Part 37 (1/2)

Well, my good doctor, cried my father sportively, for the transitions of his pa.s.sions were unaccountably sudden,-and what has this whelp of mine to say to the matter?

Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog-he could not have done it in a more careless air: the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of enquiry.-He sat down.

Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered,-in what condition is the boy?-'Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr. Slop.

I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby-returning his pipe into his mouth.-Then let the corporal go on, said my father, with his medical lecture.-The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and radical moisture, in the following words.

Chapter 3.XL.

The city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his majesty king William himself, the year after I went into the army-lies, an' please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country.-'Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in Ireland.-

I think this is a new fas.h.i.+on, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical lecture.-'Tis all true, answered Trim.-Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of it, said Yorick.-'Tis all cut through, an' please your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs; and besides, there was such a quant.i.ty of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a puddle,-'twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour and myself; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to draw off the water;-nor was that enough, for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove.-

And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal Trim, cried my father, from all these premises?

I infer, an' please your wors.h.i.+p, replied Trim, that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water-and that the radical heat, of those who can go to the expence of it, is burnt brandy,-the radical heat and moisture of a private man, an' please your honour, is nothing but ditch-water-and a dram of geneva-and give us but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the vapours-we know not what it is to fear death.

I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Doctor Slop, to determine in which branch of learning your servant s.h.i.+nes most, whether in physiology or divinity.-Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon.-

It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal was examined in the latter, and pa.s.sed muster with great honour.-

The radical heat and moisture, quoth Doctor Slop, turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being-as the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegetation.-It is inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but princ.i.p.ally in my opinion by consubstantials, impriments, and occludents.-Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice point.-That he has,-said my father.-Very likely, said my uncle.-I'm sure of it-quoth Yorick.-

Chapter 3.XLI.

Doctor Slop being called out to look at a cataplasm he had ordered, it gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the Tristra-paedia.-Come! cheer up, my lads; I'll shew you land-for when we have tugged through that chapter, the book shall not be opened again this twelve-month.-Huzza-!

Chapter 3.XLII.

-Five years with a bib under his chin;

Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to Malachi;

A year and a half in learning to write his own name;

Seven long years and more (Greek)-ing it, at Greek and Latin;

Four years at his probations and his negations-the fine statue still lying in the middle of the marble block,-and nothing done, but his tools sharpened to hew it out!-'Tis a piteous delay!-Was not the great Julius Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all?-Forty-four years old was he before he could manage his Greek;-and Peter Damia.n.u.s, lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could not so much as read, when he was of man's estate.-And Baldus himself, as eminent as he turned out after, entered upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined he intended to be an advocate in the other world: no wonder, when Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventy-five disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely,-If the old man be yet disputing and enquiring concerning wisdom,-what time will he have to make use of it?

Yorick listened to my father with great attention; there was a seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed up with his strangest whims, and he had sometimes such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses, as almost atoned for them:-be wary, Sir, when you imitate him.