Burton ('Dr. Slop') : his forceps and his foes / by Alban Doran.

  • Doran, Alban H. G. (Alban Henry Griffiths), 1849-1927
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Burton ('Dr. Slop') : his forceps and his foes / by Alban Doran. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    There is, it cannot be denied, much matter in 1 ristram Shandy repugnant to twentieth century taste, and its author was unpardon- ably gross and spiteful in many of his references to men with whom he disagreed. Still, the novel is a masterpiece and posterity has forgiven Sterne for all his shortcomings for the sake of Lncle Toby. It is unfortunate that the great novelist hardly strived to live up to the level of that lovable character whom he created. Uncle Toby would not kill a fly. Sterne held up to ridicule and contempt Dr. Burton, the man whom Uncle Jaques tried to hang, very possibly with the secret aid of Laurence himself. The long-winded discussions of obstetrical questions in Tristram Shandy were not offensive in the relatively aristocratic era when the novel appeared. Percy Fitzgerald points out that according to allusions in newspapers of those days young ladies carried this plain- speaking work in their pockets. The truth is that midwifery was not an indelicate subject if associated with the begetting and bringing into the world of an heir apparent,1 a lord or, in this case, “ A Shandy.” Dr. Allport considers that Sterne knew where to draw the line, yet it seems odd that the novelist who turned light on the conjugal couch in his first chapter, kept his readers out of the lying- in chamber further on. Voltaire wrote in the same sense on the philosophy of paternity in Uhomme aux Quarante Ecus,2 3 4 a novel, by the way, published seven years after the issue of Sterne’s work. The first part of Tristram Shandy appeared in January 1760. Johnson’s Rasselas 3 and Voltaire’s Candide 4 were published entire in 1759, and Uhomme aux Quarante Ecus came out in 1767. 1. “ Sa Majeste devint grosse; le roi en fut ravi.” Madame Campan, Mhnoires sur la Vie Privtc de Marie Antoinette, Vol. I, Chap. viii. This was the usual plain way of speaking of the prospect of a Dauphin. British letter-writers used even plainer language about royal and noble pregnancies. 2. Voltaire expressed his admiration of Tristram Shandy in his article “ Conscience ” (Dictionnaire Philosophique), and in a review of a French translation preserved in his Melanges litUraires, written in 1777 within a year of his death. 3. In October 1759 Sterne wrote to Dodsley, the London publisher : “ I propose ... to print a lean edition [of Tristram Shandy], in two small volumes, of the size of Rasselas.” (Wilbur Cross, loc. cit., p. 181. For the latest information about the precise date of publication of Tristram Shandy, Bk. I, see ibid., Chap. viii. The “ York 1759 edition is a myth.”) 4. There is a direct allusion to Candide and la belle Cunegonde in Tristram Shandy, Bk. I, Chap. ix. Of the three great writers, Voltaire the vindicator of Calas, Sirven and De la Barre, appreciated doctors the most : “ Est-il rien de plus estimable au monde qu’un medecin qui, ayant dans sa jeunesse etudie la nature, connu les ressorts du corps humain, les maux qui le tourmentent, les remedes qui peuvent le soulager, exerce son art en s’en defiant, soigne egalement les pauvres et les riches, ne re?oit d’honoraires qu’a regret et emploie ces honoraires a secourir l’indigent?” (Diet. Philo- sophique. Article “ Medecins.”)