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like ; -- when we cannot get at the very thing we wish, ---- never to take up with the next best in degree to it ; -- no ; that's pitiful beyond description ; -- it is no more than a week from this very day, in which I am now writing this book for the edification of the world, -- which is March 9, 1759, ---- that my dear, dear Jenny observing I look'd a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five-and- twenty shillings a yard, -- told the mer- cer, she was sorry she had given him so much trouble ; -- and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide stuff of ten-pence a yard. -- 'Tis the duplication of one and the same greatness of soul ; only what lessen'd the honour of it some- what, in my mother's case, was, that she could not heroine it into so violent and hazardous an extream, as one in her situation might have wish'd, because the 4 old |
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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 mo- ther's son of them into the world with- out any one slip or accident which could fairly be laid to her account. These facts, tho' they had their weight, yet did not altogether satisfy some few scruples and uneasinesses which hung upon my father's spirits in relation to this choice. -- To say nothing of the natural workings of humanity and justice, -- or of the yearnings of parental and connubial love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible in a case of this kind ; ---- he felt himself concern'd in a particular manner, that all should go right in the present case ; -- from the G 3 ac- |
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accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should any evil betide his wife and child in lying-in at Shandy-Hall. ---- He knew the world judged by events, and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, by loading him with the whole blame of it. ---- `` Alas o'day ! -- had Mrs. Shandy, ``poor gentlewoman ! had but her wish ``in going up to town just to lye-in and ``come down again ; -- which, they say, ``she begg'd and pray'd for upon her ``bare knees, ---- and which, in my opi- ``nion, considering the fortune which ``Mr. Shandy got with her, -- was no such ``mighty matter to have complied with, ``the lady and her babe might both of ``'em have been alive at this hour.'' This exclamation, my father knew was unanswerable ; ---- and yet, it was not merely to shelter himself, -- nor was it |
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it altogether for the care of his offspring and wife that he seem'd so extremely anxious about this point ; -- my father had extensive views of things, ---- and stood, moreover, as he thought, deeply concern'd in it for the publick good, from the dread he entertained of the bad uses an ill-fated instance might be put to. He was very sensible that all political writers upon the subject had unanimously agreed and lamented, from the begin- ning of Queen Elizabeth's reign down to his own time, that the current of men and money towards the metropolis, up- on one frivolous errand or another, -- set in so strong, -- as to become dange- rous to our civil rights ; -- tho', by the bye, ---- a current was not the image he took most delight in, -- a distemper was G 4 here |
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here his favourite metaphor, and he would run it down into a perfect allego- ry, by maintaining it was identically the same in the body national as in the body natural, where blood and spirits were driven up into the head faster than they could find their ways down ; ---- a stop- page of circulation must ensue, which was death in both cases. There was little danger, he would say, of losing our liberties by French politicks or French invasions ; ---- nor was he so much in pain of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulce- rated humours in our constitution, -- which he hoped was not so bad as it was imagined ; -- but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go off, all at once, in a state-apoplexy ; -- and then |
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then he would say, The Lord have mercy upon us all. My father was never able to give the history of this distemper, -- without the remedy along with it. ``Was I an absolute prince, he would say, pulling up his breeches with both his hands, as he rose from his arm-chair, ``I would appoint able judges, at every ``avenue of my metropolis, who should ``take cognizance of every fool's busi- `.ness 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, ``farmers sons, &c. &c. at his backside, ``they should be all sent back, from ``constable to constable, like vagrants ``as |
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``as they were, to the place of their le- ``gal 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 bo- ``dy ; -- that the extreams, now wasted ``and pin'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 do- ``minions, should laugh and sing ; -- ``that good chear and hospitality flou- ``rish once more ; -- and that such weight ``and influence be put thereby into the ``hands of the Squirality of my king- ``dom, as should counterpoise what I ``perceive my Nobility are now taking ``from them. `` Why |
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``Why are there so few palaces and ``gentlemen's seats, he would ask, with some emotion, as he walked a-cross the room, `` throughout so many delicious ``provinces in France ? Whence is it that ``the few remaining Chateaus amongst ``them are so dismantled, -- so unfurnish- ``ed, and in so ruinous and desolate a ``condition ? -- Because, Sir, (he would say) ``in that kingdom no man has any ``country-interest to support ; -- the little ``interest of any kind, which any man ``has any where in it, is concentrated in ``the court, and the looks of the Grand ``Monarch ; by the sun-shine of whose ``countenance, or the clouds which pass ``a-cross it, every French man lives or ``dies.' Another political reason which prompt- ed my father so strongly to guard against 5 the |
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the least evil accident in my mother's lying-in in the country, ---- was, That any such instance would infallibly throw a balance of power, too great already, into the weaker vessels of the gentry, in his own, or higher stations ; ---- which, with the many other usurped rights which that part of the constitution was hourly establishing, -- would, in the end, prove fatal to the monarchical system of domestick government established in the first creation of things by God. In this point he was entirely of Sir Robert Filmer's opinion, That the plans and institutions of the greatest mo- narchies in the eastern parts of the world, were, originally, all stolen from that ad- mirable pattern and prototype of this houshold and paternal power ; -- which, for a century, he said, and more, had gra- |
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gradually been degenerating away into a mix'd government ; ---- the form of which, however desirable in great com- binations of the species, ---- was very troublesome in small ones, -- and seldom produced any thing, that he saw, but sorrow and confusion. For all these reasons, private and pub- lick, put together, -- my father was for having the man-midwise by all means, -- my mother by no means. My father begg'd and intreated, she would for once recede from her prerogative in this mat- ter, and suffer him to choose for her ; -- my mother, on the contrary, insisted up- on 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 ; |
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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 pa- triot, -- like a man : -- My mother an- swered 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 chagrine 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 |
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my father and my uncle Toby Shandy in the back parlour, -- for which he was to be paid five guineas. I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the breast of my fair reader ; -- and it is this : ---- Not to take it absolutely for granted from an unguarded word or two which I have dropp'd in it, ---- ``That I am a married man.'' -- I own the tender appel- lation of my dear, dear Jenny, ---- with some other strokes of conjugal know- ledge, 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 |
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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 extream, 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 mat- ter 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 eigh- teen. -- 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 |
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a friendship between the two sexes may subsist, and be supported without ------ Fy ! Mr. Shandy : -- Without any thing, Madam, but that tender and delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friend- ship, 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 expression this delicious senti- ment, which I have the honour to speak of, is dress'd out. 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 VOL. I. H sense, |
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sense, ---- knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious too, in philosophy, -- wise also in political rea- soning, -- and in polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant, -- could be capa- ble 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 tem- per, will immediately throw the book by ; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at it ; -- and if he is of a grave and sa- turnine cast, he will, at first sight, abso- lutely condemn as fanciful and extrava- gant ; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of Christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving. 5 His |
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His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impress'd upon our cha- racters and conduct. The Hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness, ---- nor had he more faith, ---- or more to say on the powers of Necromancy in dishonouring his deeds, -- or on DULCINEA's name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand, -- or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been render'd 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 H 2 spirits |
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spirits been totally depress'd and NICO- DEMUS'D into nothing. I see plainly, Sir, by your looks, (or as the case happen'd) my father would say, -- that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine, -- which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom, -- I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it ; ---- and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you, -- not as a party in the dispute, -- but as a judge, and trust- ing my appeal upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this mat- ter ; ---- you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as most men ; -- and, if I may presume to penetrate further into you, -- of a libe- rality |
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rality 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 ; -- H 3 you |
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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 con- tempt of money which you shew me in the whole transaction, is really noble ; -- and what renders it more so, is the prin- ciple of it ; -- the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS, -- the sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have accompanied him thro' life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a miser and a rascal of him, in spight, 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 cer- tainly |
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tainly irresistible, both in his orations and disputations ; -- he was born an orator ; -- Theodidaktos. -- Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him, -- and, withall, he had so shrewd guess at the weaknesses and passions of his re- spondent, ---- that NATURE might have stood up and said, -- ``This man is elo- quent.'' In short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the que- stion, '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 |