The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Penguin Classics)

by Laurence Sterne

  4. fardel: Cf. Hamlet, III.i.75–6: ‘who would fardels bear, / To grunt and sweat under a weary life…’ Hamlet is clearly on Sterne’s mind in the next chapter.

  5. this description: Writing to a friend who had suggested he retrench his wit, Sterne singles out this description: ‘I will reconsider Slops fall & my too Minute Account of it—but in general I am perswaded that the happiness of the Cervantic humour arises from this very thing—of describing silly and trifling Events, with the Circumstantial Pomp of great Ones…’

  6. Whiston’s comets: In New Theory of the Earth (1696), William Whiston (1667–1752) argued that the biblical flood was caused by the near approach of a comet to the earth; the fear that other comets might destroy the earth (and the reappearance of Halley’s comet in early 1759 makes the discussion timely) became associated with Whiston, often disparagingly.

  7. hydrophobia: OED cites this passage as the first illustration of usage in the etymological sense, i.e. dread of water, as opposed to the disease associated with rabies.

  8. imprompt: OED cites this passage as its sole illustration: ‘Not ready or prepared; unready.’

  9. beluted: Covered with mud (lute) or dirt. Sterne’s slighting reference to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation should be noted.

  CHAPTER X

  1. unwiped… him: Cf. Hamlet, I.v.74–9: ‘Ghost. Thus was I… / Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, / Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d, / No reck’ning made, but sent to my account / With all my imperfections on my head.’ The ghost stands ‘motionless and speechless’ in I.i.41–9 and I.iv.38–57. The clever alteration of ‘disappointed’ to ‘unappointed’ takes into account that the midwife, not Dr Slop, has the positionoftrust with regard to the delivery.Unanealed, i.e. not having received extreme unction.

  2. majesty of mud: Sterne recalls the mud-diving contest in the Dunciad (A), II.302: ‘Lo Smedley rose, in majesty of mud!’ First noted by Gwin J. Kolb, N&Q 196 (1951).

  3. mental reservation: Roman Catholic doctrine that under certain circumstances equivocations with ‘mental reservations’ may be made use of; from the eighteenth-century Protestant viewpoint the doctrine was ‘the great refuge of religious hypocrites; who use them to accommodate their consciences with their interests’ (Chambers).

  4. Argumentum ad hominem: See n. 9 to I.xix.

  5. sensorium: OED cites this passage as its first example of playful usage: ‘in non-technical writing (sometimes for “brain” or “mind”)’. It is a favourite word with Sterne; see pp. 132, 135, 208, 580; and the famous passage in ASJ, where God is addressed as the ‘great Sensorium of the world’.

  6. Stevinus: Simon Stevinus (1548–1620), Dutch mathematician, one of the military engineers Sterne lists out of Chambers in II.iii.

  CHAPTER XI

  1. pumps: Soft shoes worn by acrobats and running footmen.

  2. stay thy obstetrick hand: Another allusion to Pope’s Dunciad (B), IV.393–4: ‘There all the Learn’d shall at the labour stand, / And Douglas lend his soft, obstetric hand’; noted by Brady (see Further Reading).

  3. Lucina: Facet of the goddess Juno, that which makes the child see the light of day; and also, possibly, an allusion to Lucina’s relationship with Hecate as the author of nightmares (see Schulze in Further Reading).

  4. Pilumnus: One of three deities who protected a woman in labour from the god of uncultivated land, Silvanus.

  5. thy tire-tête… thee: Sterne’s ‘salvation and deliverance’ are ironic, since the primary function of the tire-tête (head-puller) and the crotchet (little hook) was to extract a foetus by crushing or attaching its skull. Burton was very proud of his newly invented forceps, but others deemed it unworkable and dangerous. See Cash, ‘Birth’, in Further Reading. The ‘squirt ’ is not a real instrument, but alludes to the ‘petite canulle ’ of the Sorbonne doctors, and hence is a means of ‘salvation’ only from the Roman Catholic viewpoint.

  6. bays: Baize.

  CHAPTER XII

  1. argument Ad Crumenam: See n. 24 to I.xxi.

  2. Dennis: John Dennis (1657–1734) reveals his antipathy towards punning in, among other writings, his Remarks on Rape of the Lock (1728); his attitude was proverbial throughout the century. Slop’s pun is on the ‘horns’ figuratively adorning the head of a faithless wife’s spouse (i.e. the cuckold).

  3. the curtins: Toby’s discussion of curtins is lifted from Chambers, s.v. Curtin, along with the allusion to Charles du Fresne du Cange (1610–88), French philologist and historian. Sterne then turned to entries under Ravelin and Half-Moon to confuse the issue thoroughly: ‘ Half moons are sometimes raised before the curtin… in which case it is much the same with a ravelin; only that the gorge of an half-moon is… chiefly used to cover the point of the bastion; whereas ravelins are always placed before the curtin.—But they are both defective, as being ill flanked.’ The distinction confused many commentators.

  4. Accoucheur: French for man-midwife; Burton frequently uses the word in his Letter to William Smellie, M.D. (1753), a work Sterne parodies later in this volume (Ch. xix).

  5. fifth chapter: Actually in the second chapter; ‘fifth’ may be a vestige of chapters deleted when Sterne, on the advice of friends and, perhaps, Dodsley, ‘Burn’d More wit’ than he published.

  6. Literæ humaniores: The humanities.

  7. one half of my philanthropy: Cf. Sterne’s preface to Volumes I and II of Sermons (1760): ‘the sermons turn chiefly upon philanthropy, and those kindred virtues to it, upon which hang all the law and the prophets…’

  8. rash humour… me: Cf. Julius Caesar, IV.iii.119–21: ‘ Cassius. [to Brutus] Have not you love enough to bear with me, / When that rash humour which my mother gave me / Makes me forgetful?’ Cf. II.xiv.

  CHAPTER XIII

  1. family-way: OED defines in a family-way as ‘with the freedom of members of the same family; without ceremony’. Closely related is in the family-way: ‘pregnant’. Slop may have both meanings in mind.

  CHAPTER XIV

  1. sailing chariot: Sterne borrows his discussion of the sailing chariot (a wheeled carriage with sails constructed by Simon Stevinus (see n. 6 to II.x)) from John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick (1680): ‘I have often wondred, why none of our Gentry who live near great Plains, and smooth Champions, have attempted any thing to this purpose. The experiments of this kind being very pleasant, and not costly: what could be more delightful or better husbandry, than to make use of the wind (which costs nothing, and eats nothing) instead of horses? ’ (first noted by Kolb). Wilkins fails to mention that Stevinus was engineer to Prince Maurice of Orange, a fact Sterne perhaps found in Chambers. Peireskius, cited by Wilkins, is Fabrici de Peiresc (1580–1637), collector and antiquarian; his name became a byword for such activities well into the eighteenth century.

  CHAPTER XV

  1. the next Halberd: Reading and writing were required for advancement in the military, in this instance, promotion to sergeant, denoted by the ‘Halberd’.

  CHAPTER XVII

  1. his attitude: See Brissenden, ‘Sterne and Painting’, for a discussion of Sterne’s use in his description of Trim’s stance of Hogarth’s Analysis and Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise of Painting (English edition, 1721). Leonardo predicts that unless the figure is drawn in accordance with the laws of gravity, it ‘of necessity must tumble to the Ground’.

  2. cyclopædia… sciences: Tristram’s several hints that he is writing a book of universal knowledge seem to point to Swift, especially A Tale of a Tub, sect. I: ‘I have been prevailed on… to travel in a compleat and laborious Dissertation upon the prime Productions of our Society, which… have darkly and deeply couched under them, the most finished and refined Systems of all Sciences and Arts.’ The attack on system-making is central to Scriblerian satire – and to Sterne’s.

  3. line of beauty: See n. 5 to II.vi; Hogarth defines this central concept of Analysis in ch. 7.

  4. The SERMON: ‘Abuses of conscience’ was first preached in York M
inster on 29 July 1750, at the close of the summer assizes (court sessions) in York. It appeared as a sixpenny pamphlet less than two weeks later, printed in York; the version in TS is an almost verbatim reproduction of that earlier publication. The sermon appeared again as the final sermon in Volume IV of the Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1766). See the Florida Text, Appendix 7, for an account of the three versions.

  5. old house over his head: Proverbial for getting into trouble.

  6. architecture: Sly allusion, perhaps, to Burton’s recent publication of Monasticon Eboracense, an account of the architecture of churches and abbeys in the York area.

  7. I never… before: Sterne makes a rare slip here, since Trim tells Toby the entire story in 1713 (IX.iv–vii), five years before this scene.

  8. hardly… before us: Wisdom 9:16.

  9. plann’d: placed ?

  10. Now… good also: This paragraph owes much – as does the entire sermon – to Swift’s sermon on the same subject; see Prose Works (Blackwell, 1939–68), Vol. 9; both authors echo 1 John 3:20–22.

  11. scripture assures it may: Proverbs 28:14, Hebrews 3:13.

  12. or was… darkness: Sterne borrows from ‘Difficulty of knowing one’s self ’, attributed to Swift in the eighteenth century, but considered of unknown authorship today; behind the image is the biblical commonplace ‘clouds and thick darkness’ (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:11, Psalm 97:2). And cf. A Tale of a Tub, sect. IX, the discussion about vapours and the brain. Sterne’s combining of scripture and scepticism reveals his profound debt to a tradition splendidly outlined by Wehrs and Parnell (see Further Reading).

  13. Elijah… awoke: 1 Kings 18:27.

  14. Seven: Anglicanism recognizes two sacraments, Baptism and Communion. To these, Roman Catholicism adds Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction.

  15. Seven golden… planets: Seven golden candlesticks are mentioned in Revelation 1:12, 20 and 2:1. In the Ptolemaic system, seven planets were identified (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), each with its own heaven, hence seven heavens. For the seven plagues, see Revelation 15–16.

  16. Shall not… before me: Sterne alludes tothe parableof the Pharisee and the publican, Luke 18:10–12.

  17. Letter of the Law: Romans 7:6, 2 Corinthians 3:6.

  18. mental reservation: See n. 3 to II.x.

  19. the wound digests there: See n. 4 to II.i.

  20. the heart… things: Jeremiah 17:9; Sterne alludes to this text in several sermons, including 4, ‘Self knowledge’, an early version of ‘Abuses of conscience’.

  21. speak… no peace: Scriptural formula; e.g., Jeremiah 6:14, Ezekiel 13:10, etc.

  22. Imust…dishonour: Again, Sterne borrows from Swift’s ‘Difficulty of knowing one’s self ’.

  23. When David… done: See 1 Samuel 24:4–5, 2 Samuel 11:2– 12:14. David ordered that Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, be slain so that he could marry her.

  24. So that…they: See Swift, ‘Testimony of conscience’; the paragraph embodies an essential component of Anglican thinking in its balancing of ‘reason’ and ‘religion’ (revelation). The question ‘What is written in the law of God’ is from Luke 10:26.

  25. if thy heart… God: 1 John 3:21.

  26. Blessed is… high: Sterne conflates and paraphrases Ecclesiasticus 14:1–2, 13:24–26, 37:14.

  27. Temple: Temple Church, located in the section of London associated with the legal profession.

  28. Corps de Garde: Sentry duty and those who comprise the detail, usually under a corporal’s command.

  29. Coup de main: Sudden, resolute assault.

  30. two tables: The stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed; the two tables refer to the division of the decalogue into religious and moral duties. See Exodus 32:15ff.

  31. I said… life: Cf. Swift, ‘On the testimony of conscience’ for the substance of this entire discussion; however, where Swift uses a tradesman and lawyer for his examples, Sterne, considering his audience, substitutes a banker and a physician.

  32. instrumental parts of religion: Commonplace Anglican term (also, ‘instrumental duties’) for the rituals or outer forms of religious practice, often with negative associations to Pharisees and Roman Catholics.

  33. This likewise… sun: Ecclesiastes 5:13.

  34. history of the Romish Church: Sterne’s Inquisition scene is patched together from a sermon by Richard Bentley (1715) and The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722) by William Wollaston. As with Trim’s reading, Bentley’s sermon was delivered on 5 November, Guy Fawkes Day, when anti-Roman Catholic oratory was part of the observance. Sterne’s anti-Catholicism would have been shared by most – if not all – Anglican clergymen of his day, especially after the Jacobite uprising in 1745.

  Trim’s reaction should be considered alongside Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); see also Kenneth MacLean, ‘Imagination and Sympathy: Sterne and Adam Smith’, JHI 10 (1949).

  35. saint-errant: Cf. knight-errant; Sterne uses this compound, connoting misguided religious zeal, in several sermons.

  36. tricker: Trigger.

  37. something more contempt: something more of contempt ?

  38. Portugal: Portugal had a particularly bad reputation for inquisitorial cruelty.

  39. By their… them: Matthew 7:20.

  40. Asiatick Cadi: Turkish counterpart to a Justice of the Peace.

  41. eloquence of our pulpits: Cf. Sterne’s discussion of proper sermonizing in ‘Rabelaisian Fragment’ and again in IV.xxvi. His interest in simplicity, directness and affectiveness is echoed by Anglican preachers throughout the century.

  42. a priori: Argument from cause to effect (deductive reasoning), as opposed to a posteriori, argument from effect to cause (inductive).

  43. Ill-fated… story: The account is intended, perhaps, to recall the Apostles’ Creed, a central part of the Anglican morning and evening service: ‘Christ… was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into Hell; The third day he rose again from the dead…’; see Sharon Damoff, Scriblerian 25.1 (1992).

  44. Yorick’s ghost… walks: Cf. Hamlet, I.v.9–10: ‘Ghost. I am thy father’s spirit, / Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night.’

  45. sample of his sermons: In May 1760, Sterne published two volumes of previously written sermons with the title Sermons of Mr. Yorick. In the preface he wrote: ‘The sermon which gave rise to the publication of these, having been offer’d to the world as a sermon of Yorick’s, I hope the most serious reader will find nothing to offend him, in my continuing these two volumes under the same title: lest it should be otherwise, I have added a second title page with the real name of the author…’ Despite the ploy of two title-pages, some were appalled, including the Monthly Review 22 (May 1760): ‘we consider [this] the greatest outrage against Sense and Decency, that has been offered since the first establishment of Christianity…’ In general, however, the reception was favourable, and the two volumes were reprinted seven times before Sterne’s death in 1768.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  1. en Soveraines: As sovereigns.

  CHAPTER XIX

  1. What I… elsewhere: Sterne reflects a similar moment in A Tale of a Tub, sect. VI: ‘I ought in Method, to have informed the Reader about fifty Pages ago, of a Fancy Lord Peter took…. Now, this material Circumstance, having been forgot in due Place; as good Fortune hath ordered, comes in very properly here…’

  2. stage… childishness: Sterne is thinking of Jaques’s ages-of-man speech in As You Like It, II.vii.139ff.

  3. steel-yard: Because of the concluding remark, Chambers is worth quoting: ‘in mechanics, a kind of balance… by means whereof, the gravity of different bodies are found by the useof one single weight… . But the instrument being very liable to deceit, is [not]… countenanced in commerce.’

  4. in infinitum: To infinity.

  5. truth… her well: Proverbial expression, traced to Democritus.

  6. out of joint: Proverbial. Cf. Hamlet, I.v.188.

&nbs
p; 7. sorites: Cf. Chambers: ‘a kind of argument, wherein a number of propositions are gradually, and minutely laid together; and something inferred from the whole… This method of disputing prevailed much among the stoicks; especially with Zeno, and Chrysippus. But it is very captious, and sophistical.’ The sorites consists of a chain of argument whereby the predicate of the first link becomes the subject of the next. Zeno of Citium (335–263 BC) founded the Stoic school; Chrysippus (c. 280–207 BC) was a later leader.

  8. Why… corrupted: Walter echoes Bishop George Berkeley, ‘Essay Towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain’ (1721), who concludes, ‘Neither the plain reason of the thing, nor the experience of past ages, nor the examples we have before our eyes, can restrain us from imitating, not to say surpassing, the most corrupt and ruined people, in those very points of luxury that ruined them.’

  9. our poverty… consent: Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V.i.75: ‘My poverty, but not my will, consents.’

  10. an ounce… people’s: Sterne plays on the proverbial expression: ‘an ounce of wit is worth a pound of learning.’

  11. Now, as… place: Walter rushes in where Locke, refusing to explore the why of uneven capacities, feared to tread (Essay, IV.20.5). René Descartes (1596–1650) was bolder, although Sterne’s learning here is derived from Chambers, not Descartes; see B. L. Greenberg, ‘Laurence Sterne and Chambers’ Cyclopædia ’, MLN 69 (1954). Under Soul, Sterne discovered Descartes and the pineal gland; under Pineal gland, he was led to Conarium, and the definition ‘a small gland, about the bigness of a pea’; thence to Brain, where experiments are recounted of pigeons and dogs surviving after the cerebellum was removed. Returning to Soul, he read about ‘Borri, a milanese physician, in a letter to Bartholine, [who] asserts, that in the brain is found a certain, very subtile, fragrant juice, which is the principal seat or residence of the reasonable soul…’ The tradition in which this discourse of mock learning thrives (see the important essay by Jefferson in Further Reading) is made clear when one notes that Martinus Scriblerus (Memoirs, ch. 12) makes a similar attempt to locate the soul – and also reaches Descartes’s conclusion.