ABSTRACT
A man who possesses the faculty of exciting mirth, without exposing himself as the subject of it, is said to have humour, and this humour appears in a thousand different forms, according to the variety of attitudes in which folly is exhibited; but all these attitudes must be in themselves ridiculous: for humour is no more than the power of holding up and displaying the ridiculous side of every object with which it is concerned. Every body has heard of the different species of humour; grave humour and gay humour, genteel humour and low humour, natural humour and extravagant humour, grotesque and buffoonery. Perhaps these two last may be more properly stiled the bastards of humour than the power itself, although they have been acknowledged and adopted by the two arch priests of laughter Lucian and Rabelais. They deserve to be held illegitimate, because they either desert nature altogether, in their exhibitions, or represent her in a state of distortion. Lucian and Rabelais, in some of their writings, seem to have no moral purpose in view, unless the design of raising laughter may in some cases be thought a moral aim. It must be owned, that there is abundance of just satire in both; but at the same time they abound with extravagances, which have no foundation in nature, or in reason. Lucian, in his invective against a man who called him Prometheus, expresly says, that his writings were no more than figures of clay, set up to amuse the people on a shew day.1 His true history, indeed, the most extravagant of all his works, he tells us he intended as a satire upon the ancient poets and historians, particularly Ctesias, who wrote the history of the Indies,2 and Jambolus, author of an history of the Wonders of the Ocean.3 As for Rabelais, notwithstanding the insinuation in his preface, in which he applies to his own writings the comparison of Alcibiades in Plato, who likens Socrates to the gallypots of druggists or apothecaries, painted on the outside with ridiculous figures, but containing within the most precious balsams:4 notwithstanding the pains which have been taken by many ingenious commentators, to wrest the words and strain the meaning of Rabelais, in order to prove the whole a political satire on the times in which he wrote, we are of opinion, that the book was intended, as well as written, merely pour la refection corporelle-al’aise du corps et au profit du rains.5 We the rather take notice of Rabelais on this occasion, as we are persuaded that he is the pattern and prototype of Tristram Shandy, notwithstanding the declaration of our modern author, when he exclaims in a transport, ‘My dear Rabelais, and my dearer Cervantes!’ There is no more resemblance between his
manner and that of Cervantes, than there is between the solemnity of a Foppington and the grimace of a Jack Pudding.6 On the other hand, we see in Tristram Shandy the most evident traces of Rabelais, in the address, the manner, and colouring, tho’ he has generally rejected the extravagancies of his plan. We find in both the same sort of apostrophes to the reader, breaking in upon the narrative, not unfrequently with an air of petulant impertinence; the same sales Plautini; the immunda-ignominiosaq; dicta;7 the same whimsical digressions; and the same parade of learning. Nay, we will venture to say, that the author now before us, when he recorded the birth of Tristram Shandy, had in his eye La Nativité du tres-redouté Pantagruel.——Et parce qu’en ce propre jour nasquit Pantagruel, son Pére luy imposa tel nom-—Car alors que sa mere Badebec l’infantoit, et que les sages femmes attenderent pour le recevoir, isserent premier de son ventre soixante et huis grenetiers, chacun tirant par le licol un mulet tout charge de sel: aprelequels sortirent neuf dromadaires chargez de iambons et langues de bæuf fumées; sept chameaus chargez d’andeüilles; puis vingt cinq charettes de porreaux, d’aulx, d’oignons et de abots, &c.——Et comme illes caquetoyent de ces menus propos entre elles, voici sortit Pantagruel tout velu, comme un ours, dont dit une d’illes en esprit prophetique, il est né à tout le poil, il fera choses merveilleuses, et sil vit, il aura de luage.8 Perhaps it would be no difficult matter to point out a much closer affinity between the works of the French and English author; but we have not leisure to be more particular. Nor will it be necessary to explain the conduct of the performance now before us, as it is no more than a continuation of the first two volumes, which were published last year, and received with such avidity by the public, as boded no good to the sequel; for that avidity was not a natural appetite, but a sort of fames canina,9 that must have ended in nausea and indigestion. Accordingly all novel readers, from the stale maiden of quality to the snuff-taking chambermaid, devoured the first part with a most voracious swallow, and rejected the last with marks of loathing and aversion. We must not look for the reason of this difference in the medicine, but in the patient to which it was administered. While the two first volumes of Tristram Shandy lay half-buried in obscurity, we, the Critical Reviewers, recommended it to the public as a work of humour and ingenuity, and, in return, were publickly reviled with the most dull and indelicate abuse:10 but neither that ungrateful insult, nor the maukish disgust so generally manifested towards the second part of Tristram Shandy, shall warp our judgment or integrity so far, as to join the cry in condemning it as unworthy of the first. One had merit, but was extolled above its value; the other has defects, but is too severely decried. The reader will not expect that we should pretend to give a detail of a work, which seems to have been written without any plan, or any other design than that of shewing the author’s wit, humour, and learning, in an unconnected effusion of sentiments and remarks, thrown out indiscriminately as they rose in his imagination. Nevertheless, incoherent and digressive as it is, the book certainly abounds with pertinent observations on life and characters, humourous incidents, poignant ridicule, and marks of taste and erudition. We will venture also to say, that the characters of the father and uncle are interesting and well sustained, and that corporal Trim is an amiable picture of low life.
