The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his conjecture,—proving it as strongly, as an argument _à priori_ could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was _Yorick_’s and no one’s else:—It was proved to be so, _à posteriori_, the day after, when _Yorick_ sent a servant to my uncle _Toby_’s house to enquire after it.
It seems that _Yorick_, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had borrowed _Stevinus_ of my uncle _Toby_, and had carelesly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle of _Stevinus_; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent _Stevinus_ home, and his sermon to keep him company.
Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thru’ an unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket, down into a treacherous and a tattered lining,—trod deep into the dirt by the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou falledst;—buried ten days in the mire,——raised up out of it by a beggar,—sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,——transferred to his parson,——lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,—nor restored to his restless MANES till this very moment, that I tell the world the story.
Can the reader believe, that this sermon of _Yorick_’s was preached at an assize, in the cathedral of _York_, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and actually printed by him when he had done,——and within so short a space as two years and three months after _Yorick_’s death?—_Yorick_ indeed, was never better served in his life;——but it was a little hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.
However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with _Yorick_,—and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give away;—and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one himself, had he thought fit,—I declare I would not have published this anecdote to the world;——nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his character and advancement in the church;—I leave that to others;——but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.
The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to _Yorick_’s ghost;——which—as the country-people, and some others believe,——_still walks._
The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I gain an opportunity of informing it,—That in case the character of parson _Yorick_, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,——there are now in the possession of the _Shandy_ family, as many as will make a handsome volume, at the world’s service,——and much good may they do it.
C H A P. XLIII
OBADIAH gained the two crowns without dispute;—for he came in jingling, with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, flung across his body, just as Corporal _Trim_ went out of the room.
It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. _Slop_, (clearing up his looks) as we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. _Shandy_, to send up stairs to know how she goes on.
I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us upon the least difficulty;—for you must know, Dr. _Slop_, continued my father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in this affair,—and not so much as that,—unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without you.—Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the good of the species,—they claim a right of deciding, _en Souveraines_, in whose hands, and in what fashion, they choose to undergo it.
They are in the right of it,——quoth my uncle _Toby._ But Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, not taking notice of my uncle _Toby_’s opinion, but turning to my father,—they had better govern in other points;——and a father of a family, who wishes its perpetuity, in my opinion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, and give up some other rights in lieu of it.——I know not, quoth my father, answering a letter too testily, to be quite dispassionate in what he said,—I know not, quoth he, what we have left to give up, in lieu of who shall bring our children into the world, unless that,—of who shall beget them.——One would almost give up any thing, replied Dr. _Slop._—I beg your pardon,——answered my uncle _Toby._—Sir, replied Dr. _Slop_, it would astonish you to know what improvements we have made of late years in all branches of obstetrical knowledge, but particularly in that one single point of the safe and expeditious extraction of the _fœtus_,——which has received such lights, that, for my part (holding up his hand) I declare I wonder how the world has——I wish, quoth my uncle _Toby_, you had seen what prodigious armies we had in _Flanders._
C H A P. XLIV
I HAVE dropped the curtain over this scene for a minute,——to remind you of one thing,——and to inform you of another.
What I have to inform you, comes, I own, a little out of its due course;——for it should have been told a hundred and fifty pages ago, but that I foresaw then ’twould come in pat hereafter, and be of more advantage here than elsewhere.——Writers had need look before them, to keep up the spirit and connection of what they have in hand.
When these two things are done,—the curtain shall be drawn up again, and my uncle _Toby_, my father, and Dr. _Slop_, shall go on with their discourse, without any more interruption.
First, then, the matter which I have to remind you of, is this;——that from the specimens of singularity in my father’s notions in the point of Christian-names, and that other previous point thereto,—you was led, I think, into an opinion,—(and I am sure I said as much) that my father was a gentleman altogether as odd and whimsical in fifty other opinions. In truth, there was not a stage in the life of man, from the very first act of his begetting,——down to the lean and slippered pantaloon in his second childishness, but he had some favourite notion to himself, springing out of it, as sceptical, and as far out of the high-way of thinking, as these two which have been explained.
—Mr. _Shandy_, my father, Sir, would see nothing in the light in which others placed it;—he placed things in his own light;—he would weigh nothing in common scales;—no, he was too refined a researcher to lie open to so gross an imposition.—To come at the exact weight of things in the scientific steel-yard, the fulcrum, he would say, should be almost invisible, to avoid all friction from popular tenets;—without this the minutiæ of philosophy, which would always turn the balance, will have no weight at all. Knowledge, like matter, he would affirm, was divisible _in infinitum_;——that the grains and scruples were as much a part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world.—In a word, he would say, error was error,—no matter where it fell,——whether in a fraction,——or a pound,—’twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust of a butterfly’s wing,——as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all the stars of heaven put together.
He would often lament that it was for want of considering this properly, and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to speculative truths, that so many things in this world were out of joint;——that the political arch was giving way;——and that the very foundations of our excellent constitution in church and state, were so sapped as estimators had reported.
You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of _Zeno_ and _Chrysippus_, without knowing it belonged to them.—Why? why are we a ruined people?—Because we are corrupted.—Whence is it, dear Sir, that we are corrupted?——Because we are needy;——our poverty, and not our wills, consent.——And wherefore, he would add, are we needy?—From the neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence:—Our bank notes, Sir, our guineas,—nay our shillings take care of themselves.
’Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the sciences;—the great, the established points of them, are not to be broke in upon.—The laws of nature will defend themselves;—but error——(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)——error, Sir, creeps in thro’ the minute holes and small crevices which human nature leaves unguarded.
This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:—The point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for this place, is as follows.
Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged my mother to accept of Dr. _Slop_’s assistance preferably to that of the old woman,——there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he had done arguing the matter with her as a Christian, and came to argue it over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength to, depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor.——It failed him, tho’ from no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could, he was not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of it.——Cursed luck!——said he to himself, one afternoon, as he walked out of the room, after he had been stating it for an hour and a half to her, to no manner of purpose;—cursed luck! said he, biting his lip as he shut the door,——for a man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature,——and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.