Here——but why here——rather than in any other part of my story——I am not able to tell:——but here it is——my heart stops me to pay to thee, my dear uncle _Toby_, once for all, the tribute I owe thy goodness.—Here let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel down upon the ground, whilst I am pouring forth the warmest sentiment of love for thee, and veneration for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom.——Peace and comfort rest for evermore upon thy head!—Thou enviedst no man’s comforts——insultedst no man’s opinions——Thou blackenedst no man’s character—devouredst no man’s bread: gently, with faithful _Trim_ behind thee, didst thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy way:—for each one’s sorrows, thou hadst a tear,—for each man’s need, thou hadst a shilling.
Whilst I am worth one, to pay a weeder—thy path from thy door to thy bowling-green shall never be grown up.——Whilst there is a rood and a half of land in the _Shandy_ family, thy fortifications, my dear uncle _Toby_, shall never be demolish’d.
C H A P. XXVIII
MY father’s collection was not great, but to make amends, it was curious; and consequently he was some time in making it; he had the great good fortune hewever, to set off well, in getting _Bruscambille_’s prologue upon long noses, almost for nothing—for he gave no more for _Bruscambille_ than three half-crowns; owing indeed to the strong fancy which the stall-man saw my father had for the book the moment he laid his hands upon it.——There are not three _Bruscambilles_ in _Christendom_—said the stall-man, except what are chain’d up in the libraries of the curious. My father flung down the money as quick as lightning——took _Bruscambille_ into his bosom——hied home from _Piccadilly_ to _Coleman_-street with it, as he would have hied home with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from _Bruscambille_ all the way.
To those who do not yet know of which gender _Bruscambille_ is——inasmuch as a prologue upon long noses might easily be done by either——’twill be no objection against the simile—to say, That when my father got home, he solaced himself with _Bruscambille_ after the manner in which, ’tis ten to one, your worship solaced yourself with your first mistress——that is, from morning even unto night: which, by-the-bye, how delightful soever it may prove to the inamorato—is of little or no entertainment at all to by-standers.——Take notice, I go no farther with the simile—my father’s eye was greater than his appetite—his zeal greater than his knowledge—he cool’d—his affections became divided——he got hold of _Prignitz_—purchased _Scroderus, Andrea Paraeus, Bouchet_’s Evening Conferences, and above all, the great and learned _Hafen Slawkenbergius_; of which, as I shall have much to say by-and-bye—I will say nothing now.
C H A P. XXIX
OF all the tracts my father was at the pains to procure and study in support of his hypothesis, there was not any one wherein he felt a more cruel disappointment at first, than in the celebrated dialogue between _Pamphagus_ and _Cocles_, written by the chaste pen of the great and venerable _Erasmus_, upon the various uses and seasonable applications of long noses.——Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your imagination, if you can any ways help it; or if he is so nimble as to slip on—let me beg of you, like an unback’d filly, _to frisk it, to squirt it, to jump it, to rear it, to bound it—and to kick it, with long kicks and short kicks_, till like _Tickletoby_’s mare, you break a strap or a crupper, and throw his worship into the dirt.—You need not kill him.—
—And pray who was _Tickletoby_’s mare?—’tis just as discreditable and unscholar-like a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (_ab. urb. con._) the second Punic war broke out.—Who was _Tickletoby_’s mare!—Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read—or by the knowledge of the great saint _Paraleipomenon_—I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.
Marble image
Marble image
C H A P. XXX
“_NIHIL me paenitet hujus nasi_,” quoth _Pamphagus_;——that is—“My nose has been the making of me.”——“_Nec est cur poeniteat_,” replies _Cocles_; that is, “How the duce should such a nose fail?”
The doctrine, you see, was laid down by _Erasmus_, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father’s disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow’d upon man on purpose to investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.——My father pish’d and pugh’d at first most terribly——’tis worth something to have a good name. As the dialogue was of _Erasmus_, my father soon came to himself, and read it over and over again with great application, studying every word and every syllable of it thro’ and thro’ in its most strict and literal interpretation—he could still make nothing of it, that way. Mayhap there is more meant, than is said in it, quoth my father.——Learned men, brother _Toby_, don’t write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.——I’ll study the mystick and the allegorick sense——here is some room to turn a man’s self in, brother.
My father read on.——
Now I find it needful to inform your reverences and worships, that besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by _Erasmus_, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic conveniences also; for that in a case of distress—and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, _ad ixcitandum focum_ (to stir up the fire.)
Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him, as she had done the seeds of all other knowledge——so that he had got out his penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he could not scratch some better sense into it.——I’ve got within a single letter, brother _Toby_, cried my father, of _Erasmus_ his mystic meaning.—You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all conscience.——Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on——I might as well be seven miles off.—I’ve done it—said my father, snapping his fingers—See, my dear brother _Toby_, how I have mended the sense.——But you have marr’d a word, replied my uncle _Toby_.—My father put on his spectacles——bit his lip——and tore out the leaf in a passion.
C H A P. XXXI
O _SLAWKENBERGIUS!_ thou faithful analyzer of my _Disgrazias_—thou sad foreteller of so many of the whips and short turns which on one stage or other of my life have come slap upon me from the shortness of my nose, and no other cause, that I am conscious of.—Tell me, _Slawkenbergius!_ what secret impulse was it? what intonation of voice? whence came it? how did it sound in thy ears?——art thou sure thou heard’st it?——which first cried out to thee——go——go, _Slawkenbergius!_ dedicate the labours of thy life—neglect thy pastimes——call forth all the powers and faculties of thy nature——macerate thyself in the service of mankind, and write a grand FOLIO for them, upon the subject of their noses.
How the communication was conveyed into _Slawkenbergius_’s sensorium——so that _Slawkenbergius_ should know whose finger touch’d the key—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows—as _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten years——we can only raise conjectures.
_Slawkenbergius_ was play’d upon, for aught I know, like one of _Whitefield_’s disciples——that is, with such a distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two masters it was that had been practising upon his _instrument_——as to make all reasoning upon it needless.
——For in the account which _Hafen Slawkenbergius_ gives the world of his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his life upon this one work—towards the end of his prolegomena, which by-the-bye should have come first——but the bookbinder has most injudiciously placed it betwixt the analytical contents of the book, and the book itself—he informs his reader, that ever since he had arrived at the age of discernment, and was able to sit down cooly, and consider within himself the true state and condition of man, and distinguish the main end and design of his being;——or—to shorten my translation, for _Slawkenbergius_’s book is in _Latin_, and not a little prolix in this passage—ever since I understood, quoth _Slawkenbergius_, any thing—or rather _what was what_——and could perceive that the point of long noses had been too loosely handled by all who had gone before;——have I _Slawkenbergius_, felt a strong impulse, with a mighty and unresistible call within me, to gird up myself to this undertaking.