The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [295]
CHAP. XXXVII
1. Nihil … fail: from Erasmus’s “Of Benefice-Hunters” mentioned in the last chapter (see n. 1 above). More literally, to Pamphagus’s “I am not at all sorry for this nose,” Cocles replies, “Nor why should you be sorry.”
2. nautical uses of long noses: The nautical uses include as a grappling iron and as an anchor.
3. ad excitandum focum: Latin; Focum can mean “hearth,” but it is literally “the burning thing”; Erasmus uses the phrase excitando foculo, employing a different word for “hearth.” Walter’s attempt to interpret Erasmus through allegory and “verbal criticism” is reminiscent of the three brothers’ attempts in Swift’s A Tale of a Tub to subvert their father’s will (section II).
CHAP. XXXVIII
1. Disgrázias: misfortunes. Only Colley Cibber’s Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian (1740) used a version of the word in English before.
2. Whitfield’s disciples: Methodists, followers of George Whitefield (1714–70), often the targets of satirists and of Anglican preachers for their knowledge through “enthusiasm” rather than reason. Sterne himself attacks them on these grounds in “On Enthusiasm,” Sermon 38 (4:357–67), and elsewhere.
3. to gird up myself: a biblical cliché (e.g., Jeremiah 1:17).
4. en-nich’d: another of Sterne’s nonce words; this is the only example given by the OED.
5. dilucidating: elucidating; Sterne’s is the earliest eighteenth-century usage in OED.
6. charnel houses in Silesia: the product of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), an indication, perhaps, of Prignitz’s supposed origin and the time in which he flourished. Silesia is in modern Poland.
7. Crim Tartary: Crimea. Chambers has this account under “Nose.”
8. Ambrose Paræus … Taliacotius’s noses: Ambrose Paré served a number of French kings, but not the nonexistent Francis IX, a joke which Sterne repeats (IV, xxii). Florida points out that Sterne seems to know Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545–99), an early plastic surgeon, “firsthand” because he is aware of Paré’s error in a way atypical of his own century’s knowledge.
9. length and goodness … ad mensuram suam legitimam: The description of the origins of good and bad noses is drawn from Friar John’s comments in Rabelais (1.40), the same passage where Ozell’s footnote provided Sterne with Paræus and Bouchet (see chapter above). Puisne is “puny,” but with the law-French overtones of “junior.” Ad mensuram suam legitimam is “to its lawful length.”
10. refocillated: synonymous with “refreshed,” “comforted.” The OED gives this as its last illustration and its only eighteenth-century example.
11. ratios: rations.
12. crucifix’d: crucified. Again, Sterne is given as the sole eighteenth-century illustration by the OED.
13. Ponocrates and Grangousier: characters in Rabelais: Gargantua’s tutor and his father, who take part in the discussion of good noses with Friar John in Rabelais (1.40; 1:319).
CHAP. XL
1. syllogize by their noses: Florida notes that this comes from Montaigne, who tells of Chrysippus’s deductions about a dog’s reasoning through scent (2.12, 147).
2. finding out the agreement … juxta-position: This is verbatim from Locke (Essay, 4.17.18), with two exceptions. The medius terminus, which Locke does not mention, is the suppressed middle term, and Locke uses the example of houses instead of nine-pin alleys. Sterne, unlike Locke, is aware that “yard” may mean “penis.”
CHAP. XLI
1. quære: question (Latin).
2. Grangousier’s solution: Rabelais (1.40; 1:319).
CHAP. XLII
1. canon’s prayer-book … contrited and attrited: The prayer book of a canon (a minor churchman of a cathedral) would be “crushed, ground to pieces; worn by rubbing” and “worn down by continued friction” (OED). Sterne is given as the last to use the former and the first to use the latter.
VOL. IV
SLAWKENBERGIUS