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

by Laurence Sterne

  3. Gallileo… sun: Sterne’s century credited Galileo (1564–1642) with the discovery of sunspots.

  CHAPTER XXV

  1. the eyes: Sterne covers much-travelled ground in his praise of eyes as the seat of love, but Burton’s discussion in 3.2.2.2–3 is still on his mind; e.g. ‘it is not the eye of it selfe that entiseth to lust, but an adulterous eye, as Peter termes it [2 Peter 2:14], a wanton, a rolling, lascivious eye’.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  1. for I call… for it: Cf. ASJ: ‘[I have] been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another…’

  2. A Devil… Turk: Borrowed from Burton, 3.2.4, who quotes from Robert Tofte’s (d. 1620) translation of Benedetto Varchi’s Blazon of Jealousie (1615).

  3. life of Socrates, &c. &c.: See n. 3 to V.xii.

  4. to save… poor: Sterne wrote to Hall-Stevenson in November 1764: ‘’Tis a church militant week with me, full of marches, and countermarches—and treaties about Stillington common, which we are going to inclose…’ Whether Sterne is alluding to this or some other particular action by the dean and chapter of York is unknown.

  5. battle of Wynnendale: End of September 1708; the wooded surroundings are made clear in Tindal, both in his description and map.

  6. the poor in spirit: Matthew 5:3.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  1. gap’d knife: OED cites this passage to illustrate Gapped: ‘Having the edge notched or serrated.’ Possibly Sterne meant gaped, i.e. ‘opened’.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  1. te Deum: See n. 12 to I.xviii.

  2. steep: OED: ‘To… initiate or celebrate by a drink’ (jocular).

  3. pipes: Small tubes made of pipe-clay used to keep curls in periwigs.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  1. a little chalk: Chalk was used to polish metal.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  1. expression… hermit: Cf. Burton, 3.2.5.1, where St Jerome’s account of St Hilarion (291–371) is quoted: ‘by this meanes [deprivation] Hillarion made his Asse, as he called his own body, leave kicking…’

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  1. gymnicks: I.e. gymnastics, but Sterne borrows the word from Burton, 2.2.2, where the meaning seems delimited to sexual acrobatics.

  2. nolens, volens: Unwilling or willing; willing or not.

  3. read Plato: Sterne is reading Burton, 3.1.1.2, not Plato or his commentators, Valesius (Francisco de Vallés (1524–92), Spanish physician) and Ficino (seen.1 to VI.xxxvi; having lived a century before de Vallés, Ficino could not have commented on him). Symposium is the work being cited. The concept of ‘two religions’, the so-called ‘double doctrine’, played an important part in Warburton’s writings, among others; it held that Greek philosophers had one religion for themselves, another for the masses.

  4. golden chain: From Homer to Milton, an image of love, concord, harmony, extending from heaven to earth.

  5. procreation… paradise: A good example of Sterne’s turning borrowed material to new purposes. He combines two passages in Burton, separated by 150 pages, for his joke; the first is a sentence of Ficino: ‘procreation of children is as necessary as that finding out of truth’ (3.1.1.2); for Slop’s response, he borrows from an unrelated discussion in 3.2.5.3: ‘Consider the excellency of Virgins… marriage replenisheth the earth, but virginity Paradise…’

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  1. affects: OED cites this passage as its last example of an obsolete usage: ‘To be drawn to, have affection or liking for.’

  2. fourth general division: Allusion to one of several methods (most recommending three divisions) by which sermons were to be organized.

  3. ideas of baldness: Plentiful hair suggested sexual energy; baldness, the opposite.

  4. tongs and poker: Cf. III.xx, where Trim bores ‘touch holes with the point of a hot poker’. The aural pun of ‘poker’ is obvious; an additional play on ‘tong[ue]’ is probable.

  5. Scarron: Paul Scarron (1610–60), author of Le Roman comique (trans. by Tom Brown as The Comical Romance (1700)), a work that bears comparison with TS.

  6. Thou must… them: Another borrowing from Burton, 3.2.5.1 and 1.2.2.1; similar prescriptions for controlling sexual appetite are given by the physician Rondibilis to Panurge in Rabelais, III.31. Claudius Ælianus (fl. c. 200), Roman author. Sterne takes his reference to De Natura Animalium – where it is reported that Athenian women put ‘hanea’ in their beds to relieve the pains of sexual abstinence – from Burton.

  VOLUME IX

  Motto: Sterne combines two sentences from Burton’s preface to his discussion of ‘love-melancholy’ (3.1.1.1), the section from which he derived much of the conclusion of Volume VIII: ‘Though you might prefer a somewhat more polite amusement, by the Muses and Charities and the grace of all poets, do not think badly of me.’

  DEDICATION

  1. GREAT MAN: Sterne again addresses William Pitt, to whom he had dedicated the second edition of Volumes I and II in 1760. He alludes to his having become in 1766 Viscount Pitt and Earl of Chatham; Pitt had been ‘out of place [i.e. office]’ between 1761 and 1766.

  2. a posteriori: Sterne plays on the terms of logic, here meaning, more or less, ‘before and after the fact’, but also, in conjunction with ‘exposed’ and ‘kissing… any thing else’, a play on ‘posterior’ as well.

  3. gentle Shepherd: As pointed out by Morris Golden (‘Periodical Context in the Imagined World of Tristram Shandy’, Age of Johnson 1 (1987)), Sterne alludes to a nickname for George Grenville (first Lord of the Treasury, 1763–5), originated by Pitt in 1763. Grenville made a speech asking where he was to find tax revenues, ‘tell me where, tell me where’, and Pitt responded with the words of a popular song, ‘Gentle Shepherd, Tell Me Where’. Sterne exploits the humour of a well-known episode centred on the words ‘tell me where’ to preface a volume in which ‘where?’ is the most pressing question.

  4. Whose… him company: Sterne appropriates Pope’s description of the ‘poor Indian’ in An Essay on Man, I.99–112.

  CHAPTER I

  1. time and chance: Ecclesiastes 9:11: ‘time and chance happeneth to them all’, Sterne’s text for sermon 8, ‘Time and Chance’.

  2. least mote: Matthew 7:3: ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?’

  3. And here… 1766: Cf. Sterne’s letter of 23 July 1766: ‘at present I am in my peaceful retreat, writing the ninth volume of Tristram—I shall publish but one this year, and the next I shall begin a new work of four volumes [i.e. ASJ, only two volumes of which were written], which when finish’d, I shall continue Tristram with fresh spirit.’

  4. The mistake… criminal: In his notes to the earlier Penguin edition of TS (1967), Graham Petrie credits J. C. Maxwell with suggesting that this passage is a ‘ludicrous but perfectly fair application of the moral theory’ of Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated: ‘Therefore nothing can interfere with any proposition that is true, but it must likewise interfere with nature… and consequently be unnatural, or wrong in nature.’ Sterne quotes from Wollaston’s work many times in his sermons, always with approbation.

  CHAPTER II

  1. CHAP. II: The format of Volume IX is unique in that each chapter begins on a new page rather than a few spaces below the preceding chapter, a format duplicated in the Florida Text but not here. This created a good deal of white space in the original and served to emphasize its slightness and, possibly, the weariness of its author.

  2. buckle: Side curls of a wig, from the French ‘boucle’.

  3. had not… Grace: Cf. Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty: ‘The grandeur of the Eastern dress, which so far surpasses the European, depends as much on quantity as on costliness. In a word, it is quantity which adds greatness to grace.’

  4. attacking in armour: Eighteenth-century term for using a condom.

  5. red p
lush: Florida Notes cites examples from Spectator 129 and William Wycherley’s The Plain Dealer, II.i, which indicate Toby was not alone in thinking ‘red plush’ the proper outfit for courtship.

  6. Le Fevre’s: Only in this volume does Sterne spell Le Fever thus; it became, however, the preferred spelling in the nineteenth century.

  CHAPTER III

  1. alout: Usually allout (i.e. all out, completely), probably obsolete by Sterne’s day.

  CHAPTER IV

  1. flourish with his stick: Trim’s flourish seems to resemble eighteenth-century illustrations of the motions of a spermatozoon.

  CHAPTER VI

  1. poor negro girl: On 21 July 1766, a former slave, Ignatius Sancho, wrote to Sterne in praise of his writings and in particular a passage in sermon 10 lamenting slavery. Sancho asks him to ‘give half an hours attention to slavery’ in his next work. Sterne immediately responded that the letter had arrived just as he was writing ‘a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl’, and that he would try to ‘weave’ it into the work he was writing. We may have here part or all of that ‘tender tale’.

  2. sportable: OED cites this passage as its sole illustration: ‘capable of being sportive’. Cf. ASJ: ‘I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured to conquer it…’

  CHAPTER VII

  1. battle of Wynendale: See n. 5 to VIII.xxvi. The French lost between 6,000 and 7,000 men in the two-hour battle, the Allies 912, according to Tindal.

  2. Why therefore… heaven: Trim plays on the proverb that marriages are made in heaven.

  CHAPTER VIII

  1. ALL womankind… mark: Somewhere behind Trim’s humour lurks a couplet recorded by John Ray, A Collection of English Proverbs (1678): ‘He that woes a maid must fain, lie and flatter: / But he that woes a widow, must down with his breeches and at her.’

  2. strides of AMBITION: Cf. Sterne’s sermon 9, on the character of Herod: ‘Consider what havock ambition has made… where not only the innocence of childhood——or the grey hairs of the aged, have found no protection——but whole countries without distinction have been put to the sword…’ And again, sermon 10: ‘Consider the dreadful succession of wars in one part or other of the earth, perpetuated from one century to another with so little intermission, that mankind have scarce had time to breathe from them, since ambition first came into the world…’ Sterne’s italicized ‘few’ and ‘many ’ may well indicate an ironic tone.

  3. Legation… Tub: The sly linking of Warburton’s monumental work with Swift’s magnificent satire (dedicated to Prince Posterity) is discussed by New, ‘Sterne, Warburton’ (see Further Reading).

  4. I will not… make: Scriptural echoes give this paragraph an intensity that sets it apart from the humour surrounding it. See, e.g., Psalm 78:39: ‘For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again’; Job 7:9: ‘As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more’; and Proverbs 31:10: ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.’

  CHAPTER IX

  1. ejaculation: Cf. ASJ, where Yorick breaks his oath of silence in the ‘Case of Delicacy’ and then declares his ‘O my God!’ was merely ‘an ejaculation’ (OED: ‘a short prayer… in an emergency’).

  CHAPTER XI

  1. had no… word: Emendation might seem called for, but in all likelihood Sterne is using, as Work notes (613, n. 2), a Lockean idiom meaning ‘no ideas associated with or annexed to the word’.

  2. her godfathers… her: On behalf of a child in the Anglican baptismal ritual, the godfathers and godmothers promise to renounce the devil and all his works, and to have the child taught all ‘things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul’s health’.

  3. the cuvetts: In so far as cuvettes are trenches, Walter is repeating the joke in VIII.xxx; cuvette also means ‘bedpan’.

  4. sacrament day: Sterne alludes to the ideal practice of administering Communion on the first Sunday of each month (the same day Walter is expected to deal with other ‘family concernments’). In reality, Communion was usually administered less frequently.

  CHAPTER XII

  1. temperance… chastity: Sterne echoes a portion of the response in the Anglican catechism to the question, ‘What is thy duty towards thy neighbour?’: ‘To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity.’

  2. sniveling virtue of Meekness: Any Christian text would offer a contrary view of meekness, as in sermon 25, ‘On humility’, a fit commentary on Walter’s character: ‘Christianity, when rightly explained and practised, is all meekness and candour, and love and courtesy…’

  CHAPTER XIII

  1. gummous: OED cites this passage as its only recorded example of figurative usage: ‘gum-like’.

  2. plumb-lift: Not recorded in OED; Sterne seems to mean a perpendicular motion, straight up or straight down.

  3. Dutch commentator: See n. 12 to I.xix.

  4. topaz ring: See n. 4 to VI.xxxvi.

  5. Ludovicus Sorbonensis: Sterne’s invention, with a glance at the Sorbonne. The Greek means ‘an external matter’.

  CHAPTER XIV

  1. chapter of Button-holes: In IV.xiv, Tristram promises to write chapters on chamber-maids, pishes and button-holes. In V.viii he asks for credit for the first and last, based on V.vii, a chapter, he says, ‘of chamber-maids, green-gowns, and old hats’. In IV.ix, he mentions a chapter of knots; here as elsewhere, ‘knots’ have sexual connotations.

  2. thersitical satire: Sterne alludes to the Homeric character Thersites, described in Chapman’s Iliad, II, as the ‘filthiest fellow’ of all, ‘squinteyd’ and ‘crooke-backt’. His speeches are characterized by vicious and abusive language, thus, the archetypal railer.

  3. nasty… Galatea: See n. 5 to V.xvi. That Sterne had not read the Galateo is clear from his epithet ‘nasty’, but less clear is the source of his information about della Casa’s penance; Walker, Of Education, has a brief account of his falling into disfavour because of his licentious verses, but another person is said to have ‘paraphras’d the Gospel of S. John’ (not Revelation) in penance for his writings. Investment is a play on della Casa’s being a bishop, as are the allusions to ‘purple’.

  CHAPTER XV

  1. How our… world: Commonplace, but perhaps Sterne was looking at Volume I of Sermons while writing this part of TS. In sermon 1, ‘Inquiry after happiness’, he writes: ‘our pleasures and enjoyments slip from under us in every stage of our life’; and in sermon 2, he exclaims: ‘So strange and unaccountable a creature is man! he is so framed, that he cannot but pursue happiness—and yet unless he is made sometimes miserable, how apt is he to mistake the way…’

  CHAPTER XVII

  1. Rousseau: Although Sterne never met the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), they had mutual acquaintances, including Diderot and David Hume. Praise for a natural and simple life is so quintessentially Rousseau it is impossible to identify a particular source.

  2. bar length: OED notes the competitive tossing of a thick rod of iron or wood, the contest being measured in lengths of the bar.

  3. Vestal (to keep my fire in): Sterne plays on the perpetual fire burning in Roman temples in honour of Vesta and the virgins assigned to keep that fire burning.

  CHAPTER XX

  1. second translation: In the chapter ‘The Translation. Paris’ in ASJ, Sterne explores more fully the ‘secret so aiding to the progress of sociality’—that of mastering ‘this short hand, and… rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words’.

  CHAPTER XXII

  1. WE live… riddles: See n. 1 to IV.xvii.

  2. Platonic exigences: Cf. Chambers, s.v. Platonic love: ‘denotes a pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between the different sexes, abstracted from all carnal appetites… The world has a long time
laugh’d at Plato’s notions… In effect, they appear arrant chimera’s, contrary to the intentions of nature…’

  3. defeated: Work has ‘defended’ (626), which cannot be justified and is probably a simple – though misleading – error.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  1. play her cards herself: Proverbial for making good use of one’s resources or opportunities.

  2. ten-ace: In whist, to have the ten-ace is to possess the first and third best cards while being the last player, a decided advantage.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  1. fourscore ounces of blood: Cf. Sterne’s letter dated ? 7–9 January 1767: ‘I miscarried of my tenth Volume by the violence of a fever, I have just got thro’—I have however gone on to my reckoning with the ninth, of wch I am all this week in Labour pains…’ Sterne often links images of giving birth with publication.