The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - 34

In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles duke of Suffolk having issue a son by one venter, and a daughter by another venter, made his last will, wherein he devised goods to his son, and died; after whose death the son died also——but without will, without wife, and without child—his mother and his sister by the father’s side (for she was born of the former venter) then living. The mother took the administration of her son’s goods, according to the statute of the 21st of Harry the Eighth, whereby it is enacted, That in case any person die intestate the administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin.

The administration being thus (surreptitiously) granted to the mother, the sister by the father’s side commenced a suit before the Ecclesiastical Judge, alledging, 1st, That she herself was next of kin; and 2dly, That the mother was not of kin at all to the party deceased; and therefore prayed the court, that the administration granted to the mother might be revoked, and be committed unto her, as next of kin to the deceased, by force of the said statute.

Hereupon, as it was a great cause, and much depending upon its issue—and many causes of great property likely to be decided in times to come, by the precedent to be then made——the most learned, as well in the laws of this realm, as in the civil law, were consulted together, whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no.—Whereunto not only the temporal lawyers——but the church lawyers—the juris-consulti—the jurisprudentes—the civilians—the advocates—the commissaries—the judges of the consistory and prerogative courts of Canterbury and York, with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, That the mother was not of^[19] kin to her child.——

And what said the duchess of Suffolk to it? said my uncle Toby.

The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby’s question, confounded Kysarcius more than the ablest advocate——He stopp’d a full minute, looking in my uncle Toby’s face without replying——and in that single minute Triptolemus put by him, and took the lead as follows.

’Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt ’tis for this cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and seed of its parents——that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by the parents—For so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patris & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine liberorum.

——But this, Triptolemus, cried Didius, proves too much—for from this authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child—but the father likewise.——It is held, said Triptolemus, the better opinion; because the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are they but (una caro^[20]) one flesh; and consequently no degree of kindred——or any method of acquiring one in nature.——There you push the argument again too far, cried Didius——for there is no prohibition in nature, though there is in the Levitical law——but that a man may beget a child upon his grandmother——in which case, supposing the issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both of——But who ever thought, cried Kysarcius, of laying with his grandmother?——The young gentleman, replied Yorick, whom Selden speaks of——who not only thought of it, but justified his intention to his father by the argument drawn from the law of retaliation.—“You laid, Sir, with my mother,” said the lad—“why may not I lay with yours?”——’Tis the Argumentum commune, added Yorick.——’Tis as good, replied Eugenius, taking down his hat, as they deserve.

The company broke up.

[17] Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. §8.

[18] Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.

[19] Mater non numeratur inter consanguineos, Bald. in ult. C. de Verb. signific.

[20] Vide Brook Abridg. tit. Administr. N .47.

C H A P.   LXV

—AND pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, as he and my father were helping him leisurely down the stairs——don’t be terrified, madam, this stair-case conversation is not so long as the last——And pray, Yorick, said my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of Tristram at length settled by these learned men? Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick; no mortal, Sir, has any concern with it——for Mrs. Shandy the mother is nothing at all a-kin to him——and as the mother’s is the surest side——Mr. Shandy, in course is still less than nothing——In short, he is not as much a-kin to him, Sir, as I am.——

——That may well be, said my father, shaking his head.

——Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly, quoth my uncle Toby, have been some sort of consanguinity betwixt the duchess of Suffolk and her son.

The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth Yorick, to this hour.

C H A P.   LXVI

THOUGH my father was hugely tickled with the subtleties of these learned discourses——’twas still but like the anointing of a broken bone——The moment he got home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the staff we lean on slips from under us.—He became pensive—walked frequently forth to the fish-pond—let down one loop of his hat——sigh’d often——forbore to snap—and, as the hasty sparks of temper, which occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and digestion, as Hippocrates tells us—he had certainly fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with a legacy of a thousand pounds, by my aunt Dinah.

My father had scarce read the letter, when taking the thing by the right end, he instantly began to plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out mostly to the honour of his family.—A hundred-and-fifty odd projects took possession of his brains by turns—he would do this, and that and t’other—He would go to Rome——he would go to law——he would buy stock——he would buy John Hobson’s farm—he would new fore front his house, and add a new wing to make it even——There was a fine water-mill on this side, and he would build a wind-mill on the other side of the river in full view to answer it—But above all things in the world, he would inclose the great Ox-moor, and send out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels.

But as the sum was finite, and consequently could not do every thing——and in truth very few of these to any purpose—of all the projects which offered themselves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make the deepest impression; and he would infallibly have determined upon both at once, but for the small inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of the one or the other.

This was not altogether so easy to be done; for though ’tis certain my father had long before set his heart upon this necessary part of my brother’s education, and like a prudent man had actually determined to carry it into execution, with the first money that returned from the second creation of actions in the Missisippi-scheme, in which he was an adventurer——yet the Ox-moor, which was a fine, large, whinny, undrained, unimproved common, belonging to the Shandy-estate, had almost as old a claim upon him: he had long and affectionately set his heart upon turning it likewise to some account.

But having never hitherto been pressed with such a conjuncture of things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their claims——like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project at this crisis——the two old projects, the OX-MOOR and my BROTHER, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the occasion of no small contest in the old gentleman’s mind—which of the two should be set o’going first.

——People may laugh as they will—but the case was this.

It had ever been the custom of the family, and by length of time was almost become a matter of common right, that the eldest son of it should have free ingress, egress, and regress into foreign parts before marriage—not only for the sake of bettering his own private parts, by the benefit of exercise and change of so much air—but simply for the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put into his cap, of having been abroad—tantum valet, my father would say, quantum sonat.

Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most christian indulgence——to deprive him of it, without why or wherefore——and thereby make an example of him, as the first Shandy unwhirl’d about Europe in a post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad——would be using him ten times worse than a Turk.

On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was full as hard.

Exclusive of the original purchase-money, which was eight hundred pounds——it had cost the family eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about fifteen years before—besides the Lord knows what trouble and vexation.

It had been moreover in possession of the Shandy-family ever since the middle of the last century; and though it lay full in view before the house, bounded on one extremity by the water-mill, and on the other by the projected wind-mill spoken of above—and for all these reasons seemed to have the fairest title of any part of the estate to the care and protection of the family—yet by an unaccountable fatality, common to men, as well as the ground they tread on——it had all along most shamefully been overlook’d; and to speak the truth of it, had suffered so much by it, that it would have made any man’s heart have bled (Obadiah said) who understood the value of the land, to have rode over it, and only seen the condition it was in.

However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground—nor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father’s doing——he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair——till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries)——which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something for it——and that now or never was the time.

I think there must certainly have been a mixture of ill-luck in it, that the reasons on both sides should happen to be so equally balanced by each other; for though my father weigh’d them in all humours and conditions——spent many an anxious hour in the most profound and abstracted meditation upon what was best to be done—reading books of farming one day——books of travels another——laying aside all passion whatever—viewing the arguments on both sides in all their lights and circumstances—communing every day with my uncle Toby—arguing with Yorick, and talking over the whole affair of the Ox-moor with Obadiah——yet nothing in all that time appeared so strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either strictly applicable to the other, or at least so far counterbalanced by some consideration of equal weight, as to keep the scales even.

For to be sure, with proper helps, in the hands of some people, tho’ the Ox-moor would undoubtedly have made a different appearance in the world from what it did, or ever could do in the condition it lay——yet every tittle of this was true, with regard to my brother Bobby——let Obadiah say what he would.——

In point of interest——the contest, I own, at first sight, did not appear so undecisive betwixt them; for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand, and set about calculating the simple expence of paring and burning, and fencing in the Ox-moor, &c. &c.—with the certain profit it would bring him in return——the latter turned out so prodigiously in his way of working the account, that you would have sworn the Ox-moor would have carried all before it. For it was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first year——besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following——and the year after that, to speak within bounds, a hundred——but in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty——if not two hundred quarters of pease and beans——besides potatoes without end.——But then, to think he was all this while breeding up my brother, like a hog to eat them——knocked all on the head again, and generally left the old gentleman in such a state of suspense——that, as he often declared to my uncle Toby——he knew no more than his heels what to do.

No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time: for to say nothing of the havock, which by a certain consequence is unavoidably made by it all over the finer system of the nerves, which you know convey the animal spirits and more subtle juices from the heart to the head, and so on——it is not to be told in what a degree such a wayward kind of friction works upon the more gross and solid parts, wasting the fat and impairing the strength of a man every time as it goes backwards and forwards.

My father had certainly sunk under this evil, as certainly as he had done under that of my CHRISTIAN NAME——had he not been rescued out of it, as he was out of that, by a fresh evil——the misfortune of my brother Bobby’s death.

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?——from sorrow to sorrow?——to button up one cause of vexation——and unbutton another?

C H A P.   LXVII

FROM this moment I am to be considered as heir-apparent to the Shandy family——and it is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE and my OPINIONS sets out. With all my hurry and precipitation, I have but been clearing the ground to raise the building——and such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and as never was executed since Adam. In less than five minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is left remaining at the bottom of my ink-horn, after it—I have but half a score things to do in the time——I have a thing to name——a thing to lament——a thing to hope——a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten—I have a thing to suppose—a thing to declare——a thing to conceal——a thing to choose, and a thing to pray for——This chapter, therefore, I name the chapter of THINGS——and my next chapter to it, that is, the first chapter of my next volume, if I live, shall be my chapter upon WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connection in my works.

The thing I lament is, that things have crowded in so thick upon me, that I have not been able to get into that part of my work, towards which I have all the way looked forwards, with so much earnest desire; and that is the Campaigns, but especially the amours of my uncle Toby, the events of which are of so singular a nature, and so Cervantick a cast, that if I can so manage it, as to convey but the same impressions to every other brain, which the occurrences themselves excite in my own—I will answer for it the book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done before it.——Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once brought about——the credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils will have befallen thee as a man——thou wilt feast upon the one——when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of the other!——

No wonder I itch so much as I do, to get at these amours—They are the choicest morsel of my whole story! and when I do get at ’em——assure yourselves, good folks—(nor do I value whose squeamish stomach takes offence at it) I shall not be at all nice in the choice of my words!——and that’s the thing I have to declare.——I shall never get all through in five minutes, that I fear——and the thing I hope is, that your worships and reverences are not offended—if you are, depend upon’t I’ll give you something, my good gentry, next year to be offended at——that’s my dear Jenny’s way—but who my Jenny is—and which is the right and which the wrong end of a woman, is the thing to be concealed—it shall be told you in the next chapter but one to my chapter of Button-holes——and not one chapter before.