C H A P. V
NOW don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.
I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing,——as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and trinkets of criticism,——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;—their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and tortured to death by ’em.
—And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all rule, my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in _number, case_, and _gender_, he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.—Admirable grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?——I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer!
And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critick!
——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of _Bossu_’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.—Admirable connoisseur!
——And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?—’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the colouring of _Titian_—the expression of _Rubens_—the grace of _Raphael_—the purity of _Dominichino_—the _corregiescity_ of _Corregio_—the learning of _Poussin_—the airs of _Guido_—the taste of the _Carrachis_—or the grand contour of _Angelo._—Grant me patience, just Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst——the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author’s hands——be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.
Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour—give me—I ask no more, but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire along with it——and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if he can be spared, with my compliments to—no matter.
Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two hundred and fifty years last past as originals——except _St. Paul’s thumb_——_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, ’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;—else I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times: but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original!—it is thought to be no bad oath——and by itself passes very well—“_G—d damn you._”—Set it beside _Ernulphus_’s——“God almighty the Father damn you—God the Son damn you—God the Holy Ghost damn you”—you see ’tis nothing.—There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention—possess’d more of the excellencies of a swearer——had such a thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, and articulations,—that when _Ernulphus_ cursed—no part escaped him.—’Tis true there is something of a _hardness_ in his manner——and, as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of grace——but then there is such a greatness of _gusto!_
My father, who generally look’d upon every thing in a light very different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an original.——He considered rather _Ernulphus_’s anathema, as an institute of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of _swearing_ in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the succeeding pope, had with great learning and diligence collected together all the laws of it;—for the same reason that _Justinian_, in the decline of the empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to collect the _Roman_ or civil laws all together into one code or digest——lest, through the rust of time——and the fatality of all things committed to oral tradition—they should be lost to the world for ever.
For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the conqueror (_By the splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus._—In short, he would add—I defy a man to swear _out_ of it.
The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious too;——nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.
C H A P. VI
——BLESS my soul!—my poor mistress is ready to faint——and her pains are gone—and the drops are done—and the bottle of julap is broke——and the nurse has cut her arm—(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. _Slop_,) and the child is where it was, continued _Susannah_,—and the midwife has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip as black as your hat.—I’ll look at it, quoth Dr _Slop_.—There is no need of that, replied _Susannah_,—you had better look at my mistress—but the midwife would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you would go up stairs and speak to her this moment.
Human nature is the same in all professions.
The midwife had just before been put over Dr. _Slop_’s head—He had not digested it.—No, replied Dr. _Slop_, ’twould be full as proper if the midwife came down to me.—I like subordination, quoth my uncle _Toby_,—and but for it, after the reduction of _Lisle_, I know not what might have become of the garrison of _Ghent_, in the mutiny for bread, in the year Ten.—Nor, replied Dr. _Slop_, (parodying my uncle _Toby_’s hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical himself)——do I know, Captain _Shandy_, what might have become of the garrison above stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to ******——the application of which, Sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so _à propos_, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by the _Shandy_ family, as long as the _Shandy_ family had a name.
C H A P. VII
LET us go back to the ******——in the last chapter.
It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence flourished at _Athens_ and _Rome_, and would be so now, did orators wear mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing about you _in petto_, ready to produce, pop, in the place you want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink’d doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle pot—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.—Tho’ if it was too young, and the oration as long as _Tully_’s second _Philippick_—it must certainly have beshit the orator’s mantle.—And then again, if too old,—it must have been unwieldly and incommodious to his action—so as to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it.—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the precise age to a minute——hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it——and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by head and shoulders—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders—It has open’d the sluices, and turn’d the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politicks of half a nation.
These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and times, I say, where orators wore mantles——and pretty large ones too, my brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple, superfine, marketable cloth in them—with large flowing folds and doubles, and in a great style of design.—All which plainly shews, may it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of _trunk-hose._—We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.