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Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, answered the minister——I’ll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth Francis the First.

Your honour stands pawn’d already in this matter, answered Monsieur le Premier.

Then, Mons. le Premier, said the king, by———we’ll go to war with ’em.

*Vide Menagiana, vol. I.

CHAP. XXII

Albeit, gentle reader, I have lusted earnestly, and endeavoured carefully (according to the measure of such slender skill as God has vouchsafed me, and as convenient leisure from other occasions of needful profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books, which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger books—yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to entreat thy lenity seriously—in beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in the story of my father and his christen-names,—I had no thoughts of treading upon Francis the First—nor in the affair of the nose—upon Francis the Ninth—nor in the character of my uncle Toby—of characterizing the militiating spirits of my country—the wound upon his groin, is a wound to every comparison of that kind,—nor by Trim,—that I meant the duke of Ormond—or that my book is wrote against predestination, or free will, or taxes—If ’tis wrote against any thing,——’tis wrote, an’please your worships, against the spleen;1 in order, by a more frequent and a more convulsive elevation and depression of the diaphragm, and the succussations2 of the intercostal and abdominal muscles in laughter, to drive the gall and other bitter juices from the gall bladder, liver and sweet-bread3 of his majesty’s subjects, with all the inimicitious4 passions which belong to them, down into their duodenums.

CHAP. XXIII

—But can the thing be undone, Yorick? said my father—for in my opinion, continued he, it cannot. I am a vile canonist,1 replied Yorick—but of all evils, holding suspense to be the most tormenting, we shall at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these great dinners2—said my father—The size of the dinner is not the point, answered Yorick—we want, Mr. Shandy, to dive into the bottom of this doubt, whether the name can be changed or not—and as the beards of so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, registers, and of the most able of our school-divines, and others, are all to meet in the middle of one table, and Didius has so pressingly invited you,——who in your distress would miss such an occasion? All that is requisite, continued Yorick, is to apprize Didius, and let him manage a conversation after dinner so as to introduce the subject—Then my brother Toby, cried my father, clapping his two hands together, shall go with us.

—Let my old tye wig,3 quoth my uncle Toby, and my laced regimentals, be hung to the fire all night, Trim.

CHAP. XXV

—No doubt, Sir—there is a whole chapter wanting here—and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it1—but the book-binder is neither a fool, or a knave, or a puppy—nor is the book a jot more imperfect, (at least upon that score)—but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter, than having it, as I shall demonstrate to your reverences in this manner—I question first by the bye, whether the same experiment might not be made as successfully upon sundry other chapters——but there is no end, an’please your reverences, in trying experiments upon chapters—we have had enough of it—So there’s an end of that matter.

But before I begin my demonstration, let me only tell you, that the chapter which I have torn out, and which otherwise you would all have been reading just now, instead of this,—was the description of my father’s, my uncle Toby’s, Trim’s, and Obadiah’s setting out and journeying to the visitations at ****.2

We’ll go in the coach, said my father—Prithee, have the arms been altered, Obadiah?—It would have made my story much better, to have begun with telling you, that at the time my mother’s arms were added to the Shandy’s, when the coach was repainted upon my father