The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Now, because I have once or twice said, in my inconsiderate way of talking, That I was confident the following memoirs of my uncle Toby's courtship of widow Wadman, whenever I got time to write them, would turn out one of the most complete systems, both of the elementary and practical part of love and lovemaking, that ever was addressed to the world -- -- -are you to imagine from thence, that I shall set out with a description of what love is? whether part God and part Devil, as Plotinus will have it -- -- -

-- -- Or by a more critical equation, and supposing the whole of love to be as ten -- -- -to determine with Ficinus, "How many parts of it -- the one, -- and how many the other; " -- or whether it is all of it one great Devil, from head to tail, as Plato has taken upon him to pronounce; concerning which conceit of his, I shall not offer my opinion: -- but my opinion of Plato is this; that he appears, from this instance, to have been a man of much the same temper and way of reasoning with doctor Baynyard, who being a great enemy to blisters, as imagining that half a dozen of 'em at once, would draw a man as surely to his grave, as a herse and six -- rashly concluded, that the Devil himself was nothing in the world, but one great bouncing Canthari[di]s.