This will account for the coalition betwixt my father and Dr. _Slop_, in the ensuing discourse, which went a little hard against my uncle _Toby_. ----In what manner a plain man, with nothing but common sense, could bear up against two such allies in science, --is hard to conceive. --You may conjecture upon it, if you please, ----and whilst your imagination is in motion, you may encourage it to go on, and discover by what causes and effects in nature it could come to pass, that my uncle _Toby_ got his modesty by the wound he received upon his groin. --You may raise a system to account for the loss of my nose by marriage-articles, --and shew the world how it could happen, that I should have the misfortune to be called TRISTAM, in opposition to my father’s hypothesis, and the wish of the whole family, Godfathers and Godmothers not excepted. --These, with fifty other points left yet unravelled, you may endeavour to solve if you have time; ----but I tell you beforehand it will be in vain, for not the sage _Alquife_, the magician in Don _Belianis_ of _Greece_, nor the no less famous _Urganda_, the sorceress his wife, (were they alive), could pretend to come within a league of the truth. The reader will be content to wait for a full explanation of these matters till the next year, ----when a series of things will be laid open which he little expects. [Footnote 2.1: The author is here twice mistaken; for _Lithopædus_ should be wrote thus, _Lithopædii Senonensis Icon_. The second mistake is, that this _Lithopædus_ is not an author, but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by _Athosius_ 1580, may be seen at the end of _Cordæus’s_ works in _Spachius_. Mr. _Tristram Shandy_ has been led into this error, either from seeing _Lithopædus’s_ name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr. ----, or by mistaking _Lithopædus_ for _Trinecavellius_, ----from the too great similitude of the names.] BOOK III Multitudinis imperitæ non formido judicia; meis tamen, rogo, parcant opusculis------in quibus fuit propositi semper, a jocis ad seria, a seriis vicissim ad jocos transire. --JOAN. SARESBERIENSIS, _Episcopus Lugdun._ CHAPTER I ----“_I WISH, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, (repeating his wish for Dr. _Slop_ a second time, and with a degree of more zeal and earnestness in his manner of wishing, than he had wished at first[3.1])---- “_I wish, Dr. Slop_,” quoth my uncle _Toby_, “_you had seen what prodigious armies we had in_ Flanders.” My uncle _Toby’s_ wish did Dr. _Slop_ a disservice which his heart never intended any man, --Sir, it confounded him----and thereby putting his ideas first into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally them again for the soul of him.