THere is nothing so foolish, when
you are at the expence of making
an entertainment of this kind, as to or-
der things so badly, as to let your cri-
ticks and gentry of refined taste run it
down : Nor is there any thing so likely
to
to make them do it, as that of leaving
them out of the party, or, what is full as
offensive, of bestowing your attention
upon the rest of your guests in so parti-
cular a way, as if there was no such
thing as a critick (by occupation) at
table.
------ I guard against both ; for, in
the first place, I have left half a dozen
places purposely open for them ; -- and,
in the next place, I pay them all court, --
Gentlemen, I kiss your hands, -- I pro-
test no company could give me half the
pleasure, -- by my soul I am glad to see
you, ---- I beg only you will make no
strangers of yourselves, but sit down
without any ceremony, and fall on hear-
tily.
I
I said I had left six places, and I was
upon the point of carrying my complai-
sance so far, as to have left a seventh
open for them, -- and in this very spot I
stand on ; -- but being told by a critick,
(tho' not by occupation, --- but by nature)
that I had acquitted myself well enough,
I shall fill it up directly, hoping, in the
mean time, that I shall be able to make
a great deal of more room next year.
------ How, in the name of wonder!
could your uncle Toby, who, it seems,
was a military man, and whom you have
represented as no fool, -- be at the same
time such a confused, pudding headed,
muddle headed fellow, as -- Go look.
So, Sir Critick, I could have replied ;
but I scorn it. ------ 'Tis language un-
urbane, ---- and only befitting the man
who
who cannot give clear and satisfactory
accounts of things, or dive deep enough
into the first causes of human ignorance
and confusion. It is moreover the re-
ply valiant, -- and therefore I reject it ;
for tho' it might have suited my uncle
Toby's character as a soldier excellently
well, -- and had he not accustomed him-
self, in such attacks, to whistle the Lilla-
bullero, -- as he wanted no courage, 'tis
the very answer he would have given ;
yet it would by no means have done for
me. You see as plain as can be, that I
write as a man of erudition ; -- that even
my similes, my allusions, my illustra-
tions, my metaphors, are erudite, -- and
that I must sustain my character properly,
and contrast it properly too, -- else what
would become of me ? Why, Sir, I
should be undone ; -- at this very mo-
ment that I am going here to fill up one
place
place against a critick, -- I should have
made an opening for a couple.
------ Therefore I answer thus :
Pray, Sir, in all the reading which you
have ever read, did you ever read such a
book as Locke's Essay upon the Human
Understanding ? ------ Don't answer me
rashly, -- because many, I know, quote the
book, who have not read it, -- and many
have read it who understand it not : -- If
either of these is your case, as I write to
instruct, I will tell you in three words
what the book is. -- It is a history. -- A
history ! of who ? what ? where ? when ?
Don't hurry yourself. ---- It is a history-
book, Sir, (which may possibly recom-
mend it to the world) of what passes in a
man's own mind ; and if you will say so
much of the book, and no more, believe
me,
me, you will cut no contemptible figure
in a metaphysic circle.
But this by the way.
Now if you will venture to go along
with me, and look down into the bottom
of this matter, it will be found that the
cause of obscurity and confusion, in the
mind of man, is threefold.
Dull organs, dear Sir, in the first place.
Secondly, slight and transient impressions
made by objects when the said organs are
not dull. And, thirdly, a memory like
unto a sieve, not able to retain what it has
received. -- Call down Dolly your cham-
ber-maid, and I will give you my cap
and bell along with it, if I make not this
matter so plain that Dolly herself shall
understand it as well as Malbranch. ----
When
When Dolly has indited her epistle to
Robin, and has thrust her arm into the
bottom of her pocket hanging by her
right side ; ---- take that opportunity to
recollect that the organs and faculties of
perception, can, by nothing in this world,
be so aptly typified and explained as by
that one thing which Dolly's hand is in
search of. -- Your organs are not so dull
that I should inform you -- 'tis an inch,
Sir, of red seal-wax.
When this is melted and dropp'd upon
the letter, -- if Dolly fumbles too long for
her thimble, till the wax is over harden'd,
it will not receive the mark of her thim-
ble from the usual impulse which was
wont to imprint it. Very well: If Dolly's
wax, for want of better, is bees-wax, or
of a temper too soft, -- tho' it may re-
ceive, -- it will not hold the impression,
how
how hard soever Dolly thrusts against it ;
and last of all, supposing the wax good,
and eke the thimble, but applied there-
to in careless haste, as her mistress rings
the bell ; ---- in any one of these three
cases, the print, left by the thimble, will
be as unlike the prototype as a brass-
jack.
Now you must understand that not
one of these was the true cause of the
confusion in my uncle Toby's discourse ;
and it is for that very reason I enlarge
upon them so long, after the manner of
great physiologists, -- to shew the world
what it did not arise from.
What it did arise from, I have hinted
above, and a fertile source of obscurity
it is, -- and ever will be, -- and that is the
unsteady uses of words which have per-
plexed
plexed the clearest and most exalted un-
derstandings.
It is ten to one, (at Arthur's) whether
you have ever read the literary histories
of past ages ; -- if you have, -- what ter-
rible battles, yclept logomachies, have
they occasioned and perpetuated with
so much gall and ink-shed, -- that a good
natured man cannot read the accounts
of them without tears in his eyes.
Gentle critick ! when thou hast weigh'd
all this, and consider'd within thyself how
much of thy own knowledge, discourse,
and conversation has been pestered and
disordered, at one time or other, by this,
and this only : ---- What a pudder and
racket in COUNCILS about
and
;
and in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit ;
-- about
essences,
essences, and about quintessences ; ----
about substances, and about space. ----
What confusion in greater THEATRES
from words of little meaning, and as in-
determinate a sense; -- when thou consi-
ders this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle
Toby's perplexities, -- thou wilt drop a
tear of pity upon his scarp and his coun-
terscarp ; -- his glacis and his covered-
way ; -- his ravelin and his half-moon :
'Twas not by ideas, ---- by heaven ! his
life was put in jeopardy by words.
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