THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN
PART 21
C H A P. XXIV
As many pictures as have been given of my father, how like him soever in different airs and attitudes,—not one, or all of them, can ever help the reader to any kind of preconception of how my father would think, speak, or act, upon any untried occasion or occurrence of life.—There was that infinitude of oddities in him, and of chances along with it, by which handle he would take a thing,—it baffled, Sir, all calculations.——The truth was, his road lay so very far on one side, from that wherein most men travelled,—that every object before him presented a face and section of itself to his eye, altogether different from the plan and elevation of it seen by the rest of mankind.—In other words, ’twas a different object, and in course was differently considered:
This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing.—She looks at her outside,—I, at her in—. How is it possible we should agree about her value?
C H A P. XXV
’TIS a point settled,—and I mention it for the comfort of Confucius,[24] who is apt to get entangled in telling a plain story—that provided he keeps along the line of his story,—he may go backwards and forwards as he will,—’tis still held to be no digression.
This being premised, I take the benefit of the act of going backwards myself.
[24] Mr Shandy is supposed to mean * * * * * * * * * * *, Esq; member for * * * * * *,——and not the Chinese Legislator.
C H A P. XXVI
FIFTY thousand pannier loads of devils—(not of the Archbishop of Benevento’s—I mean of Rabelais’s devils), with their tails chopped off by their rumps, could not have made so diabolical a scream of it, as I did—when the accident befel me: it summoned up my mother instantly into the nursery,—so that Susannah had but just time to make her escape down the back stairs, as my mother came up the fore.
Now, though I was old enough to have told the story myself,—and young enough, I hope, to have done it without malignity; yet Susannah, in passing by the kitchen, for fear of accidents, had left it in short-hand with the cook—the cook had told it with a commentary to Jonathan, and Jonathan to Obadiah; so that by the time my father had rung the bell half a dozen times, to know what was the matter above,—was Obadiah enabled to give him a particular account of it, just as it had happened.—I thought as much, said my father, tucking up his night-gown;—and so walked up stairs.
One would imagine from this——(though for my own part I somewhat question it)—that my father, before that time, had actually wrote that remarkable character in the Tristra-pædia, which to me is the most original and entertaining one in the whole book;—and that is the chapter upon sash-windows, with a bitter Philippick at the end of it, upon the forgetfulness of chamber-maids.—I have but two reasons for thinking otherwise.
First, Had the matter been taken into consideration, before the event happened, my father certainly would have nailed up the sash window for good an’ all;—which, considering with what difficulty he composed books,—he might have done with ten times less trouble, than he could have wrote the chapter: this argument I foresee holds good against his writing a chapter, even after the event; but ’tis obviated under the second reason, which I have the honour to offer to the world in support of my opinion, that my father did not write the chapter upon sash-windows and chamber-pots, at the time supposed,—and it is this.
——That, in order to render the Tristra-pædia complete,—I wrote the chapter myself.
C H A P. XXVII
MY father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into the case—all in less than a statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, and Obadiah following him with a large reading-desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bedside, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.
——If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto circumcisionis,—for he had brought up Spenser de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides, in order to confront and examine us altogether.——
——If it be but right done, quoth he:—only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs?——For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.
My mother went down, and my father went on, reading the section as follows,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *—Very well,—said my father, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *—nay, if it has that convenience——and so without stopping a moment to settle it first in his mind, whether the Jews had it from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from the Jews,—he rose up, and rubbing his forehead two or three times across with the palm of his hand, in the manner we rub out the footsteps of care, when evil has trod lighter upon us than we foreboded,—he shut the book, and walked down stairs.—Nay, said he, mentioning the name of a different great nation upon every step as he set his foot upon it—if the EGYPTIANS,—the SYRIANS,—the PHOENICIANS,—the ARABIANS,—the CAPPADOCIANS,——if the COLCHI, and TROGLODYTES did it——if SOLON and PYTHAGORAS submitted,—what is TRISTRAM?——Who am I, that I should fret or fume one moment about the matter?
C H A P. XXVIII
DEAR Yorick, said my father smiling (for Yorick had broke his rank with my uncle Toby in coming through the narrow entry, and so had stept first into the parlour)—this Tristram of ours, I find, comes very hardly by all his religious rites.—Never was the son of Jew, Christian, Turk, or Infidel initiated into them in so oblique and slovenly a manner.—But he is no worse, I trust, said Yorick.—There has been certainly, continued my father, the deuce and all to do in some part or other of the ecliptic, when this offspring of mine was formed.—That, you are a better judge of than I, replied Yorick.—Astrologers, quoth my father, know better than us both:—the trine and sextil aspects have jumped awry,—or the opposite of their ascendents have not hit it, as they should,—or the lords of the genitures (as they call them) have been at bo-peep,—or something has been wrong above, or below with us.
’Tis possible, answered Yorick.—But is the child, cried my uncle Toby, the worse?—The Troglodytes say not, replied my father. And your theologists, Yorick, tell us—Theologically? said Yorick,—or speaking after the manner of apothecaries?[25]—statesmen?[26]—or washer-women?[27]
——I’m not sure, replied my father,—but they tell us, brother Toby, he’s the better for it.——Provided, said Yorick, you travel him into Egypt.—Of that, answered my father, he will have the advantage, when he sees the Pyramids.——
Now every word of this, quoth my uncle Toby, is Arabic to me.——I wish, said Yorick, ’twas so, to half the world.
—ILUS,[28] continued my father, circumcised his whole army one morning.—Not without a court martial? cried my uncle Toby.——Though the learned, continued he, taking no notice of my uncle Toby’s remark, but turning to Yorick,—are greatly divided still who Ilus was;—some say Saturn;—some the Supreme Being;—others, no more than a brigadier general under Pharaoh-neco.——Let him be who he will, said my uncle Toby, I know not by what article of war he could justify it.
The controvertists, answered my father, assign two-and-twenty different reasons for it:—others, indeed, who have drawn their pens on the opposite side of the question, have shewn the world the futility of the greatest part of them.—But then again, our best polemic divines—I wish there was not a polemic divine, said Yorick, in the kingdom;—one ounce of practical divinity—is worth a painted ship-load of all their reverences have imported these fifty years.—Pray, Mr. Yorick, quoth my uncle Toby,—do tell me what a polemic divine is?——The best description, captain Shandy, I have ever read, is of a couple of ’em, replied Yorick, in the account of the battle fought single hands betwixt Gymnast and captain Tripet; which I have in my pocket.——I beg I may hear it, quoth my uncle Toby earnestly.—You shall, said Yorick.—And as the corporal is waiting for me at the door,—and I know the description of a battle will do the poor fellow more good than his supper,—I beg, brother, you’ll give him leave to come in.—With all my soul, said my father.——Trim came in, erect and happy as an emperor; and having shut the door, Yorick took a book from his right-hand coat-pocket, and read, or pretended to read, as follows.
[25] Χαλεπῆς νόσου, καὶ δυσιάτου ἀπαλλαγὴν, ἣν ἄνθρακα καλοῦσιν.—PHILO
[26] Τὰ τεμνόμενα τῶν ἐθνῶν τολυγονώτατα, καὶ πολυανθρωπότατα εἶναι.
[27] Καθαριότητος εἵνεκεν.—BOCHART.
[28] Ὁ Ἶλος, τὰ αἰδοῖα περιτέμνεται, ταὐτὸ ποιῆσαι καὶ τοὺς ἅμ’ αυτῷ συμμάχους καταναγκάσας.—SANCHUNIATHO.
C H A P. XXIX
——“which words being heard by all the soldiers which were there, divers of them being inwardly terrified, did shrink back and make room for the assailant: all this did Gymnast very well remark and consider; and therefore, making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly (with his short sword by this thigh) shifting his feet in the stirrup, and performing the stirrup-leather feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith launched himself aloft into the air, and placed both his feet together upon the saddle, standing upright, with his back turned towards his horse’s head,—Now, (said he) my case goes forward. Then suddenly in the same posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and turning to the left-hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into his former position, without missing one jot.——Ha! said Tripet, I will not do that at this time,—and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed,—I will undo this leap; then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right-hand, he fetched another striking gambol as before; which done, he set his right hand thumb upon the bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung into the air, poising and upholding his whole weight upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and whirled himself about three times: at the fourth, reversing his body, and overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching any thing, he brought himself betwixt the horse’s two ears, and then giving himself a jerking swing, he seated himself upon the crupper—”
(This can’t be fighting, said my uncle Toby.——The corporal shook his head at it.——Have patience, said Yorick.)
“Then (Tripet) pass’d his right leg over his saddle, and placed himself en croup.—But, said he, ’twere better for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon the crupper before him, and there-upon leaning himself, as upon the only supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and strait found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a tolerable seat; then springing into the air with a summerset, he turned him about like a wind-mill, and made above a hundred frisks, turns, and demi-pommadas.”—Good God! cried Trim, losing all patience,—one home thrust of a bayonet is worth it all.——I think so too, replied Yorick.——
I am of a contrary opinion, quoth my father.
C H A P. XXX
——No,—I think I have advanced nothing, replied my father, making answer to a question which Yorick had taken the liberty to put to him,—I have advanced nothing in the Tristra-pædia, but what is as clear as any one proposition in Euclid.—Reach me, Trim, that book from off the scrutoir:—it has oft-times been in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby, and I think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having done it long ago:——shall we have a short chapter or two now,—and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions serve; and so on, till we get through the whole? My uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance which was proper; and the corporal, though he was not included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his breast, and made his bow at the same time.——The company smiled. Trim, quoth my father, has paid the full price for staying out the entertainment.——He did not seem to relish the play, replied Yorick.——’Twas a Tom-fool-battle, an’ please your reverence, of captain Tripet ’s and that other officer, making so many summersets, as they advanced;——the French come on capering now and then in that way,—but not quite so much.
My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his existence with more complacency than what the corporal’s, and his own reflections, made him do at that moment;——he lighted his pipe,——Yorick drew his chair closer to the table,—Trim snuff’d the candle,—my father stirr’d up the fire,—took up the book,—cough’d twice, and begun.
C H A P. XXXI
THE first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves,—are a little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject,——for the present we’ll pass them by: ’tis a prefatory introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species——I was insensibly led into it.——’Twas natural, said Yorick.
The original of society, continued my father, I’m satisfied is, what Politian tells us, i.e. merely conjugal; and nothing more than the getting together of one man and one woman;—to which, (according to Hesiod) the philosopher adds a servant:—but supposing in the first beginning there were no men servants born——he lays the foundation of it, in a man,—a woman—and a bull.——I believe ’tis an ox, quoth Yorick, quoting the passage ([Greek text])——A bull must have given more trouble than his head was worth.—But there is a better reason still, said my father (dipping his pen into his ink); for the ox being the most patient of animals, and the most useful withal in tilling the ground for their nourishment,—was the properest instrument, and emblem too, for the new joined couple, that the creation could have associated with them.—And there is a stronger reason, added my uncle Toby, than them all for the ox.—My father had not power to take his pen out of his ink-horn, till he had heard my uncle Toby’s reason.—For when the ground was tilled, said my uncle Toby, and made worth inclosing, then they began to secure it by walls and ditches, which was the origin of fortification.——True, true, dear Toby, cried my father, striking out the bull, and putting the ox in his place.
My father gave Trim a nod, to snuff the candle, and resumed his discourse.
——I enter upon this speculation, said my father carelessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, merely to shew the foundation of the natural relation between a father and his child; the right and jurisdiction over whom he acquires these several ways—
1st, by marriage.
2d, by adoption.
3d, by legitimation.
And 4th, by procreation; all which I consider in their order.
I lay a slight stress upon one of them, replied Yorick——the act, especially where it ends there, in my opinion lays as little obligation upon the child, as it conveys power to the father.—You are wrong,—said my father argutely, and for this plain reason * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.—I own, added my father, that the offspring, upon this account, is not so under the power and jurisdiction of the mother.—But the reason, replied Yorick, equally holds good for her.—She is under authority herself, said my father:—and besides, continued my father, nodding his head, and laying his finger upon the side of his nose, as he assigned his reason,—she is not the principal agent, Yorick.—In what, quoth my uncle Toby? stopping his pipe.—Though by all means, added my father (not attending to my uncle Toby), “The son ought to pay her respect,” as you may read, Yorick, at large in the first book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh title and the tenth section.—I can read it as well, replied Yorick, in the Catechism.
C H A P. XXXII
TRIM can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth my uncle Toby.—Pugh! said my father, not caring to be interrupted with Trim’s saying his Catechism. He can, upon my honour, replied my uncle Toby.—Ask him, Mr. Yorick, any question you please.——
—The fifth Commandment, Trim,—said Yorick, speaking mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest Catechumen. The corporal stood silent.—You don’t ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, and giving it rapidly like the word of command:——The fifth———cried my uncle Toby.—I must begin with the first, an’ please your honour, said the corporal.——
—Yorick could not forbear smiling.—Your reverence does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of the room, to illustrate his position,—that ’tis exactly the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field.—
“Join your right-hand to your firelock,” cried the corporal, giving the word of command, and performing the motion.—
“Poise your firelock,” cried the corporal, doing the duty still both of adjutant and private man.
“Rest your firelock;”—one motion, an’ please your reverence, you see leads into another.—If his honour will begin but with the first—
THE FIRST—cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand upon his side—* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.
THE SECOND—cried my uncle Toby, waving his tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the head of a regiment.—The corporal went through his manual with exactness; and having honoured his father and mother, made a low bow, and fell back to the side of the room.
Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest, and has wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out.
—Here is the scaffold work of INSTRUCTION, its true point of folly, without the BUILDING behind it.
—Here is the glass for pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in, in their true dimensions.—
Oh! there is a husk and shell, Yorick, which grows up with learning, which their unskilfulness knows not how to fling away!
—SCIENCES MAY BE LEARNED BY ROTE BUT WISDOM NOT.
Yorick thought my father inspired.—I will enter into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay out all my aunt Dinah’s legacy in charitable uses (of which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion), if the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to any one word he has repeated.—Prithee, Trim, quoth my father, turning round to him,—What dost thou mean, by “honouring thy father and mother?”
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a day out of my pay, when they grow old.—And didst thou do that, Trim? said Yorick.—He did indeed, replied my uncle Toby.—Then, Trim, said Yorick, springing out of his chair, and taking the corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it, corporal Trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself.
C H A P. XXXIIIV
O BLESSED health! cried my father, making an exclamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next chapter, thou art before all gold and treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul,—and openest all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue.—He that has thee, has little more to wish for;—and he that is so wretched as to want thee,—wants every thing with thee.
I have concentrated all that can be said upon this important head, said my father, into a very little room, therefore we’ll read the chapter quite through.
My father read as follows:
“The whole secret of health depending upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture”—You have proved that matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Sufficiently, replied my father.
In saying this, my father shut the book,—not as if he resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his fore-finger in the chapter:——nor pettishly,—for he shut the book slowly; his thumb resting, when he had done it, upon the upper-side of the cover, as his three fingers supported the lower side of it, without the least compressive violence.——
I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth my father, nodding to Yorick, most sufficiently in the preceding chapter.
Now could the man in the moon be told, that a man in the earth had wrote a chapter, sufficiently demonstrating, That the secret of all health depended upon the due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture,—and that he had managed the point so well, that there was not one single word wet or dry upon radical heat or radical moisture, throughout the whole chapter,—or a single syllable in it, pro or con, directly or indirectly, upon the contention betwixt these two powers in any part of the animal œconomy——
“O thou eternal Maker of all beings!”—he would cry, striking his breast with his right hand (in case he had one)—“Thou whose power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of excellence and perfection,—What have we MOONITES done?”
C H A P. XXXIV
WITH two strokes, the one at Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my father achieve it.
The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint of the Ars longa,—and Vita brevis.——Life short, cried my father,—and the art of healing tedious! And who are we to thank for both the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks themselves,—and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which, in all ages, they have first flatter’d the world, and at last deceived it?
——O my lord Verulam! cried my father, turning from Hippocrates, and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest,—What shall I say to thee, my great lord Verulam? What shall I say to thy internal spirit,—thy opium, thy salt-petre,——thy greasy unctions,—thy daily purges,—thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums?
——My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing: how he dealt with his lordship’s opinion,——you shall see;——but when—I know not:——we must first see what his lordship’s opinion was.
C H A P. XXXV
“THE two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, says lord Verulam, are first——
“The internal spirit, which like a gentle flame wastes the body down to death:—And secondly, the external air, that parches the body up to ashes:—which two enemies attacking us on both sides of our bodies together, at length destroy our organs, and render them unfit to carry on the functions of life.”
This being the state of the case, the road to longevity was plain; nothing more being required, says his lordship, but to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of salt-petre every morning before you got up.——
Still this frame of ours was left exposed to the inimical assaults of the air without;—but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could enter;——nor could any one get out.——This put a stop to all perspiration, sensible and insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy distempers—a course of clysters was requisite to carry off redundant humours,—and render the system complete.
What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam’s opiates, his salt-petre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read,—but not to-day—or to-morrow: time presses upon me,—my reader is impatient—I must get forwards——You shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you chuse it), as soon as ever the Tristra-pædia is published.——
Sufficeth it, at present to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established his own.——
C H A P. XXXVI
THE whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us;—the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the school-men confounded the task, merely (as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the radical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies.
Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily and balsamous substance; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm or watery parts, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle, “Quod omne animal post coitum est triste.”
Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but whether vice versa, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness——or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies.——So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of ’em threaten his destruction,——’twill be all that is needful to be done upon that head.——
C H A P. XXXVII
THE description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter;—his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout it;—he never mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head; and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question,—aside.— * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. It was at the siege of Limerick, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, making a bow.
The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my father, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention.——Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby? cried my father, mentally.——By Heaven! continued he, communing still with himself, it would puzzle an Œdipus to bring it in point.——
I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your honour off;—And the geneva, Trim, added my uncle Toby, which did us more good than all——I verily believe, continued the corporal, we had both, an’ please your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them too.——The noblest grave, corporal! cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in.——But a pitiful death for him! an’ please your honour, replied the corporal.
All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites of the Colchi and Troglodites had been before to my uncle Toby; my father could not determine whether he was to frown or to smile.
My uncle Toby, turning to Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun it,—and so settled the point for my father at once.
C H A P. XXXVIII
IT was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst, during the whole five-and-twenty days the flux was upon us in the camp; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it, inevitably have got the better.——My father drew in his lungs top-full of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, as slowly as he possibly could.——
——It was Heaven’s mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal’s head to maintain that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforceing the fever, as he did all along, with hot wine and spices; whereby the corporal kept up (as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the moisture, terrible as it was.——Upon my honour, added my uncle Toby, you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother Shandy, twenty toises.—If there was no firing, said Yorick.
Well—said my father, with a full aspiration, and pausing a while after the word——Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they had had their clergy—————————————Yorick, foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father’s breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked the corporal a question.——Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my father’s leave,—tell us honestly—what is thy opinion concerning this self-same radical heat and radical moisture?
With humble submission to his honour’s better judgment, quoth the corporal, making a bow to my uncle Toby—Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my uncle Toby.—The poor fellow is my servant,—not my slave,—added my uncle Toby, turning to my father.——
The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; then touching his under-jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right hand before he opened his mouth,——he delivered his notion thus.
C H A P. XXXIX
JUST as the corporal was humming, to begin—in waddled Dr. Slop.—’Tis not two-pence matter—the corporal shall go on in the next chapter, let who will come in.——
Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of his passions were unaccountably sudden,—and what has this whelp of mine to say to the matter?
Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog—he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of enquiry.—He sat down.
Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered,—in what condition is the boy?—’Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr. Slop.
I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby—returning his pipe into his mouth.——Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his medical lecture.—The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words.
C H A P. XL
THE city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his majesty king William himself, the year after I went into the army—lies, an’ please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country.—’Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in Ireland.——
I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical lecture.—’Tis all true, answered Trim.—Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of it, said Yorick.—’Tis all cut through, an’ please your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a puddle,—’twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour and myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water;—nor was that enough, for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.——
And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal Trim, cried my father, from all these premises?
I infer, an’ please your worship, replied Trim, that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water—and that the radical heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy,—the radical heat and moisture of a private man, an’ please your honour, is nothing but ditch-water—and a dram of geneva——and give us but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the vapours—we know not what it is to fear death.
I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop, to determine in which branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in physiology or divinity.—Slop had not forgot Trim’s comment upon the sermon.—
It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal was examined in the latter, and passed muster with great honour.——
The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being—as the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation.—It is inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but principally in my opinion by consubstantials, impriments, and occludents.——Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice point.——That he has,—said my father.——Very likely, said my uncle.—I’m sure of it—quoth Yorick.——
C H A P. XLI
DOCTOR Slop being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the Tristra-pædia.——Come! cheer up, my lads; I’ll shew you land——for when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this twelve-month.—Huzza!—
