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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Section 33 of 48 - Table of Contents
Chapter 3.LXVI.

I must observe, that although in the first year's campaign, the word town
is often mentioned,--yet there was no town at that time within the polygon;
that addition was not made till the summer following the spring in which
the bridges and sentry-box were painted, which was the third year of my
uncle Toby's campaigns,--when upon his taking Amberg, Bonn, and Rhinberg,
and Huy and Limbourg, one after another, a thought came into the corporal's
head, that to talk of taking so many towns, without one Town to shew for
it,--was a very nonsensical way of going to work, and so proposed to my
uncle Toby, that they should have a little model of a town built for them,-
-to be run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and clapped within
the interior polygon to serve for all.

My uncle Toby felt the good of the project instantly, and instantly agreed
to it, but with the addition of two singular improvements, of which he was
almost as proud as if he had been the original inventor of the project
itself.

The one was, to have the town built exactly in the style of those of which
it was most likely to be the representative:--with grated windows, and the
gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c.--as those in Ghent
and Bruges, and the rest of the towns in Brabant and Flanders.

The other was, not to have the houses run up together, as the corporal
proposed, but to have every house independent, to hook on, or off, so as to
form into the plan of whatever town they pleased.  This was put directly
into hand, and many and many a look of mutual congratulation was exchanged
between my uncle Toby and the corporal, as the carpenter did the work.

--It answered prodigiously the next summer--the town was a perfect Proteus-
-It was Landen, and Trerebach, and Santvliet, and Drusen, and Hagenau,--and
then it was Ostend and Menin, and Aeth and Dendermond.

--Surely never did any Town act so many parts, since Sodom and Gomorrah, as
my uncle Toby's town did.

In the fourth year, my uncle Toby thinking a town looked foolishly without
a church, added a very fine one with a steeple.--Trim was for having bells
in it;--my uncle Toby said, the metal had better be cast into cannon.

This led the way the next campaign for half a dozen brass field-pieces, to
be planted three and three on each side of my uncle Toby's sentry-box; and
in a short time, these led the way for a train of somewhat larger,--and so
on--(as must always be the case in hobby-horsical affairs) from pieces of
half an inch bore, till it came at last to my father's jack boots.

The next year, which was that in which Lisle was besieged, and at the close
of which both Ghent and Bruges fell into our hands,--my uncle Toby was
sadly put to it for proper ammunition;--I say proper ammunition--because
his great artillery would not bear powder; and 'twas well for the Shandy
family they would not--For so full were the papers, from the beginning to
the end of the siege, of the incessant firings kept up by the besiegers,--
and so heated was my uncle Toby's imagination with the accounts of them,
that he had infallibly shot away all his estate.

Something therefore was wanting as a succedaneum, especially in one or two
of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something like a
continual firing in the imagination,--and this something, the corporal,
whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an entire new system
of battering of his own,--without which, this had been objected to by
military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the great desiderata
of my uncle Toby's apparatus.

This will not be explained the worse, for setting off, as I generally do,
at a little distance from the subject.



Chapter 3.LXVII.

With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, but of great regard,
which poor Tom, the corporal's unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with
the account of his marriage with the Jew's widow--there was

A Montero-cap and two Turkish tobacco-pipes.

The Montero-cap I shall describe by and bye.--The Turkish tobacco-pipes had
nothing particular in them, they were fitted up and ornamented as usual,
with flexible tubes of Morocco leather and gold wire, and mounted at their
ends, the one of them with ivory,--the other with black ebony, tipp'd with
silver.

My father, who saw all things in lights different from the rest of the
world, would say to the corporal, that he ought to look upon these two
presents more as tokens of his brother's nicety, than his affection.--Tom
did not care, Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, or to smoke in the
tobacco-pipe of a Jew.--God bless your honour, the corporal would say
(giving a strong reason to the contrary)--how can that be?

The Montero-cap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish cloth, dyed in grain,
and mounted all round with fur, except about four inches in the front,
which was faced with a light blue, slightly embroidered,--and seemed to
have been the property of a Portuguese quarter-master, not of foot, but of
horse, as the word denotes.

The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for its own sake, as the
sake of the giver, so seldom or never put it on but upon Gala-days; and yet
never was a Montero-cap put to so many uses; for in all controverted
points, whether military or culinary, provided the corporal was sure he was
in the right,--it was either his oath,--his wager,--or his gift.

--'Twas his gift in the present case.

I'll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, to give away my
Montero-cap to the first beggar who comes to the door, if I do not manage
this matter to his honour's satisfaction.

The completion was no further off, than the very next morning; which was
that of the storm of the counterscarp betwixt the Lower Deule, to the
right, and the gate St. Andrew,--and on the left, between St. Magdalen's
and the river.

As this was the most memorable attack in the whole war,--the most gallant
and obstinate on both sides,--and I must add the most bloody too, for it
cost the allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred men,--my uncle
Toby prepared himself for it with a more than ordinary solemnity.

The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to bed, he ordered his
ramallie wig, which had laid inside out for many years in the corner of an
old campaigning trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out and laid
upon the lid of it, ready for the morning;--and the very first thing he did
in his shirt, when he had stepped out of bed, my uncle Toby, after he had
turned the rough side outwards,--put it on:--This done, he proceeded next
to his breeches, and having buttoned the waist-band, he forthwith buckled
on his sword-belt, and had got his sword half way in,--when he considered
he should want shaving, and that it would be very inconvenient doing it
with his sword on,--so took it off:--In essaying to put on his regimental
coat and waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in his wig,--so
that went off too:--So that what with one thing and what with another, as
always falls out when a man is in the most haste,--'twas ten o'clock, which
was half an hour later than his usual time, before my uncle Toby sallied
out.



Chapter 3.LXVIII.

My uncle Toby had scarce turned the corner of his yew hedge, which
separated his kitchen-garden from his bowling-green, when he perceived the
corporal had begun the attack without him.--

Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal's apparatus; and of the
corporal himself in the height of his attack, just as it struck my uncle
Toby, as he turned towards the sentry-box, where the corporal was at work,-
-for in nature there is not such another,--nor can any combination of all
that is grotesque and whimsical in her works produce its equal.

The corporal--

--Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius,--for he was your kinsman:

Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness,--for he was your brother.--Oh
corporal! had I thee, but now,--now, that I am able to give thee a dinner
and protection,--how would I cherish thee! thou should'st wear thy Montero-
cap every hour of the day, and every day of the week.--and when it was worn
out, I would purchase thee a couple like it:--But alas! alas! alas! now
that I can do this in spite of their reverences--the occasion is lost--for
thou art gone;--thy genius fled up to the stars from whence it came;--and
that warm heart of thine, with all its generous and open vessels,
compressed into a clod of the valley!

--But what--what is this, to that future and dreaded page, where I look
towards the velvet pall, decorated with the military ensigns of thy master-
-the first--the foremost of created beings;--where, I shall see thee,
faithful servant! laying his sword and scabbard with a trembling hand
across his coffin, and then returning pale as ashes to the door, to take
his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as he directed
thee;--where--all my father's systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and,
in spite of his philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the lackered
plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe away the dew
which nature has shed upon them--When I see him cast in the rosemary with
an air of disconsolation, which cries through my ears,--O Toby! in what
corner of the world shall I seek thy fellow?

--Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his
distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain--when I shall
arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, then, with a stinted hand.



Chapter 3.LXIX.

The corporal, who the night before had resolved in his mind to supply the
grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon
the enemy during the heat of the attack,--had no further idea in his fancy
at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out
of one of my uncle Toby's six field-pieces, which were planted on each side
of his sentry-box; the means of effecting which occurring to his fancy at
the same time, though he had pledged his cap, he thought it in no danger
from the miscarriage of his projects.

Upon turning it this way, and that, a little in his mind, he soon began to
find out, that by means of his two Turkish tobacco-pipes, with the
supplement of three smaller tubes of wash-leather at each of their lower
ends, to be tagg'd by the same number of tin-pipes fitted to the touch-
holes, and sealed with clay next the cannon, and then tied hermetically
with waxed silk at their several insertions into the Morocco tube,--he
should be able to fire the six field-pieces all together, and with the same
ease as to fire one.--

--Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for the
advancement of human knowledge.  Let no man, who has read my father's first
and second beds of justice, ever rise up and say again, from collision of
what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck out, to carry the arts
and sciences up to perfection.--Heaven! thou knowest how I love them;--thou
knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I would this moment give my
shirt--Thou art a fool, Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in
the world,--and 'twill break thy set.--

No matter for that, Eugenius; I would give the shirt off my back to be
burnt into tinder, were it only to satisfy one feverish enquirer, how many
sparks at one good stroke, a good flint and steel could strike into the
tail of it.--Think ye not that in striking these in,--he might, per-
adventure, strike something out? as sure as a gun.--

--But this project, by the bye.

The corporal sat up the best part of the night, in bringing his to
perfection; and having made a sufficient proof of his cannon, with charging
them to the top with tobacco,--he went with contentment to bed.



Chapter 3.LXX.

The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle Toby, in
order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two before my
uncle Toby came.

He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together in
front of my uncle Toby's sentry-box, leaving only an interval of about a
yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the
convenience of charging, &c.--and the sake possibly of two batteries, which
he might think double the honour of one.

In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the
sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken his
post:--He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the right,
betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand,--and the ebony pipe tipp'd
with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left, betwixt the
finger and thumb of the other--and with his right knee fixed firm upon the
ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was the corporal, with his
Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off his two cross batteries at
the same time against the counter-guard, which faced the counterscarp,
where the attack was to be made that morning.  His first intention, as I
said, was no more than giving the enemy a single puff or two;--but the
pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had insensibly got hold of
the corporal, and drawn him on from puff to puff, into the very height of
the attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined him.

'Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had not his will to make that
day.



Chapter 3.LXXI.

My uncle Toby took the ivory pipe out of the corporal's hand,--looked at it
for half a minute, and returned it.

In less than two minutes, my uncle Toby took the pipe from the corporal
again, and raised it half way to his mouth--then hastily gave it back a
second time.

The corporal redoubled the attack,--my uncle Toby smiled,--then looked
grave,--then smiled for a moment,--then looked serious for a long time;--
Give me hold of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby--my uncle Toby put
it to his lips,--drew it back directly,--gave a peep over the horn-beam
hedge;--never did my uncle Toby's mouth water so much for a pipe in his
life.--My uncle Toby retired into the sentry-box with the pipe in his
hand.--

--Dear uncle Toby! don't go into the sentry-box with the pipe,--there's no
trusting a man's self with such a thing in such a corner.



Chapter 3.LXXII.

I beg the reader will assist me here, to wheel off my uncle Toby's ordnance
behind the scenes,--to remove his sentry-box, and clear the theatre, if
possible, of horn-works and half moons, and get the rest of his military
apparatus out of the way;--that done, my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff
the candles bright,--sweep the stage with a new broom,--draw up the
curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character, throughout
which the world can have no idea how he will act:  and yet, if pity be a-
kin to love,--and bravery no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle
Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses, betwixt the two passions
(in case there is one) to your heart's content.

Vain science! thou assistest us in no case of this kind--and thou puzzlest
us in every one.

There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart which misled him
so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this nature
usually go on; you can--you can have no conception of it:  with this, there
was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting
ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman;--and so naked
and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege was out of his
head,) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks,
and shot my uncle Toby ten times in a day, through his liver, if nine times
in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.

With all this, Madam,--and what confounded every thing as much on the other
hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you
of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you
might as soon--But where am I going? these reflections crowd in upon me ten
pages at least too soon, and take up that time, which I ought to bestow
upon facts.



Chapter 3.LXXIII.

Of the few legitimate sons of Adam whose breasts never felt what the sting
of love was,--(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be bastards,)--the
greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst them
nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their sakes I had the key
of my study, out of my draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their
names--recollect them I cannot--so be content to accept of these, for the
present, in their stead.

There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Cappadocius, and
Dardanus, and Pontus, and Asius,--to say nothing of the iron-hearted
Charles the XIIth, whom the Countess of K..... herself could make nothing
of.--There was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus,
and Prusicus, not one of whom (except Cappadocius and Pontus, who were both
a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess--The
truth is, they had all of them something else to do--and so had my uncle
Toby--till Fate--till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being
handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus's and the rest,--she basely
patched up the peace of Utrecht.

--Believe me, Sirs, 'twas the worst deed she did that year.



Chapter 3.LXXIV.

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a
point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered
his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary's
heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby's.  To the end of his life he never
could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,--or so much as read
an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a
sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great Motive-Monger, and consequently a very dangerous
person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,--for he generally
knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself--
would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which
shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole
affair, so much as the loss of his hobby-horse.--Never mind, brother Toby,
he would say,--by God's blessing we shall have another war break out again
some of these days; and when it does,--the belligerent powers, if they
would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.--I defy 'em, my dear
Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns,--or towns
without sieges.

My uncle Toby never took this back-stroke of my father's at his hobby-horse
kindly.--He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in
striking the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part
a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his
pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not
eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:--I
repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts it again.--He was not
eloquent,--it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,--and he
hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the
man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle
Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus--but in others, in my own
opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of
my uncle Toby's, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick,
that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers,
with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus (. .
.), and is endorsed,

My Brother Toby's Justification of His Own Principles and Conduct in
Wishing to Continue the War.

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle
Toby's a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence,--and shews
so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give
it the world, word for word (interlineations and all), as I find it.
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