Chapter 1.I.
I wish either my father or my
mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally
bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me;
had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then
doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was
concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and
temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of
his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the
fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours
and dispositions which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed
and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily
persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world,
from that in which the reader is likely to see me.—Believe me, good
folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may
think it;—you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as
how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c.—and a
great deal to that purpose:—Well, you may take my word, that nine
parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and
miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity,
and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when
they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a
half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by
treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a
road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when
they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be
able to drive them off it.
Pray my Dear, quoth my mother,
have you not forgot to wind up the clock?—Good G..! cried my
father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his
voice at the same time,—Did ever woman, since the creation of the
world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was
your father saying?—Nothing.
Chapter 1.II.
—Then, positively, there is
nothing in the question that I can see, either good or bad.—Then,
let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at
least,—because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose
business it was to have escorted and gone hand in hand with the
Homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his
reception.
The Homunculus, Sir, in however
low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in this age of levity, to
the eye of folly or prejudice;—to the eye of reason in scientific
research, he stands confess'd—a Being guarded and circumscribed
with rights.—The minutest philosophers, who by the bye, have the
most enlarged understandings, (their souls being inversely as their
enquiries) shew us incontestably, that the Homunculus is created by
the same hand,—engender'd in the same course of nature,—endow'd
with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us:—That he
consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries,
ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands,
genitals, humours, and articulations;—is a Being of as much
activity,—and in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our
fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England.—He may be
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 of that state and
relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any
accident had befallen him in his way alone!—or that through terror
of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little Gentleman had got
to his journey's end miserably spent;—his muscular strength and
virility worn down to a thread;—his own animal spirits ruffled
beyond description,—and that in this sad 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 afterwards have set
thoroughly to rights.
Chapter 1.III.
To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I
stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father, who
was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to close
reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, and heavily
complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my uncle
Toby well remember'd, upon his observing a most unaccountable
obliquity, (as he call'd it) in my manner of setting up my top, and
justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old
gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of
sorrow than reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he
saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he
had made upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any
other man's child:—But alas! continued he, shaking his head a
second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his
cheeks, My Tristram's misfortunes began nine months before ever he
came into the world.
—My mother, who was sitting by,
look'd up, but she knew no more than her backside what my father
meant,—but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been often informed
of the affair,—understood him very well.
Chapter 1.IV.
I know there are readers in the
world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers
at all,—who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into
the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns
you.
It is in pure compliance with
this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in my nature to
disappoint any one soul living, that I have been so very particular
already. As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in
the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks,
professions, and denominations of men whatever,—be no less read
than the Pilgrim's Progress itself—and in the end, prove the very
thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is,
a book for a parlour-window;—I find it necessary to consult every
one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going
on a little farther in the same way: For which cause, right glad I
am, that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done;
and that I am able to go on, tracing every thing in it, as Horace
says, ab Ovo.
Horace, I know, does not
recommend this fashion altogether: But that gentleman is speaking
only of an epic poem or a tragedy;—(I forget which,) besides, if it
was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace's pardon;—for in writing what I
have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to
any man's rules that ever lived.
To such however as do not choose
to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice
than that they skip over the remaining part of this chapter; for I
declare before-hand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and
inquisitive.
—Shut the door.—
I was begot in the night betwixt
the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am
positive I was.—But how I came to be so very particular in my
account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to
another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made
publick for the better clearing up this point.
My father, you must know, who was
originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some
years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in
the county of ——, was, I believe, one of the most regular men in
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 Sunday-night of
every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as ever the
Sunday-night came,—to wind up a large house-clock, which we had
standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands:—And being
somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have
been speaking of,—he had likewise gradually brought some other
little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he
would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at
one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of
the month.
It was attended but with one
misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the
effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely,
that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection
in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could
never hear the said clock wound up,—but the thoughts of some other
things unavoidably popped into her head—& vice 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.
But this by the bye.
Now it appears by a memorandum in
my father's pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, 'That on
Lady-day, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date
my geniture,—my father set upon his journey to London, with my
eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school;' and, as it
appears from the same authority, 'That he did not get down to his
wife and family till the second week in May following,'—it brings
the thing almost to a certainty. However, what follows in the
beginning of the next chapter, puts it beyond all possibility of a
doubt.
—But pray, Sir, What was your
father doing all December, January, and February?—Why, Madam,—he
was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica.
Chapter 1.V.
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 accidents as ever small Hero
sustained.
Chapter 1.VI.
In the beginning of the last
chapter, I informed you exactly when I was born; but I did not
inform you how. No, that particular was reserved entirely for a
chapter by itself;—besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner
perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to
have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at
once.
—You must have a little patience.
I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my
opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my
character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would
give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed farther with
me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us,
will grow into familiarity; and that unless one of us is in fault,
will terminate in friendship.—O diem 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 out—bear with me,—and let me go on, and tell my story my
own way:—Or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the
road,—or should sometimes put on a fool's cap with a bell to it,
for a moment or two as we pass along,—don't fly off,—but rather
courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears
upon my outside;—and as we jog on, either laugh with me, or at me,
or in short do any thing,—only keep your temper.
Chapter 1.VII.
In the same village where my
father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly,
notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a little
plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business,
in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a
great deal to those of dame Nature,—had acquired, in her way, no
small degree of reputation in the world:—by which word world, need
I in this place inform your worship, that I would be understood to
mean no more of it, than a small circle described upon the circle
of the great world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts,
of which the cottage where the good old woman lived is supposed to
be the centre?—She had been left it seems a widow in great
distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh
year; and as she was at that time a person of decent
carriage,—grave deportment,—a woman moreover of few words and
withal an object of compassion, whose distress, and silence under
it, called out the louder for a friendly lift: the wife of the
parson of the parish was touched with pity; and having often
lamented an inconvenience to which her husband's flock had for many
years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a
midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case have
been never so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles
riding; which 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 rights, members, and
appurtenances whatsoever.
These last words, you must know,
were not according to the old form in which such licences,
faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like cases had
heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was according to
a neat Formula of Didius his own devising, who having a particular
turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over again all kind of
instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty amendment,
but coaxed many of the old licensed matrons in the neighbourhood,
to open their faculties afresh, in order to have this wham-wham of
his inserted.
I own I never could envy Didius
in these kinds of fancies of his:—But every man to his own
taste.—Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure
hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses
tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he
had tweezers always in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, Sir,
have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting Solomon
himself,—have they not had their Hobby-Horses;—their running
horses,—their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their
trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets,—their maggots and their
butterflies?—and so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably
and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me
to get up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do
with it?
Chapter 1.VIII.
—De gustibus non est
disputandum;—that is, there is no disputing against Hobby-Horses;
and for my part, I seldom do; nor could I with any sort of grace,
had I been an enemy to them at the bottom; for happening, at
certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fidler and
painter, according as the fly stings:—Be it known to you, that I
keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor do I
care who knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air;—though
sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer
journies than what a wise man would think altogether right.—But the
truth is,—I am not a wise man;—and besides am a mortal of so little
consequence in the world, it is not much matter what I do: so I
seldom fret or fume at all about it: Nor does it much disturb my
rest, when I see such great Lords and tall Personages as hereafter
follow;—such, for instance, as my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,
K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their
several horses,—some with large stirrups, getting on in a more
grave and sober pace;—others on the contrary, tucked up to their
very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering
it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a
mortgage,—and as if some of them were resolved to break their
necks.—So much the better—say I to myself;—for in case the worst
should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well
without them; and for the rest,—why—God speed them—e'en let them
ride on without opposition from me; for were their lordships
unhorsed this very night—'tis ten to one but that many of them
would be worse mounted by one half before 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 the
Hobby-Horse, with all his fraternity, at the Devil.
'My Lord, I maintain this to be a
dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in the three great
essentials of matter, form and place: I beg, therefore, you will
accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with the
most respectful humility, at your Lordship's feet—when you are upon
them,—which you can be when you please;—and that is, my Lord,
whenever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best
purposes too. I have the honour to be,
My
Lord,
Your
Lordship's most obedient,
and most
devoted,
and most
humble servant,
Tristram
Shandy.'
Chapter 1.IX.
I solemnly declare to all
mankind, that the above dedication was made for no one Prince,
Prelate, Pope, or Potentate,—Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or
Baron, of this, or any other Realm in Christendom;—nor has it yet
been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately, directly or
indirectly, to any one person or personage, great or small; but is
honestly a true Virgin-Dedication untried on, upon any soul
living.
I labour this point so
particularly, merely to remove any offence or objection which might
arise against it from the manner in which I propose to make the
most of it;—which is the putting it up fairly to public sale; which
I now do.
—Every author has a way of his
own in bringing his points to bear;—for my own part, as I hate
chaffering and higgling for a few guineas in a dark entry;—I
resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal squarely
and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try whether I
should not come off the better by it.
If therefore there is any one
Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, in these his Majesty's
dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel dedication, and
whom the above will suit, (for by the bye, unless it suits in some
degree, I will not part with it)—it is much at his service for
fifty guineas;—which I am positive is twenty guineas less than it
ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius.
My Lord, if you examine it over
again, it is far from being a gross piece of daubing, as some
dedications are. The design, your Lordship sees, is good,—the
colouring transparent,—the drawing not amiss;—or to speak more like
a man of science,—and measure my piece in the painter's scale,
divided into 20,—I believe, my Lord, the outlines will turn out as
12,—the composition as 9,—the colouring as 6,—the expression 13 and
a half,—and the design,—if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand
my own design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to
be as 20,—I think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all
this,—there is keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the
Hobby-Horse, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of
back-ground to the whole) give great force to the principal lights
in your own figure, and make it come off wonderfully;—and besides,
there is an air of originality in the tout ensemble.
Be pleased, my good Lord, to
order the sum to be paid into the hands of Mr. Dodsley, for the
benefit of the author; and in the next edition care shall be taken
that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship's titles,
distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of the
preceding chapter: All which, from the words, De gustibus non est
disputandum, and whatever else in this book relates to
Hobby-Horses, but no more, shall stand dedicated to your
Lordship.—The rest I dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all
the Patrons or Matrons I can think of, has most power to set my
book a-going, and make the world run mad after it.
Bright Goddess, If thou art not
too busy with Candid and Miss Cunegund's affairs,—take Tristram
Shandy's under thy protection also.
Chapter 1.X.
Whatever degree of small merit
the act of benignity in favour of the midwife might justly claim,
or in whom that claim truly rested,—at first sight seems not very
material to this history;—certain however it was, that the
gentlewoman, the parson's wife, did run away at that time with the
whole of it: And yet, for my life, I cannot help thinking but that
the parson himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit upon
the design first,—yet, as he heartily concurred in it the moment it
was laid before him, and as heartily parted with his money to carry
it into execution, had a claim to some share of it,—if not to a
full half of whatever honour was due to it.
The world at that time was
pleased to determine the matter otherwise.
Lay down the book, and I will
allow you half a day to give a probable guess at the grounds of
this procedure.
Be it known then, that, for about
five years before the date of the midwife's licence, of which you
have had so circumstantial an account,—the parson we have to do
with had made himself a country-talk by a breach of all decorum,
which he had committed against himself, his station, and his
office;—and that was in never appearing better, or otherwise
mounted, than upon a lean, sorry, 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 hair-breadth
in every thing,—except that I do not remember 'tis any where said,
that Rosinante was broken-winded; and that, moreover, Rosinante, as
is the happiness of most Spanish horses, fat or lean,—was
undoubtedly a horse at all points.
I know very well that the Hero's
horse was a horse of chaste deportment, which may have given
grounds for the contrary opinion: But it is as certain at the same
time that Rosinante's continency (as may be demonstrated from the
adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily
defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and orderly
current of his blood.—And let me tell you, Madam, there is a great
deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which you
could not say more for your life.
Let that be as it may, as my
purpose is to do 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 herself could have
bestrided.
In the estimation of here and
there a man of weak judgment, it was greatly in the parson's power
to have helped the figure of this horse of his,—for he was master
of a very handsome demi-peaked saddle, quilted on the seat with
green plush, garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs,
and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, with a housing
altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging of
black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, 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
deserve.
In the several sallies about his
parish, and in the neighbouring visits to the gentry who lived
around him,—you will easily comprehend, that the parson, so
appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep his philosophy
from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a village,
but he caught the attention of both old and young.—Labour stood
still as he pass'd—the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the
well,—the spinning-wheel forgot its round,—even chuck-farthing and
shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight;
and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time
enough upon his hands to make his observations,—to hear the groans
of the serious,—and the laughter of the light-hearted; all which he
bore with excellent tranquillity.—His character was,—he loved a
jest in his heart—and as he saw himself in the true point of
ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing
him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his
friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who
therefore made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of
his humour,—instead of giving the true cause,—he chose rather to
join in the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one
single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare
a figure as his beast,—he would sometimes insist upon it, that the
horse was as good as the rider deserved;—that they were,
centaur-like,—both of a piece. At other times, and in other moods,
when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,—he would
say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with
great gravity, would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat
horse, without a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in
his pulse; and that he had made choice of the lean one he rode
upon, not only to keep himself in countenance, but in
spirits.
At different times he would give
fifty humorous and apposite reasons for riding a meek-spirited jade
of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one of mettle;—for on such
a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as delightfully de
vanitate mundi et fuga faeculi, as with the advantage of a
death's-head before him;—that, in all other exercitations, he could
spend his time, as he rode slowly along,—to as much account as in
his study;—that he could draw up an argument in his sermon,—or a
hole in his breeches, as steadily on the one as in the other;—that
brisk trotting and slow argumentation, like wit and judgment, were
two incompatible movements.—But that upon his steed—he could unite
and reconcile every thing,—he could compose his sermon—he could
compose his cough,—and, in case nature gave a call that way, he
could likewise compose himself to sleep.—In short, the parson upon
such encounters would assign any cause but the true cause,—and he
withheld the true one, only out of a nicety of temper, because he
thought it did honour to him.
But the truth of the story was as
follows: In the first years of this gentleman's life, and about the
time when the superb saddle and bridle were purchased by him, it
had been his manner, or vanity, or call it what you will,—to run
into the opposite extreme.—In the language of the county where he
dwelt, he was said to have loved a good horse, and generally had
one of the best in the whole parish standing in his stable always
ready for saddling: and as the nearest midwife, as I told you, did
not live nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile
country,—it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole
week together without some piteous application for his beast; and
as he was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more
pressing and more distressful than the last;—as much as he loved
his beast, he had never a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which
was generally this; that his horse was either clapp'd, or spavin'd,
or greaz'd;—or he was twitter-bon'd, or broken-winded, or
something, in short, or other had befallen him, which would let him
carry no flesh;—so that he had every nine or ten months a bad horse
to get rid of,—and a good horse to purchase in his stead.
What the loss 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 child-bearing and
child-getting part of his parish; reserving nothing for the
impotent,—nothing for the aged,—nothing for the many comfortless
scenes he was hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, and
sickness and affliction dwelt together.
For these reasons he resolved to
discontinue the expence; and there appeared but two possible ways
to extricate him clearly out of it;—and these were, either to make
it an irrevocable law never more to lend his steed upon any
application whatever,—or else be content to ride the last poor
devil, such as they had made him, with all his aches and
infirmities, to the very end of the chapter.
As he dreaded his own constancy
in the first—he very chearfully betook himself to the second; and
though he could very well have explained it, as I said, to his
honour,—yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit above it;
choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the
laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story,
which might seem a panegyrick upon himself.
I have the highest idea of the
spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverend gentleman, from
this single stroke in his character, which I think comes up to any
of the honest refinements of the peerless knight of La Mancha,
whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and would
actually have gone farther to have paid a visit to, than the
greatest hero of antiquity.
But this is not the moral of my
story: The thing I had in view was to shew the temper of the world
in the whole of this affair.—For you must know, that so long as
this explanation would have done the parson credit,—the devil a
soul could find it out,—I suppose his enemies would not, and that
his friends could not.—But no sooner did he bestir himself in
behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the ordinary's
licence to set her up,—but the whole secret came out; every horse
he had lost, and two horses more than ever he had lost, with all
the circumstances of their destruction, were known and distinctly
remembered.—The story ran like wild-fire.—'The parson had a
returning fit of pride which had just seized him; and he was going
to be well mounted once again in his life; and if it was so, 'twas
plain as the sun at noon-day, he would pocket the expence of the
licence ten times told, the very first year:—So that every body was
left to judge what were his views in this act of charity.'
What were his views in this, and
in every other action of his life,—or rather what were the opinions
which floated in the brains of other people concerning it, was a
thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in
upon his rest, when he should have been sound asleep.
About ten years ago this
gentleman had the good fortune to be made entirely easy upon that
score,—it being just so long since he left his parish,—and the
whole world at the same time behind him,—and stands accountable to
a Judge of whom he will have no cause to complain.
But there is a fatality attends
the actions of some men: Order them as they will, they pass thro' a
certain medium, which so twists and refracts them from their true
directions—that, with all the titles to praise which a rectitude of
heart can give, the doers of them are nevertheless forced to live
and die without it.
Of the truth of which, this
gentleman was a painful example.—But to know by what means this
came to pass,—and to make that knowledge of use to you, I insist
upon it that you read the two following chapters, which contain
such a sketch of his life and conversation, as will carry its moral
along with it.—When this is done, if nothing stops us in our way,
we will go on with the midwife.
Chapter 1.XI.
Yorick was this parson's name,
and, what is very remarkable in it, (as appears from a most ancient
account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect
preservation) it had been exactly so spelt for near,—I was within
an ace of saying nine hundred years;—but I would not shake my
credit in telling an improbable truth, however indisputable in
itself,—and therefore I shall content myself with only saying—It
had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or
transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which
is more than I would venture to say of one half of the best
surnames in the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have
generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners.—Has
this been owing to the pride, or to the shame of the respective
proprietors?—In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one, and
sometimes to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a
villainous affair it is, and will one day so blend and confound us
all together, that no one shall be able to stand up and swear,
'That his own great grandfather was the man who did either this or
that.'
This evil had been sufficiently
fenced against by the prudent care of the Yorick's family, and
their religious preservation of these records I quote, which do
farther inform us, That the family was originally of Danish
extraction, and had been transplanted into England as early as in
the reign of Horwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court, it
seems, an ancestor of this Mr. Yorick's, and from whom he was
lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his
death. Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith
not;—it only adds, That, for near two centuries, it had been
totally abolished, as altogether unnecessary, not only in that
court, but in every other court of the Christian world.
It has often come into my head,
that this post could be no other than that of the king's chief
Jester;—and that Hamlet's Yorick, in our Shakespeare, many of whose
plays, you know, are founded upon authenticated facts, was
certainly the very man.
I have not the time to look into
Saxo-Grammaticus's Danish history, to know the certainty of
this;—but if you have leisure, and can easily get at the book, you
may do it full as well yourself.
I had just time, in my travels
through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's eldest son, whom, in the year
1741, I accompanied as governor, riding along with him at a
prodigious rate thro' most parts of Europe, and of which original
journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative will be
given in the progress of this work. I had just time, I say, and
that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long
sojourner in that country;—namely, 'That nature was neither very
lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity
to its inhabitants;—but, like a discreet parent, was moderately
kind to them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution
of her favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a
level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances in
that kingdom of refined parts; but a great deal of good plain
houshold understanding amongst all ranks of people, of which every
body has a share;' which is, I think, very right.
With us, you see, the case is
quite different:—we are all ups and downs in this matter;—you are a
great genius;—or 'tis fifty to one, Sir, you are a great dunce and
a blockhead;—not that there is a total want of intermediate
steps,—no,—we are not so irregular as that comes to;—but the two
extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled
island, where nature, in her gifts and dispositions of this kind,
is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself not being more so
in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she.
This is all that ever staggered
my faith in regard to Yorick's extraction, who, by what I can
remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him,
seemed not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole
crasis; in nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run
out:—I will not philosophize one moment with you about it; for
happen how it would, the fact was this:—That instead of that cold
phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would have
looked for, in one so extracted;—he was, on the contrary, as
mercurial and sublimated a composition,—as heteroclite a creature
in all his declensions;—with as much life and whim, and 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 twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in
it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his
first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will
imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody's tackling;
and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,—you
may likewise imagine, 'twas with such he had generally the ill luck
to get the most entangled. For aught I know there might be some
mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such Fracas:—For, to speak
the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his
nature to gravity;—not to gravity as such;—for where gravity was
wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal men for
days and weeks together;—but he was an enemy to the affectation of
it, and declared open war against it, only as it appeared a cloak
for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it fell in his way,
however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much
quarter.
Sometimes, in his wild way of
talking, he would say, that Gravity was an errant scoundrel, and he
would add,—of the most dangerous kind too,—because a sly one; and
that he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning people were
bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month,
than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked
temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was no
danger,—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of gravity was
design, and consequently deceit;—'twas a taught trick to gain
credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was
worth; and that, with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but
often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it,—viz.
'A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the
mind;'—which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence,
would say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.
But, in plain truth, he was a man
unhackneyed and unpractised in the world, and was altogether as
indiscreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse where
policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but
one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of;
which impression he would usually translate into plain English
without any periphrasis;—and too oft without much distinction of
either person, time, or place;—so that when mention was made of a
pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding—he never gave himself a
moment's time to reflect who was the hero of the piece,—what his
station,—or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter;—but if it
was a dirty action,—without more ado,—The man was a dirty
fellow,—and so on.—And as his comments had usually the ill fate to
be terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enlivened throughout
with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to
Yorick's indiscretion. In a word, tho' he never sought, yet, at the
same time, as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came
uppermost, and without much ceremony;—he had but too many
temptations in life, of scattering his wit and his humour,—his
gibes and his jests about him.—They were not lost for want of
gathering.
What were the consequences, and
what was Yorick's catastrophe thereupon, you will read in the next
chapter.
Chapter 1.XII.
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 full extent of their obligations.
As the reader (for I hate your
ifs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature, I need not say more
to satisfy him, that my Hero could not go on at this rate without
some slight experience of these incidental mementos. To speak the
truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small
book-debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding Eugenius's
frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking, that as not one
of them was contracted thro' any malignancy;—but, on the contrary,
from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they would
all of them be cross'd out in course.
Eugenius would never admit this;
and would often tell him, that one day or other he would certainly
be reckoned with; and he would often add, in an accent of sorrowful
apprehension,—to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his
usual carelessness of heart, would as often answer with a
pshaw!—and if the subject was started in the fields,—with a hop,
skip, and a jump at the end of it; but if close pent up in the
social chimney-corner, where the culprit was barricado'd in, with a
table and a couple of arm-chairs, and could not so readily fly off
in a tangent,—Eugenius would then go on with his lecture upon
discretion in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put
together.
Trust me, dear Yorick, this
unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into
scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can extricate thee out
of.—In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, that a person
laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person injured,
with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when
thou viewest him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, his
family, his kindred and allies,—and musters up with them the many
recruits which will list under him from a sense of common
danger;—'tis no extravagant 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 by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is
so.
I cannot suspect it in the man
whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or
malevolence of intent in these sallies—I believe and know them to
be truly honest and sportive:—But consider, my dear lad, that fools
cannot distinguish this,—and that knaves will not: and thou knowest
not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with
the other:—whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon
it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my
dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life
too.
Revenge from some baneful corner
shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of
heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.—The fortunes of thy
house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall
bleed on every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works
belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled on. To wind up the
last scene of thy tragedy, Cruelty and Cowardice, twin ruffians,
hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall strike together at
all thy infirmities and mistakes:—The best of us, my dear lad, lie
open there,—and trust me,—trust me, Yorick, when to gratify a
private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an
helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an easy matter to pick
up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a
fire to offer it up with.
Yorick scarce ever heard this sad
vaticination of his destiny read over to him, but with a 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, nevertheless, as was generally
thought, quite broken-hearted.
What inclined Eugenius to the
same opinion was as follows:
A few hours before Yorick
breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an intent to take his
last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick's
curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick looking up in his
face took hold of his hand,—and after thanking him for the many
tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was
their fate to meet hereafter,—he would thank him again and
again,—he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies
the slip for ever.—I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears
trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever
man spoke.—I hope not, Yorick, said he.—Yorick replied, with a look
up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand, and that was all,—but
it cut Eugenius to his heart.—Come,—come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius,
wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad,
be comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at
this crisis when thou most wants them;—who knows what resources are
in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee!—Yorick
laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;—For my
part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the
words,—I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee, and
would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, chearing up his
voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop,
and that I may live to see it.—I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth
Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left
hand,—his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius,—I
beseech thee to take a view of my head.—I see nothing that ails it,
replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell
you, that 'tis so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows
which...and..., and some others have so unhandsomely given me in
the dark, that I might say with Sancho 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 Shakespeare said
of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!
Eugenius was convinced from this,
that the heart of his friend was broke: he squeezed his hand,—and
then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick
followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,—he then closed them,
and never opened them more.
He lies buried in the corner of
his church-yard, in the parish of..., under a plain marble slab,
which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his
grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving
both for his epitaph and elegy. Alas, poor Yorick!
Ten times a day has Yorick's
ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over
with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity
and esteem for him;—a foot-way crossing the church-yard close by
the side of his grave,—not a passenger goes by without stopping to
cast a look upon it,—and sighing as he walks on, Alas, poor
Yorick!
Chapter 1.XIII.
It is so long since the reader of
this rhapsodical work has been parted from the midwife, that it is
high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in mind
that there is such a body still in the world, and whom, upon the
best judgment I can form upon my own plan at present, I am going to
introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh matter may be
started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt the reader
and myself, which may require immediate dispatch;—'twas right to
take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the mean
time;—because when she is wanted, we can no way do without
her.
I think I told you that this good
woman was a person of no small note and consequence throughout our
whole village and township;—that her fame had spread itself to the
very out-edge and circumference of that circle of importance, of
which kind every soul living, whether he has a shirt to his back or
no,—has one surrounding him;—which said circle, by the way,
whenever 'tis said that such a one is of great weight and
importance in the world,—I desire may be enlarged or contracted in
your worship's fancy, in a compound ratio of the station,
profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both
ways) of the personage brought before you.
In the present case, if I
remember, I fixed it about four or five miles, which not only
comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two or three
of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish; which
made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That she was,
moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-house, and some
other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said,
from the smoke of her own chimney:—But I must here, once for all,
inform you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and
explain'd in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with
many other pieces and developements of this work, will be added to
the end of the twentieth volume,—not to swell the work,—I detest
the thought of such a thing;—but by way of commentary, scholium,
illustration, and key to such passages, incidents, or 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
gentlemen-reviewers in Great Britain, and of all that their
worships shall undertake to write or say to the contrary,—I am
determined shall be the case.—I need not tell your worship, that
all this is spoke in confidence.
Chapter 1.XIV.
Upon looking into my mother's
marriage settlement, in order to satisfy myself and reader in a
point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any
farther in this history;—I had the good fortune to pop upon the
very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight
forwards,—it might have taken me up a month;—which shews plainly,
that when a man sits down to write a history,—tho' it be but the
history of Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his
heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his
way,—or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another,
before all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history,
as a muleteer drives on his mule,—straight forward;—for instance,
from Rome all the way to Loretto, without ever once turning his
head aside, either to the right hand or to the left,—he might
venture to foretell you to an hour when he should get to his
journey's end;—but the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For,
if he is a man of the least spirit, he will have fifty deviations
from a straight line to make with this or that party as he goes
along, which he can no ways avoid. He will have views and prospects
to himself perpetually soliciting his eye, which he can no more
help standing still to look at than he can fly; he will moreover
have various
Accounts to reconcile:
Anecdotes to pick up:
Inscriptions to make
out:
Stories to weave in:
Traditions to sift:
Personages to call
upon:
Panegyricks to paste up at
this door;
Pasquinades at that:—All which
both the man and his mule are quite exempt from. To sum up all;
there are archives at every stage to be look'd into, and rolls,
records, documents, and endless genealogies, which justice ever and
anon calls him back to stay the reading of:—In short there is no
end of it;—for my own part, I declare I 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 far from
being accomplished.
These unforeseen stoppages, which
I own I had no conception of when I first set out;—but which, I am
convinced now, will rather increase than diminish as I
advance,—have struck out a hint which I am resolved to follow;—and
that is,—not to be in a hurry;—but to go on leisurely, writing and
publishing two volumes of my life every year;—which, if I am
suffered to go on quietly, and can make a tolerable bargain with my
bookseller, I shall continue to do as long as I live.
Chapter 1.XV.
The article in my mother's
marriage-settlement, which I told the reader I was at the pains to
search for, and which, now that I have found it, I think proper to
lay before him,—is so much more fully express'd in the deed itself,
than ever I can pretend to do it, that it would be barbarity to
take it out of the lawyer's hand:—It is as follows.