of 'em, which cannot be given to the
curious till I am got out into the world.

End of the first volume.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENT.--VOLUME THE SECOND

Multitudinis imperitae non formido judicia, meis tamen,
rogo, parcant opusculis--in quibus fuit propositi semper, a
jocis ad seria, in seriis vicissim ad jocos transire.

Joan. Saresberiensis,
Episcopus Lugdun.

Chapter 2.I.

Great wits jump: for the moment Dr. Slop cast his eyes upon his bag
(which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle Toby about
mid-wifery put him in mind of it)--the very same thought occurred.--'Tis
God's mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. Shandy has had so bad a
time of it,--else she might have been brought to bed seven times told,
before one half of these knots could have got untied.--But here you must
distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail
or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your
worship knows, are every day swimming quietly in the middle of the
thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards or
forwards, till some little gusts of passion or interest drive them to
one side.

A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother's bed, did
the proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that's
unfortunate, quoth Dr. Slop, unless I make haste, the thing will
actually befall me as it is.

Chapter 2.II.

In the case of knots,--by which, in the first place, I would not be
understood to mean slip-knots--because in the course of my life and
opinions--my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I
mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. Hammond Shandy,--a
little man,--but of high fancy:--he rushed into the duke of Monmouth's
affair:--nor, secondly, in this place, do I mean that particular species
of knots called bow-knots;--there is so little address, or skill, or
patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below my giving
any opinion at all about them.--But by the knots I am speaking of, may
it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, devilish
tight, hard knots, made bona fide, as Obadiah made his;--in which there
is no quibbling provision made by the duplication and return of the
two ends of the strings thro' the annulus or noose made by the second
implication of them--to get them slipp'd and undone by.--I hope you
apprehen