships (as wood is a little

The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance round them (and the men for

The wife of the chaisevamper stepp'd in, I told you, to take the papilliotes from off her hairthe toilet

stands still for no manso she jerk'd off her cap, to begin with them as she open'd the door, in doing which,

O Seigneur! cried Iyou have got all my remarks upon your head, Madam! J'en suis bien mortifiee, said

she'tis well, thinks I, they have stuck therefor could they have gone deeper, they would have made such

confusion in a French woman's noddleShe had better have gone with it unfrizled, to the day of eternity.

Tenezsaid sheso without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she took them from her curls, and put

them gravely one by one into my hatone was twisted this wayanother twisted thatey! by my faith;

And now for Lippius's clock! said I, with the air of a man, who had got thro' all his difficultiesnothing can

prevent us seeing that, and the Chinese history, except the time, said Francoisfor 'tis almost eleventhen

I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by one of the minor canons, as I was

entering the west door,That Lippius's great clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for some

yearsIt will give me the more time, thought I, to peruse the Chinese history; and besides I shall be able to

give the world a better account of the clock in its decay, than I could have done in its flourishing condition

Now it is with the project of getting a peep at the history of China in Chinese charactersas with many

others I could mention, which strike the fancy only at a distance; for as I came nearer and nearer to the

pointmy blood cool'dthe freak gradually went off, till at length I would not have given a cherrystone to

have it gratifiedThe truth was, my time was short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the LoversI wish to

God, said I, as I got the rapper in my hand, that the key of the library may be but lost; it fell out as well

For all the Jesuits had got the cholicand to that degree, as never was known in the memory of the oldest

As I knew the geography of the Tomb of the Lovers, as well as if I had lived twenty years in Lyons, namely,

that it was upon the turning of my right hand, just without the gate, leading to the Fauxbourg de VaiseI

dispatched Francois to the boat, that I might pay the homage I so long ow'd it, without a witness of my

weaknessI walk'd with all imaginable joy towards the placewhen I saw the gate which intercepted the

Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to Amandus and Amandalonglong have I

No matter how, or in what moodbut I flew from the tomb of the loversor rather I did not fly from

it(for there was no such thing existing) and just got time enough to the boat to save my passage;and ere

I had sailed a hundred yards, the Rhone and the Saon met together, and carried me down merrily betwixt

So now I am at Avignon, and as there is nothing to see but the old house, in which the duke of Ormond

resided, and nothing to stop me but a short remark upon the place, in three minutes you will see me crossing

the bridge upon a mule, with Francois upon a horse with my portmanteau behind him, and the owner of both,

striding the way before us, with a long gun upon his shoulder, and a sword under his arm, lest peradventure

we should run away with his cattle. Had you seen my breeches in entering Avignon,Though you'd have

seen them better, I think, as I mountedyou would not have thought the precaution amiss, or found in your

heart to have taken it in dudgeon; for my own part, I took it most kindly; and determined to make him a

present of them, when we got to the end of our journey, for the trouble they had put him to, of arming himself

Before I go further, let me get rid of my remark upon Avignon, which is this: That I think it wrong, merely

because a man's hat has been blown off his head by chance the first night he comes to Avignon,that he

should therefore say, 'Avignon is more subject to high winds than any town in all France:' for which reason I

laid no stress upon the accident till I had enquired of the master of the inn about it, who telling me seriously it

was soand hearing, moreover, the windiness of Avignon spoke of in the country about as a proverbI set

it down, merely to ask the learned what can be the causethe consequence I sawfor they are all Dukes,

Marquisses, and Counts, therethe duce a Baron, in all Avignonso that there is scarce any talking to them

Prithee, friend, said I, took hold of my mule for a momentfor I wanted to pull off one of my jackboots,

which hurt my heelthe man was standing quite idle at the door of the inn, and as I had taken it into my

head, he was someway concerned about the house or stable, I put the bridle into his handso begun with the

boot:when I had finished the affair, I turned about to take the mule from the man, and thank him

I had now the whole south of France, from the banks of the Rhone to those of the Garonne, to traverse upon

my mule at my own leisureat my own leisurefor I had left Death, the Lord knowsand He onlyhow

far behind me'I have followed many a man thro' France, quoth hebut never at this mettlesome

rate.'Still he followed,and still I fled himbut I fled him cheerfullystill he pursuedbut, like one

who pursued his prey without hopeas he lagg'd, every step he lost, softened his lookswhy should I fly

So notwithstanding all the commissary of the postoffice had said, I changed the mode of my travelling once

more; and, after so precipitate and rattling a course as I had run, I flattered my fancy with thinking of my

mule, and that I should traverse the rich plains of Languedoc upon his back, as slowly as foot could fall.

There is nothing more pleasing to a travelleror more terrible to travel writers, than a large rich plain;

especially if it is without great rivers or bridges; and presents nothing to the eye, but one unvaried picture of

plenty: for after they have once told you, that 'tis delicious! or delightful! (as the case happens)that the soil

was grateful, and that nature pours out all her abundance, . .they have then a large plain upon their hands,

which they know not what to do withand which is of little or no use to them but to carry them to some

town; and that town, perhaps of little more, but a new place to start from to the next plain and so on.

I had not gone above two leagues and a half, before the man with his gun began to look at his priming.

I had three several times loiter'd terribly behind; half a mile at least every time; once, in deep conference with

a drummaker, who was making drums for the fairs of Baucaira and TarasconeI did not understand the

The second time, I cannot so properly say, I stopp'dfor meeting a couple of Franciscans straitened more for

time than myself, and not being able to get to the bottom of what I was aboutI had turn'd back with

The third, was an affair of trade with a gossip, for a handbasket of Provence figs for four sous; this would

have been transacted at once; but for a case of conscience at the close of it; for when the figs were paid for, it

turn'd out, that there were two dozen of eggs covered over with vineleaves at the bottom of the basketas I

had no intention of buying eggsI made no sort of claim of themas for the space they had occupied

But it was my intention to have the basketit was the gossip's intention to keep it, without which, she

could do nothing with her eggsand unless I had the basket, I could do as little with my figs, which were too

ripe already, and most of 'em burst at the side: this brought on a short contention, which terminated in sundry

How we disposed of our eggs and figs, I defy you, or the Devil himself, had he not been there (which I am

persuaded he was), to form the least probable conjecture: You will read the whole of itnot this year, for I

am hastening to the story of my uncle Toby's amoursbut you will read it in the collection of those which

How far my pen has been fatigued, like those of other travellers, in this journey of it, over so barren a

trackthe world must judgebut the traces of it, which are now all set o'vibrating together this moment, tell

me 'tis the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for as I had made no convention with my man with the

gun, as to timeby stopping and talking to every soul I met, who was not in a full trotjoining all parties

crossroadsarresting all kinds of beggars, pilgrims, fiddlers, friarsnot passing by a woman in a

mulberrytree without commending her legs, and tempting her into conversation with a pinch of snuffIn

short, by seizing every handle, of what size or shape soever, which chance held out to me in this journeyI

turned my plain into a cityI was always in company, and with great variety too; and as my mule loved

society as much as myself, and had some proposals always on his part to offer to every beast he metI am

confident we could have passed through PallMall, or St. James'sStreet, for a month together, with fewer

O! there is that sprightly frankness, which at once unpins every plait of a Languedocian's dressthat

whatever is beneath it, it looks so like the simplicity which poets sing of in better daysI will delude my

'Twas in the road betwixt Nismes and Lunel, where there is the best Muscatto wine in all France, and which

by the bye belongs to the honest canons of Montpellierand foul befal the man who has drunk it at their

The sun was setthey had done their work; the nymphs had tied up their hair afreshand the swains

were preparing for a carousalmy mule made a dead point'Tis the fife and tabourin, said II'm

frighten'd to death, quoth heThey are running at the ring of pleasure, said I, giving him a prickBy saint

Boogar, and all the saints at the backside of the door of purgatory, said he(making the same resolution with

the abbesse of Andouillets) I'll not go a step further'Tis very well, sir, said II never will argue a point

with one of your family, as long as I live; so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch, and

A sunburnt daughter of Labour rose up from the groupe to meet me, as I advanced towards them; her hair,

which was a dark chesnut approaching rather to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress.

We want a cavalier, said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer themAnd a cavalier ye shall have;

We could not have done without you, said she, letting go one hand, with selftaught politeness, leading me

A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had added a tabourin of his own

accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bankTie me up this tress instantly, said Nannette,

putting a piece of string into my handIt taught me to forget I was a strangerThe whole knot fell

The youth struck the note upon the tabourinhis pipe followed, and off we bounded'the duce take that

The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from heaven, sung alternately with her brother'twas a

I would have given a crown to have it sew'd upNannette would not have given a sousViva la joia! was

in her lipsViva la joia! was in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt usShe

look'd amiable!Why could I not live, and end my days thus? Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows, cried I,

why could not a man sit down in the lap of content hereand dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to

heaven with this nutbrown maid? Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up

insidiousThen 'tis time to dance off, quoth I; so changing only partners and tunes, I danced it away from

Lunel to Montpellierfrom thence to Pescnas, BeziersI danced it along through Narbonne, Carcasson,

and Castle Naudairy, till at last I danced myself into Perdrillo's pavillion, where pulling out a paper of black

lines, that I might go on straight forwards, without digression or parenthesis, in my uncle Toby's amours

But softlyfor in these sportive plains, and under this genial sun, where at this instant all flesh is running

out piping, fiddling, and dancing to the vintage, and every step that's taken, the judgment is surprised by the

imagination, I defy, notwithstanding all that has been said upon straight lines (Vid. Vol. III.) in sundry pages

of my bookI defy the best cabbage planter that ever existed, whether he plants backwards or forwards, it

makes little difference in the account (except that he will have more to answer for in the one case than in the

other)I defy him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically, planting his cabbages one by one, in straight

lines, and stoical distances, especially if slits in petticoats are unsew'd upwithout ever and anon straddling

out, or sidling into some bastardly digressionIn Freezeland, Fogland, and some other lands I wot ofit

But in this clear climate of fantasy and perspiration, where every idea, sensible and insensible, gets ventin

this land, my dear Eugeniusin this fertile land of chivalry and romance, where I now sit, unskrewing my

ink horn to write my uncle Toby's amours, and with all the meanders of Julia's track in quest of her Diego,

But now I am talking of beginning a book, and have long had a thing upon my mind to be imparted to the

reader, which, if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the Comparison

may be imparted to him any hour in the day)I'll just mention it, and begin in good earnest.

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am

confident my own way of doing it is the bestI'm sure it is the most religiousfor I begin with writing the

'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his streetdoor, and calling in his neighbours

and friends, and kinsfolk, with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, only to observe

I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look

I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man.

Pope and his Portrait (Vid. Pope's Portrait.) are fools to meno martyr is ever so full of faith or fireI wish

And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same namethe errantest Tartuffe, in sciencein

politicsor in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind

Bon jour!good morrow!so you have got your cloak on betimes!but 'tis a cold morning, and you

judge the matter rightly'tis better to be well mounted, than go o' footand obstructions in the glands are

dangerousAnd how goes it with thy concubinethy wife,and thy little ones o' both sides? and when did

you hear from the old gentleman and ladyyour sister, aunt, uncle, and cousinsI hope they have got better

of their colds, coughs, claps, toothaches, fevers, stranguries, sciaticas, swellings, and sore eyes.

calomel? santa Maria! and such a dose of opium! peri clitating, pardi! the whole family of ye, from head to

tailBy my great aunt Dinah's old black velvet mask! I think there is no occasion for it.

Now this being a little bald about the chin, by frequently putting off and on, before she was got with child by

the coachmannot one of our family would wear it after. To cover the Mask afresh, was more than the mask

was worthand to wear a mask which was bald, or which could be half seen through, was as bad as having

This is the reason, may it please your reverences, that in all our numerous family, for these four generations,

we count no more than one archbishop, a Welch judge, some three or four aldermen, and a single

'It is with Love as with Cuckoldom'the suffering party is at least the third, but generally the last in the

house who knows any thing about the matter: this comes, as all the world knows, from having half a dozen

words for one thing; and so long, as what in this vessel of the human frame, is Lovemay be Hatred, in

thatSentiment half a yard higherand Nonsense no, Madam,not thereI mean at the part I am now

Of all mortal, and immortal men too, if you please, who ever soliloquized upon this mystic subject, my uncle

Toby was the worst fitted, to have push'd his researches, thro' such a contention of feelings; and he had

infallibly let them all run on, as we do worse matters, to see what they would turn outhad not Bridget's

prenotification of them to Susannah, and Susannah's repeated manifestoes thereupon to all the world, made

Why weavers, gardeners, and gladiatorsor a man with a pined leg (proceeding from some ailment in the

foot)should ever have had some tender nymph breaking her heart in secret for them, are points well and

A waterdrinker, provided he is a profess'd one, and does it without fraud or covin, is precisely in the same

predicament: not that, at first sight, there is any consequence, or show of logic in it, 'That a rill of cold water

The proposition does not strike one; on the contrary, it seems to run opposite to the natural workings of

Impetuous fluid! the moment thou pressest against the floodgates of the brainsee how they give

In swims Curiosity, beckoning to her damsels to followthey dive into the center of the current

Fancy sits musing upon the bank, and with her eyes following the stream, turns straws and bulrushes into

masts and bowspritsAnd Desire, with vest held up to the knee in one hand, snatches at them, as they

O ye water drinkers! is it then by this delusive fountain, that ye have so often governed and turn'd this world

about like a millwheelgrinding the faces of the impotentbepowdering their ribsbepeppering their

If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, EugeniusAnd, if I was you, Yorick, replied

For my own part, I am resolved never to read any book but my own, as long as I live.

I wish my uncle Toby had been a waterdrinker; for then the thing had been accounted for, That the first

Something perhaps more than friendshipless than lovesomethingno matter whatno matter

whereI would not give a single hair off my mule's tail, and be obliged to pluck it off myself (indeed the

villain has not many to spare, and is not a little vicious into the bargain), to be let by your worships into the

But the truth is, my uncle Toby was not a waterdrinker; he drank it neither pure nor mix'd, or any how, or

any where, except fortuitously upon some advanced posts, where better liquor was not to be hador during

the time he was under cure; when the surgeon telling him it would extend the fibres, and bring them sooner

Now as all the world knows, that no effect in nature can be produced without a cause, and as it is as well

known, that my uncle Toby was neither a weavera gardener, or a gladiatorunless as a captain, you will

needs have him onebut then he was only a captain of footand besides, the whole is an

equivocationThere is nothing left for us to suppose, but that my uncle Toby's legbut that will avail us

little in the present hypothesis, unless it had proceeded from some ailment in the footwhereas his leg was

not emaciated from any disorder in his footfor my uncle Toby's leg was not emaciated at all. It was a little

stiff and awkward, from a total disuse of it, for the three years he lay confined at my father's house in town;

but it was plump and muscular, and in all other respects as good and promising a leg as the other.

I declare, I do not recollect any one opinion or passage of my life, where my understanding was more at a

loss to make ends meet, and torture the chapter I had been writing, to the service of the chapter following it,

than in the present case: one would think I took a pleasure in running into difficulties of this kind, merely to

make fresh experiments of getting out of 'emInconsiderate soul that thou art! What! are not the

unavoidable distresses with which, as an author and a man, thou art hemm'd in on every side of theeare

Is it not enough that thou art in debt, and that thou hast ten cartloads of thy fifth and sixth volumes

(Alluding to the first edition.) still still unsold, and art almost at thy wit's ends, how to get them off thy

To this hour art thou not tormented with the vile asthma that thou gattest in skating against the wind in

Flanders? and is it but two months ago, that in a fit of laughter, on seeing a cardinal make water like a

quirister (with both hands) thou brakest a vessel in thy lungs, whereby, in two hours, thou lost as many quarts

of blood; and hadst thou lost as much more, did not the faculty tell theeit would have amounted to a

But for heaven's sake, let us not talk of quarts or gallonslet us take the story straight before us; it is so

nice and intricate a one, it will scarce bear the transposition of a single tittle; and, somehow or other, you

My uncle Toby and the corporal had posted down with so much heat and precipitation, to take possession of

the spot of ground we have so often spoke of, in order to open their campaign as early as the rest of the allies;

that they had forgot one of the most necessary articles of the whole affair, it was neither a pioneer's spade, a

It was a bed to lie on: so that as ShandyHall was at that time unfurnished; and the little inn where poor Le

Fever died, not yet built; my uncle Toby was constrained to accept of a bed at Mrs. Wadman's, for a night or

two, till corporal Trim (who to the character of an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon, and

engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too), with the help of a carpenter and a couple of

A daughter of Eve, for such was widow Wadman, and 'tis all the character I intend to give of her

'That she was a perfect woman' had better be fifty leagues offor in her warm bedor playing with a

caseknifeor any thing you pleasethan make a man the object of her attention, when the house and all

There is nothing in it out of doors and in broad daylight, where a woman has a power, physically speaking,

of viewing a man in more lights than one but here, for her soul, she can see him in no light without mixing

something of her own goods and chattels along with himtill by reiterated acts of such combination, he gets

But this is not matter of System; for I have delivered that abovenor is it matter of Breviaryfor I make no

man's creed but my ownnor matter of Factat least that I know of; but 'tis matter copulative and

I do not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of themor the strength of their gussetsbut

pray do not nightshifts differ from dayshifts as much in this particular, as in any thing else in the world;

that they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are laid down in them, they fall almost as much

Widow Wadman's nightshifts (as was the mode I suppose in King William's and Queen Anne's reigns) were

cut however after this fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing)so much

the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length, so that allowing a moderate woman

Now from one little indulgence gained after another, in the many bleak and decemberley nights of a seven

years widowhood, things had insensibly come to this pass, and for the two last years had got establish'd into

one of the ordinances of the bedchamberThat as soon as Mrs. Wadman was put to bed, and had got her

legs stretched down to the bottom of it, of which she always gave Bridget noticeBridget, with all suitable

decorum, having first open'd the bedclothes at the feet, took hold of the halfell of cloth we are speaking of,

and having gently, and with both her hands, drawn it downwards to its furthest extension, and then contracted

it again side long by four or five even plaits, she took a large corkingpin out of her sleeve, and with the

point directed towards her, pinn'd the plaits all fast together a little above the hem; which done, she tuck'd all

This was constant, and without any other variation than this; that on shivering and tempestuous nights, when

Bridget untuck'd the feet of the bed, to do thisshe consulted no thermometer but that of her own passions;

and so performed it standingkneelingor squatting, according to the different degrees of faith, hope, and

charity, she was in, and bore towards her mistress that night. In every other respect, the etiquette was sacred,

and might have vied with the most mechanical one of the most inflexible bedchamber in Christendom.

The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle Toby up stairs, which was about tenMrs.

Wadman threw herself into her armchair, and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a

restingplace for her elbow, she reclin'd her cheek upon the palm of her hand, and leaning forwards,

The second night she went to her bureau, and having ordered Bridget to bring her up a couple of fresh candles

and leave them upon the table, she took out her marriagesettlement, and read it over with great devotion:

and the third night (which was the last of my uncle Toby's stay) when Bridget had pull'd down the

With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most natural kick that could be kick'd in her

situationfor supposing ......... to be the sun in its meridian, it was a northeast kickshe kick'd the pin out

of her fingersthe etiquette which hung upon it, downdown it fell to the ground, and was shiver'd into a

My uncle Toby's head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk,

when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return this.

This made an armistice (that is, speaking with regard to my uncle Tobybut with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a

vacancy)of almost eleven years. But in all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, happen at what

distance of time it will, which makes the frayI chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle

Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.

It is not like the affair of an old hat cock'dand a cock'd old hat, about which your reverences have so often

been at odds with one anotherbut there is a difference here in the nature of things

Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Tobyand my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there

was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Tobyor let it alone.

Gracious heaven!but I forget I am a little of her temper myself; for whenever it so falls out, which it

sometimes does about the equinoxes, that an earthly goddess is so much this, and that, and t'other, that I

cannot eat my breakfast for herand that she careth not three halfpence whether I eat my breakfast or no

Curse on her! and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuogo, and so on to the devil: in

short, there is not an infernal nitch where I do not take her divinityship and stick it.

But as the heart is tender, and the passions in these tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring

her back again; and as I do all things in extremes, I place her in the very center of the milkyway

The duce take her and her influence toofor at that word I lose all patiencemuch good may it do

him!By all that is hirsute and gashly! I cry, taking off my furr'd cap, and twisting it round my fingerI

But 'tis an excellent cap too (putting it upon my head, and pressing it close to my ears)and warmand

soft; especially if you stroke it the right waybut alas! that will never be my luck(so here my philosophy

Crust and Crumb Inside and out Top and bottomI detest it, I hate it, I repudiate itI'm sick at the sight of

'Tis all pepper, garlick, staragen, salt, and devil's dungby the great archcooks of cooks, who does nothing,

I think, from morning to night, but sit down by the fireside and invent inflammatory dishes for us, I would

Which shews, let your reverences and worships say what you will of it (for as for thinkingall who do

thinkthink pretty much alike both upon it and other matters)Love is certainly, at least alphabetically

though by the bye the R should have gone firstBut in short 'tis of such a nature, as my father once told

my uncle Toby upon the close of a long dissertation upon the subject'You can scarce,' said he, 'combine

two ideas together upon it, brother Toby, without an hypallage' What's that? cried my uncle Toby.

She stood however ready harnessed and caparisoned at all points, to watch accidents.

The Fates, who certainly all foreknew of these amours of widow Wadman and my uncle Toby, had, from

the first creation of matter and motion (and with more courtesy than they usually do things of this kind),

established such a chain of causes and effects hanging so fast to one another, that it was scarce possible for

my uncle Toby to have dwelt in any other house in the world, or to have occupied any other garden in

Christendom, but the very house and garden which join'd and laid parallel to Mrs. Wadman's; this, with the

advantage of a thickset arbour in Mrs. Wadman's garden, but planted in the hedgerow of my uncle Toby's,

put all the occasions into her hands which Lovemilitancy wanted; she could observe my uncle Toby's

motions, and was mistress likewise of his councils of war; and as his unsuspecting heart had given leave to

the corporal, through the mediation of Bridget, to make her a wickergate of communication to enlarge her

walks, it enabled her to carry on her approaches to the very door of the sentrybox; and sometimes out of

gratitude, to make an attack, and endeavour to blow my uncle Toby up in the very sentrybox itself.

It is a great pitybut 'tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a

candle, at either endprovided there is a sufficient wick standing out; if there is notthere's an end of the

affair; and if there isby lighting it at the bottom, as the flame in that case has the misfortune generally to

For my part, could I always have the ordering of it which way I would be burnt myselffor I cannot bear the

thoughts of being burnt like a beastI would oblige a housewife constantly to light me at the top; for then I

should burn down decently to the socket; that is, from my head to my heart, from my heart to my liver, from

my liver to my bowels, and so on by the meseraick veins and arteries, through all the turns and lateral

I beseech you, doctor Slop, quoth my uncle Toby, interrupting him as he mentioned the blind gut, in a

discourse with my father the night my mother was brought to bed of meI beseech you, quoth my uncle

Toby, to tell me which is the blind gut; for, old as I am, I vow I do not know to this day where it lies.

And so to make sure of both systems, Mrs. Wadman predetermined to light my uncle Toby neither at this

end or that; but, like a prodigal's candle, to light him, if possible, at both ends at once.

Now, through all the lumber rooms of military furniture, including both of horse and foot, from the great

arsenal of Venice to the Tower of London (exclusive), if Mrs. Wadman had been rummaging for seven years

together, and with Bridget to help her, she could not have found any one blind or mantelet so fit for her

purpose, as that which the expediency of my uncle Toby's affairs had fix'd up ready to her hands.

I believe I have not told youbut I don't knowpossibly I havebe it as it will, 'tis one of the number of

those many things, which a man had better do over again, than dispute about itThat whatever town or

fortress the corporal was at work upon, during the course of their campaign, my uncle Toby always took care,

on the inside of his sentrybox, which was towards his left hand, to have a plan of the place, fasten'd up with

two or three pins at the top, but loose at the bottom, for the conveniency of holding it up to the eye, . .as

occasions required; so that when an attack was resolved upon, Mrs. Wadman had nothing more to do, when

she had got advanced to the door of the sentrybox, but to extend her right hand; and edging in her left foot at

the same movement, to take hold of the map or plan, or upright, or whatever it was, and with outstretched

neck meeting it half way,to advance it towards her; on which my uncle Toby's passions were sure to catch

firefor he would instantly take hold of the other corner of the map in his left hand, and with the end of his

When the attack was advanced to this point;the world will naturally enter into the reasons of Mrs.

Wadman's next stroke of generalshipwhich was, to take my uncle Toby's tobaccopipe out of his hand as

soon as she possibly could; which, under one pretence or other, but generally that of pointing more distinctly

at some redoubt or breastwork in the map, she would effect before my uncle Toby (poor soul!) had well

The difference it made in the attack was this; That in going upon it, as in the first case, with the end of her

forefinger against the end of my uncle Toby's tobaccopipe, she might have travelled with it, along the

lines, from Dan to Beersheba, had my uncle Toby's lines reach'd so far, without any effect: For as there was

no arterial or vital heat in the end of the tobaccopipe, it could excite no sentimentit could neither give fire

Whereas, in following my uncle Toby's forefinger with hers, close thro' all the little turns and indentings of

his workspressing sometimes against the side of itthen treading upon its nailthen tripping it upthen

This, tho' slight skirmishing, and at a distance from the main body, yet drew on the rest; for here, the map

usually falling with the back of it, close to the side of the sentrybox, my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his

soul, would lay his hand flat upon it, in order to go on with his explanation; and Mrs. Wadman, by a

manoeuvre as quick as thought, would as certainly place her's close beside it; this at once opened a

communication, large enough for any sentiment to pass or repass, which a person skill'd in the elementary

By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby'sit unavoidably brought the thumb into

actionand the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine,

dear uncle Toby! was never now in 'ts right placeMrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest

pushings, protrusions, and equivocal compressions, that a hand to be removed is capable of receivingto get

Whilst this was doing, how could she forget to make him sensible, that it was her leg (and no one's else) at

the bottom of the sentrybox, which slightly press'd against the calf of hisSo that my uncle Toby being

thus attack'd and sore push'd on both his wingswas it a wonder, if now and then, it put his centre into

These attacks of Mrs. Wadman, you will readily conceive to be of different kinds; varying from each other,

like the attacks which history is full of, and from the same reasons. A general lookeron would scarce allow

them to be attacks at allor if he did, would confound them all togetherbut I write not to them: it will be

time enough to be a little more exact in my descriptions of them, as I come up to them, which will not be for

some chapters; having nothing more to add in this, but that in a bundle of original papers and drawings which

my father took care to roll up by themselves, there is a plan of Bouchain in perfect preservation (and shall be

kept so, whilst I have power to preserve any thing), upon the lower corner of which, on the right hand side,

there is still remaining the marks of a snuffy finger and thumb, which there is all the reason in the world to

imagine, were Mrs. Wadman's; for the opposite side of the margin, which I suppose to have been my uncle

Toby's, is absolutely clean: This seems an authenticated record of one of these attacks; for there are vestigia

of the two punctures partly grown up, but still visible on the opposite corner of the map, which are

unquestionably the very holes, through which it has been pricked up in the sentrybox

By all that is priestly! I value this precious relick, with its stigmata and pricks, more than all the relicks of the

Romish churchalways excepting, when I am writing upon these matters, the pricks which entered the flesh

of St. Radagunda in the desert, which in your road from Fesse to Cluny, the nuns of that name will shew you

I think, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, the fortifications are quite destroyedand the bason is upon a

level with the moleI think so too; replied my uncle Toby with a sigh half suppress'dbut step into the

It has lain there these six weeks, replied the corporal, till this very morning that the old woman kindled the

Then, said my uncle Toby, there is no further occasion for our services. The more, an' please your honour,

the pity, said the corporal; in uttering which he cast his spade into the wheelbarrow, which was beside him,

with an air the most expressive of disconsolation that can be imagined, and was heavily turning about to look

for his pickax, his pioneer's shovel, his picquets, and other little military stores, in order to carry them off the

fieldwhen a heighho! from the sentrybox, which being made of thin slit deal, reverberated the sound

No; said the corporal to himself, I'll do it before his honour rises to morrow morning; so taking his spade

out of the wheelbarrow again, with a little earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of the glacisbut

with a real intent to approach nearer to his master, in order to divert himhe loosen'd a sod or twopared

their edges with his spade, and having given them a gentle blow or two with the back of it, he sat himself

It was a thousand pitiesthough I believe, an' please your honour, I am going to say but a foolish kind of a

A soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the corporal, is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing,

Trim, than a man of lettersBut not so often, an' please your honour, replied the corporalmy uncle Toby

It was a thousand pities then, said the corporal, casting his eye upon Dunkirk, and the mole, as Servius

Sulpicius, in returning out of Asia (when he sailed from Aegina towards Megara), did upon Corinth and

'It was a thousand pities, an' please your honour, to destroy these worksand a thousand pities to have let

Thou art right, Trim, in both cases; said my uncle Toby.This, continued the corporal, is the reason, that

from the beginning of their demolition to the endI have never once whistled, or sung, or laugh'd, or cry'd,

Thou hast many excellencies, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and I hold it not the least of them, as thou

happenest to be a storyteller, that of the number thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful hours,

Because, an' please your honour, except one of a King of Bohemia and his seven castles,they are all

I do not like the subject the worse, Trim, said my uncle Toby, on that score: But prithee what is this story?

I'll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal, directlyProvided, said my uncle Toby, looking earnestly towards

Dunkirk and the mole againprovided it is not a merry one; to such, Trim, a man should ever bring one half

of the entertainment along with him; and the disposition I am in at present would wrong both thee, Trim, and

thy storyIt is not a merry one by any means, replied the corporalNor would I have it altogether a grave

one, added my uncle TobyIt is neither the one nor the other, replied the corporal, but will suit your honour

exactlyThen I'll thank thee for it with all my heart, cried my uncle Toby; so prithee begin it, Trim.

The corporal made his reverence; and though it is not so easy a matter as the world imagines, to pull off a

lank Monterocap with graceor a whit less difficult, in my conceptions, when a man is sitting squat upon

the ground, to make a bow so teeming with respect as the corporal was wont; yet by suffering the palm of his

right hand, which was towards his master, to slip backwards upon the grass, a little beyond his body, in order

to allow it the greater sweepand by an unforced compression, at the same time, of his cap with the thumb

and the two forefingers of his left, by which the diameter of the cap became reduced, so that it might be said,

rather to be insensibly squeez'dthan pull'd off with a flatusthe corporal acquitted himself of both in a

better manner than the posture of his affairs promised; and having hemmed twice, to find in what key his

story would best go, and best suit his master's humour,he exchanged a single look of kindness with him,

As the corporal was entering the confines of Bohemia, my uncle Toby obliged him to halt for a single

moment; he had set out bareheaded, having, since he pull'd off his Monterocap in the latter end of the last

The eye of Goodness espieth all thingsso that before the corporal had well got through the first five

words of his story, had my uncle Toby twice touch'd his Monterocap with the end of his cane,

interrogativelyas much as to say, Why don't you put it on, Trim? Trim took it up with the most respectful

slowness, and casting a glance of humiliation as he did it, upon the embroidery of the forepart, which being

dismally tarnish'd and fray'd moreover in some of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, he

lay'd it down again between his two feet, in order to moralize upon the subject.

'Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle Toby, that thou art about to observe

But when tokens, dear Tom, of thy love and remembrance wear out, said Trim, what shall we say?

There is no occasion, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, to say any thing else; and was a man to puzzle his brains

The corporal, perceiving my uncle Toby was in the right, and that it would be in vain for the wit of man to

think of extracting a purer moral from his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and passing his hand

across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, which the text and the doctrine between them had

engender'd, he return'd, with the same look and tone of voice, to his story of the king of Bohemia and his

There was a certain king of Bohemia, but in whose reign, except his own, I am not able to inform your

It was a little before the time, an' please your honour, when giants were beginning to leave off

'Tis thy own, Trim, so ornament it after thy own fashion; and take any date, continued my uncle Toby,

looking pleasantly upon himtake any date in the whole world thou chusest, and put it tothou art heartily

The corporal bowed; for of every century, and of every year of that century, from the first creation of the

world down to Noah's flood; and from Noah's flood to the birth of Abraham; through all the pilgrimages of

the patriarchs, to the departure of the Israelites out of Egyptand throughout all the Dynasties, Olympiads,

Urbeconditas, and other memorable epochas of the different nations of the world, down to the coming of

Christ, and from thence to the very moment in which the corporal was telling his storyhad my uncle Toby

subjected this vast empire of time and all its abysses at his feet; but as Modesty scarce touches with a finger

what Liberality offers her with both hands openthe corporal contented himself with the very worst year of

the whole bunch; which, to prevent your honours of the Majority and Minority from tearing the very flesh off

your bones in contestation, 'Whether that year is not always the last castyear of the last castalmanack'I

It was the year next himwhich being the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and twelve, when the Duke

of Ormond was playing the devil in Flandersthe corporal took it, and set out with it afresh on his

In the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve, there was, an' please your honour

To tell thee truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, any other date would have pleased me much better, not only

on account of the sad stain upon our history that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to cover the

siege of Quesnoi, though Fagel was carrying on the works with such incredible vigourbut likewise on the

score, Trim, of thy own story; because if there areand which, from what thou hast dropt, I partly suspect to

'Tis as bad as twenty, replied my uncle Tobythou should'st have carried him back some seven or eight

hundred years out of harm's way, both of critics and other people: and therefore I would advise thee, if ever

If I live, an' please your honour, but once to get through it, I will never tell it again, quoth Trim, either to

man, woman, or childPoopoo! said my uncle Tobybut with accents of such sweet encouragement did

he utter it, that the corporal went on with his story with more alacrity than ever.

There was, an' please your honour, said the corporal, raising his voice and rubbing the palms of his two hands

Leave out the date entirely, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaning forwards, and laying his hand gently upon

the corporal's shoulder to temper the interruptionleave it out entirely, Trim; a story passes very well

without these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of 'emSure of 'em! said the corporal, shaking his head

Right; answered my uncle Toby, it is not easy, Trim, for one, bred up as thou and I have been to arms, who

seldom looks further forward than to the end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, to know

much about this matterGod bless your honour! said the corporal, won by the manner of my uncle Toby's

reasoning, as much as by the reasoning itself, he has something else to do; if not on action, or a march, or

upon duty in his garrisonhe has his firelock, an' please your honour, to furbishhis accoutrements to take

care ofhis regimentals to mendhimself to shave and keep clean, so as to appear always like what he is

upon the parade; what business, added the corporal triumphantly, has a soldier, an' please your honour, to

Thou would'st have said chronology, Trim, said my uncle Toby; for as for geography, 'tis of absolute use

to him; he must be acquainted intimately with every country and its boundaries where his profession carries

him; he should know every town and city, and village and hamlet, with the canals, the roads, and hollow

ways which lead up to them; there is not a river or a rivulet he passes, Trim, but he should be able at first

sight to tell thee what is its namein what mountains it takes its risewhat is its course how far it is

navigablewhere fordablewhere not; he should know the fertility of every valley, as well as the hind who

ploughs it; and be able to describe, or, if it is required, to give thee an exact map of all the plains and defiles,

the forts, the acclivities, the woods and morasses, thro' and by which his army is to march; he should know

their produce, their plants, their minerals, their waters, their animals, their seasons, their climates, their heats

and cold, their inhabitants, their customs, their language, their policy, and even their religion.

Is it else to be conceived, corporal, continued my uncle Toby, rising up in his sentrybox, as he began to

warm in this part of his discoursehow Marlborough could have marched his army from the banks of the

Maes to Belburg; from Belburg to Kerpenord(here the corporal could sit no longer) from Kerpenord, Trim,

to Kalsaken; from Kalsaken to Newdorf; from Newdorf to Landenbourg; from Landenbourg to Mildenheim;

from Mildenheim to Elchingen; from Elchingen to Gingen; from Gingen to Balmerchoffen; from

Balmerchoffen to Skellenburg, where he broke in upon the enemy's works; forced his passage over the

Danube; cross'd the Lechpush'd on his troops into the heart of the empire, marching at the head of them

through Fribourg, Hokenwert, and Schonevelt, to the plains of Blenheim and Hochstet?Great as he was,

corporal, he could not have advanced a step, or made one single day's march without the aids of

Geography.As for Chronology, I own, Trim, continued my uncle Toby, sitting down again coolly in his

sentrybox, that of all others, it seems a science which the soldier might best spare, was it not for the lights

which that science must one day give him, in determining the invention of powder; the furious execution of

which, renversing every thing like thunder before it, has become a new aera to us of military improvements,

changing so totally the nature of attacks and defences both by sea and land, and awakening so much art and

skill in doing it, that the world cannot be too exact in ascertaining the precise time of its discovery, or too

inquisitive in knowing what great man was the discoverer, and what occasions gave birth to it.

I am far from controverting, continued my uncle Toby, what historians agree in, that in the year of our Lord

1380, under the reign of Wencelaus, son of Charles the Fourtha certain priest, whose name was Schwartz,

shew'd the use of powder to the Venetians, in their wars against the Genoese; but 'tis certain he was not the

first; because if we are to believe Don Pedro, the bishop of LeonHow came priests and bishops, an' please

your honour, to trouble their heads so much about gunpowder? God knows, said my uncle Tobyhis

providence brings good out of every thingand he avers, in his chronicle of King Alphonsus, who reduced

Toledo, That in the year 1343, which was full thirtyseven years before that time, the secret of powder was

well known, and employed with success, both by Moors and Christians, not only in their seacombats, at that

period, but in many of their most memorable sieges in Spain and BarbaryAnd all the world knows, that

Friar Bacon had wrote expressly about it, and had generously given the world a receipt to make it by, above a

hundred and fifty years before even Schwartz was bornAnd that the Chinese, added my uncle Toby,

embarrass us, and all accounts of it, still more, by boasting of the invention some hundreds of years even

They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle Toby, in this matter, as is plain to me from the present

miserable state of military architecture amongst them; which consists of nothing more than a fosse with a

brick wall without flanksand for what they gave us as a bastion at each angle of it, 'tis so barbarously

constructed, that it looks for all the worldLike one of my seven castles, an' please your honour, quoth

My uncle Toby, tho' in the utmost distress for a comparison, most courteously refused Trim's offertill Trim

telling him, he had half a dozen more in Bohemia, which he knew not how to get off his handsmy uncle

Toby was so touch'd with the pleasantry of heart of the corporalthat he discontinued his dissertation upon

gunpowderand begged the corporal forthwith to go on with his story of the King of Bohemia and his

This unfortunate King of Bohemia, said Trim,Was he unfortunate, then? cried my uncle Toby, for he had

been so wrapt up in his dissertation upon gunpowder, and other military affairs, that tho' he had desired the

corporal to go on, yet the many interruptions he had given, dwelt not so strong upon his fancy as to account

for the epithetWas he unfortunate, then, Trim? said my uncle Toby, patheticallyThe corporal, wishing

first the word and all its synonimas at the devil, forthwith began to run back in his mind, the principal events

in the King of Bohemia's story; from every one of which, it appearing that he was the most fortunate man that

ever existed in the worldit put the corporal to a stand: for not caring to retract his epithetand less to

explain itand least of all, to twist his tale (like men of lore) to serve a systemhe looked up in my uncle

Toby's face for assistancebut seeing it was the very thing my uncle Toby sat in expectation of

The King of Bohemia, an' please your honour, replied the corporal, was unfortunate, as thusThat taking

great pleasure and delight in navigation and all sort of sea affairsand there happening throughout the whole

How the duce should thereTrim? cried my uncle Toby; for Bohemia being totally inland, it could have

My uncle Toby never spoke of the being and natural attributes of God, but with diffidence and hesitation

I believe not, replied my uncle Toby, after some pausefor being inland, as I said, and having Silesia and

Moravia to the east; Lusatia and Upper Saxony to the north; Franconia to the west; and Bavaria to the south;

Bohemia could not have been propell'd to the sea without ceasing to be Bohemianor could the sea, on the

other hand, have come up to Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions

of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against itScandalous! cried TrimWhich would

bespeak, added my uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of compassion in him who is the father of itthat, I

Now the King of Bohemia with his queen and courtiers happening one fine summer's evening to walk

outAye! there the word happening is right, Trim, cried my uncle Toby; for the King of Bohemia and his

queen might have walk'd out or let it alone:'twas a matter of contingency, which might happen, or not, just

King William was of an opinion, an' please your honour, quoth Trim, that every thing was predestined for us

in this world; insomuch, that he would often say to his soldiers, that 'every ball had its billet.' He was a great

man, said my uncle TobyAnd I believe, continued Trim, to this day, that the shot which disabled me at the

battle of Landen, was pointed at my knee for no other purpose, but to take me out of his service, and place me

in your honour's, where I should be taken so much better care of in my old ageIt shall never, Trim, be

The heart, both of the master and the man, were alike subject to sudden overflowings;a short silence

Besides, said the corporal, resuming the discoursebut in a gayer accent if it had not been for that single

Souse! replied the corporalover head and ears! an' please your honour. Prithee when? where?and how

came it to pass?I never heard one word of it before; quoth my uncle Toby:I dare say, answered Trim,

that every drummer and serjeant's son in the regiment knew of itIt's high time I shouldsaid my uncle

Your honour remembers with concern, said the corporal, the total rout and confusion of our camp and army at

the affair of Landen; every one was left to shift for himself; and if it had not been for the regiments of

Wyndham, Lumley, and Galway, which covered the retreat over the bridge Neerspeeken, the king himself

could scarce have gained ithe was press'd hard, as your honour knows, on every side of him

Gallant mortal! cried my uncle Toby, caught up with enthusiasmthis moment, now that all is lost, I see him

galloping across me, corporal, to the left, to bring up the remains of the English horse along with him to

support the right, and tear the laurel from Luxembourg's brows, if yet 'tis possibleI see him with the knot

of his scarfe just shot off, infusing fresh spirits into poor Galway's regimentriding along the linethen

wheeling about, and charging Conti at the head of itBrave, brave, by heaven! cried my uncle Tobyhe

My uncle Toby knew the corporal's loyalty;otherwise the comparison was not at all to his mindit did not

altogether strike the corporal's fancy when he had made itbut it could not be recall'dso he had nothing to

As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no one had time to think of any thing but his own

safetyThough Talmash, said my uncle Toby, brought off the foot with great prudenceBut I was left

upon the field, said the corporal. Thou wast so; poor fellow! replied my uncle TobySo that it was noon the

next day, continued the corporal, before I was exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or fourteen more,

There is no part of the body, an' please your honour, where a wound occasions more intolerable anguish than

Except the groin; said my uncle Toby. An' please your honour, replied the corporal, the knee, in my opinion,

must certainly be the most acute, there being so many tendons and whatd'yecall'ems all about it.

It is for that reason, quoth my uncle Toby, that the groin is infinitely more sensiblethere being not only as

many tendons and whatd'yecall'ems (for I know their names as little as thou dost)about itbut

Mrs. Wadman, who had been all the time in her arbourinstantly stopp'd her breathunpinn'd her mob at

The dispute was maintained with amicable and equal force betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim for some time;

till Trim at length recollecting that he had often cried at his master's sufferings, but never shed a tear at his

own was for giving up the point, which my uncle Toby would not allow'Tis a proof of nothing, Trim,

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (caeteris paribus) is greater than the pain of a wound in the

Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of a wound in the groinare points

The anguish of my knee, continued the corporal, was excessive in itself; and the uneasiness of the cart, with

the roughness of the roads, which were terribly cut upmaking bad still worseevery step was death to me:

so that with the loss of blood, and the want of caretaking of me, and a fever I felt coming on besides(Poor

soul! said my uncle Toby)all together, an' please your honour, was more than I could sustain.

I was telling my sufferings to a young woman at a peasant's house, where our cart, which was the last of the

line, had halted; they had help'd me in, and the young woman had taken a cordial out of her pocket and

dropp'd it upon some sugar, and seeing it had cheer'd me, she had given it me a second and a third timeSo I

was telling her, an' please your honour, the anguish I was in, and was saying it was so intolerable to me, that I

had much rather lie down upon the bed, turning my face towards one which was in the corner of the

roomand die, than go onwhen, upon her attempting to lead me to it, I fainted away in her arms. She was

'Tis the most serious thing, an' please your honour (sometimes), that is in the world.

By the persuasion of the young woman, continued the corporal, the cart with the wounded men set off

without me: she had assured them I should expire immediately if I was put into the cart. So when I came to

myselfI found myself in a still quiet cottage, with no one but the young woman, and the peasant and his

wife. I was laid across the bed in the corner of the room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the young

woman beside me, holding the corner of her handkerchief dipp'd in vinegar to my nose with one hand, and

I took her at first for the daughter of the peasant (for it was no inn)so had offer'd her a little purse with

eighteen florins, which my poor brother Tom (here Trim wip'd his eyes) had sent me as a token, by a recruit,

I never told your honour that piteous story yethere Trim wiped his eyes a third time.

The young woman call'd the old man and his wife into the room, to shew them the money, in order to gain me

credit for a bed and what little necessaries I should want, till I should be in a condition to be got to the

hospital Come then! said she, tying up the little purseI'll be your bankerbut as that office alone will

I thought by her manner of speaking this, as well as by her dress, which I then began to consider more

She was in black down to her toes, with her hair conceal'd under a cambric border, laid close to her forehead:

she was one of those kind of nuns, an' please your honour, of which, your honour knows, there are a good

many in Flanders, which they let go looseBy thy description, Trim, said my uncle Toby, I dare say she was

a young Beguine, of which there are none to be found any where but in the Spanish Netherlandsexcept at

Amsterdamthey differ from nuns in this, that they can quit their cloister if they choose to marry; they visit

and take care of the sick by professionI had rather, for my own part, they did it out of goodnature.

She often told me, quoth Trim, she did it for the love of ChristI did not like it.I believe, Trim, we are

both wrong, said my uncle Tobywe'll ask Mr. Yorick about it tonight at my brother Shandy'sso put me

The young Beguine, continued the corporal, had scarce given herself time to tell me 'she would be my nurse,'

when she hastily turned about to begin the office of one, and prepare something for meand in a short

timethough I thought it a long oneshe came back with flannels, and having fomented my knee soundly

for a couple of hours, and made me a thin bason of gruel for my suppershe wish'd me rest, and promised to

be with me early in the morning.She wish'd me, an' please your honour, what was not to be had. My fever

ran very high that nighther figure made sad disturbance within meI was every moment cutting the world

in twoto give her half of itand every moment was I crying, That I had nothing but a knapsack and

eighteen florins to share with herThe whole night long was the fair Beguine, like an angel, close by my

bedside, holding back my curtain and offering me cordialsand I was only awakened from my dream by

her coming there at the hour promised, and giving them in reality. In truth, she was scarce ever from me; and

so accustomed was I to receive life from her hands, that my heart sickened, and I lost colour when she left the

room: and yet, continued the corporal (making one of the strangest reflections upon it in the world) 'It

was not love'for during the three weeks she was almost constantly with me, fomenting my knee with her

But 'tis no marvel, continued the corporalseeing my uncle Toby musing upon itfor Love, an' please

your honour, is exactly like war, in this; that a soldier, though he has escaped three weeks complete

o'Saturday night,may nevertheless be shot through his heart on Sunday morningIt happened so here, an'

please your honour, with this difference onlythat it was on Sunday in the afternoon, when I fell in love all

at once with a sisseraraIt burst upon me, an' please your honour, like a bombscarce giving me time to

I had escaped, continued the corporal, all that time from falling in love, and had gone on to the end of the

My wound was then in a fair way of doing wellthe inflammation had been gone off for some time, but it

was succeeded with an itching both above and below my knee, so insufferable, that I had not shut my eyes

Let me see it, said she, kneeling down upon the ground parallel to my knee, and laying her hand upon the part

below itit only wants rubbing a little, said the Beguine; so covering it with the bedclothes, she began with

the forefinger of her right hand to rub under my knee, guiding her forefinger backwards and forwards by

In five or six minutes I felt slightly the end of her second fingerand presently it was laid flat with the other,

and she continued rubbing in that way round and round for a good while; it then came into my head, that I

should fall in loveI blush'd when I saw how white a hand she hadI shall never, an' please your honour,

Though it was the most serious despair in nature to the corporalhe could not forbear smiling.

The young Beguine, continued the corporal, perceiving it was of great service to mefrom rubbing for some

time, with two fingersproceeded to rub at length, with threetill by little and little she brought down the

fourth, and then rubb'd with her whole hand: I will never say another word, an' please your honour, upon

Prithee, Trim, commend it as much as thou wilt, said my uncle Toby; I shall hear thy story with the more

delightThe corporal thank'd his master most unfeignedly; but having nothing to say upon the Beguine's

The fair Beguine, said the corporal, continued rubbing with her whole hand under my kneetill I fear'd her

zeal would weary her'I would do a thousand times more,' said she, 'for the love of Christ'In saying

which, she pass'd her hand across the flannel, to the part above my knee, which I had equally complain'd of,

As she continued rubrubrubbingI felt it spread from under her hand, an' please your honour, to every

The more she rubb'd, and the longer strokes she tookthe more the fire kindled in my veinstill at length,

by two or three strokes longer than the restmy passion rose to the highest pitchI seiz'd her hand

And then thou clapped'st it to thy lips, Trim, said my uncle Tobyand madest a speech.

Whether the corporal's amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle Toby described it, is not material; it

is enough that it contained in it the essence of all the love romances which ever have been wrote since the

As soon as the corporal had finished the story of his amouror rather my uncle Toby for himMrs.

Wadman silently sallied forth from her arbour, replaced the pin in her mob, pass'd the wicker gate, and

advanced slowly towards my uncle Toby's sentrybox: the disposition which Trim had made in my uncle

The attack was determin'd upon: it was facilitated still more by my uncle Toby's having ordered the

corporal to wheel off the pioneer's shovel, the spade, the pickaxe, the picquets, and other military stores

which lay scatter'd upon the ground where Dunkirk stoodThe corporal had march'd the field was clear.

Now, consider, sir, what nonsense it is, either in fighting, or writing, or any thing else (whether in rhyme to it,

or not) which a man has occasion to doto act by plan: for if ever Plan, independent of all circumstances,

deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean in the archives of Gotham) it was certainly the Plan of Mrs.

Wadman's attack of my uncle Toby in his sentrybox, By PlanNow the plan hanging up in it at this

juncture, being the Plan of Dunkirkand the tale of Dunkirk a tale of relaxation, it opposed every

impression she could make: and besides, could she have gone upon itthe manoeuvre of fingers and hands

in the attack of the sentry boxwas so outdone by that of the fair Beguine's, in Trim's storythat just then,

that particular attack, however successful beforebecame the most heartless attack that could be made

O! let woman alone for this. Mrs. Wadman had scarce open'd the wicker gate, when her genius sported with

I am half distracted, captain Shandy, said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambrick handkerchief to her left

eye, as she approach'd the door of my uncle Toby's sentryboxa moteor sandor somethingI know

In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside my uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down

upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an opportunity of doing it without rising upDo look into

Honest soul! thou didst look into it with as much innocency of heart, as ever child look'd into a

If a man will be peeping of his own accord into things of that nature I've nothing to say to it

My uncle Toby never did: and I will answer for him, that he would have sat quietly upon a sofa from June to

January (which, you know, takes in both the hot and cold months), with an eye as fine as the Thracian

Rodope's (Rodope Thracia tam inevitabili fascino instructa, tam exacte oculus intuens attraxit, ut si in illam

quis incidisset, fieri non posset, quin caperetur.I know not who.) besides him, without being able to tell,

I see him yonder with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes falling out of itlookingand

lookingthen rubbing his eyesand looking again, with twice the goodnature that ever Galileo look'd for

In vain! for by all the powers which animate the organWidow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as

lucid as her rightthere is neither mote, or sand, or dust, or chaff, or speck, or particle of opake matter

floating in itThere is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out

If thou lookest, uncle Toby, in search of this mote one moment longer, thou art undone.

An eye is for all the world exactly like a cannon, in this respect; That it is not so much the eye or the cannon,

in themselves, as it is the carriage of the eyeand the carriage of the cannon, by which both the one and the

other are enabled to do so much execution. I don't think the comparison a bad one: However, as 'tis made and

placed at the head of the chapter, as much for use as ornament, all I desire in return, is, that whenever I speak

of Mrs. Wadman's eyes (except once in the next period), that you keep it in your fancy.

It is not in the white; said Mrs Wadman: my uncle Toby look'd with might and main into the pupil

Now of all the eyes which ever were createdfrom your own, Madam, up to those of Venus herself, which

certainly were as venereal a pair of eyes as ever stood in a headthere never was an eye of them all, so fitted

to rob my uncle Toby of his repose, as the very eye, at which he was lookingit was not, Madam a rolling

eyea romping or a wanton onenor was it an eye sparklingpetulant or imperiousof high claims and

terrifying exactions, which would have curdled at once that milk of human nature, of which my uncle Toby

was made upbut 'twas an eye full of gentle salutationsand soft responsesspeakingnot like the

trumpet stop of some illmade organ, in which many an eye I talk to, holds coarse conversebut whispering

soft like the last low accent of an expiring saint'How can you live comfortless, captain Shandy, and

There is nothing shews the character of my father and my uncle Toby, in a more entertaining light, than their

different manner of deportment, under the same accidentfor I call not love a misfortune, from a persuasion,

that a man's heart is ever the better for itGreat God! what must my uncle Toby's have been, when 'twas all

My father, as appears from many of his papers, was very subject to this passion, before he marriedbut from

a little subacid kind of drollish impatience in his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never submit to it

like a christian; but would pish, and huff, and bounce, and kick, and play the Devil, and write the bitterest

Philippicks against the eye that ever man wrotethere is one in verse upon somebody's eye or other, that for

two or three nights together, had put him by his rest; which in his first transport of resentment against it, he

'A Devil 'tisand mischief such doth work As never yet did Pagan, Jew, or Turk.' (This will be printed with

In short, during the whole paroxism, my father was all abuse and foul language, approaching rather towards

maledictiononly he did not do it with as much method as Ernulphushe was too impetuous; nor with

Ernulphus's policyfor tho' my father, with the most intolerant spirit, would curse both this and that, and

every thing under heaven, which was either aiding or abetting to his loveyet never concluded his chapter of

curses upon it, without cursing himself in at the bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and coxcombs,

My uncle Toby, on the contrary, took it like a lambsat still and let the poison work in his veins without

resistancein the sharpest exacerbations of his wound (like that on his groin) he never dropt one fretful or

discontented wordhe blamed neither heaven nor earthor thought or spoke an injurious thing of any

body, or any part of it; he sat solitary and pensive with his pipelooking at his lame legthen whiffing out

In truth he had mistook it at first; for having taken a ride with my father, that very morning, to save if

possible a beautiful wood, which the dean and chapter were hewing down to give to the poor (Mr Shandy

must mean the poor in spirit; inasmuch as they divided the money amongst themselves.); which said wood

being in full view of my uncle Toby's house, and of singular service to him in his description of the battle of

Wynnendaleby trotting on too hastily to save itupon an uneasy saddle worse horse, . .it had so

happened, that the serous part of the blood had got betwixt the two skins, in the nethermost part of my uncle

Tobythe first shootings of which (as my uncle Toby had no experience of love) he had taken for a part of

the passiontill the blister breaking in the one caseand the other remainingmy uncle Toby was

presently convinced, that his wound was not a skindeep woundbut that it had gone to his heart.

The world is ashamed of being virtuousmy uncle Toby knew little of the world; and therefore when he felt

he was in love with widow Wadman, he had no conception that the thing was any more to be made a mystery

of, than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a cut with a gap'd knife across his finger: Had it been otherwiseyet

as he ever look'd upon Trim as a humble friend; and saw fresh reasons every day of his life, to treat him as

suchit would have made no variation in the manner in which he informed him of the affair.

In love!said the corporalyour honour was very well the day before yesterday, when I was telling your

honour of the story of the King of BohemiaBohemia! said my uncle Toby. . .musing a long time. . .What

We lost it, an' please your honour, somehow betwixt usbut your honour was as free from love then, as I

am'twas just whilst thou went'st off with the wheelbarrowwith Mrs. Wadman, quoth my uncle

She can no more, an' please your honour, stand a siege, than she can fly cried the corporal

But as we are neighbours, Trim,the best way I think is to let her know it civilly firstquoth my uncle

Then I would begin, an' please your honour, with making a good thundering attack upon her, in

returnand telling her civilly afterwardsfor if she knows any thing of your honour's being in love, before

handL..d help her!she knows no more at present of it, Trim, said my uncle Tobythan the child

Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its circumstances, to Mrs. Bridget twentyfour hours before; and was at

that very moment sitting in council with her, touching some slight misgivings with regard to the issue of the

affairs, which the Devil, who never lies dead in a ditch, had put into her headbefore he would allow half

I am terribly afraid, said widow Wadman, in case I should marry him, Bridgetthat the poor captain will not

It may not, Madam, be so very large, replied Bridget, as you thinkand I believe, besides, added shethat

We'll know and long and the broad of it, in ten daysanswered Mrs. Bridget, for whilst the captain is

paying his addresses to youI'm confident Mr. Trim will be for making love to meand I'll let him as

The measures were taken at onceand my uncle Toby and the corporal went on with theirs.

Now, quoth the corporal, setting his left hand akimbo, and giving such a flourish with his right, as just

promised successand no moreif your honour will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack

Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, exceedinglyand as I foresee thou must act in it as

my aid de camp, here's a crown, corporal, to begin with, to steep thy commission.

Then, an' please your honour, said the corporal (making a bow first for his commission)we will begin with

getting your honour's laced clothes out of the great campaigntrunk, to be well air'd, and have the blue and

gold taken up at the sleevesand I'll put your white ramalliewig fresh into pipesand send for a taylor, to

I had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle TobyThey will be too clumsysaid the corporal.

Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my sword'Twill be only in your honour's way, replied Trim.

But your honour's two razors shall be new setand I will get my Montero cap furbish'd up, and put on

poor lieutenant Le Fever's regimental coat, which your honour gave me to wear for his sakeand as soon as

your honour is clean shavedand has got your clean shirt on, with your blue and gold, or your fine

scarletsometimes one and sometimes t'otherand every thing is ready for the attackwe'll march up

boldly, as if 'twas to the face of a bastion; and whilst your honour engages Mrs. Wadman in the parlour, to the

rightI'll attack Mrs. Bridget in the kitchen, to the left; and having seiz'd the pass, I'll answer for it, said the

I wish I may but manage it right; said my uncle Tobybut I declare, corporal, I had rather march up to the

If any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was

in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit; who, in

speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religionwould

saytho' with more facetiousness than became an hermit'That they were the means he used, to make his

It pleased my father well; it was not only a laconick way of expressing but of libelling, at the same time,

the desires and appetites of the lower part of us; so that for many years of my father's life, 'twas his constant

mode of expressionhe never used the word passions oncebut ass always instead of themSo that he

might be said truly, to have been upon the bones, or the back of his own ass, or else of some other man's,

I must here observe to you the difference betwixt My father's ass and my hobbyhorsein order to keep

For my hobbyhorse, if you recollect a little, is no way a vicious beast; he has scarce one hair or lineament of

the ass about him'Tis the sporting little fillyfolly which carries you out for the present houra maggot, a

butterfly, a picture, a fiddlestickan uncle Toby's siegeor an any thing, which a man makes a shift to get

astride on, to canter it away from the cares and solicitudes of life'Tis as useful a beast as is in the whole

But for my father's assoh! mount himmount himmount him(that's three times, is it

not?)mount him not:'tis a beast concupiscentand foul befal the man, who does not hinder him from

Well! dear brother Toby, said my father, upon his first seeing him after he fell in loveand how goes it with

Now my uncle Toby thinking more of the part where he had had the blister, than of Hilarion's

metaphorand our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the

shapes of things, he had imagined, that my father, who was not very ceremonious in his choice of words, had

enquired after the part by its proper name: so notwithstanding my mother, doctor Slop, and Mr. Yorick, were

sitting in the parlour, he thought it rather civil to conform to the term my father had made use of than not.

When a man is hemm'd in by two indecorums, and must commit one of 'emI always observelet him

chuse which he will, the world will blame himso I should not be astonished if it blames my uncle Toby.

My A..e, quoth my uncle Toby, is much betterbrother ShandyMy father had formed great expectations

from his Asse in this onset; and would have brought him on again; but doctor Slop setting up an intemperate

laughand my mother crying out L... bless us!it drove my father's Asse off the fieldand the laugh then

Every body, said my mother, says you are in love, brother Toby,and we hope it is true.

I am as much in love, sister, I believe, replied my uncle Toby, as any man usually isHumph! said my

As the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of love,

according to the different parts which are affected by itthe Brain or LiverI think when a man is in love,

What signifies it, brother Shandy, replied my uncle Toby, which of the two it is, provided it will but make a

A few children! cried my father, rising out of his chair, and looking full in my mother's face, as he forced

his way betwixt her's and doctor Slop'sa few children! cried my father, repeating my uncle Toby's words as

Not, my dear brother Toby, cried my father, recovering himself all at once, and coming close up to the

back of my uncle Toby's chairnot that I should be sorry hadst thou a scoreon the contrary, I should

My uncle Toby stole his hand unperceived behind his chair, to give my father's a squeeze

Nay, moreover, continued he, keeping hold of my uncle Toby's handso much dost thou possess, my

dear Toby, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities'tis piteous the world is not peopled by

creatures which resemble thee; and was I an Asiatic monarch, added my father, heating himself with his new

projectI would oblige thee, provided it would not impair thy strengthor dry up thy radical moisture too

fast or weaken thy memory or fancy, brother Toby, which these gymnics inordinately taken are apt to

doelse, dear Toby, I would procure thee the most beautiful woman in my empire, and I would oblige thee,

As my father pronounced the last word of the sentencemy mother took a pinch of snuff.

Now I would not, quoth my uncle Toby, get a child, nolens, volens, that is, whether I would or no, to please

And 'twould be cruel in me, brother Toby, to compel thee; said my father but 'tis a case put to shew

thee, that it is not thy begetting a childin case thou should'st be ablebut the system of Love and

There is at least, said Yorick, a great deal of reason and plain sense in captain Shandy's opinion of love; and

'tis amongst the illspent hours of my life, which I have to answer for, that I have read so many flourishing

I wish, Yorick, said my father, you had read Plato; for there you would have learnt that there are two

LovesI know there were two Religions, replied Yorick, amongst the ancientsonefor the vulgar, and

another for the learned;but I think One Love might have served both of them very well

I could not; replied my fatherand for the same reasons: for of these Loves, according to Ficinus's comment

the other is naturalthe first ancientwithout motherwhere Venus had nothing to do: the second,

Pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, what has a man who believes in God to do with this? My father could

The first, which is the golden chain let down from heaven, excites to love heroic, which comprehends in it,

and excites to the desire of philosophy and truththe second, excites to desire, simply

I think the procreation of children as beneficial to the world, said Yorick, as the finding out the

My father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of a slashing way with him in his disputations, thrusting and

ripping, and giving every one a stroke to remember him by in his turnthat if there were twenty people in

companyin less than half an hour he was sure to have every one of 'em against him.

What did not a little contribute to leave him thus without an ally, was, that if there was any one post more

untenable than the rest, he would be sure to throw himself into it; and to do him justice, when he was once

there, he would defend it so gallantly, that 'twould have been a concern, either to a brave man or a

Yorick, for this reason, though he would often attack himyet could never bear to do it with all his force.

Doctor Slop's Virginity, in the close of the last chapter, had got him for once on the right side of the rampart;

and he was beginning to blow up all the convents in Christendom about Slop's ears, when corporal Trim

came into the parlour to inform my uncle Toby, that his thin scarlet breeches, in which the attack was to be

made upon Mrs. Wadman, would not do; for that the taylor, in ripping them up, in order to turn them, had

found they had been turn'd beforeThen turn them again, brother, said my father, rapidly, for there will be

many a turning of 'em yet before all's done in the affairThey are as rotten as dirt, said the corporalThen

by all means, said my father, bespeak a new pair, brotherfor though I know, continued my father, turning

himself to the company, that widow Wadman has been deeply in love with my brother Toby for many years,

and has used every art and circumvention of woman to outwit him into the same passion, yet now that she has

In this case, continued my father, which Plato, I am persuaded, never thought ofLove, you see, is not so

much a Sentiment as a Situation, into which a man enters, as my brother Toby would do, into a corpsno

matter whether he loves the service or nobeing once in ithe acts as if he did; and takes every step to

The hypothesis, like the rest of my father's, was plausible enough, and my uncle Toby had but a single word

to object to itin which Trim stood ready to second himbut my father had not drawn his conclusion

For this reason, continued my father (stating the case over again) notwithstanding all the world knows, that

Mrs. Wadman affects my brother Tobyand my brother Toby contrariwise affects Mrs. Wadman, and no

obstacle in nature to forbid the music striking up this very night, yet will I answer for it, that this selfsame

We have taken our measures badly, quoth my uncle Toby, looking up interrogatively in Trim's face.

I would lay my Monterocap, said TrimNow Trim's Monterocap, as I once told you, was his constant

wager; and having furbish'd it up that very night, in order to go upon the attackit made the odds look more

considerableI would lay, an' please your honour, my Monterocap to a shillingwas it proper, continued

There is nothing improper in it, said my father'tis a mode of expression; for in saying thou would'st lay

And whence, cried Slop, jeeringly, hast thou all this knowledge of woman, friend?

Doctor Slop was too much in wrath to listen to the distinction; and my father taking that very crisis to fall in

helterskelter upon the whole order of Nuns and Beguines, a set of silly, fusty, baggagesSlop could not

stand itand my uncle Toby having some measures to take about his breechesand Yorick about his fourth

general divisionin order for their several attacks next daythe company broke up: and my father being

left alone, and having half an hour upon his hands betwixt that and bedtime; he called for pen, ink, and

What I am going to say to thee is upon the nature of women, and of love making to them; and perhaps it is

as well for theetho' not so well for methat thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon that head,

Had it been the good pleasure of him who disposes of our lotsand thou no sufferer by the knowledge, I had

been well content that thou should'st have dipp'd the pen this moment into the ink, instead of myself; but that

not being the caseMrs Shandy being now close beside me, preparing for bedI have thrown together

without order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and documents as I deem may be of use

to thee; intending, in this, to give thee a token of my love; not doubting, my dear Toby, of the manner in

In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the affairthough I perceive from a glow in

my cheek, that I blush as I begin to speak to thee upon the subject, as well knowing, notwithstanding thy

unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou neglectestyet I would remind thee of one (during the

continuance of thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted; and that is, never to go

forth upon the enterprize, whether it be in the morning or the afternoon, without first recommending thyself

Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once at least every four or five days, but oftner if convenient; lest in

taking off thy wig before her, thro' absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been cut

'That women are timid:' And 'tis well they areelse there would be no dealing with them.

Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs, like the trunkhose of our ancestors.

Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in a low soft tone of voice. Silence, and

whatever approaches it, weaves dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: For this cause, if thou canst help

Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with her, and do whatever lies in thy power

at the same time, to keep her from all books and writings which tend thereto: there are some devotional tracts,

which if thou canst entice her to read overit will be well: but suffer her not to look into Rabelais, or

They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear Toby, that there is no passion so serious

And if thou art permitted to sit upon the same sopha with her, and she gives thee occasion to lay thy hand

upon hersbeware of taking itthou canst not lay thy hand on hers, but she will feel the temper of thine.

Leave that and as many other things as thou canst, quite undetermined; by so doing, thou wilt have her

curiosity on thy side; and if she is not conquered by that, and thy Asse continues still kicking, which there is

great reason to supposeThou must begin, with first losing a few ounces of blood below the ears, according

to the practice of the ancient Scythians, who cured the most intemperate fits of the appetite by that means.

Avicenna, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup of hellebore, using proper evacuations and

purgesand I believe rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat's flesh, nor red deernor even foal's flesh

by any means; and carefully abstainthat is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, didappers,

As for thy drinkI need not tell thee, it must be the infusion of Vervain and the herb Hanea, of which Aelian

relates such effectsbut if thy stomach palls with itdiscontinue it from time to time, taking cucumbers,

Unless the breaking out of a fresh warSo wishing every thing, dear Toby, for best,

Whilst my father was writing his letter of instructions, my uncle Toby and the corporal were busy in

preparing every thing for the attack. As the turning of the thin scarlet breeches was laid aside (at least for the

present), there was nothing which should put it off beyond the next morning; so accordingly it was resolv'd

Come, my dear, said my father to my mother'twill be but like a brother and sister, if you and I take a walk

My uncle Toby and the corporal had been accoutred both some time, when my father and mother enter'd, and

the clock striking eleven, were that moment in motion to sally forthbut the account of this is worth more

than to be wove into the fag end of the eighth (Alluding to the first edition.) volume of such a work as

this.My father had no time but to put the letter of instructions into my uncle Toby's coatpocketand join

I could like, said my mother, to look through the keyhole out of curiosityCall it by its right name, my

I call all the powers of time and chance, which severally check us in our careers in this world, to bear me

witness, that I could never yet get fairly to my uncle Toby's amours, till this very moment, that my mother's

curiosity, as she stated the affair,or a different impulse in her, as my father would have itwished her to

'Call it, my dear, by its right name, quoth my father, and look through the keyhole as long as you will.'

Nothing but the fermentation of that little subacid humour, which I have often spoken of, in my father's habit,

could have vented such an insinuationhe was however frank and generous in his nature, and at all times

open to conviction; so that he had scarce got to the last word of this ungracious retort, when his conscience

My mother was then conjugally swinging with her left arm twisted under his right, in such wise, that the

inside of her hand rested upon the back of hisshe raised her fingers, and let them fallit could scarce be

call'd a tap; or if it was a tap'twould have puzzled a casuist to say, whether 'twas a tap of remonstrance, or

a tap of confession: my father, who was all sensibilities from head to foot, class'd it rightConscience

redoubled her blowhe turn'd his face suddenly the other way, and my mother supposing his body was

about to turn with it in order to move homewards, by a cross movement of her right leg, keeping her left as its

centre, brought herself so far in front, that as he turned his head, he met her eye Confusion again! he saw a

thousand reasons to wipe out the reproach, and as many to reproach himselfa thin, blue, chill, pellucid

chrystal with all its humours so at rest, the least mote or speck of desire might have been seen, at the bottom

of it, had it existedit did notand how I happen to be so lewd myself, particularly a little before the vernal

and autumnal equinoxesHeaven above knowsMy mothermadamwas so at no time, either by

A temperate current of blood ran orderly through her veins in all months of the year, and in all critical

moments both of the day and night alike; nor did she superinduce the least heat into her humours from the

manual effervescencies of devotional tracts, which having little or no meaning in them, nature is ofttimes

obliged to find oneAnd as for my father's example! 'twas so far from being either aiding or abetting

thereunto, that 'twas the whole business of his life, to keep all fancies of that kind out of her headNature

had done her part, to have spared him this trouble; and what was not a little inconsistent, my father knew

itAnd here am I sitting, this 12th day of August 1766, in a purple jerkin and yellow pair of slippers,

without either wig or cap on, a most tragicomical completion of his prediction, 'That I should neither think,

The mistake in my father, was in attacking my mother's motive, instead of the act itself; for certainly

keyholes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true

proposition, and denied a keyhole to be what it wasit became a violation of nature; and was so far, you

It is for this reason, an' please your Reverences, That keyholes are the occasions of more sin and

Though the corporal had been as good as his word in putting my uncle Toby's great ramalliewig into pipes,

yet the time was too short to produce any great effects from it: it had lain many years squeezed up in the

corner of his old campaign trunk; and as bad forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the use of

candleends not so well understood, it was not so pliable a business as one would have wished. The corporal

with cheary eye and both arms extended, had fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to inspire it, if

possible, with a better airhad Spleen given a look at it, 'twould have cost her ladyship a smileit curl'd

every where but where the corporal would have it; and where a buckle or two, in his opinion, would have

Such it wasor rather such would it have seem'd upon any other brow; but the sweet look of goodness

which sat upon my uncle Toby's, assimilated every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had

moreover wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that even his tarnish'd

goldlaced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him; and though not worth a button in themselves,

yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and altogether seem'd to have been

Nothing in this world could have cooperated more powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby's blue and

goldhad not Quantity in some measure been necessary to Grace: in a period of fifteen or sixteen years

since they had been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life, for he seldom went further than the

bowlinggreenhis blue and gold had become so miserably too straight for him, that it was with the utmost

difficulty the corporal was able to get him into them; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no

advantage.They were laced however down the back, and at the seams of the sides, in the mode of King

William's reign; and to shorten all description, they shone so bright against the sun that morning, and had so

metallick and doughty an air with them, that had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in armour, nothing

As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been unripp'd by the taylor between the legs, and left at sixes and

Yes, Madam,but let us govern our fancies. It is enough they were held impracticable the night before,

and as there was no alternative in my uncle Toby's wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush.

The corporal had array'd himself in poor Le Fever's regimental coat; and with his hair tuck'd up under his

Monterocap, which he had furbish'd up for the occasion, march'd three paces distant from his master: a

whiff of military pride had puff'd out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that in a black leather thong clipp'd into a

tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal's stickmy uncle Toby carried his cane like a pike.

My uncle Toby turn'd his head more than once behind him, to see how he was supported by the corporal; and

the corporal as oft as he did it, gave a slight flourish with his stickbut not vapouringly; and with the

Now my uncle Toby did fear; and grievously too; he knew not (as my father had reproach'd him) so much as

the right end of a Woman from the wrong, and therefore was never altogether at his ease near any one of

themunless in sorrow or distress; then infinite was his pity; nor would the most courteous knight of

romance have gone further, at least upon one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman's eye; and yet

excepting once that he was beguiled into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked stedfastly into one; and

would often tell my father in the simplicity of his heart, that it was almost (if not about) as bad as taking

She cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when they had march'd up to within twenty paces of Mrs.

She will take it, an' please your honour, said the corporal, just as the Jew's widow at Lisbon took it of my

Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of Tom's misfortunes; but this affair has nothing to do with them

any further than this, That if Tom had not married the widowor had it pleased God after their marriage,

that they had but put pork into their sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of his warm bed, and

dragg'd to the inquisition'Tis a cursed placeadded the corporal, shaking his head,when once a poor

'Tis very true; said my uncle Toby, looking gravely at Mrs. Wadman's house, as he spoke.

Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as confinement for lifeor so sweet, an' please your honour,

A thousand of my father's most subtle syllogisms could not have said more for celibacy.

The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but

to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most unecclesiastically did the

As Tom's place, an' please your honour, was easyand the weather warmit put him upon thinking

seriously of settling himself in the world; and as it fell out about that time, that a Jew who kept a sausage

shop in the same street, had the ill luck to die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of a rousing

tradeTom thought (as every body in Lisbon was doing the best he could devise for himself) there could be

no harm in offering her his service to carry it on: so without any introduction to the widow, except that of

buying a pound of sausages at her shopTom set outcounting the matter thus within himself, as he walk'd

along; that let the worst come of it that could, he should at least get a pound of sausages for their worthbut,

if things went well, he should be set up; inasmuch as he should get not only a pound of sausagesbut a wife

Every servant in the family, from high to low, wish'd Tom success; and I can fancy, an' please your honour, I

see him this moment with his white dimity waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little o' one side, passing jollily

along the street, swinging his stick, with a smile and a chearful word for every body he met:But alas! Tom!

thou smilest no more, cried the corporal, looking on one side of him upon the ground, as if he apostrophised

He was an honest, lighthearted lad, an' please your honour, as ever blood warm'd

The corporal blush'd down to his fingers endsa tear of sentimental bashfulnessanother of gratitude to my

uncle Tobyand a tear of sorrow for his brother's misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his

cheek together; my uncle Toby's kindled as one lamp does at another; and taking hold of the breast of Trim's

coat (which had been that of Le Fever's) as if to ease his lame leg, but in reality to gratify a finer feelinghe

stood silent for a minute and a half; at the end of which he took his hand away, and the corporal making a

When Tom, an' please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it, but a poor negro girl, with a

bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away fliesnot killing them.'Tis a

pretty picture! said my uncle Tobyshe had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy

She was good, an' please your honour, from nature, as well as from hardships; and there are circumstances

in the story of that poor friendless slut, that would melt a heart of stone, said Trim; and some dismal winter's

evening, when your honour is in the humour, they shall be told you with the rest of Tom's story, for it makes

I am not much versed, corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not

It would so; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an' please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a

Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her

'Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,which recommends her to protectionand her brethren

with her; 'tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands nowwhere it may be hereafter,

heaven knows! but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly.

The corporal returned to his story, and went onbut with an embarrassment in doing it, which here and there

a reader in this world will not be able to comprehend; for by the many sudden transitions all along, from one

kind and cordial passion to another, in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sportable key of his voice,

which gave sense and spirit to his tale: he attempted twice to resume it, but could not please himself; so

giving a stout hem! to rally back the retreating spirits, and aiding nature at the same time with his left arm a

kimbo on one side, and with his right a little extended, supporting her on the otherthe corporal got as near

As Tom, an' please your honour, had no business at that time with the Moorish girl, he passed on into the

room beyond, to talk to the Jew's widow about loveand this pound of sausages; and being, as I have told

your honour, an open chearyhearted lad, with his character wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a chair,

and without much apology, but with great civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the table, and sat

There is nothing so awkward, as courting a woman, an' please your honour, whilst she is making

sausagesSo Tom began a discourse upon them; first, gravely,'as how they were madewith what

meats, herbs, and spices.' Then a little gayly,as, 'With what skinsand if they never burst Whether

the largest were not the best?'and so ontaking care only as he went along, to season what he had to say

It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim's

shoulder, that Count De la Motte lost the battle of Wynendale: he pressed too speedily into the wood; which

if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed her

example; it was so late in the year, continued my uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if things

had not fallen out as they did, our troops must have perish'd in the open field.

Why, therefore, may not battles, an' please your honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven?my

Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his high idea of military skill tempted him to say another; so not

being able to frame a reply exactly to his mindmy uncle Toby said nothing at all; and the corporal finished

As Tom perceived, an' please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of

sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them,.First, by taking hold of the ring

of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her handthen by cutting the strings into proper

lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by onethen, by putting them across her

mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted themand so on from little to more, till at last he

Now a widow, an' please your honour, always chuses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so

She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage: Tom instantly laid hold of

She signed the capitulationand Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.

All womankind, continued Trim, (commenting upon his story) from the highest to the lowest, an' please your

honour, love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they chuse to have them cut; and there is no knowing that,

but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the

I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love mankind more than either; and as the knowledge of arms tends

so apparently to the good and quiet of the worldand particularly that branch of it which we have practised

together in our bowlinggreen, has no object but to shorten the strides of Ambition, and intrench the lives and

fortunes of the few, from the plunderings of the manywhenever that drum beats in our ears, I trust,

corporal, we shall neither of us want so much humanity and fellowfeeling, as to face about and march.

In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about, and march'd firmly as at the head of his companyand the

faithful corporal, shouldering his stick, and striking his hand upon his coatskirt as he took his first step

Now what can their two noddles be about? cried my father to my motherby all that's strange, they are

besieging Mrs. Wadman in form, and are marching round her house to mark out the lines of circumvallation.

I dare say, quoth my motherBut stop, dear Sirfor what my mother dared to say upon the occasionand

what my father did say upon itwith her replies and his rejoinders, shall be read, perused, paraphrased,

commented, and descanted uponor to say it all in a word, shall be thumb'd over by Posterity in a chapter

apartI say, by Posterityand care not, if I repeat the word againfor what has this book done more than

the Legation of Moses, or the Tale of a Tub, that it may not swim down the gutter of Time along with them?

I will not argue the matter: Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows

my pen: the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying

over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more every thing presses onwhilst thou

art twisting that lock,see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence

which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.

My mother had gone with her left arm twisted in my father's right, till they had got to the fatal angle of the

old garden wall, where Doctor Slop was overthrown by Obadiah on the coachhorse: as this was directly

opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman's house, when my father came to it, he gave a look across; and seeing

my uncle Toby and the corporal within ten paces of the door, he turn'd about'Let us just stop a moment,

quoth my father, and see with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man Trim make their first entryit

The corporal was just then setting in with the story of his brother Tom and the Jew's widow: the story went

onand onit had episodes in itit came back, and went onand on again; there was no end of itthe

G.. help my father! he pish'd fifty times at every new attitude, and gave the corporal's stick, with all its

When issues of events like these my father is waiting for, are hanging in the scales of fate, the mind has the

advantage of changing the principle of expectation three times, without which it would not have power to see

Curiosity governs the first moment; and the second moment is all oeconomy to justify the expence of the

firstand for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth moments, and so on to the day of judgment'tis a point of

I need not be told, that the ethic writers have assigned this all to Patience; but that Virtue, methinks, has

extent of dominion sufficient of her own, and enough to do in it, without invading the few dismantled castles

My father stood it out as well as he could with these three auxiliaries to the end of Trim's story; and from

thence to the end of my uncle Toby's panegyrick upon arms, in the chapter following it; when seeing, that

instead of marching up to Mrs. Wadman's door, they both faced about and march'd down the avenue

diametrically opposite to his expectationhe broke out at once with that little subacid soreness of humour,

which, in certain situations, distinguished his character from that of all other men.

I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of

Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my purple jerkin, and my yellow

slippers into the bargain, if some of your reverences would imitateand that was, never to refuse her assent

and consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no

ideas of the principal word or term of art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself

with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for herbut no more; and so would go on using

a hard word twenty years togetherand replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses,

This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more good

dialogues between them, than could have done the most petulant contradictionthe few which survived

Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. Wadman's premises, said my father, partly correcting

Amen: said my mother againbut with such a sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as

discomfited every fibre about my fatherhe instantly took out his almanack; but before he could untie it,

Yorick's congregation coming out of church, became a full answer to one half of his business with itand

my mother telling him it was a sacrament dayleft him as little in doubt, as to the other partHe put his

The first Lord of the Treasury thinking of ways and means, could not have returned home with a more

Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter, and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is

necessary, that upon this page and the three following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted to

keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single

year: nor is it a poor creeping digression (which but for the name of, a man might continue as well going on

in the king's highway) which will do the businessno; if it is to be a digression, it must be a good frisky one,

and upon a frisky subject too, where neither the horse or his rider are to be caught, but by rebound.

The only difficulty, is raising powers suitable to the nature of the service: Fancy is capriciousWit must not

be searched forand Pleasantry (goodnatured slut as she is) will not come in at a call, was an empire to be

Only if it puts him in mind of his infirmities and defects as well ghostly as bodilyfor that purpose, he will

find himself rather worse after he has said them than beforefor other purposes, better.

For my own part, there is not a way either moral or mechanical under heaven that I could think of, which I

have not taken with myself in this case: sometimes by addressing myself directly to the soul herself, and

arguing the point over and over again with her upon the extent of her own faculties

Then by changing my system, and trying what could be made of it upon the body, by temperance, soberness,

and chastity: These are good, quoth I, in themselvesthey are good, absolutely;they are good,

relatively;they are good for healththey are good for happiness in this worldthey are good for

In short, they were good for every thing but the thing wanted; and there they were good for nothing, but to

leave the soul just as heaven made it: as for the theological virtues of faith and hope, they give it courage; but

then that snivelling virtue of Meekness (as my father would always call it) takes it quite away again, so you

Now in all common and ordinary cases, there is nothing which I have found to answer so well as this

Certainly, if there is any dependence upon Logic, and that I am not blinded by selflove, there must be

something of true genius about me, merely upon this symptom of it, that I do not know what envy is: for

never do I hit upon any invention or device which tendeth to the furtherance of good writing, but I instantly

Now in ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous

Or that I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a

plumblift out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of

I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of snuff, or a stride or two across the

room will not do the business for me I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of

my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I

do leave a hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirtput on a better coatsend for my last

wigput my topaz ring upon my finger; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after

Now the devil in hell must be in it, if this does not do: for consider, Sir, as every man chuses to be present at

the shaving of his own beard (though there is no rule without an exception), and unavoidably sits over

against himself the whole time it is doing, in case he has a hand in it the Situation, like all others, has

I maintain it, the conceits of a roughbearded man, are seven years more terse and juvenile for one single

operation; and if they did not run a risk of being quite shaved away, might be carried up by continual

shavings, to the highest pitch of sublimityHow Homer could write with so long a beard, I don't

knowand as it makes against my hypothesis, I as little careBut let us return to the Toilet.

Ludovicus Sorbonensis makes this entirely an affair of the body (Greek) as he calls itbut he is deceived:

the soul and body are jointsharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloth'd at

the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination,

genteelized along with himso that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself.

For this cause, when your honours and reverences would know whether I writ clean and fit to be read, you

will be able to judge full as well by looking into my Laundress's bill, as my book: there is one single month in

which I can make it appear, that I dirtied one and thirty shirts with clean writing; and after all, was more

abus'd, cursed, criticis'd, and confounded, and had more mystic heads shaken at me, for what I had wrote in

As I never had any intention of beginning the Digression, I am making all this preparation for, till I come to

the 74th chapterI have this chapter to put to whatever use I think properI have twenty this moment

Or my chapter of Knots, in case their reverences have done with themthey might lead me into mischief:

the safest way is to follow the track of the learned, and raise objections against what I have been writing, tho'

And first, it may be said, there is a pelting kind of thersitical satire, as black as the very ink 'tis wrote

with(and by the bye, whoever says so, is indebted to the mustermaster general of the Grecian army, for

suffering the name of so ugly and foulmouth'd a man as Thersites to continue upon his rollfor it has

furnish'd him with an epithet)in these productions he will urge, all the personal washings and scrubbings

upon earth do a sinking genius no sort of goodbut just the contrary, inasmuch as the dirtier the fellow is,

To this, I have no other answerat least readybut that the Archbishop of Benevento wrote his nasty

Romance of the Galatea, as all the world knows, in a purple coat, waistcoat, and purple pair of breeches; and

that the penance set him of writing a commentary upon the book of the Revelations, as severe as it was look'd

upon by one part of the world, was far from being deem'd so, by the other, upon the single account of that

Another objection, to all this remedy, is its want of universality; forasmuch as the shaving part of it, upon

which so much stress is laid, by an unalterable law of nature excludes one half of the species entirely from its

use: all I can say is, that female writers, whether of England, or of France, must e'en go without it

The seventyfourth chapter is come at last; and brings nothing with it but a sad signature of 'How our

For in talking of my digressionI declare before heaven I have made it! What a strange creature is mortal

'Tis very true, said Ibut 'twere better to get all these things out of our heads, and return to my uncle Toby.

When my uncle Toby and the corporal had marched down to the bottom of the avenue, they recollected their

business lay the other way; so they faced about and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman's door.

I warrant your honour; said the corporal, touching his Monterocap with his hand, as he passed him in order

to give a knock at the doorMy uncle Toby, contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful servant,

said nothing good or bad: the truth was, he had not altogether marshal'd his ideas; he wish'd for another

conference, and as the corporal was mounting up the three steps before the doorhe hem'd twicea portion

of my uncle Toby's most modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, towards the corporal; he stood with the rapper

of the door suspended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew why. Bridget stood perdue within, with

her finger and her thumb upon the latch, benumb'd with expectation; and Mrs Wadman, with an eye ready to

be deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window curtain of her bedchamber, watching their

Trim! said my uncle Tobybut as he articulated the word, the minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper.

My uncle Toby perceiving that all hopes of a conference were knock'd on the head by itwhistled

As Mrs. Bridget's finger and thumb were upon the latch, the corporal did not knock as often as perchance

your honour's taylorI might have taken my example something nearer home; for I owe mine, some five

But this is nothing at all to the world: only 'tis a cursed thing to be in debt; and there seems to be a fatality

in the exchequers of some poor princes, particularly those of our house, which no Economy can bind down in

irons: for my own part, I'm persuaded there is not any one prince, prelate, pope, or potentate, great or small

upon earth, more desirous in his heart of keeping straight with the world than I amor who takes more likely

means for it. I never give above half a guineaor walk with boots or cheapen toothpicksor lay out a

shilling upon a bandbox the year round; and for the six months I'm in the country, I'm upon so small a scale,

that with all the good temper in the world, I outdo Rousseau, a bar lengthfor I keep neither man or boy, or

horse, or cow, or dog, or cat, or any thing that can eat or drink, except a thin poor piece of a Vestal (to keep

my fire in), and who has generally as bad an appetite as myselfbut if you think this makes a philosopher of

True philosophybut there is no treating the subject whilst my uncle is whistling Lillabullero.

Mrs. Wadman blush'dlook'd towards the doorturn'd paleblush'd slightly againrecover'd her natural

colourblush'd worse than ever; which, for the sake of the unlearned reader, I translate thus

Whilst all this was running through Mrs. Wadman's imagination, my uncle Toby had risen from the sopha,

and got to the other side of the parlour door, to give Trim an order about it in the passage

. . .I believe it is in the garret, said my uncle TobyI saw it there, an' please your honour, this morning,

answered TrimThen prithee, step directly for it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and bring it into the parlour.

The corporal did not approve of the orders, but most cheerfully obeyed them. The first was not an act of his

willthe second was; so he put on his Monterocap, and went as fast as his lame knee would let him. My

uncle Toby returned into the parlour, and sat himself down again upon the sopha.

You shall lay your finger upon the placesaid my uncle Toby.I will not touch it, however, quoth Mrs.

This requires a second translation:it shews what little knowledge is got by mere wordswe must go up to

Now in order to clear up the mist which hangs upon these three pages, I must endeavour to be as clear as

Rub your hands thrice across your foreheadsblow your nosescleanse your emunctoriessneeze, my

As there are fifty different ends (counting all ends inas well civil as religious) for which a woman takes a

husband, the first sets about and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes in her mind, which of all

that number of ends is hers; then by discourse, enquiry, argumentation, and inference, she investigates and

finds out whether she has got hold of the right oneand if she hasthen, by pulling it gently this way and

that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it will not break in the drawing.

The imagery under which Slawkenbergius impresses this upon the reader's fancy, in the beginning of his third

Decad, is so ludicrous, that the honour I bear the sex, will not suffer me to quote itotherwise it is not

'She first, saith Slawkenbergius, stops the asse, and holding his halter in her left hand (lest he should get

away) she thrusts her right hand into the very bottom of his pannier to search for itFor what?you'll not

And thou art little better, quoth she to the third; for nothing is there in thy panniers but trunkhose and

pantoflesand so to the fourth and fifth, going on one by one through the whole string, till coming to the

asse which carries it, she turns the pannier upside down, looks at it considers itsamples itmeasures

itstretches itwets itdries it then takes her teeth both to the warp and weft of it.

I am determined, answered Slawkenbergius, that all the powers upon earth shall never wring that secret from

We live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddlesand so 'tis no matterelse it seems strange,

that Nature, who makes every thing so well to answer its destination, and seldom or never errs, unless for

pastime, in giving such forms and aptitudes to whatever passes through her hands, that whether she designs

for the plough, the caravan, the cartor whatever other creature she models, be it but an asse's foal, you are

sure to have the thing you wanted; and yet at the same time should so eternally bungle it as she does, in

Whether it is in the choice of the clayor that it is frequently spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a

husband may turn out too crusty (you know) on one handor not enough so, through defect of heat, on the

other or whether this great Artificer is not so attentive to the little Platonic exigences of that part of the

species, for whose use she is fabricating thisor that her Ladyship sometimes scarce knows what sort of a

It is enough, that neither the observation itself, or the reasoning upon it, are at all to the purposebut rather

against it; since with regard to my uncle Toby's fitness for the marriage state, nothing was ever better: she had

formed him of the best and kindliest clayhad temper'd it with her own milk, and breathed into it the

sweetest spiritshe had made him all gentle, generous, and humaneshe had filled his heart with trust and

confidence, and disposed every passage which led to it, for the communication of the tenderest officesshe

Now this last article was somewhat apocryphal; and the Devil, who is the great disturber of our faiths in this

world, had raised scruples in Mrs. Wadman's brain about it; and like a true devil as he was, had done his own

work at the same time, by turning my uncle Toby's Virtue thereupon into nothing but empty bottles, tripes,

Mrs. Bridget had pawn'd all the little stock of honour a poor chambermaid was worth in the world, that she

would get to the bottom of the affair in ten days; and it was built upon one of the most concessible postulata

in nature: namely, that whilst my uncle Toby was making love to her mistress, the corporal could find

nothing better to do, than make love to her'And I'll let him as much as he will, said Bridget, to get it out of

Friendship has two garments; an outer and an under one. Bridget was serving her mistress's interests in the

oneand doing the thing which most pleased herself in the other: so had as many stakes depending upon my

uncle Toby's wound, as the Devil himselfMrs. Wadman had but oneand as it possibly might be her last

(without discouraging Mrs. Bridget, or discrediting her talents) was determined to play her cards herself.

She wanted not encouragement: a child might have look'd into his hand there was such a plainness and

simplicity in his playing out what trumps he hadwith such an unmistrusting ignorance of the tenaceand

so naked and defenceless did he sit upon the same sopha with widow Wadman, that a generous heart would

And the story tooif you please: for though I have all along been hastening towards this part of it, with so

much earnest desire, as well knowing it to be the choicest morsel of what I had to offer to the world, yet now

that I am got to it, any one is welcome to take my pen, and go on with the story for me that willI see the

It is one comfort at least to me, that I lost some fourscore ounces of blood this week in a most uncritical fever

which attacked me at the beginning of this chapter; so that I have still some hopes remaining, it may be more

in the serous or globular parts of the blood, than in the subtile aura of the brainbe it which it willan

Invocation can do no hurtand I leave the affair entirely to the invoked, to inspire or to inject me according

Gentle Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of my beloved Cervantes; Thou who

glidedst daily through his lattice, and turned'st the twilight of his prison into noonday brightness by thy

presencetinged'st his little urn of water with heavensent nectar, and all the time he wrote of Sancho and

his master, didst cast thy mystic mantle o'er his wither'd stump (He lost his hand at the battle of Lepanto.),

Turn in hither, I beseech thee!behold these breeches!they are all I have in worldthat piteous rent

My shirts! see what a deadly schism has happen'd amongst 'emfor the laps are in Lombardy, and the rest of

'em hereI never had but six, and a cunning gypsey of a laundress at Milan cut me off the forelaps of

fiveTo do her justice, she did it with some considerationfor I was returning out of Italy.

And yet, notwithstanding all this, and a pistol tinderbox which was moreover filch'd from me at Sienna, and

twice that I pay'd five Pauls for two hard eggs, once at Raddicoffini, and a second time at CapuaI do not

think a journey through France and Italy, provided a man keeps his temper all the way, so bad a thing as some

people would make you believe: there must be ups and downs, or how the duce should we get into vallies

where Nature spreads so many tables of entertainment.'Tis nonsense to imagine they will lend you their

voitures to be shaken to pieces for nothing; and unless you pay twelve sous for greasing your wheels, how

should the poor peasant get butter to his bread?We really expect too muchand for the livre or two above

par for your suppers and bedat the most they are but one shilling and ninepence halfpennywho would

embroil their philosophy for it? for heaven's and for your own sake, pay itpay it with both hands open,

rather than leave Disappointment sitting drooping upon the eye of your fair Hostess and her Damsels in the

gateway, at your departureand besides, my dear Sir, you get a sisterly kiss of each of 'em worth a pound

For my uncle Toby's amours running all the way in my head, they had the same effect upon me as if they

had been my ownI was in the most perfect state of bounty and goodwill; and felt the kindliest harmony

vibrating within me, with every oscillation of the chaise alike; so that whether the roads were rough or

smooth, it made no difference; every thing I saw or had to do with, touch'd upon some secret spring either of

They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the foreglass to hear them more

distinctly'Tis Maria; said the postillion, observing I was listeningPoor Maria, continued he (leaning his

body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers

The young fellow utter'd this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly

The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the postillionit is but three years ago, that the sun did

not shine upon so fair, so quick witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have

her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them

He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth, and began the air

againthey were the same notes;yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, said

the young manbut who has taught her to play itor how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think

that heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only

consolationshe has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and

The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering

something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria taken

We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with

her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silknet, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on

one sideshe was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heartache, it was the moment I saw

God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several

parish churches and convents around, for her,but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for

short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are

As the postillion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out

of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my

Maria look'd wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goatand then at meand then at her goat

I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a Beast man

is,that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the

venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scatter'dand yet I own my

heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom, and utter

grave sentences the rest of my daysand nevernever attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or

As for writing nonsense to themI believe there was a reservebut that I leave to the world.

Adieu, Maria!adieu, poor hapless damsel!some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own

lipsbut I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose

When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must all turn back to the two blank chapters,

on the account of which my honour has lain bleeding this half hourI stop it, by pulling off one of my

yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the

That whatever resemblance it may bear to half the chapters which are written in the world, or for aught I

know may be now writing in itthat it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis his horse; besides, I look upon a

chapter which has only nothing in it, with respect; and considering what worse things there are in the

Why then was it left so? And here without staying for my reply, shall I be called as many blockheads,

numsculs, doddypoles, dunderheads, ninny hammers, goosecaps, joltheads, nincompoops, and

sh..tabedsand other unsavoury appellations, as ever the cakebakers of Lerne cast in the teeth of King

Garangantan's shepherdsAnd I'll let them do it, as Bridget said, as much as they please; for how was it

possible they should foresee the necessity I was under of writing the 84th chapter of my book, before the

So I don't take it amissAll I wish is, that it may be a lesson to the world, 'to let people tell their stories

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the corporal had well given the rap, the interval betwixt that and my

uncle Toby's introduction into the parlour, was so short, that Mrs. Wadman had but just time to get from

behind the curtainlay a Bible upon the table, and advance a step or two towards the door to receive him.

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the manner in which women were saluted by men in the year of

our Lord God one thousand seven hundred and thirteenthen facing about, he march'd up abreast with her to

the sopha, and in three plain wordsthough not before he was sat downnor after he was sat downbut as

he was sitting down, told her, 'he was in love'so that my uncle Toby strained himself more in the

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down, upon a slit she had been darning up in her apron, in expectation every

moment, that my uncle Toby would go on; but having no talents for amplification, and Love moreover of all

others being a subject of which he was the least a masterWhen he had told Mrs. Wadman once that he

My father was always in raptures with this system of my uncle Toby's, as he falsely called it, and would often

say, that could his brother Toby to his processe have added but a pipe of tobaccohe had wherewithal to

have found his way, if there was faith in a Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the women upon the

My uncle Toby never understood what my father meant; nor will I presume to extract more from it, than a

condemnation of an error which the bulk of the world lie underbut the French, every one of 'em to a man,

who believe in it, almost as much as the Real Presence, 'That talking of love, is making it.'

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of

that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a little

more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub blushing, as she did itshe took up the gauntletor the

The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great. I suppose sosaid my

uncle Toby: and therefore when a person, continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as you areso

happy, captain Shandy, in yourself, your friends and your amusementsI wonder, what reasons can incline

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon the

As for childrensaid Mrs. Wadmanthough a principal end perhaps of the institution, and the natural

wish, I suppose, of every parentyet do not we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very uncertain

comforts? and what is there, dear sir, to pay one for the heartachswhat compensation for the many tender

and disquieting apprehensions of a suffering and defenceless mother who brings them into life? I declare, said

my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know of none; unless it be the pleasure which it has pleased God!

Now there are such an infinitude of notes, tunes, cants, chants, airs, looks, and accents with which the word

fiddlestick may be pronounced in all such causes as this, every one of 'em impressing a sense and meaning as

different from the other, as dirt from cleanlinessThat Casuists (for it is an affair of conscience on that

score) reckon up no less than fourteen thousand in which you may do either right or wrong.

Mrs. Wadman hit upon the fiddlestick, which summoned up all my uncle Toby's modest blood into his

cheeksso feeling within himself that he had somehow or other got beyond his depth, he stopt short; and

without entering further either into the pains or pleasures of matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and

When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care to say it again; so casting his eye upon the Bible which

Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up; and popping, dear soul! upon a passage in it, of all others

the most interesting to himwhich was the siege of Jerichohe set himself to read it overleaving his

proposal of marriage, as he had done his declaration of love, to work with her after its own way. Now it

wrought neither as an astringent or a loosener; nor like opium, or bark, or mercury, or buckthorn, or any one

drug which nature had bestowed upon the worldin short, it work'd not at all in her; and the cause of that

was, that there was something working there beforeBabbler that I am! I have anticipated what it was a

It is natural for a perfect stranger who is going from London to Edinburgh, to enquire before he sets out, how

many miles to York; which is about the half waynor does any body wonder, if he goes on and asks about

It was just as natural for Mrs. Wadman, whose first husband was all his time afflicted with a Sciatica, to wish

to know how far from the hip to the groin; and how far she was likely to suffer more or less in her feelings, in

She had accordingly read Drake's anatomy from one end to the other. She had peeped into Wharton upon the

brain, and borrowed Graaf (This must be a mistake in Mr. Shandy; for Graaf wrote upon the pancreatick

juice, and the parts of generation.) upon the bones and muscles; but could make nothing of it.

She had reason'd likewise from her own powerslaid down theoremsdrawn consequences, and come to

To clear up all, she had twice asked Doctor Slop, 'if poor captain Shandy was ever likely to recover of his

Doctor Slop was the worst man alive at definitions; and so Mrs. Wadman could get no knowledge: in short,

There is an accent of humanity in an enquiry of this kind which lulls Suspicion to restand I am half

persuaded the serpent got pretty near it, in his discourse with Eve; for the propensity in the sex to be deceived

could not be so great, that she should have boldness to hold chat with the devil, without itBut there is an

accent of humanityhow shall I describe it?'tis an accent which covers the part with a garment, and gives

'Was motion bad for it?' et caetera, were so tenderly spoke to, and so directed towards my uncle Toby's

heart, that every item of them sunk ten times deeper into it than the evils themselvesbut when Mrs.

Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby's groin; and engaged him to attack the point of

the advanced counterscarp, and pele mele with the Dutch to take the counterguard of St. Roch sword in

handand then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench,

wiping her eye, as he was carried to his tentHeaven! Earth! Sea! all was lifted upthe springs of nature

rose above their levelsan angel of mercy sat besides him on the sophahis heart glow'd with fireand

And whereabouts, dear sir, quoth Mrs. Wadman, a little categorically, did you receive this sad blow?In

asking this question, Mrs. Wadman gave a slight glance towards the waistband of my uncle Toby's red plush

breeches, expecting naturally, as the shortest reply to it, that my uncle Toby would lay his forefinger upon

the placeIt fell out otherwisefor my uncle Toby having got his wound before the gate of St. Nicolas, in

one of the traverses of the trench opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. Roch; he could at any

time stick a pin upon the identical spot of ground where he was standing when the stone struck him: this

struck instantly upon my uncle Toby's sensoriumand with it, struck his large map of the town and citadel

of Namur and its environs, which he had purchased and pasted down upon a board, by the corporal's aid,

during his long illnessit had lain with other military lumber in the garret ever since, and accordingly the

My uncle Toby measured off thirty toises, with Mrs. Wadman's scissars, from the returning angle before the

gate of St. Nicolas; and with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the goddess of

Decency, if then in beingif not, 'twas her shadeshook her head, and with a finger wavering across her

For nothing can make this chapter go off with spirit but an apostrophe to theebut my heart tells me, that

in such a crisis an apostrophe is but an insult in disguise, and ere I would offer one to a woman in

distresslet the chapter go to the devil; provided any damn'd critic in keeping will be but at the trouble to

And here is the Maesand this is the Sambre; said the corporal, pointing with his right hand extended a

little towards the map, and his left upon Mrs. Bridget's shoulderbut not the shoulder next himand this,

said he, is the town of Namurand this the citadeland there lay the Frenchand here lay his honour and

myselfand in this cursed trench, Mrs. Bridget, quoth the corporal, taking her by the hand, did he receive

the wound which crush'd him so miserably here.In pronouncing which, he slightly press'd the back of her

Comecomesaid Bridgetholding the palm of her left hand parallel to the plane of the horizon, and

sliding the fingers of the other over it, in a way which could not have been done, had there been the least wart

or protruberance'Tis every syllable of it false, cried the corporal, before she had half finished the

Upon my honour, said the corporal, laying his hand upon his heart, and blushing, as he spoke, with honest

resentment'tis a story, Mrs. Bridget, as false as hellNot, said Bridget, interrupting him, that either I or

my mistress care a halfpenny about it, whether 'tis so or noonly that when one is married, one would chuse

It was somewhat unfortunate for Mrs. Bridget, that she had begun the attack with her manual exercise; for the

It was like the momentary contest in the moist eyelids of an April morning, 'Whether Bridget should laugh

She laid it downshe cried; and had one single tear of 'em but tasted of bitterness, full sorrowful would the

corporal's heart have been that he had used the argument; but the corporal understood the sex, a quart major

to a terce at least, better than my uncle Toby, and accordingly he assailed Mrs. Bridget after this manner.

I know, Mrs. Bridget, said the corporal, giving her a most respectful kiss, that thou art good and modest by

nature, and art withal so generous a girl in thyself, that, if I know thee rightly, thou would'st not wound an

insect, much less the honour of so gallant and worthy a soul as my master, wast thou sure to be made a

countess ofbut thou hast been set on, and deluded, dear Bridget, as is often a woman's case, 'to please

Tell metell me, then, my dear Bridget, continued the corporal, taking hold of her hand, which hung

Bridget sobb'd a sob or twothen open'd her eyesthe corporal wiped 'em with the bottom of her

My uncle Toby and the corporal had gone on separately with their operations the greatest part of the

campaign, and as effectually cut off from all communication of what either the one or the other had been

My uncle Toby, on his side, had presented himself every afternoon in his red and silver, and blue and gold

alternately, and sustained an infinity of attacks in them, without knowing them to be attacksand so had

The corporal, on his side, in taking Bridget, by it had gain'd considerable advantagesand consequently had

much to communicatebut what were the advantagesas well as what was the manner by which he had

seiz'd them, required so nice an historian, that the corporal durst not venture upon it; and as sensible as he

was of glory, would rather have been contented to have gone bareheaded and without laurels for ever, than

Best of honest and gallant servants!But I have apostrophiz'd thee, Trim! once beforeand could I

apotheosize thee also (that is to say) with good companyI would do it without ceremony in the very next

Now my uncle Toby had one evening laid down his pipe upon the table, and was counting over to himself

upon his finger ends (beginning at his thumb) all Mrs. Wadman's perfections one by one; and happening two

or three times together, either by omitting some, or counting others twice over, to puzzle himself sadly before

he could get beyond his middle fingerPrithee, Trim! said he, taking up his pipe again,bring me a pen

Take a full sheetTrim! said my uncle Toby, making a sign with his pipe at the same time to take a chair

and sit down close by him at the table. The corporal obeyedplaced the paper directly before himtook a

But they must be taken in their ranks, replied my uncle Toby; for of them all, Trim, that which wins me

most, and which is a security for all the rest, is the compassionate turn and singular humanity of her

characterI protest, added my uncle Toby, looking up, as he protested it, towards the top of the

ceilingThat was I her brother, Trim, a thousand fold, she could not make more constant or more tender

The corporal made no reply to my uncle Toby's protestation, but by a short coughhe dipp'd the pen a

second time into the inkhorn; and my uncle Toby, pointing with the end of his pipe as close to the top of the

sheet at the left hand corner of it, as he could get itthe corporal wrote down the word HUMANITY. . .thus.

Prithee, corporal, said my uncle Toby, as soon as Trim had done ithow often does Mrs. Bridget enquire

after the wound on the cap of thy knee, which thou received'st at the battle of Landen?

That, corporal, said my uncle Toby, with all the triumph the goodness of his nature would permitThat

shews the difference in the character of the mistress and maidhad the fortune of war allotted the same

mischance to me, Mrs. Wadman would have enquired into every circumstance relating to it a hundred

timesShe would have enquired, an' please your honour, ten times as often about your honour's groinThe

pain, Trim, is equally excruciating,and Compassion has as much to do with the one as the other

God bless your honour! cried the corporalwhat has a woman's compassion to do with a wound upon the

cap of a man's knee? had your honour's been shot into ten thousand splinters at the affair of Landen, Mrs.

Wadman would have troubled her head as little about it as Bridget; because, added the corporal, lowering his

'The knee is such a distance from the main bodywhereas the groin, your honour knows, is upon the very

My uncle Toby gave a long whistlebut in a note which could scarce be heard across the table.

My uncle Toby laid down his pipe as gently upon the fender, as if it had been spun from the unravellings of a

There will be just time, whilst my uncle Toby and Trim are walking to my father's, to inform you that Mrs.

Wadman had, some moons before this, made a confident of my mother; and that Mrs. Bridget, who had the

burden of her own, as well as her mistress's secret to carry, had got happily delivered of both to Susannah

As for my mother, she saw nothing at all in it, to make the least bustle aboutbut Susannah was sufficient

by herself for all the ends and purposes you could possibly have, in exporting a family secret; for she

instantly imparted it by signs to Jonathanand Jonathan by tokens to the cook as she was basting a loin of

mutton; the cook sold it with some kitchenfat to the postillion for a groat, who truck'd it with the dairy maid

for something of about the same valueand though whisper'd in the hayloft, Fame caught the notes with

her brazen trumpet, and sounded them upon the housetopIn a word, not an old woman in the village or

five miles round, who did not understand the difficulties of my uncle Toby's siege, and what were the secret

My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man

crucified Truth at the rate he didhad but just heard of the report as my uncle Toby set out; and catching fire

suddenly at the trespass done his brother by it, was demonstrating to Yorick, notwithstanding my mother was

sitting bynot only, 'That the devil was in women, and that the whole of the affair was lust;' but that every

evil and disorder in the world, of what kind or nature soever, from the first fall of Adam, down to my uncle

Yorick was just bringing my father's hypothesis to some temper, when my uncle Toby entering the room with

marks of infinite benevolence and forgiveness in his looks, my father's eloquence rekindled against the

passionand as he was not very nice in the choice of his words when he was wrothas soon as my uncle

Toby was seated by the fire, and had filled his pipe, my father broke out in this manner.

That provision should be made for continuing the race of so great, so exalted and godlike a Being as

manI am far from denyingbut philosophy speaks freely of every thing; and therefore I still think and do

maintain it to be a pity, that it should be done by means of a passion which bends down the faculties, and

turns all the wisdom, contemplations, and operations of the soul backwardsa passion, my dear, continued

my father, addressing himself to my mother, which couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us

come out of our caverns and hidingplaces more like satyrs and fourfooted beasts than men.

I know it will be said, continued my father (availing himself of the Prolepsis), that in itself, and simply

takenlike hunger, or thirst, or sleep'tis an affair neither good or bador shameful or otherwise.Why

then did the delicacy of Diogenes and Plato so recalcitrate against it? and wherefore, when we go about to

make and plant a man, do we put out the candle? and for what reason is it, that all the parts thereofthe

congredientsthe preparationsthe instruments, and whatever serves thereto, are so held as to be conveyed

The act of killing and destroying a man, continued my father, raising his voiceand turning to my uncle

Tobyyou see, is gloriousand the weapons by which we do it are honourableWe march with them

upon our shouldersWe strut with them by our sidesWe gild themWe carve themWe inlay

them We enrich themNay, if it be but a scoundrel cannon, we cast an ornament upon the breach of it.

My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to intercede for a better epithetand Yorick was rising up to batter the

When Obadiah broke into the middle of the room with a complaint, which cried out for an immediate

My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor, or as impropriator of the great tythes, was obliged to

keep a Bull for the service of the Parish, and Obadiah had led his cow upon a popvisit to him one day or

other the preceding summerI say, one day or otherbecause as chance would have it, it was the day on

which he was married to my father's housemaidso one was a reckoning to the other. Therefore when

The cow did not calvenoshe'll not calve till next weekthe cow put it off terriblytill at the end of the

Now the parish being very large, my father's Bull, to speak the truth of him, was no way equal to the

department; he had, however, got himself, somehow or other, thrust into employmentand as he went

Most of the townsmen, an' please your worship, quoth Obadiah, believe that 'tis all the Bull's fault

It never happens: said Dr. Slop, but the man's wife may have come before her time naturally

It is as hairy as I am; said Obadiah.Obadiah had not been shaved for three weeksWheu. . .u. . .u. .

.cried my father; beginning the sentence with an exclamatory whistleand so, brother Toby, this poor Bull

of mine, who is as good a Bull as ever p..ss'd, and might have done for Europa herself in purer timeshad he

but two legs less, might have been driven into Doctors Commons and lost his characterwhich to a Town