The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [74]
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.
Chapter 2.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 a 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.
Chapter 2.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,
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.
Chapter 2.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 a 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.
Chapter 2.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,