The humour
of the fifth is, to a far larger extent, of the creative and dramatic
order; the ever-delightful collision of intellectual incongruities in
the persons of the two brothers Shandy gives animation to the volume
almost from beginning to end. The arrival of the news of Bobby
Shandy's death, and the contrast of its reception by the philosophic
father and the simple-minded uncle, form a scene of inimitable
absurdity, and the "Tristrapaedia," with its ingenious project for
opening up innumerable "tracks of inquiry" before the mind of the
pupil by sheer skill in the manipulation of the auxiliary verbs, is
in the author's happiest vein. The sixth volume, again, which contains
the irresistible dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Shandy on the great
question of the "breeching of Tristram," and the much-admired, if not
wholly admirable, episode of Le Fevre's death, is fully entitled to
rank beside its predecessors. On the whole, therefore, it must be said
that the colder reception accorded to this instalment of the novel,
as compared with the previous one, can hardly be justified on sound
critical grounds. But that literary shortcomings were not, in fact,
the cause of _Tristram's_ declining popularity may be confidently
inferred from the fact that the seventh volume, with its admirably
vivid and spirited scenes of Continental travel, and the eighth and
ninth, with their charming narrative of Captain Shandy's love affair,
were but slightly more successful.
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