My father, I believe, had the truest love and tenderness for my uncle _Toby_, that ever one brother bore towards another, and would have done any thing in nature, which one brother in reason could have desir’d of another, to have made my uncle _Toby_’s heart easy in this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power. ——My father, as I told you was a philosopher in grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt _Dinah_’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to _Copernicus_:—The backslidings of _Venus_ in her orbit fortified the _Copernican_ system, called so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt _Dinah_ in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be called the _Shandean System_, after his. In any other family dishonour, my father, I believe, had as nice a sense of shame as any man whatever;——and neither he, nor, I dare say, _Copernicus_, would have divulged the affair in either case, or have taken the least notice of it to the world, but for the obligations they owed, as they thought, to truth.—_Amicus Plato_, my father would say, construing the words to my uncle _Toby_, as he went along, _Amicus Plato_; that is, DINAH was my aunt;—_sed magis amica veritas_—but TRUTH is my sister. This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble. The one could not bear to hear the tale of family disgrace recorded,——and the other would scarce ever let a day pass to an end without some hint at it. For God’s sake, my uncle _Toby_ would cry,——and for my sake, and for all our sakes, my dear brother _Shandy_,—do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes sleep in peace;——how can you,——how can you have so little feeling and compassion for the character of our family?——What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.——Nay, if you come to that—what is the life of a family?——The life of a family!—my uncle _Toby_ would say, throwing himself back in his arm chair, and lifting up his hands, his eyes, and one leg——Yes, the life,——my father would say, maintaining his point. How many thousands of ’em are there every year that come cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)——and considered as nothing but common air, in competition of an hypothesis. In my plain sense of things, my uncle _Toby_ would answer,—every such instance is downright MURDER, let who will commit it.——There lies your mistake, my father would reply;——for, in _Foro Scientiæ_ there is no such thing as MURDER,——’tis only DEATH, brother. My uncle _Toby_ would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument, than that of whistling half a dozen bars of _Lillebullero._——You must know it was the usual channel thro’ which his passions got vent, when any thing shocked or surprized him:——but especially when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offered.