When my father had got so far,——what a blaze of light did the accounts of the _Caesarian_ section, and of the towering geniuses who had 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’s fancy;——tho’ not with a view to the soul’s good in extracting by the feet, as was my father’s system,—but for reasons merely obstetrical.