At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petards—my father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) in a panegyric upon the BATTERING-RAMS of the ancients—the VINEA which Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy.—He would tell my uncle Toby of the CATAPULTÆ of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundation:—he would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the BALLISTA which Marcellinus makes so much rout about!—the terrible effects of the PYROBOLI, which cast fire;——the danger of the TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins.——But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal Trim?——Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge, or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery.
My uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle Toby leap’d up without feeling the pain upon his groin—and, with infinite pity, stood beside his brother’s chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket.——The affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little offices—cut my father thro’ his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him.——May my brains be knock’d out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himself—if ever I insult this worthy soul more! 153
CHAPTER XXV
The draw-bridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about another———but not upon the same modeclass="underline" for cardinal Alberoni’s intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle Toby rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out betwixt Spain and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing campaign must in all likelihood be either in Naples or Sicily——he determined upon an Italian bridge—(my uncle Toby, by the bye, was not far out of his conjectures)——but my father, who was infinitely the better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my uncle Toby took it of him in the field———convinced him, that if the king of Spain and the Emperor went together by the ears, England and France and Holland must, by force of their pre-engagements, all enter the lists too;——and if so, he would say, the combatants, brother Toby, as sure as we are alive, will fall to it again, pell-mell, upon the old prizefighting stage of Flanders;—then what will you do with your Italian bridge?
—We will go on with it then upon the old model, cried my uncle Toby.
When Corporal Trim had about half finished it in that style——my uncle Toby found out a capital defect in it, which he had never thoroughly considered before. It turned, it seems, upon hinges at both ends of it, opening in the middle, one half of which turning to one side of the fosse, and the other to the other; the advantage of which was this, that by dividing the weight of the bridge into two equal portions, it impowered my uncle Toby to raise it up or let it down with the end of his crutch, and with one hand, which, as his garrison was weak, was as much as he could well spare—but the disadvantages of such a construction were insurmountable;——for by this means, he would say, I leave one half of my bridge in my enemy’s possession——and pray of what use is the other?
The natural remedy for this was, no doubt, to have his bridge fast only at one end with hinges, so that the whole might be lifted up together, and stand bolt upright———but that was rejected for the reason given above.
For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to hinder a passage; and to thrust forwards again 154 to gain a passage—of which sorts your worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its destruction—and one now at Brisac, if I mistake not;—but my father advising my uncle Toby, with great earnestness, to have nothing more to do with thrusting bridges—and my uncle foreseeing moreover that it would but perpetuate the memory of the Corporal’s misfortune—he changed his mind for that of the marquis d’Hôpital’s invention, which the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as your worships may see———Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695—to these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve line approximating to a cycloid———if not a cycloid itself.
My uncle Toby understood the nature of a parabola as well as any man in England—but was not quite such a master of the cycloid;——he talked however about it every day——the bridge went not forwards.——We’ll ask somebody about it, cried my uncle Toby to Trim.
CHAPTER XXVI
When Trim came in and told my father, that Dr. Slop was in the kitchen, and busy in making a bridge—my uncle Toby——the affair of the jack-boots having just then raised a train of military ideas in his brain——took it instantly for granted that Dr. Slop was making a model of the marquis d’Hôpital’s bridge.——’Tis very obliging in him, quoth my uncle Toby;—pray give my humble service to Dr. Slop, Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily.
Had my uncle Toby’s head been a Savoyard’s box, and my father peeping in all the time at one end of it——it could not have given him a more distinct conception of the operations of my uncle Toby’s imagination, than what he had; so, notwithstanding the catapulta and battering-ram, and his bitter imprecation about them, he was just beginning to triumph——
When Trim’s answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and twisted it to pieces.
CHAPTER XXVII
——This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father——God bless your honour, cried Trim, ’tis a bridge for master’s 155 nose.——In bringing him into the world with his vile instruments, he has crushed his nose, Susannah says, as flat as a pancake to his face, and he is making a false bridge with a piece of cotton and a thin piece of whalebone out of Susannah’s stays, to raise it up.
——Lead me, brother Toby, cried my father, to my room this instant.
CHAPTER XXVIII
From the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my father.——A tide of little evils and distresses has been setting in against him.—Not one thing, as he observed himself, has gone right: and now is the storm thicken’d and going to break, and pour down full upon his head.