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get all be-virtu'd, -- be-pictur'd, -- be- butterflied, and be-fiddled. 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 con- finement 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 there- with the histories of their sieges, their de- molitions, their improvements and new works, all which he would read with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner. In the second year my uncle Toby pur- chased Ramelli and Cataneo, translated from |
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from the Italian ; ---- likewise Stevinus, Marolis, the Chevalier de Ville, Lorini, Coehorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the Marshal Vauban, Mons. Blondel, with almost as many more books of military architecture, as Don Quixote was found to have of chivalry, when the curate and barber invaded his library. Towards the beginning of the third year, which was in August, Ninety-nine, my uncle Toby found it necessary to un- derstand a little of projectiles : -- And ha- ving judged it best to draw his know- ledge from the fountain-head, he began with N. Tartaglia, who it seems was the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon-ball's doing all that mischief under the notion of a right line. -- This N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle Toby to be an impossible thing. B 3 -- Endless |
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------ Endless is the Search of Truth ! No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road the cannon-ball did not go, but he was insensibly led on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out which road the ball did go : For which purpose he was obliged to set off afresh with old Maltus, and studied him devout- ly. -- He proceeded next to Gallileo and Torricellius, wherein, by certain geome- trical rules, infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be a PARABOLA, -- or else an HYPERBOLA, -- and that the pa- rameter, or latus rectum, of the conic sec- tion 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, form'd by the breech upon a horizontal plane ; -- and that the semi- parameter |
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parameter, ------ stop ! my dear uncle Toby, -- stop ! -- go not one foot further into this thorny and bewilder'd track, -- intricate are the steps ! intricate are the mases of this labyrinth ! intricate are the troubles which the pursuit of this be- witching phantom, KNOWLEDGE, will bring upon thee. -- O my uncle ! fly -- fly -- fly from it as from a serpent. -- Is it fit, good-natur'd man ! thou should'st sit up, with the wound upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with hectic watchings ? -- Alas ! 'twill exasperate thy symptoms, -- check thy perspirations, -- evaporate thy spirits, -- waste thy animal strength, -- dry up thy radical moisture, -- bring thee into a costive habit of body, impair thy health, -- and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age. -- my uncle ! my uncle Toby! C H A P. |
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I Would not give a groat for that man's knowledge in pen-craft, who does not understand this, ---- That the best plain narrative in the world, tack'd very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my un- cle Toby, -- would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate ; -- there- fore I forthwith put an end to the chap- ter, -- though I was in the middle of my story. ------ Writers of my stamp have one principle in common with painters. -- Where an exact copying makes our pictures less striking, we choose the less evil ; deeming it even more pardonable to trespass against truth, than beauty. -- This is to be understood cum grano salis; but |
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but be it as it will, -- as the parallel is made more for the sake of letting the apostrophe cool, than any thing else, -- 'tis not very material whether upon any other score the reader approves of it or not. In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of the conic section, angered his wound, he left off the study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook himself to the practical part of fortification only ; the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, returned upon him with redoubled force. It was in this year that my uncle be- gan to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt, ---- to dismiss his barber unshaven, ---- and to allow his surgeon scarce |
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scarce time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven times dres- sing how it went on : When, lo ! -- all of a sudden, for the change was as quick as lightening, he began to sigh heavily for his recovery, -- complain'd to my father, grew impatient with the surgeon ; -- and one morning as he heard his foot com- ing up stairs, he shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, in order to expostulate with him upon the protrac- tion of his 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 misfor- 1 tunes. -- |
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tunes. -- 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 dropp'd one fretful or discontented word ; -- he had been all patience, -- all submission. -- We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it ; ---- but we oftener 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 |
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the wound directly, ---- or sending for Monsieur Ronjat, the King's Serjeant- Surgeon, to do it for him. The desire of life and health is im- planted in man's nature ; -- the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister passion to it : These my uncle Toby had in com- mon with his species ; -- and either of them had been sufficient to account for his earnest desire to get well and out of doors ; -- but I have told you before that nothing wrought with our family after ' the common way ; -- and from the time and manner in which this eager desire shew'd itself in the present case, the pe- netrating 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 |
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I own, when that's done, 'twill be time to return back to the parlour fire-side, where we left my uncle Toby in the mid- dle of his sentence. WHEN a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling pas- sion, ---- or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows head-strong, -- farewell cool reason and fair discretion ! My uncle Toby's wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much -- he told him, 'twas just beginning to incarnate ; and that if no fresh exfolia- tion happen'd, which there was no signs of, -- it would be dried up in five or six weeks. |
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weeks. The sound of as many olym- piads twelve hours before, would have convey'd an idea of shorter duration to my uncle Toby's mind. -- The succession of his ideas was now rapid, -- he broil'd with impatience to put his design in execution ; -- and so, without consulting further with any soul living, ---- which, by the bye, I think is right, when you are predetermined to take no one soul's advice, -- he privately ordered Trim, his man, to pack up a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot and four to be at the door exactly by twelve o'clock that day, when he knew my father would be upon 'Change. -- So leaving a bank- note upon the table for the surgeon's care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for his brother's, -- he pack'd up his maps, his books of fortification, his in- struments, &c. -- and, by the help of a crutch |
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crutch on one side, and Trim on the other, ---- my uncle Toby embark'd for Shandy-Hall. The reason, or rather the rise, of this sudden demigration, was as follows : The table in my uncle Toby's room, and at which, the night before this change happened, he was sitting with his maps, &c. about him, -- being somewhat of the smallest, for that infinity of great and small instruments of knowledge which usually lay crouded upon it ; -- he had the accident, in reaching over for his tobacco-box, to throw down his com- passes, and in stooping to take the com- passes 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 VOL. II C in |
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in falling, -- he thrust Monsieur Blondel off the table and Count de Pagan o' top of him. 'Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle Toby was, to think of redres- sing all these evils by himself, -- he rung his bell for his man Trim ; -- Trim ! quoth my uncle Toby, pri'thee see what confu- sion I have here been making. -- I must have some better contrivance, Trim. -- Can'st not thou take my rule and mea- sure the length and breadth of this table, and then go and bespeak me one as big again ? -- Yes, an' please your Honour, replied Trim, making a bow ; -- but I hope your Honour will be soon well enough to get down to your country seat, where, -- as your Honour takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could ma- nage this mater to a T. I |
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I must here inform you, that this ser- vant of my uncle Toby's, who went by the name of Trim, had been a Corporal in my uncle's own company, ---- his real name was James Butler, -- but having got the nick-name of Trim in the regi- ment, my uncle Toby, unless when he hap- pened to be very angry with him, would never call him by any other name. The poor fellow had been disabled for the service, by a wound on his left knee by a musket-bullet, at the battle of Landen, which was two years before the affair of Namur ; -- and as the fellow was well beloved in the regiment, and a handy fellow into the bargain, my uncle Toby took him for his servant, and of ex- cellent use was he, attending my uncle Toby in the camp and in his quarters as valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, C 2 and |
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and nurse ; and indeed, from first to last, waited upon him and served him with great fidelity and affection. My uncle Toby loved the man in re- turn, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge : -- For Corporal Trim, (for so, for the future, I shall call him) by four years occasional attention to his Master's discourse upon fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master's plans, &c. exclusive and besides what he gained HOBBY-HORSICALLY, as a body-servant, Non Hobby-Horsical per se ; ---- had be- come no mean proficient in the science ; and was thought, by the cook and cham- ber-maid, to know as much of the na- ture of strong-holds as my uncle Toby himself. I |
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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 lov'd to advise, -- or rather to hear him- self talk ; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so ; but set his tongue a-going, -- you had no hold of him ; -- he was voluble ; -- the eternal interlardings of your Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner, interceeding so strong in behalf of his elocution, -- that tho' 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 'em. My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the man ; -- and besides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant, -- but as a humble friend, -- he could not C 3 bear |
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bear to stop his mouth. -- Such was Cor- poral Trim. If I durst presume, continued Trim, to give your Honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this matter. -- Thou art welcome, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, -- speak, -- speak what thou thinkest upon the subject, man, without fear. Why then, replied Trim, (not hanging his ears and scratching his head like a country lout, but) stroking his hair back from his forehead, and standing erect as before his division. ------ I think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his lame leg, a little forwards, -- and point- ing with his right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was pinn'd against the hangings, -- I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour's better judgment, -- that these ravelins, |
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ravelins, bastions, curtins, and horn- works make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Ho- nour 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 Ho- nour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography ---- (call it ichnography, quoth my uncle) -- of the town or cita- del, your Honour was pleased to sit down before, -- and I will be shot by your Ho- nour 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 poly- gon, with its exact lines and angles ---- that I could do very well, quoth my C 4 uncle |
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uncle. -- I would begin with the fossé, and if your Honour could tell me the proper depth and breadth, -- I can to a hair's breadth, Trim, replied my uncle, -- I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp, -- and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp, -- very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, -- and when I had sloped them to your mind, -- an' please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flan- ders, 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 ga- zons, Trim, said my uncle Toby ; -- whe- ther 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, |
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Trim, in some respects, -- quoth my uncle Toby, nodding his head ; -- for a cannon- ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at St. Nicolas's Gate) and facilitate the passage over it. Your Honour understands these mat- ters, 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 pallisadoes, that it should be worth all the world's riding twenty miles to go and see it. My |