The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman

_Trim_, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege next summer, which I have been making out of a pair of jack-boots, which _Obadiah_ told me your honour had left off wearing.—By Heaven! cried my father, springing out of his chair, as he swore——I have not one appointment belonging to me, which I set so much store by as I do by these jack-boots——they were our great grandfather’s brother _Toby_—they were _hereditary._ Then I fear, quoth my uncle _Toby, Trim_ has cut off the entail.—I have only cut off the tops, an’ please your honour, cried _Trim_——I hate perpetuities as much as any man alive, cried my father——but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though very angry at the same time) have been in the family, brother, ever since the civil wars;——Sir _Roger Shandy_ wore them at the battle of _Marston-Moor._—I declare I would not have taken ten pounds for them.——I’ll pay you the money, brother _Shandy_, quoth my uncle _Toby_, looking at the two mortars with infinite pleasure, and putting his hand into his breeches pocket as he viewed them——I’ll pay you the ten pounds this moment with all my heart and soul.—— Brother _Toby_, replied my father, altering his tone, you care not what money you dissipate and throw away, provided, continued he, ’tis but upon a SIEGE.——Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, besides my half pay? cried my uncle _Toby_.—What is that—replied my father hastily—to ten pounds for a pair of jack-boots?—twelve guineas for your _pontoons_?—half as much for your _Dutch_ draw-bridge?—to say nothing of the train of little brass artillery you bespoke last week, with twenty other preparations for the siege of _Messina_: believe me, dear brother _Toby_, continued my father, taking him kindly by the hand—these military operations of yours are above your strength;—you mean well brother——but they carry you into greater expences than you were first aware of;—and take my word, dear _Toby_, they will in the end quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you.—What signifies it if they do, brother, replied my uncle _Toby_, so long as we know ’tis for the good of the nation?—— My father could not help smiling for his soul—his anger at the worst was never more than a spark;—and the zeal and simplicity of _Trim_—and the generous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle _Toby_, brought him into perfect good humour with them in an instant. Generous souls!—God prosper you both, and your mortar-pieces too! quoth my father to himself. C H A P. XVI ALL is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least above stairs—I hear not one foot stirring.—Prithee _Trim_, who’s in the kitchen? There is no one soul in the kitchen, answered _Trim_, making a low bow as he spoke, except Dr. _Slop_.—Confusion! cried my father (getting upon his legs a second time)—not one single thing has gone right this day! had I faith in astrology, brother, (which, by the bye, my father had) I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its place.——Why, I thought Dr. _Slop_ had been above stairs with my wife, and so said you.——What can the fellow be puzzling about in the kitchen!—He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied _Trim_, in making a 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. You must know, my uncle _Toby_ mistook the bridge—as widely as my father mistook the mortars:——but to understand how my uncle _Toby_ could mistake the bridge—I fear I must give you an exact account of the road which led to it;—or to drop my metaphor (for there is nothing more dishonest in an historian than the use of one)——in order to conceive the probability of this error in my uncle _Toby_ aright, I must give you some account of an adventure of _Trim_’s, though much against my will, I say much against my will, only because the story, in one sense, is certainly out of its place here; for by right it should come in, either amongst the anecdotes of my uncle _Toby_’s amours with widow _Wadman_, in which corporal _Trim_ was no mean actor—or else in the middle of his and my uncle _Toby_’s campaigns on the bowling-green—for it will do very well in either place;—but then if I reserve it for either of those parts of my story——I ruin the story I’m upon;——and if I tell it here——I anticipate matters, and ruin it there. —What would your worship have me to do in this case? —Tell it, Mr. _Shandy_, by all means.—You are a fool, _Tristram_, if you do. O ye powers! (for powers ye are, and great ones too)—which enable mortal man to tell a story worth the hearing——that kindly shew him, where he is to begin it—and where he is to end it——what he is to put into it——and what he is to leave out—how much of it he is to cast into a shade—and whereabouts he is to throw his light!—Ye, who preside over this vast empire of biographical freebooters, and see how many scrapes and plunges your subjects hourly fall into;——will you do one thing? I beg and beseech you (in case you will do nothing better for us) that wherever in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here——that at least you set up a guide-post in the centre of them, in mere charity, to direct an uncertain devil which of the three he is to take. C H A P. XVII THO’ the shock my uncle _Toby_ received the year after the demolition of _Dunkirk_, in his affair with widow _Wadman_, had fixed him in a resolution never more to think of the sex—or of aught which belonged to it;—yet corporal _Trim_ had made no such bargain with himself. Indeed in my uncle _Toby_’s case there was a strange and unaccountable concurrence of circumstances, which insensibly drew him in, to lay siege to that fair and strong citadel.——In _Trim_’s case there was a concurrence of nothing in the world, but of him and _Bridget_ in the kitchen;—though in truth, the love and veneration he bore his master was such, and so fond was he of imitating him in all he did, that had my uncle _Toby_ employed his time and genius in tagging of points——I am persuaded the honest corporal would have laid down his arms, and followed his example with pleasure. When therefore my uncle _Toby_ sat down before the mistress—corporal _Trim_ incontinently took ground before the maid. Now, my dear friend _Garrick_, whom I have so much cause to esteem and honour—(why, or wherefore, ’tis no matter)—can it escape your penetration—I defy it—that so many play-wrights, and opificers of chit-chat have ever since been working upon _Trim_’s and my uncle _Toby_’s pattern.——I care not what _Aristotle_, or _Pacuvius_, or _Bossu_, or _Ricaboni_ say—(though I never read one of them)——there is not a greater difference between a single-horse chair and madam _Pompadour_’s _vis-a-vis;_ than betwixt a single amour, and an amour thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing throughout a grand drama——Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind—is quite lost in five acts—but that is neither here nor there. After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my uncle _Toby_’s quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which shall be given in its proper place, my uncle _Toby_, honest man! found it necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly. Corporal _Trim_, as I said, had made no such bargain either with himself——or with any one else——the fidelity however of his heart not suffering him to go into a house which his master had forsaken with disgust——he contented himself with turning his part of the siege into a blockade;—that is, he kept others off;—for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met _Bridget_ in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her—or (as circumstances directed) he would shake her by the hand—or ask her lovingly how she did—or would give her a ribbon—and now-and-then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give _Bridget_ a— Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that is from the demolition of _Dunkirk_ in the year 13, to the latter end of my uncle _Toby_’s campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time I’m speaking of.——When _Trim_, as his custom was, after he had put my uncle _Toby_ to bed, going down one moon-shiny night to see that every thing was right at his fortifications——in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly—he espied his _Bridget._ As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle _Toby_ had made, _Trim_ courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth’d trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reach’d my father’s, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle _Toby_’s curious draw-bridge, constructed and painted after the _Dutch_ fashion, and which went quite across the ditch—was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night. My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle _Toby_’s hobby-horse; he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle _Toby_ vexed him about it, could never think of it once, without smiling at it——so that it could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my father’s imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his humour than any one which had yet befall’n it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him——Well——but dear _Toby!_ my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened.——How can you teaze me so much about it? my uncle _Toby_ would reply—I have told it you twenty times, word for word as _Trim_ told it me.—Prithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, turning to _Trim._—It was a mere misfortune, an’ please your honour;——I was shewing Mrs. _Bridget_ our fortifications, and in going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slipp’d in——Very well, _Trim!_ my father would cry——(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nod—but without interrupting him)——and being link’d fast, an’ please your honour, arm in arm with Mrs. _Bridget_, I dragg’d her after me, by means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridge——and _Trim_’s foot (my uncle _Toby_ would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.—It was a thousand to one, my uncle _Toby_ would add, that the poor fellow did not break his leg.——Ay truly, my father would say——a limb is soon broke, brother _Toby_, in such encounters.——And so, an’ please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces. 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 PYRABOLI, which cast fire;—the danger of the TEREBRA and SCORPIO, which cast javelins.——But what are