Section 24 of 48 - Table of Contents
Chapter 2.LXIV.
--Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand with his fingers
spread upon his breast--had such a blunder about a christian-name happened
before the Reformation--(It happened the day before yesterday, quoth my
uncle Toby to himself)--and when baptism was administer'd in Latin--('Twas
all in English, said my uncle)--many things might have coincided with it,
and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the
baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name--Had a priest,
for instance, which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin
tongue, baptized a child of Tom-o'Stiles, in nomine patriae & filia &
spiritum sanctos--the baptism was held null.--I beg your pardon, replied
Kysarcius--in that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the
baptism was valid--and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest
should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun--and not, as in
your case, upon the last.
My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen'd with infinite
attention.
Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John
Stradling's in Gomine gatris, &c. &c. instead of in Nomine patris, &c.--Is
this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as much as the radix of
each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and
changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify a name, nor
gatris a father.--What do they signify? said my uncle Toby.--Nothing at
all--quoth Yorick.--Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius.--
In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part earnest.-
-
But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patriae is put for
patris, filia for filii, and so on--as it is a fault only in the
declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the inflections
of their branches either this way or that, does not in any sort hinder the
baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the words as before.--But
then, said Didius, the intention of the priest's pronouncing them
grammatically must have been proved to have gone along with it.--Right,
answered Kysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we have an instance in a
decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the IIId.--But my brother's child,
cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the Pope--'tis the plain child
of a Protestant gentleman, christen'd Tristram against the wills and wishes
both of his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.--
If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of
those only who stand related to Mr. Shandy's child, were to have weight in
this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in it.--My
uncle Toby lay'd down his pipe, and my father drew his chair still closer
to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an introduction.
--It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the (Vide
Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. para 8.) best lawyers and civilians in this
land, continued Kysarcius, 'Whether the mother be of kin to her child,'--
but, after much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on
all sides--it has been adjudged for the negative--namely, 'That the mother
is not of kin to her child.' (Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.)
My father instantly clapp'd his hand upon my uncle Toby's mouth, under
colour of whispering in his ear;--the truth was, he was alarmed for
Lillabullero--and having a great desire to hear more of so curious an
argument--he begg'd my uncle Toby, for heaven's sake, not to disappoint him
in it.--My uncle Toby gave a nod--resumed his pipe, and contenting himself
with whistling Lillabullero inwardly--Kysarcius, Didius, and Triptolemus
went on with the discourse as follows:
This determination, continued Kysarcius, how contrary soever it may seem to
run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side; and
has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous case, known
commonly by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's case.--It is cited in Brook,
said Triptolemus--And taken notice of by Lord Coke, added Didius.--And you
may find it in Swinburn on Testaments, said Kysarcius.
The case, Mr. Shandy, was this:
In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles duke of Suffolk having issue a
son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his last will,
wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose death the son
died also--but without will, without wife, and without child--his mother
and his sister by the father's side (for she was born of the former venter)
then living. The mother took the administration of her son's goods,
according to the statute of the 21st of Harry the Eighth, whereby it is
enacted, That in case any person die intestate the administration of his
goods shall be committed to the next of kin.
The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, the
sister by the father's side commenced a suit before the Ecclesiastical
Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; and 2dly, That the
mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; and therefore prayed
the court, that the administration granted to the mother might be revoked,
and be committed unto her, as next of kin to the deceased, by force of the
said statute.
Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its issue--and
many causes of great property likely to be decided in times to come, by the
precedent to be then made--the most learned, as well in the laws of this
realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, whether the mother was
of kin to her son, or no.--Whereunto not only the temporal lawyers--but the
church lawyers--the juris-consulti--the jurisprudentes--the civilians--the
advocates--the commissaries--the judges of the consistory and prerogative
courts of Canterbury and York, with the master of the faculties, were all
unanimously of opinion, That the mother was not of (Mater non numeratur
inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de Verb. signific.) kin to her
child.--
And what said the duchess of Suffolk to it? said my uncle Toby.
The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby's question, confounded Kysarcius more
than the ablest advocate--He stopp'd a full minute, looking in my uncle
Toby's face without replying--and in that single minute Triptolemus put by
him, and took the lead as follows.
'Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things do
not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt 'tis for this cause,
that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and seed of its
parents--that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of
it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by
the parents--For so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patris & matris,
sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine liberorum.
--But this, Triptolemus, cried Didius, proves too much--for from this
authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all
sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child--but the father
likewise.--It is held, said Triptolemus, the better opinion; because the
father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are
they but (una caro (Vide Brook Abridg. tit. Administr. N .47.)) one flesh;
and consequently no degree of kindred--or any method of acquiring one in
nature.--There you push the argument again too far, cried Didius--for there
is no prohibition in nature, though there is in the Levitical law--but that
a man may beget a child upon his grandmother--in which case, supposing the
issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both of--But who ever
thought, cried Kysarcius, of laying with his grandmother?--The young
gentleman, replied Yorick, whom Selden speaks of--who not only thought of
it, but justified his intention to his father by the argument drawn from
the law of retaliation.--'You laid, Sir, with my mother,' said the lad--
'why may not I lay with yours?'--'Tis the Argumentum commune, added
Yorick.--'Tis as good, replied Eugenius, taking down his hat, as they
deserve.
The company broke up.
Chapter 2.LXV.
--And pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, as he and my father
were helping him leisurely down the stairs--don't be terrified, madam, this
stair-case conversation is not so long as the last--And pray, Yorick, said
my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of Tristram at length settled
by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick; no mortal, Sir,
has any concern with it--for Mrs. Shandy the mother is nothing at all a-kin
to him--and as the mother's is the surest side--Mr. Shandy, in course is
still less than nothing--In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as
I am.--
--That may well be, said my father, shaking his head.
--Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle
Toby, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess of Suffolk
and her son.
The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth Yorick, to this hour.
Chapter 2.LXVI.
Though my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned
discourses--'twas still but like the anointing of a broken bone--The moment
he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so much
the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under
us.--He became pensive--walked frequently forth to the fish-pond--let down
one loop of his hat--sigh'd often--forbore to snap--and, as the hasty
sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and
digestion, as Hippocrates tells us--he had certainly fallen ill with the
extinction of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his
health rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of
a thousand pounds, by my aunt Dinah.
My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right
end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out
mostly to the honour of his family.--A hundred-and-fifty odd projects took
possession of his brains by turns--he would do this, and that and t'other--
He would go to Rome--he would go to law--he would buy stock--he would buy
John Hobson's farm--he would new fore front his house, and add a new wing
to make it even--There was a fine water-mill on this side, and he would
build a wind-mill on the other side of the river in full view to answer it-
-But above all things in the world, he would inclose the great Ox-moor, and
send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels.
But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thing--and
in truth very few of these to any purpose--of all the projects which
offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the
deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at
once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put
him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the one or the other.
This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though 'tis certain my
father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my
brother's education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to
carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the second
creation of actions in the Missisippi-scheme, in which he was an
adventurer--yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained,
unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a
claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning
it likewise to some account.
But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things,
as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their
claims--like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical
examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project
at this crisis--the two old projects, the Ox-moor and my Brother, divided
him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the
occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman's mind--which of the two
should be set o'going first.
--People may laugh as they will--but the case was this.
It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost
become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should have free
ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage--not only
for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise
and change of so much air--but simply for the mere delectation of his
fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been abroad--tantum
valet, my father would say, quantum sonat.
Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgence--to
deprive him of it, without why or wherefore--and thereby make an example of
him, as the first Shandy unwhirl'd about Europe in a post-chaise, and only
because he was a heavy lad--would be using him ten times worse than a Turk.
On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard.
Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds--
it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about
fifteen years before--besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation.
It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy-family ever since the
middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the
house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by the
projected wind-mill spoken of above--and for all these reasons seemed to
have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection
of the family--yet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as
the ground they tread on--it had all along most shamefully been overlook'd;
and to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would
have made any man's heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value
of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.
However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground--nor indeed the
placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my
father's doing--he had never thought himself any way concerned in the
affair--till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed
law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries)--which
being altogether my father's own act and deed, it naturally awakened every
other argument in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he
saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something
for it--and that now or never was the time.
I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, that
the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by each
other; for though my father weigh'd them in all humours and conditions--
spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and abstracted meditation
upon what was best to be done--reading books of farming one day--books of
travels another--laying aside all passion whatever--viewing the arguments
on both sides in all their lights and circumstances--communing every day
with my uncle Toby--arguing with Yorick, and talking over the whole affair
of the Ox-moor with Obadiah--yet nothing in all that time appeared so
strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable to
the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of
equal weight, as to keep the scales even.
For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho' the
Ox-moor would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the world
from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay--yet every
tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother Bobby--let Obadiah say
what he would.--
In point of interest--the contest, I own, at first sight, did not appear so
undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand,
and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and burning, and
fencing in the Ox-moor, &c. &c.--with the certain profit it would bring him
in return--the latter turned out so prodigiously in his way of working the
account, that you would have sworn the Ox-moor would have carried all
before it. For it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at
twenty pounds a last, the very first year--besides an excellent crop of
wheat the year following--and the year after that, to speak within bounds,
a hundred--but in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty--if not two hundred
quarters of pease and beans--besides potatoes without end.--But then, to
think he was all this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat them-
-knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in
such a state of suspense--that, as he often declared to my uncle Toby--he
knew no more than his heels what to do.
No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is
to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both
obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for to say
nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made
by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which you know convey the
animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart to the head, and so
on--it is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction
works upon the more gross and solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing
the strength of a man every time as it goes backwards and forwards.
My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done
under that of my Christian Name--had he not been rescued out of it, as he
was out of that, by a fresh evil--the misfortune of my brother Bobby's
death.
What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?--from
sorrow to sorrow?--to button up one cause of vexation--and unbutton
another?
Chapter 2.LXVII.
From this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the Shandy
family--and it is from this point properly, that the story of my Life and
my Opinions sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have but been
clearing the ground to raise the building--and such a building do I foresee
it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was executed since
Adam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire,
and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of
my ink-horn, after it--I have but half a score things to do in the time--I
have a thing to name--a thing to lament--a thing to hope--a thing to
promise, and a thing to threaten--I have a thing to suppose--a thing to
declare--a thing to conceal--a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for--
This chapter, therefore, I name the chapter of Things--and my next chapter
to it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my
chapter upon Whiskers, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my
works.
The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I
have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards which I have
all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is the
Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby, the events of which
are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so
manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other brain,
which the occurrences themselves excite in my own--I will answer for it the
book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done
before it.--Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once brought about--the
credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many
evils will have befallen thee as a man--thou wilt feast upon the one--when
thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!--
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 these (According to the
preceding Editions.) three 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 cheerfully
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 are 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 mean time) I'll have another pluck
at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you little dream of.
End of the Second Volume.
Volume the Third.
Dixero si quid forte 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.
Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, sciebat,
anathema esto. Second Council of Carthage.
To the Right Honorable John, Lord Viscount Spencer.
My Lord,
I Humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes (Volumes V. and VI. in
the first Edition.); they are the best my talents, with such bad health as
I have, could produce:--had Providence granted me a larger stock of either,
they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.
I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate this
work to you, I join Lady Spencer, in the liberty I take of inscribing the
story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other motive, which my
heart has informed me of, but that the story is a humane one.
I am, My Lord, Your Lordship's most devoted and most humble Servant,
Laur. Sterne.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.
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