The works of Laurence Sterne, comprising Tristram Shandy, A sentimental journey, and Letters. With a memoir written by himself

Front matter

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Chapter I

% Wish either my father or my mother, or indeed botli of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me ; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing ; — that not only the production of a rational being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps, his genius and the very cast of his mind ; — and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the iiumours and dispositions which ive™ then uppermost. Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, — I am verily persuaded I should have made quite a different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me.

Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it : — you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. — and a great d_cV, 10 that purpose ; — Well, you may take my word that nine parts in ten of a man's sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world, depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, 'tis not a halfpenny matter, — away they go cluttering like hey-go mad ; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which when they are once used to, the devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it.

Now, dear sir, what if any accident had be fallen him in his way alone ! or that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little gentleman had got to his journey's end miserably spent ; — his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread ; — his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description, — and that in this sad disordered state of nerves, he had laid down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of me lancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together, — I tremble to think what * foundation had been laid for a thousand weak nesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights. Pray my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up Ike clock-? — Good G — ! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same lime, — Did ever woman, since ihe creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying? — Nothing.

Chapter III

To my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philo sopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, haa oft and heavily com plained of theinjury ; but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby well remembered, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity (as he called it) in my manner of setting up my top, and, justifying the principles upon whicll I had done it — the old gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than reproach,— he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and from ._ thousand other observations he had made upon me, that I should neither think nor act like any other man's child :— But alas I continued he, shaking his i-ieaA a second time, and wipuitf _ a

CHAPTER II.

-—Then, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see, either good or bad. — Then, let me tell you, sir, it was a very un reasonable question at least, — because it scat ■"rred and dispersed the animal spirit whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand Jn hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and con ducted him safe to the place destined for his p^eption. 'she Homunculus, sir. in however low and I- 1, .kit .....-■ OF s year, — as certain as ever the Sunday night cam*, to' wind up a large house-clock, which he had standing on the back stairs' head, vuth his own hands :— and being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of,— he had likewise gradually brought some otlier littlefamily concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncl» Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered ■with them the rest of the month.

It was attended but with one misfortune, whicll. in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which, I fear, I shall carry with me to my grave ; namely, that, from an un happy association of ideas, which have no con nection in nature, it so fell out, at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up, — but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head— and vice versa: — which st, ange combination oi ideas, the sagacious Locke, who certainly un derstood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice what soever. away a tear that was trickling down his cheek, My Tristram's misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world! — My mothc'., who was sitting by, looked up ; but she knew no more than her backside what my father meant, — but my uncle, Mr. Tooy Shandy, who had been often informed oi tne affair, understood him very well.

Chapter IV

I know there are readers m the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, — who find themselves ill at ease unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you. It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have been so very particular already As my life and opinions are likely to make som._ noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever, — be no less read than the " Pil grim's Progress" itself, — and, in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his "Essays" should turn out, thaus, a book for a parlour window ; — I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn ; and therefore must ,;ieg pardon for going on a little farther in the Same way : for which cause right glad I am that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done ; and that I am able to go on, tracing everything in it, as Horace says, ab ovo.

Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion a1*' jether : but that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem, ora tragedy (I forget wiiich) ; besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace's pardon ; — for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man's rubs that ever lived. To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part of this chapter ; for I declare beforehand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive. — Shut the door. — I was begot in the night betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was. — But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our family, but now made public for the better clearing up this point.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to and die upon his paternal estate in the county of — , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness ofhis, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life — on the first Rundaynight of every month throughout the whole But this by the bye. Now it appears by a memorandum in my father's pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, "That on Lady-day, which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture, — my father set ou, .rpon his journey to London, with my eldest toother Bobby, to fix him at Westminst school ;" and, as it appears from the same thority, "That he did not get down to his wife and family till the second week in May following," — it brings the thing almost to a certainty.

However, what follows in the beginning of the next chaptei puts it beyond all possibility of doubt. — But pray, sir, what was your father doing all December, January, and February? — Why, madam, — he was all that time afflicted with a sciatica.

Chapter V

On the fifth day of November, 171S, which, to the era fixed on, was as near nine calendat months as any husband could in reason have expected, — was I, Tristram Shandy, Gentle man, brought forth into this scurvy and dis astrous world of ours. — I wish I had been. born in the moon, or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather), for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours, --which o' mv conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I tatce to be made up ofthe shreds and clippings of _iw rest ; — but that the planet is well enough, pi... vided that a man could be born in it to a great title, or to a great estate ; or could any r_» contrive to be called up to public charges .;nd employments of dignity or power ; — but that is not my case ; — and, therefore, every man will speak &Fthe fair as hia own market has gone in it;. ..for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made ; — for I can truly say that, from the first hour I drew my breath in it to this, I can now scarce draw it at all, — for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in Flanders ; I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune ; and though I will not wrong her by saying she has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil, yet, with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her 1hat, in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly at lie, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with n set of as pitiful misadventures and cross acci dents as ever small Hero sustained. more of it than a small circle described upon the circle of the great world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts, of which the cottage where the good old woman lived is sup posed to be the centre?

She had been left, it seems, a widow in great distress, with three or four small children, in her forty-seventh year; and as she was at that time a person of decent carriage, — grave deportment, — moreover, a wo man of few words, and withal an object of compassion, whose distress, and silence under it, call out the louder for a friendly lift, thc wife of the parson of the parish was touched with pity ; and, often having lamented an inconvenience to which her husband's Mock had for many years been exposed, inasmuch as there was no such thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got at, let the case have been ever so urgent, within less than six or seven long miles' riding ; which said seven long miles, iii dark nights and dismal roads, the country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, was almost equal to fourteen ; and that in effect was sometimes next to having no midwife at all ; — it came into her head that it would be doing as seasonable a kindness to the whole parish as to the poor creature herself, to get her a little in structed in some of the plain principles of the business, in order to set her up in it.

As no woman thereabouts was better qualified to exe cute the plan she had formed than herself, the gentlewoman very charitably undertook it ; and, having great influence over the female part of the parish, she found no difficulty in effecting it to the utmost of her wishes. In truth, the parson joined his interest with his wife's in the whole affair ; and in order to do things as they should be, and give the poor soul as good a title by law to practise as his wife had given by institution, — he cheerfully paid the fees for the ordinary's license himself, amount ir;. \y the whole to the sum of eighteen shillings .■--d four pence ; so that, betwixt them both, the good woman was fully invested in the real and corporal possession of her office, together with ail its rights, members, and appurtenances •what soever.

Chapter VI

In the beginning of thc last chapter, I in formed you exactly when I was born ; but I did not inform you how. No ; that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself ; be sides, sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you into too many circum stances relating to myself all at once. — You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also ; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other. As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity ; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship. — O diem frœclarum! — then nothing which has touched me will 'uc thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling.

Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first .setting out — bear with me, — and let me go on, and tell my story my own way ; — or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road, — or should sometimes put on a fool's cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass along—don't fly off, — but, rather, courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears upon my outside ; — and, as we jog on, cither laugh with me, or in short do any thing, — only keep your temper. Tlie la.it words, you must know, were not according to the old form in which such licences, faculties, and powers usually ran, which in like cases had heretofore been granted to the sisterhood. But it was according to a neat formula of Didius's own devising, who, having a par ticular turn for taking to pieces, and n^w framing, over again, all kinds of instruments in that way, not only hit upon this dainty amend ment, but coaxed many of the old licenses matrons in the neighbourhood to open tl/t faculties afresh, in order to have this whim wham of his inserted.

Chapter VII

In thc same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, mo therly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of Dame Nature, had acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world : — by which word world, need I in this place inform your worship that I would be understood to -mean no I own I never could envy Didius in these kind of fancies of his ; but every man to hi? own taste. Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, thd>t great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in the combing of asses' tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweeters always OP 4 — then, my Lord, I cease to be a philosopher, and, in the first transport of an honest im patience, I wish the Hobby-Horse, with all his fraternity, at the devil.

" My Lord, — I maintain this to be a dedication, notwithstanding its singularity in the three great essentials of matter, form, and place : I beg, therefore, you will accept it as such, and that you will permit me to lay it, with, the most respectful humility, at your Lordship's feet, — when you are upon them, — which you can be when you please ; and that is, my Lord, when ever there is occasion for it, and I will add, to the best purposes too. I have the honour to be, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, and most devoted, and most humble servant, Tristram Shandy." in his pocket? Nay, if you come to that, sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not ex cepting Solomon himself, — have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES ; — their running horses, — ■ their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets, ther fiddles, their pallets, — their maggots and their butterflies ? — And so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peace ably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you nor me to get up behind him, — pray, sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

Chapter VIII

— De gustibus non est disputandum ; — that is, there is no disputing against Hobby-Horses ; and, for my part, I seldom do ; nor could I, ivith any sort of grace, had I been an enemy to them at the bottom ; for happening, at certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fiddler and painter, according as the fly stings, — be it known to you that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns (nor do I care who knows it), I frequently ride out and take the air ; — though sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journeys than what a wise man would think altogether right. But the truth is, — I am not a wise man ; — and besides am a mortal of so little con sequence in the world it is not much matter what I do : so I seldom fret or fume at all about it : nor does it much disturb my rest when I see such great lords and tall personages as here after follow ; — such, for instance, as my Lords A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses ; — some with large stirrups, get ting on in a more grave and sober pace ; — others on the contrary, tucked up to their very chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like so many little party coloured devils astride a mortgage, — and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks. — So much the better — say I to myself; — for, in case the worst should happen, the world will make a shift to do excellently well without them : and for the rest — why — God speed them — e en let them ride on without opposition from me ; for, were their lordships unhorsed this very night — 'tis ten to one but Chat many of them would be worse mounted, by one-half, before to-morrow morning.

Not one of these instances therefore can be said to break in upon my rest. — But there is an instance which I own puts me off my guard, and that is when I see one born for great actions, and what is still more for his honour, whose nature ever inclines him to good ones ; when I behold such an one, my Lord, like yourself, whose principles and conduct are as generous and noble as his blood, and whom, for that reason, a corrupt world cannot spare one moment ; — when I see such an one, my Lord, mounted, though it is but for a minute beyond the time which my loye to my country has pre ftS-ibed to him, and my zeal for his glory wishes,

Chapter IX

I solemnly declare, to all mankind, that the above dedication was made for no one Prince, Prelate, Pope, or Potentate, — Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron, of this, or any other realm in Christendom ; — nor has it yet been hawked about, or offered publicly or privately, directly or indirectly, to any one person or per sonage, great or small ; but is honestly a true virgin dedication untried on upon any soul living. I labour this point so particularly merely to remove any offence or objection which might arise against it from the manner in whicll I propose to make the most of it ; — which is the putting of it up fairly to public sale ; which I now do. — Every author has a way of his own in bring ing his points to bear ; — for my own part, as I hate chaffering and higgling for a few guineas in a dark entry ; — I resolved within myself, from the very beginning, to deal squarely and openly with your Great Folks in this affair, and try whether I should not come off the better.

If, therefore, there is any one Duke, Marquis, Earl ' iscount, or Baron, in these his Majesty's dominions, who stands in need of a tight, genteel dedication, and whom the above will suit (for, by the bye, unless it suits, in some degree, I will not part with it) — it is much at his service, for fifty guineas ; — which I am positive is twenty guineas less than it ought to be afforded for, by any man of genius. My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship sees, is good, — the colouring transparent, —the drawing not amiss ; or, to speak more like a man of science, — and measure my piece in the painter's scale, divided into 20, — I believe, my Lord, the outlines will turn out as 12,— the composition as 9, — the colouring as 6, — the ex pression 13 and a-half,— and the design,— if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my own design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be as 20, — I think it cannot well fall short of 19.

Besides all this, — there is keeping in it ; and the dark strokes i» th« Hobby-Horse (which is a, secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your own figure, and make it come off wonderfully ; — and besides, there is an air of originality in the tout ensemble. horse of chaste deportment, which may have given grounds for the contrary opinion ; but it is certain, at the same time, that Rosinante's continency (as may be demonstrated from the adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and orderly current of his blood. — And let me tell you, madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world in behalf of which you could not say more, for your life. Let that be as it may, as my purpose is to do exact justice to every creature brought upon tha stage of this dramatic work, — I could not stifle this distinction in favour of Don Quixote's horse : — in all other points, the parson's horse, I say, was just such another, for he was as lean, and as lank, and as sorry a jade as Humility herself could have bestrided.

Be pleased, my good Lord, to order the sum to be paid into the hands of Mr. Dodsley, for the benefit of the author ; and in the next edition care shall be taken that this chapter be expunged, and your Lordship's titles, distinctions, arms, and good actions, be placed at the front of the preceding chapter : all of which, from the words De gustibus non est disputandum, and whatever else in this book relates to Hobby-Horses, but no more, shall stand dedicated to your Lord ship. — The rest I dedicate to the Moon, who, by the bye, of all the patrons, or matrons, I can think of, has most power to set my book a going, and make the world run mad after it. Bright Goddess, If thou art not too busy with CANDID and Miss CuNEGUND'S affairs — take Tristram Shan dy's under thy protection also ! In the estimation of here and there a man of weak judgment, it was greatly in the parson '3 power to have helped the figure of this horse of his, — for he was master of a very handsome demi-peaked saddle, quilted on the seat 'with green plush, garnished with a double row of silver-headed studs, and a noble pair of shining brass stirrups, ivith a housing altogether suitable, of grey superfine cloth, with an edging oi black lace, terminating in a deep, black, silk fringe, poudre dor: — all which he had purchased in the pride and prime of his life, to gether with a grand embossed bridle, orna mented at all points as it should be. — But not caring to banter his beast, he had hung all these up behind his study door : and, in lieu of them, had seriously befitted him with just such a bridle and such a saddle as the figure and value of such a steed might well and truly deserve.