No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours—They are the choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em——assure yourselves, good folks—(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words!——and that’s the thing I have to declare.———I shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fear——and the thing I hope is, that your worships and reverences are not offended—if you are, depend upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be offended at——that’s my dear Jenny’s way—but who my Jenny is—and which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealed—it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my chapter of Button-holes——and not one chapter before.
And now that you have just got to the end of these14 four volumes——the thing I have to ask is, how you feel your heads? my own akes dismally!———as for your healths, I know, they are much better.—True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its channels, makes the wheel of life run long and chearfully round.
Was I left, like Sancho Panca, to choose my kingdom, it should not be maritime—or a kingdom of blacks to make a penny of;—no, it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects: And as the bilious and more saturnine passions, by creating disorders in the blood and humours, have as bad an influence, I see, upon the body politick as body natural——and as nothing but a habit of virtue can fully govern those passions, and subject them to reason———I should add to my prayer—that God would give my subjects grace to be as WISE as they were MERRY; and then should I be the happiest monarch, and they the happiest people under heaven.
And so, with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the meantime) I’ll have another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you little dream of.
1. As Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis is extremely scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see the specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no reflection upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic—and, I think, has more of Latinity in it.
2. Hafen Slawkenbergius means the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded in the year 940, by Odo, abbé de Cluny.
3. Mr. Shandy’s compliments to orators——is very sensible that Slawkenbergius has here changed his metaphor———which he is very guilty of:——that as a translator, Mr. Shandy has all along done what he could to make him stick to it—but that here ’twas impossible.
4. Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formulâ utun. Quinimo & Logistæ & Canonistæ——Vid. Parce Barne Jas in d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. 1. n. 7. quâ etiam in re conspir. Om de Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de contrahend. empt, &c. necnon J. Scrudr, in cap. § refut. per totum. Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. cap. 9. ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras. Belg. ad finem, cum comment, N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentotarens. de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc. Archiv. fid coll. per Von Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583. præcip. ad finem. Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. aliena feud. per federa, test. Joha. Luxius in prolegom, quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2, 3. Vid. Idea.
5. Hæc mira, satisque horrenda. Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio Asterismo in nona cœli statione, quam Arabes religioni deputabant efficit Martinum Lutherum sacrilegum hereticum, Christianæ religionis hostem acerrimum atque prophanum, ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum, religiosissimus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad infernos navigavit—ab Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara flagellis igneis cruciata perenniter.
——Lucas Gaurieus in Tractatu astrologico de præteritis multorum hominum accidentibus per genituras examinatis.
6. Ce Fœtus n’étoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais son pere l’ayant éxaminé en qualité de Médecin, & ayant trouvé que c’etoit quâlque chose de plus qu’un Embryon, le fit transporter tout vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à Jerôme Bardi & à d’autres Médecins du lieu. On trouva qu’il ne lui manquoit rien d’essentiel à la vie; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience, entreprit d’achever l’ouvrage de la Nature, & de travailler à la formation de l’Enfant avec le même artifice que celui dont on se sert pour faire écclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse de tout ce qu’elle avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un pour proprement accommodé, il reussit à l’élever & à lui faire prendre ses accroissemens necessaires, par l’uniformité d’une chaleur étrangere mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d’un Thermométre, ou d’un autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt. Liguri à Cart. 223. 488.)
On auroit toujours été très satisfait de l’industrie d’un pere si experimenté dans l’Art de la Generation, quand il n’auroit pû prolonger la vie à son fils que pour quelques mois, ou pour peu d’années.
Mais quand on se represente que l’Enfant a vecu près de quatre-vingts ans, & qu’il a composé quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits d’une longue lecture—il faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable n’est pas toujours faux, & que la Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du côté de la Verité.
Il n’avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu’il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animæ humanæ.
(Les Enfans celebres, revûs & corrigés par M. de la Monnoye de l’Academie Françoise.)
7. According to the original Editions.
8. According to the original Editions.
9. Vide Menagiana, Vol. I.
10. Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7, §8.
11. Vide Brook, Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.
12. Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de Verb. signific.
13. Vide Brook, Abridg. tit. Administr. N. 47.
14. According to the original Editions.
249 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY
GENTLEMAN
Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis.—— Hor.
—Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut mordacius quam deceat Christianum—non Ego, sed Democritus dixit.— Erasmus.