The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [301]
5. stamina: See IV, “Slawkenbergius’s Tale,” n. 29 above.
6. non-naturals: opposed to the naturals (just mentioned: “memory, fancy, and quick parts”). See I, xxiii, n. 15, and III, xx.
CHAP. XX
1. curvetting: equestrian maneuver. A curvet is “a leap in which the fore-legs [of the horse] are raised together and advanced equally; the hind-legs … spring before the fore-legs reach the ground” (OED).
2. undertaking criticks: The OED suggests “? Engaged in literary work,” but it seems more likely to mean “enterprising, bold.”
3. statesmen: The appearance of “statesmen” along with painters and fiddlers in this catalogue suggests that Sterne is recalling Dryden’s Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel again. See I, viii, n. 2 above.
4. bishop: undoubtedly William Warburton, who had a complex relation to Sterne’s book. He began as patron of the first volumes, possibly with knowledge that Sterne intended originally to satirize him, and grew progressively critical of and alienated from Sterne, who defended his work in their correspondence. See Melvyn New, “Sterne, Warburton, and the Burden of Exuberant Wit,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 15 (1982): 245–74.
CHAP. XXI
1. Francis the first … state: The anecdote is spun from a single sentence in Gilles de Ménage, Ménagiana (Paris, 1693), as Sterne’s note indicates, about François’s thwarted intentions. Although Francis the Ninth never existed, François I (1494–1547) had a memorable nose, as can be seen in the famous profile portrait by Jean Clouet in the Louvre.
2. Shadrach, Mesech, and Abed-nego: the names given in Babylon to “certain children of Israel,” unharmed by the “fiery furnace.” The middle one is “Meshach.” See Daniel 1:3–7; 3:8–30.
CHAP. XXII
1. against the spleen: “The spleen” was a disease (melancholy) thought to be related to the organ and to be countered by laughter. Swift’s narrator in A Tale of a Tub claims “The Superficial Reader will be strangely provoked to Laughter; which clears the Breast and the Lungs, [and] is Soverain against the Spleen.…” (185), and in his poem “The Author upon Himself” Swift characterized the book as “A dang’rous Treatise writ against the Spleen” (The Poems of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958], 1:195). See also Sterne’s own comment in the dedication of the first two volumes to Pitt, characterizing his life as “a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth” and Tristram’s account of “True Shandeism” below (ch. xxxii).
2. succussations: joltings.
3. sweet-bread: the pancreas; usually used only of an animal.
4. inimicitious: hostile; cf. “inimical” (OED’s last, and only eighteenth-century, example).
CHAP. XXIII
1. canonist: a scholar of canon (church) law.
2. great dinners: Visitation dinners: when the bishop, archdeacon, or a surrogate made his annual visit to examine priests and the administration of the diocesan churches, a great feast was held.
3. tye wig: a man’s wig, tied behind, fashionable earlier in the eighteenth century.
CHAP. XXV
1. chasm of ten pages … by it: In the first edition the pages skipped from 146 to 156 (nine pages), meaning that the rest of the book contained even numbers on the right-hand page (recto) in defiance of printing conventions. Modern editions of Tristram Shandy tend to skip ten pages.
2. ****: York.
3. left-hand, like Turpilius … Hans Holbein of Basil: Knowledge of Turpilius (fl. 60 CE) derives from Pliny’s Natural History, but Florida notes that Richard Graham’s A Short Account of the Most Eminent Painters, 2nd ed. (1716), calls attention in a sentence to the left-handedness of Hans Holbein and Turpilius (305). Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543) became court painter to Henry VIII.
4. bend dexter … Shandy-arms: The coat of arms of the Shandys on Walter’s coach contained a “bend sinister,” a diagonal band denoting bastardy crossing the shield from the top right corner to the lower left of the viewer. The bend dexter runs from top left to bottom right. “Dexter” is a term for “right”; “sinister” for left.