The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

by Laurence Sterne

  37. Martin Luther’s damnation: Sterne found the entire debate, as well as a suggestion for connecting it to Strasbourg, in Pierre Bayle, Dictionary, 5 vols. (1734–8), s.v. Luther (first noted by Work, 261; see n. *). Bayle annotates his sentence ‘[They] have even falsified the day of his birth, in order to frame a scheme of his nativity to his disadvantage’ with his customary elaborateness:

  Martin Luther was born the tenth of November, betwixt eleven and twelve of the clock at night, at Isleben [a note informs us that Isleben is in the county of Mansfeld]… [His mother] being examined… concerning the year she was brought to bed… answered… she only knew the day and the hour. It is therefore out of pure malice, that Florimond de Remond places his birth on the twenty second of October. He thought thereby to confirm the astrological predictions of Junctinus… This Astrologer was strongly confuted by a professor of Strasburg, who shewed, that, by the rules of Astrology, Luther was to be a great man.

  Bayle traces the debate at length, and Sterne copies his discussion, including the Latin note and its wonderful error ‘religiosissimus’ for ‘irreligiosissimus’, the Catholic astrologer being said to have found Luther dying wholly religious, a slip Sterne may have wanted to retain, assuming he noticed it. Bayle translates himself: ‘This is strange, indeed terrible, five planets being in conjunction in Scorpio, in the ninth house which the Arabians allotted to religion, made [Luther] a sacrilegious Heretic, a most bitter and most prophane enemy to the Christian faith. It appears from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars, that he died without any sense of religion, his soul steeped in guilt sailed to hell, there to be lashed with the fiery whips of Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megera thro’ endless ages.’ Lucas Gauricus (1476–1558), Bishop of Civitate and noted astrologer; Sterne’s reference to his Astrological Treatise on the Past Accidents of Many Men, by Means of an Examination of their Nativities (1552) was taken from Bayle’s margin. Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera, the Greek Erinyes (Roman Furies) responsible for avenging crimes, here and hereafter.

  38. Alexandrian library: Most important library in antiquity, suppos edly burned by Julius Caesar in 47 bc, but not fully destroyed until 640.

  39. doubled the cape: Partridge, Dictionary, s.v. Double Cape Horn: ‘To be made a cuckold.’

  40. distribute their types: Technical printing term: ‘To remove (type that has been “composed” or set up) from the forme, and return each letter into its proper box or compartment in the case’ (OED).

  41. square cap: The present-day academic mortarboard regularly worn by churchmen and members of universities.

  42. implies contradictions: Cf. Chambers, s.v. Imply a contradiction: ‘a phrase used among philosophers, in speaking of the object of divine omnipotence’. The problem was a central one in scholastic logic, the intersection of God’s omnipotence with his created world and its laws of operation.

  43. He can make two and two five: The first and second editions read ‘cannot’, butitseems evident that the ‘Popish’ positionis the ‘Nosarian’ position (‘God’s power is infinite’) as opposed to the ‘Lutheran’ or ‘Antinosarian’ position (‘It extends only to all possible things’). Descartes is commonly associated with the specific assertion that God can make two and two five.

  44. he can… Strasburg: Rabelais similarly defends the birth of Gargantua from the left ear of Gargamelle: ‘if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not do it?… I tell you, nothing is impossible with God; and, if he pleased, all women henceforth should bring forth their children at the ear’ (I.6). All contemporary accounts of Strasbourg mention its famous steeple.

  45. the Parchmentarians: Chambers, s.v. Lutheranism, lists some of the ‘thirty nine different sects, which at different times have sprung up among the Lutherans’, including the Antinomians, Antidiaphorists, Antiswenkfeldians and Antiosiandrians.

  46. like Pantagruel…sight: In the ‘Explanatory Remarks’ to Rabelais, IV.1, we are told that Pantagruel and his attendants ‘embarked for the oracle of the holy bottle’.

  47. beguines: Sisterhood founded in the twelfth century. The members were free to quit the cloister and to marry. They flourished in much of western Europe, so there is little validity to Toby’s claim (VIII.xx) that they were found only in the Spanish Netherlands and Amsterdam. Trim falls in love with a beguine, VIII.xx–xxii.

  48. Haste… them: Sterne’s divisions are traditional, though post-Aristotelian. Chambers’s definitions are useful: Protasis: ‘the first part… wherein the several persons of the play are shewn, their characters and manners intimated, and the action… entered upon’; Epitasis: ‘the second part… wherein the plot, or action… was carried on, heightened… till it arrived at its state, or height’; Catastasis: ‘wherein the intrigue, or action set on foot in the epitasis, is supported… till it be ripe for the unravelling’; and Catastrophe: ‘the fourth, and last part… immediately succeeding the catastasis’. Chambers discusses peripeteia (reversal of fortune) as part of the catastrophe.

  49. rest and quietness: Not inAristotle’s Poetics but part of the received commentary.

  50. Valadolid: Cf. Cervantes, I.IV.2: ‘for I have known several Men in my Time go by the Names of the Places where they were born, as [e.g.]… Diego de Valladolid’.

  51. dying un——: Florida Notes suggests ‘undone’ (see IX.xxviii) rather than ‘unconvinced’, but New, ‘Swift and Sterne’ (see Further Reading), argues the relevance of ‘conviction’ to the ‘Tale’.

  52. eased his mind: Partridge, Dictionary, suggests easing oneself was used euphemistically for ejaculation; the more usual suggestion of defecation (urination) might also be in play.

  53. Asthis… tale: Sterne isaccurate in saying the fall of Strasbourg was often spokenof–always with awe over Louis XIV’s treachery and scorn for Strasbourg’s pride and unpreparedness; see, e.g., Gilbert Burnet, Some Letters Containing an Account of… Travelling through Switzerland, Italy, Some Parts of Germany, 2nd edn. (Rotterdam, 1687):

  One seeth, in the ruin of this City, what a mischievous thing the popular pride of a free City is: they fancied they were able to defend themselves, and so they refused to let an Imperial Garrison come within their Town… [T]he Town thought this was a Diminution of their Freedom, and so chose rather to pay a Garrison of three thousand Souldiers, which… ex[h]austed their Revenue, and brought them under great Taxes… The Town begins to sink in its Trade, notwithstanding the great circulation of Money… for it is impossible for a Place of Trade, that is to have alwayes eight or ten thousand Souldiers in it, to continue long in a Flourishing State.

  54. Universal Monarchy: The term was often used in relation to Louis XIV, but not ‘every body’ attributed the scheme to Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83), his finance minister.

  CHAPTER I

  1. pupilability: OED cites this passage as its sole example and notes the pun on the pupils of the eyes.

  2. not worth stooping for: Cf. Twelfth Night, II.ii.14–15, where Malvolio tosses Olivia’s ring at Viola’s feet: ‘If it be worth stooping for, there it lies…’

  CHAPTER III

  1. Makay’s regiment: Hugh Mackay (c. 1640–92), general in the army of William III, killed at the head of his regiment at Steinkirk, a battle recounted in V.xxi.

  CHAPTER IV

  1. I can have…world: Sterne glances at several proverbial expressions, epitomized in Bacon’s famous opening sentence to ‘Of Marriage and Single Life’: ‘He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.’

  CHAPTER VI

  1. Attitudes… all: Sterne perhaps borrows his idea from Charles Avison, An Essay on Musical Expression, 2nd edn. (1753): ‘As the proper Mixture of Light and Shade… is, indeed, essential to the Composition of a good Picture; so the judicious Mixture of Concords and Discords is equally essential to a musical Composition… [T]he Preparations and Resolutions of Discords, resemble the soft Gradations from Light to Shade, or from Shade to Light in Painting.’

  CHAPTER VII

 
; 1. When… inheritance: Sterne borrows from the opening of sermon 34, ‘Trust in God’:

  Whoever seriously reflects upon the state and condition of man, and looks upon that dark side of it, which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble;—when he sees, how often he eats the bread of affliction, and that he is born to it as naturally as the sparks fly upwards;—that no rank or degrees of men are exempted from this law of our beings… when one sits down and looks upon this gloomy side of things, with all the sorrowful changes and chances which surround us,—at first sight,—would not one wonder,—how the spirit of a man could bear the infirmities of his nature, and what it is that supports him, as it does, under the many evil accidents which he meets with in his passage through the valley of tears?

  Sterne borrowed these sentences from an obscure cleric, Walter Leightonhouse. Scriptural echoes in them include: ‘bread of affliction’ (Deuteronomy 16:3, 1 Kings 22:27); ‘Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward’ (Job 5:7); and ‘Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?’ (Genesis 31:14; see also Joshua 17:14, Psalm 16:5).

  2. Zooks: Gadzooks, a corruption of ‘God’s hooks’, the nails of the crucifixion.

  3. ’Tis… Almighty God: Toby maintains ‘Grangousier’s solution’; see n. 2 to III.xli.

  4. cutting the knot: Behind Sterne’s metaphor is the proverbial cutting of the Gordian knot. In sermon 45, ‘The ingratitude of Israel’, Sterne condemns those who believe it ‘idle to bring in the Deity to untie the knot, when [the causes of earthquakes] can be resolved easily into natural causes’: ‘Vain unthinking mortals!—As if natural causes were any thing else in the hands of God,—but instruments which he can turnto work the purposes of his will…’Sterne’s glancesat his sermons in these chapters are noteworthy.

  5. school of Athens: Cf. Jonathan Richardson the younger, An Account of Some of the Statues,… and Pictures in Italy (1722): ‘Even the Manner of the Reasoning of Socrates is Express’d; he holds the Forefinger of his Left-hand between that, and the Thumb of his Right, and seems as if he was saying, You grant me This, and This…’; noted by Brissenden, ‘Sterne and Painting’. The painting, housed in the Vatican, was often alluded to in the eighteenth century.

  6. Garrick: Cf. Sterne’s letter to Garrick, 27 January 1760: ‘I some times think of a Cervantic Comedy upon these & the Materials of ye 3d & 4th Vols which will be still more dramatick…’

  CHAPTER VIII

  1. Though… within us: Sterne continues to borrow from ‘Trust in God’: ‘This expectation [that we ‘shall… live to see better days’]… imposes upon the sense… and like a secret spring in a well-contrived machine, though it cannot prevent, at least it counterbalances the pressure,—and so bears up this tottering, tender frame under many a violent shock and hard justling, which otherwise would unavoidably overwhelm it.’ Sterne’s point in the sermon is that ‘self-love’, the usual counterbalance to the world’s evils, is always insufficient; the only true counterbalance is ‘trust in God’.

  2. GEORGE or EDWARD: Sterne alludes, by way of compliment, to George III and his brother Edward, Duke of York; he had been in the Duke’s company during his spring 1760 visit to London.

  3. Trismegistus: See n. 3 to I.xix.

  CHAPTER X

  1. story of a roasted horse: Proverbial expression for nonsense stories or histories, tales of a tub, cock and bull stories; perhaps derived from ‘amounting to no more than the tail of a roasted horse’.

  2. fifty other cold conceits: Cf. IX.xiii, where Tristram writes of ‘a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing’; and ASJ: ‘I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them…’

  3. you must read Longinus: Sterne alludes to the discussion of bombast and puerilities in sect. III of On the Sublime, and specifically to a note in the English translation by William Smith (1739) to Longinus’s mention of a writer of ‘empty simple Froth’. To exemplify this ‘frigid’ writing, the note offers his explanation of why Diana’s temple at Ephesus burned to ashes the night Alexander the Great was born: the goddess, he wrote, was too busy assisting the midwife and ‘had no leisure to extinguish the Flames’. The sentence became a commonplace in discussions of bad writing. In sermon 42, ‘Search the Scriptures’, Sterne calls Longinus ‘the best critic the eastern world ever produced’. See Lamb, Sterne’s Fiction, in Further Reading.

  4. Avicenna and Licetus: As indicated in his footnote, Sterne borrows his learning from Adrien Baillet’s Des enfans célèbres, published as Volume VI of Jugemens des Savans sur les Principaux Ouvrages des Auteurs (1722). Avicenna (980–1037), Arabian physician and philosopher, was said by Baillet to have read Aristotle’s Metaphysics forty times without understanding it. No evidence exists that Licetus (1577– 1657) had similar difficulty. He did, however, have a premature birth and, according to Baillet, was nineteen years old when he composed a treatise on the origin of the soul, entitled Gonopsychanthropologia. Sterne’s footnote is copied verbatim from Baillet and tells of a foetus no larger than the palm of the hand, the father’s consultation with the learned, and his placing the child in an oven (the method of hatching chickens in Egypt) with the temperature regulated. The success of this effort was attested to by the fact that Licetus lived eighty years and composed eighty works; hence, concludes Baillet, one must grant that incredible things are not necessarily untrue, and that appearance is not always on the side of truth, a phrase Sterne uses to conclude his joke in Ch. xv. Sterne borrows from Baillet again in VI.i.

  5. de omni scribili: Concerning all kinds of writing or scribbling (scribili is a nonce word); Sterne plays on the Latin commonplace de omni scibili, concerning all knowable things.

  6. picking straws: Proverbial for pointless activity.

  CHAPTER XII

  1. Job’s stock of asses: Job begins with 500 she asses, doubled to 1,000 at the end of his sufferings.

  CHAPTER XIII

  1. chairman: One of two men carrying a sedan chair, a common mode of city transport in the century.

  2. day-tall: I.e. day-taler, ‘a worker engaged and paid by the day’ (OED).

  3. biographical writer: Montaigne makes a similar observation, in his essay ‘Of Vanity’: ‘Who does not see that I have taken a Road, in which, incessantly and without labour I shall proceed, so long as there shall be Ink and Paper in the World?’

  4. as Horace advises: See n. 3 to I.iv.

  5. this propitious reign: See n. 1 to III.xxii.

  CHAPTER XV

  1. But for sleep: This discourseon sleep suggests Sterne kept acommon-place book; the sentiments of the first paragraph are so typical that identifying particular sources is unlikely.

  2. set… bad matter: Sterne plays with the proverbial ‘setting a good face on a bad matter’.

  3. God’s blessing… cloak: Cf. Don Quixote, II.III.68: ‘Now Blessings light on him that first invented this same Sleep: It covers a Man all over, Thoughts and all, like a Cloak…’

  4. what Montaigne advances: Sterne combines two distant passages from Montaigne’s ‘Of Experience’: ‘They enjoy the other Pleasures as they do that of Sleep, without knowing it; to the End, that even Sleep itself should not so stupidly escape from me, I have formerly caus’d my self to be disturb’d in my Sleep, that I might the better and more sensibly relish and taste it.’ The second passage occurs twenty pages earlier: ‘I love to lie hard, and alone, even without my Wife, as Kings and Princes do, but well cover’d with Cloaths… My Body is capable of a firm, but not of a violent or sudden Agitation. I evade of late all violent Exercises… I can stand a whole Day together, and am never weary of walking: but from my Youth, I never loved to ride upon Pavements.’ Sterne’s ironic re-ordering juxtaposes Baillet’s sentence (see n. 4 to IV.x) with ‘even without my Wife’.

  CHAPTER XVII

  1. riddles and mysteries: Cf. p. 569: ‘We live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries and riddles…’ Sterne’s wording for this passage has roots in t
wo sermons, 44, ‘The ways of Providence justified to man’: ‘Nay, have not the most obvious things that come in our way dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and do not the clearest and most exalted understandings find themselves puzzled, and at a loss, in every particle of matter?’; and 19, ‘Felix’s behaviour towards Paul’: ‘That in many dark and abstracted questions of mere speculation, we should err——is not strange: we live amongst mysteries and riddles, and almost every thing which comes in our way, in one light or other, may be said to baffle our understandings.’

  The source for both passages is Norris, Practical Discourses… Volume Two (1691): ‘We live among Mysteries and Riddles, and there is not one thing that comes in at our Senses, but what baffles our Understandings; but though (as the Wise Man [Wisdom 9:16] complains,) hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon Earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us…’ Behind Norris and Sterne is Locke, Essay, IV.3.22: ‘He that knows anything, knows this in the first place, that he need not seek long for Instances of his Ignorance. The meanest, and most obvious Things that come in our way, have dark sides, that the quickest Sight cannot penetrate into. The clearest, and most enlarged Understandings of thinking Men find themselves puzzled, and at a loss, in every Particle of Matter.’

  2. Pythagoras… Mahomet: The names, excepting Mahomet, would occur to any eighteenth-century writer preparing a list of legal authorities.