d come safe
into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he would
say, there was no injury done to the sensorium;--no pressure of the
head against the pelvis;--no propulsion of the cerebrum towards the
cerebellum, either by the os pubis on this side, or os coxygis on
that;--and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your Julius
Caesar, who gave the operation a name;--and your Hermes Trismegistus,
who was born so before ever the operation had a name;--your Scipio
Africanus; your Manlius Torquatus; our Edward the Sixth,--who, had he
lived, would have done the same honour to the hypothesis:--These, and
many more who figured high in the annals of fame,--all came side-way,
Sir, into the world.

The incision of the abdomen and uterus ran for six weeks together in
my father's head;--he had read, and was satisfied, that wounds in the
epigastrium, and those in the matrix, were not mortal;--so that the
belly of the mother might be opened extremely well to give a passage to
the child.--He mentioned the thing one afternoon to my mother,--merely
as a matter of fact; but seeing her turn as pale as ashes at the very
mention of it, as much as the operation flattered his hopes,--he
thought it as well to say no more of it,--contenting himself with
admiring,--what he thought was to no purpose to propose.

This was my father Mr. Shandy's hypothesis; concerning which I have only
to add, that my brother Bobby did as great honour to it (whatever he did
to the family) as any one of the great heroes we spoke of: For happening
not only to be christened, as I told you, but to be born too, when my
father was at Epsom,--being moreover my mother's first child,--coming
into the world with his head foremost,--and turning out afterwards a lad
of wonderful slow parts,--my father spelt all these together into his
opinion: and as he had failed at one end,--he was determined to try the
other.

This was not to be expected from one of the sisterhood, who are not
easily to be put out of their way,--and was therefore one of my father's
great reasons in favour of a man of science, whom he could better deal
with.

Of all men in the world, Dr. Slop was the fittest for my father's
purpose;--for though this new-invented forceps was the armour he
had proved, and what he maintained to be the safest instrument of
deliverance, yet, it seems, he had scattered a word or two in his book,
in favour of the very thing which ran in my father'