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T H E L I F E A N D O P I N I O N S O F TRISTRAM SHANDY, G E N T L E M A N. Tarassei tous Anthropous ou ta Pragmata, alla ta peri ton Pragmaton, Dogmata. V O L. II. THE THIRD EDITION. L O N D O N : Printed for R. and J. DODSLEY in Pall-Mall. M.DCC.LX. |
L I F E and O P I N I O N S O F T R I S T R A M S H A N D Y, Gent. 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 interroga- tions about the siege of Namur, where he received his wound. I must remind the reader, in case he has read the history of King William's A 2 wars, |
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wars, -- but if he has not, -- I then inform him that one of the most memorable at- tacks in that siege, was that which was made by the English and Dutch upon the point of the advanced counterscarp, be- fore the gate of St. Nicolas, which inclo- sed the great sluice or water-stop, where the English were terribly exposed to the shot of the counter-guard and demi- bastion of St. Roch: The issue of which hot dispute, in three words, was this ; That the Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard, -- and that the English made themselves masters of the covered way before St. Nicolas's gate, notwith- standing the gallantry of the French offi- cers, who exposed themselves upon the glacis sword in hand. As this was the principal attack of which my uncle Toby was an eye-witness at |
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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 parti- cular 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 differ- ences and distinctions between the scarp and counterscarp, ---- the glacis and co- vered way, ---- the half-moon and rave- lin, ---- as to make his company fully comprehend where and what he was about. Writers themselves are too apt to con- found these terms ; ---- so that you will the less wonder, if in his endeavours to explain them, and in opposition to many A 3 mis- |
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misconceptions, that my uncle Toby did oft times puzzle his visiters ; and some- times himself too. To speak the truth, unless the compa- ny my father led up stairs were tolerably clear-headed, or my uncle Toby was in one of his best explanatory moods, 'twas a difficult thing, do what he could, to keep the discourse free from obscurity. What rendered the account of this affair the more intricate to my uncle Toby, was this, -- that in the attack of the counterscarp before the gate of St. Ni- colas, extending itself from the bank of the Maes, quite up to the great water- stop ; -- the ground was cut and cross-cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, rivulets, and sluices, on all sides, -- and he would get so sadly bewilder'd and set fast |
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fast amongst them, that frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards to save his life ; and was oft times obli- ged to give up the attack upon that very account only. These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Toby Shandy more perturbations than you would imagine ; and as my father's kindness to him was continually dragging up fresh friends and fresh in- quirers, -- he had but a very uneasy task of it. 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 ra- velin without getting into the half-moon, or get out of the covered way without A 4 falling |
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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 these 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 di- gestion -- (Why not of a wound as well as of a dinner ?) ---- may easily conceive what sharp paroxisms and exacerbations of his wound my uncle Toby must have undergone upon that score only. -- My uncle Toby could not philoso- phize upon it ; -- 'twas enough he felt it was so, -- and having sustained the pain and sorrows of it for three months toge- ther, |
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ther, 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 lye 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 fortifications 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 cita- del, for this reason, -- because my uncle Toby's wound was got in one of the tra- verses, about thirty toises from the re- turning angle of the trench, opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of St. Roch ; ---- so that he was pretty con- fident |
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fident he could stick a pin upon the iden- tical spot of ground where he was stand- ing in when the stone struck him. All this succeeded to his wishes, and not only freed him from a world of sad explanations, but, in the end, it prov'd the happy means, as you will read, of procuring my uncle Toby his HOBBY- HORSE. THere is nothing so foolish, when you are at the expence of making an entertainment of this kind, as to or- der things so badly, as to let your cri- ticks and gentry of refined taste run it down : Nor is there any thing so likely to |
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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 parti- cular a way, as if there was no such thing as a critick (by occupation) at table. ------ I guard against both ; for, in the first place, I have left half a dozen places purposely open for them ; -- and, in the next place, I pay them all court, -- Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, -- I pro- test no company could give me half the pleasure, -- by my soul I am glad to see you, ---- I beg only you will make no strangers of yourselves, but sit down without any ceremony, and fall on hear- tily. I |
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I said I had left six places, and I was upon the point of carrying my complai- sance 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, that I shall be able to make a great deal of more room next year. ------ How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle Toby, who, it seems, was a military man, and whom you have represented as no fool, -- be at the same time such a confused, pudding headed, muddle headed fellow, as -- Go look. So, Sir Critick, I could have replied ; but I scorn it. ------ 'Tis language un- urbane, ---- and only befitting the man who |
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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 re- ply valiant, -- and therefore I reject it ; for tho' it might have suited my uncle Toby's character as a soldier excellently well, -- and had he not accustomed him- self, in such attacks, to whistle the Lilla- bullero, -- 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 similes, my allusions, my illustra- tions, 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 mo- ment that I am going here to fill up one place |
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place against a critick, -- I should have made an opening for a couple. ------ Therefore I answer thus : Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you have ever read, did you ever read such a book as Locke's Essay upon the Human Understanding ? ------ Don't answer me rashly, -- because many, I know, quote the book, who have not read it, -- and many have read it who understand it not : -- If either of these is your case, as I write to instruct, I will tell you in three words what the book is. -- It is a history. -- A history ! of who ? what ? where ? when ? Don't hurry yourself. ---- It is a history- book, Sir, (which may possibly recom- mend 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, |
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me, you will cut no contemptible figure in a metaphysic circle. But this by the way. Now if you will venture to go along with me, and look down into the bottom of this matter, it will be found that the cause of obscurity and confusion, in the mind of man, is threefold. Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place. Secondly, slight and transient impressions made by 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 cham- ber-maid, and I will give you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that Dolly herself shall understand it as well as Malbranch. ---- 3 When |
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When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side ; ---- take that opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception, can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing which Dolly's hand is in search of. -- Your organs are not so dull that I should inform you -- 'tis an inch, Sir, of red seal-wax. When this is melted and dropp'd upon the letter, -- if Dolly fumbles too long for her thimble, till the wax is over harden'd, it will not receive the mark of her thim- ble from the usual impulse which was wont to imprint it. Very well: If Dolly's wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or of a temper too soft, -- tho' it may re- ceive, -- it will not hold the impression, 1 how |
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how hard soever Dolly thrusts against it ; and last of all, supposing the wax good, and eke the thimble, but applied there- to in careless haste, as her mistress rings the bell ; ---- in any one of these three cases, the print, left by the thimble, will be as unlike the prototype as a brass- jack. Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the confusion in my uncle Toby's discourse ; and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists, -- to shew the world what it did not arise from. What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of obscurity it is, -- and ever will be, -- and that is the unsteady uses of words which have per- VOL. II B plexed |
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plexed the clearest and most exalted un- derstandings. It is ten to one, (at Arthur's) whether you have ever read the literary histories of past ages ; -- if you have, -- what ter- rible battles, yclept logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink-shed, -- that a good natured man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes. Gentle critick ! when thou hast weigh'd all this, and consider'd 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 ousia and hypo- stasis ; and in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit ; -- about 4 essences, |
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essences, and about quintessences ; ---- about substances, and about space. ---- What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little meaning, and as in- determinate a sense; -- when thou consi- ders this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's perplexities, -- thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his coun- terscarp ; -- his glacis and his covered- way ; -- his ravelin and his half-moon : 'Twas not by ideas, ---- by heaven ! his life was put in jeopardy by words. 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 B 2 to |
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to him that his recovery, and his reco- very depending, as you have read, up- on 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 ap- plication, 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 mi- litary architecture and pyroballogy, trans- lated from the Flemish, to form his dis- course 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 advan- ced |
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ced 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, &c. and give his visiters as distinct a history of each of their attacks, as of that of the gate of St. Nicholas, where he had the honour to receive his wound. But the desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the ac- quisition 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, thro' which I ween the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incum- bition, have the happiness, at length, to B 3 get |