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

by Laurence Sterne

  12. battle of Landen: 29 July 1693; Trim receives his wound during the retreat (VIII.xix).

  13. If death… Q. E. D.: Chambers, s.v. Death, has a similar definition. Q.E.D.: Quod erat demonstrandum (which was to be proved), usually reserved for mathematical theorems.

  14. Borri… Bartholine: Sterne found Joseph Francis Borri (1627– 95), Italian physician, and Thomas Bartholine (1616–80), Danish physician, in Chambers. Coglionissimo is Sterne’s play on coglione = testicle.

  15. Metheglingius: Type of mead, made by fermenting honey and water; hence, perhaps, Sterne’s coinage for a besotted philosopher.

  16. Animus… Anima: Philosophy and theology had long considered the possibility of two souls, in order to explain the difference between ‘life’ or ‘soul’ (anima) and ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ (animus).

  17. Dutch anatomists: Sterne may be offering a compliment to the Dutch medical establishment of the first half of the eighteenth century when Hermann Boerhaave (1668–1738) turned Leyden into the medical centre of Europe. But there is also the connotation of ‘Dutch logician or commentator’ (see n. 12 to I.xix).

  18. seven senses: ‘Speech’ and ‘understanding’ are most often listed (cf. Ecclesiasticus 17:5) as the additional ‘senses’.

  19. Causa sine quâ non: Indispensable cause or condition, a cause without which a certain effect is impossible.

  20. Lithopædus… difficili: In 1751, John Burton published his Essay towards a Complete New System of Midwifry, only to be upstaged by William Smellie’s far better received Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1752). Burton struck back in a 250-page Letter to William Smellie, M.D. (1753), in which he minutely criticizes the Treatise for such errors as Smellie’s slip of mistaking the title of an illustration (of a petrified child, i.e. Lithopædion) for the name of an author (Lithopædus); the details of Sterne’s footnote are from Burton’s Letter, which carps on the error throughout the work as indicative of Smellie’s untrustworthiness. Cordaeus and Albosius were sixteenth-century French physicians, and Trincavellius an Italian physician of the same period, all mentioned by Burton. Smelvogt is probably Sterne’s play or slip on another name from Burton, Johann Adrian Slevogt (1653–1726), professor of anatomy at Jena.

  21. 470 pounds: Sterne’s figure is a gross exaggeration, the force being between 32 and 50 pounds.

  22. piece of dough: The metaphor is perhaps derived from Burton, Letter, who writes of the head’s assuming the shape of a ‘Sugar Loaf, nine and forty Times in fifty’; it may, however, be a commonplace.

  23. mothery: Full of sediment.

  24. Angels… us: Cf. Hamlet, I.iv.39.

  25. extractedbythe feet: Sterne parodies Burton’s discussion of difficult births, although, to be fair, Burton advocated the podalic version (feet-first delivery) only in extreme cases. On the other hand, Burton does criticize Smellie for waiting too long for nature to take its course.

  26. Cæsarian section: Sterne returns to Chambers for the substance of his discussion, including the anatomical terms epigastrium (the part of the abdomen lying over the stomach) and matrix (uterus or womb), and the allusions to Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Manlius and Edward VI. ‘Manlius Torquatus ’ (consul in the third century BC) is Sterne’s ‘learned’ error, caused by Chambers’s misspelling; the proper citation would have been to Manilius Manius, who invaded Carthage in 149 BC, as noted by Work (152, n. 10). Mrs Shandy has every right to pale at Walter’s suggestion: the first recorded successful caesarean operation in England (i.e. the mother surviving) occurred in 1793. Before then it was associated with Roman Catholicism’s interest in saving the unbaptized child rather than the already baptized mother.

  Sterne’s addition of Hermes Trismegistus to Chambers’s list seems unjustified, except for foreshadowing the christening scene (IV.xiv).

  27. oss coxcygis: Sterne’s unorthodox spelling for coccygis, the four bones at the end of the spinal column. Note that Volume I ends with an attempt to locate Toby’s wound between the os pubis and the coxendix, and Volume II with a similar anatomical survey of the female, the pudendum being between the os pubis in front and the os coccygis behind.

  28. sage Alquife… truth: Sterne borrows from a footnote to Don Quixote, I.I.5; Don Belianis of Greece, sixteenth-century Spanish romance, still popular in Sterne’s day.

  VOLUME III

  Frontispiece: Two engraved versions of this Hogarth illustration exist, the first by Ravenet (reproduced here), the second by J. Ryland (see p. 261).

  Motto: Sterne borrowed his motto, in all probability, from Motteux’s preface to Rabelais, I. John of Salisbury (c. 1115–80), Bishop of Chartres (not Lyons, as ‘Lugdun’ suggests), wrote the sentence, here slightly altered, in his Policraticus, Book 8, ch. 25. Sterne’s version may be translated: ‘I do not fear the opinions of the ignorant crowd; nevertheless, I ask they spare my little work, in which it has always been my purpose to pass from humour to seriousness and from seriousness back to humour.’ The original does not contain the final clause.

  CHAPTER I

  1. chapter of wishes: Never written; the opening chapters of Volumes I and III begin with the same words: ‘I wish…’

  CHAPTER II

  1. India handkerchief: From cloth made in India.

  2. Reynolds: Sterne sat for Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) in March and April 1760, one sign of his celebrity status following the publication of Volumes I and II of TS (for details of his London stay, see Cash, LY, ch. 1). The result is one of Reynolds’s best portraits. Sterne’s compliment to him is implied by ‘great and gracefully’, since these qualities were thought to be rarely combined modes of excellence.

  CHAPTER III

  1. zig-zaggery: Zigzag is an approach towards a besieged place in short turns or ‘zigzags’, so as not to be enfiladed by the defenders.

  CHAPTER IV

  1. gum-taffeta: Taffeta stiffened with gum was known quickly to wear out; hence the expression ‘to fret like gum-taffeta’ became proverbial.

  2. Zeno… Montaigne: Sterne’s list is lifted from Chambers, s.v. Stoicks. Sterne adds two names, ‘Dyonisius Heracleotes’ and Montaigne; the first may be a joke, since Dionysius (c. 328–248 BC) is best known for abandoning Stoicism because of a painful ailment. The inclusion of Montaigne is problematic, but perhaps Sterne recalled ‘Of Experience’, where Montaigne insists that his bouts with kidney stones affected his body, but never his soul.

  3. nine months together: I.e. since the publication of Volumes I and II; Sterne may be referring to reviewers (see next note) or bothersome imitators, of which there were many.

  4. monthly Reviewers: The Monthly Review and the Critical Review were favourably inclined towards the first volumes of TS, but when Sterne published his sermons under the name Mr. Yorick (in May 1760), some reconsideration occurred (see n. 45 to II.xvii). Alan B. Howes, Sterne: The Critical Heritage (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), is an excellent sourcebook for early responses to TS.

  CHAPTER V

  1. redden’d… colour: In ch. 14 of Analysis of Beauty, Hogarth sets forth a system of colouring on a scale of 1 to 7; if Sterne is alluding to this, he is describing a red face indeed, one half tint from the darkest possible red. OED cites this passage as its sole illustration of a burlesque nonce word formed by blending scientifically and tint.

  2. Avison’s Scarlatti: Twelve concertos by the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757), published in 1744 by Charles Avison (1709–70), English composer and author of An Essay on Musical Expression. The second movement of the sixth concerto is indeed to be played con furia, i.e. with fury. Con strepito, i.e. noisily.

  CHAPTER VI

  1. cornish: I.e. cornice.

  2. buccinatory: The buccinator is the ‘chief muscle employed in the act of blowing’ (OED).

  CHAPTER VII

  1. Hymen: Mythological god of marriage and virginity; in that he is connected with the ‘marriage song’, he may be frightened away by Obadiah’s ‘music’; of course, the janglin
g instruments of birthing are themselves an argument against marriage.

  2. patriots: The word had negative connotations from the mid 1740s, as noted in Johnson’s Dictionary: ‘a factious disturber of the government’. Cf. V.ii, where Walter instructs Obadiah to saddle ‘PATRIOT’, and is informed that ‘PATRIOT is sold.’

  CHAPTER VIII

  1. obstretical: The misspelling is retained since Sterne’s intention may be the ‘tical’ endings; cf. I.xxi, where a similar list is offered.

  2. caball-istical: Play on cabalistic and caballus (Latin for pack-horse, nag).

  CHAPTER IX

  1. GREAT wits jump: I.e. great minds agree or coincide.

  2. the thought… side: Common image, receiving an elegant statement in Pope’s Essay on Man, II.105–8: ‘The rising tempest puts in act the soul, / Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. / On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, / Reason the card, but Passion is the gale…’

  CHAPTER X

  1. Mr. Hammond Shandy: Perhaps an allusion to the hanging of Haman (‘hanged as high as Haman’ being proverbial) in the Book of Esther 7:9–10.

  2. duke of Monmouth’s affair: James Scott, Duke of Monmouth (1649–85), bastard son of Charles II, returned from exile in the late spring of 1685 to claim the throne from James II. The attempt ended in disaster and he was executed.

  3. implication: Sterne puns on the Latin implico: ‘to enfold, embrace, join’, with the idea of intimacy.

  4. knots: Sterne’s elaborate emphasis on knots and knives alludes to several folk ideas, including the marriage (love)-knot and the avoidance of knives which could cut it; and the untying of knots in a house where childbirth was occurring in order to ‘ensure’ an easy birth. See Ehlers in Further Reading. ‘To knot’ is also a euphemism for copulation, and ‘knife’ yet another phallus-shaped object.

  5. the nails… close: To avoid injury to the mother during delivery.

  6. cut my thumb: Cf. Swift, Polite Conversation, ed. Eric Partridge (Oxford University Press, 1963): ‘Col. Ods so, I have cut my Thumb with this cursed Knife. Lady Answ. Ay, that was your Mother’s Fault; because she only warned you not to cut your Fingers. Lady Sm. No, no; ’tis only Fools cut their Fingers, but Wise Folks cut their Thumbs.’ Partridge comments on the proverbial thrust of this: ‘the follies of the wise are prodigious’. John Burton’s forceps required expert use of the thumb to keep the blades properly separated.

  7. Injuries… heart: Sterne’s italics and quotation marks indicate a borrowing, but the closest Florida Notes was able to come is Henry V, IV.viii.46: ‘All offences, my lord, come from the heart.’ Cf. Ecclesiasticus 19:16: ‘There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart…’

  8. Cervantick gravity: Cf.n.8toI.xii (‘cervantick tone’). Pope, Dunciad (A), I.19–20, captures the age’s perception of the pose of Cervantes, attributing it to Swift: ‘Whether thou chuse Cervantes’ serious air, / Or laugh and shake in Rab’lais’ easy Chair.’ Swift reflects on his own method in ‘Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift’ (lines 315–16): ‘His Vein, ironically grave, / Expos’d the Fool, and lash’d the Knave.’

  9. form of excommunication: Thomas Hearne’s edition of the Textus Roffensis (1720) was Sterne’s likely source for the Latin version of the Bishop of Rochester’s twelfth-century ‘Excommunication’. The English version was probably taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1745); see William A. Jackson, ‘The Curse of Ernulphus’, Harvard Library Bulletin 14 (1960) and Appendix 8 in the Florida Text. Its reappearance in 1745 is linked to anti-Roman Catholic sentiment resulting from the Jacobite uprising.

  CHAPTER XI

  1. vel os: Standard rubric allowing the Bishop to adapt the curse to the singular or (vel) plural. ‘N.N.’ abbreviates Nomen, Nomina (i.e. name, names); Slop supplies Obadiah’s name.

  2. Dathan and Abiram: See Numbers 16:1–35 and Psalm 106:17.

  3. heavenly armies: Sterne changes the source’s ‘heavenly host’ in order to mount Toby on his hobby-horse. Similarly, he alters ‘top of the head’ to ‘vertex’ and ‘interior parts’ to ‘purtenance’, words with Shandean overtones.

  4. John the Baptist: As the Latin indicates, the two St Johns are the same person; Sterne may be laughing at the multiplicity of saints in Roman Catholicism – or simply have made an error.

  5. minim: Half-note; along with ‘division’ and ‘running bass’ it constructs a musical metaphor.

  6. By the… establishment: Cf. Burton, 3.4.1.3:

  The Romans borrowed from all, besides their own gods, which were majorum and minorum gentium, as Varro holds, certaine and uncertaine; some cœlestial select and great ones…: gods of all sorts, for all functions; some for the Land, some for Sea; some for Heaven, some for Hel; some for passions, diseases, some for birth… And not good men only do they thus adore, but tyrants, monsters, divels,… beastly women, and arrant whores amongst the rest… [M]ale and female gods, of all ages, sexes, and dimensions, with beards, without beards… Hesiodus reckons up at least 30000 gods, Varro 300 Jupiters.

  Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC), Roman scholar; Sterne cites him (III.iv) in his list of Stoics borrowed from Chambers.

  7. Cid Hamet: Cid Hamet Benengeli, the reputed chronicler of many of Don Quixote’s adventures, swears that ‘by Mahomet, he would have given the best Coat of two that he had…’ (II.III.48). Sterne forgets that Tristram is not a parson.

  8. to all eternity: Revelation 20:10.

  CHAPTER XII

  1. befetish’d: OED records this passage as its sole example.

  2. Garrick: David Garrick (1717–79), the greatest actor of the century, with whom Sterne struck up an immediate acquaintance when he came to London in the winter of 1760, having previously sent copies of TS to him by means of Catherine Fourmantel (see n. 4 to I.xviii); see Cash, EMY, 294–6 and LY, 47–52. Sterne refers to Garrick again in TS (pp. 188, 251, 411), always with a compliment. Here he parodies contemporary criticisms of Garrick, e.g. Thomas Fitzpatrick’s in An Enquiry into the Real Merit of a Certain Popular Performer (1760): ‘it was agreed that we should go to…Hamlet this evening, and each man, furnished with a printed play and a pencil, mark such improprieties, in respect of speaking, as Mr. G------ might possibly fall into’; twenty faults are then listed.

  3. new book: I.e. TS, though the most famous such statement would be made by Samuel Johnson fifteen years later: ‘Nothing odd will do long. “Tristram Shandy” did not last.’

  4. Bossu’s: René Le Bossu’s Traité du poëme épique (1675) was translated into English as Treatise of the Epick Poem in1695, and long proved influential. Like Sterne, Pope attacked Le Bossu’s rigidities, both in the prefatory matter to the Dunciad and in ch. 15 of Peri Bathous.

  5. daub: ‘A coarsely executed, inartistic painting’ (OED).

  6. pyramid… group: Sterne’s connoisseur is indebted to Reynolds, Idler 76 (29 September 1759): ‘“Here,” says he, “are twelve upright figures; what a pity it is that Raffaelle was not acquainted with the pyramidal principle…”’ (ed. W. J. Bate, et al. (Yale University Press, 1963)).

  7. colouring… of Angelo: Sterne again borrows from Idler 76: ‘[the connoisseur’s] mouth [was] full of nothing but the grace of Raffaelle, the purity of Domenichino, the learning of Poussin, the air of Guido, the greatness of taste of the Charaches, and the sublimity and grand contorno of Michael Angelo.’ Sterne adds Titian, Rubens and Correggio to the list, three painters often grouped in eighteenth-century art criticism; he may have looked, e.g., into Daniel Webb, An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, 2nd edn. (1761), where Titian is considered the ‘greatest master’ of colouring, or into de Piles, The Principles of Painting (see n. 2 to I.ix), where Titian is given 18 out of 20 points for colouring and Rubens 17 for ‘expression’. Webb also comments that ‘among us any action that is singularly graceful, is termed Correggiesque’. Both Reynolds and Sterne are satirizing the reduction of these great Renaissance artists to trite and hackneyed labels.

  8. I w
ould… wherefore: Cf. Idler 76: ‘for these rules being always uppermost… instead of giving up the reins of their imagination into their author’s hands, their frigid minds are employed in examining whether the performance be according to the rules of art’.

  9. Great Apollo: In his role as the god of learning, poetry and music, as opposed to Mercury, the god of science and commerce. Sterne later calls Reynolds ‘that son of Apollo’ (VII.ix).

  10. St. Paul’s… fish: As is evident in Shakespeare’s Richard III, Richard’s habit of swearing by St Paul was common knowledge. Work (182, n. 4) notes that Charles II swore by ‘’Od’s fish’ (i.e. a corruption of ‘God’s fish’, itself a corruption of ‘God’s flesh’).

  11. orientality: ‘Eastern style or character’ (OED).

  12. Justinian… digest: Sterne’s learning is from Chambers, s.v. Civil Law: ‘Lastly, Justinian [c. 482–565], finding the authority of the Roman law almost abolished in the west, by the declension of the empire; resolved to make a general collection, of the whole Roman jurisprudence; and committed the care thereof to his chancellor Tribonianus [d. c. 542]… See DIGEST, and CODE… The same year he published an abridgment thereof… under the title of institutes. See INSTITUTES.’ The resultant Corpus Juris Civilis is the basis of western jurisprudence. Digests and institutes of all knowledge were a favourite target for the Scriblerians.